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She giggled.

“That sounded dirty.” That started me laughing and I leaned forward to rest my head on her shoulder.

“This is really nice,” Kyle said, moving her hands up and down my back. “I didn’t know it could be this nice with someone. I thought maybe I was broken, or that I just hadn’t met someone I was attracted to yet. A late bloomer.” I nodded and kissed her neck. She shivered and I couldn’t resist using my tongue a little.

“Stop it,” she said, but her tone told me she didn’t want me to do that. I laughed.

“You know you like it,” I said and she made a little sound in the back of her throat that turned me on so much that it was painful.

“I do, that’s the problem. I like it way too much. Your tongue makes me stupid.” I barely understood what she was saying as I moved up and softly drew her earlobe between my teeth.

“Fuck, Stella.” I wanted to make her say that again. And again. And again.

Her fingers dug into my shoulders and then she was suddenly gone.

I
t was just . . . too much. Too much of a good thing. Not a good thing. The best thing. So good it hurt. I couldn’t handle all of that at once. It was like I’d been asleep my entire life and had been blasted awake by a tornado of color and sound and feeling.

I didn’t know it was even possible to feel like that in every cell of my body. I needed some air. I couldn’t take it.

Stella looked at me and I realized she’d thought I didn’t want her.

“I just needed a break. When you do that, it makes me want to do a lot of things that I’m pretty sure neither of us are ready for at this particular moment.” I ran shaking hands through my hair and she nodded.

“I understand. We shouldn’t get carried away until both of us are ready for . . .” she didn’t finish. A few weeks ago the thought of having sex with a girl would have been something I would have scoffed at and said I was not interested in at all. Now it was at the forefront of my mind and I couldn’t see straight for thinking about it.

“Uh huh,” I said, still finding it hard to breathe.

“We should –” she started to say, but her phone went off. She went back into the living room to get it.

“What’s up?” I asked, following her.

She shook her head and set the phone down.

“Nothing. Just Midori wanting to know if I had plans tonight.” She sat back down on the couch and I sat as well, but kept plenty of space between us. Neither of us could keep our hands to ourselves otherwise.

“Oh,” I said. “You can go, if you want.” She shook her head again.

“No, it’s fine. I want to hang out with you.” My heart got all warm and gooey when she said that.

“Where does she think you are?”

“Home, probably. Not sure. I don’t tell her where I am every hour of every day. Where does Grace think you are?” I opened my mouth and then shut it.

“Hanging out by myself, I guess.” And there was the problem. No matter how much chemistry we had, we couldn’t ignore the fact that we were lying to everyone. Not even lying. Hiding. As if we were ashamed. I wasn’t, that definitely wasn’t it. I just had no idea what would happen if my parents walked in right now and found me holding hands with Stella on the couch. And I wasn’t ready to find out.

“It’s okay, you know. Keeping things like this. I don’t want to force you to do anything. Especially since I’m not willing to tell anyone either,” she said with a sigh, combing her fingers through her hair.

“This is going to get more complicated,” I said, which was one of the reasons I hadn’t wanted to talk about it earlier. But it was inevitable.

“I’m not a fan of hiding things, but . . .” she trailed off. There was no easy answer.

“We could just start making out again. We’re really good at that,” I said, and a smile lit up her face. I loved those smiles because I was pretty sure not a whole lot of people got to see them on a regular basis.

So beautiful.

“Mmmm, if we do that, then I might not be able to control myself,” she said, slinking across the couch toward me.

“What if I don’t want you to?” I whispered as she straddled my lap. Her fingers pushed back my hair and she smiled.

“Then I won’t.”

“You should. One of us should be able to say no.” I clearly wasn’t very good at it.

She laughed low and sweet. Fuck.

My hands rested lightly on her hips. If she shifted just a little, we would be in quite a position.

“Where’s the fun in that?” she asked, and then did rolled her hips against me in a way that made me nearly black out. A moan escaped my mouth and she was very pleased with herself.

“Not fair,” I said, digging my fingers into her hips. She bit her bottom lip.

“Never said I was going to be,” she whispered, lowering her face to kiss me.

And then my parent’s car pulled into the driveway.

I
nearly threw her off my lap in my haste to put as much distance between the two of us as possible.

“I thought you said they weren’t going to be here until later!” Stella hissed as she got up and tried to fix her clothes and hair. There wasn’t a whole lot she could do.

“T
hey weren’t supposed to!” I hissed back and then grabbed her arm. My plan was to hide her in my room, but there was a huge hole in that plan because her car was in the driveway.

“Calm down,” I said, putting my hands on her shoulders. “They won’t think we’re doing anything if we don’t make them think that we’re doing anything. We’re just two girls hanging out. I should have told you to bring homework to make it more authentic.” Stella swallowed and sat back down on the couch way over on one side and I sat on the other, turning the TV on. I took a few deep breaths and tried to calm my pounding heart.

“I’m sorry,” I said before my parents came through the door.

W
ell, I hadn’t planned on meeting Kyle’s parents. Ever, really. I mean, I knew who they were because everyone here knew everyone else’s parents, but this was a completely different situation. I swore they could hear my pounding heart when they called out to Kyle and she said she was in the living room.

They both came around the corner at the same and weren’t surprised to see someone else in the living room with her.

“Oh, hello,” her mom said. Her parents were young and Kyle definitely resembled her dad more than her mom, who was willowy and blonde. Kyle’s dad had her hair and was a little shorter than his wife.

“Mom, Dad, this is Stella. She’s my partner for that English project and we were just finalizing our oral presentation,” Kyle said and I almost choked on air when she said the world “oral.” There wasn’t anything she could say that would not make me think of sex.

“Oh, how nice,” her mom said, beaming and coming over to shake my hand. I shook her father’s as well. Guess he was the quiet one.

“Yeah, well, I should probably go. My dad wants me home for dinner.” It wouldn’t hurt to start laying groundwork to show them that I was a good influence.

“Of course, of course,” Kyle’s mom said before Kyle walked me to the door. I wanted to kiss her more than I wanted to take another breath, but that definitely wasn’t going to happen.

“Oh, hey, do you have that book for me?” Kyle said, her hand on the doorknob. Her parents hovered a discreet distance away. Kyle gave me a look that they couldn’t see.

“Yeah, it’s in my car,” I said, understanding what she was saying.

“Cool, I’ll just come get it,” she said, loudly and we both headed out the door.

“I wasn’t going to let you leave without kissing you,” Kyle said as we walked toward my car.

“My parents are totally watching right now, but . . .” she said, trailing off and jerking her chin at a particularly thick and high bush that happened to be right next to my car and blocked us from view of the house.

“Come here,” I said, grabbing the hem of her shirt and pulling her to me. She stumbled and nearly fell.

“I got you,” I said and she smiled before our mouths touched.

“Thanks, babe,” she said and I got that little thrill.

“Anytime,” I said as she left little short kisses on my lips, like she couldn’t stop.

“I’ll see you on Monday. Text me,” she said, stepping away from me, still holding my hand. I tugged to make her stop.

“Wait! If you go back in there without a book, they’re going to be suspicious.” Her eyes went wide.

“Shit, you’re right.”

“Give me a second.” One of the upsides of having a father who was obsessed with literature was that you never wanted for reading material. I always had a few paperbacks in my car, just in case I got stuck somewhere.

I looked through my backseat and found a copy of
War and Peace
. I smiled and handed it to Kyle. She raised her eyebrow at it.

“What?” I asked.

“Really? Have you actually read this?” What was she talking about?

“Of course. Several times. I had a summer of Tolstoy a few years ago.” Kyle snorted.

“Summer of Tolstoy,” she said, looking at the back cover with a little smile.

“Yeah,” I said, wondering what she was thinking. But then she took a breath and looked up.

“Talk to you later.” She brushed one finger along my cheek and then turned to walk back into the house.

If this were a movie, it would start raining and I’d run after her and pull her into a passionate kiss that somehow didn’t leave both of us drowning or with hair in our mouths.

I sighed and got in my car and shut the door.

This wasn’t a movie.

I
’d told Midori I didn’t want to go out, but that was because I’d thought I was going to be with Kyle until late, so now I was stuck. Unless I just wanted to sit in my room, read, and text Kyle. That didn’t sound too bad, but when I got home Gabe called.

“Aren’t you supposed to be out getting wasted and not talking to your little sister?” I asked.

“I’m going to a wine and cheese party later. I’m classy as shit.” I snorted and sat down on my bed. Dad was in his office grading papers. As usual.

“I’m pretty sure classy people don’t use the word ‘shit’, Gabe.”

“Anyway, what’s new with you?” I opened my mouth to tell him everything about Kyle, but then I slammed it shut. Hard enough to hurt my teeth.

“Nothing, really,” I said, trying to make it sound as casual as I could.

There was a pause.

“Now, if I was an idiot, I’d believe that. But sadly for you, I’m not an idiot, so why don’t you tell me what’s really going on.” For a second, I thought about hanging up on him and then just never answering his calls again, but that wouldn’t really work when he came home for Christmas.

“Just school. They’re up our asses about college applications already.” That was a terrible excuse and I knew he wasn’t going to buy it.

“Try again,” he said. He was patient and would wait all night if he wanted to. I’d been down that road with him before. He was much better at it than I was.

“It’s nothing, Gabe. Let it go.” I didn’t want to talk to him about Kyle. I didn’t want to talk to anyone about Kyle. Part of me liked keeping her as a little sexy secret, even if it wasn’t going to work, or was unhealthy for both of us. Sooner or later, someone was going to notice and hiding would only be sexy for so long before it got old.

“Star. You know you can talk to me about anything. You know if you told me you killed someone, I’d be in my car and heading to help you hide the body. Always.” I knew it. I knew he loved me. I knew that love came without conditions, but telling him was just . . .

“I can’t,” I said, my voice breaking. “I just can’t.”

He sighed.

“Oh, Star. I wish I could be there for you right now. I can tell you’re going through something and I wish I could be your big brother in person and help you slay those dragons.” I laughed. When we were little, Gabe used to pretend to read to me, but all the stories he told me were ones he’d made up, with me as the main character. It was no wonder he was in college for writing, but I always thought he would become a novelist instead of a journalist. Maybe someday he would.

“Yeah, I know. But I can deal with this. I’m a big girl.” I’d be heading off to college in less than a year. And I’d never been someone who needed to be coddled. Not having a mom growing up might have something to do with it, or maybe it was just me.

“Even big girls need help sometimes.” I hated that he was right.

“Who do you go to when you need help?” I asked.

“Dad,” he said. “Or you. You’re really good at giving advice. For a girl.” I snorted. He didn’t mean it.

“Yeah, I know.”

“Why don’t you talk to one of the girls on the squad? Midori?” I wish. But this was definitely something I wouldn’t talk to them about unless it was a last resort. Gabe would be most likely, and I still couldn’t do it.

“This isn’t the kind of thing she can help me with.”

“Hmmm . . . Then I don’t know what to tell you. Can’t give me even a tiny hint?” A tiny hint would give it all away. There was no subtle way to say “I like girls and one in particular.”

“No,” I said. “Look, can we talk about something else? How’s school?” I thought he would protest, but he started talking about his classes and the articles he was doing research for. Gabe’s passion was feature articles, where he could get in-depth with one subject. He always sent me his articles and they were brilliant. He was going to win a Pulitzer someday, I swear.

I got off the phone with Gabe and headed to the kitchen to get something to eat. The pizza had been a long time ago. Just as I was rummaging through the freezer for something easy, my phone dinged with a text.

I’m sorry about my parents. Again.

Kyle.

It’s NBD. You didn’t know they were coming home. It’s fine.

It was cute how bad she felt. At least she heard the car before we’d started making out again. Having her parents catch us in the act would have been . . . Well, I didn’t even want to think about that.

I miss you. Is that weird? Sorry if that’s weird.

So adorable.

If you’re weird, then I’m weird because I miss you too. I’m just having dinner now.

I found a bag of pasta with chicken and shoved it in the microwave.

What are you having?

I told her and then asked what she was eating. That led to a somewhat heated discussion about olives, (terrible or delicious) guacamole, (terrible or delicious) and beets (we both agreed they were terrible).

I liked learning those little things about her. The things that not everyone knew. I wanted to know them all. I wanted to know what song she had stuck in her head. I wanted to know her most embarrassing moment. I wanted to know what side of the bed she liked to sleep on.

I wanted to know it all.

M
idori texted me again to ask if I was sure I didn’t want to go out and I said no again. I was too busy texting with Kyle. It was so much easier than actually taking face-to-face or on the phone.

She started sending me silly selfies and I sent a few back and we had a whole section of the conversation that were just emojis.