Page 28 of Paper Hearts

Arya comes by, offering her hand. I take it, glaring in Ender’s direction. “Your brother is an asshole.”

Arya rolls her eyes. “Took you long enough to figure that one out.”

Despite being dumped in the water, I can’t stop smiling. I haven’t been at the lake more than an hour and it’s like we haven’t missed a beat. We left friends and we stayed friends.

My attention is drawn back to the water when Ender idles in the water next to me. His face is lit up as the sun peeks through the trees. It’s beginning to set and there’s finally some relief from the blazing heat. “I’m sorry,” he says, smiling, but it’s a wicked kind of smile. Like he’s saying it because he wants to piss me off. I remember his comment last summer. He likes me mad. I roll my eyes and pretend to be mad at him.

“Kids!” Lana calls out from the deck. “Supper!”

“I’m starving,” Arya says, reaching for my hand when we’re on the dock. “Come eat with us.”

With my dad not here, I don’t have to go home for supper, so I walk with them back up to the house. Ender’s ahead of us with Walker. He turns his head, looks back at us and then forward. Why does he keep looking at me?

At first glance it’s easy to see Ender has gotten taller, leaner, and his voice is deeper. It still has the Southern rasp to it. He carries himself differently stronger, and older for his age. And his body, well, I can look at it all day. I want so badly to be close to him again. And thinking about him in that way makes my heart thump wildly and my breath come faster. Why does he make me feel like this? Are they those teenage hormones everyone talks about? Because I don’t know why, but I want to do things with him I don’t even know the names to. Like dry hump. I’d do that. I asked Harper about it and she said I was too young to know. I wanted to google it, but then again, my dad controls the computer.

“Arya?” I whisper as we continue walking behind the guys.

“Yeah?” She stops when her flip-flop falls off and she has to put it back on.

“What’s dry humping?”

She grins and looks exactly like Ender. “It’s where you have sex, but with your clothes on,” she tells me, a little louder than I want her to.

Oh God, please don’t let Ender hear that.

To my mortification, he turns his head and glances back at us again, as if he heard parts of that, but not all of it.Shit.

Smirking, his eyes drop to my legs, then higher to my chest. My T-shirt is clinging to my chest and… well, you know what Ender does to me.

Arya giggles. “Your nipples are pointing at my brother,” she notes softly, then looks down at her own slightly swollen chest. “I hope mine get bigger soon. They’re starting to come into their own. My little Hershey kisses.”

And yes, she’s touching them.

I pull at my shirt. “I’m sure they will. I’ll meet you over there. I’m going to change my shirt.”

“No,” she begs. “Come with me. Besides, you’ll torture Ender. Make the fuckface sweat a little having to look at your nipples.”

Torture him? How in the world would I torture Ender James? That’s not possible. No way.

On the deck, Ender leans against the railing, holding a Pepsi in hand. With some confidence I didn’t know I had, I walk up to him and steal his damn soda. I take a drink, then hand it back to him.

He grins, his stare on my chest and then my eyes. He blinks slowly, taking a drink from the exact place I did. “Nice to see you again,” he whispers softly in my ear, and then walks past me toward the house.

“Can you stay over at my house?” I ask Arya when she finds me again, handing me a hamburger her mom made me.

Her face lights up with excitement. “Only if I can try your bras on.” Once again, she cups her newly developed chest. “I have boobs now!”

* * *

Arya spendsthe night with me. We sleep outside on the screened-in back porch in sleeping bags, and talk. Though we kept in touch over the year, there’s something special about having your friend back.

“Oh my God,” she whispers before the sky starts to lighten, her chin resting on her arms as she lays on her stomach. “Ender got caught having sex with Kamila. At school in the bathroom. He got suspended because of it.”

My heart hurts. Literally. It drops to my knees and I’m not even standing up. “That’s crazy,” I say, not knowing what else to say. “He’s only sixteen.”

“That doesn’t matter to him. Have you ever done it?” Arya asks me, her eyes on the rising sun, and a yawn every few seconds.

“No.” My breathing evens out and I think about Ender, naked. I don’t even know why. “I don’t even have a boyfriend. Never have.”

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