Girls in Love (6 page)

“I know,” Marco said. “Those seagulls were totally checking us out. They’re so jealous.”

Lara tossed her napkin at him, shaking her head, but Marco just grinned.

After they kissed good-bye—for another half an hour—Lara biked home through the beautiful Maine night, feeling giddy, pleased, and only slightly tipsy.

She found Greer lounging on the deck with a glass of Uncle Carr’s scotch and a copy of
Vanity Fair.
She raised her eyebrows when Lara appeared and looked her up and down. “What were
you
doing?” she asked, a hint of a smile playing on her lips.

Lara glanced around to make sure that they were alone. “I was out with the greatest guy,” she whispered. “It wasn’t supposed to be a date, but I think it turned into one.”

Greer’s eyes widened.
“Tell,”
she hissed.

“His name is Marco and he’s half Chilean and he is probably the best kisser that the world has ever known,”
Lara gushed. Then she stopped herself. “It’s terrible, I know. I mean, Drew and I are barely broken up. I mean, we are, but we never talked about it. We just—we just stopped talking to each other.”

“And now he’s snoring inside a tick-infested sleeping bag somewhere in Vermont.” Greer reached out a reassuring hand. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it,” she counseled. “You just do what makes
you
happy.”

That seemed a little selfish to Lara. But then she thought back to the picnic and laughing with Marco. He had definitely made her happy—why should there be a problem with that?

She looked earnestly at her cousin. “You can’t tell Jessica, though. This is a secret.”

Greer smirked. “As the guardian of our Classified List of Summer Goals, let me remind you that I am excellent at keeping secrets. I had a bichon frise puppy for an entire year before my mother discovered him, you know. I can certainly keep my mouth shut about your Marco.”

Lara lay back on the lounge chair next to Greer and took a sip of her cousin’s scotch. “Phew,” she spluttered. “That’s strong.”

“Wuss,” Greer giggled. “But seriously. Your secret is safe with me.”

Lara sighed. It was unfortunate to have such a big secret. But she let herself be reassured by Greer’s reasoning. She
could get to know Marco a lot better in the coming weeks, and Jessica never had to be the wiser. “Okay, Greer, you’re right,” she said firmly. “Ignorance is bliss.”

“Amen to that,” Greer agreed, and snatched her scotch back.

“Are you sure this looks okay?” Jessica queried as she modeled one of Greer’s tube miniskirts for her cousins. She was showing way more leg than she was used to revealing, and the cute little lacy top she’d borrowed from Lara was definitely formfitting. She looked down at her chest. Had it always been that big?

“You look amazing,” Lara reassured her. “No one would take you for a jock at all. You look more like a blonde Jessica Biel or something. Hot.”

“Heidi Klum,” Greer called absently. She was busy putting her own outfit together for some mystery date, Jessica guessed. After all, it was hardly like Greer to spend a Friday night in the house, parked in front of a plasma TV screen.

“So you’ve got the whole Operation Seduce Connor Selden planned?” Lara asked, reaching out to adjust the strap of Jessica’s bra, which had slipped down her arm.

Jessica nodded excitedly. “Dinner in town, then dessert by Knight’s Pond, where the water is conveniently warm enough…”

“For skinny-dipping!” Lara squealed.

Jessica blushed and then smiled. “Just in case he needed some encouragement to take his clothes off,” she admitted.

“Brilliant,” Greer remarked approvingly. Her voice was muffled, since she was halfway into a black Zac Posen. Then her head reappeared and she shook her brown hair and stuck her arms into the little cap sleeves. “Planned like a true fox. Whoever said little Jessi couldn’t be crafty?”

“Jessi
ca
,” Lara and Jessica said at the same time, and then they all laughed.

“But get out of here; you’re going to be late!” Greer warned. She tossed Jessica the keys to her Lexus. “I know you’ll take excellent care of Sadie, so I won’t even bother warning you that if you dent her or scratch her, I will break both of your legs.”

Jessica giggled and thanked her cousins, then gave herself one last look in the mirror. She did look good; her blonde hair—already lighter from the sun—hung in loose waves around her shoulders, and her green eyes,
highlighted with a silvery shadow, glowed above her tan cheeks.

“Bye!” she called, and dashed out the door.

Less than twenty minutes later, she and Connor were sitting at a corner table near the window at Chez Suzette, a sweet little French café with a view of the harbor. Connor had on his best white shirt and had actually gone so far as to tuck it into his khaki pants. He looked cute and clean and vaguely nervous, like a guy at a job interview or the first day of college or something.

Connor poured some sparkling water into both of their glasses and then looked around him at the pale blue walls and the roses on all the tables.

“So in a way, this is our first real date,” he said. “I mean, we can’t count all those lacrosse practices last summer or anything.”

Jessica nodded. “I thought it was about time we saw each other in something besides swimsuits and athletic gear.” She paused, hoping he would compliment her outfit, and when he didn’t, she kicked him lightly in the shin.

He jumped. “Sorry—I mean, of course, you’re right. And you look amazing.”

Jessica grinned. Connor’s compliment was obviously sincere, even if he’d had to be reminded to make it. “Thanks.”

When the waitress brought them their food—lobster bisque and sole meunière for Jessica, steak frites and an endive and frisee salad for Connor—they looked at each other and snickered. It was so fancy, with gold linen napkins and the multiple sets of forks! Jessica hardly knew which one to choose, and from the look of it, Connor was no more experienced with complicated place settings than she was. But the food was delicious, and they were both starving because they’d been in the ocean all day.

As they ate, Jessica played a little footsie with her date, just to make sure he didn’t forget about her while he was devouring his steak. And she did her best to keep the conversation away from sports, Xbox games, or anything else really low on the romance spectrum.

“I know I’m going to be stuffed in a minute,” Connor said, interrupting her story about Greer’s crush on Hunter Brown. “But I still want dessert.”

Jessica shook her head firmly. “Can’t have it here,” she told him.

“Why not?” Connor looked so baffled and disappointed that she laughed out loud.

“I have a different plan for us.” She gave him a significant—and what she hoped was sexy—look.

He whistled. “You sure know how to show a guy a good time.”

“Just you wait,” Jessica said in her best attempt at a sultry, seductive voice. (
It wasn’t half bad, either!
she thought.)

Connor’s eyebrows very nearly disappeared under his bangs. “Wow,” he said. “There’s something different about you tonight.”

Jessica grinned at him but said nothing. So far, things were going exactly as she planned.

There was a slight chill in the air as Connor and Jessica walked along the forested path to Knight’s Pond. Jessica led the way, carrying (despite Connor’s attempts to be chivalrous) a canvas bag and a little cooler that contained their dessert—two slices of Aunt Trudy’s to-die-for lemon cake with a container of raspberry coulis and a tub of fresh whipped cream to top it off.

When they came to the little sandy beach at the edge of the water, Jessica unfolded a blanket and motioned for Connor to sit down.

“Isn’t this nice?” she said. “It’s so private and quiet. I love the ocean, but sometimes I think I might love lakes and ponds better.”

Connor nodded as he tried to peek into the cooler. Clearly he’d already digested the steak and was in need of another massive calorie infusion. “This is where I learned
to swim, you know,” he told her. “My mom taught me and my brother in this very pond.”

“Leave the dessert alone!” Jessica laughed. “Let’s just sit here for a minute. I, at least, need to let my dinner digest.”

Connor watched with interest as she brought out the three beeswax candles she’d swiped from the dining room and lit them. The gentle breeze made the flames feint and sputter, but they gave everything around them a warm, golden glow.

“Nice,” he said softly, and she smiled at him. Then she brought out the cake and dished it out onto their two plates, surrounding the golden slices with the raspberry sauce and dabbing whipped cream on top.

She sighed happily. It was so beautiful here. Above them, the leaves of an oak tree whispered and she could hear the birds singing good night to one another. Soon the bats would come out (unlike Greer, Jessica wasn’t afraid of them at all) and perform their evening acrobatics in the air.

It was shaping up to be the perfect night. Pretty soon, Jessica knew, she and Connor would kiss. And if things went as planned, tomorrow she wouldn’t be a virgin anymore. The thought made her nervous, but not so nervous as to change her mind.

She unbuttoned the top button of her blouse to reveal
the lacy edge of her bra, and then she reached out and touched Connor’s leg.

“Remember last year, how you lost that bet to me and you had to go skinny-dipping in front of everyone?”

“How could I forget it,” Connor moaned. “My brother teased me about that for weeks.”

“How about you get me back?” Jessica offered. “What if we make some bet right now and if I lose, I’ll go skinny-dipping?”

“I like the sound of that,” Connor acknowledged. “I bet you can’t eat that cake you brought us in four bites.”

“You’re on,” Jessica said. Even though she wanted to enjoy the cake slowly, she took three big bites to make it look like she was trying. And then there was one mound of it left on her plate, and she forked it up. Even though she could have fit it all in her mouth, she didn’t. She pretended she couldn’t, and then she made a morose face.

“I lose,” she said, though secretly she wasn’t sad at all.

Connor clapped his hands delightedly. “Skinny-dip! Skinny-dip! Now you can bare your white butt in front of everyone we know.”

Jessica stood up. “That’s not exactly what I had in mind,” she said softly. Then, before she could lose her nerve, she unbuttoned her blouse and her bra, letting both of them fall to the ground. Connor’s eyes widened as she stepped out of her skirt. She was overcome by shyness then,
even though it was dark out. Because she didn’t want to fail in her seduction objective, she began to walk quickly toward the water, and at the edge she slipped off her panties and then plunged into the cool pond.

The water closed over her head and filled her ears. She kicked her arms and legs and then came up to the surface, wiping the water from her eyes. “The temperature is perfect!” she called. “Why don’t you come in?”

Connor hesitated for a moment.

“What,” she teased, “are you chicken or something? I dare you to come get me.”

Connor would never back down from a dare; she knew that much. And indeed, he stood up, stripped quickly, and came dashing toward her into the water. “Not chicken!” he cried, splashing toward her.

She reached for him and pulled him close, and the next thing she knew they were kissing passionately. She loved the feel of his skin against hers, warm and smooth in the cool water. She let her hands wander down his arms and toward his stomach. She heard him inhale as her hands went farther south.

“Jessica,” he whispered.

“Mmm,” she said, kissing him more. Over his shoulder, the moon danced in the water.

He pulled away from her and took her face gently in his hands. He gazed intently into her eyes. “Look,” he said, “I
know this is what we talked about. But I think we should cool it a little.”

Jessica’s stomach fell with a
thud,
and she treaded water to move away from him. Suddenly, she was freezing in the cool night air. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. He was stopping her
again
? Connor tried to lean in to kiss her, but she wanted no part of it. She quickly turned around and splashed her way to the sandy shore.

Fuming and hurt, she snatched up a towel from the canvas bag and put on her clothes, as quickly as possible. Her cheeks burned with humiliation. Why did he keep preventing her from going any further? Hadn’t they agreed to be each other’s firsts? Maybe he needed some kind of engraved invitation, she thought bitterly. She remembered Greer asking what kind of normal American male would try to stop a girl from having sex.
I’d certainly like to know the answer to that
, Jessica thought. She wondered if the problem was him or her. Was she doing something wrong, or was he?

“Jessica, wait,” Connor called.

But she was already packing up her things. He could make his way home by himself, she decided. She wasn’t going to spend another minute with a person who kept rejecting her.

As she stomped down the path toward Greer’s car, she heard Connor’s voice, faint but insistent. “Hey,” the disem-bodied voice said. “Jessica, please come back…”

But she kept on walking. His rejection stung too much, and she needed to be alone to recover her dignity.

She climbed into Greer’s convertible, and as she drove down the winding road beneath the silvery moon, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes, her phone beeped with a text.

She slowed to a crawl along the deserted lane so she could read the message. It was from Connor. I’M SORRY, it said. I LOVE YOU.

Even though she was still hurt and angry, her heart swelled when she read that. She pulled over to the side of the road, clutching the phone in her hand, as conflicting thoughts raced through her mind. Should she keep driving? Or should she go back to him? She felt torn between desire and pride. He
loved
her! On the other hand, she couldn’t understand why, if he really did, he always pushed her away.

Sadie’s engine rumbled quietly as Jessica sat still, gripping the leather-wrapped wheel. She needed time to think, time to process Connor’s inexplicable behavior. Feeling suddenly exhausted, she rested her forehead against the steering wheel, and as she did so she seemed to hear her mother’s voice.
Sleep on it, darling
, Clare Tuttle always said whenever Jessica was upset.
Things are always clearer in the morning.

She sat up and gazed into the star-studded July sky.
There was a strange fluttering feeling in her stomach. What was happening? Things were so weird with Connor, but she had the evidence of his love for her in her hand. And love meant everything, didn’t it? As she sat in Greer’s fancy convertible on the side of the empty road, she realized that—despite the tension and confusion he was causing her—she loved him, too.

And that’s what matters
, she whispered.
Everything else will work out just fine.

Before she pulled back onto the road to drive the rest of the way home, Jessica sent Connor a text. LOVE U 2, she wrote. WE’LL FIGURE THIS OUT.

She hoped he knew what “this” meant. Because she didn’t think she could take another round of rejection.