Page 62 of Canadian Boyfriend

I started to say that the bar was low if an evening at a Tomfoolery rated so high, but I checked myself.

Anything I would have said was preempted anyway because she stuck the vampire teeth back in and said, “Best. Day. Ever” while she waved her hands around and wiggle-danced in her seat.

I started to understand that I might have a problem here.

But not really, because I was going to shut down the kissing. No harm, no foul.

“Everything OK?” she asked.

I was taking too long, staring out the windshield. I shifted to face her. She was leaning over, retying her boot, and her torso was twisted in such a way that her shirt rode up and exposed the bare skin of her belly. Something twisted low inmybelly. All the kissing had awakened my long-slumbering libido. In a way, my entire acquaintance with Aurora had been a slow process of the revival of parts of me I’d thought dead. Starting from that time at the studio when she’d kicked her leg up high to show me her Band-Aid. That had been like a slap to the face.

And there was another slap. Just the sight of her bare skin delivered one.

“Yeah, yeah. Everything’s fine. I just think we need to cool it on the, uh…”

She froze, looking startled. “We need to stop making out like teenagers?” she said, recovering quickly, and though the words themselves suggested she was teasing, her tone was serious. Almost solemn.

She sat up, fixed her shirt, and buckled her seat belt. Her tone adjusted itself as she said, breezily, “I keep thinking of it like that—making out like teenagers. I don’t know why. I never made out with anyone as a teenager.” She tilted her head. “Well, I guess that’s not true. I did some making out in New York, and I moved there when I was eighteen. But you know what I mean. No making out in high school.”

My first thought was that that was hard to believe. It was impossible to imagine teenage Aurora not being an object of admiration and/or lust of every boy in a ten-mile radius. But it wasnotimpossible to imagine Aurora, daughter of Heather, who had never been to an arcade or a bowling alley, goingthrough her teen years solo. “I guess that’s another one we have to thank your mother for.”

“Mm, I don’t know. I might have to take some of the blame for that one.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was… not popular.”

“Yeah?” I prompted, wanting to know more even though I was supposed to be putting some distance between us.

“I wasn’t stuffed into lockers or anything. I just didn’t have friends. An idea took hold at my school that I thought I was too good for everyone. I wasn’t around that much by the end, so it was… Well, I was going to say it was OK, but really it wasn’t.”

“Good for you.” I smiled. “Your therapy must be working.”

“Therapy is”—she blew out a breath—“bracing but effective. Anyway, no friends in high school, so certainly no boyfriends. But enough about my teenage loserdom. We’re supposed to be discussing modern-day making out. You want to call a halt to it.”

“I don’twantto, but…”

“I know. Olivia’s going to be home. Back to reality.”

“I don’t want things to get… leaky.” What if spontaneous PDA happened again? What if it happened in front of Olivia? Icouldn’trisk bringing someone into Olivia’s life who might leave. I didn’t know how to say any of that, though, so I said, “I just think we have to stop.”

“I get it. It’s a bummer, but I get it.”

That—the “bummer” part—was incredibly flattering. In keeping with the teenage theme, I felt like a kid who’d found out his crush liked him back.

“Your virtue is safe with me,” she said, and even though I kind of wanted to take it all back—call off the calling off—what could I do but start the car and drive us home?

Reuniting with Olivia was great. She ran right into my arms like she used to when she was little. The handoff went remarkably well. Stefan and Renata didn’t invite me in; we chatted for a few minutes in their driveway, and when Renata hugged Olivia, they both held on tight. When they parted, Renata said, “Email me that picture and I’ll get it ready for your next visit,” and Olivia enthusiastically agreed.

“That picture” turned out to be of Olivia herself, one we had framed on a table in the living room, and “getting it ready” meant having it printed onto fabric they were going to embroider.

“It’s so cool!” Olivia enthused on the way home. “We did counted cross-stitch, which Mom used to do when she was young and is also basically math. Grandma says I’m good enough to start embroidering, which is different from cross-stitch, and she found this service where they’ll printany pictureon the fabric. So we’re going to try to do a picture of me and see if it looks weird.”

“Great,” I said warily. “And everything else was… cool?” We had FaceTimed a few times, and Olivia had seemed fine, but I hadn’t been sure if she’d been performing for the benefit of her grandparents. As I had recently learned, she could put up a good front.

“Everything was cool. We only talked about Mom a little. And they’re going to ask you if I can go down there for spring break, which I know isn’t in the plan, but the embroidery pattern will be ready, and…”

She was trailing off because she thought she was hurting my feelings. She thought me versus her grandparents was azero-sum game. I regretted my part in making her think that way. “Sure,” I said, even though it about killed me. I wasn’t as resilient and nimble and forgiving as Olivia. “I’ll talk to them.”

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