Until that point, telling him about my notebook had been in the back of my mind. I was scared to tell him because he would rope me into the band that way. But I’d been curious to talk to him about it, test him out, see if there was any possible way the band could play a few of my songs. I would have loved to hear them, if only once.
Now that he’d made fun of songwriting, no way. He hadn’t even known he was making fun of me, so I shouldn’t be offended. It still hurt. I wasn’t going to walk straight into his stereotype.
“No, I don’t write songs,” I said. “But maybe you’ll run across a girl who does. You can make out with her and convince her to join your band.”
“You know what?” he asked immediately. I’d expected him to pause as my insult sank in, but he jabbed back as though he’d seen it coming. “You called me a tease last night, too, and I didn’t say anything because I was trying to draw Charlotte off you.” He glared at me, lips pursed, shadowed face gaunt. He was never more handsome than when I was pushing him away.
“Sorry,” I said. “I took that too far.”
He kept glaring at me, unmoved.
My heart sped up as I realized he was angry, and I deserved it. I was no better than Charlotte, taking potshots at him.
“I’m still mad about Saturday night,” I admitted, “and Charlotte, and all the girlfriends. I’d thought that—” Telling him I’d hoped we could be together . . . that assumed too much under the circumstances. “I don’t know what I thought,” I finished. “But Charlotte opening the door of your truck was a shocker.”
He sighed, too, much to my relief, and leaned back on one hand in the grass. His anger was over. “There’s more to it than that. These past few days, I keep thinking you and I are going to do something, but you’re sending me mixed signals.”
“No, you—”
He broke in, “No, you respond when I flirt with you. But then last night, when I was telling you good-bye, you just stared up at me and gave me a polite good night like I was the president of Vandy.”
“No, you didn’t kiss me last night because you were afraid of what Charlotte would think.”
“I’ve told you about that,” he reminded me. “She doesn’t have any claim to me. I also don’t want to be mean to her or piss her off.”
“Because of the band,” I grumbled.
“Yes,” he exclaimed, exasperated, “and I don’t think I’m wrong to try to keep the peace in the band, and I don’t think I’m being a tease.”
“I don’t either,” I admitted begrudgingly, watching an ant crawl across my bare foot in my sandal. My voice sank lower as I said, “Jealous. Frustrated.”
He nodded. “I can’t change the past, Bailey. Believe me, I would if I could.” He got that far-off look into the sky again but reined himself in before he got lost. He looked into my eyes as he said, “I can’t change that I dated her. I can’t change that I dated a lot of people. I’ve told you I wasn’t serious with those girls.” He moved his hand onto my bare knee, and the afternoon suddenly heated by twenty degrees. “Whatever’s wrong between us, I want to get over it, because I’d like to get serious with you.” His hand moved to cup my whole knee. “I wanted you last night.”
I felt my face flush, and my neck, and my chest where he couldn’t see. So many times in the past year I’d made out with Toby or some other guy. There had been fewer of them than there had been of Sam’s girlfriends, but I’d been no better than him for going to that place with them when I didn’t really care.
In those dark moments at parties, my body had gone electric for them. But not in the middle of the day, in an open field, with a boy’s hand on my knee instead of down my panties. There was no reason for Sam and me to share this look right now and feel this way about each other, except that we did.
He glanced down at his watch and said in defeat, “And now we have to go.” Brow creased, deep in thought, he reached behind my head and pulled me toward him.
Without thinking, for once, I sat up on my knees and leaned forward, bracing myself on the grass with one hand as my lips met his.
He tasted sweet, and the kiss was sweet and chaste, until his hand slipped under my shirt. His touch on my bare waist made me gasp and break the kiss.
Eyes on mine, he said as if convincing himself, “I want to play this gig tonight.”
I nodded. “So do I.”
He moved his hand around my waist to the button of my shorts, a preview of what was to come. Then he backed away from me and stood, holding out a hand to help me up. “But it’s going to be a long night.”
11
Sam was wrong. The entire afternoon and evening seemed to flash by in a second, because we were having fun.
Sam and I met Charlotte and Ace at his dad’s car dealership. We parked the truck and crawled into the middle seat of the SUV that Ace had chosen for the day. As Ace pulled into traffic, Sam said, “It’s like our Mystery Machine. All we need is a Great Dane.”
Charlotte leaned around her front seat to say, “My drum kit is our Great Dane. Only it says ‘Crash!’ instead of ‘Rowr?’ ”
Something about her Scooby-Doo imitation struck me as funny. I laughed uncontrollably for a few seconds. It felt so good that I kept laughing until Charlotte stared at me like I’d grown another head. I supposed my laughing was about as common as Charlotte doing impressions.
Sam was watching me from across the SUV with a bemused look, like he didn’t quite know what to make of my laughter either. Finally he called, “Who gets to be Fred, and who’s Shaggy?”
“I call dibs on Fred,” Ace said.
“You’re totally Fred,” Sam agreed. “Stodgy.”
“I guess we all know who gets to be Daphne, and who’s Velma,” Charlotte said bitterly.
“I can’t see a thing without my glasses,” I piped up, quoting Velma and nudging my cat-eye glasses with one finger.
Charlotte turned around one more time and blinked at me. Clearly she’d meant that she was fashion-challenged Velma. I’d thought at first she was mad at me for taking her self-deprecating punch line away. But her expression wasn’t angry, just surprised. She said something to Ace that I didn’t catch and reached forward to change the radio station.
“That would make a great album cover, actually.” Sam grinned at me. “The four of us, dressed like the characters. You would be the sexiest Velma ever. I wonder if we’d have to pay a licensing fee.”