Paper Flowers (Pretty Plastic People) ★

016. Friday Night

My brain is running a mile a minute, both from excitement and worry. Taylor wants to go out of a date—what does that mean for me? What if people see us?

"Erika?"

Instantly, I snap back into focus. "Right! Um, I'm free. No plans."

"Cool. Can I talk to you? There's some really important stuff I have to tell you."

I turn on my car and buckle my seatbelt, pressing my phone into my ear against my shoulder. "No problem," I say. "You want to come over to my place?" Allison will be out—she's been avoiding the house whenever possible since she found out about her adoption—so we should have the place to ourselves.

He agrees and I hang up to focus on the road. Somehow, though, my mind keeps drifting, and I have to mentally scold myself every time I catch myself daydreaming so my car doesn't drift, too.

Taylor's car is already parked in my driveway when I pull up, stopping halfway up because I can't get around him to my usual spot. When I start walking to the door he hops out of the driver's seat and follows me. He's a picture of tall and tanned, dark and handsome, and I force myself to keep my eyes on where I'm walking instead of who's beside me.

"What'd you want to talk about?" I ask as I unlock the door and kick off my shoes in the entryway.

He follows suit and automatically heads into the living room. The familiar picture of him walking around my house takes me back to when we were friends, when it wasn't unusual to see him raiding my pantry or watching TV on my couch. Maybe it's not too late to make that happen again.

"Are you home alone?" he asks, sitting down on the couch.

I sit down beside him, so that our legs are barely touching, and nod.

Stretching, he places one arm around the top of the couch so that it's curled lightly around my shoulder. I don't know whether or not to snuggle into him so instead I sit still and rigid as a statue, waiting for him to say something.

"I talked to my dad," he says. "Turns out my family is even more messed up than yours."

"What do you mean?"

His fingertips press lightly against my shoulders, massaging them absentmindedly. "Allison and I aren't even siblings," he says. "Her mom had an affair while she was married with my dad and had Allison. My dad divorced her and remarried before having me."

He says it all so quickly that I know it's hard for him to tell me. He's not even looking at me anymore; his gaze is fixated to the living room carpet and our sock-clad feet.

"I'm sorry." I don't know what else to say, so I just let that dangle in the air instead.

"It's okay. I'm not the one who's hurt. If Allison finds out, she'll be crushed."

Instinctively, I lean into him, resting my head gingerly against his shoulder. His arm tightens around my shoulders and I chew down on my lip. We kissed earlier in the week and now I was overthinking the way he was putting his arm around me?

"I think we should tell her," I say, just so that I'm focusing on something else than how close he is to me. When he wrinkles his nose in disagreement, I press, "At Aquino High, secrets are always pushed out into the open, anyway. It's better that she find out from us, right?"

"I guess." Something tells me that he's not thinking about Allison anymore, because his fingers have started pressing against my shoulders again. When I glance sideways at him I see that his eyes look darker than usual as they bore into me.