Falling for the Ghost of You(28)

The rest of the school day seems to go on forever. By the time Spanish is over, I am all but jumping up and down with impatience. I can't wait to get home. To see him.

He’s not there when I get home. I do my homework, and take a quick shower. What to wear? I know, it’s not a date. My first instinct is to reach for something flattering, but I know I’d end up feeling stupid and uncomfortable. So I slip on a plain gray t-shirt and a long pink skirt with little bunnies printed all over it. How did I even get that skirt, anyway? I don’t know why I even packed it.

I’m sitting on the couch, pretending to read a book while acutely listening for the door. When I finally hear the sounds of Zane coming in, I am so nervous, I nearly fall off the couch. Scrambling to maintain a casual expression, I try to calm my racing heart, while blindly turning the page of my book.

“Hey,” I greet him, proud of how normal I sound.

“Hey, yourself.”

Zane sets a large flat box on the kitchen counter, and wanders into the living room. He looks absolutely beautiful and dangerous with his windblown dark hair and dark sunglasses.

“Someone smells good,” I blurt out when he leans over the couch to inspect my book. “No, I mean something! The pizza. It smells good.”

He just grins at me, and grabs hold of my book, turning it—oh, god—right side up.

Yes, it was upside-down. I was pretending to read Tolstoy upside down. And he caught me.

I’m such a dork.

Zane heads back to the kitchen while I sputter incoherently. “You hungry?” he asks over his shoulder.

I take a few deep calming breaths before joining him in the kitchen. I give up. I totally accept the fact that I’ll forever be making an ass out of myself in front of the hottest guy I’ve ever known.

Forget it. It’s fine—I’ll just be the awkward yet amusing friend.

Having resigned myself to a role, I feel a little of the pressure I put on myself ease up. I follow him to the kitchen. He’s opening up the box, and I find myself looking at a bizarre pizza. Why’s there green stuff on it?

“What is that?” I ask, unable to keep the horror out of my voice.

Zane chuckles, glancing up at me. “I take it you’ve never had a Greek pizza?”

I shake my head. “It…is there any meat on there?”

“No. There’s spinach, olives, tomatoes, feta…trust me, you’ll like it.”

He’s getting plates down from the cabinet, so he doesn’t see the dubious face I make. “It smells good,” I say hopefully.

He nods, handing me a plate. “Tell you what—just try it. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to eat it. And tomorrow, you can pick whatever you want for dinner, and I’ll pick it up. Okay?”

My spirits soar crazily. He wants to hang out with me tomorrow, too? “Okay!” I agree—way too enthusiastically.

We grab our pizzas and a couple of bottled waters, and move to the living room. I thought we were going to watch a movie, but Zane brings out his laptop and we end up watching how-to videos on the internet. Yeah, it turns out Zane is really into do-it-yourself projects, and alternative forms of energy. We watch videos on how to make your own greenhouse, gasifiers, parabolic mirrors, and Stirling engines. It’s actually really fascinating, and I’m impressed at his knowledge.

“What, are you gearing up for the zombie apocalypse?” I tease him, after taking a bite of my delicious Greek pizza (Zane was right—yum!).

“I just believe in being prepared.” He smiles, leaning forward to click on a link. “And I think this stuff’s really cool, you know? I have a farm in Oregon that actually runs on some of the things I’ve built. I’ll take you out there, sometime so you can see for yourself.”

I am stunned by his casual invitation. “That’d be awesome,” I say faintly.

I wonder if he really means it. Or was it one of those things that people say? Like the way I always invite my third grade friend—Janie Donnelly—over to my house to hang out whenever I run into her—even though I barely know her, anymore, and I really don’t want her to come over, because what would we talk about? The last thing we had in common was our sticker collections.

Moving on.

Once the pizza’s gone, we decide to switch to hot chocolate and some guy name Jinky’s video of the Top One Hundred Horror movies of ALL TIME. Most of the movies on Jinky’s list comes from the seventies, and I’ve never heard of them before. A few of them look pretty cool, though, so I write down the titles of the ones we might want to watch later.

I’m no good at multitasking. I’m writing on the back of a Taco Bill’s receipt, while watching the screen, while taking a sip of my scalding hot cocoa. You can guess what happens next.