The Year of Falling in Love (Sunnyvale #2) - Jessica Sorensen Page 0,3
say awkward?
Which is kind of weird since usually Kai just owns whatever he does.
My skin is on fire, and I clear my throat. “No worries.”
“Besides, starting a new school your senior year would suck balls,” he continues as if nothing happened. “Everyone will already have their own thing going on. It’d be better if you just finished here and then just started over in college.”
“Are you sure you want to make that kind of commitment, though?”
“I never commit to anything aloud until I’m one hundred percent sure I’m down with it.”
“Okay. I accept your offer to be my chauffeur.” An ounce of weight lifts from my shoulders. Now if I could just get rid of the rest, life would be all cookies and vanilla sprinkle frosting. “But you know what that means, right? I get to boss you around.”
His eyes narrow to slits, but it’s a playful move. “I take back the chauffeur thing. How about just a friend helping another friend.”
Oh, for the love of all zombies, why does he keep saying friend like that? Every time he does, it makes me think of our kiss and almost kiss, something friends don’t do.
“Why are you blushing, Isa?” Humor dances in his eyes.
“I’m not.” I duck my head, reaching for the stack of DVDs on the floor, and hiding my blush. “Can we watch one more movie before I deal with this moving out thing? I need to think about what I’m going to say to everyone.”
His gaze practically burns a hole in the side of my head. “If that’s what you want.”
I nod, scoop up the DVDs, and straighten. “I’m avoiding going back to my house. I’m kind of scared.”
“I don’t blame you.” He does that whole intense, smoldering, I’m-trying-to-burn-a-hole-into-your-head-so-I-can-read-your-thoughts look on me just long enough to make me squirmy. It’s a breath of fresh air when he finally looks away, snatching the DVDs from my hand. “Which one are we watching?”
“I’ll let you pick since you let me pick the last one.”
He sorts through the DVDs and ends up selecting 28 Days Later.
“You really want to watch another zombie movie?” I ask as he gets up to put the DVD into the player.
He feeds the disc in. “Sure. Zombies are cool.”
My chest constricts again, but in a different, more welcoming way. “Kai...”
“Yeah?” He fiddles with the buttons on the DVD player.
My heart pitter-patters. “Thanks for taking care of me today.”
“It’s no big deal.” He shrugs, but I swear to God I hear a smile through his voice. He presses play then returns to the sofa. “I mean, yeah, it’s kind of a pain in the ass taking care of your sugar and zombie addiction.” He sits down beside me and playfully bumps his shoulder against mine. “For a minute there, things got intense. I was worried you were going to turn into a Gremlin and bite my hand off if I didn’t let you dump the Milk Duds into the popcorn, but I think I deflated the situation pretty well.”
“They taste better together,” I protest. “The heat makes them all melty, gooey, good.”
“Melty, huh?” He drapes his arm across the back of the sofa and rests his hand behind me. “That sounds like a word that belongs in the Awesome Isabella Dictionary.”
Smiling, I reach for the popcorn bowl on the end table beside me. I place it on my lap and stuff a handful into my mouth as the movie starts.
But around five minutes in, my mind is elsewhere, which is a first for me while watching a zombie movie. But I let my temporary insanity slide since I have a lot on my mind.
I want to believe my mom isn’t dead, that what Lynn told me was her sick, twisted way of messing with me. But even if my real mom isn’t dead, I worry about why everyone thinks she’s this horrible person. What could she have possibly done to make them think that? What happened fourteen years ago when I left the life I was raised in and came to live with my dad, the Evil Witch of the Anders home, and her Wicked Wench sidekick daughter?
Abruptly, Kai stiffens beside me. I think he’s freaking out over the gory scene on the screen until I note he’s staring at the corner of the room. The only thing there is a miniature gnome, so unless Kai’s suddenly developed a fear of beady-eyed little creatures, I’m guessing he’s stressing over something else.