She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not(15)

Kenny nods. “Yes. Gage and I are the same age.”

“How come you’re my size? I’m only eleven.”

I see Kenny bite her lip in an attempt to hide a smile, and secretly thank Joss for being such a turd. “Just unlucky, I guess.”

Joss nods her head in agreement.

“How was practice?” I ask.

Joss shrugs as she spins to head up the stairs and change. “Killed it. Like always.”

“Such a humble child,” I say, turning back to Kenny. “Sorry—she doesn’t mean to be rude. She hasn’t quite grasped the concept of a filter.”

“Must run in the family.”

“Ah, she’s got jokes.” Swinging my arm around her shoulders, I lead her through the house. “Come on, Kenny, let’s meet the rest of the family.”

My mom hugs her the minute we enter the kitchen, because that’s who she is. We sit down to dinner almost immediately, and then my dad starts in, asking Kenny questions about herself which she handles like a champ. Even when he asks about her family. I see her tense slightly, but then she smiles and tells them her mom’s an ER nurse and her dad’s a foreman at one of the big construction companies.

After that, her shoulders seem to be looser, and her smile seems to come quicker. When Joss grills her about her position on baseball, Kenny looks at me out of the corner of her eye and smiles. “It’s improving.”

We finish dinner, and Kenny turns to me. “All right, Christensen, it’s time. I want to see if you were really cute as you claim you were.”

“He wasn’t,” Karen says, as she walks into the kitchen, her restaurant uniform splattered and dirty. Grabbing a wineglass, she pours it full and gulps it down on her way over. “Karen Christensen, the oldest and wisest of the Christensen kids.”

“And the clumsiest,” Joss offers. “Spill another plate, Kar? What is that, five this month?”

“Four.”

“Karen’s a junior at Cal Lutheran. She comes home more than is normal,” I say, and Karen flips me the bird. When Mom snaps at her, I smile and stand. “On that note, Kenny and I are going to look at pictures.”

Kenny stands, thanking my mom for dinner. She and my dad grin like idiots when Kenny turns around. I roll my eyes, but my own smile is pretty big.

I take Kenny’s hand and link our fingers while we walk down the hallway back toward the front door and up the stairs. At the end, we step into the den, a wide open space that holds my gaming consoles and the big television. It also holds all of our childhood pictures and such on shelves. Mine is packed with trophies from Little League.

“Hello, shrine.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I smile, releasing Kenny’s hand to grab a large photo album from the bottom of the book case. Then, I grab her hand again and lead her to the couch, pulling her down with me. She makes no move to put space between us, and I take that as a good sign. “Are you ready to be impressed?”

“Just open the book, Christensen.”

We spend another twenty minutes going through photos. Kenny laughs when she sees me as the scrawny little towhead I was, hair so white I look like a ghost, gap so large between my front teeth you can see straight into my mouth. She laughs even harder when we get to my middle school years that are filled with braces, sharp elbows, and skinny knees.

“Who would have thought you were so awkward?”

“Everyone’s awkward in middle school,” I shoot back. And then I remember the hauntingly gorgeous picture of a younger Kenny. “Except you. Have you always been beautiful?”

The comment is meant to be friendly, but I feel the air shift, and both of us stop laughing. We’re hip to hip on the couch, a picture album spread out over our laps. Suddenly, all I can feel is my side where Kenny is pressed against me. When I turn my head, I’m mere inches from her lips. My eyes track down to them, and then up again, her eyes wide.

But she’s not pushing away from me.

I lean forward slightly, closing the book and putting it on the couch. Kenny still hasn’t moved; her tongue slicks out and across her lips, drawing my attention again.

Like magnets, we move closer together until my hands are tangled in her hair, and hers are gripping the front of my shirt.

“I keep waiting for you to punch me,” I say, nose brushing against hers.

Her laugh is weak. “Me, too.”

“Well, as long as we’re both waiting.” I lean the rest of the way in, head angled, lips slightly parted. I can feel her breath against mine. My body tingles, and my heart thuds so hard against my ribs I’m surprised she can’t feel it. But I don’t move. I wait, giving her the choice, looking into her eyes. When she doesn’t pull back, I smile. And, then, I kiss the hell out of Kenny Russo.

Even better, she kisses me back.





Chapter 13


Week 4: Finance Fun


Kennedy

People are staring at me. More accurately, people are staring at Gage, and, since my hand is in his and he’s dragging me around the grocery store like we’re in a theme park, moving excitedly from one item to the next, he’s causing heads to turn.

There’s a neatly printed list in my pocket from earlier. Before meeting Gage at his practice, I went to the library and Googled low-budget shopping list. There was a recommendation for items to buy with twenty-five dollars, broken down into categories: grains, proteins, fruits, vegetables, and dairy. The budget Ms. Moyer gave us was low—especially since we have to pay rent.