Page 73 of The Other Brother

It all changes when we get back to the car.

The air between us thickens with intensity and anticipation.

Cody fiddles with his keys. “Do you want to go straight home?”

“Nope.”

The silence pulses with an expectant beat.

I clear my throat. “Why don’t we head down to Lagoon Bay? There’s a lookout parking spot that’s nearly always empty.”

“It’s getting dark.”

“Yeah, I’m not actually that concerned about the view outside the car.”

Blotches creep up Cody’s neck, but he sticks the keys in the ignition and follows my directions to Lagoon Bay.

Sure enough, when we pull up, we’re the only car in the parking lot.

“Shit, it’s so clichéd, parking up like this,” he says, undoing his seatbelt.

“There’s a reason clichés become clichés,” I say, unclicking my own. “It’s because they were awesome ideas to begin with.”

He smiles.

I lean across and kiss his smile. He goes still under my lips, then he opens his mouth, his tongue colliding with mine, and it’s on.

We make out hungrily, desperately. His hands tug my hair, and one of mine is caught up in his curls. I trail my other hand lightly down the back of his neck.

Eventually, I pull away. I know Cody doesn’t have much experience with this kind of stuff. And I don’t want to rush things, no matter how much some parts of my body are screaming a different message right now.

“We should probably head home,” I say reluctantly.

Cody’s face is flushed. “Yeah, okay.”

But instead of starting the car, he leans over and gives me a soft kiss, and I melt like the wax in a candle. Our make out session starts out slower this time. But it soon becomes even more heated than our previous kisses combined. A nuclear explosion kind of heat.

He moves his hands under my T-shirt, leaving a trail of fire on my skin.

“Damn.” I wrestle myself away and shuffle on my seat so I’m as far from Cody as I can physically get. I gulp down a breath. “You need to start the car now,” I instruct.

“Yeah, okay.” His hands are shaking as he puts the key in the ignition.

We’re silent on the way home. But it’s a good silence.

I don’t dare kiss him when we’re parked outside my house. But I grab his hand, give it a squeeze, stroking my thumb across the top of his thumb.

He looks down and a blush treks up his cheeks.

It takes all my self-control to open the door.

“We should do that again sometime. Because that was pretty epic,” I say as I leave.

Chapter19

Unfortunately, my life doesn’t give me lengthy periods of time for awesome replays. You know, like replaying some things that happen when you’re parked in a deserted parking lot at Lagoon Bay.

School the next day and the memory of Cody sliding his hand under my shirt doesn’t go well with my homeroom teacher’s lecture on trash in the cafeteria.