I Kissed The Boy Next Door (5 page)

“Do people who are going to date once they go out again and happen to be neighbors have breakfast together every day?” I asked.

He grinned at me. “Of course they do.”

And I supposed they also knocked on
each others’ windows and climbed in without asking too. But I knew what they didn’t do. I stared at him.

“If I’m feeding you breakfast, then you’d best scamper outside and go to the front door.”

I was not under any circumstance getting out of bed in my pajamas with him sitting there. He was bad enough about looking at me without having that image in his head.

But he didn’t argue, slipping over the sill and disappearing from view.

I pulled myself up and tossed on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, then moved down the hall. He was waiting at the front when I opened. Without a word, I turned around and moved back toward the kitchen.

His footfalls slapped the floor behind me.

But I made a mistake. I forgot to warn him my mother was up.

CHAPTER 6

Mom without her coffee is a scary thing. People make jokes about that – coffee as an IV, coffee running through your veins – and frankly, I don’t get them because coffee is one of those things that smells good and tastes horrible. I don’t even like it in desserts. It has a strong aftertaste.

That said, I’d also seen my mother before and after her morning cup and noted the difference.

It was perking in the pot, the machine rumbling and grunting with the effort of turning water into wine, but her mug was clean and empty.
A bad sign.

She raised her gaze to Jackson’s face, and I could tell she was trying to figure out how she knew him.

“Jackson Phillips,” I said, “You remember him.”

She pushed her glasses higher on her nose. “Phillips. Phillips,” she said.

“Moved in next door. Went to summer came with me.” I fed her the info.

A spark lit. “Oh, right.
The cute boy with the blue eyes. The one you kissed.”

I leaned on one hip.
“Yes, that one.”

I didn’t have to turn around to see Jackson’s face. I could imagine he was smiling. “Sit,” I said
to him, then, “I hope you like pancakes.”

My mother looked from me to him and ended up looking at him. “So you got her out of bed.”

Now, I had to glance at him then because I was thinking the same thing he probably was – how’d she know that? But apparently she didn’t, and it was simply a reference to my being awake at all.

“He likes to eat over here,” I said.

She made no remark because her coffee quit perking, and so she descended back into her half-awake haze.

I dug around in the cabinet for the mix,
then reached overhead for a measuring cup, aware the entire time he was looking at me. Funny, but I was getting self-conscious about that. It took only a few minutes to prepare the mix and five more to cook the cakes. I set the stack before him with a tub of butter and a bottle of syrup.

Travis surfaced then. He stopped cold in the kitchen doorway.
“Him again?”

Jackson acted like it was no big deal, consuming his meal. He did raise a few fingers in a sort of a wave.

“We’re feeding him now?” Tray asked.

“Leave the boy alone,” I grumbled. “He likes my cooking, which is more than I can say for you.”

Travis moved to the pot, keeping one eye on mother to be sure she was already cup-in-hand. “Well, at least you can feed me this time,” he said.

I figured I’d better or I’d never hear the end of it, so I piled high a plate and set it in front of him.

He slathered on the butter. Lord heavens that was a lot of butter.

“So tell me,” he said, syrup dripping off the edge of his plate, “
You dating my sister now?”

Now
, as opposed to yesterday when he’d asked if Jackson was looking.

“We are dating,” I announced, “as soon as we have our second date.”

Tray shoved a huge bite in his mouth, effectively silencing him for a moment. But he swallowed quick. “Second? When was the first?”

My mom was now watching the exchange.
She was pretty hip, so far as dating and teenage things went. She allowed us to make up our own minds as long as we obeyed the basics.

And the basics were: always answer your phone when she calls; be home before midnight; never forget to say “please”, “yes, ma’am,” and “no, ma’am”; and the biggie, no sex before marriage.

“Last night,” I said, in response to Tray’s question.

That brought Travis’ poor male mind back around to Jackson’s car, or his dad’s car.
“Nice wheels,” he said.

Jackson wiped the last of the syrup from his plate. “Thanks.”

“‘73?”

It always amazes me how men can do that, look at a car and tell what year it is. I mean, I look and look and look, and all I can do is a general decade.

“Yep.”

“Awesome.
The best year.”

That was another thing. What really is the “best year” for a car? What does that mean?
Wouldn’t the “best” be entirely subjective?

I
was thinking all of this as I took my plate to the counter and located a stool. I sat, and Jackson eyed my plate.

“That all you’re eating?” he asked.

Well, two pancakes seemed like a lot to me.

“Why? You want me to get fat? You’d date a fat girl?”

He laughed. “Can’t see you getting fat.”

“You missed the pudgy years,” Tray inserted.

I aimed my fork at his face. “You stay out of this.”

He thumped my fork with his finger.

“You were pudgy?” Jackson asked.

I whirled the fork toward Jackson. “I like you,” I said, “But we’re not discussing this.”

And he laughed at me.

My mother, who had f
inally begun to come awake, chimed in. “She was seven. She could eat an entire large pizza by herself. I had to buy her stretchy pants.”

OMG.
My mother did
not
just tell Jackson about the stretchy pants. But she did because she also fetched a photo from the display shelves by the sink. She thunked it down before him.

There I was, blue stretchy pants, belly out to here, pizza stains on my shirt.

Jackson gazed at me over the frame. “It’s okay really,” he said. “I went from being average height to being the tallest kid in the class. My pants were all too short, and I heard the jokes. Of course, Texas jokes are of a different sort.”

“How so?”
This was interesting, me having never left the state.

“They all have a drawl to them.” He wriggle
d his jaw and adopted a prolonged tone. “‘Ain’t never seen no pants that short. You could wade the crik and not get wet.’”

I giggled. “Did they really say that?”

“Yes, and worse.” He handed my mother back the photo. “Seems like you turned out well to me.” His eyes were roving again, which was more than mite uncomfortable given my mother and my brother’s presence.

I ducked my head.

“What’s the matter, sis?” Travis asked. “Can’t look at your new beau? You kissed him yesterday.”

We were back to that.
Back to the kiss. And in front of my mother.

“You kissed him yesterday?” she asked.

“It was … it was all a joke,” I said. “I did it for Esther.”

Saying that was the most awful thing ever because Jackson was sitting there looking at me, and I’
d just belittled it and by extension, him. No girl almost-dating a fellow should do that.

Trust him to save me.

“It’s okay,” he said, “The next time’s mine, and
that
won’t be a joke.”

CHAPTER 7

Lucy came
out from her room wearing a cornflower blue dress, the perfect shade for her pale complexion and sun-kissed hair. Jackson stood in place, entranced.

“What do you think?” she
asked.

He stirred himself
, forcing thoughts through the sieve of his brain. “You look beautiful.”

She smiled, then in true Lucy fashion,
raised her right leg and propped it on the bottom rung of the kitchen stool. Her skirt rode up to her thigh. “You like the boots?”

Boots.
Yeah, and your legs, too.
He concentrated on her feet. The boots were chocolate brown hand-tooled leather.

“They’re nice,” he said. “The girls in Texas had boots like that.”

She lowered her foot. “So you were looking at the feet of Texas girls?”

Well, he hadn’t meant it like that. More, if you live in Texas, you wore boots.
Except for him. He refused.

“No. But I’m not blind,” he said.

This must have satisfied her because she dropped the subject. “Did your dad say you could take the car?”

His dad.
His dad had blown up at him over it.
“The car? Why? So you can show off for the girl next door?”

Jackson shook his head. “Sorry. He was sore at me for asking.”

She frowned. “Well, it’s okay. You can ride with us.”

They
wedged into her mom’s car – Travis in the front passenger seat, she and Jackson in the back – and made the drive. He started at sight of the church.

Sometime in the last three years, the members had erected a modern building
beside the tiny square chapel he remembered from his youth. Sprawling across what was once a wasteland, it sported huge paned-glass windows and an enormous drive-through porte cochere.

A
kink formed in his neck as he gazed at the entrance.

Lucy grabbed his hand. “C’mon, we’ll go find everybody.”

Everybody, at first, consisted solely of Owen. At sight of him, Owen’s face lit up. He raised his hand, and Jackson clasped it, pounding his back.

“Man, never thought I’d see you again,” Owen said.

Famous last words.

“Never thought I’d be back.”

Lucy released his fingers to hug some lady’s neck.

Owen followed her movements. “So, you and her serious?” he asked.

Jackson studied him. Owen had become stocky in the last three years. He looked more like a football player now than someone on the basketball team.

“
Pretty much,” he said.

“Cool. She’s great. A bit headstrong though.”
Owen’s head swiveled as Lucy zipped across the lobby.

J
ackson stuffed his hands in his pockets. Apparently, Owen’s feelings for her were still there. Why had she never noticed? And why hadn’t he pursued it?

He laughed it off.
“Don’t I know it.”

Owen returned his gaze to Jackson’s face.
“Coach will be glad to see you,” he said. “You
are
going to play next year, aren’t you?”

Basketball
. The one thing that had saved his sanity in Texas and given him any clout at school. Basketball he could play and play well, and no one made fun of him for that.

“If he wants me.”

Owen leaned backwards, flailing his arms as if he was going to fall over with the effort. “Well, you’ll have the height advantage. Gees, you got tall.”

Jackson grinned.

And at that moment, a voice whistled into his ear. “Hey, Jackson …”

Esther.
Emitting a squeal, she ran up and tossed an arm around his neck. She smelled like grapes.

“I cannot believe you are here,” she said. “I cannot believe you live next to Lucy, and I cannot believe
you kissed her.”

Owen’s eyes pierce
d into Jackson’s skull.

“You live next door?” he asked.

And you kissed her.
Those words were implied. He didn’t say them, but he might as well have.

“Of course he does, and of course he did. Have you been under a rock?”

“Apparently.”

But they had it wrong. She’d kissed him, not the other way around.

“So they’re like together all the time, day and night,” Esther babbled, “sneaking in and out each other’s bedroom windows.”

Jackson stared down at her. Lucy told her that?

“I see,” Owen said, dragging out the last word.

But Jackson
didn’t. This was getting out of hand.

“
It was only a few times,” Jackson said. “You know … to ask her something, and once she helped me unpack.”

“But isn’t that sweet?”
Esther said. “Oh, I love a good love story.”

Love story?
He stared at her. What
had
Lucy said? He traveled his gaze around the lobby. “Where is she?” he asked.