Shrimp by Rachel Cohn Page B

The yellow! Yellower than Shrimp's leisure suit! Promise you'll come over this week, Cyd Charisse? Our friend from Humboldt County just came down to visit and left a nice little deposit, so you know what that means. We'll have a great time, really get to know one another."
    I couldn't accept the invitation without Shrimp also extending it so I just smiled a little, polite. Shrimp mumbled, "I'll see you at school."
    That didn't seem very encouraging.
    Iris and Billy said their good-byes and headed back to their seats with their disco king mack daddy son in tow, me
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    standing there confused and wanting to know what's in Humboldt County; maybe if my mother hadn't sent me off to boarding school for so long I'd know what's in my own state. Then just as he was heading up the stairs toward his balcony section, Shrimp turned around and walked back over to where I was still standing in the lobby, watching him, wanting to hyperventilate with happiness--and confusion. Shrimp stood in front of me, and it was like our live awkward slo-mo moment. What were we supposed to do here? Do we really even know each other anymore? Shrimp leaned his face into mine like he was going to kiss me. I mucho wanted those full lips of his but I turned my cheek slightly and offered him my hand instead.
    We have a long way to go, despite my urge to tear that canary yellow leisure suit from his body and have my way with him.
    His face leaned close to my lips again, then diverted to my ear. Shrimp mumbled, "Next Saturday, eightish, party for the parents. Rooftop."
    The feel of his soft lips against my hand, the graze of his chin stubble on my wrist, and his breath whispering into my ear had made my legs all Jell-0 and I was swooning as I turned around to return to my seat. My eyes fell on Nancy, whom all the men were checking out, with her perfect blond hair in a French twist and her model figure wearing a form-fitting couture evening dress, standing in a corner with a Perrier in her manicured hand, where she must have been watching Shrimp and me.
    Nancy had the lemon-sucking face on again, like, Oh, no, here we go again.
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    *** Chapter 8
    I really am so over the Wallace crush, but walking back onto that roof at Java and Shrimp's house, overlooking Ocean Beach with the smell of serious coffee brewing and the view of Java flipping the veggie burgers on the grill while wearing a Java the Hut apron over his wet suit, well, I couldn't help but think, Mmm, break me off a piece of that. Something about the smell of the Ocean Beach salt air and eucalyptus trees seeping through the aroma of Java the Hut coffee beans, something about that particular mixture of scents brought me back instantly to the beginning of summer, when Shrimp and I were still On. The smell sent my hormones into immediate overdrive and almost made me forget how I have decided engaged man Wallace has become slightly a sellout and wouldn't I like to see him naked on a honeymoon, all buff and showering our matrimonial bed with Java beans instead of rose petals.
    I gave myself a mental slap on the wrist and tried to distract myself from further impure thoughts. My eyes searched the rooftop, where a large group of teen to middle-aged people--hippie/surfer/artist types, very grunge, your basic Ocean Beach crowd--were hanging out for Iris and Billy's welcome-home party. I was scanning for Shrimp, whom my eyes spied lying on a hammock and motioning me from where I was standing at the door. I licked the Java-inspired drool from my lips and walked through the crowd toward Shrimp.
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    I couldn't help but remember that the last time I had been on this rooftop I was in a moonlit, whispered convo with Java--nothing romantic, just dishing about life and past loves and your basic deep thoughts, I suppose--while Shrimp and Delia were passed out in their sleeping bags next to us. My welcome home from that party had been a sentence to Alcatraz, courtesy of Sid and Nancy. Now I am not only past imprisonment but