Second First Impressions

I’m not allowed to be amused for long; he’s got things for me to do.

He wants me to take whatever he gives me with grateful attention. I must tell him he’s gorgeous with every twist of my mouth. I shudder and melt with every change of tempo and every unexpected deepening. He’s sketching on me, that’s how it feels; lightness, the suggestion of shapes, darker lines then digging into the page. Back to shading at the edges. I’m not remotely scared of this bigger picture we’re creating now; my hands are trying to find the edges of his clothes.

“Settle, settle,” he soothes me as he huffs warm air against the side of my neck. It feels like he can’t bear to remove his mouth from me. I’m right—I feel a lick, sliding into a mouth twist and the scrape of teeth. If he wants to do that randomly all over my body, that would be great.

“Ruthie, what the hell,” he says through a mouthful of my shoulder. “Yum.” He’s losing focus, a husky slur to his voice. The shoulder of my cardigan interrupts his progress and he bites the entire thing in his mouth. A big quack of laughter comes out of me, echoing louder off the stone walls of the courtyard.

“Don’t eat this cardigan, please. I need it.”

&nb

sp; “I don’t,” he replies, and his hand slides down the sides of my body.

I feel his fists grip the hemline of my skirt and I go completely rigid. What underwear am I wearing? Plain white cotton. Teddy stands, I’m steadied on my feet and he retreats behind the courtyard table to put a physical barrier between us.

“Sorry,” Teddy blurts. “You see?” He’s got beautiful color in his face, eyes glittering, the ink on his arms contrasting with the dusky flush, veins cording and fists flexing. “I always get carried away.”

“You didn’t. It’s okay, I was just remembering that my underwear isn’t sexy.” I have to prove that I’m not crazy-in-love with him, but what I say next is so brutally honest I wince partway through saying it. “That was the best kiss I ever had.”

“Then why do you look so guilty?”

“I probably was too intense.” As I start to rewind what I just did to him, the sounds I made, I begin to curl up into myself inside.

“Hey. You’ve got nothing to be ashamed about. You’re amazing.” He says it in a really kind way. It’s also the start of a sentence that girls like me hear all the time. You’re amazing, but I want to just stay friends.

“Did I come on too strong?”

Teddy laughs and takes out his keys. “I’m a big boy. I can handle you. But we’d better stop here. Close your door on me before I follow you in.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Week 4 of the Sasaki Method is here and I don’t care about it anymore, but it is imperative that Melanie and Teddy don’t notice because I do have some pride left. It’s Friday evening and we are all lying by the lake. In the middle of us is an empty pizza box. TJ is allowed to graze near the picnic blanket edge, always under the watchful eye of his father.

Melanie’s telling me now, “I’ve been chatting on your MatchUp account with three nice guys for the entire week. No dicks, no foreign princes, no requests for Western Union money transfers, no requests for nudes. I think we’ve got some real contenders.”

“That bar is so low TJ couldn’t fit under it,” Teddy remarks acidly, reaching out a hand to turn his tortoise 90 degrees. Then we make eye contact and Teddy blushes sunset pink.

I always assumed it would be me dorking out after our kiss, but the opposite has happened. I’ve kept my cool. Meanwhile, Teddy’s gotten so flustered he’s been:

Dropping bags of takeout

Walking into hedges/flailing in spiderwebs/slipping on duck droppings

Losing his train of thought so badly that Renata has accused him of stealing medication

This is what keeps my heart beating too fast in my chest all day long: he’s acting so weird because he can’t recover from how I kissed him. And I’m the only one who knows.

Melanie snaps at him, “Go away if you’re going to be difficult. Anyhow, here we are, Ruthie. Week 4, you take over your MatchUp app. Here’s your username and password.” This is presented to me with ceremony, typed at the top of the Week 4 worksheet, which outlines the activity for this week.

I summarize the requirement out loud for Teddy’s benefit. “Goal: One date at the Thunderdome. Method: Flirty messaging and chatting online with two guys, bonus points for flirty conversation with two guys in real life.”

“I can’t stop thinking about you. One in the bag, beautiful.” Teddy holds up a hand for me to high-five. I can’t slap it; Melanie is too scary for me to risk it. Lowering it back down, he says, “What, aren’t I a guy?”

He looks into my eyes and now we’re traveling back in time; I’m straddling him, I’m kissing him until his breath catches in his chest and his hands tighten on my body—

“You’re absolutely not a guy.” Melanie is sick of this. “Your constant attempts to derail this to keep the attention on yourself are really annoying.” Stacked beside her on the blanket are an assortment of what are presumably her reference books, their titles including:

True Love and Astrology