Page 9 of The Surprise
“My dorm’s getting fumigated, so I came home for the weekend, but Mom and Dad went out of town and sicced my grandparents on me, like they think I need a babysitter.”
“You’re in college?” I asked.
His smile was cocky. “Just started at the University of Washington.”
It’s a good school—or so my grandparents had said. “What year?”
“Freshman,” he said. “But I have some AP credit, so really, I’m like a sophomore.”
“That’s cool.”
“Alright,” he said. “You can come with me.”
“Huh?” I asked.
“I’m about to bail on this.” He threw his thumb over his shoulder at the dinner my grandparents were preparing inside. “And I’ll take you with me.” He hopped over the porch rail and started for his car.
“Wait.”
He turned back and tilted his head. “What? You afraid your parents’ll get mad?”
I was, yeah, but also, I didn’t even know him. Where was he going? What would we be doing? I felt like he ought to at least tell me that much.
He shrugged. “Doesn’t want to go on a date with a college boy.” He snorted. “Strange kid after all.”
I wasn’t totally clear that I had been asked out, but he did say a date.
That word—date—made my stomach flip. Jackson lookednothinglike the teens I was used to seeing. He was tall, he had broad shoulders, and his hair was long and shaggy and kept falling across his eyes. Plus, for some reason I couldn’t pinpoint, I hated that he called mekid, and I wanted to show him that I wasn’t one. “I’ll come.”
I hopped the balcony too, twisting my ankle as I landed, and gritting my teeth so it wouldn’t show. “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
It wound up being a really irritating party thrown by a few of his obnoxious friends. Other than me, there were only two other girls, compared to about six guys. I spent the first hour saying ‘no’ to everything the teens there offered me. And then I wound up calling my grandma and asking her to come pick me up.
Basically, until now, my love life has been pretty disappointing. In fact, if you asked me about it, I’d tell you that. Romance in a small town is practically nonexistent. What there is of it is lousy.
But now?
With Ethan’s gorgeous face hovering over mine, his breath warming my face, his muscles taut and trembling above me. . . Who cares how sad things were before? His lips are only a few inches away and I can’t help staring at them.
He notices, and his eyes drop to my mouth.
“All three of you are out now,” Whitney says. “Get off the mat.”
“Thank gosh,” Izzy says. “I’m sick of this stupid game.” She climbs off his back, jostling him, and Ethan compensates by rolling to the outside, freeing me.
Sadly.
And moments after the game ends, with Whitney and Emery duking it out until the bitter end, it’s time to eat.
Growing up, my family almost never ate together. Mom would order takeout, or sometimes she’d cook something, and then Dad would eat when he came in from outside. Mom rarely ate much dinner, preferring to hide in her room, usually drunk, and I’d eat alone.
In front of the television.
The few times we ate together, usually when someone like Aunt Donna came back home for some reason, it was always awkward. I felt like I had to make sure someone was talking, so I’d ramble on, only to have Mom snap at me to stop saying dumb things. Nothing I said was clever, and no one pretended otherwise.
I’m sure there are some great things about being an only child, but sitting here, surrounded by the noise and chaos of all these siblings and cousins, I can’t think of a single one.
