It's All About Us Page 8

  “Maybe he wants to have one.”

  I picked up my tray and left her standing there, not a lot wiser than she’d been before.

  The truth was, I didn’t know the answer myself. Spending a day sort of together and hooking pinkies did not a relationship make. And when Bruno dropped us off in front of Spencer yesterday, Callum gave me a big smile, said thanks, and loped off up the street, heading home. No “let’s have dinner,” no “want to hang out?” Nothing.

  Were we together or not? Two hundred inquiring minds wanted to know.

  “Hey.”

  Across our table, Carly’s mouth dropped open as Callum pulled out a chair and sat down on my right.

  “Hey,” I said, the epitome of cool even though my heart had practically come off its moorings in my chest. “Yesterday didn’t make you implode, I see.”

  “Not a bit.” He started chowing down on his oatmeal as if he actually liked it. Didn’t he eat at home before he left for school? “I had a great time.”

  “So did I. I hope it wasn’t too much. Meeting the parents and getting grilled by my mom and all. I don’t usually inflict that on guys I’m—” I stopped.

  He glanced at me. “Guys you’re . . . ?”

  He’d saved my life. He’d met my parents. Come on, Lissa. Just say it.

  “Not dating.”

  He nodded, started in on his toast. “My phone is gonna burn out its chips with people asking me about that.”

  I didn’t know whether to apologize or not.

  “I guess someone has to give everyone something to talk about.” Awkward. Maybe humor would work. “May as well be us. As a public service.”

  “Or we could just prove them all right.”

  A piece of apple lodged in my throat, and I went into a coughing fit.

  “Lissa, here.” Carly grabbed my orange juice and tried to get me to drink it while Callum patted my back.

  When I finally had myself under control, I croaked, “What do you mean, prove them right?”

  I told you what that grin does to me. The effect does not wear off with frequent use, either.

  “I like you,” he said. “I noticed you when you were late to Bio that first day. You’re not like the—” I thought he’d say other girls, but instead he said, “—people I’ve known all my life.”

  “I bet you say that to all the girls.”

  “Not true. You’re different. Maybe it’s the Christian thing. And even there you’re not what I expected.”

  “What did you expect?” That I’d be like Gillian, all passionate about my faith and ready to shout it from the comm system?

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Vanessa said—” He stopped, and I got the distinct feeling I didn’t want to know what Vanessa said.

  “I like you, too,” I murmured. Okay, so not the most romantic place for this. All around us, plates clattered and kids shouted and talked, and somebody’s CD player blasted the Gorillaz. But that didn’t stop the warm glow that started in my cheeks and went all the way through to my heart.

  “Want to do something tonight?” he asked. “The girls are going to TouTou’s for dinner.”

  The girls. Gee, which ones would those be?

  “Do you like it there?”

  A lift of those broad shoulders, covered in the blue Spencer pullover. “It’s okay. One of those places where it’s all about the presentation. Which means you get a flake of salmon with a single chive laid across it for fifty bucks.”

  I had to smile. You should hear Mom on that subject. “I’m all over a good pizza, myself.”

  “Yeah, me too. Too bad Dining Services gives pizza a bad name.”

  “There must be a decent thin crust in this town somewhere.”

  He glanced at me, those willow-green eyes crinkling at the corners. “I say we go find it. Meet you out front at six?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  I hardly noticed Carly get up or heard her say good-bye. I was too busy basking in the glow of Callum McCloud asking me out in front of the entire dining room.

  jolie.mansfieldMom’s freaking. Tell me about the new man!

  LMansfieldFreaking how?

  jolie.mansfieldIn a good way. I hear he’s a dish.

  LMansfieldIf you like them tall, green-eyed, and gorgeous.

  jolie.mansfieldSame guy you were talking about before? Callum?

  LMansfieldThat’s him. He’s so nice. The most popular guy in school. We’re going out tonight.

  jolie.mansfieldMom says he went to church w/you but he’s not a believer?

  LMansfieldYet.

  jolie.mansfieldCareful, L. You’re not out to save him, are you?

  LMansfieldOf course not. But maybe…

  jolie.mansfieldDon’t get caught in that trap. You concentrate on you and let God take care of him.

  LMansfieldDuh.

  jolie.mansfieldI’m serious.

  jolie.mansfieldLissa?

  Despite my sister’s tendency to give lectures nobody wants to listen to, the glow lasted until U.S. History, when we got a pop quiz that I totally wasn’t prepared for. However, it wasn’t like it would mess up my entire year’s grade, so I refused to worry about it.

  I had happier things to think about.

  I got out of English at four and headed down the hall to the dorm. I wasn’t sure two hours were going to be enough time to get ready.

  A smaller hallway branched off to the left, and from down there I heard someone playing piano with such amazing skill I just had to see who it was. One of the teachers, maybe, who, due to some life tragedy, had had to leave a career on the concert stages of Europe to come here and teach rich kids the Beatles’ greatest hits?

  I peeked into the practice studio and blinked.

  Gillian?

  And suddenly I recognized the piece: Chopin’s Nocturne in D Minor, a fiendishly difficult bit of work that you had to be a prodigy to master. And why did I know this? Because Mom is on the Youth Symphony Festival committee in Santa Barbara, and Natasha Paremski played it at a gala. She was a couple of years older than me, but it doesn’t take a music critic to know a huge talent when you see it.

  Gillian’s talent was like that. She grinned at me over the baby grand’s raised lid, and sailed into the finale. When she dropped her hands to her lap, I couldn’t help it. I clapped.

  “Thanks,” she said. “That thing kills me.”

  “Why do you torture yourself with it, then?”

  “Because it’s what got me the scholarship. I figure I’d better keep it tuned up in case they wonder if they made a mistake and ask me to do it again. How do they know it was me on the CD and not some guy I hired from the New York Philharmonic?”

  “They didn’t make a mistake. You’re brilliant.”

  “And you’re making waves around here. I got a text from Carly that Callum asked you out, right in front of her and everybody.”

  “It’s true. We’re going to go find a pizza tonight instead of hanging out with Vanessa’s crowd.”

  “Careful.” She began running scales up and down the keyboard. The notes sounded like the patter of rain. “I might actually start liking that guy.”

  I laughed. “Gotta go get ready. Later.”

  In the end I decided to keep things simple. My eco-friendly Del Forte jeans, a T-shirt with a limited-edition Hannah Stouffer print, and my old faithful Roxy hoodie that I’d bought to celebrate graduating from gremmie to semi-competent on my surfboard. This is not something you decide. The other surfers let you know, and it was a big day for me. My definition of “big day” has changed, but I still wear the hoodie.

  Achieving the social level I’d been used to in Santa Barbara was not easy, but after tonight, I’d bet a month’s worth of makeup that I’d be in.

  At ten past six, just when I was fingering my iPhone and wondering if a text nudge was in order, Callum pulled up in a black Prius.

  “I don’t know why I thought we’d be taking transit,” I said as I buckled myself in.
>
  “Normally I do. Around here, parking is a b”—he glanced at me—“bear. But if we’re going for pizza, it’d take a while to get to North Beach on transit.”

  “Better you than me.” The only sound we made rolling down the drive was the crunch of gravel under the tires. “I’ve had my license for a while, but there’s no way I’m driving on these hills.”

  I’d no sooner said so than the ground dropped out from under us and we plunged down a street so vertical I thought for sure the rear tires would let go and we’d slide to the bottom on the hood.

  But Callum just grinned and spun the wheel to take us to the left and down another hill. (He did realize this meant we were going to have to come back up all of them, right?) And, thank You, Jesus, ten minutes later we purred into North Beach and parked.

  Lucky thing my jeans concealed my trembling knees as I got out and we walked around the corner to a hole-in-the-wall called Nonna Perla’s.

  “How’d you find this?” I asked as the waitress seated us and handed me a plastic card with the menu printed on it.

  “Asked Brett. His dad owns a bunch of stuff in this neigh-borhood. Perla was his dad’s grandmother. They come here a lot.”

  Talk about being connected. I’d have to tell Mom so she could file it in the mental PDA of restaurants she knows all over the planet.

  It didn’t take long for me to discover we had completely different taste in pizza, so I ordered artichoke hearts with pine nuts, basil, and feta while he went the traditional route and mainlined grease—pepperoni, bacon, and olives. Urgh. Barflex. Okay, so no one said the guy had to be perfect. Even Kaz can’t resist pepperoni, despite the fact that he knows it makes him break out.

  Kaz would love Nonna Perla’s.

  And why on earth was I thinking about Kaz when the most gorgeous guy in school—probably in the whole city—was sitting opposite me?

  Our pizzas came—one perfectly baked, ten-inch yumfest for each of us—and Callum glanced at me.

  “You want to say grace or anything?”

  Awkward.

  Of course I should. But I needed to tread lightly after my mom put him on the spot yesterday. “No biggie,” I said. “I don’t say it at every meal. Or at school.”

  Gillian does, my conscience pointed out. Coward.

  Grace is a moment between you and God, I argued back. It’s not a political statement.

  The cheese was so hot, I burned my tongue. After gulping Diet Coke, I approached my dinner more cautiously. It was a shame the pain kind of drowned out the flavor, though. Callum wolfed his down and gave my plate a beady eye. “Not hungry?”

  Truth? Not really. I was keyed up, and my brain jumped every which way after things to talk about. The last thing I wanted was to sit there like a lump, stuffing my face without a single interesting thing to say.

  “A little of this goes a long way,” I said. “It’s the best pizza I’ve ever had.”

  “They do a good job.” He helped himself to my last quarter. “Brett and I have been buds since middle school. We used to come down here to Little Italy after school and scam free appies off the relatives. We were growing boys. Couldn’t make it until supper.”

  “Sounds like fun. So you were a foodie from childhood?”

  “Nah, just hungry all the time. I was five-ten in seventh grade, and six feet by the time I was a sophomore. Mom couldn’t keep enough food in the house for me. Besides, it was fun. Brett had a different sob story for every relative. The weirder they were, the more sympathy we got.”

  “I’m sure everyone knew what you were up to.”

  “Probably. What about you? What did you do when you were a kid?”

  “Well . . .” I pushed my empty plate away, and the waitress whisked it off and refilled my Coke. “I stole a camel in Egypt once.”

  He snorted a laugh into his glass. “A camel?”

  “I was seven. I didn’t know you had to rent them from the guide. I just untied him, he knelt down, and off we went. I could hear the owner screaming at me in Arabic for, like, a block, before I figured out I’d done something wrong.”

  “Funny, you don’t look like a felon.” He grinned at me in a way that made me grin back.

  “Yeah? What do I look like?”

  “Beautiful,” he said.

  Chapter 14

  LOVE IS PATIENT. Love is kind. Love is not realizing you’re about to fall off a San Francisco hill because all you can think about is the guy holding your hand.

  Somehow he managed to drive one-handed back to Spencer and park under one of the pepper trees in front of the main doors. Despite the lights from the windows and the tall cast-iron lamps on either side of the stairs, all I could see of his eyes were hollows filled with shadow.

  There was nothing wrong with my view of his mouth, however.

  Would he?

  Would I?

  You bet I would.

  “Can I kiss you good night?” he whispered, turning toward me and resting his right hand on the top of my seat.

  I undid my seatbelt and tossed it over one shoulder like a woman throwing her inhibitions to the wind. “I don’t know—can you?” I said wickedly.

  “Come here and you can tell me.”

  I leaned a little over the center console and tilted my head. He smelled of clean cotton and warm skin and a faint trace of cologne. Talk about a dream come true. Bottle that scent for late-night fantasies, girls.

  My eyes slid closed as his mouth found mine. Oh, that mouth. It came through on everything his grin had been promising for days. Soft yet firm, and nothing hesitant about it. I’m no newbie in the kissing department, but a first kiss usually asks my permission. Waits. Backs off before I’m ready.

  Not this one. Somehow he knew what to do to make my toes curl for real, to make my blood speed up in my veins, and to send my body temperature rocketing up.

  By the end of that kiss, I was a watery puddle with steam rising off it, let me tell you.

  And I was the one to break it. The female body needs oxygen, after all.

  “Wow,” I said when I’d dragged in a few breaths.

  “Don’t leave yet,” was all he said, and I dove in for round two.

  A surge of feeling deep inside me told me that even though we were sitting in the front driveway and someone could walk up at any moment, this was going to get away from me if I didn’t grab my sanity.

  I pulled back, my lips leaving his like the last farewell of Romeo and Juliet.

  “Callum. Whoa.”

  He looked over my shoulder, and that blazing focus on me slowly faded to something approaching normality. “Sorry. Guess I got a little carried away.”

  “Do you hear me complaining?” I gave him a peck on the cheek. “Thank you for the pizza. And for tonight. See you in Math.”

  “Yeah. One more?”

  “No way.” I opened my door and scooped up my Marc Jacobs slouchy bag. “My temperature’s already off the chart.”

  I heard him laughing as I slammed the door, and the Prius rolled away silently into the dark.

  When I slipped into our room, Gillian looked up from the welter of books and papers spread around her on the bed. Her Mac notebook stood open in front of her, and as I closed the door, she paused the music on her iPod and pulled her earphones out.

  “You look like you got something more than pizza.”

  I grinned at her. How could she see that from across the room? I resisted the temptation to do a quick check in the mirror. Way beyond obvious.

  “We had a good time,” I said at last.

  “Where’d you go?”

  “Someplace called Nonna Perla’s in Little Italy. Brett Loyola’s family owns it.”

  Gillian closed one of her textbooks. Elements of the Chemical World. Ugh. “He’s the tall, dark-haired guy that hangs around with Callum, right? The one who’s not Todd?”

  I nodded.

  “Carly has a thing for him.”

  “Carly Aragon?” Now, there was a hopeless situation
. “How do you know?”

  “He’s in Chem with us. Every time he walks by, she loses it. Drops things. You know. And if she can find a way to bring him something or pass him a paper first, she does.” She shook her head. “Yup. Definitely a thing.”

  “So who do you have a thing for?” I was in the mood to spread the joy. “Seen any prospects yet?”

  “If I were looking for someone, it sure wouldn’t be in that crowd. Not unless I were some kind of masochist and into unrequited love.”

  An instant replay of that kiss swept through my body in a tingly wave. “It doesn’t have to be unrequited.”

  A sardonic glance. “Yeah, well, most of us aren’t blond and beautiful with movie directors for dads, okay? We have to be realistic.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing. I hear there’s a wicked genetics assignment for Bio. Did you get it?”

  “What genetics assignment?” Was this the hot topic among the science geeks? Not that I was in the mood to care at the moment.

  “I guess not, then.” She slid off the bed and handed me a note. “Here. Some guy named Kaz called for you.”

  Three hours before, right about when we’d arrived at Nonna Perla’s. Thank goodness he hadn’t called my cell. “Did you tell him I was out?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “Did you say who with?”

  With her back to me, she shut down her computer. “I didn’t give out personal details. I said you weren’t here, and I didn’t know when you’d be back. We talked a bit, and he said to give him a call or IM.”

  How come I didn’t want her to tell Kaz that I’d been out with Callum? Kaz was one of my best friends. He was always razzing me about the guys I liked, and then turning around and giving me a shoulder to cry on when it didn’t work out, or telling me I’d done the right thing when it was me doing the dumping. I’d never kept secrets from Kaz. In fact, since he was as tight as a clam anyway, he was the perfect friend.

  He was cute, too, if you liked the dark-eyed, sensitive skater-boy look. Some girls did. I preferred a more polished, upscale type when it came to going out, but Kaz was fun to hang with. His vocabulary sometimes scared me, but if you didn’t mind looking things up in Wikipedia after a conversation with him, he was fun to talk to as well.