Lola and the Boy Next Door(18)

It took weeks before this torturous situation changed. Betsy and I were leaving the house as he was strolling home, those pinstriped pants and his hair looking like it was trying to touch the sky.

We stopped shyly.

“It’s nice to see you,” he said. “Outside. Instead of inside.You know.”

I smiled so that he’d know I knew. “I’m taking her for a walk. You wouldn’t want to join—”

“Yes.”

“—us?” My heart thrummed.

Cricket looked away. “Yeah, we could catch up. Should catch up.”

I looked away, too, trying to control my blush. “Do you need to drop that off?”

He was carrying a paper bag from the hardware store. “OH. Yeah. Hold on.” Cricket shot up his stairs but then stopped halfway. “Wait right there,” he added. He bounded inside and came back only seconds later. He held out two Blow Pops.

“It’s so lame,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“No, I love these!” And then I did blush, for using the word love.

Our tongues turned green-apple green, but we talked for so long that by the time we returned home, they were pink again. The feeling inside of me grew. We began bumping into each other at the same time every afternoon. He’d pretend to be running an errand, I’d pretend to be surprised, and then he’d join Betsy and me on our walk.

One day, he didn’t appear. I paused before his house, disappointed, and looked up and down our street. Betsy strained forward on her leash. The Bells’ door burst open, and Cricket flew down so quickly that he almost toppled into me.

I smiled. “You’re late.”

“You waited.” He wrung his hands.

We stopped pretending.

Cricket defined the hours of my day. The hour I opened my curtains—the same time he opened his—so that we could share a morning hello. The hour I ate my lunch so that I could watch him eat his. The hour I left my house for our walk. The hour I called Lindsey to dissect our walk. And the hour after dinner when Cricket and I chatted before closing our curtains again.

At night, I lay in bed and pictured him lying in his. Was he thinking about me, too? Did he imagine sneaking into my bedroom like I imagined sneaking into his? If we were alone in the dark instead of daylight, would he find the courage to kiss me? I wanted him to kiss me. He was the boy. He was supposed to make the first move.

Why wasn’t he making the first move? How long would I have to wait?

These feverish thoughts kept me awake all summer. I’d rise in the morning, covered in sweat, with no recollection of when I’d finally fallen asleep and no recollection of my dreams, apart from three words echoing in my head, in his voice. I need you.

Need.

What a powerful, frightening word. It represented my feelings toward him, but every night, my dreams placed it inside his mouth.

I needed him to touch me. I was obsessed with the way his hands never stopped moving. The way he rubbed them together when he was excited, the way he sometimes couldn’t help but clap. The way he had secret messages written on the back of his left. And his fingers. Long, enthusiastic, wild, but I knew from watching him build his machines that they were also delicate, careful, precise. I fantasized about those fingers.

And I was consumed by the way that whenever he spoke, his eyes twinkled as if it were the best day of his life. And the way his whole body leaned toward mine when I spoke, a gesture that showed he was interested, he was listening. No one had ever moved their body to face me like that.

The summer sprawled forward, each day more agonizing and wonderful than the last. He began hanging out with Lindsey and my parents, even with Norah, when she was around. He was entering my world. But every time I tried to enter his, Calliope was hostile. Cold. Sometimes she pretended that I wasn’t in the room, sometimes she’d even leave while I was speaking. This was the first time he’d chosen someone over her, and she resented me for it. I was stealing her best friend. I was a threat.

Rather than confront her, we retreated to the safety of my house.

But . . . he still wasn’t making any moves. Lindsey supposed he was waiting for the right moment, something significant. Maybe my birthday. His is exactly one month after mine, also on the twentieth, so he’d always remembered. That morning, I was heartened to see a sign taped to his glass: HAPPY LOLA DAY! WE’RE THE SAME AGE AGAIN!

I leaned out my window. “For a month!”

He appeared with a smile, his hands rubbing together. “It’s a good month.”

“You’ll forget about me when you turn sixteen,” I teased.

“Impossible.” His voice cracked on the word, and it shook my heart.