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  “Point taken,” I said, getting off the couch, grabbing the empty chip bowl and the disposable dip bowl and heading back to the kitchen.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” Kyle said, trailing after me. I just shrugged again and turned to face her.

  “Well. I guess I’ll see you in class.” It was an anticlimactic end to what had been a strange day.

  “Yeah, see you in class.” I almost leaned in to kiss her, but she just stared at me in that cute-but-stunned way and I couldn’t do it.

  “Okay then.” I pivoted on my heels and headed out the front door.

  That was when I realized she’d been the one to drive us here.

  ****

  I stood outside for a minute, wondering what to do, but there was no option but to go back inside, which was what I was preparing to do when the front door opened and she walked out.

  “Oh, yeah. I forgot that you didn’t have your car here. I can drive you back.” I nodded and got in the passenger seat.

  “I had fun today,” I said and then cringed. I sounded like an idiot.

  “Me too,” Kyle said, turning the car on.

  She drove in silence for a few minutes, her hands clamped on the steering wheel.

  “So, what happens now?” Kyle said.

  “What do you mean?” Once again, I knew exactly what she meant.

  “I mean, with you and me. Not that there is a you and me. I don’t even know what the hell happened today other than we made out and I would really, really like to do it again.” Fuck, that made me want to tell her to pull over so I could yank her into the backseat.

  “Are you saying that you want to come out, and then be my girlfriend?” I asked, not looking at her.

  “Oh, no. We can’t do that.” No, we couldn’t.

  “So there are two options. One, pretend this never happened and go back to hating each other, or two, we make out when no one else is around.” I hoped she would go for the second option, because it involved more kissing. I was in favor of any plan where I could kiss Kyle some more. That girl knew what she was doing and would have been totally wasted on boys.

  “So, be like secret girlfriends?” I wanted to roll my eyes at that. It sounded stupid. Like a plot of a bad movie.

  “No. We’d just be two girls who sometimes hang out and kiss. And potentially do other things. No pressure. But I don’t think we should like, be best friends or something.” I already had one of those and I didn’t need another one. Besides, I didn’t want to be Kyle’s friend. I wanted to kiss her until she couldn’t breathe. That wasn’t usually a friendship activity. Unless you were friends with benefits, but that wasn’t for me either.

  “Okay, but what would we call it?” I sighed.

  “Why do we have to call it anything?” I asked, turning to her. We were almost to the school.

  “I guess we don’t have to.” No, we didn’t. We didn’t owe anyone anything.

  “So how will this work?” She asked so many damn questions. I was going to have to kiss her more so she’d stop.

  “No idea. We’ll figure it out. Just text or call or whatever. And don’t act any different at school. Promise.” That was very important. I didn’t want anyone catching on that things had changed between me and Kyle.

  “Uh huh.” She still looked a little dazed. I had the feeling she was going to be up late tonight. So would I, but for different reasons. I was going to spend a lot of time thinking about kissing her and what that tongue of hers could do if it were applied to places other than my mouth.

  She pulled into the parking lot and I realized that if I didn’t hurry, I was going to be late for cheer practice.

  “I have to go. So I’ll see you around,” I said, my hand on the door.

  “Yeah, okay,” she said, giving me a little jerky nod. I got out and closed the door, thanking the stars that there was no one around to see me get out of Kyle’s car.

  What a bizarre day. I couldn’t stop thinking about how things had changed in only a few hours. Just last night Stella had kissed me and today I was making out with her and now I was gay.

  I mean, I’d sort of known? But kissing Stella and wanting her kind of cemented it. My parents were mad at dinner when I wasn’t as open about my day as I could have been so I escaped to my room and shut the door.

  I just wanted some time to THINK. There was so much noise in my head and I couldn’t sort out any of it.

  Yes, I liked Stella. But was it just her or other girls?

  I knew the answer to that. Yes, it was other girls. No one specific (until now), just . . . girls. Their hair and the way they walked and not to mention the way their bodies were. Just perfectly shaped. It was everything about them. How had I been so blind to it?

  That was what got me. How could I live eighteen years and not know? If I hadn’t known this about myself, what else didn’t I know? That was the scariest part.

  And my parents. What would they say? What would they think? They’d struggled and pushed me to be the absolute best and to have a better life than they’d had. How would me being gay change that? Sure, marriage was legal all over the United States, but that wasn’t everything. There was so much more.

  They weren’t anti-gay, but I didn’t know how they would feel about having a gay daughter. If I was gay. I guess technically I was a lesbian? How did I decide what I wanted to be called?

  There were just so many questions that I didn’t have answers to. So I asked someone who might.

  Do I have to call myself a lesbian now?

  I knew she would be up.

  No. You can be gay or queer or whatever you want. You don’t owe anyone a label.

  She sounded so different now. It just blew my mind how I had known her for so many years and not know what she was really like. It was obvious to me now that she put on a bitchy front, but I didn’t know why. Her real personality was great. She was snarky and funny and thoughtful. At least she’d been that way today. Why would she hide that? I didn’t get it.

  Are you still going to be a raging bitch to me in English?

  I felt like I could hear her laughing.

  Absolutely. What you saw today was an anomaly.

  But WHY?

  I knew I wasn’t going to get a straight answer from her so I changed the topic.

  Do you know anyone else who’s gay?

  I could think of a few kids off the top of my head and I knew there was some sort of rainbow organization. I’d never really paid attention to it because I didn’t think it was for me. Guess I was wrong.

  Yeah, there’s a group of them.

  Was I now required to be friends with them? I had so many questions about this. There really should be a rulebook.

  You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, Kyle. Seriously.

  I knew that, but I almost wished there was someone standing next to me and telling me what the rules were, what the steps were. I had so much uncertainty. Part of me even wondered if I’d just made a huge mistake or had a brain tumor or something.

  I know. I guess I just have to get used to it.

  She took a long while to respond and I saw her typing and then deleting a few messages before she sent one.

  I’m here if you need me.

  The words hit me like a punch. How had this Stella existed and I had no idea?

  Thanks. We should probably go to bed. School night and everything.

  This time her response was lightning fast.

  We could always pass the time by sexting. What are you wearing?

  For a half-second I thought she was serious and I realized just how much I would enjoy that. And then she sent a little winky face and I wanted to kick myself for thinking that. Of course she was joking. We had literally just kissed today. I mean, last night too, but it had been only about 24 hours from the first lip contact. Sexting was getting a little ahead of things.

  Wouldn’t you like to know . . .

  I hoped she was laughing.

  Yeah. I would.

&n
bsp; Wait, was she serious? This had been the most confusing day ever. Thank God tomorrow was Thursday and I wouldn’t see her in class.

  But that meant that I’d see her on Friday and then at the game. Stella was definitely going to be there and I had no idea how I was going to handle that situation. Some of my other friends might not notice, but Grace definitely would know something was up with me. That was what best friends were for.

  I realized I hadn’t responded to Stella in a while.

  I sleep naked I typed and hit Send before I could second-guess myself.

  So do I.

  Well, shit. This was definitely not helping. I was turned on as fuck and I only had myself to blame. I shouldn’t have texted her.

  Goodnight, babe.

  I groaned into my pillow. What was she doing to me?

  I was still thinking about the text messages and the kisses and everything about Kyle when I woke up the next morning. My blood still felt like it was on fire and didn’t want to cool anytime soon.

  Kyle Blake was going to be the death of me. Fortunately I only caught a glance or two of her in the hallways on Thursday. If I saw her every day I didn’t know how I’d handle that. It was too much already.

  Thursday I had a shift at the vet clinic and I was totally out of it. I messed up several times and my boss actually asked me if I was okay and suggested that maybe I should go home early. I wanted to kick myself for getting so distracted by the hot nerd.

  She didn’t text or reach out to me at all that day, so our first contact was on Friday in class. She got there first and I slid into my seat beside her. At least she didn’t flinch.

  “Hey,” I said and she looked at me as if I’d done something completely insane.

  “What?” I said, looking around, but no one was paying attention to us. They were all on their phones or talking to each other.

  Kyle leaned closer and I told myself not to inhale too deeply and remember how her mouth tasted.

  Tried and failed on both counts.

  “I thought we were going back to the status quo. You never said ‘hey’ to me before,” she said in a low voice, eyes darting around as if we were going to get busted for just talking to one another.

  I rolled my eyes.

  “We can at least be cordial without raising too much suspicion,” I said. At the beginning, I hadn’t wanted to set off any potential red flags, but the more I tried to avoid Kyle, the more obvious it was that I was trying to avoid her. So maybe if I allowed myself a little contact, things would be okay.

  A cynical voice in the back of my mind told me that it was a stupid plan and that someone was going to catch on, but I told the voice to shut the fuck up. That same voice would be telling me to go for it if it had had the chance to make out with Kyle.

  “Oh, we can?” she asked, raising one eyebrow. I wanted to grab her face and kiss the shit out of her, but that would definitely not be a good idea at this moment.

  “Yes, we can,” I breathed, leaning a little closer and smiling in satisfaction as she swallowed hard.

  Mr. Hurley started class then and our heads snapped forward at the same time. Not suspicious at all.

  “My dad looked over our paper on Thursday night,” I said when Mr. Hurley told us to keep working together in groups as he wandered around the room and “kept us on task.” There were only a few groups that needed him to hover to make sure they were doing work and not screwing off. Kyle and I were not one of them, so he generally left us to our own devices.

  “And?” Kyle said, looking at the printout I’d given her with my dad’s correction marks on it. There weren’t many.

  “And he said it was good. So I think we’re pretty much set.” She flipped through the pages, her eyes scanning before she set it back on her desk and turned to me.

  “So, what now? We’re basically done and we have a whole week to work on this.” I wasn’t sure, so I raised my hand and Mr. Hurley came over. I told him the situation and he just gave me a smile.

  “I had the feeling you were going to be an overachiever in this class, Stella. Are you sure you’re absolutely finished with everything?” We nodded in unison. He sighed.

  “You have two options. You can either use the next few classes as time to work on an extra credit project, or I can send you to the library to work on something else.” I glanced at Kyle. I knew what option I wanted.

  “Library, I think,” Kyle said and I nodded. Good. That had been my choice. The library was full of all kinds of corners and nooks and there were rarely people up there during the school day, so we would potentially have privacy.

  Mr. Hurley wrote us both notes and we hurried as fast as we could out the door.

  “I can’t believe he let us do that,” Kyle said as I slowed my pace to match hers.

  “He knows my dad so I think he lets me get away with a lot,” I said with a smirk. Kyle rolled her eyes as we headed out of the English building and toward the library. It was at the top floor, so we got to take the special elevator.

  “Look at you with your fancy key,” I said when Kyle pulled it out of her back pocket and put it in the hole above the buttons to unlock it.

  “If I had to take the stairs, I would get there about the time class was over.” Ninety percent of the time I didn’t even think about her limp, but then we’d be confronted by something like stairs and I’d remember that it wasn’t as easy for her to get around as it was for me.

  “No way,” Kyle said as we strolled into the library and looked around. There was no one in sight. Not even the librarian. But then she bustled around the corner with a stack of books in her arms and glared at us as if we’d walked into her house without permission.

  “We have notes,” I said, extending my hand out. She snatched them and looked at them as if they were fake IDs or something. After deciding on their authenticity, she told us to find a corner and be quiet and that if we caused any shenanigans, we would be booted out.

  “No problem,” I said, jerking my head in the direction of one of the corners. Kyle nodded and followed me. It was in a little alcove and had two beanbag chairs crammed in between the stacks. The only way you could see us if you walked between those exact rows of shelves and looked around part of the wall. It was perfect and almost private.

  I set my stuff down and held out my hand to Kyle. She blushed but then accepted it as I helped her flop onto one of the beanbags as I crashed on the other.

  “This is perfect,” she said in a whisper.

  “I think we can talk at almost normal volume, but I’ve never tested that theory,” I said, a little louder than a whisper.

  “Do you come here a lot?” she asked as she pulled a bag of gummy bears out of her backpack and offered me some. I took a handful as she did the same. Food was forbidden in the library, but we’d only get caught if the librarian happened to check on us and we’d have advance warning from her footsteps. So we were good.

  “Not a lot, but I love libraries. Wherever I go, I always have to visit the library.” I didn’t know why I was telling her that. It was something only Gabe and Dad knew about. My desire to visit hundreds of libraries in hundreds of countries someday.

  Kyle snorted and I pelted her with a gummy bear.

  “Hey, don’t waste those.” She picked it up off the floor and made a face at it, but then put it in her mouth.

  “Ew! Do you know what kind of germs there could be on that?” She just grinned and kept chewing.

  “You just don’t seem like a library kind of girl. I mean, no offense.” I narrowed my eyes.

  “Why? Because I’m a cheerleader? We’re all supposed to be bitchy airheads, right?” She crumpled the empty bag and shoved it in her backpack.

  “You know that’s not what I mean. It doesn’t matter that you are a cheerleader. You just seem more the social butterfly type than the library type.”

  “Why can’t I be both?” She opened her mouth to respond, but then nodded.

  “I guess you’re right.” I twirled a curl
around my finger.

  “People aren’t just one thing, Kyle.” She nodded.

  “You mean like people aren’t just lesbians?” I hadn’t been talking about that, but sure. That was a good example.

  “Exactly.” She nodded again.

  “And you’re not just a hot nerd,” I said, bumping my shoulder with hers.

  I was rewarded by a blush that made me want to grab her face and lick her cheeks. I really had self-control issues around this girl.

  “You think I’m hot?” she asked, looking down at her feet as she set her chin on her pulled-up knees.

  “Kyle. Have you seen you?” She gaped at me.

  “Um, yeah, I see myself in the mirror and it’s nothing to lose your shit over, I’m pretty sure. And no one’s going to put me on a magazine anytime soon.”

  “That’s just because people are fucking idiots. You’re gorgeous. Like, it’s really hard for me to not look at you.” She started to laugh.

  “Are you serious?” I nodded.

  “Yeah, it’s a real problem. You’ve got that sexy nerd thing and I’m pretty sure it’s designed to drive me crazy.” She bit her lip to hide a smile.

  “No one’s ever called me sexy before.” A year ago, I probably wouldn’t have. But now it was so obvious to me that I couldn’t ignore it even if I wanted to. She took her hair down and started to put it up again.

  “Wait,” I said.

  She froze, her hands pulling her hair back from her face to pile it on top of her head again.

  “What?”

  “Let your hair down,” I said, hating how breathless my voice sounded. But I’d pictured Kyle with her hair tumbling over her shoulders so many times and I just wanted to see it for real.

  She gave me a look but let her hair drop, settling on her shoulders like a mahogany cape.

  “It’s gorgeous,” I said, reaching out and running a few strands through my fingers. She didn’t flinch, or tell me to stop.