“I’m glad you came.”
Before I could reach for the handle, she leaned back against the driver’s side door. “You want to do something?”
“I worked all day, Tiffany. I’m exhausted.”
“We don’t have to go out. We can stay in.”
“Where?” I nodded behind me. “Here? At your parents’?”
She wiggled her foot out of her shoe and ran her toes along the inside of my ankle. “No, silly. We can drive around a little. Or go back to your place.”
Ah, fuck. I inhaled deeply to give myself a few seconds to think. I was tired, but the prospect of sex always gave me a second wind. It’d been a few months, which didn’t bother me until it did. Like now. She tugged on my shirt a little, pulling me closer. Her breath smelled like blueberry, like the ones Lake had used to make a pie.
For someone special. For me.
“Your heart’s racing,” Tiffany whispered, her lips suddenly near my chin.
I felt like I was doing something wrong, and not in a good way. I didn’t want to be thinking about Lake when I was this close to her sister. I took a step back from her.
“What’s wrong?” Tiffany asked.
“Nothing.”
She was quiet a moment. “I want this, Manning.”
“It’s not that.”
“I’m not a virgin. If you’re worried I’ll get attached—”
“It’s not that,” I repeated.
“I’m on birth control.”
My heartbeat hadn’t calmed any, and that comment didn’t help. It just reminded me of the terrifying conversation inside about the girl who got pregnant. “Who’s Regina Lee?”
“A girl at my high school who had sex with a teacher. All the parents got worked up, but he was only like twenty-four or something.”
“How old was she?”
“Seventeen. Regina says she’ll wait for him to get out.”
The way Charles had threatened to throw his power around scared me. Who knew if it was true what he’d said about bringing more charges against the teacher? But a man like that definitely had connections, and it was clear he didn’t want me anywhere near Lake. He’d been angry enough that I hadn’t mentioned my work next door, but it was Lake being over there, me being around her, that’d really set him off. I hoped we’d be done with this house soon and get out of his proximity. Anything in the neighborhood went wrong, and he’d surely find one of us to blame.
Tiffany cocked a hip. “So is that the problem?” she asked. “You’re worried I’ll get pregnant like Regina Lee?”
“No.”
“What then? Not pretty enough? Too fat?”
Nobody in the Kaplan family could be considered fat. “Definitely not.”
“You already told me you don’t have a girlfriend. Were you lying?”
She asked it casually, as if it were nothing to lie about that. I urged myself to say yes. It’d be easier to be a cheater than admit I felt protective enough of Lake that I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to Tiffany yet. Then I could wash my hands of this and drive off. Tiffany would go inside and tell her dad. He’d be thrilled.
And Lake would think I’d lied to her.
“I don’t have a girlfriend,” I said.
Tiffany pushed off the truck. “Then you must be, like, gay. Or mentally unstable. I’m here offering you sex. If you’re not just going to come out and tell me why you don’t want it, then bye. Don’t call me again.”
She turned and walked up the grass. I couldn’t breathe—it was an unwelcome and unfamiliar feeling. I didn’t let shit like this get to me. Where girls were concerned, I’d generally not found them worth the trouble. But as Tiffany got farther away, so did Lake. I wouldn’t be invited back. How would that look, a grown man trying to hang around her? If I saw it, I’d put a stop to it.
Without Tiffany, there was no Lake. No monster sandwiches, no blueberry pie. But what’d I done to deserve that sweetness in my life? Nothing. And who’s to say I wouldn’t spoil it? I might. So probably, I should just walk away.
But it wasn’t just Lake I’d been watching tonight. Tiffany was right when she’d said she was a disappointment to her dad. He put her in a box, then got mad she was in it. Not that Tiffany didn’t provoke him. She did. But she was just looking for someone to pay attention to her.
“Wait.”
Tiffany turned around. “What?”
“It’s none of that,” I said. “I’m just old-fashioned.”
“What do you mean?”
I climbed the grassy incline until I stood in front of her. I took her shoulders as if bracing us both. Maybe I didn’t deserve sweetness, but Tiffany, yes. She was a decent match for me. She could use someone on her side. And she came with Lake. I leaned in and kissed Tiffany on the lips. “It means I like to take things slow,” I said. “I’m old-fashioned.”
Tiffany blinked up at me. “Well, that’s a first.”