“I’m just learning right now,” he explained, unnecessarily, turning to go into the house. “I only got the kit yesterday.”
“Kit?” I said, but once I was in the foyer, I understood. There, scattered across the huge, antique dining room table, was everything you’d require for putting on a magic show: top hat, stuffed rabbit, bag of balloons, interlocking rings, as well as several packs of cards. “Wow. Where’d you find this?”
“Park Mart,” he told me, as he climbed up on one of the chairs, picking up the rings. “We’ve been going there, like, every day.”
“Really,” I said, picking up the rabbit and studying its small, whiskered face. “Why’s that?”
He shrugged, letting the rings fall back to the table with a clank. “I’m really hard to keep entertained.”
Hearing this, I thought of Theo, earlier in the day, relaying how he’d been told he slammed doors. His and Benji’s expressions, sharing these things, were altogether similar: small and sort of rueful. Clearly truths they’d heard more than once.
Then, however, my brain shifted to another image of Theo, this time after I’d received the call from my dad asking if I could drop by when I had a chance. At that moment, he had still been apologizing for kissing me at Big Club.
“I can’t believe I did that,” he’d said, again, as we walked to the car. His entire face was pink, having faded from the bright red it had turned earlier when he first pulled away from me, when he suddenly realized what was happening. “Especially after last time, when you specifically told me not to kiss you. I swear, I’m not that guy.”
“Theo—”
“You know, That Guy Everyone Hates. I don’t make a habit of kissing girls with boyfriends. I’m not even a big PDA person! Or, I mean, I wouldn’t be, if I’d ever had much of a relationship. Which I haven’t. Maybe because I’m That Guy Everyone Hates?”
“Theo.”
“Emaline, you have a boyfriend. Whom I met. Who already doesn’t like me. It’s like I want him to kick my ass. And I swear to you, I don’t. I’ve never been in a fight. Like, not even once.”
“Theo.”
This time, thankfully, he shut up. Which left me with the floor before I was ready to know what to do with it. So, equally ungracefully, I said, “Luke’s not my boyfriend anymore. We broke up this morning.”
He stopped dead in his tracks, the cart he was pushing rattling to a sudden stop. Then he looked at me. “You split up today?”
“Yep.”
“That’s why you were upset, when you came over!” he said, pointing at me. I nodded. A big grin spread across his face. “Oh, man. That is great!”
“Well,” I said diplomatically, “I wouldn’t say—”
“I mean, it’s not, of course not,” he added quickly, fixing his expression. “It’s terrible. For Luke. And your, you know, long relationship, which was clearly very important and meaningful.”
“True,” I told him.
“But for me,” he said, smiling again, “it’s good news. Because, number one, I am not That Guy Everyone Hates. Or totally him.”
“Always a good thing,” I agreed.
“And two,” he said, grinning wider, “I can do it again. I mean, we can. And it’ll be okay.”
I smiled at him. He was such a dork, one thing I could safely say Luke, for all his charms, had always been too confident to be considered. “It wasn’t so bad the first time, actually.”
Another grin. And then, he leaned over the cart—awkwardly, sweetly—and kissed me once more. Clearly, despite the jumbled way it had all happened, that first time was no fluke. It was more than okay.
By the time I pulled into the driveway at Sand Dollars, though, the guilt was starting to set in. I mean, this had to be the quickest rebound on record. Actually, it was more of a crazy, errant hard bounce, right back into the basket. So when he leaned down into my open driver’s-side window, toaster oven box in his arms, to make it a three before walking up the steps of Sand Dollars, I pulled back.
“Uh-oh,” he said, looking worried as I put my hand over my mouth. “That’s never good.”
“No, I’m fine,” I said. “I—”
“Usually I get at least twenty-four hours before people regret kissing me,” he said, shifting the box in his arms. “Just so, you know, you’re aware of the averages.”
I shook my head. “It’s not you. It’s—”
He winced, already bracing himself for what came next.
“Luke and I were together for a long time,” I continued. “I like you. But I have to be careful not to go too—”
“Fast,” he finished for me. I nodded. “Of course. I understand. You need a demarcation.”
“Demarcation?” I asked.
“It means a clear separation between two things,” he told me. “A solid end before a clean beginning. No murky borders. Clarity.”
I knew what it meant, but figured this was not the time to again flaunt my SAT verbal score. So I just said, “Exactly. The problem, I guess, is figuring out how to do that.”
He considered this, shifting the toaster oven again. “It seems to me the only way is a do-over.”
“Of . . .”
“This,” he said, waving his free hand between us. “You and me. Start over, back at the beginning, with you as a happily single girl and me not That Guy Everyone Hates.”