Page 33 of I Kissed Shara Wheeler
She glances over at Smith, expecting to catch another amused smile, but Smith looks thoughtful. “For the record, you being gay wasn’t what made me think you were in love with her.”
“I’m not gay.” She bristles. “I’m bisexual. That’s a thing.”
“I know it’s a thing,” Smith says doggedly. “I just didn’t realize you were.”
“Well, I am.”
“Okay, cool.”
A pause. Smith waits.
“And I’m not in love with her,” Chloe grinds out. “She’s the only person in this school who can keep up with me, which is… unexpected. She surprises me. Okay?”
“Yeah,” Smith says. “She can be surprising.”
Chloe puts the car in park in front of Smith’s house and admits, “And she’s hot.”
“Yeah, she’s hot.”
“Why does she smell like—”
“Lilacs?”
“Dude,” she groans, and Smith laughs. “Is this weird?”
He thinks about it. “I feel like… it should be, but it’s not?”
A muscle in Smith’s jaw flexes before relaxing into its smooth right angle. Usually the only people in False Beach who are this cool about her being queer are other queer people.
Hm.
“How do you think Rory would answer that question?” Smith asks.
“I don’t know,” Chloe says. “You should ask him.”
Smith reaches out and boops the dashboard lucky cat on the nose with one finger.
“Maybe.”
“What’s the deal with you and him, anyway?”
Smith shrugs. “He’s in love with my girlfriend. I feel like the deal is pretty obvious.”
“To be honest, you don’t really strike me as the jealous type,” Chloe points out. “Like, you seem fine with me.”
“It’s different with Rory.”
“Because he’s a guy?”
“Because Rory used to be my best friend.”
Chloe’s head whips around.
“What? When?”
“Back in middle school,” Smith says, still focused on the lucky cat’s waving paw, “when I first started at Willowgrove. We had the same homeroom, and we clicked, I guess. Him and Summer were the first two friends I made. And then I joined JV football, and Rory decided he was too cool to be friends with a dumb jock or whatever, and we kind of drifted. We haven’t really talked since. It sucked.”
“Does Shara know? About the two of you?”
