My Best Everything by Sarah Tomp

Author:Sarah Tomp [Tomp, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-316-32476-2
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published: 2015-03-03T08:00:00+00:00

19

At home, everything was the same. Daddy was gone. Mom baked all hours of the night. Sal kept her stocked with new ingredients and kept her company in the kitchen.

Nothing was the same for me. The same way Aunt Jezebel and Baby had transformed the innocent sugar and corn, I was changed too. Kissing you set off a serious chemical reaction. Me plus you equals heat. Feelings bubbled up and over. You were where I wanted to be.

It could have been awkward and weird waiting to see how you’d act the next time we got together—I had no idea when that would be—except I found you sitting on my front step the next morning when Roni drove up to take me to work.

“How long do I have to wait before I call you?”

I laughed. “You don’t have to wait.”

“I didn’t want to be pushy.”

I held out the piece of Mom’s freshly baked cobbler. You leaned in as if to take it, but instead you kissed the spot on my neck near my ear, sending delicious shivers along my skin.

Roni honked her horn.

We saw each other whenever, wherever we could. Remember the stolen kisses behind the backhoe when you rode all the way out to the junkyard on your lunch hour? We both felt wrong kissing in the room at Saint Jude’s, but the graveyard was a different matter. I’d found something that could, at least temporarily, distract me from thoughts of money and moonshine.

You.

Kisses.

We exchanged hundreds, maybe thousands, of kisses, each one making me want another.

One night, sitting on my front steps, I asked, “Why didn’t you kiss me sooner? Didn’t you want to?”

“Of course I wanted to,” you said, showing me what you meant.

“When did you first want to?”

“When did we first meet?”

I laughed. “I know you didn’t want to kiss me that night. Not when I was hurling in your helmet.”

Looking more serious, you said, “I really don’t know. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to. But I’m used to… fighting my wants.”

I got that. Believed in it. But I also believed in fighting for what I want.

You also took me driving. You had your truck now for us to use, and me driving into the tree must have reminded you I needed practice. As I drove on those back roads I asked, “So when will we make our first sale?”

“Soon,” you said. And, “Stay to the right.”

“Is it that guy from the Fourth? When do we meet him?”

“On the road, Lu. Eyes on the road.” Then you said, “We’re figuring that out. He’s got lots of rules as to how this’ll go.”

I didn’t know what kinds of rules there might be. I only knew I felt impatient. Worried that all our work and investment would go to waste. My days and nights were full of you, but they were slipping away, too fast. Each day gone was another day closer to my deadline marked in red on the kitty calendar. Just under two months. Fifty-one days.

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