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“Should we watch something dirty?” I asked.
His low laughter sent goose bumps up my arms. I stretched my blanket tighter around me, rubbing them away. “I’ll pass,” he answered. “How about something gory?”
“Eh. Also pass.” I wasn’t about to tell him that sometimes—sometimes—I was too much of a chicken to watch the gorier shit when I was home alone. Big empty house and all. Unless I could turn this around in my favor. “Unless… you want to come over and watch it with me?”
“At eleven p.m.? My mom would kill me.”
“It was worth a shot.”
He chuckled. “You’re trouble.”
“With a capital T. You should probably steer clear of me.”
“Nah,” he responded. “I’ll take my chances; I like you too much.”
Andyeah, his words sent my heart aflutter.
So lame, I know. I mentally rolled my eyes at myself while the rest of me was a total traitor and sparked like little excited fireworks inside my body, my mouth the biggest perpetrator of them all when it said, “I like you, too, Neil. I like you a lot.
Chapter 14
Playing with Fire
We were laying in the back of Neil’s truck in my driveway, looking up at the slowly darkening sky. I felt the warmth of his body next to me even though we weren’t touching. We weren’t speaking, either, for that matter. Like I’d mentioned before, Neil had a way about quieting the outside world and using it to his advantage, and he seemed to really be thinking something over at the moment.
A shooting star streaked across the sky. I pointed up at it and broke the silence. “Shooting star.”
“Did you make a wish?”
I closed my eyes, throwing one out to the universe. I swallowed. I was keeping that one to myself.
I puffed out a breath and relaxed back into the silence. Or tried to relax, anyway. Because here was the thing about Neil’s silence: It was a part of who he was, yes. But after hanging out with him for the past few weeks, he was definitely being quieter than usual. And he hadn’t tried to kiss me today, either, or yesterday, or the day before that, for the record. You know, if I was keeping track.
Full disclosure, it might’ve been my wandering hands that scared him away. I hadn’t beenmeaningto try and slip my hand down his pants, it just happened. On accident. The kind of accident that was totally on purpose but shouldn’t count because there was no thought behind it, just action.Yeah.That sounded stupid, even to me.
Ugh.
Neil was going to break things off with me, I could tell. But it was okay. The scarier part is that I found myself more worried about losing his friendship than anything.
I guess I kind of liked being friends with Neil. Or more than liked being friends with Neil.
“Have you thought any more about what college you want to go to?” he asked out of nowhere. And it was for reasons like that.
We talked about the real things that mattered, and hecaredabout things like that, and I found myself caring about them, too, when he was around.
I lifted my shoulders and shook my head. “Not really. I mean, I’ve thought about it, but honestly, I’m not sure I even want to go to college,” I admitted—for the first time out loud.
“Yeah, me neither.”
I immediately turned my head and looked sideways at him. “Really?”
My eyes were wide and glued to the profile of his face, so I could see him thinking his response over. He played with his bottom lip between his teeth as he looked up at the sky, before settling on, “Yeah. I think so. I don’t want to disappoint my parents, but… I’m not sure college is for me.”
“Wow. I would not have expected that from you.”
His head shifted, and his eyes were on mine. “Why?”
Why?Why?“I don’t know. You’re smart; you seem like you have a good head on your shoulders. I guess I just assume college is what you’d want.”