Winging It Read Online Free Page B

least for right then. I heard her say something about being careful because the roads were icy, and then I had my door shut and was backing out of the driveway.
    We drove quietly to the end of the block, and then, while we were sitting at the stop sign, I caught Nat giving me a look and turned to stare at her head-on. She shrugged. “I think we can do this,” she said. “Everything’s going to work out just fine.”
    I wasn’t so sure, but I didn’t argue. What exactly was there for me to say? And was there any point in trying to sound calm and logical when I was still totally off balance from the kiss? Those had been West’s lips welcoming mine, West’s body pressed against me, and it had felt way, way better than it should have. No, I wasn’t going to argue with her, or say anything, really. Not until I got my feet planted and figured out what the hell was going on.

Chapter Five
    Nat
    I haven’t kissed a whole lot of guys. A few weird, awkward gropings at parties or whatever, but never anything serious. Never anything that had prepared me for what it had been like to kiss Toby Cooper in my driveway, with the snow falling all around us, not even feeling the cold…
    But I needed to change the way I was thinking about that, I decided as we drove to school. It wasn’t that it had been really good to kiss Toby . It had just been good to kiss someone who knew what he was doing. He and Dawn had dated forever, and clearly he’d picked up some technique. That made sense.
    The other guys I’d kissed? I mean, mostly they’d been drunk, or at least had been drinking, and they were just…they were boys . That’s what the difference was. Toby was…well, he was Toby, but if I could get past that, if I kind of squinted out all the Tobyness and tried to see him the way someone else would, then I wasn’t sure what he was. Definitely not a boy. A man? Maybe. A young man, at least.
    But so was Scott Dakins. Scott hadn’t dated anyone for as long as Toby had dated Dawn, but he’d spent quite a bit of time living down in Toronto with his dad, and he traveled a lot and went out with different girls and he was…yeah, he was a young man, just like Toby. So whatever had made it special to kiss Toby would work just as well, if not better, with Scott.
    We got to school, and I could feel eyes on us as we pulled into the student parking lot. We were being noticed.
    “It’s not too late,” Toby said quietly, his gaze fixed on the bumper of the car ahead of us. “It’s not totally weird for me to drive you to school; people know we’re friends. You’re not in too far yet. You can back out, and I’ll even let you keep the trophy.”
    I admit it: there was a moment there when I was tempted. Toby pulled into the next open spot and turned the engine off, and I made myself try to figure out just how this was all going to play out. It had seemed like a great idea in theory, but in practice? It would change everything, and that was kind of scary. Stepping out of the car, walking in beside Toby, doing whatever it was we were going to do to make it clear we were together…there was no going back from that.
    Then a car pulled in next to us. Midnight-blue Mustang, sleek and shiny, with Scott Dakins behind the wheel. He looked over, recognized Toby’s car, saw me, and nodded a greeting. If I’d been sitting in someone else’s car, I knew his gaze would have flowed right over me; I’d experienced it before, the last time he was in town.
    So, just like that, my decision was made. “We’re doing it,” I said firmly.
    Toby got out of the car without arguing and walked around the front to wait for me. I wondered if he realized he was standing in the same spot, relative to the car, that we’d been in back at the house. But I needed to stop thinking about that. Scott was here, and he was probably watching us. This was my chance, and I had to make it work.
    So I smiled at Toby and went to join him. Holding hands seemed like a bit too