Excerpt 1 - Kiara | Excerpt 2 - Carlos | Excerpt 3 - Carlos (new)
Carlos
“You kids pick the next movie,” Westford says, tossing us the remote. “I’m going to make more popcorn. Bran, I’ll be up to say good night after you get in pj’s and brush your teeth.”
Mrs. W. takes Brandon upstairs and the Professor leaves with the empty popcorn bowls. I’m alone with Kiara. At last.
I sit with one arm over the back of the couch and the other resting on my knee. I’m all too aware of this girl beside me. She gets up and walks over to a cabinet lined with rows of movies— obviously the Westfords’ personal collection. I’ve never been in a house with an entire collection of movies before.
“I can’t be normal with you,” I tell her.
She turns to me, confused. “What are you talking about?”
“This morning in front of Michael you asked me to be normal.” I take a deep breath and tell her what I should have said after the game. Instead of lettin’ her ignore me when I finally got home, I should have told her the truth. “I can’t. When Tuck told me you’d dated Michael, all these visions of you with another guy drove me nuts. I don’t want you with another guy.”
“I don’t want to be with another guy. I want to be with you. Now pick a movie before I say something you don’t want to hear.” She waves me over. “Pick one.”
“What ever you want to watch is fine,” I tell her, pushing aside the comment about her not telling me what I don’t want to hear. I’ve heard enough. She wants to be with me. I want to be with her. Why complicate it by sayin’ anything else?
She pulls out West Side Story and I laugh. “You like that movie?”
“Yeah. I like the dancing. And the singing.”
I wonder if she can move as well as she fixes cars. Or if she thinks an interracial couple is doomed because they’re too different. “Do you dance?”
“A little. Do you? I mean besides the, um, horizontal tango.”
Kiara surprises me sometimes. I’m always shocked when she shows glimpses of her spicy attitude. “Yeah. Back in Mexico my friends and I went to clubs every weekend. We danced, met girls, drank, got high . . . fun stuff. Now I’m here, having Family Fun Night with the Westfords. Times have definitely changed.”
“You shouldn’t do drugs.”
“Don’t you do things you shouldn’t do? Come on, Kiara, give it up. There’s no way you’re as innocent as you let everyone think you are. You’re just like the rest of us sinners. So you don’t smoke, drink, or do drugs. But you have other vices. Everyone does.” When she doesn’t answer, I continue. “Tell me somethin’ you do that would shock me.”
She sits back on the couch. “Shock you?”
“Yeah. Shock me to the core.”
She sits up on her knees and leans toward me. “I’ve thought about you, Carlos,” she whispers in my ear. “At night, in bed. I think about kissing you, our tongues sliding against each other’s, while your hands are buried in my hair. When I think about feeling those ripples in your naked chest I touch my—”
“Here’s more popcorn!” Westford says, barging into the room with two big bowls filled to the rim with freshly popped popcorn. “Kiara, what are you doing?”
The scene must look pretty racy. Kiara is leaning over me on all fours. Her face is just inches from mine.
I swallow. What she was about to say formed an image in my mind that was almost too much to bear. I stare right into Kiara’s eyes to see if she’s bullshitting me or not, but I can’t tell. She’s got a fire in her eyes, but I’m not sure if it’s from passion or from her excitement at trying to beat me with my own MO.
I stay silent and let Kiara take this one.
She leans back on her heels. “Um . . . I . . . um . . . nothing really.”
Westford looks to me for an explanation.
“Trust me, you don’t want to know,” I tell him.
“Know what?” Mrs. W. asks, walking into the room.
The Professor hands me the bowl of popcorn as Mrs. W. settles back in her chair. I start munchin’ so I don’t have to talk.
“I can’t get a straight answer out of either one of these teenagers,” Westford says.
Kiara settles herself on the other side of the couch. “Mom, Dad, what would you do if you came in here and found us kissing?
