Select (Select #1)(53)

We stayed right there, kissing for ages, his hands moving all around my back but never anywhere else. The kissing had more of a first-date feeling, not an in-the-moment, this-may-never-happen-again feeling like it had in his bedroom the other night. Physically, it felt like we just fit together. I hoped he’d never had that with anyone before me. I wondered if I could find that in his thoughts somewhere, or if I didn’t want to know.

I wasn’t sure how much time had passed when I finally, reluctantly, untangled myself. When I pulled back, John said, “You need to leave?”

Standing up, I straightened my skirt. When had I started wearing skirts? Suddenly it felt like everything was changing.

I looked over to see John watching me. “What?” I asked. He shook his head, as if to say, Never mind. “No, really? Do I look strange?”

He stood up. “It’s nothing. You just look like we’ve been making out for hours. Your lips are puffy….”

“I’m sure. I’ve got to get it together in case anyone is there when I get home.” I hadn’t meant to even mention my family. I was getting flustered.

“Julia,” he said. I looked up at him again. “I didn’t mean it as a bad thing. You look so hot right now. You’re always beautiful, but now you’re…sexy. Well, you’re always sexy, but right now you look like we were just…” He cut himself off.

I felt shy for a different reason. I had a hard time accepting the compliment. In the world I lived in, I didn’t meet the standards. But now I tried to play it off like I’d heard all this a million times before. It would be so easy to be one of those girls from school who knew exactly who they were—young, cute. Or to be like Liv or even Angus. I realized I walked around feeling different every second of my life. Stuck in no-man’s-land.

I felt the vibrations of the garage door only moments before we both heard the door to the house open. Dammit. I hadn’t been paying enough attention, and now there wasn’t time to make a clean exit. I couldn’t let down my guard like that again. It was a reminder that I could only be this self-indulgent if I didn’t make mistakes.

“What time is it?” John looked at his watch. “I’m sorry. I lost track of time.”

I was annoyed I’d put myself in this position. John led the way from the screened-in porch into the kitchen area, where his dad was sifting through the mail.

I’d only seen John’s dad from afar at that one terrible tennis match. He was pretty handsome—not quite as tall as John, but still around six feet. He was dressed in jeans and a button-down shirt. He had the same implacable prove-it-to-me look as John.

When John’s dad extended his hand to me, I realized I’d been walking around dismissing and underestimating everyone who wasn’t part of my family, but in this case, that was a mistake.

“Taro.”

I shook his hand. “I’m Julia.” He nodded. I could tell he knew who I was and he really wasn’t impressed. He looked at John. That was all he had to do and John started talking.

“It was raining, so…”

John’s dad held up a hand, as if to say, Don’t worry about it. Then he asked, “Where’s your brother?”

“Lifting weights.” John looked his dad straight in the eye, and they had some kind of passing communication, until John’s dad simply nodded. “Are you staying for dinner, Julia?”

“No!” I shook my head vehemently. “I was actually on my way out.” I started searching around the room for where I’d left my bag. I had never, ever in a million years pictured myself interacting with John’s parents. It was one thing having people at school see us together—they felt superfluous to me. This was on a whole other level. I couldn’t take this back. If they knew me, it became real, not just a fantasy that only concerned the two of us.

“No. Stay for dinner,” Taro said directly to me. John looked over at me apologetically but didn’t try to get me out of it. It seemed that if his dad said it, it was going to happen.

The front door opened, and in walked a still-sweating Alex, who paused for a moment when he saw me. “Hey, Julia.”

“Hi.” I was ready to make my move to leave again before I was trapped.

“Stay,” John said. The fact that he wanted me there was the strangest thing to me. It was also a little bit sweet. But I didn’t know if I could do it.

And then a minute behind Alex, John’s mother appeared, carrying pizza boxes and bags. You couldn’t have stopped John and Alex from leaping over themselves to help her.

John’s mom, who had been dressed casually the last time I saw her, appeared in a wrap dress that clung snugly to her curves. She was tall and broad shouldered but not overweight. She off-loaded the food onto the boys. They carried it over to the counter and automatically started getting down plates.

She looked over at me, surprised. “I had a school-district meeting, so…,” she said, as if apologizing for the takeout.

“Pizza again?” said Taro.

“Next time you make the call,” John’s mom said, not snappishly but in a matter-of-fact way that made me not want to mess with her. I remember John saying his dad taught high school math, and I knew his mom was a middle school principal, and it made perfect sense. They both seemed tough, but his dad was more stoic, his mother more fiery. I wondered what they were like as a couple. Victoria was extremely strong, but ultimately everything revolved around my dad. Here you got the sense that when John’s mom was home, everyone jumped to attention.