There's Something About Sweetie(50)

She giggled. “I don’t know what to say except … wow.”

He chuckled. “‘Wow’ is good. I totally agree with ‘wow.’”

She swallowed and pulled away a little, looking down at her lap. “That was, um, my first real kiss.”

He stared at her. It was ridiculous that this gorgeous, funny, sweet, intelligent girl had never been kissed. “I’m honored that I got to be your first, then. But also? I’m glad you didn’t tell me that before. The pressure would’ve been too much.”

She laughed a little, but it wasn’t full of joy like her laughter usually was. “Right. Sure.”

Ashish frowned. “What do you mean?”

She took a breath and met his eye. “You have a lot of … experience. With girls. And I don’t. I mean, I have literally zero experience with boys. I’m not exaggerating.”

“Hey.” He touched her hand gently. “That doesn’t matter to me. At all.”

She looked at him like she was deciding whether or not to share something. Thrusting her chin out, she said, “And I’m not going to be easy just because I’m fat and no boy has ever dated me before.”

Ashish froze. “I would never think that. Have I … have I somehow given you that impression?”

Sighing, she looked down at her tightly clasped hands. “No. It’s just something I know guys think about fat girls. And it’s not true at all.”

Ashish put his hand under her chin and she looked back at him. “I don’t think that. And any guy who thinks that is a total piece of crap. I don’t care about your lack of experience. I want you to know we’ll go at your pace, okay? I have no expectations at all, and I’m totally fine with taking it slow. I mean, my last relationship was extremely fast and look how that ended up.”

She studied his face, as if checking for dishonesty. Finally, though, she smiled, full and bright. “Okay. I’m fine with taking it slow.” Then, frowning a little, she said, “But kissing is good.”

Ashish laughed. “Kissing is good; got it.” Just to prove he really did get it, he leaned forward and kissed her again.





CHAPTER 18





Basketball practice Monday after school was as lackluster as usual. Ashish bungled easy shots, he got hit in the side of the head because he was looking in the wrong direction, Elijah pretty much carried the game, and Coach ripped him a new one.

Ashish took all the ribbing from his teammates—both gentle and vicious—with humility. Yeah, he was sucking. Yeah, he knew. No, he didn’t know how to fix it.

Something was off inside Ashish, something vital and passionate and competitive that had gone dormant after Celia dumped him. He’d secretly—and apparently stupidly—hoped that missing ingredient would come back after his date with Sweetie. But nope. It was obviously on an interstellar journey off in space somewhere.

He, Oliver, and Elijah were getting changed in the locker room when his phone beeped with an incoming text message.

Samir: Can I come by?

Sighing, Ashish typed a response. Just finished bball practice. Can it wait?

Tomorrow?

He had basketball practice tomorrow, too. Tonight’s fine. Maybe 7ish?

K see you then

Whatever Samir had to say, he could get it out of the way. To be honest, Ashish wasn’t really happy with him at the moment. He’d called a few times over the weekend, and Ashish had just let it go to voice mail. What did Samir expect, when he’d blurted out all that crap to Sweetie and acted like a total douche? But it was obvious he wouldn’t shut up until Ashish had heard him out. It was obvious he just wanted to give him some half-assed apology. Whatever. Ashish slammed his locker shut and turned to Oliver and Elijah. “Ready?”

But they didn’t hear him. They seemed to be having a heated discussion about something on the bench. Oliver, the taller of the two, had his head bent down toward Elijah’s. He was making extravagant hand gestures, the way he did when he was mad, and Elijah had on his closed-off, shut-down look. Totally weird. They never, ever argued. If something happened that they disagreed with, one of them would always laugh and kiss the other and say “Ah, my baby’s so passionate” or something equally vomitous that made Ashish want to smile and poke his eyeballs out with a fork at the same time.

He stood there, wondering if he should leave, then discarding the idea. He didn’t want to just abandon them. Maybe he should interrupt. … But they looked really into it. He needed to get home, though, or he wouldn’t have time to grab dinner before Samir came over and gave him a headache. Ashish stepped closer and cleared his throat. “Uh … guys? You ready to go?”

Elijah looked away, but Oliver looked up at him. There were tears in his gray eyes. Ashish froze, completely shocked. Oliver was crying? What was going on?

“Hey, are you …?”

But Oliver just rubbed his fists along his cheeks and dashed out of the locker room. Elijah bent to tie his shoes, totally avoiding Ashish’s eyes. Okay, what was the protocol for this? He’d never been in the middle of a lovers’ spat before. “Elijah, what—”

Elijah got up and grabbed his duffel bag with way more force than necessary. “Let’s go.”

Oh-kayyy. Ashish could take a hint. He followed Elijah silently, looking out for Oliver. But he was gone. Which was weird, because Ashish was supposed to be his ride. Surreptitiously he took his phone out of his pocket and sent a quick text.