grin.
“Just try it. Experience what two hundred dollars tastes like.”
I pull my hand from the safety of my pocket and accept the cigar. Our hands brush up against each other and a warmth crawls over my body. If that’s all it takes to feel this way, a brush of her fingertips, what will I do if this situation escalates? All I can think about is her pouty lips coming toward mine. I want to know what they taste like. I look down at the cigar and realize this is the closest I’ll get for now so I bring it up to my lips and let the smoky, hot flavor burn in my mouth. A peach twist kicks at the end.
Lip gloss. The girl with the peach lips wears peach lipstick or gloss or whatever it’s called. And this part of the cigar tastes like heaven. I stifle a cough without inhaling and hand it back to her.
“So?”
“Two hundred dollars tastes like crap.”
She arches her eyebrows and snuffs the cigar out in a bucket near her waist.
“Except for the last little bit. There was a peach taste on the end. What would you attribute that taste to?”
She smiles that wicked grin that makes my knees weak and my chest soar.
“That’s what I taste like.”
God, Piper Sullivan.
I briefly consider how long I’ve been gone from Mr. Lee’s class. I’ve never technically skipped a class before, and I definitely never smoked a two hundred dollar cigar in a closet with a girl before. Make that the girl . Piper wasn’t just any girl. Like Big Dave said, today is the beginning. So I say to hell with Mr. Lee’s class and a syllabus and the Cold War. I decide that today is the beginning of many firsts so I give Piper a long look before I sit down on the ground with my back against the door.
“Since I’ve already tasted you, it’s only appropriate that I get to know you.”
“A man after my heart,” she says as she jumps down and sits across from me. The closet is maybe four by five feet. It’s just Piper and me and a mop and a ridiculous amount of cleaning supplies in twenty square feet. She slides her feet on either side of mine. My white, knock-off Chucks against her pink flats look, well, pretty damn great. “What do you want to know?”
“Well, I already know that you like to lie, eat Twinkies, skip class to smoke cigars that you stole from your dad who is a freakin’ neurosurgeon, applied to Princeton, and live vicariously on a dangerous edge while always wearing pink.” I count each point off with my fingers. “I’ve got one more hand and five more fingers. If I ask you five questions, do you promise to tell the truth, nothing but the truth, so help you God?”
“First of all, thank you for noting that you have five fingers on your hand. Should I uncross my fingers when I answer your questions?” she asks as she puts her hand up to her heart. “Okay, I promise to tell you, Cash Rowland, the truth. You have five questions. Choose carefully.”
“Why did you move here?”
“My neurosurgeon father is determined to discover why the population in Appleton and its surrounding communities are plagued with higher rates of cancerous brain tumors than anyone in the nation,” she says. “Bonus footage, we moved here from Chicago where I spent the previous seventeen years. One down, now it’s my turn.”
“We really have higher rates of cancerous brain tumors than anyone in the nation?”
“I guess so.”
“That’s depressing.”
“Yes, it is. If you have a 4.0 GPA and got a respectable – not perfect, I might add – 2280 on your SAT, why haven’t you applied to any colleges?”
“I did now, over the last two days. I have a few more to fill out, but my dad and I don’t see eye-to-eye on the whole college thing. He doesn’t think I should go. Well, let me rephrase that. He believes I should really think hard about what life means and what journey I want to take on this ride called ‘life.’ He doesn’t want me to fly into college with my head in between my ass without a clear direction of my
“Just try it. Experience what two hundred dollars tastes like.”
I pull my hand from the safety of my pocket and accept the cigar. Our hands brush up against each other and a warmth crawls over my body. If that’s all it takes to feel this way, a brush of her fingertips, what will I do if this situation escalates? All I can think about is her pouty lips coming toward mine. I want to know what they taste like. I look down at the cigar and realize this is the closest I’ll get for now so I bring it up to my lips and let the smoky, hot flavor burn in my mouth. A peach twist kicks at the end.
Lip gloss. The girl with the peach lips wears peach lipstick or gloss or whatever it’s called. And this part of the cigar tastes like heaven. I stifle a cough without inhaling and hand it back to her.
“So?”
“Two hundred dollars tastes like crap.”
She arches her eyebrows and snuffs the cigar out in a bucket near her waist.
“Except for the last little bit. There was a peach taste on the end. What would you attribute that taste to?”
She smiles that wicked grin that makes my knees weak and my chest soar.
“That’s what I taste like.”
God, Piper Sullivan.
I briefly consider how long I’ve been gone from Mr. Lee’s class. I’ve never technically skipped a class before, and I definitely never smoked a two hundred dollar cigar in a closet with a girl before. Make that the girl . Piper wasn’t just any girl. Like Big Dave said, today is the beginning. So I say to hell with Mr. Lee’s class and a syllabus and the Cold War. I decide that today is the beginning of many firsts so I give Piper a long look before I sit down on the ground with my back against the door.
“Since I’ve already tasted you, it’s only appropriate that I get to know you.”
“A man after my heart,” she says as she jumps down and sits across from me. The closet is maybe four by five feet. It’s just Piper and me and a mop and a ridiculous amount of cleaning supplies in twenty square feet. She slides her feet on either side of mine. My white, knock-off Chucks against her pink flats look, well, pretty damn great. “What do you want to know?”
“Well, I already know that you like to lie, eat Twinkies, skip class to smoke cigars that you stole from your dad who is a freakin’ neurosurgeon, applied to Princeton, and live vicariously on a dangerous edge while always wearing pink.” I count each point off with my fingers. “I’ve got one more hand and five more fingers. If I ask you five questions, do you promise to tell the truth, nothing but the truth, so help you God?”
“First of all, thank you for noting that you have five fingers on your hand. Should I uncross my fingers when I answer your questions?” she asks as she puts her hand up to her heart. “Okay, I promise to tell you, Cash Rowland, the truth. You have five questions. Choose carefully.”
“Why did you move here?”
“My neurosurgeon father is determined to discover why the population in Appleton and its surrounding communities are plagued with higher rates of cancerous brain tumors than anyone in the nation,” she says. “Bonus footage, we moved here from Chicago where I spent the previous seventeen years. One down, now it’s my turn.”
“We really have higher rates of cancerous brain tumors than anyone in the nation?”
“I guess so.”
“That’s depressing.”
“Yes, it is. If you have a 4.0 GPA and got a respectable – not perfect, I might add – 2280 on your SAT, why haven’t you applied to any colleges?”
“I did now, over the last two days. I have a few more to fill out, but my dad and I don’t see eye-to-eye on the whole college thing. He doesn’t think I should go. Well, let me rephrase that. He believes I should really think hard about what life means and what journey I want to take on this ride called ‘life.’ He doesn’t want me to fly into college with my head in between my ass without a clear direction of my
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