“You sure you don’t want to stay for dinner? It’s just the family. Gram’s coming round. It’s all Eden’s favourites of course. But you like kangaroo?”
I nodded. “I do. But I’m good thanks.”
Zane nudged me gently. “Come on. Stay. Give me some back up.”
I looked up at him and, under normal circumstances, would have baulked at our closeness. But I felt nothing wrong with it. I smiled at him gently.
“Eden will love that.”
Zane huffed a laugh that tickled my face. “True. Gram will be totally obsessed with your presence.”
“Next time, then?” Claudia asked.
I nodded. “Next time.”
She pointed at me as she turned to leave. “Promise?”
“Promise,” I laughed.
“Good.” As she walked out, she called back, “Hurry up and help with that gift, Zane!”
Zane and I laughed softly together. It didn’t really feel like awkwardness. But it felt like…that good kind of embarrassment. The one that you don’t regret or dislike, but where you don’t really know what to do next.
I cleared my throat and nodded at the bow. “Can you shift your finger over there?”
“No worries,” he answered as he did it.
I was impressed there wasn’t any quip about me telling him exactly where I wanted his fingers or something similar.
We got the bow finished with this air of expectation hanging over us. I felt like we needed to talk about what had just happened, but I didn’t know how to broach it. And I got a similar vibe off Zane. There was still no weirdness, just uncertainty.
He walked me to the back door and paused. “Thanks for coming to help.”
I looked at the ground. “Any time. You know that.”
We paused for another heartbeat.
Just as we both opened our mouths, there was a familiar call from the front of the house.
“Zaney!”
I grinned at his exasperated sigh. “Gram’s here, Zaney,” I teased.
He huffed a laugh and nodded. “I better go say hi. I’ll talk to you later?”
I nodded, feeling a little disappointed about something. “Definitely.”
“Cool. Thanks again, Char.”
“All good, dude.”
We nodded one more time, then the familiar ‘Zaney’, came again and I forced myself to turn around and go home.
The feeling of disappointment didn’t leave me all night.
And I couldn’t ignore or deny what it was about.
Zane had almost kissed me. Or we’d almost kissed each other. I didn’t know who’d started it off, but the end result would have been the same.
The only thing I could conclude was that I was disappointed it hadn’t happened. I wasn’t relieved it had been a near-miss. I was just a touch despondent I’d been denied.
Which suggested I wanted Zane to kiss me. Or I wanted to kiss him.
Which both excited and terrified me.
All I knew was that I needed to talk to Zane about it. I just still didn’t know how to broach the subject with him. I didn’t know if he wanted it broached. I didn’t know what I’d say, or I should say, or what he’d say.
Saying anything was probably going to be better than not talking to him at all though. So, I waited for him to message me. All night I waited. I checked my phone every few minutes like a total sad sack. Through my homework, dinner, more homework, getting ready for bed, and while I lay awake not sleeping.
By the time I’d looked at my phone for the twenty-fifth-hundred time, I gave in and dialled his number.
“Zane’s Zoodles, may I take your order?”
“Can I get the zoodles and meatballs, please. Heavy on the meatball.”
“Speaking.”
I snorted. “Of course.”
“It’s like…half-midnight,” I heard Zane answer with the familiar sounds of him reaching over to look at his clock.
“Sorry, I–”
“Nah. Don’t be sorry. I’m just surprised. Everything okay?”
“Yeah…” I paused.
“You in bed?”
“Yeah. You?”
“Yep.”
“I didn’t wake you?”
I heard the smile in his voice as he scoffed, “No. All good. What’s up?”
“Nothing. Just…hi, I guess.”
He breathed a laugh into the phone receiver. “Hey.”
I lay back down on my pillows, all feeling right with the world as I smiled. “Hey.”
Chapter 12: Zane
Something strange was happening. And it had all started with a non-kiss.
If Mum hadn’t walked in when she did, I would have kissed Charley. And Charley hadn’t seemed like she was planning on pulling away. In fact, I was almost certain she’d been leaning in. At least, my possibly unreliable memory was telling me she had been. So, it looked like maybe this whole spark thing hadn’t just been me after all.
I wanted to say I didn’t know what to do with that. I wanted to say things were weird between us now. I wanted to say that it would have been a mistake.
I couldn’t say any of those things. No part of me believed it.
Charley had called me later that night and we’d just talked like we always had. I’d driven her to school the next morning and it was like nothing had changed. Nothing except this air of expectancy that seemed to hang over us. It wasn’t suffocating, it was just interesting. It was like there was this thing hanging over us that we could talk about if we wanted, but we didn’t have to talk about it.
It added a depth to our interactions I’d never noticed before but felt totally normal. Charley smiled at me more, but didn’t seem to want me to see. Even over seemingly nothing. She just smiled at me in the corridor for seemingly no reason. It was like when we were younger and just seeing each other made us happy. And I felt the same. Just the sight of her had my breath catching and a smile growing.
She was busy glaring at Bleeker at Recess, but I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face.
When I saw her talking to Brock, my tune took a hard turn plummet.
I didn’t feel ridiculously, inexplicably happy at the sight of her. I was annoyed and I was jealous. For the first time in my life I was jealous. And even more unfamiliar, I was jealous of Charley talking to a guy. And it was only exacerbated when he said something that made her laugh.
I watched, my fists clenching of their own accord, as I saw her laugh at whatever he’d said. She added insult to injury when she brushed her hair behind her ear and looked down with that cute little smile that rarely came out. My heart thudded and I felt my jaw tighten. I wanted to hit Brock. That was a new feeling for me.
But why now?
Why was I jealous now?
Maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe all that mattered was what I was going to do with this. Only, I didn’t know. I didn’t know what I should do with it. And I didn’t know what I wanted to do with it.