Misadventures of a College Girl (Misadventures #9)(45)

“Things were different back then. The slightest kiss was a huge thing.”

“Oh, come on. You think Romeo would have been any less hot for Juliet than I was for you out of the gate, just because it was the sixteenth century? For fuck’s sake, the dude kills himself over her at the end. That’s some next-level passion, son. I say we let the poor guy mack down on his bae the same way I macked down on you.”

“No, we need to do a stage kiss. Like this.” I give him a prim, little peck.

Tyler shakes his head. “Juliet’s not his sister. When Romeo sees her, she ignites a forest fire in the depths of his soul. He instantly knows she’s the answer to a prayer he didn’t even know he had. Yes, as it turns out at the end, they’re star-crossed lovers and totally doomed, but Romeo doesn’t know that when he first lays eyes on her. All he knows is he wants that girl more than he wants to breathe. More than he ever thought possible. He feels like he’s going to die if he doesn’t get a taste of her perfect lips. And that means Romeo needs to kiss Juliet exactly the way I kissed you at the party.”

Um… Did Tyler just say what I think he said? I clutch my heart, feeling like it just exploded all over the Muhammad Ali poster on the nearby wall. But Tyler seems oblivious to what he’s just implied. Indeed, he forges right ahead, apparently determined to convince me he’s in the right about the appropriate level of heat for our theatrical kiss.

“Zooey, you’re the one who always says great acting isn’t pretending—that it’s telling the truth. So let’s tell the truth about how a young, horny, hopeless romantic would kiss his dream girl when given the chance. I guarantee you, whether the story takes place today or five hundred years ago, that dude’s going to kiss the hell out of that girl, the same way I kissed you our first night on the dance floor.”

I’m blown away. Utterly incapable of forming words.

“Good. So it’s settled then,” Tyler declares, apparently misinterpreting my stunned silence as agreement.

I quickly gather myself. “No, Tyler. No matter how passionately Romeo might have felt about Juliet, you still can’t kiss me with that much heat in front of our class. No way.”

“Why not? They’re all adults. They can handle it.”

I shake my head. “If you kiss me with that much passion, everyone will know we’ve been having sex.”

“We have. No shame in that.”

“No shame for you. But everyone knows your reputation, Tyler. They’ll assume I’m just another one of your many conquests, and I don’t want people thinking that about me. It’s embarrassing.”

“Who cares what anyone else thinks about us? As long as we both know you’re not some ‘conquest’ of mine, that’s all that matters.”

My heart lurches into my throat. “I’m not a conquest?”

Tyler scoffs. “Don’t be ridiculous, Zooey. Of course, not.”

I shouldn’t do it. I really shouldn’t. But I can’t help myself. “What am I, then, if you had to put a word to it?”

Tyler takes off his masquerade mask, so I do the same.

“You’re my beaver. My adorable, weird, sexy, talented, funny, sexpot of an eager beaver.”

I make a face that says, Not what I was hoping for.

Tyler exhales. “Aw, Zooey.” He rubs his forehead. “I don’t like labels. We are what we are. It is what it is. We’re just doing our thing, feeling what we feel. There’s no need to call it anything in particular. A label won’t change anything.”

I remain stone-faced. A label will change everything, I think. But I don’t say it.

“Okay, here’s what I know,” Tyler says. He counts off on his fingers. “One, I’m having a blast with you—in and out of bed. Two, since I met you, I’ve been playing the best football of my life.” He shrugs. “So I’m just trying not to think too much about what it all means, or I’m afraid I’ll fuck everything up. It’s so damned awesome, why fuck it up?” He looks at me with pleading eyes. “Okay?”

I scoot closer to him, put my palms onto his cheeks, and kiss him. “Okay.”

“You’re my eager little beaver,” he whispers softly into my mouth. “That’s all I know. My dorky, weird Zooey Cartwright who’s going to be a star one day. And that’s all I need to know.”





Chapter Twenty-Eight





The halo effect is real, folks. At least, according to the four social psychology experiments Tyler and Dimitri conducted today, with an assist by Clarissa and me.

In our first experiment of the day, Dimitri and Tyler stood on opposite street corners in downtown LA, and while Clarissa and I observed them, they asked passersby to sign a petition for “equality.” What kind of equality? On behalf of whom and where would the petition be submitted? The boys didn’t specify. Instead, the guys identified their organization simply as “People for the Equality of People.” If asked any questions, we gave them a few vague, pre-scripted comments they were allowed to state in nothing but a flat, polite tone. No flirting. No turning on the charm. “And absolutely no panty-melting smiles, Tyler Caldwell!” I commanded right before we got started.

And guess what happened? Tyler wound up getting thirty-three signatures to Dimitri’s four. Four! Clarissa and I couldn’t believe it. Of course, we didn’t tell the guys the shocking tallies at the time because we didn’t want to influence their confidence levels during future experiments throughout the day. But we girls knew right then and there poor Dimitri was in for a very long and humbling day.