Tweet Cute(78)

Pepper clears her throat. “Well, obviously we need to petition for a better ship name.”

Some of the awkwardness diffuses, but the tension is still there, tight like a coil between us.

“Jepper? Pack?”

“Pass,” she says, nudging me with her elbow again—and then something shifts. The apartment is eerily still, with the same kind of quiet there was in the pool the other day, where you’re not sure if it’s actually quiet or if the rest of the world’s sounds just don’t apply to you anymore.

“Maybe just Jack and Pepper, then,” I concede.

There’s a ghost of a smirk on Pepper’s face, but she’s so close, I can hear it more than I can see it. “Pepper and Jack,” she corrects me. Then her eyes light up. “Pepperjack.”

It’s ridiculous, but the word is like a key turning into a lock. And then impossibly, even though some part of me knew it would happen the moment I saw Pepper walk out of the subway, we lean in and our lips touch and we’re kissing on my couch.

It is awkward, and messy, and perfect. We’re so bad at it, but even in the first few seconds I can feel us getting better, her hand hesitant and then sure as she sets it on my shoulder, our lips giving way to each other’s, this self-conscious, giddy little laugh escaping Pepper and humming in my teeth.

“Wait.”

The laugh is already dissolving out of her face when I pull away, and crap, I don’t know what I’m doing or why I’m doing it now, but I was wrong. I can’t lie to her. I can’t start something that feels this big built on what still feels like a lie. I just didn’t understand how big it was until it was already happening.

“You’re right,” Pepper blurts, a mile ahead of me. “I mean, we’re just—I don’t know. My mom, and the whole thing, and I…”

“No, not—I don’t care about that.”

She looks equal parts panicked and exasperated. “You were the one who said wait.”

“It’s just that there’s something I need to tell you.”

“Oh.”

Her eyes are already starting to dim, and my brain is scrambling for the words I need to recover when, without warning, the front door cracks open and a woman says, “Pepper Marie Evans, what on earth do you think you’re doing?”

Pepper snaps herself away from me so fast, I might have burned her. My back is turned to the front door, but judging from the sheer horror in Pepper’s eyes, I don’t need to fully turn around to know it can only be her mother.

What I’m not expecting to see when I finally turn is my dad walking in right behind her, looking both exasperated and furious. It isn’t until his eyes meet mine that I realize the fury is reserved for none other than me.

“Mom?” Pepper bleats. “How did you—what did you—”

“What, you didn’t think I’d see this plastered all over the internet?” says Pepper’s mom, walking into our apartment without even a beat of hesitation, as if her name is on the lease. She shoves a phone in Pepper’s face, pointedly ignoring me. Pepper tilts the screen so I can see it too—the picture of the two of us with the middle schoolers has already accumulated four hundred retweets, with both the Big League Burger and Girl Cheesing accounts tagged.

I gulp. Literally gulp, like I’m in some bad sitcom, or maybe just a really off-the-wall dream that I’m going to wake up from any moment now. But it only gets weirder from there.

“Ronnie,” says my dad under his breath, “there’s no reason to—”

“I rarely, if ever, have set rules for you, Pepper.” By now she is towering over the both of us, and we’re sitting on the couch utterly paralyzed. “But I told you very specifically to stay away from that boy.”

She says “that boy” as if I’m not even here, but I can’t even let that demoralizing fact wrap around my brain—Pepper and I are both staring at each other, my dad’s “Ronnie” still an open question dangling in the air between us.

“I—I needed to use the oven.” Pepper is redder than I’ve ever seen her, and I can tell it’s every bit on my behalf as it is for hers. “There’s a bake sale tomorrow, and I know you didn’t want me to bake, so—”

“Get your things. We are leaving, and having a very long discussion about the appropriate punishment on the taxi ride home.”

Pepper reaches for her backpack, shoving her phone into it and zipping it up with shaking hands. She looks back at me, her eyes searing with a desperate kind of apology in them. I’m too stunned to react, my mouth hanging open, still buzzing from a kiss that feels like it happened in some other lifetime.

In her panic, Pepper reaches for the half of a Kitchen Sink Macaroon she hadn’t finished yet. Her mom reaches her hand forward and picks it up first, holding it up and scrutinizing it. Out of context, I would have laughed—I’ve never seen a grown woman look so inexplicably furious at a dessert before.

“Figures,” she mutters to herself. Then, for some reason, she turns to my dad. She opens her mouth to say something, and he tilts his head sharply—not quite shaking his head, but making enough of a movement there’s no mistaking its intention.

She lets out whatever breath she was going to use to say something to him, sets a hand on Pepper’s shoulder, and guides her out of the room. Then they’re gone, the apartment door slamming behind them, leaving me and my dad in total silence.