Autumn's Kiss Read Free Page A

it.”
    We’ve done this enough that he knows what I mean. He turns off the A/C, rolls down the windows, and opens the sunroof. It’s basically a cardinal sin to turn off the A/C in Florida, but near the beach it’s okay. The air here actually feels a little cool, and it smells thick and salty. I lean my head out and take deep breaths. With my orange hair flapping in my face, I probably look like a giant Irish setter, but I don’t care.
    We park in the lot of an old motel right on the beach. Half the school goes to the Shack for ice cream after Friday night football games and its parking lot is insanely jammed, but the motel is always so empty I don’t know how it stays in business. Plus, there’s no fence or anything, so we can just pull right in and walk to the Shack—it’s all of a minute away.
    Reenzie and Taylor are already waiting for us, sitting on the hood of Reenzie’s car, but they jump off and run over when they see us. Taylor throws open my door. “So what do you think?”
    “About what?”
    “The tiger suit!” Taylor cries. “Didn’t you see it? I texted you!”
    I didn’t hear my phone in the car, but I pull it out now. She sent me a picture of a woman with an absolutely perfect body slipped into a fuzzy orange-brown sheath with black stripes and a sheer white circle—the tiger’s stomach—that shows off half her boobs.
    “Are you kidding me?” I wail.
    “You don’t see it?” Taylor asks. “With your red hair? This would look incredible on you!”
    We’re walking toward the Shack now, and I tuck my phone in my back pocket. “No way,” I say. “I don’t have the body to pull that off.”
    “That’s what Reenzie said,” Taylor admits, “but I think it would look really cute.”
    I glare openmouthed at Reenzie.
Really?
    “What?” she says. “I’m being honest. I’m not saying you have a
bad
body, just that it takes a very specific shape to pull that off well.”
    “Pull what off well?” J.J. asks.
    “Nothing,” Reenzie, Taylor, and I chorus.
    “Come on, let us see,” Jack says.
    “No!” I say.
    “It’s not like you’re
in
it,” Jack says. Then he leers. “Are you?”
    “NO!”
    “Look, it’s just this,” Taylor says. She hands Jack her own phone, which I guess has the costume on it.
    Jack grins. “I like it.”
    “Of course you do, perv,” I say. Sometimes Jack reminds me of my little brother, Erick, which makes me fear for Erick’s future.
    “Now picture Autumn in it,” Reenzie says pointedly.
    “No. Stop,”
I insist. “Do
not
picture Autumn in it.”
    “Picture Autumn in what?”
    My heart stops at Sean’s voice. If we’re not together—or once we’ve been hanging out for like an hour or so and I’m used to it—I can be more patient and totally handle the just-friends thing. But whenever I first see him, this happens. My whole body gets flushed and my heart pounds and every single time he’s touched or kissed me flashes through my head like I’m living it all over again.
    I’m almost afraid to meet his eyes, like he’ll see inside me and know exactly what I’m thinking. At the same time I
want
him to see it. Maybe if he understood how I feel, he’d finally get completely over everything that happened and we could be together again.
    I lift my eyes to his, and I’m immediately sucked in. He’s in long shorts and a school T-shirt, and his dark skin practically glows in the moonlight. His hair is still wet from the shower, and most of it is combed back from his forehead, but one wisp is sticking up. I’m dying to reach out and smooth it down…maybe lingering with my hands on his shoulders…staring into his eyes…
    “Hey!” Reenzie chirps. “How did you get here before us?”
    She prances into his arms like she belongs there, gives him a huge hug, then pauses in his arms to smooth the wayward chunk of hair.
    I want to whip out my phone and show her all the pictures he sent me on his summer trip. Then she’d know who he thinks