BLAME IT ON THE SUNSHINE

CHAPTER 2 (JONAS)

DECEMBER 16

She strokes my cheek with her thumb and lets it linger around my lips.

"Thanks for tonight," she says. "This was fun. We should do it again sometime."

"We'll see about that," I say quietly, and she laughs. I wasn't trying to be funny.

I'm glad it's dark, because that means it's easier to avoid eye contact. I feel bad.

She is very touchy— hands on my arms, hands in my hair— but I kind of just want to leave right now. But we're in my car, and it would be a little bit rude to ask her to get out. Plus, I'm driving her home. Man, what an awkward situation. And yet this isn't the first time something like this has happened.

"Hey, it's getting late," I say, gently taking one of her hands and giving it back to her. "Better get you home before your parents kill me for keeping you out past curfew."

"We wouldn't want that," she says coyly. Thankfully, though, she gets into her seat properly and buckles up.

The drive is quiet, aside from her giving me directions every couple of minutes. The silence is slightly suffocating.

"I'm just up here on the left," she says, gesturing to the shadow of a house.

I quickly pull to the curb and hope that we're close enough. At this time of the night, the streetlights do little to distinguish these suburban houses.

"Here you go. This good?" I say, contributing the first piece of non-directional conversation of the entire ride.

"Yeah. Thanks so much, Mariano," she says, turning towards me with a brazen smile. It's weird hearing her call me by my last name. It's like she's bro-zoning me, as if we didn't spend the last hour wandering towards 50 Shades of Grey territory.

I respond with a smile, which I hope she can see despite the darkness.

"See you next year," she says with a wink.

"Ha ha," I reply. There's a pit in my stomach, and it seems to be deepening exponentially. "Have a good Christmas."

"You too," she says. She leans in for another kiss, so I panic and kiss her on the cheek instead. This makes her smile grow wider, and she gets out of the car without another word.

She crosses the street. Once she gets to the other side, she turns around and waves.

I wave back as normally as I can, even though I know it's half-hearted. Argh, I feel like such a jerk. Once it looks, to the best of my vision, like she's safely inside her house, I speed away towards my own home.

I feel better already.

☆     ☆     ☆

My house, unsurprisingly, looks dark when I pull up to my spot on the street. I'm sure everyone is in bed. And they all knew I was gonna be out late tonight anyways. Still, I decide to sneak in. Maybe just because it's fun.

I've perfected this routine, so I could probably do it in my sleep (literally, because I sleepwalk sometimes). I scale the tree in the front yard in record time, then shimmy onto the roof like the snake that I am (just kidding). The pit in my stomach is almost nonexistent now.

It takes me a little bit longer than normal to slide the window open, since I forgot to leave a big enough space open earlier, but that's fine. Also, the roof is a little bit icy, so I have to move slowly. The only thing that's really annoying is the cold. Thankfully, I manage to pop off the screen and hop inside my bedroom before I get frostbite and/or slide off the roof.