Cherry (29 page)

It felt like they were both trying to figure out what to say next when Zoe burst outside. She'd forgotten her cell phone in the car. Joey unplugged it from his charger and handed it over.

“Nice work, goober,” he said. “You're lucky I didn't drive off yet.”

“We were just catching up,” Alex offered. She felt lame for thinking the situation needed any sort of explanation at all.

“Cool, cool,” Zoe said, mocking the way Joey would sometimes. “But, like, get your own friends? Thanks, bro.”

Zoe seemed mostly oblivious to the sexual tension simmering between Joey and Alex. She slipped her arm through Alex's and pulled her toward Emma's front door.

Alex glanced back over her shoulder one more time before they went inside.

Obviously, he'd been waiting for her to look back.

He winked at her.

Oh wow.

That wink, Alex thought.

She could feel it in her entire body.

Later that night, as she stood in her bathroom, getting ready for bed, she could still feel the wink as if it had just happened. She'd thought about it all through dinner too. And then after dinner when Emma's dad made a speech.
And also after all of that when the girls snuck away and climbed out Emma's bedroom window and onto her roof to smoke a celebratory joint.

“Wyatt's dad has a medical card,” Layla had explained as she pulled the tightly rolled joint out of her pocket. The Crew didn't get high together very often, but everyone decided they could use a break from the inside of their heads and all their rambling thoughts and feelings for a minute or two. They passed the joint around for a while and then they sat on Emma's roof, laughing about how big the universe was and how small they all were—and they officially decided they needed more quality time together.

“Time and
quality
time are two totally different things,” Emma said, all high and introspective.

Zoe had suggested that they have a sleepover. Her ­parents were going to be out of town Friday night. She said Joey might be home, but he could probably score them some alcohol. All the girls were down, but Alex was especially glad she didn't have to come up with an excuse to see Joey again.

That wink
.

Alex was still feeling it.

Now she was also feeling a new sense of contentment pouring over her as she washed her face and brushed her teeth. She wasn't sure exactly where this new-ish feeling was coming from, but she knew that she liked it. Maybe it was because she was still high. Or maybe it was because this was one of the best nights she'd had with her girls in
a really long time. Or maybe it was because of the story Joey had told her outside of Emma's house. . .

Whatever it was, she couldn't stop thinking about that wink.

It was totally possible that she was reading too far into Joey's wink, the same way her friends at camp had read too far into her Mona Lisa smile. Maybe she was exaggerating their connection. Maybe it wasn't really as strong and seemingly instantaneous as she thought it was. Maybe she was overanalyzing the situation. Maybe she was just ­simply crazy.

Then she glanced down at her phone.

There was a waiting text message.

It was from Joey:
Heard you're sleeping over Friday night . . . glad I don't have to make up an excuse to see you again.

And there it was.

He felt the same way too.

Maybe, actually, she wasn't so crazy after all.

ALEX
couldn't remember the last time they'd had an actual sleepover.

The girls crashed at each other's houses all the time, after parties or late nights or for no real reason at all. But the last time the main plan of the evening was a sleepover? Alex had no clue.

“Wanna watch a movie?” Zoe asked, turning on the movie projector in her parents' guest house. She was expecting to see the Netflix homepage, but instead . . .

“Oh shit.” Layla laughed.

“Are those . . . ?” Zoe asked, turning her familiar shade of red. She wondered why her cheeks didn't just stay that way permanently.

“Yup. Those are two girls kissing,” Alex said, smiling.

There were, in fact, two naked girls making out on the screen.

“It's Joey's . . . ,”
she explained. His laptop was still hooked up to the screen.

“Well, it's hot,” Alex said. She wasn't sure if she meant the video itself or the thought of Joey watching it. Probably a little bit of both.

“I'm down,” Emma chimed in.

“Me too,” Layla said.

“Ohmigod.” Zoe squirmed, clearly outnumbered. “It's fine. I'll just be over here trying not to think about my brother getting turned on by this . . .”

Now that was all Alex could think about.

“Can we at least pick a different video?”

Alex's phone buzzed. It was a text from Joey:
Upstairs.

Alex couldn't help but notice the period at the end of his text.

It wasn't a question.

It was a statement.

And she liked it.

“Pick something hot,” Alex said, and then added a stupid excuse about wanting to go grab a Diet Coke real quick. It was the only thing she could think of that they hadn't already brought out to the guesthouse. She would have to go back into the kitchen to get it. “Anybody want anything else?” she asked, trying to appear casual. Inside, her heart was already racing.

She walked into the Reeds' living room, right past the kitchen and upstairs toward Joey's room. Her bare feet were cold against the hardwood floor. She could feel the word “magnetic”
swirling around in her head, as if that explained everything: She was being drawn toward Joey.

“Hi,” she said as she walked into Joey's room.

“Hi,” he replied, standing up to greet her.

Before she knew it, they were only a few inches apart.

That magnetism.

A spark from Joey's deep brown eyes slid down his face and parted his smile, and in one fluid movement he pulled Alex toward him, pressing his lips—firmly, sweetly,
perfectly
—against hers. The kiss was so natural and so obvious and so necessary, that it was actually the pulling apart afterward that felt strange. All she wanted to do was kiss him again.

But before she could, her phone buzzed. It was the girls, getting anxious.

“They're waiting for me—to watch your porn collection,” Alex explained.

Joey smirked and then pulled her in for another soul melding, mind crushing, body bursting kind of kiss.

Alex's phone buzzed again.

“Ugh. Okay.” She smiled. “To be continued . . .”

“Please stay?” Joey said as if the words had escaped through his lips without permission.

“I can't,” she said. She wanted to, but she couldn't. Not right now. “Chicks before dicks,” Alex added with a little laugh, knowing it would drive him crazy.

It did. And she liked that.

“All right, fine . . . ,” he said with an adorable shake of his head. He ran his fingers through his hair. “Me and my ‘dick' are gonna go take a cold shower.”

EMMA
woke up the next morning with a hangover.

It felt like a happy hangover, but still, her head was throbbing.

The girls had an incredible time last night. They drank and ate and giggled and watched porn. They spent some time in the Reeds' Jacuzzi, laughing about the warm jets and how if they positioned themselves just right on top of them, it might set off a fireworks display. It had been ­perfect—except for the fact that the hours they spent together might as well have just been a few minutes. Their time felt like it was flying, dripping away, and there was nothing any of them could do to hold it or stop it.

Emma's stomach was growling and her heart felt strange. All she wanted to do was be with Savannah. And talk to her. And maybe dance with her. Or maybe even kiss her again . . .

. . . but Savannah had stopped responding to her text
messages ever since Emma had been stupid enough to forget to invite her to dinner.

Clearly, Emma should've handled the whole situation better, but she hadn't. She'd messed up.

Emma went home and took a nap and woke up to a flurry of new texts in The Chat. Layla had sent a whole string of new inspirational quotes, as Layla so often did, and the last one was particularly pertinent for Emma's current state of mind. It was a picture of a bike along with the words:
to keep your balance you have to keep moving
.

Emma felt that.

For months, basically all year, she felt like she had been out of balance, entirely unsteady. But now she realized that maybe she was going about it all backward. Maybe her unsteadiness came from the fact that she was effectively attempting to stay in the same place. Everyone around her was moving forward. Because that's what people did. They moved. They evolved. Despite her fears Emma wanted all that too. But first she needed to find her balance.

All Emma wanted to do was jump on and pedal to Savannah's house.

So she did.

In her car, this hill leading up to Savannah's house just seemed like a little incline. Now, on her bike, it might as well have been a mountain. When Emma finally did make it to the top, she was covered in sweat. This certainly wasn't how she envisioned this moment with Savannah, but she didn't work so hard just to chicken out now.

She took a few deep breaths, attempting to steady
herself, but she knew the only way she was going to find steadiness or balance or whatever she wanted to call it was to actually move forward.

So that is exactly what she did.

She walked up the steps and knocked on Savannah's front door.

“What are you doing here?” Savannah asked, stepping outside to talk to Emma and closing the door behind her.

“You said I didn't need to make up excuses to hang out with you. . . .” Emma smiled, which made Savannah smile back too. And then Emma could feel why she was there.
This
, she thought as she looked into Savannah's eyes. This is what it was supposed to feel like. The hormones. The racing. This moment felt like everything she'd heard Layla and Alex and Zoe talk about. This was good. And it wasn't like Emma
hadn't
felt good before, because she definitely had. And it wasn't like she hadn't been aroused before . . . she had. But all of that? All of that
before
? It simply wasn't
this
.

She could feel that much for sure.

Emma could also feel her blood and her boobs and the butterflies and all of the sweat, still dripping down her back and neck and knees. She could see it all from the outside and feel it all from the inside, and she knew she owed Savannah an apology and more honesty and a grand gesture, too, and so she stepped forward, onto Savannah's welcome mat, and kissed her perfectly pink lips.

This kiss was long and hard and on purpose.

This!
Emma thought.

This was balance and movement all at the same time.

“Look at Emma O'Malley, kissing in public and everything . . . ,” Savannah said after Emma pulled away.

Emma laughed. “Does it count as being ‘public' if there's no one around to see it?”

“I don't know. What if a tree falls in the woods and there's no one around to hear it?” Savannah asked, joining in on Emma's laughter.

This
, Emma thought again as she caught Savannah's eyes.

“So. We can agree this is good, right?” Emma asked, repeating Savannah's words from the water polo match.

“Emma. If you're trying to
expectation
me right now . . .”

“I'm not
expectationing
anything,” Emma said, smiling with her entire face.

After a few more kisses on the front step, Emma found herself pedaling home even harder and faster than she had on the way there.

I kissed a girl and I liked it
, she texted The Chat as soon as she got home.

OHMIGOD YES
, Zoe texted back almost immediately.

I love it so much
, Layla texted.

Lucky Savannah
, Alex added.

Lucky me, Emma thought.

  *  *  *  

ALEX
's thoughts had been entirely consumed by Joey Reed.

The last time she saw him was about twelve hours earlier as she'd snuck
up into Zoe and Joey's Jack and Jill bathroom to say good-bye before she went home after the sleepover. She'd said hi—and then he'd said hi—and they'd been stuck staring at each for a moment until Joey said he had to see her again before he went back to school. And then he kissed her, and it rattled her soul, and it took every single ounce of self-control in Alex's body not to melt into a puddle on the floor right then and there. And then somehow she'd manage to survive the rest of the day and most of the night. As soon as her parents went to sleep, she'd texted Joey to come over. He'd snuck out of his house and now here he was, tiptoeing into the Campbells' kitchen through the back door as quietly as he could.

At first sight Alex wanted to kiss him everywhere and all at once, and the urge was so strong and overwhelming it had the exact opposite effect: It stopped her in her tracks. Alex felt like once she started to kiss him, she might never be able to stop, and the thought was absolutely terrifying and amazing all at once.

“I know . . . ,” Joey said, as if he could read her thoughts.

“You know?”

“You're bad news, Campbell,” Joey said, grinning.

Alex led him up the stairs and into her bedroom, slowly closing the door behind her. “Hi,” she whispered, not wanting to wake up her parents or Max.

“Hi,” Joey whispered back. Then he laughed.