Page 69 of Library or Lattes?

I put on my green scarf and spent some extra time on my hair. Teasing the red waves and keeping them loose, which I knew James liked, and putting on some mascara and lip gloss. I was going to confront him. Like I wasn’t going to be rude about it, but he’d admitted he had feelings for me and I’d done the same, so I wanted to know once and for all where I stood.

Because I realized I couldn’t make any decisions about the money, about my future, until I knew if James Parker was going to be a part of it. I looked at myself in the mirror before I left. Same red hair, same green scarf, but I was different. Ready.

My phone buzzed just before I walked out the door.

Lennie: Go get him RED x

I smiled at my best friend’s message, then headed right onto Maple Street.

When I got to the coffee shop, I stopped outside the window. Because something had changed! Along with all my decorations, there was a new sign:

DON‘T MISS

WILLA’S PUMPKIN SPICE COCOA! IT‘S TO

DIE FOR!!!

He’d drawn a creepy face beside it, and I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t even think he’d been listening when I suggested that. Now my confusion evaporated into the cinnamon-scented air, and my stomach turned somersaults.

There he was. And every single one of my nerve endings wanted to feel his touch.

I gazed at him for a few seconds, then followed his smile across the coffee shop. Talk about a shock to the system. James was smiling at the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen in real life. She was tall with blond hair and a perfectly symmetrical face. So tall and so perfect that she could easily be a model. She walked over to James, in her warning-light-red coat, and hugged him. I couldn’t look away, so I watched him hug her back as I caught the initial on the cream tote bag hanging off her shoulder.

A. A for April?

Oh my God, of course it was. His girlfriend. And if she was here this early in the morning, she’d clearly spent the night.

9 Library

OUR KISS IN THE RAIN had been like something from a movie. I couldn’t count the number of times I played it over in my head, round and round, and each time I remembered more details. Like where Theo’s hands where, the feeling of his fingers on my waist, the way his cheekbones popped under the streetlight in the shine of the rain. When these thoughts came to me at school, I literally bit my tongue to get them out of my head.

I hesitated before I sent the message to him now. I really—really—wanted to see him. But I had learned from my mistakes, and I needed to put in the time with Lennie.

Me: Hey. I just wanted to let you know that I won’t be able to come to the library today ☹, I’m meeting up with Lennie, we’re really getting our friendship back on track. Don’t work too hard without me x

I typed and deleted the x a thousand times. Was it too much? Should I have added another one? Then I got frustrated and just hit Send.

I felt my phone buzz during government, so I slid out my cell and hid it under the desk. The buzz wasn’t a message at all. Just a thumbs-up emoji.

I stared at the screen as stealthily as I could, waiting for the message to follow.

Theo is typing …

And then he wasn’t …

Theo is typing …

And then he wasn’t.

“Are you with us, Ms. Taylor?” Mr. Schade looked at me skeptically.

“I am, sorry, Mr. Schade, I was just turning off my cell.” I smiled and made a big thing of dropping the phone into my bag as Mr. Schade went back to talking about some president.

There was still no message after class. Just that stupid little thumb sitting there, saying a million different things that I couldn’t decipher.

I was mega-irritated by the time I got to the coffee shop. After all the time we’d been spending together? After that last kiss? All I got was a thumbs-up? The familiar smell of the coffee shop couldn’t calm me down today. Lennie had stayed after school to talk to a teacher, so we were meeting at the Acorn, where I’d promised to grab our favorite table before the afternoon rush. I ordered hot cocoa and some pumpkin cookies, hoping the sweet, rich chocolate and serious sugar overload would make a difference.

“Oh my God, why so angry?” Lennie dumped her bag on the floor and sat down opposite me. I hadn’t even seen her come in, since I was just staring at that goddamn thumb on my screen.