Tease(6)

We take our tacos to a booth next to the windows, even though the winter sun is almost gone and it’s cold over here. Alex and I put mild sauce on our food, while Tommy opens about nine packets of the hottest kind and then tries to pour some onto Alex’s too.

“Quit it!” Alex cries, shoving Tommy back to his side of the bench seat.

“Wuss!” Tommy yells, shoving back.

“Come on, guys,” I say, licking a stray piece of lettuce off my finger. “Would you just—” I don’t finish because they’re still shoving, so instead of trying to reason with them I just get up, grab Tommy’s arm, and pull him out of his side of the booth. Pushing him around and onto the bench I was just sitting on, I flop myself down next to Alex and slide my taco across the table. “Okay?” I ask, a little out of breath from the whole maneuver. “Can we eat?”

Alex smirks at Tommy, but luckily, once he’s yanked his food over to his new seat, Tommy just smirks back.

“How’s Dylan’s fastball?” Alex asks me.

I smile. Alex is obsessed with my boyfriend. I guess I can relate.

Dylan’s always been pretty much varsity across the board, but now that he’s a senior he’s super committed to being really, really good so he can secure some college scholarships. These days all he does is practice for baseball tryouts. He really wants to be a starting pitcher this year. Or is it a closing pitcher? I guess I’ve only been half listening—I mean, when we’re alone, we don’t talk that much.

The day after Christmas Dylan came over, and since it was freakishly warm outside, he took Alex out to the backyard and practiced with him. So now my ten-year-old brother always wants to talk about Dylan’s pitches. Tommy will be twelve in April, and he usually acts like he’s too cool to be impressed by his sister’s boyfriend. But he gets pretty interested too.

“I think it’s good, bud,” I tell Alex. “The season starts soon, so you can come to a game with me and see for yourself.”

Alex does a little hop on his seat while Tommy asks, “I can come too, right?”

“Of course,” I say. I hope Dylan’s ready for a tweenage fan club.

I’m still not sure why Dylan Howe wanted to go out with me in the first place. We got thrown together a few times last fall because Brielle was dating another guy on the basketball team, Rob. I’d always thought Dylan was gorgeous—it’s more like a fact than an opinion—so at first I had a hard time not acting like a complete idiot around him. If I could talk to boys my own age as easily as I talk to my brothers, things would be so much easier. Well, maybe—Alex and Tommy talk a lot about farting. I’ve hooked up with guys at parties and stuff, but nothing ever seems to happen, nothing official. For most of sophomore year I thought I was in love with Parker Anderson, and we had this whole texting affair. But it was only the texts. At school Parker totally ignored me, and finally Brielle convinced me that I had to ignore him back.

So anyway, if Brielle hadn’t been dating Rob, I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere near Dylan Howe.

And then one night over Thanksgiving break, a bunch of us snuck over to the Pleasant Hill playground. Brielle and Alison were drinking peach schnapps and acting all crazy, jumping off the slide and stuff. I was on the swings, which had always been my favorite. Suddenly, Dylan sat down on the swing next to mine. He’d had a couple of the beers the guys brought, and I could smell the hops and sweat and just general boy-scent on him, all mixed in with the cold air and that dead-leaf-autumn smell. Somehow I actually started talking to him, like a semi-normal person. And then out of nowhere he just pulled the chains of my swing over toward his and started kissing me.

It was the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me in my entire life.

Dylan has these really strong hands, like man hands, and with one holding my swing and the other wrapped around my waist . . . I can’t even think about now it without feeling my heart speed up, my blood pulsing in my ears. That night I even reached up and put one hand on the side of his face. Like we were kissing in a movie or something. I was just so stunned, and I was thinking, This might be the only time I have a chance to do this, and suddenly I felt so daring and confident and—God, I don’t know, maybe kind of sexy? His face was really soft, with just a little bit of stubble along his jaw. The tips of my fingers brushed against the line of his hair, under his ear.

I wanted it to go on forever. But after a few minutes Rob yelled to him from across the playground and Dylan let go of me. “See you later,” he said, and left. Just walked away, with me dizzy and swinging sideways, the chains squealing in protest as I tried not to pass out.

Who knows what would have happened after that if Brielle hadn’t intervened. She told Rob to tell Dylan to text me, and he did. I started sitting right behind the team with Brielle at every basketball game. And I started making out with him a lot more, mostly in his SUV after those games, his hair still wet from the locker room showers.

Around Christmas, Dylan started pulling at my pants while we kissed. Sometimes he’ll bring my hands to his belt, too, but any confidence I might have in kissing him just disappears when he does that. Usually I just kind of kiss him harder and at the same time my hands sort of go limp, like they don’t work anymore. He’s a gentleman, he’s never pushed me. But it’s gotten pretty clear what he thinks is going to happen next.