Operation Prom Date (Tactics in Flirting #1)(21)

Kate put her hand on the side of my face, the way I’d done to her a moment ago. “Why did the cock cross the road?”

My jaw dropped for a couple of seconds before I recovered. “Why?”

“To grab the chick’s ass.”

I laughed. “I think you win.”

“Well, you looked like you might murder someone. I thought I’d lighten the mood.”

“Mood officially lightened.” I was about to point out we now had an audience that included her dream boy, but I figured it’d only make her nervous. Which meant limits were off, at least for a couple of seconds. I picked up a strand of her hair, wound it around my finger, and leaned close. I kissed her cheek, just a little peck, and whispered, “Wanna get out of here?”

She licked her lips and I nearly groaned. For a moment the rest of the world faded. But then her eyes flicked to the side. Dawning overcame her features, and she curled my shirt in her fist and tugged me close enough that my nose brushed hers. “Definitely.”



I probably should’ve taken Kate right home—it was almost eleven, after all. But she said she had until eleven thirty, and if I went home and went to bed, then it’d be tomorrow, and I wasn’t ready for it to be tomorrow yet.

So we grabbed sodas and walked to the nearest dock. We sat at the end, and Kate’s legs went to swinging. “I’m trying to remember for sure which house is yours. I know it’s by the dock we usually go to, but there are three, and they all look the same.” She squinted. “Doesn’t it have green trim? Not that I can even see what color the trim is right now.”

“Blue trim.” I pointed across the cove. The lights blazed through most of the windows in the house, even though I knew Dad was most likely still in his office, and Mom was up in her room, reading or watching TV alone. “Fifth one down.”

Kate counted under her breath until her finger lined up with the right house. “It’s nice. With a side of super huge.”

“Sometime I’ll have to show you the inside.” Sometime when Dad wasn’t there. Ever since I didn’t act excited enough by the internship he’d set up, things were more icy than usual between us. I could only imagine if I told him how I actually felt about it and the entire future he wanted for me.

“I’d like that.” The wood creaked underneath us as Kate continued to swing her legs. Must be all that frantic energy buzzing just underneath the surface. Her head tipped to the sky. The moon waned gibbous and put out enough light to cast a pale yellow glow on Kate’s features. “Do you still know all the constellations, and, like, the history of all the stars?”

“No.”

She whipped her head toward me. “Liar.”

“There are billions and billions of stars. You think I know the history of each one?”

“Is it true that most of the stars we see are dead? Because that’s depressing, and I like to think they’re still up there shining their little butts off.”

“Light travels at about 300,000 kilometers a second, which is crazy fast, but stars are so far away that even light from the closest stars takes years to get to us.”

She frowned at me. “So you’re saying they’re dead instead of letting me believe my happier version?”

“I’m giving you facts.”

“Fine,” she said, her voice making it clear she was all put out about it. “I’ll allow it.”

“You’ll allow facts?” Before I got way off topic and fell into a lecture about how facts were facts, even if you didn’t want them to be, I shifted back to the subject at hand. “Don’t go getting all sad. I wasn’t finished. Stars have crazy long lifespans, and depending on size, we’re talking high millions to trillions of years. So, no, the answer to your question is that despite popular opinion—which is not the same as proven facts—it’s not true. Some of the stars we’re seeing might be dead, but most of them—to borrow your phrase—are still shining their little butts off.”

“I thought you didn’t know their history.”

Part of me felt like growling in exasperation, and the other part of me just wanted to throw my arms around her and hug her. All of my perfume sniffing must’ve killed a few brain cells.

“Glad we cleared that up.” She took a swig of her soda and then set the can down on the dock with a clank. “Now, tell me the constellations, because I know you know them. Do you still have that app?”

“I have a better one.”

“Well, whip it out, Galileo.”

“Okay, okay. But you might want to be careful about instructing guys to ‘whip it out.’ Just saying.”

She gasped and shoved me. I chuckled and righted myself, then set my empty soda can next to hers. I opened my stargazer app and lined it up so the constellations would show on the screen.

There were still nights when I laid back and stared up at the stars, but I rarely took the time to study the sky anymore. Considering the calming effect, I should try it out every time my father brought up my summer internship or college. I’d also expressed an interest in marine biology last year, and he’d told me that my head was always in the stars or in the water, and I needed to learn to keep it on solid ground.

Kate leaned in, much closer than she had that summer a few years ago, when she seemed to be doing it more out of polite pity than interest.