Autumn's Kiss (2 page)

Taylor sits back in her seat, looking miffed. “I hate you all, and none of you are invited to my and Ryan's wedding.”

An air horn blows. The crowd erupts. I look for the scoreboard, but everyone is on their feet and I can't see it.

“What happened? Did we score?”

“It's over!” Jack shouts. “We won!”

“WE WOOOOOON!” I screech. I hoot and howl and jump up and down, and this time when the band comes out on the field and plays the school song, we all sing along.

“Soft serve?” Taylor asks. She already has her phone out, ready to text Ames so she can meet us wherever we go once she changes out of her uniform and does whatever bizarre postgame rituals cheerleaders do. Jack assumes it has something to do with human sacrifice, but Jack's weird.

“Shack at Deerfield Beach,” Reenzie says, already texting it. “I'm telling Sean.”

For just an instant, I want to lunge at Reenzie and breathe fire, but then I get it under control. The jealous thing is crazy. Sean and Reenzie are
not
a couple. Sean made it crystal clear after everything went down last spring that even though he had feelings for both of us, he was also pretty disgusted by us both and only wanted to be friends. And, yes, Reenzie is as hopeful as I am—if not more—that he'll change his mind and go from
our
friend to
her
boyfriend. And sure, she's known him forever, knows every detail about his life, including all the little things he loves best, and she looks like a Victoria's Secret model, so the odds seem stacked in her favor. But I know I'm the one with the upper hand. While Sean was away from town all summer driving around with his older brothers and hitting college football camps, he texted me almost every day. I have the pictures on my phone to prove it, shots of him with bizarre landmarks from all over the country: him grinning with the statue of the Jolly Green Giant in Minnesota; cuddling next to a statue of a giant sock monkey in Illinois; pretending to throw a stick for the Dog Park Bark Inn—an Idaho bed-and-breakfast shaped like a giant beagle…

Stuff like that. Stuff he knew I'd appreciate and think was funny. Stuff that showed he was thinking about me the whole time. And, no, when he got home, he didn't race to my house, sweep me into his arms, and kiss me—not that I had that fantasy…more than once an hour—but he's always smiley and a little flirty and we still text and joke all the time and…

It'll happen is what I'm saying. Sean and I will happen. I just have to be patient and keep reminding myself that no matter how Reenzie makes it seem, I'm the one he's moving toward, not her. It's
my
name that's written in the grass of his end zone.

Or something like that.

We're out of the stadium now, and I dance-walk as we make our way to the parking lot. It's a very Amalita thing to do, but I'm on a high from the game and every car around is blaring their radios crazy loud out the open windows and shouting and honking at anyone wearing Aventura High colors. We “WHOOO!” back at each one. With the sun down, I can even pretend it's cool outside, though it's actually still at least eighty degrees out and so humid I'm ready to leap into any body of cool liquid. A cup of orange juice, that would be fine. I'd dive right in.

Taylor joins me in the walking boogie. We bump hips every other step, even though she has to squat down so her hip doesn't nail me in the waist.

“Repeat after me,” J.J. tells me between hip bumps. “Shotgun.”

I take his hand and lift it so I can spin underneath. I've seen him dance—not with me, but with his on-again/off-again girlfriend Carrie Amernick—and I know he's good, but letting it out in a parking lot isn't his thing. Moving him is like moving a long, lean plank. Still, it's not like he stiffens up more or pulls away, so I do what he asks.

“Shotgun!”

“Winner!” J.J. cries. “Autumn Falls gets to ride right up front in Earl!”

“Real men name their cars after women,” Jack says.

“Real men don't keep their
Star Wars
Legos,” J.J. shoots back.

“It's an X-wing fighter,” Jack says. “Vintage 1999, the first year for official
Star Wars
Legos. Plus, it comes with Luke Skywalker, Biggs Darklighter,
and
a Rebel technician.”

“You do know you're talking out loud, right?” Taylor asks. “We can all hear you.”

“Especially me,” Reenzie sneers. “And you just lost riding privileges in my car.”

“Ergo,” J.J. declares to Jack, “you're in the back of Earl. Earl Yimmidy. Which is an anagram of?”

“My daily ride,” I say.

I know it because I came up with it. At least, I came up with the
my daily ride
part. J.J. figured out the anagram. Anagrams are J.J.'s thing. He's a freak for them.

“Branching off, Tee.” Reenzie rolls her eyes. “These people are weird.”

She and Taylor peel off toward Reenzie's car while the rest of us keep walking to J.J.'s. Even though we all drove in at the same time, J.J. insisted we park an eternity away so he didn't have to park Earl Yimmidy next to any other vehicle that might dent it in any possible way. He's a little insane about the new car.

“Are your hands clean?” J.J. asks as I reach for the passenger-side door.

“Shut up,” I reply.

The car
is
nice. Cars aren't my thing, so I know absolutely zero about it, even though J.J. has given me the full rundown about a zillion times and even offered to lend me the manual in case I needed some reading material.

Like I would (A) ever need reading material—I'm dyslexic, which J.J. knows, and the stuff I have to read for school is more than enough—or (B) ever in an eternity dream of reading a
car manual
for fun.

What I know about his car is the important stuff: it's sleek, it's black, I can adjust the passenger seat so it's completely comfortable, and as long as I take off my shoes and use one of J.J.'s car wipies before I get out, he lets me lean back and put my feet up on the dashboard, which is what I do now…after I choose one of the Sirius XM radio stations J.J. let me preset.

“Hey, Autumn.” Jack leans forward from the backseat. “When are you getting your license?”

“This time next never,” I shoot back lightly.

“Why not?” he asks. “Everyone wants to drive. It's un-American to be in high school and not want to drive.”

“I don't need to drive,” I say. I hear my voice getting a little tighter, but I try not to let it show. “You guys all drive, my mom drives, I can take the bus….”

“What about after graduation?” Jack persists.

“What if I go to NYU?” I snap back, wheeling to face him. “No one drives in New York, right?”

“What if you go to FSU?” he asks. “Everyone drives in Florida…except you.”

“At least Autumn would get into FSU,” J.J. says. “How'd that PSAT go for you?”

Jack's face goes bright red. We only took the PSATs last week and won't know our scores until December, but Jack's pretty sure he completely bombed it. I don't even know that firsthand. He told J.J. in confidence because he was totally freaked out, and I know he's got to be furious and mortified that J.J.'s talking about it in front of me. Normally, J.J. wouldn't. I mean, yeah, he'd tell me because we kind of tell each other just about everything, but he wouldn't bring it up in front of Jack. He's doing it on purpose because he knows the real reason I won't drive, and he knows I don't want to talk about it, so he had to do something big to shut Jack up.

I meet J.J.'s eyes and smile so he knows I get it. He smirks back at me. Say what you will about my lanky friend J.J. with the skin as vampire-pale as my own, but he has a great smirk. I enjoy it for a second, then lean forward and turn up the music so we can all stop seething and just rock out.

Deerfield Beach isn't far, and when we're almost there, I say to J.J., “Hit it.”

We've done this enough that he knows what I mean. He turns off the A/C, rolls down the windows, and opens the sunroof. It's basically a cardinal sin to turn off the A/C in Florida, but near the beach it's okay. The air here actually feels a little cool, and it smells thick and salty. I lean my head out and take deep breaths. With my orange hair flapping in my face, I probably look like a giant Irish setter, but I don't care.

We park in the lot of an old motel right on the beach. Half the school goes to the Shack for ice cream after Friday night football games and its parking lot is insanely jammed, but the motel is always so empty I don't know how it stays in business. Plus, there's no fence or anything, so we can just pull right in and walk to the Shack—it's all of a minute away.

Reenzie and Taylor are already waiting for us, sitting on the hood of Reenzie's car, but they jump off and run over when they see us. Taylor throws open my door. “So what do you think?”

“About what?”

“The tiger suit!” Taylor cries. “Didn't you see it? I texted you!”

I didn't hear my phone in the car, but I pull it out now. She sent me a picture of a woman with an absolutely perfect body slipped into a fuzzy orange-brown sheath with black stripes and a sheer white circle—the tiger's stomach—that shows off half her boobs.

“Are you kidding me?” I wail.

“You don't see it?” Taylor asks. “With your red hair? This would look incredible on you!”

We're walking toward the Shack now, and I tuck my phone in my back pocket. “No way,” I say. “I don't have the body to pull that off.”

“That's what Reenzie said,” Taylor admits, “but I think it would look really cute.”

I glare openmouthed at Reenzie.
Really?

“What?” she says. “I'm being honest. I'm not saying you have a
bad
body, just that it takes a very specific shape to pull that off well.”

“Pull what off well?” J.J. asks.

“Nothing,” Reenzie, Taylor, and I chorus.

“Come on, let us see,” Jack says.

“No!” I say.

“It's not like you're
in
it,” Jack says. Then he leers. “Are you?”

“NO!”

“Look, it's just this,” Taylor says. She hands Jack her own phone, which I guess has the costume on it.

Jack grins. “I like it.”

“Of course you do, perv,” I say. Sometimes Jack reminds me of my little brother, Erick, which makes me fear for Erick's future.

“Now picture Autumn in it,” Reenzie says pointedly.

“No. Stop,”
I insist. “Do
not
picture Autumn in it.”

“Picture Autumn in what?”

My heart stops at Sean's voice. If we're not together—or once we've been hanging out for like an hour or so and I'm used to it—I can be more patient and totally handle the just-friends thing. But whenever I first see him, this happens. My whole body gets flushed and my heart pounds and every single time he's touched or kissed me flashes through my head like I'm living it all over again.

I'm almost afraid to meet his eyes, like he'll see inside me and know exactly what I'm thinking. At the same time I
want
him to see it. Maybe if he understood how I feel, he'd finally get completely over everything that happened and we could be together again.

I lift my eyes to his, and I'm immediately sucked in. He's in long shorts and a school T-shirt, and his dark skin practically glows in the moonlight. His hair is still wet from the shower, and most of it is combed back from his forehead, but one wisp is sticking up. I'm dying to reach out and smooth it down…maybe lingering with my hands on his shoulders…staring into his eyes…

“Hey!” Reenzie chirps. “How did you get here before us?”

She prances into his arms like she belongs there, gives him a huge hug, then pauses in his arms to smooth the wayward chunk of hair.

I want to whip out my phone and show her all the pictures he sent me on his summer trip. Then she'd know who he thinks about when he's away and she'd back off. Or she wouldn't back off—she can get away with hanging on him like they're a couple even when they're not because Sean says she's like his sister. For the record, I would never in a million years crawl on Erick that way, even if he did look like Sean. In fact, ew.

“Got a ride from McNack,” Sean says. “He dropped a bunch of us off so we didn't have to park and walk. You guys like the game?”

I'm still not happy about Reenzie diving into Sean's arms, but since the upshot is that the conversation moves away from me in the tiger suit, I can be okay with it. While we all talk about the game and stand in line for ice cream, I snag Taylor's phone out of Jack's hands and give it back to her.

“You
do
need a costume, though,” she whispers to me. “Reenzie's party's only a week away.”

“I know,” I say. “I'll figure something out.”

I say it, even though actually doing it sounds like torture. I'm not supposed to figure out my own Halloween costume. I'm not supposed to be free Halloween night. I'm supposed to be at my own ridiculously tricked-out house, having my own major party with my friends, Erick's friends, and my parents' friends, and my outfit is supposed to be a whole-family coordinated adventure—something dorky yet amazing that my dad started planning and my mom started creating May 31, which is Halloween's half-birthday.

My dad was seriously into Halloween. It was his favorite holiday.

We're next in line for ice cream when a van pulls up and a slew of squealing, bouncing, and somersaulting girls pile out. The cheerleaders. They do a quick “GO INDIANS!” and then split off in a million directions like breaking pool balls.

“¡Mis amigos!”
Amalita throws her arms in the air and runs toward us. “Did you see I did an aerial? Did you see it? When I jumped off the pyramid!”

We all tell her we did and it was amazing. Some of us might have actually seen it happen too.

“What about you?” She smacks Sean's arm. “You didn't see?”

“I was playing football!” Sean protests.

“Make it up to me,” Ames insists. “Point me to Denny.”

Sean points to the road. “I tried to convince him to stay. He's hard-core.”

“¡Que verracos pasa!”
Amalita groans. “He never goes anywhere!”

“Except to the gateway of your heart,” Taylor sighs, purposely sounding like a Disney princess.

“
Callate,
Tay,” Ames says. “This boy is making me
loco.
”

“I was watching him today,” I say. Denny McNack was one of the guys on the field who
definitely
pulled off the turquoise tights. “He's cute.”