Love and Other Theories by Alexis Bass Read Free Book Online Page B

too.”
    My heart starts to hiccup as his lips move down my neck.
    “I’m so glad I met you.”
    He’s not lying. I’m straddling him and practically topless.
    I pull his head up so I can reach his lips and I kiss him hard, but I don’t say anything. I know better. It’s perfect that he’s here, now, when I finally have the time and freedom to live out these wild and blissful moments before I have to be a serious Barron freshman. And it’s the same for him, which makes everything about him feel wonderfully familiar. It makes all this even better.
    Nathan cups his hands against my cheeks again. I watch his eyes tick back and forth over my face. “You’re so fucking beautiful.”
    The last boy to tell me I was beautiful—and actually use the word—was Trip. I forgot how much I loved hearing it.



CHAPTER TEN
    T here are several reasons Nathan Diggs is adorable. He spends his lunch hour catching up on Spanish so he’s fully prepared come fifth period. He wants to bet before Drama about what kind of potato chips Mrs. Seymour will be eating while she teaches. He flies back to San Diego for his best friend’s birthday because, according to Nathan Diggs, when your best friend turns eighteen you don’t miss it. While it’s adorable, it also means he’s gone for the weekend, leaving straight after school on Friday.
    My head spins a little with questions, specifically: While you’re seeing your best friend, will you behooking up with other girls? As in, girls you could talk to for hours and make out with for hours and who you think are beautiful?
    I practice the art of suppression. I restrain these questions, and after a while they exist only in the form of a mild stomachache.
    Luckily, it’s the beginning of the weekend and I do not have to work this month. My friends and I have big plans.
    After school we all go to Shelby’s. It’s the best place to go because Shelby’s mom, Sandra, is never home on the weekends, especially since she started dating Phil three years ago. Sandra spends her weekends out of town with Phil, venturing north to the casinos or south to the lake.
    “There you are!” Melissa shrieks when I walk through the front door. “I was starting to forget what you look like.”
    Shelby and Melissa were the first to arrive since they drive together every day. They’re in the kitchen mixing drinks, and I join them after ditching my heavy winter coat in Shelby’s room.
    “Sooooo . . . spiiiillll!” Melissa says, dangling a freshly mixed glass of vodka and diet tonic in front of my face as though she’s not going to give it to me until I do what she says. I snatch it out of her hands and a little drips on the counter.
    “Is that Brey?” Sandra appears in the kitchen wearing a black dress and heels. Must be a casino kind of weekend. The diet tonic is sitting out on the counter, and Sandra must know what we’ve mixed with it. She doesn’t say anything. She never does, but I always expect her to.
    “In the flesh.”
    Shelby giggles.
    “I hear there’s a new man in your life.”
    I blush the way I always do when Sandra Chesterfield talks to me about boys. It’s like I’m thirteen all over again.
    Phil walks into the living room and greets Sandra with a peck on the cheek.
    “Get a room,” Shelby teases, looking only mildly disgusted.
    “Hands where we can see them!” Melissa chants—something we used to say to embarrass Sandra whenever she had a guy over.
    “You girls have fun,” Sandra says, rolling her eyes. “And don’t drink all of Phil’s beer!” she calls to us as she’s shutting the door.
    We laugh because we would never. We like Phil. He’s not creepy like some of the other guys Sandra dated. Sure, he doesn’t have a whole lot of hair left, and Sandra is two inches taller than him when she wears heels, but, as Shelby puts it, “Sandra doesn’t lose as many points with Phil.” We certainly like Phil more than Shelby’sdad, who only comes by to drop off money, which