I had always imagined sparks the first time I kissed Chase Harding, but it’s a sweet, cold kiss, thanks to the ice cream, and sprinkles feel better than sparks, anyway. We can’t exactly get handsy while holding our cones, but it’s definitely more than a peck, and I’m hyperaware of his scruff against my skin.

It’s hard to forget that the last person you spent weeks kissing was a smooth-skinned girl when you feel that scruff again.

But it sure doesn’t mean they can’t both feel good.

We finish our ice cream and head back to his car, where some more kissing happens before we drive home to Rush and The Who. There’s more kissing in my driveway. We finally jump apart when my cell phone rings, revealing Shannon’s face on the screen. But whatever, I’m in a good mood and I want to talk about my night, so hopefully she’s up for being excited rather than a buzzkill. One never knows how generous she’s feeling.

Chase laughs quietly as I silence my phone and says, “Guess I should let you go, but maybe next Friday night, after the game, we can do this ‘just the two of us’ thing again?”

“Weren’t the guys talking about going to Lucas’s after the game?”

“The guys were.” He tucks a blond curl behind my ear. “I wasn’t.”

Oof, that was good. I debate just how smutty it would be to haul him into the back seat of his car and decide it might be a bit much. But that won’t stop me from being a little shameless. “Sounds good. Maybe pick a terrible movie we can not-watch.”

“God, I like you,” he murmurs, and though I can’t respond through him kissing me, “I like you too” shimmers through my entire body.

It only makes sense that Jasmine Killary would be the first person I see at school Monday morning. She’s standing near my locker, and I’d almost think she was waiting for me, if she weren’t so consistently clear that waiting for me isn’t something she’ll ever be doing again.

“I hear you and Chase Harding are officially a thing.”

I freeze in my tracks. There’s only one person who’d have told Jasmine, only one person who sat with me on the phone for an hour last night until she’d squeezed out every bit of information. “Apparently, so are you and Shannon.”

“I knew he was gonna be all over you as soon as he saw you,” she says, sidestepping my response. “I told you that hair would be great on you.”