There it is. So honest.

  Just like that.

  When he looks into my eyes, I see reflecting in his nothing but calm and safety, but even then I still turn away when I feel more tears teetering at the edges of my eyes again, threatening to overflow and ruin this.

  Speechless, I drop my head until I’m staring at my feet.

  I can’t stop shivering, so he insists I borrow a pair of his sweatpants and a sweatshirt. After changing into them, I exit the bathroom to the low hum of music echoing toward me down the hallway. It sounds like one of my favorite indie songs, which means Cale has gotten ahold of my phone; there is no way he has this obscure song on his playlist. Not a chance. He’s more of a rap/hip-hop guy. It makes me smile, thinking that he plugged in my songs and not his.

  The smell of butter sizzling on a hot griddle hits my nose as I peer into the kitchen. What’s going on in there? Trying to be sneaky, I slide across the stone floor when someone grabs me from behind, squeezing me in the middle before letting me go.

  I scream and turn to find Cale standing there, towering above me, laughing at me.

  “Will you quit sneaking up on me all the time?” I say. “For once I’d like to have a shot at surprising you, okay?”

  “If you’d quit trying to sneak around everywhere, then sabotaging you wouldn’t be so tempting.”

  “I wasn’t sneaking. I was looking for you. How’d you guess my happy music, anyway?”

  He looks at me funny, his serious look trying not to slide into the goofy, and trying hard too, because he starts laughing and then gets all serious again.

  “What?” I ask, feeling self-conscious.

  “Um . . . you have a playlist called ‘happy music.’ I know you don’t think I’m a genius, but I’m not an idiot, either.”

  “It does not say that,” I say, running around him to the iPod dock sitting on the kitchen desk. He’s right. I didn’t know I had a “happy music” playlist.

  Another thing about my life I don’t know.

  I brush past him to the island, where I sit up to the counter in a tall, backless stool that swivels and nearly throws me off, before I realize it isn’t stationary. He pops me on the head with a spatula and flips a pancake over.

  Seriously?

  Pancakes? It’s not fair he knows how to cook like this. I’m not a bad cook—in fact, my chocolate chip cookies are pretty delicious. But maybe I’m just used to comparing myself to my brothers.

  My throat catches.

  Brothers . . .

  I jerk my head upright. “I have two brothers, you know,” I say absently, trying to remember exactly how their little voices sound.

  “Are we stating the obvious?” Cale says, transferring a new batch of pancakes onto a plate. “I have blond hair. Go.”

  “No, no . . . ” I think about trying to explain things to him, about my two other brothers that he knows nothing about . . . but decide it’s pointless. No use in making him doubt my sanity and wasting time when I only have—shoot—less than thirty minutes to make some kind of super life-altering decision. No biggie.

  “Never mind,” I say, shoving a forkful of pancake smothered in syrup into my mouth. Melting in the sweetness of distraction.

  “There are about six texts from your mom on your phone, just an FYI.” Cale finally breaks the no-talk zone first while I’m in the middle of my second pancake. I chew as fast as I can, trying to get it all down before responding, but he beats me to it. “I didn’t read them, though, in case you were wondering.”

  I put my fork down and swallow the last of my orange juice. “I know you wouldn’t read them,” I say, realizing the thought never once crossed my mind. “I trust you, Cale.”

  And then it hits me.

  This is what I love most about him. Why everything between us is so easy, so carefree. Why I am drawn to him despite being tied to James. I trust Cale. It’s as simple as that.

  Oh.

  “You’re the only person—” I stop, getting all tangled in my words, my emotions trying to take me down.

  Cale waits, his eyes crinkling up like they do when they get contemplative, where his thick fan of lashes crowd up in the corners.

  I gulp, realizing what I’m about to do, to say. I need sleep. I need to comb through my hair and redo my makeup. I need to eat more pancakes.

  But first, I need to do this.

  Even though I don’t know if Cale will laugh at me or tell me I’m crazy. That’s what I’m most afraid of—rejection. Even now. Even though I live in the biggest, fanciest house at the top of Sea View Drive. Even though I have a perfect view and a perfect nose and a new car in the garage. Even though I’m a lucky one.

  Even though I think I’m about to leave it all behind.

  “I have to tell you something,” I say, pushing my plate away. He picks it up like a waiter and deposits it in the sink. “Come back here. And stop waiting on me, though I do love it. Especially tonight.”

  He turns around and comes back to me, spinning around like a little kid in the stool next to me. I reach forward and grab his knees, stopping him until we’re facing each other. His eyes glow in the light, watching me patiently while I attempt to string together a coherent thought.

  “Did I tell you how cute you look in my sweats? Sort of like a little puppy dog,” he says.

  My heart skips.

  He cracks a crooked smile and slides his eyes sideways. Blushing.

  That face.

  My heart pounds. I’m so nervous, so insanely afraid to look him in the eye right now. “I’m having a midlife crisis. Except I’m only sixteen,” I blurt.

  He laughs, of course, calming my nerves a little like he always does.

  I continue. “What I thought, or wished, would be a good thing actually turned out to be, well . . . bits of good mixed in with chunks of bad . . . and . . . mostly not so great.” Why does he look so endearing right now, his freckles dotted beneath his eyelashes so adorable? “I’m ready to give it all up, if you can believe it . . . my house, my sweet Nikes, this perfect nose—” I touch it, to make sure it’s still there.

  “It is pretty perfect.” He cracks a smile, bringing the tip of his finger to the bridge of my nose, as if testing it out.

  “Knock it off.” I push his hand out of my face. “I’m serious. Most people get what they wish for, even though it’s not what they expected.”

  His eyebrows jet together. “Say that again?”

  “Yep.” I nod. “It’s a saying I heard once. It means everything you want has consequences. Sometimes pretty crappy ones, too.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’m not saying the lucky ones don’t have it good. I mean, you’re a lucky one and look at you. How do you keep it all together?”

  “Who, me? You’re crazy, you know that?”

  “Seriously. Why are you so perfect, Cale?”

  “Um, hello . . . terrible fashion sense,” he says, pointing at the sumo wrestler on his shirt, no words on it this time. “Not to mention being the only rich guy I know who mows his own lawn. You think that’s perfect?”

  “It is to me.”

  Oh, flip. I can’t believe I said that. And, for once in his life, Cale doesn’t have a witty comeback. In fact, he doesn’t say anything at all.

  Which makes me keep talking.

  “Anyway, thank you for being the one thing in my life that hasn’t completely gone to crap.”

  I’m expecting a joke about crap about right now, but Cale’s expression is frozen. He licks his lips and swallows.

  I gulp.

  I don’t realize I’m swinging my legs back and forth with a repetitive thud into the base of the island until Cale reaches forward and stops me by putting his hand on top of my knees.

  “I knew something was different tonight,” he finally says, spinning my chair a half-turn until our knees were bumping into each other.

  “What do you mean?”

  He shakes his head and adds a half smile, this one still weighted with a bit of gravity. “Even though you were upset tonight, you seemed less fragile than usual.” My heart slips a little. Fragile isn’t a good adjective, especially when combined with “usual.” He continues. “But something was different. I could tell something changed.”

  What is he saying? “Cale—”

  “Just hear me out,” he says, putting his hands up in front of his chest to defend himself. “When I opened the door tonight—the way you looked at me—I don’t know, you looked at me differently. Like I meant something to you too.”

  A pinkish hue overtakes his face, and he glances down for a moment. His hands find my knees again, resting there lightly, covering them completely.

  “Too?” I ask.

  He lifts his eyes. I want to turn away but can’t look anywhere else but in his eyes. Something feels different between us . . . or maybe it’s the same as it’s always been, but I am different.

  “Are you really that dense?” he says, half-smiling.

  No. I’m not.

  But I’m afraid to see it for what it is—my artsy, fashion-challenged, clueless friend is definitely not clueless. He’s the only one in this room who had a clue, until now.

  “Like I said,” he goes on when my silence seems to incriminate me, lifting his hand and holding it up in front of me as if measuring the distance between us. “Your head. A wall. This thick—”

  I grab his hand and yank him forward so that he flies out of his chair, straight toward me. His hands catch my shoulders as I reach around his neck and pull him to me and kiss him. His mouth is as tense as his arms, and then all at once he melts and starts kissing me back, his hands crawling up my shoulders to my neck until he’s holding my head in his heads.

  I can’t believe it. I just kissed Cale Blackburn. In his kitchen.

  What am I thinking?

  Oh no, oh no, oh no . . .

  I start to lean away from him, afraid for whatever disaster I created, but he wraps his arms around my back in a suffocating, exhilarating hug before finally pulling away.

  “Um . . . .” I’m the first one to speak.

  “Stop thinking so much.” He laughs.

  Cale laughed!

  I hit him on the shoulder.

  He stands and grabs my arm, tugging me toward him until our foreheads meet and his hands keep sliding up and down my arms. “I am one of the lucky ones,” he says, bringing his fingers to tip of my chin, lifting it to meet him.

  But the clock is still ticking.

  I can hear it in my ears now, growing louder and the charm burning hotter on my skin. An hour ago I was ready to tear the thing off and never look back.

  But everything has changed now!

  Everything.

  I have twenty minutes. No, nineteen. What am I supposed to do?

  “You okay?” Cale asks, sitting back on his chair but still holding my hand. I wonder if he can feel the chills dancing on my fingertips, spreading into him? I pull him up and lead him to the couch, where I lean against him until my head fits into the space where his chin and his neck meet. It’s a perfect fit.

  “I have a strange question for you,” I say, my heartbeat trying to overtake the ticking of the clock.

  He grabs my hand again and caresses my fingers with his. “Okay, what?” His hand is smaller than I remember, though his fingers are long and narrow, as if he plays the piano too.

  “Pretend we never knew each other when we were kids. Pretend we didn’t know each other at all.”

  “Okay. Pretending . . . ”

  “We have no classes together. None of the same interests. We live in totally different neighborhoods.”

  “Why do I want to pretend all this?” he asks, sort of laughing.

  “I’m trying to figure out if you would ever notice me in this other universe where all you know about me has been taken away. What if I knew you, but you had no clue who this crazy girl was? What if my family didn’t live at the top of Sea View, but we were poor and we rented a house down on Prairie Street and I had to mow lawns for cash? What if my nose was crooked?”

  “Whoa, Love. Where’s all this coming from?” he asks, squeezing my hand.

  “Answer, Cale. I need an answer,” I say, trying to keep my voice from shaking so he can’t hear how scared I am.

  “I don’t know. Those are kind of out-there hypotheticals. Of course I’d still like you without all that stuff. I don’t like you for your art skills, you know.”

  I nudge him. “You’re not taking this seriously enough. What if there was nothing interesting about me anymore? Why do you like me, Cale?”

  “Mackenzie.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “I am too.”

  How can I get him to reassure me? In order to feel good about making this decision I know I should make, I need to know that he and I might still have a chance together.

  I bring his hand closer to my body and draw a line with my finger along the top of his knuckles.

  He clears his throat. “Do you know the first time I started noticing you? Other than being the last girl to get tagged out in dodgeball, of course.”

  “When?”

  “It was at the eighth grade talent show. Before you changed your nose, by the way. You played some song, I think it was—”

  “‘The Entertainer.’” I still remember that day, even though it was ages ago. I practiced every day for a month, trying to get it perfect. Of course, perfect is never how things ever turn out . . .

  All at once I realize I have no idea if that memory is from my new life or my old one. It’s just there, like it always has been.

  “Right. ‘The Entertainer,’ ” he says. “Your performance was genius, you know.”

  “You mean up until the part I forgot everything?” I say, the heat of failure returning to my cheeks all over again. I hated that moment.

  “I’ve thought about this before, actually. Wondering . . . ”

  “About what?”

  “If you hadn’t messed up, I probably wouldn’t have paid attention. And then I wouldn’t have tried to get a better look at the girl who wouldn’t give up.”

  “Please, stop reminding me. It was torture enough the first time.”

  “You stopped and started over three times,” he says, laughing.

  “I can’t believe you remember that. I was hoping the universe had forgotten that day, Cale!”

  “You’re missing the point! I remember that day because even after all that, you didn’t run off the stage in defeat like the rest of us would’ve. You walked over to the microphone to face every jerk in the audience who had laughed at you, and with a glaring Joker-smile on your face, you bowed and said—do you remember what you said?”

  I think for a minute, the memory coming back to me in spurts but small on detail. “Something about missing class, or something?”

  He slaps his hand on my thigh and leans closer, grinning. “You’re serious? You forgot the best part!”

  “Humor me.”

  Cale jumps to his feet and leaps across the room, turning to face me. He clears his throat and positions his hands in front and back of his waist, bending forward into a deep, slow motion bow. He looks so funny—this big, hunky guy taking a bow. At the last second, he raises his head and makes eye contact with me, his eyes orbs of steel and his jaw clenched, and he says, “You can thank me later for making the assembly take up half of fifth period. Thank you.”

  “That is not how I said it!” I jump up and barrel toward him, trying to keep from laughing at his imitation of me.

  He pushes me away. “You’re right, it was more like, ‘Screw you all, suckers!’” he says, whirling around and storming off into the kitchen.

  I run after him, clamoring up on his back and grabbing his neck. “I did not say that.”

  He reaches back to hold me up, craning his neck to find my eyes. “But you wanted to, didn’t you?”

  “Maybe.”

  At the edge of the couch, he sets me down and stands towering above me. “That’s the day I decided I kind of liked you.”

  “What? But we’ve been friends this whole time . . . ” I try digging up earlier memories of us together. But all I find in my brain is a drizzle of fog.

  “I know. You put me in the friend category the first day of ninth grade. I guess the braces and Afro hair didn’t help. Or the fact that I was only five feet tall and the biggest nerd of all time.”

  “You were not.”

  He smiles. “Trust me on this one, okay? I was optimistic, though. Figured maybe you’d give me a chance some day. Maybe I’d get my braces off. Grow a few inches.”

  “A few?”

  “Well.”

  “So you’ve been into me for three years? Why didn’t you ever say so?

  “Um . . . you don’t know yourself very well, do you?”

  “Huh?”

  “Kenzie, if we weren’t neighbors, I doubt you’d ever even talk to me. We were friends. That was good enough to start. And then you started dating James, and . . . ” He stops, leaving it at that. I don’t need a reminder to know how that went.

  “But what about . . . ” I can’t think of a nice way to say it. “What about me being such a jerk most of the time? I kind of am—was, Cale,” I say, thinking of how I treated Aly, of her rightful opinion of me. How I probably ignored him too. “How could you keep liking me, even then?”

  His eyes dart to the floor and then back to my face again. “Yeah . . . I guess that was a turnoff. But when it was only you and me, you were you again. The girl who was real. That was the girl I kept waiting around for.”

  He sits beside me again and presses his forehead against mine, holding it there for a thousand seconds while I wait . . . my heartbeat speeding up . . . waiting . . . he licks his lips . . . waiting . . . waiting . . . I’m sure I can hear his heartbeat calling out for me too . . . waiting . . . he draws in a breath . . . And kisses me. Again.

  I can feel the fire warming us, pushing any remaining chill away. I kiss him back, his energy flowing from his mouth to my lips and down my neck . . . spreading out across my whole body, to the tips of my fingers . . .

  He pulls back.

  My eyes are still closed. His breath tickles my face, still hovering at my lips. I don’t want to look up, to see what time it is. I don’t want this to end.