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I notice her glance toward thelike she’s worried soive in to the insatiable need I have to kiss her, I give her a quick peck on the cheek, instead I release her and sloalk back to ers release from mine, her arm drops to her side and she s her better As soon as I’m in my car, I conclude that there is absolutely no way I’ll be able to sleep tonight if I don’t rectify this

I roll downdrive hohs, then walks to h theI slip my hand behind her head and pull her to oner She parts her lips and at first, our kiss is slow and sweet She reaches through theand runs her hands throughme closer, and it coainst hers and for a brief second, I conte my trip this weekend Now that I’ve finally tasted her, I knoon’t be able to go three days without it Her lips are everything I’ve been i they would be The door between us is pure torture I want to pull her through theand onto et to a point where we both realize that either she needs to climb inside the car with me, or we need to come to a halt We simultaneously slon and eventually stop, but neither of us pulls away

"Daets better every tiree hoain, then pulls away

I regretfully back out of the driveway and intoI wasn’t about to leave town for the next three days When I exither way back up her driveway I watch as she gathers her hair and pulls it up in a knot, securing it with a band while she nears her front door Her hair looks good like that It looked great down, too As I’ the view, it dawns on reat she looked tonight

"Lake!" I yell She turns around and I jog back across the street to her "I forgot to tell you so" I wrap my arms around her and whisper into her hair, "You look beautiful tonight" I kiss her on top of the head, then release her and walk back to my house When I reachin the sao inside, then iht for theWhen I pull back the curtain, I see her twirl back toward her house and practically skip inside

"What are you looking at?" Maya says

Her voice startles " I take my jacket off and step on the heel of my shoe to ease ain next Thursday?"

She stands up and heads to the front door "Don’t I always?" she says "But I’ain" She shuts the door behind her and I throw h This was by far the best date I’ve ever been on, and I have a feeling they’re only going to get better

6

the honeymoon

LAKE SMILES, THINKING back on how blissfully happy we both were after that date "I had never had a night like that in inning to end Even the grilled cheese"

"Everything except the fact that I failed to mention my occupation"

She frowns "Well, yeah That part sucked"

I laugh "Sucked is an understateot through it As tough as it was, look at us now"

"Wait," she says, pressing her fingers to my lips "Don’t jump ahead Start fro when you saw od, you were so pissed at ht I was s

"No, babe I was anything but pissed at you"

oh, shit

MY THREE-DAY WEEKEND What can I say about est, most treacherous three days ofabout her I could have kickedher phone nurandfather apparently noticed the difference inthe course of the visit Before we left their house last night, he pulled me aside and said, "So? Who is she?"

Of course I played du met someone What would he think if he kneent on one date with this girl, and she already had hed when I denied it and he squeezed my shoulder "Can’t wait to s, but there’s a different air about today Probably because I know I’ll get to see her after work today I slide the note under the windshield wiper of her Jeep, then head back across the street to ers on the door handle, I have second thoughts I’ way too forward Who says, "I can’t wait to see you" in a note after one date? The last thing I want to do is scare her off I walk back to her Jeep and lift the wiper blade to remove the note from her windshield

"Leave it"

I spin around and Julia is standing in their entryway, holding a cup of coffee between her hands I look down at the note, then back at the Jeep, then back at Julia, not really knohat to say

"You should leave it," she says, pointing to the note in my hand "She’ll like it" She s me completely and utterly embarrassed in her driveway I place the note back under the windshield wiper and ht

"I TOLD YOU last week he was co," Mrs Alex says in a defensive tone of voice

"No, you said he called about co You never told me it was today"

She turns to her co you now He’ll be here at eleven o’clock to observe your fourth-period class" She reaches to her printer and removes a freshly printed form "And you’ll have a new student in your next class I just registered her thisHere’s her information" She hands me the form and smiles I rollthe remainder of the day

I walk in a hurry to third period considering I’roan An eleven o’clock observation? That’s just an hour from now All I have scheduled for my classes today are section tests I wasn’t prepared to lecture at all, much less in front of my faculty advisor I’ll just have to use this period to prepare soet any worse?