Relying On Ben and Jerry (Waltham #1)

Chapter Two: My Drool and Sailboats

The boy standing in front of me could make glaciers melt and take Antarctica right off of the map just under the gaze of his transfixing blue eyes that that amazing gleaming white smile. He could have been an Abercrombie model posing next to a fallen tree with no shirt on, the look on his face pensive as he gazed off into wherever those models are ever looking. His hair was as black as midnight skies with glittering stars, his skin tanner than I would have expected a northerner to be, but I was a little naïve and biased and my head hurt a little from being in a car and sleeping against a window.

I was too busy staring at him to notice that he was staring right back, and he was laughing.

I blinked. “What?”

“I think you got a little drool there,” he told me, gesturing to my cheek. I stared at him incredulously before I remembered my careless state, and I felt my face turn bright red. My hand shot up and rubbed at my cheek hard, not even caring if it hurt, just wanting to curl up and die somewhere. He was still smiling, so it was easy to hope that he thought I was just too amusing, but there were varying degrees of embarrassing, and this was the highest one on the list.

My face was so hot that I was sure I resembled a tomato as I stammered out, “T-thanks.”

“So you’re going to Waltham, right?” he asked me, starting up a simple conversation like good neighbors did. When I nodded with bobble-head enthusiasm, he added, “Are you a junior?”

“Yeah,” I told him. “You?”

“No, senior,” he replied, grinning, and I nearly cursed under my breath.

“My brother is a senior,” I said, babbling to ensure there would be no awkward silences. Not on my watch. No, sir-e. “Even though he’s a senior, I wouldn’t really advise you to hang out with him. I’m nearly ninety-eight percent sure that he has herpes.”

The gorgeous boy standing in my drab new living room, this neighbor boy named Quinton, threw his head back and laughed when I made a joke. I nearly screamed and hopped up and down like a tween at a Justin Beiber concert at my mighty accomplishment, but I still had a teenie piece of my dignity left.

“You’re funny,” he complimented me as if I didn’t already know it. He cocked his head to the side. “Do you know when you’re going to start at Waltham?”

What was up with the Hottie Inquisition going on here? I didn’t know, but I liked it.

“I’m not sure,” I relented. “I have to take some standardized state test but I already have my classes picked out for the most part. Just depends on the test.”

He nodded absently, like what I was rambling about made all the sense in the world to him. Half the time I wasn’t even entirely sure I was speaking English.

“What classes do you have picked out?” he continued.

“I hardly even remember. A couple of AP classes, like history and English and biology, but for my electives I have . . . drama and some class called History of Rock. Is that class for real or was I being Punk’d?”

“Totally real,” he promised me, looking down at me and smirking a little. Maybe it was a grin. I was just too distracted by how far I had to tilt my head back to get a good view of his glorious face, as well as his striking white teeth. Damn, I have never seen a pair of choppers that blinded me like this boy’s did.

I blinked when I realized I was staring, and I hoped he would think that my blush was left over from the drooling incident, but something in his eyes told me that he knew. I chewed on the inside of my lip, every cell in my body panicking. Contrary to popular belief, guys didn’t normally flock to girls into gymnastics, science-fiction, and ice cream. I tended to leave the flexible thing out of conversation to keep things from getting awkward.