“And she apparently broke up with her boyfriend because she’s interested in someone else.” Jeremy shook his head. “My baby brother and Erica Porter. And I thought she had taste.”
I didn’t respond. Talking with Jeremy was challenging under any circumstances. Talking with him about girls was not a thrilling prospect. My relationship with Erica was purely academic at the moment, but as strongly as I tried to point out that fact to my burning-hot face, it kept flushing as red as ever.
Was it possible that she was into me? We’d always been friendly, but today was the first time she’d hugged me, and the hug had been long enough for word to spread back to Jeremy.
“So what does Erica think about your weekend girlfriend?”
That snapped me out of my reverie real quick. Mom had been asking me about Jolene more and more lately, and since I’d made sure that I looked like myself in the subsequent photos Jolene and I had taken, she’d warmed up to seeing them and commenting on every detail quite freely, even when Jeremy was around.
“Erica doesn’t know about Jolene, who is just a friend. Both of them are friends.”
“Oh yeah? So you wouldn’t mind if I showed Erica that last picture of you with your ‘friend’?”
He was talking about the one Jolene and I had taken right before Jeremy and I left for home last weekend. We’d been walking around the front of the building while Jeremy said goodbye to Dad upstairs, and we’d stopped under one of the boarded windows when Jolene had noticed a bird’s nest peeking out from one broken top corner.
When she’d complained about not being able to see if there were any eggs, I’d bent down and offered to lift her up on my shoulders. It had felt like a harmless gesture until I stood and her chilled fingers wrapped under my chin. I don’t think she had any idea how close I came to dropping her when she made that little contented noise and pressed more of her hands against my warmth.
There hadn’t been any eggs, but Jolene’s ever-present camera had been around her neck and she’d agreed to let a passing stranger hold it long enough to snap a pic of us, which she’d then sent to me. In the photo, Jolene was grinning and pointing at the empty bird’s nest and I was grinning and looking up at her.
It was my favorite photo yet.
And it definitely wasn’t something I should show another girl I liked.
Jeremy kept trying to rile me up and get me to spill about Erica, but I kept my responses to a bare minimum until he finally gave up. It was strange how easy it was to shift my thoughts from Erica to Jolene with only a twinge of regret.
Erica was the girl I’d dreamed about for years who had invited me over to her house next week to get an early start on our project.
Jolene was the girl who teased and unsettled me more often than not but had willingly become my accomplice in my scheme to keep my mom happy. I’d been a sweaty, nervous mess with Erica that afternoon at lunch, but with Jolene, the more time we spent together, the easier it became.
Even in Jeremy’s still-freezing car, I was looking forward to hanging out with Jolene on Dad’s next weekend almost more than the promise of one-on-one time with Erica. That was the strange part.
THIRD WEEKEND
October 23–25
ADAM
“Don’t move!” Jolene’s hand wrapped about my chin and turned it forward again. “You’re going to end up looking like Lloyd Christmas, and it’s not going to be my fault.” She moved in front of me and ran a comb through my hair several more times before snipping the ends with scissors.
“I have no idea who that is.”
“Duh. Jim Carrey in Dumb and Dumber, the first movie written and directed by the Farrelly brothers. Your life is frighteningly sheltered.” She lowered the scissors and frowned. “Actually, I think that’s their only film that Peter directed by himself.”
I pulled back when she leaned in with the scissors again. “Wait, that was a possibility? I thought you were just going to trim it. That’s what you said when you got back from your soccer game.”
She stepped on top of both of my feet then, pinning me to my chair when I would have jumped up to check the mirror. She also rested her palms on my knees, which probably had more to do with keeping me sitting than her full body weight on my feet.
“You’re so jumpy. I’m very good at this. You’re going to look great as long as you stop moving every two seconds. Now, stay still.”
I did. She moved to my side and kept cutting. I did wince a couple times, but she hissed at me through teeth that held a fine-tooth comb. “I have seen Dumb and Dumber, by the way. I just didn’t memorize the characters’ names.”
“Why not? It’s good stuff—the first one, not the sequel.”
The cold metal of the scissors brushed my ear and I froze, expecting my flesh to be cut. Instead of pain, the next sensation I felt caused me to place a death grip on the underside of my chair.
Jolene blew on my neck.
Then she did it again.
“Voilà!” She removed the towel from around me and twisted it in a flourish like a matador. “You, my friend, are finished.”
I kind of felt like I was as I lifted my hand to trail over my neck and the skin that was still tingling from her breath.
She pressed a mirror into my hands. “What do you think?”
“It looks good,” I said, glancing in the mirror and trying to steady my breathing.
“You barely looked. Here.” She moved behind me and extended the mirror in front of us. She was pressed into my back this time, but it felt like that day when she’d held my phone and taken our first picture. Only not quite. Her hands were running through my hair, pulling it this way and that, trying to get my cowlick in the back to lie flat. She was asking me questions, commenting on how I no longer looked like a Wookiee in training. Our eyes met in the mirror, hers glinting with laughter, mine trying to drink in every inch of her face. Every inch of her.
The first time I’d felt the impulse to kiss her, it had been little more than a reaction to being close to a pretty girl. This time, proximity played a role, but the reason was that the pretty girl was Jolene. I’d let her shave my head bald if she wanted to, as long as she stayed this close to me. Closer.
But she didn’t. We snapped a pic for my mom, then she moved away and flopped onto her couch, her hair twisted and coiled around her head.
“Why don’t you ever wear your hair loose?” What would she do if I kissed her? Would she laugh it off? Could I let her if she tried?
“Says the boy with two inches of hair. How long does it take you to do your hair? Like a minute when you’re feeling fancy?”