Shot Through the Heart (7 page)

He leans back on his elbows and grins. “I remember that Mars Rover movie. I really wanted to see it, but there was one showing at the same time on dinosaurs. I lost the vote and my family went to that one instead.”

“The dinosaur movie line was too long the day we were there, or I’d have lost out, too.” I remember Josh pouting when we went into the theater. He was all about the dinosaurs. “Anyway, when we went to the Smithsonian on our ninth grade field trip and walked into the Air and Space Museum, it was showing again. By then I was old enough to understand more about how the Rover was designed, and that cemented it for me.”

“You decided you wanted to design space vehicles yourself?”

“Pretty much.” If I’m ever so lucky as to go up in one, all the better. But that’s a dream better kept private.

As if reading my mind, he straightens. “You never know, Peyton. Maybe you’ll even go into space yourself. A lot of astronauts are engineers. Someone has to know how to fix the space station while they’re up there.”

“It’s very competitive.”

“You’re smart, though. And not only book smart. Look how fast you came up with that bubble wrap story at Lowe’s to distract Kerry and Emily. And you knew
why
you needed to distract them. Not everyone has those kind of quick reasoning skills.”

He shifts sideways on the bed so he’s facing me. His knee’s less than an inch from my thigh and his gaze is locked on my face. I get the same tingly sensation I experienced the day before yesterday, when we talked outside my chemistry class, except this time no one’s around. The house is silent, other than the sound of our voices. It’s like we’re caught in a magical bubble, just the two of us.

“Look, Peyton, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but—”

And there bursts the bubble.

“You think I’m out of my league and might want to consider some safety schools?” I smile as I say it, because I’ve already heard the safety schools talk from my parents. “Or a safety career?”

“What? No!” Lines pucker the space between his brows. “I was going to say that you surprise me. In a good way. I’ve always known that you study a ton and get good grades, but I never really thought about what you might want to do. I kinda figured you’d follow Tessa and study accounting, since you had that bookkeeping job for the school district last summer.” He holds up his hands to stop me from speaking. “Dumb assumption, I know. Just because Tessa wants to be a accountant doesn’t mean you or Josh would do the same thing. The three of you are all very different.”

“I like to think that I’m an improvement on the earlier two Lindor models.”

“Don’t let Josh hear you say that.” His grin is wide enough to crinkle the corners of his eyes. They’re light brown when we’re outside, but in here, with the gray walls and the bedroom shades pulled halfway, his eyes appear so dark they’re nearly black, unfathomable.

“So what about you?” I ask. “Are you a secret astronaut wannabe? Is that why you’re not laughing me right out of your room?”

“I’d never laugh you out of here.”

My gaze drops to my knees. I shouldn’t be self-conscious, but I am. Connor is so, well,
Connor
. Mr. Super-Gorgeous-Athlete Everything. I can’t help but be attracted to him, at least a little. I promised myself long ago that I’d never act stupid over a guy the way Tessa seems to whenever a good-looking male crosses her path. But if any guy possesses the ability to stupefy me, Connor Strabinowski might be the one.

His hand covers mine. “Peyton?”

I glance up at him. I can’t breathe.

“If you want to leave, you can. But I like talking to you. You’d think we’d have done it more before now.”

“We’ve never really been around each other without Josh.”

His fingers flex against mine, but he leaves his hand in place. I stretch to interlace my fingers with his. Before I can rethink it, his fingers tighten to hold mine in place. He’s quiet for a heartbeat, then says, “In that case, I’m going to tell you my deepest, darkest secret, something I haven’t even told Josh. I might not get another opportunity.”

“You sure you should tell me, then?”

“It’s something I think you’re uniquely qualified to understand.” He sighs and looks at the ceiling. “I have zero desire to be an astronaut.”

“You jerk.” I knock my shoulder against his and laugh. “But I promise not to tell Josh.”

“Don’t promise yet, because that’s not all. While I don’t want to be an astronaut, I would love to be an architect. So believe it or not, MIT is my top choice school, too.” He’s completely serious as he adds, “Everyone at school thinks of me an athlete first. No one ever thinks beyond that, to what I might want to do with my life. But I think about it all the time.”

“I had no idea you’re interested in architecture.” But it thrills me to hear him say it.

“You wouldn’t. I mean, Josh and I don’t even talk about it.” He scrunches his lower lip before continuing. “I haven’t said a word to anyone other than my parents and guidance counselor. I had to tell them, because I’m applying early action and needed to set up my interview last week. But I don’t want anyone else to know, just in case I don’t get in.” His eyes lock with mine. “So there’s my deepest, darkest secret. It’s that I’m a total chicken.”

Out of reflex, I squeeze his fingers. “Well then, I’m a chicken, too, because I haven’t told my parents. The engineering part I’ve told them, but not the aerospace part. When I mentioned MIT last spring, just in an offhanded way, they said that was a great aspiration but that I should also look at safety schools. I got the sense they thought I was shooting too high, so I decided to wait until my senior year, when I start the actual application process, to tell them everything. By then I’ll know where I stand with my SAT scores, too.”

Connor slides the binder from my lap to an open spot on the comforter. His gaze meets mine, and there’s a mischievous sparkle in his eyes as he studies me. “Strange how you can know someone for years and see them nearly every day, yet not have a clue what it is they want more than anything else in the world.”

“I was just thinking the same thing.”

We simultaneously sneak a peek at our joined hands. His skin is darker than mine from all the time he spends on the soccer field. His knuckles are more substantial, his fingers longer and stronger. My heart is racing so fast it makes me wonder if he can feel my pulse. He mutters what I think is, “To hell with it,” but as I glance up to ask what he said, he leans toward me.

In that split second, I know he’s going to kiss me. And I know I’m going to kiss him back.

It’s not my first kiss—I’ve had a couple of boyfriends—but as his lips brush mine, it feels like my first kiss. Or, at least, the way a first kiss should feel. Not in the scary, tentative, am-I-going-to-mess-this-up way, but in the thrilling, heart-stopping, this-is-better-than-I-dreamed way you see in the movies, where the music gets soft and the audience goes silent, mesmerized by the sheer emotional impact of what they’re witnessing on the screen.

We pause, lips barely touching, smiling against each other. We stay like that for a few seconds, motionless, our fingers still intertwined. Then we kiss again, less hesitantly this time, as if we’ve each made the decision that this is worth exploring.

“Everyone at school should know you’re never going to play pro sports,” I whisper a few minutes later as he moves to kiss my cheek. “If they actually take the time to consider it for a minute.”

His breath tickles my ear as he murmurs, “Why’s that?”

“Your name. Strabinowski won’t fit on a jersey. You’re kinda stuck having to look for a different career. So it’s not such a deep, dark secret.”

“Still worth it to confess to you if this is the result.” He gives me the lightest, sweetest kiss, just in front of my ear, then eases back to look me in the eye. “Besides, you’re wrong. Jarrod Saltalamacchia. Pro baseball player. Whole name on the jersey and it’s two letters longer than Strabinowski.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Wow. You learn something new every day.”

“Sure do.”

A deep, needful sound rumbles from the back of his throat as he shifts his body closer to mine on the bed. The sound alone sends me. I melt into him, wrapping my free arm around his waist. He lets go of my other hand to thread his fingers through my hair; the light pull of my scalp causes my stomach to seize and my brain to shut down. As my hands explore the space where his T-shirt meets his jeans, his skin radiates warmth through the thin cotton fabric.

He eases my mouth open with his own, and I decide right then and there that being stupid over a guy—at least while you’re alone together in the quiet of his room—is highly underrated. But only when that guy is Connor Strabinowski.

Chapter Seven |
Connor

I
should have Senior Assassin on the brain. Round one closes in three days and we still haven’t eliminated Drew. I’ve received at least a dozen texts from Josh since I rolled my tired butt out of bed this morning, all asking if I had any ideas for strategy, if I knew Drew’s class schedule, and if disabling Drew’s car so he’d be forced to hop out and lift the hood—or better yet, walk home—would be a violation of tournament rules.

As Josh likes to point out, we really only have this afternoon and tomorrow to make our hit. Drew won’t budge from his house on Saturday. Not unless Josh and I are both eliminated before then and he knows its safe.

Problem is, I can’t stop thinking about Peyton. Not so much about her hair—though who knew a girl’s hair could have such an addictive smell?—or the fact that the skin at the small of her back feels even better than I imagined when I stole that quick look at Lowe’s. Not even about the mind-blowing way she spiraled her fingertips around the muscle right where my quad meets my knee. I’m positive she had no idea what
that
did to me. I’m not really thinking about kissing her, either.

Well, sort of about kissing her.

Okay, a lot about kissing her. Because kissing her was un-frickin-real.

But more than that, I can’t stop thinking about how my world upended before all the kissing began.

Making out with Peyton wasn’t simply about making out, or about getting a thrill from little things like spiraling fingers or a girl’s skin, the way it’s been with every other girl I’ve ever kissed. Making out with Peyton felt like a natural extension of our conversation.

I’m making all the usual ‘hey, man’ and ‘see you at soccer’ comments as I pass friends on my way to class, but I’m afraid I’m coming off as dazed as I feel. I know it’s not possible to see that a seismic shift has occurred within someone by simply passing them in a high school hallway, but ever since Peyton was in my room yesterday, I feel different inside, so much so that I suspect the change is obvious on my face.

And I can’t stop wondering if Peyton’s feeling the same way about me.

Thing is, I’ve always waited for that jolt of awareness before I knew kissing a particular girl was legit, and I’ve either experienced it or not within five minutes of meeting someone. With Peyton, there wasn’t a jolt. No lightning moment. And now I’m considering whether the fact I’ve known her all these years, and that we share similar aspirations and fears, means a hell of a lot more than any first-meet jolt.

It’s exactly what Josh was describing when he told me about how many married couples have known each other their whole lives. Problem is, when he told me that story he meant that I should take a closer look at Molly, not at his sister.

I pause to nab a quick drink from the water fountain. As I wipe my mouth on the back of my arm, there’s a touch at my lower back. Small fingers, definitely a girl’s. And definitely possessive. The pads of her fingers exert a fraction more pressure than when you’re simply letting a friend know you’ve walked up behind them.

I reach behind me and close my fingers around a lean wrist, amazed that Peyton would approach me like this in the middle of senior hall. I’m not sure I want whatever’s between us to be public, despite the insta-thrill I’m getting from her touch. Not yet. While we had a great afternoon yesterday—a
great
afternoon—at least until we heard the garage door open and leapt apart before my mom caught us, we didn’t have time to discuss whether what happened in my bedroom was a one-time deal or the first step in a more serious direction. We definitely didn’t discuss whether we’d say anything to anyone, so I assumed we wouldn’t.

Frankly, I wouldn’t have wanted a discussion, even if we’d had time. I’d have wanted to lie back against my pillows and kiss Peyton some more in case it was a one-time deal.

When I spin around, though, it’s Molly gazing up at me. I take a step backward, surprised.

Her eyes widen in alarm at my reaction. Slowly, she withdraws her hand and slips it under the notebook she’s carrying. “Sorry, I—”

“Hey, Molly. It’s okay…you caught me off guard.”

She’s not one for obvious makeup, but she must’ve swiped on lipgloss and used one of those compact things in the last few minutes. Her mouth is shiny and pink, and the skin under her eyes and across her nose sparkles as if she’s dusted a glittery powder there. “Didn’t mean to scare you. I said your name a couple times back there, but you looked like your mind was elsewhere, so—” She lifts one shoulder and flashes a shy grin.

“You didn’t scare me. Just…well, like you said, my mind was elsewhere.” I smile back, because what else am I supposed to do? We’re both headed to AP Calculus, so I gesture for her to join me as I walk. She keeps within an inch of my elbow, much closer than necessary given the number of people in the hallway.