Making Out by Megan Stine Page B

date had barely started!
    â€œAre you a butter girl or a plain girl?” Luke asked, steering her toward the concession stand.
    â€œRight now, I’m a Raisinets girl,” Marianna said. “I need dessert. I just had lunch.”
    â€œGood idea.” Luke bought them a box of Raisinets and two bottles of water, and then they found seats in the back of the theater.
    Marianna’s heart started beating faster. She’d read in Cosmo Girl! that couples who were planning a heavy make-out session always sat in the last row of movie seats, so that no one would be watching from behind.
    She was hoping Luke would kiss her, but was she ready for a lot more?
    Her pulse quickened at the thought. Yeah, she was!
    Luckily, the place wasn’t too crowded, and there were zero little kids in the audience, so Marianna didn’t feel out of place.
    Luke let her go into the row first, acting the gentleman. She took a seat kind of near the wall. He sat close, leaned his shoulder against hers, and opened the Raisinets.
    Marianna took just one. She didn’t feel like eating anything right now, with Luke so close. How was he going to kiss her if she was feeding her face?
    But he didn’t kiss her. Not right then. The previews came on, and he just confidently wrapped his arm around her shoulder to hold her close. Marianna loved it, sitting there in his arms, wondering what was going to happen next. It was so much sexier this way.
    Then they got caught up in the movie, and she forgot all about kissing him until the scene where King Kong was looking lovingly at Jessica Lange like he wanted her to understand his inner soul or something. Suddenly, she remembered where she was, remembered whose arm was around her shoulder. At the same exact moment, Luke took his free hand, turned Marianna’s face toward him gently, and kissed her. The movie faded away. Marianna never wanted the kiss to end, and it almost didn’t.
    When the movie music made a dramatic crescendo, they both looked at the screen to see what was happening, and went back to watching King Kong raging through the jungle, doing his best impersonation of Marianna’s father. Hah! At least, it made her feel rebellious (in a good way) to think of it like that.
    Before she knew it, the movie was over.
    â€œYou want to take a walk in the park across the street?” Luke asked.
    She nodded. The sky was clear, and the air was cool. Marianna couldn’t believe how easy it was to talk to him. For one thing, they had a million things in common. He loved old movies and indoor swimming pools, just like she did. (It made them both think of their childhoods, when they went to so many birthday sleepover parties in hotels, and swam in disgustingly steamy, overchlorinated, indoor pools.) He hated two things that were her biggest pet peeves: mushy French toast and people who littered.
    They both stopped to pick up small bits of trash that were littering the park.
    And of course they both loved cross-country. She could talk to him about running all day, and not get tired of it.
    â€œSo where are you going next year?” Luke asked her.
    â€œWash U.” Assuming my father doesn’t decide to completely ruin my life , she thought. “You?”
    â€œI’ll probably be here at Georgetown. They have a great poli-sci program,” he explained. “It wasn’t my first choice. I was jonesing to go to MIT, but I didn’t get in.”
    Marianna couldn’t stop smiling at this guy. Who else would just flat-out admit that they didn’t get in to their first-choice school? Most people at St. Claire’s were so worried about looking like losers, they wouldn’t even reveal which schools they’d applied to until after the April acceptance letters arrived.
    Luke was just so . . . there was no other word for him. Special.
    He bent down to pick a wildflower, then tucked it behind her ear. “This is for someone who’s usually moving