Second Kiss by Natalie Palmer Read Free Book Online Page B

the windows were empty, so maybe I could stay a couple minutes longer.

    He dropped his shoulders and slipped both hands into his pockets. “We’re still going to see each other, Gem. Every day.”
    I looked down at the cracking sidewalk and shrugged. “I guess.” I was terrified that high school would change him. That he would get busy with homework and sports and stop coming over to my house at night. That he would find new friends-or a girlfriend-and forget all about me.
    Jess blew a raspberry through his lips and lightly ruffled my hair. “Don’t get all melodramatic on me, Gemmalynn Judith.” When I acted dramatic, he called me by my full name, which he was convinced would be my “stage” name someday. “You’re going to get sick of me. I swear you are.”
    I bit the inside of my cheek and nodded in agreement, hoping with everything inside of me that he would really be around so much.
    I looked at my house again. I was sure it was past nine. I had to go, but leaving meant it was the end of summer. Tears began building up in the corners of my eyes. I tried to stop, but the harder I tried the more they came. Soon the tears were streaming down my cheeks so fast that I swear I could hear puddles forming on the cement sidewalk beneath me.
    Jess, clearly stunned with the reaction, pulled me into a hug.
    Between sobs I said into his chest, “I hate this.”
    Jess breathed quietly into my hair and squeezed me even tighter. “You’re going to be just fine. I’m the one who should be crying here. I’m going to be a dorky sophomore in a high school with all those older kids driving their fancy cars.”
    I let myself let go of the tight hold I had on Jess’s torso. He was wearing his blue Cubs T-shirt, which he only wore during the summer. It smelled like dirt and pine and the lake. It smelled like summer. I sniffed and backed away from the hug while wip ing at my eyes. “Not to mention the fact that your best friend is an even dorkier ninth-grade girl.”

    Jess bent his head forward and cleared my soaked strands of hair away from my red cheeks. “Well, that I’m sort of proud of.”
    “Gemma!” The voice startled me as I turned toward my house to see Mom standing on the porch, watering a potted plant. She was looking closely at the leaves of the plant, but the way she said my name meant business. I looked back at Jess and grimaced through my tearstained eyelashes. “That’s my cue.”
    Mom continued talking, though her voice was muffled as she dug deep into the plant to pull out a weed. “Thanks for walking Gemma home, Jessie.”
    “No problem, Mrs. Mitchell.”
    She finally looked up from the plant. “You start high school tomorrow, don’t you?” She set the water pot down on the porch swing. “Gem, you can start making your way inside while Jess and I finish our conversation.”
    I smirked at Jess and then dragged my feet across my front lawn. Jess kicked at a leaf on the grass. “Yep, I just hope I don’t fall for the elevator pass trick.”
    Mom laughed loudly at Jess’s joke. She wrested her knuckles on her hips and looked up at the sky as if looking at a memory. “Do they still sell elevator passes these days?”
    Jess looked up at the sky. “I guess I’ll let you know after tomorrow.”
    “Well good luck, and tell your mom I’ll call her tomorrow.”
    “Will do, Mrs. M. Goodnight.” Jess’s voice faded into the night as Mom followed me through the screen door.
    “I sure like him,” she said as she locked the door behind us. “And I wouldn’t mind if he was my son-in-law someday.”

    A year ago I would have stuck my tongue out at my mom’s hints toward me and Jess having a romantic relationship. But things were different now. We were different now. Jess was sixteen. I was almost fifteen. Jess wasn’t just the kid across the street anymore. He was someone special-someone who made me feel things that I wanted to keep on feeling.
    I sauntered gloomily into our front room, leaving