“I’ll kiss you, if you want.”

He stares up at me, stunned. “You will?”

“Also, do you want to have sex with me?”

“Yes.” Then my words actually register. His eyes widen. “Wait—what?”

“I don’t mean now, obviously,” I say. “Maybe, like, tomorrow?”

His mouth opens and then closes again.

“I’ll see you later,” I say, and then I walk away.

Chapter 21

21

I retreat to the bus even though it’s not time to get on yet. I hide in the very back seat and try to understand why I just did that: I walked up and point-blank asked this boy if he wanted to have sex with me. This boy I don’t know. Okay, so I do technically know Nick—I’ve known him since we were kids—but I don’t let’s-have-sex know him. How had I jumped straight from kissing to “Do you want to have sex with me?”

I’m just blurting shit out all over everybody here. But it’s too late to call the words back.

I take a deep breath. People are filing back onto the bus now. Nick will be one of them. I need to consider what I’ll say when next we talk.

The way I see it, I have three options:

Option one. Ha ha, wasn’t that a funny joke I told?

Option two. Sorry. I’m going through a thing. I may be losing my mind, actually. I didn’t mean it. This seems like the honest answer, but is it? Didn’t I mean it? Which leads me to:

Option three. Let’s totally have sex. What works with your schedule? Because mine is wide open for the rest of the week.

Heat floods my face. I want to pick number three because I want to be bold and unapologetic. No more shy wallflower, nice and polite Ada. Bold. I can be bold. I’ve screamed “fuck you” at a person in a crowded parking lot. I could be so bold again.

“Hey, Ada,” comes a voice, and I stare at my feet and blurt out, “I was kidding. Obviously.”

“Kidding about what?”

I look up. It isn’t Nick standing there. It’s Peter Wong, the second kid in the Wong family.

“Sorry,” I stammer. “I thought—”

“Your sister took my seat,” he says, gesturing grumpily to the front, where Afton is now sitting with Michael and Abby, Josie, and Jenny. “And all the others are taken.”

I should be insulted, but I nod. “All right. Sit down.”

“You don’t have to talk to me, though,” Peter says. He’s the middle kid, between Michael and Josie—the “Ada” of the Wong family.

“Fine by me,” I say. “Just sit, okay?”