Me:If I said no more PDAs at school, would that bother you?
He didn’t answerfor a long moment. That worried me. A little.
Ian:We’ve always put our arms around you.
True.
Ian:Hugs were okay, too.
He wasn’t wrong.In fact, more than once that had annoyed the then flavors of the month, because they would hug me or tease me. One of them always slung an arm around my shoulders as we walked. I’d craved the contact and taken a lot of comfort from it.
Me:You didn’t kiss me.
Ian:Ahh. I like kissing you.
A shiver rippledthrough me
Me:I like kissing you, too. But—if you kiss me and Jake kisses me and Coop and Archie…
Ian:So then only one of us kisses you at school. That would solve that.
Me:That seems a little unfair, and how do we even decide who?
Ian:I volunteer as tribute…
Laughing,I hit answer when he called almost hot on the heels of that comment. “Since we’re talking and you’re not working on your essay, I thought this would be faster.” A smile lit his words. “And I like hearing your voice.”
“Hi,” I greeted him, and he chuckled.
“Hi.”
“So you volunteer as tribute, huh?”
“Well, I am taking you to Homecoming, and I absolutely intend to kiss you at the dance. Just seems to make sense that I can kiss you at school.”
“How do you propose we tell the guys that?”
A moment later, my phone vibrated and I pulled it away to see a message to the group chat with all of us.
Ian:Heads up. No more PDAs at school. I’m the only one who can kiss her there.
Eyes widening,I had to smother another laugh, even as I put Ian on speaker. “I can’t believe you just did that.”
“Why not? You snooze, you lose.” Laughter eddied to the surface in his voice as my phone began to vibrate and his echoed over the open line. “Oh yeah, see—they get it.”
Jake:No fucking way. Who called that?
Coop:Ha ha, very funny.
Archie:You jumped on asking her to Homecoming. You don’t get to do that.
My face hadto be hot, but under the embarrassment was a current of delight.
Ian:You snooze. You lose. Frankie called it.
“Hey now…”I corrected him and typed my reply.
Me:What I said was I thought we should dial back on the PDAs at school and Ian asked me to define the PDAs.