Page 16 of Better Than the Movies
“Have a nice time, sweetie.”
“Do you have money for a pay phone?” Helena asked.
I squinted at Helena, who shrugged and added, “I mean, you never know. You could get into a whole time machine,Back to the Futurething and need a pay phone to get home, and what would you do then?”
I did roll my eyes then. “Yes, um—I definitely have enough money to get back to this decade should we find a hole in the space-time continuum. Thank you.”
She nodded and put her feet up on my dad’s lap. “You’re welcome. Now beat it, kid.”
I opened the front door before Wes could knock, and closed it quickly behind me. Which resulted in us nearly running into each other. He stopped just in time, looking a little surprised.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey.” He looked around me and said, “I don’t have to come in for a parental lecture?”
I couldn’t answer for a second because it was a bit jarring seeing Wes standing on my porch at dusk, smelling lightly of musky-manly cologne and looking freshly showered. He’d been next door my entire life, but it was surreal that our parallel lives were actually intersecting.
“Nah,” I said as I dropped my keys into my purse and started walking toward his car, which was, of course, in The Spot. “They know this isn’t a date.”
It only took him two steps, and he caught up to me. “But what if I wanted to declare my intentions to your father?”
“Your intentions?” I stopped beside his car. “Do you mean how you intend to irritate me for multiple hours in a row tonight?”
He hit unlock and opened the door for me. “I was actually referring to the way I intend on blowing off the party entirely to use your body as a human shield at the paintball range.”
“Don’t even joke about getting neon paint on this dress.”
He shut my door, went around the car, and got behind the wheel. “Yeah, what’s with the dress? I kind of thought you’d wear something normal to a party.”
“Thisisnormal.” I buckled my seat belt and pulled down the visor to check my makeup. As if Wes knew anything about fashion. I was in love my mustard jumper dress and its flower buttons.
He started his car and put it in drive. “For you, maybe. I guarantee you’ll be the only person at Ryno’s wearing a dress.”
“Which will make Michael notice me.” I reached into my pocket—because of course my dress had pockets—and opened the tube of lipstick that was inside. My hands were shaking and I took a deep breath, trying to make myself chill. It was hard, though, when in mere minutes I’d be face-to-face with the boy I’d daydreamed about for more than half my life.
Deep breath.
“Yeah, that’s definitely true.” He pulled away from the curb and added in a cowboy voice,“Howdy, partner. Who’s the filly in the dress that’s blocking my view of the hot girls?”
“Oh, come on. Michaeldoes nottalk like that.” I snort-laughed in spite of myself, which screwed up the lipstick application as I looked in the visor mirror. “He speaks like the intelligent, charismatic guy that he is.”
“As if you even know.” He turned right on Teal Street, and his foot was heavy on the gas pedal. “The last time we knew him, he was a fourth grader.”
“Fifth.” I put the cap back on the lipstick. “And I can just tell.”
“Oh, you can tell.” He made a little noise that was theequivalent of him calling me a child. “For all you know, he’s spent the past few years torturing baby squirrels.”
“For allyouknow,” I said, flipping the visor back up and reaching out to turn on his radio, “he’s spent the last few yearsbottle-feedingorphaned baby squirrels.”
“Well, if you ask me, that is no less alarming.”
I rolled my eyes and turned the station, mildly irritated that he, too, thought I was ridiculous. They didn’t understand how fated his reappearance was, so I was just going to ignore their negativity.
I loved Jay-Z, but I was feeling myself in my jumper dress so I scanned away from rap until I found a station playing a super old Selena Gomez song. That earned me another disapproving noise before Wes switched it back to “PSA.”
“Hey—I liked that song.”
“You like a song about Selena Gomez thirsting over Justin Bieber?”
