He nodded. Then he passed the picture over to me. He hadn’t been adding to my sketch. Instead, there were a few sparse, curved lines, but together they made a picture of a pretty girl in profile…a girl with a braid. Me. It made my duck picture look like a kindergartner’s project. I sucked my bottom lip into my mouth. Of course he had a thing. He had more than one, considering how well he played the guitar. “You’re talented.”

“Eh,” he said, breathing on his fingernails and pretending to buff them on his chest. “You are too. That was the best…flippy thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Handspring. Thanks,” I said. “But I’m terrible, compared to the kids in my class. I stopped going. Took up dance.”

“Dance, huh? Like ballet?”

I nodded, then admitted, “But I’m not really great at that, either.”

Then we kind of stood there, staring at each other. My heart was going a million miles an hour. When the silence was broken, it was by both of us. We exploded with words at the exact same time. I asked, “So where is he?” and he said, “So maybe…”

Then we tittered in unison, and my face went hot. “Um, what?”

He shook his head, swallowing back whatever he was going to say. I silently cursed as he switched directions and said, “Camp. Some sports thing? Soccer? Baseball?”

“Oh. Baseball.” That was Kane’s thing.

He shrugged. “I can’t remember. Or maybe he’s at his tutor? His dad said if he didn’t get his grades up, he wouldn’t be playing.”

That was true. Kane was smart, but not book-smart. He had a solid C average. The same threat loomed over him every year: get the grades up, or no sports. “You’re not a sports person?”

“Nah.” He thrust his hand into mine. “I have gentle Californian hands. See?”

His hands were twice the size of mine; I could feel calluses in the palms, and he had an old Band-Aid, black and frayed on the edges, wrapped tight around one knuckle. But it wasn’t unpleasant. Oh lordy, it was quite the opposite of unpleasant. I’d never held a boy’s hand before, but I wanted to start, right then, and make sure all the rest of my days were filled with more hand-holding. Instead, I casually lifted one of his big hands and inspected it as if it were a cantaloupe I was thinking of buying at the grocer’s, trying to fight back the goose bumps and shivers of excitement springing out all over my body. “Ah, yes. Smooth as a baby’s butt.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Are you comparing me to a baby’s butt?”

“No. Just your hands.”

“Awesome.”