First & Then(71)

I nodded, even though I didn’t really understand. It was like Foster said: I could never really get it. I could never really understand. But I could strive for empathy. I could at least do that.

“So with Foster … was that the secret? He said you guys had a secret. Is it that you both … get it?”

“No.” Suddenly Ezra made a face, and when he spoke next, it came out rushed. “Dev, I was really, really stupid to go to Homecoming with Lindsay. I mean, that was just … dumb.”

I wasn’t expecting such an abrupt turn. Suddenly I couldn’t meet his gaze. I was too embarrassed. “I don’t know. If she had asked me, I probably would’ve said yes.”

He huffed a laugh, but when he spoke again, his tone was serious. “I kind of panicked. I thought you’d be there with Cas. From everything Lindsay said, I thought you and he were…” He trailed off.

“Yeah,” I said again, forcing more life into my voice. “I, uh … I was kind of convinced that you and she were, like, totally in love or something.”

“No. No way. I mean, we’re friends, and she’s really cool, but she’s not…”

His type? I flashed on Foster saying that in gym class, what his type was. Whose type was less like Lindsay Renshaw?

“What, you like ’em flawed?” I couldn’t help but say. “Wooden teeth and backward hands and stuff?”

“Backward hands?”

My face was red. “You know, when like the backs are where the palms are supposed to be, and … vice versa…”

“Yeah, I know loads of girls with backward hands. Those are the ones you gotta watch out for.”

“Shut up.”

He smiled, and I felt some circuit close inside me, some charge beginning to flow.

“Dev, you have to know by now … you were the secret.”

“What?”

“You want to know why I partnered with Foster, that first time in gym class? Because I knew he was your cousin. And partnering with you had been kind of disastrous, so I thought the next best thing would be to show you that I could at least be decent to him. Obviously afterward I realized how cool Foster is, and that we had stuff in common, but initially it was just … I just wanted you to like me.”

It was said in such a guileless manner, like one of those first-grade notes, DO YOU LIKE ME, CHECK YES OR NO. All I could do was stare at Ezra.

“You liked me since that first gym class?”

He nodded. “Since I said ‘get a ball’ and you said ‘get it yourself.’”

“That’s when the liking started?”

“The initial liking, yes.”

“You had a weird way of showing it.”

“Yeah, well, I tend to make a pretty shitty first impression. And second and third and fourth and fifth impression.” There was a pause. Ezra shifted back and forth for a moment. “So … did I ruin it?”

“Ruin what?”

He shrugged. “Any chance for … an attachment.”

My hand struck out and hit him on the shoulder before I could think. “That’s Jane Austen. You read Jane Austen!”

He nodded. “I went and bought that book you had after I found it at the field.”

“Sense and Sensibility? Why?”

“So I’d have something to talk to you about. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but conversation isn’t one of my strengths.”

“How were you going to work it in?”

“I don’t know. Maybe if we were hanging out, and there was a conversational lull, I could be, like, ‘Man, that Willoughby’s a dick, right?’”

“He’s not, really. He is but he isn’t. Mr. Wickham’s the real douche bag of Jane’s work.”

“Yeah, Wickham. I f*cking hate that guy.”

“You read Pride and Prejudice, too?”

“I thought it was like a sequel or something.”

No one had ever read a book for me before, let alone two. Eighth-grade boyfriend Kyle Morris asked me out via text message.

“I don’t know how to talk like they do,” Ezra continued after a moment. “But … I feel about you the way they feel in those books. The way those guys feel about those girls that they don’t always deserve.”

I met his gaze for a second. That was all I could manage, torn between embarrassment and elation. “Some of them are really deserving,” I said. “Some of them are great. And not at all douchey.”

He grinned, crooked bottom teeth and all. “Not at all douchey. That’s awesome. I should put that on my résumé.”

I laughed, a short breath of laughter. And then it was quiet.

And for a moment more there was space between us and I was acutely aware of it, and then suddenly there was significantly less space. Ezra moved, or I moved, I don’t know—it doesn’t matter, because there was Ezra Lynley, eyes turned down as he slipped his hands around my waist. I rested my hands on his shoulders as if we were going to dance a middle school dance, but there was no room for the Holy Ghost, or being nervous, or awkward, it just felt right. Intensely right, intensely excellent, and then he looked at me and it was that most golden moment of Jane’s books sprung to life. It was the getting-together part.