The Takedown(83)

“I recall you taking mine, amigo.”

“Agree to disagree. That day, I got why people dug it. I’d never felt so connected to someone or so ready to be immersed in all their messiness. I never felt happier and all I was doing was holding your hand.”

“Aw,” Rory sighed.

We glanced behind us. Startled, Rory looked skyward, like the clouds had just called his name. Sharma simply stared at us, not even trying to pretend she wasn’t listening.

“Keep going,” the Russian grandmother said.

Mac cleared his throat; even quieter, he continued, “I know you think I want us to go out so I can, like, run your bases, but it’s not that. It’s that I kinda knew from the first time we held hands that we fit—really nicely—and that it was special. And, well, yeah. That’s sólo todo what I had to say. That’s all I got.”

Rory clomped his ski gloves together in muted applause. Sharma discreetly wiped at her cheeks, then punched Mac lightly on the arm. Mac’s eyes roved over my face.

“Nah,” he said. “That’s not all I got.”

Tea sloshed on the sidewalk as he lifted me off my feet. With our noses touching, he swung me back and forth. Just as Mac angled his lips down to kiss me, I snuck a hand up and clamped it over his mouth.

“I don’t want to be your girlfriend.” Before all the happy drained from his eyes, I hurried on. “I haven’t just been worried that you’ll break up with me; it’s that I don’t ever want to experience a day when either of us ‘moves on.’”

Mac set me down. I kept my hand over his mouth.

Through my glove, he said, “So now we’re getting married?”

“No, dummy. I’m saying ‘just friends,’ ‘going out’…the labels don’t work. They’re all too limiting, because I love you, Mackenzie Rodriguez. And—fingers crossed—I’m also going away to school for four years. Which means if we date, we’ll have to break up at the end of summer, because everyone knows you don’t date your high school boyfriend past high school. And I can’t imagine a day when I won’t want you in my life.”

We both got a little teary. I wiped my nose on my coat sleeve.

“Gross,” he sniffed. “So this means you promise to be in my top five lost contacts when the Virus strikes?”

I nodded. “Macky, I am exhausted with not kissing you. But be warned, if anybody other than me gives you a continental-sized hickey in the next few months, I will get Sharma to delete your fantasy-fútbol team faster than you can say ‘skank.’ And, for the record, even though you’re taking me to prom, I refuse to do it with you in the back of some car or, like, dirty motel room afterwards.” I took my hand away from his mouth. “Now say something.”

“Lo siento. I spaced after ‘I love you, Mackenzie Rodriguez.’ So we’re not going out again?”

“Correct. But we are also not not going out.”

Behind us, Rory said, “Uh, so what’s your CB relationship connection gonna read? On-Again, Off-Again?”

“Free Spirits?” Sharma asked.

Mac danced that eyebrow up. I bit my lip, trying to hold back my smile. There was only one out of the hundreds of connection descriptions that fit us.

“You Wouldn’t Understand,” we said together.

And just as we leaned forward to kiss, the bus arrived. The line surged. Rory hurried forward. Sharma looked back at me with a you’d better not stick me with this guy glare. Russian grandma behind me ran her suitcase into my heels.

“What I understand is that the line has moved.”

I took Mac’s hand. He smiled at our interwoven fingers.

“Yeah, that’s better,” he said as we moved toward the bus. “And, hey, did you just ask me to prom?”





Two and a half hours later, a little before noon, we were off the bus, and the Elite Rory pinged—now that Sharma was present, look who had credits—was pulling up in front of the tan, aluminum-sided house that Jonah Logan called home. Mac let out a low whistle. The whole neighborhood didn’t look more than ten years old, but I got the feeling that in those ten years newer, fresher neighborhoods had been built and all the people with lawn mowers and, like, hedge trimmers had moved there. Maybe it was the gray day, or maybe I was used to living in a building that had nearly two hundred years of character built into it, but Jonah’s home equaled so dingy it was unnerving. Mac squeezed my hand. He hadn’t let go of it since we got off the bus.

“Wait for us, please,” Rory said.

“I got you,” the car replied.

The woman who opened Jonah Logan’s door was wearing a bright pink sweatshirt, mom-khakis, and running shoes. I already knew what Jonah’s mom looked like. She was in one of the GoogSatellite pics. What it failed to capture was her warm smile. When I told her we were there to see Jonah, she brightened even more.

“Ooh, friends from school?”

“Sure,” I said. “Why not?”

“Come in. Come in. He didn’t tell me friends were coming. I would have cleaned up.”

From the small foyer, we stepped down into a living room that was not a whole lot larger than mine. I’d thought suburban homes were supposed to be huge. Granted, there was an identical space right across the hall. Like a second living room. With a whole other set of couches. The décor was a little bit country, but the tech was top-of-the-line. Each room had a home hub—each room—plus holo wall screens and a voice-tech system I didn’t think came out until next year.