All Played Out (Rusk University 3)

Really, it’s the unknown that bothers me. Not just on this list, but in everything. So maybe that’s what I need to get used to.

I skip to the bottom of my list and add . . .

17. Kiss a stranger

I tap my pen against the page, surveying the words, and decide that kissing a stranger is a good stepping-stone. Then a voice comes from over my shoulder, making me jump up and drop my spiral in shock.

“Do I count as a stranger?”

I press my hand over my thundering heart and turn to face the subject of my rumination.

“You scared me.”

“My bad.” Contrary to his words, Torres doesn’t look the least bit sorry.

He bends to pick up the spiral, and I lunge forward to stop him. “Wait! Stop!”

It’s too late. He already has ahold of it, and lifts it up above his head, completely out of my reach. He’s got nearly a foot on me in height, and when I try to jump, I barely get my unathletic self a few inches off the ground.

“Give that back.”

“Hold up, sweetheart. I just want to take a little peek.”

“Don’t you dare! It’s private.”

Frantically, I try to recall what was written on that page as he holds it above his head in an attempt to read.

“ ‘Go skinny-dipping’?” he says, his eyes dancing suggestively. “Whatever this is . . . I like it.”

I step toward him, and he angles his body to the side so that the spiral is farther away, but we’re still close.

“ ‘Pull an all-nighter.’ ‘Sing karaoke.’ ‘Flash someone.’ Oh, sweetheart, tell me this is a list of things you want to do. Please, God.”

“It’s none of your business. That’s what it is.”

“Unlucky for you, I’m a nosy person.”

He starts to turn the page back, and my heart tumbles in fear. He cannot see the first page. Not ever. I hurl myself at him, practically climbing up his body in an attempt to retrieve my list. And all he does is laugh, and stand there as if there isn’t a whole person hanging on to him.

“Asshole!” I say, pushing at his chest.

“Come on, you can do better than that.”

“Nosy bastard.”

He rolls his eyes. “Well, if that’s all you’ve got . . .” He starts to turn the page again, and there’s thunder in my ears, and my lungs feel all twisted up inside my chest.

“Fuck you,” I say once, quietly. Then I repeat it, louder, my voice raspy from fear and exertion. “Fuck you, Mateo Torres.”

And I resign myself to the fact that I’m not going to get my spiral back until he’s had his fill of humiliating me. But to my shock, he bends and picks up my pen from where I’d dropped it when he surprised me. Then he draws a line through something on the paper.

“Congratulations. You’ve officially completed number sixteen. ‘Cuss someone out and mean it.’ ”

He hands me the spiral, then the pen, before folding his arms over his chest and meeting my eyes with a carefully blank expression. I glance down at the item on the list that he’s crossed out, and I don’t know whether I want to laugh or stab him with my pen. Maybe both.

“You . . .” I begin, and then trail off. I take a deep breath and speak the truth: “You are the strangest person I’ve ever known.”

The things that are the most off-putting about him are also what make him undeniably interesting. He has no respect for personal space. He says whatever pops into his head with no attempt at polite censorship. But he does it all with such ease and confidence that there isn’t a drop of malice in it.

He laughs at my calling him strange, and the sound is raucous and light and completely uninhibited. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed like that. He reaches out and tugs on one of my pigtails, then says, “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

It might actually have been one. In the aftermath of our little scene, I’m feeling oddly . . . exhilarated.

“Come on,” he says, picking up my bag and slinging it over his shoulder. “Walk with me.”

I should ask him where, ask questions of any kind really, but I don’t. Instead, when he holds a hand out to me, I take it. I do it without thinking or evaluating or planning a single thing. And having his large hand curl around mine . . . I don’t have any words for it. I search for them, for a description of the way it makes me feel, but it’s a muddle of emotions, and those have never been one of my strong points. I cannot separate all the things his touch makes me feel, let alone identify them. But whatever it is . . . it’s not bad. So I don’t resist when he pulls me toward the back of the house.

There are a few people hanging out smoking, and I tense thinking maybe he means for us to join them, but he pulls me farther along toward the back of the yard. They’ve got an old, dilapidated privacy fence, and there’s a whole section of it that looks as if it had been knocked down in a storm. Or perhaps a more man-made disaster, knowing the residents of this house. When he steps onto the broken pieces of the fence, I hesitate.

“Trust me, girl genius. This will be worth it.”

I swallow, and step up onto the board and follow him out of the yard into a wooded no-man’s-land between the houses. We turn right and walk past a neighbor’s house, and then another before stopping. There’s a metal fence, with a gate on one side, and he lifts the latch and walks through.

“What are you doing?” I hiss, pulling my hand away.

“What?” He smirks. “Trespassing isn’t on your list?”

I shake my head sternly, and he reaches for my hand again, and this time his hold is too firm for me to pull away. “It should be. Add it.”

When I still resist, he steps back through the gate to stand directly in front of me, mere inches away. With the hand not holding mine, he reaches up and pushes a lock of hair off my forehead.

“Relax. I know the family who lives here. They’re out of town all this week.”

This is crazy. And ridiculous.

“Why are we here?”

“That’s up to you, sweetheart.”

I let him lead me through the fence, and around a wooden shed to the central open area of the backyard.

“I thought,” he says, “we could just hang out. Talk. Away from all the noise.” He pulls me up beside a quaint tire swing, and gestures for me to sit down on it. It takes some finagling, what with my short skirt, but I manage to lift myself up on it without making too much of a scene. He crosses behind me, takes hold of the ropes on each side, and I hold on tight, preparing for him to push me forward. But before he does, he leans down close, his lips brushing the shell of my ear. He points a finger to the far side of the yard and says, “Then I thought, if you were up for a little more adventure, we could check skinny-dipping off your list.”