Forgotten First Kiss

Chapter 11

Why Jeremy was lying back on the sofa and looking at me expectantly, I had no clue. This was not how it happened.

“I don’t get it. When I woke up, you were smashing me against the floor.” At least that’s how the lay of the land had been when I’d come to my senses.

“Don’t let this offend your prudish sensibilities, but you leaped on top of me, and we tumbled.” He pointed at the ground beside the couch.

I closed my eyes, squeezing them against his words. “Are you just saying that to deceive me with another one of your pranks?”

He sat up. “You keep saying I am a prankster. I’m not.”

Oh, right. “And what do you call this?” She dropped her jaw and pointed to a chipped molar. “Or my near heart-attack when you left that big cut-out cardboard figure of Ken Railings in my shower?”

“That was meant to make you happy. He was your favorite member of The Aussie Boys.”

“What about this?” I pointed to the chipped molar. “You planted a rock in a snack just to trick me into needing dental work. Not cool.”

“I have no idea how that gravel got in there, I swear. You had seemed sad that day, and I bought the brownie at the gas station. It was before I learned to cook.”

He knew brownies were a comfort food? Well, that was a given. Besides, I was on a roll, though, not listening. “Or how you ruined my sister’s wedding? That was the last straw, you know.”

Jeremy sat forward on the couch, placed his elbows on his spread knees, and put his head in his hands. “So you haven’t forgiven me.”

“Tennille says I should.”

“You’re trusting Tennille now? Taking her advice?” He turned his head to give me an annoyed look. “All right, forget I said that. You shouldn’t ignore good advice just because it issues from a bad place.”

“Tennille isn’t so bad.”

“You can forgive her for defrauding you of your life’s work, but you can’t forgive me for throwing pebbles at a window so I could serenade you?”

“You broke the window.” And he’d sung my favorite pop ballad, but my parents had been irritated, and I’d had to give up my babysitting money to pay for the repair.

“Or for giving you vegetables in a doughnuts box?”

“Wasn’t that a subtle you need to eat healthier message?”

“Danica, you preferred vegetables to doughnuts, and everyone else was giving people doughnuts that Valentine’s Day. I didn’t want you to feel left out.”

Everyone had snickered behind their hands about his prankish way to say I was fat. I knew he hadn’t meant that, but the words of others had soured me on the gesture. They shouldn’t have. After that, I’d started eating Little Debbie Cakes just to “fix” my taste buds to fit in.

Jeremy went on, “Or for taking Penelope’s advice and trying to impress you with a Grease 2 movie moment, which unintentionally took you away from the wedding on my motorcycle?”

To get him out of there, I’d ridden on the back of the bike. My hands on his hips had felt right, and I’d been so confused I’d yelled at him more ferociously than I ever intended to.

I blinked. I breathed in and out. “Penelope told you to ruin Angelica’s wedding?”

“No!” Jeremy threw his hands up. “No one told me to ruin a wedding. The throttle slipped as I hit a rut in the grass of your back yard. It was an accident.”

“But you were trying to do something nice for me.” Because Grease 2 had been my favorite throwback movie as a teenager?

“I was trying to show you someone saw you, knew what you loved and what you hated, cared about you, instead of always making you be in the shadow of your older sister’s needs. I wanted you to be the star of the moment for once. I was sick and tired of how your family always put Angelica first.” He exhaled sharply.

My head spun. Truly, my parents always put Angelica first, then and now. But she’d been injured. She legitimately needed to be first. “She needed them more.” My retort sounded small, weak.

“Just because one child is born with a disability doesn’t mean the other kids in the family don’t deserve attention. Every time I went to your house, your family was doing something that revolved around Angelica. It was never, ever about you. And I knew it should be.”

“You”—I frowned—“weren’t playing a prank.”