“What if I don’t want to waste any time? What if it’s easier to just walk the path that’s charted for me?”

In that moment, it wasn’t Levi with me, but Penny. Penny with her dark glittering eyes and her fear of never being anything more than the slurred-together PennynChad package deal. If she’d told me she planned to break up with Chad, I hoped I would have had the courage and selflessness to say the same thing to her.

“It would probably be easier in the short run,” I agreed. “But if it’s already charted, you’re not really going to discover anything new, are you? Success, or anything, really, doesn’t come with a pushpin. You can’t just stick a destination into a map and think there’s just the one route that gets you there. And if you wind up right back where you started … well, that’s okay, too. We get to come back from our mistakes. We have to believe that’s possible. We’re too young not to.”

This time, I took his hand. And there was no hesitation. Not in the way I squeezed or in the way he held on tight.

It took several moments for him to speak. “So you’re my Yoda now, basically. All wise and shit.” He rubbed distracting circles over my hand in a way that made me feel totally boneless.

Mouth dry, I said, “Your Yoda, I am.”

Then, in a swift change of subject, he asked, “Are you seeing anybody?”

“Whoa! Smooth.”

He broke into a chuckle. Eyes lingering on my face, he said, “Just making sure there wasn’t some boyfriend in the wings who was going to kiss my ass for taking his girl on a date.”

I tried not to smile and failed spectacularly. “Kiss? I think you mean kick.”

He blinked slowly. “That’s what I said.”

I wasn’t buying his wide-eyed, innocent act, no matter how cute he made it look. There were two things I was suddenly very sure of: This was definitely a date. And judging by Levi’s Freudian slip, he was as into me as Lucy had thought.

“Riiiiight,” I said. “I must have misheard.”

His grin spread slowly over his face until there was no mistaking the chemistry between us. “Must have.”

He was still looking at me with expectation, so I swallowed past the swimming serpents in my throat. I wanted to kiss him, I wanted to taste him. A shiver danced down my back. And judging from his slip, he wanted to kiss me, too.

This was getting dangerous. Changes had never been for the better, not in my experience. Breaking my own rule and kissing Levi right now would be a big change. And in the end, no matter what the rest of this summer brought us, I would lose him like I’d lost everyone else.