“You feel bad? How can you feel bad about something that felt so good?”

“Because it’s not that simple.”

“How much simpler can it get, Keatie? We have sex. Amazing, mind-blowingly good sex. I’m sorry if I haven’t made a big deal of going out on dates. I did ask you to Homecoming in a big way. I planned stuff. You had fun, didn’t you?”

I nod, dry my tears, and feel so much better.

He drives a bit farther and takes me to a hole in the wall. The outside is rundown, needs painting and needs a new sign. But I notice the parking lot is packed.

It’s a casual Mexican restaurant and there’s a long line of people waiting to get in, but Dawson walks up to the front, shakes a guy’s hand, and motions for me to follow him.

The guy leads us through the restaurant and then out a sliding glass door.

Now I see why the place is so packed.

There is a huge courtyard under a glass roof. The glass roof is sparkling clean, and you can see the clouds floating by as the sun turns them various shades of pink. There are little twinkle lights everywhere, across the beams on the glass ceiling and in the huge potted trees.

We are seated at a table that is set between a couple trees and has a feeling of seclusion.

Dawson pulls out my chair for me and grins at me as I sit down.

“This place is very cool. How did you ever find it?”

“I wanted to take you somewhere special. I’ve been looking up restaurants all afternoon.”

I lean over and kiss him. “Thank you.”

A Mariachi band strolls up to our table and start serenading us.

Dawson looks irritated, hands one of the dudes a wad of cash, and shoos them away.

We get to the game a bit late.

The scoreboard shows that the second quarter has just started and we’re down by a touchdown.

It starts to sprinkle rain.

The rain gets harder, the field gets muddier, and Dawson holds me tighter.

Pretty soon, it’s the end of the game.

The score is tied.

Only a few ticks left on the clock.

Aiden walks onto the field to kick the winning field goal. His uniform is wet. Molded tightly to his pads and body.

He looks at the goal post. Lines up the kick. Then he stops and looks dead at me.

He does a complicated-looking thing with his hands. His thumbs and pointer fingers form touching double O’s. Then the rest of his fingers form sort of a bridge above the O’s.

Sort of like you would make a heart with your hands. But I have no idea what it’s supposed to be.

The ball is snapped. Logan lines up the laces and Aiden kicks the ball straight through the goal posts.

The guys rush out on the field to congratulate him as the crowd cheers.

At midnight, I’m lying in bed, trying to mimic what he did with his hands.

When all of a sudden, I see it.

My phone buzzes, startling me.

Hottie God: You need to sneak out tonight to congratulate me.

Me: That thing you did, before you kicked it. Was it supposed to be a four-leaf clover?

Hottie God: The Cave. One hour.

This is crazy. I really shouldn’t go.

But I’m going to.

Take off your pants.

1am

It’s stopped raining, but is still cloudy, damp, and chilly. I trudge back through the trees, getting my boots all covered with mud.

Aiden isn’t here yet, so I sit down on a stump, realizing too late that it’s very wet. And now, so are the back of my sweats and even my underwear.

Is there anything worse, really, than a damp ass?

This is not very romantic.

I hear the brush moving and get a momentary rush of worry about getting caught out here after curfew.

But the tree limbs part, and Aiden walks into the clearing carrying a Burberry sleeping bag.

“No way I’m sleeping outside in this weather,” I tease.

“The backing is waterproof, so we won’t get wet when we sit down.”

“Too late for that.” I turn around and show him my wet backside.

“There’s nothing worse than a damp ass,” he says. Which are the exact words I just thought a few seconds ago.

Oh, the fates are so toying with me.

He spreads out the sleeping bag with the shiny side down, kicks his shoes off, then stands on top of it and starts taking off his sweatpants.

Uh, holy shit.

What is this?

I watch though.

He has the best legs at school. They have just enough light blond hair to be masculine, but not enough to be hairy.

“What are you doing?”

“Take off your pants,” he commands.

“Isn’t this moving a little fast? I mean, we haven’t even made out yet.”

He laughs and shakes his head at me. “Silly Boots. I’m going to let you wear my sweats. I have athletic shorts underneath.”

“Oh, um, I . . .”

“What? It’s not that big of a deal.”

“Except that my underwear got wet too.”

He runs his tongue across his bottom lip and grins at me. He’s never made this facial gesture in front of me. And the combination of his mouth and tongue both looking at me at the same time.

I can’t even tell you what it does.

It makes my stomach flip, like I was on a roller coaster and we just flipped upside down doing 75 miles per hour.

You had sex with Dawson tonight, you idiot.

What is wrong with me?

I need off this ride and fast.

Have you ever been on a roller coaster, upside down, and all of a sudden it feels like maybe your seatbelt—that little piece of webbed material—isn’t quite as tight as it should be? You feel yourself slide a fraction of an inch and mentally prepare to fall to your death before it tightens up again?

I feel like I’m ready to fall out of the roller coaster.

Plummet to my death.

And I briefly think, What would my heaven be like?

When my dad died, Mom explained heaven as this amazing place where Daddy was living his best days over and over. Like the day we got ice cream and rode the Ferris wheel then walked along the beach holding hands.

And my mind flashes to Aiden gliding a feather all over me. That is my idea of heaven.

“You can take them off too. I won’t look,” Aiden says, referring to my wet undies as he hands me his warm sweats.

And, sadly, he doesn’t even attempt to peek as I slide them on.

I say what’s on my mind before I think better. “Have you ever been naked in these?”

He pulls me onto the sleeping bag with him and kisses me in response.

And his hands. His talented hands are finally moving across my body.

For the first time, he seems like a normal boy.

Like a normal, horny boy.

He stops and leans up on one arm. “So you figured it out, huh?”

And I want to say, That you are a god? Yes, I know.

He makes half the symbol with his fingers. It looks incomplete, so I mirror it with my fingers and hold them up to his.

And when our fingers touch, I swear to god, a spark shoots from my hand to his.

“A four-leaf clover,” I say breathlessly.

He rolls on top of me, straddling me and pinning me under his weight. It’s an effortless move.

I look at him, my eyes wide.

“Use both your hands to make the double O’s,” he tells me.

So I do.

Then he puts one hand on each side of mine, forming two more O’s.

“That does look like a clover.”

“It’s going to take both of us to make this work,” he says. “I heard Dawson took you on a date tonight.”

“He says he’s going to start wooing me.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Aiden says, still forming the clover. “I’m going to win.”

“It sorta looks like our hands are having sex,” I laugh. “Like, the way they’re joined together, kinda . . . uh, never mind.”

“Let’s talk about sex.”

Just Aiden saying the word sex almost leaves me more breathless than actual sex with Dawson.

“Uh, okay.”

He leans down, his mouth about twelve inches from mine. “We’re going to take things slow.”

“I wanna take things slow. Like, if you were just hoping for sex from me, you should probably halt the wooing process.”

“Does that mean you won’t be having sex with anyone else during the wooing process?”

“Um . . .”

“So that’s why I’m not winning? If we had sex, would I win?”

I let out a little laugh. “I don’t know. You think it would be any good?”

He runs his finger gently down my neck. “What do you think?”

I swallow hard. “God, don’t do that to me. I know I slept with Dawson too soon. But I . . .”

He starts to get off me, but I grab his hands.

“I really don’t want to hear this,” he says.

“You need to hear it. I thought I could go fast with the sexual part of a relationship and slow with the feelings part, but I can’t. It gets all messed up. All backwards. I want to wait. And I don’t want this to become some sort of competition.”

“Boots?”

He moves closer to my face.

“Yeah?”

“I’d wait for you forever. You don’t get it do you?”

“Get what?”

“We’re going to be together for a long time. There's no need to rush things when you know that.”

“Do you know how weird it is for a guy to say that? Guys hate commitment.”

“Did you not feel it? Was it just me?”

“No, I felt it too. I just thought you were a player and fought it.”

“Don’t fight me anymore.”

I don’t get to reply. His lips quickly close the gap between us.

All of a sudden, there is a huge clap of thunder and a bolt of lightning hits a tree not too far from us. Rain starts coming down in buckets.

Aiden pulls me up off the ground.

We laugh at how instantly soaked we both are.

But then we lock eyes.

His lips press against mine.

And there in the pouring rain, I get the. Best. Kiss. Of. My. Entire. Life.

And I’m pretty sure with this kiss, he branded me.

Seared his initials into my skin.

Like bite marks from a vampire.

I’m his.

When I get back from the Cave, I change out of my soaking wet clothes and lie in bed thinking about our kiss in the rain and wondering how it could have been the best kiss of my life.

There were no tongues.

Just lips colliding.

Lightning around us mimicking the electricity I feel every time our lips touch.

It was a simple, single, electrifying kiss.

And it was amazing.

Friday, October 21st

I need some cake.

10:30am

Most of the classes today have very few people in them. Most of us are working, getting everything set up for the PSW/Greek weekend.

I find Peyton in the café overseeing its transformation. There are huge black canvases draped on the walls. Art students are using projectors to beam classic sculptures onto the wall and are tracing them with white chalk. Others are drawing thick Greek columns and filling the fake windows with views of a bright blue ocean.

“Hey,” she says. “It’s looking great, don’t you think?”

“It really is. I just stopped by to check it out. Brad gave me a list of stuff to do. I have to go make sure the audio equipment is all ready for the movie tonight and that the gym is set up.”

“I heard that you’re hanging out with Dawson tonight and my brother tomorrow night.”

“That’s the plan, yes.”

“Do you think dating them both is a good idea? I mean, usually when you date more than one guy, you make sure they run in different circles, you know what I mean?”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.”

She leans in and whispers, “So, I was flirting with hottie Cooper this morning.”

“Peyton, don’t do that.”

“Why not? There’s no one here I want to date.”

“What about Brad?”

“Hmm, let’s see. Pretty little boy Brad versus a manly tattooed hottie. Um, no. Besides, I’m pretty sure that he was flirting back. Whitney wants him too. But I’m not going to let her win.”

“Peyton, look, this thing you have going on with Whitney. I know what you’re trying to do. And, I swear, it’s going to backfire on you.”

“No way. I’m not afraid of her anymore. You were right. It’s silly of me to let her hold that over my head. I was a minor. What good would it do if it came out now? Sure, it’d be embarrassing, but pretty soon I’ll be at college far away from here. And her. By the way, I saw what Dawson did in front of your dorm.”

“What do you mean?”

She grins. “Looks like you have two boys trying to woo you.”

I decide to stop by my dorm to see what she’s talking about before I make my way down to the gym.

Maggie is outside, writing all over the sidewalk with chalk.

“Doesn’t it look amazing?”

“It’s really pretty,” I tell her, looking at all the messages the girls in our dorm have written to welcome the prospective students. “How was the library with Jake? I asked him about it and he wouldn’t tell me. He always tells me.”

She grins, full on. “It was good. Very much a friend thing. I’m pretty sure we are in the same boat.”

“The friend boat?”

“Yeah. You still in that with Aiden?”

“I’m not sure anymore. Last night he told me we were going to be together for a long time. Does that seem weird to you?”