Almost Perfect - Brian Katcher [14]
Sage smiled. I retrieved her coat and, with uncharacteristic suaveness, helped her with it.
The wind picked up as she stuck her arms through the sleeves, giving me a faceful of her dark hair. For the first time I could see the back of her pale neck (it was just above my eye level). I was tempted to kiss her there in a friendly, platonic fashion, but decided I was deluding myself.
By the time she turned around, she was smiling again, her inner turmoil hidden.
“Thanks, Logan.” She held out her hand.
When I attempted to shake, she grabbed me by the wrist. With no warning, she yanked me toward her and engulfed me in a bear hug. Her fur coat made me feel like I was being mauled by a grizzly. Then she released me and walked off without another word.
I watched her go. I felt a bizarre mixture of friendship, lust, fear, pity, lust, confusion, panic, and lust. Brenda had been served an eviction notice. Sage now occupied most of my brain. I’d traded a girl who seemed to like me but secretly didn’t for a girl who … what? Sage and I had just met. She didn’t know my father was gone. I hadn’t met her sister. We hadn’t visited each other’s houses. We didn’t know each other’s birthdays. And yet, she seemed to really want my friendship. And not the usual female I want to be your friend so you’ll never try to sleep with me definition, either.
I needed to stop thinking like a sprinter and start thinking like a marathon runner. There was no rush. Just take things slow and steady. And if Sage and I wound up only as friends, well, there was nothing wrong with that.
When two guys are friends, it means they are free to fart and scratch themselves in each other’s presence. Well, you don’t actually have to be friends for that.
When a guy and a girl are friends, it means either the girl is ugly or the guy isn’t cool. Otherwise, the balance would be upset and they’d be more.
Sage was cute. Not in the head-turning, blond, flat-stomached way a magazine model is cute. And not in the quiet, understated, pretty-in-spite-of-herself way that Brenda had. Sage was beautiful like a sunset. There was no one part of her that especially stood out, but viewed as a whole, there was no room for improvement.
Except that didn’t matter. Sage just wanted to be my friend. If she’d been ugly, no problem. But she wasn’t. And I had to spend the first hour of every school day being her friend. Nothing is harder than acting normal around someone you think is hot.
Strike that. Nothing is harder than acting normal around someone you think is hot, and then dissecting an amphibian together.
I wonder if anyone has ever said that sentence before.
At any rate, when I walked into the lab that Monday, I expected to find Tim, Sage, and a tray of fish bait. It should go without saying that I was not expecting a plate of homemade cookies.
And yet there they were, at my section of the table, cheerily wrapped in red cellophane. I looked over at Sage, who pointedly took out a compact and began reapplying her lipstick.
“Thanks,” I ventured. She grinned and turned away.
Tim was already eyeing my treats like Wile E. Coyote looked at Road Runner. I slipped the plate into my backpack.
Soon we were busy hacking and slashing at our dead buddy. As Tim wielded the scalpel (Sage absolutely refused to cut, and Tim refused to let me), an odd assortment of thoughts hit me.
So does she like me?
What, exactly, is going on at her house?
Is she flirting? No girl, not even Brenda, has ever baked me anything.
Is that a kidney or a spleen?
Why is life so complicated?
Why did I think first-hour biology was a good idea?
Sage left the room five seconds after the bell rang, while Tim and I were still washing our hands. It occurred to me that since we’d met, I had never heard her say goodbye. She’d just up and leave.
Tim was staring at me. At times, I had the upsetting impression he was wondering how I’d taste with fava beans and a nice grape Crush.
“She baked you cookies,” he whispered.
“Yeah.” I wiped my hands