From inside the dark room, the lights on the deck must have made Adam and me glow like a TV show. As we stepped through the door, everyone turned to stare at us.
I backed the slightest bit toward Adam. He squeezed my hand.
en the floodgates opened. e girls who’d surrounded Rachel flocked to me to squeal about Adam spray-painting our names on the bridge. e boys with bottle rockets on the dock had seen it before the sun set and had spread the news around the party. e people who’d surrounded Sean moved to Adam and ribbed him about misspelling our names.
Adam played this perfectly. He laughed it all off like he didn’t even care he was getting more attention than his stewing brother. He rubbed my shoulder and asked,
“Aren’t you hungry? We haven’t eaten.” He peered over my shoulder at the spread Mrs. Vader had laid out on the bar. “Party food isn’t going to cover it.”
“Starved.” I followed him around the bar that divided the living room from the kitchen. ere were partial walls on either side, so the kitchen was a little more quiet. At least we could raise our voices over the beat of Splender without making ourselves hoarse.
He opened the refrigerator door. “What’d they have for dinner? Chicken casserole.” He wrinkled his nose. “I don’t want the casserole of love, do you?”
“Definitely not.”
“Hey, chica,” Tammy called across the bar.
“Hey, chica,” I responded, and looked over Adam’s shoulder into the refrigerator again. en I realized what I was supposed to be doing. I walked around the bar, screamed, “Tammeeeee!” and hugged her while jumping up and down. This was a lot easier in bare feet than it had been in heels, let me tell you.
“Hi there,” she said, wrestling me off her. “You’re insane. I’m so late. My mom made me play in a stupid tennis tournament in Birmingham today. Where is everybody?” She peered into the kitchen.
“Don’t I count?” Adam asked from inside the refrigerator.
“That’s Adam, right?” Tammy whispered.
“Right,” I said. “Sean is holding court by the palm tree in the living room. The art geeks are outside in the grass.”
“The football team is on the dock, shooting bottle rockets into the lake,” Adam offered. I knew where his heart was.
“The trumpet line from the marching band is on the deck,” I said. “Who were you looking for?”
“You!” Tammy said. She handed me a small present wrapped in Valentine’s paper.
“Hey, thanks!” I said, ripping it open. “What’s it for?” My birthday was still a week and a day away, and I didn’t think anyone from school knew when it was. “How sweet!” I held up the eyelash comb, twirled it between my fingers, and slipped it into the pocket of Adam’s sweatshirt. I hoped I remembered to take it out again at the end of the night. If I didn’t, Adam would have some explaining to do next football season when it fell out of his pocket at practice.
“It’s a hostess gift,” Tammy said. “You know, when you come to a party, you bring a present for the hostess.”
“But I’m not the hostess. This isn’t my house.” I wondered whether she’d tripped over some tennis balls, hit her head, and forgotten she’d gone with me to my house last week, scaring the bejeezus out of the father figure.
“You’re the hostess because you’re the girlfriend of one of the hosts,” Tammy said.
Without meaning to, I glanced up at Adam. He’d closed the refrigerator door and leaned against it, watching me.
“Or pretending to be,” Tammy added.
Adam’s blue eyes widened at me. Something told me—and I am sure this was not feminine instincts, because we have established I did not have any of those—but something told me my explanation of how Tammy knew about the plot might go over better if I heated Adam up. I slid my arms around his waist and pressed close to him, backing him against the refrigerator. His eyes grew even wider.
I gave him a coy half-smile that probably ended up looking like the first signs of a seizure. “You know how girls are. Girls can’t make a move without telling other girls about it.”
“Yeah, girls are like that,” Adam told me, “but you’re not.”
Tammy cleared her throat.
Adam cleared his throat.
I cleared my throat, removed my hands from Adam’s waist, and brushed imaginary dust off his bare shoulders, setting straight any oafish damage I might have done.
From now on, whenever I got the idea that maybe he liked me a little, I would remember that he did not like me a little. I didn’t need to read his mind.
“Heeeeeeey,” Tammy squealed. She must have seen Holly or Beige or a super-cute boy—but no, it was only McGillicuddy. ey disappeared into the living room with their heads close together, shouting over the music. If she got rid of my approaching brother for me because she thought I needed some alone time with Adam to talk out our problems, she was wrong-o about me. Again. I started to follow her.
“Dinner’s ready,” Adam said behind me.
I looked toward the table in the kitchen. He’d set two of the places with knives, forks, spoons, and napkins. He’d placed a sandwich on each plate and sprinkled parsley flakes in a circle around it. Bam! He’d stacked the potato chips artfully in dessert bowls. He’d even lit one of his leftover birthday candles between our places. It all would have been really cute if he’d meant it. It was still pretty cute as a farce to make Rachel jealous, I supposed, but I wasn’t in the mood.
“Let me help you,” he said, pulling out a chair for me, as if I were a girl or something. Vivid imagination, this boy. I sat, and he scooted me up to the table.
He took a bottle of soda from the fridge and held it in front of me, like he was a wine steward. I nodded that the year was okay. He unscrewed the cap and handed it to me. I sniffed it like a wine cork, nodded my approval again, and handed it back to him. He poured soda into wine glasses for both of us, then sat down with me.
He took a gargantuan bite of his sandwich, chewed, swallowed, and looked at me. “What’s wrong?” Oh, nothing. That’s what a girl would say, and she’d sulk for the rest of the night. But I wasn’t capable of keeping my mouth shut. “I’m confused.”
“It’s not really wine,” he said. “It’s Diet Coke. And if anyone ever serves you brown wine with a foamy head, send it back.”
“ank you, Dr. Science.” I took a dainty bite of my sandwich. Adam was a real gourmet. Peanut butter and strawberry jam. “I’m confused because I thought you said I was flaunting, and now I’m not even a girl? I thought you said I was a good flaunter.”
“You are a good flaunter.” He swirled the Diet Coke in his glass and sniffed the bouquet.
“Then why am I not a girl?”
“You—Shit, I knew that’s what you were mad about. I didn’t mean it that way.” He leaned his head to one side and popped his neck. “You know as well as I do that you don’t act like other girls.”
“I’m working on it, though.” I was working so hard! I felt like crying into my salt and vinegar chips, which was a step in the right direction.
“But it’s good you don’t act like other girls. Of course, I don’t have any say in it, because you’re not after me. You’re after Sean.”
“You wouldn’t have any say in it anyway, you patriarchal freak.” I chomped a chip and said with my mouth full, “anks for cooking dinner. I love it when the little missus makes a house a home.”