Page 32 of I Kissed Shara Wheeler
She whips around in the middle of the front lawn, boots swinging wildly from her hand by their laces. “You should have let me handle it. It was humiliating enough without you swooping in to save me.”
“I wasn’t—ugh,” Smith groans. “Okay, fine.”
“I don’t understand why you hang out with assholes like him. You clearly know better.”
Smith pulls a face. “Do you like everyone who’s in the spring musical with you? Is there not a single dickhead that you put up with on the Quiz Bowl team because it’s easier to do that than make things weird?”
“That’s different,” Chloe says. “Our dickheads aren’t homophobes.”
He rolls his eyes. “Do you really think Dixon Wells has never been racist to me? You think I don’t hate his guts? But I was stuck with him on the team for four years, and I’m stuck with him until we graduate, and there’s pretty much nothing I can do to change that. You pick your battles. He’s not worth it.”
She remembers what Ace said earlier about Smith needing more friends. Hanging out with someone is not the same as being friends with them.
“What are you doing?” she asks as Smith takes out his phone.
“I’m texting my sister to come pick me up,” he says. “It’s her turn with the car, and I’m tired.”
She sighs. “You want a ride?”
In the car, Chloe puts Bleachers on low and Smith leans against the passenger window.
“Can I ask you something?” she says after a few minutes of quiet. Smith turns to her, and their eyes lock for a second, brown on brown. “What do you see in Shara?”
Smith’s expression turns wry. “You for real right now?”
“I’m curious, okay? Indulge me.”
Smith sighs. She senses him close his eyes without having to look at him. “This is gonna sound weird, but she’s kind of like… my best friend.”
Chloe’s brow furrows. “Isn’t that what everyone says about their girlfriend?”
Smith folds his arms, and Chloe sees his bare forearms reflecting a passing streetlight and realizes she’s still wearing his jacket.
“I mean I feel more comfortable around her than I do around almost anyone,” Smith says. “I’m not thinking about what everyone expects me to be. Sometimes we don’t even have to talk. It’s just like, an understanding. But at the same time, there’s always more going on in her head than you can ever guess, and she’ll never tell you exactly what it is. You still have to figure her out.”
“Sounds to me like she’s kind of frigid.”
“Yeah,” Smith says, and he smiles at her. “Because you’re so much fun yourself.”
“I am, actually. I’m a blast.”
“What about you?” Smith asks. He leans his head back on the headrest. “What do you see in her?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Chloe says. Her cheeks feel warm. She adjusts the AC dial. “She’s the one who kissed me.”
“But you’re here,” Smith says. “You came to this party even though you’d obviously rather be anywhere else. You decided to look for her.”
Chloe’s fingers tighten on the steering wheel. “Just because I’m queer doesn’t mean I’m in love with every beautiful girl who pays attention to me.”
“I didn’t say you were in love with her.”
“It was implied.”
“So you think she’s beautiful?”
“A mole would think she’s beautiful, Smith. That’s not an indicator of anything except that I have a pulse.”
They’re pulling into Smith’s neighborhood now. He doesn’t live in the country club like Shara or Rory or most of the popular kids—he lives one subdivision over from Chloe, one of fifty identical houses in a development that, according to her mom, didn’t exist ten years ago. False Beach is like that: country clubs, trailer parks, and retired cow pastures outfitted with cookie-cutter houses that still smell like fresh paint.
