Fine by me. I’d rather blend in with the wallpaper and quietly enjoy people-watching than be the one standing on a table in the center of a room, being the one people are watching.
“How far out is this place?” Jonah asks.
“About five more miles,” Chris says. “Not far.”
“Maybe not far from here, but far from our houses. Who’s driving home tonight?” Jonah asks.
“Not it!” Jenny and Chris both say at the same time.
Jonah glances at me in the rearview mirror. He holds my stare for a moment, and then I nod. He nods too. Without even speaking, we’ve both agreed we’ll stay sober tonight.
I don’t know how we do it—communicate without communicating—but it has always been an effortless thing between us. Maybe it’s because we’re a lot alike, so our minds are in sync a lot of the time. Jenny and Chris don’t notice. They don’t need to communicate silently with anyone because anything and everything they need to say rolls off the tips of their tongues whether it should or not.
Chris grabs my hand to get my attention. When I look at him, he kisses me. “You look pretty tonight,” he whispers.
I smile at him. “Thank you. You don’t look so bad yourself.”
“Wanna stay at my house tonight?”
I think about that for a second, but Jenny spins around in her seat again and answers for me. “She can’t leave me alone tonight. I’m a minor about to spend the next four hours ingesting a lot of alcohol and maybe an illegal substance. Who’s gonna hold back my hair while I vomit in the morning if she stays at your place?”
Chris shrugs. “Jonah?”
Jenny laughs. “Jonah has typical parents who want him home by midnight. You know that.”
“Jonah just graduated high school,” Chris says, talking about him like he’s not in the front seat listening to every word. “He should man up and stay out all night for once.”
Jonah is pulling the car into a gas station when Chris says that. “Anyone need anything?” Jonah asks, ignoring the conversation being had about him.
“Yeah, I’m gonna try to buy some beer,” Chris says, unbuckling his seat belt.
That actually makes me laugh. “You look every minute of eighteen. They aren’t going to sell you beer.”
Chris grins at me, taking that comment as a challenge. He gets out of the car to go inside, and Jonah gets out to pump gas. I reach into Jonah’s console and grab one of the watermelon Jolly Ranchers he always leaves behind. Watermelon is the best flavor. I don’t understand how anyone could hate it, but apparently he does.
Jenny unbuckles her seat belt and crawls into the back seat with me. She curls her legs beneath her, facing me. Her eyes are full of mischief when she says, “I think I’m gonna have sex with Jonah tonight.”
For the first time in ages, my chest feels full, but not in a good way. It feels like it’s being flooded with thick water. Maybe even mud. “You just turned sixteen.”
“The same age you were when you had sex with Chris for the first time.”
“Yeah, but we had been dating longer than two months. And I still regret it. It hurt like hell, lasted maybe a minute, and he smelled like tequila.” I pause because it sounds like I just insulted my boyfriend’s skills. “He got better.”
Jenny laughs but then falls back against the seat in a sigh. “I feel like it’s commendable that I’ve held out two months.”
I want to laugh, because two months is nothing. I’d rather her wait an entire year. Or five.
I don’t know why I’m so against this. She’s right—I was younger than her when I started having sex. And if she’s going to lose her virginity to someone—at least it’s to someone I know is a good person. Jonah has never taken advantage of her. In fact, he’s known Jenny for an entire year and never made a pass at her until she was sixteen. It was frustrating to her, but it made me respect him.
I sigh. “You lose your virginity once, Jenny. I don’t want this moment to be while you’re drunk in a stranger’s house, having sex on someone else’s bed.”
Jenny moves her head from side to side like she’s actually contemplating what I’ve said. “Then maybe we could do it in his car.”
I laugh, but not because that’s funny. I laugh because she’s making fun of me. That’s exactly how I lost my virginity to Chris. Cramped in