“But at least they know who you are.”

I kept tapping out my English assignment. “They worry about me all the time. Their guilt trips are horrendous. If I let them down, they don’t have anyone else. If I said to them, ‘I’m not going to college. I want to be a traveling street performer,’ they’d die.”

“My parents would pack my bags.”

“They constantly embarrass me,” I went on. “Every time Josh has come over, my parents have hovered around and then grilled me about it as soon as he left.”

Elise looked up from her notes. “Josh has come over? Why?”

Why was right. Why didn’t I know when to keep my mouth shut? I couldn’t tell Elise he had come over to talk about her—that he’d asked me to be her friend.

“Um . . .” I felt myself blush. “He came over . . . a long time ago . . . because I left things in your car. My sweater . . . and my cell phone.”

Elise contemplated this. “Why didn’t he give them to you the next day?”

“I don’t know.”

“And why are you blushing?” She raised her eyebrows in question. “Is something going on between you and Josh?”

I was trapped. I took the only way out I could think of. “Um, sort of.”

“Sort of?”

“Well, okay, yes.”

Her mouth dropped open. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“We want to keep it a secret.”

“Why?”

I felt like a living object lesson about the perils of lying. I knew I had dug a hole for myself, and I knew it was getting deeper. But I couldn’t get out of it now. I had to keep digging.

“Because of my parents. It’s like I told you. They’re overwhelming when it comes to guys. They’d be all over my case if they thought I was . . . getting too serious.”

“How serious are you?”

The shovel kept hitting the dirt. “Not very, but my parents would start an inquisition if they knew I’d been out with him more than a few times. We’ve had to be, you know, discreet.”

Elise blinked, incredulous. “You could have at least told me.”

“I wanted to, but we decided it would be safer if no one knew. Besides, I think he’s touchy about dating a sophomore.” That part at least was true.

Elise grunted. “Josh thinks I’d tell someone, doesn’t he?”

“He never said that. But he did seem adamant about not telling you. In fact, I bet if you confronted him right now, he’d deny it.” I cleared my throat uncomfortably. “You won’t confront him, will you?”

“Not if you don’t want me too.”

“Good. He’d be mad at me if he knew I told you.”

Elise shook her head. “And to think of all the grief I’ve gone through over Chad. I thought you still liked him. Every time I was with him and saw you, I felt bad. You could have at least let me know you were okay about it.”

“I did,” I reminded her. “I talked to you right after you started dating him.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t think you meant any of those things. I thought you were just being nice.” She laughed a little. “I should have known something was going on. Those looks you two exchange on the way to school, and Josh not dating anyone—then he expects me to believe it’s the dog’s fault.”

“Remember, you don’t know anything about this.”

She put her hand up. “I know how to keep a secret.”

* * *

The next morning as we walked across the parking lot to school, Elise asked if I was ready for the biology test.

“Yeah,” I said. “But I still have to finish my algebra homework.”

“Josh could help you,” she said shooting him a sly look. “He’s good with story problems.” The way she said “story problems” made them sound like something vaguely suggestive.

I glared at Elise, then casually said, “I’m sure I’ll be able to figure it out.”

Elise smiled knowingly. “I think Cassidy needs your help, Josh. Tell him you need him, Cassidy.”

“I can do them on my own,” I insisted, my voice higher than it should be.

Josh gave me a peculiar look.

I opened my backpack and sifted through it, pretending to search for something so I didn’t have to look at him.

When Josh branched off from us, I gave Elise a death glare. “You’re great at keeping secrets. I’m sure he didn’t suspect a thing.”

I knew then that I would have to tell him what I’d done—and soon.

I worried all day that Josh would ask Elise what her innuendo meant and that she would tell him what I’d said. Then not only would he think I was some delusional stalker, but Elise would find out I was a liar.

This could end badly in so many ways.

Elise didn’t ride home with us that afternoon, which meant I had the perfect opportunity to explain what I’d done to Josh. I couldn’t force myself to bring it up, though, until he had pulled up to my house. There just aren’t a lot of good ways to tell a guy that you and he are secretly an item. What if he was angry?

“Can I talk to you for a minute?” I asked.

“Sure. What about?”

I didn’t answer, just bit my lip.

Josh looked at me more closely, then turned off the car. He sighed. “What’s Elise done now?”

“Nothing. It’s what I’ve done.”

He waited for me to continue.

I shifted on my seat uncomfortably. “Well, it happened like this.” I took a deep breath and launched in. “I was having this talk with Elise about parents and what a pain they can be, and I accidentally told her about the times you came over to my house, and then of course she wanted to know why you came over, and I couldn’t think of anything . . .” I glanced at Josh to see how he was taking this.

His expression was blank.

“I mean, it was one of those situations where your mind doesn’t work. So I told her you came over because you . . . you know . . . liked me.”

He pressed his lips together, like he was trying to stop himself from smiling.

“I told her we wanted to keep it a secret, so I don’t think she’ll say anything to anybody, but I had to tell you before she mentioned it to you.”

He abandoned his attempts and smiled broadly.

I guess I should have been glad he wasn’t angry, but all his mirth was beginning to grate on me. It was as if the very idea that he could like me was laughable to him.

I fingered my backpack strap nervously. “I’ll understand if you’d like to break off this mad, impulsive affair we’ve shared.”

He kept smiling, but stayed quiet.

“Aren’t you going to say something?”

“Yes. How did I get into a conversation about your parents being a pain?”

“Oh, that. Well . . . uh . . .” I hadn’t prepared this part of my speech and didn’t know what to say. “My parents still think of me as a thirteen-year-old, so when you came over . . .” I stopped. I had talked myself into a corner. When you came over—what? When you came over my parents jumped to the conclusion that you were smitten with me, even though I’m an unsophisticated sophomore in whom you obviously don’t have the slightest degree of interest?

But I didn’t have to say anything else. He knew what had happened. He nodded. “Now I know why your dad grits his teeth when he sees me.”

“I’m sorry. Really. I’ll do whatever you want to about it, but if it’s all the same to you, can we maybe not end this right away? I don’t want to tell Elise we broke up when I just told her yesterday we were going out. I don’t want it to seem like a fling.”

“Of course not. No flings for us.” He smirked at me. “Darling.”

“Thanks,” I said, and got out of the car.

* * *

For the rest of the week, I don’t know who had more fun tormenting me: Elise, who kept up her hardly-veiled comments, or Josh, who would every once in awhile send me smoldering looks that always made me blush.

On Friday instead of meeting at the school like the chess club usually did, we were all going to go to Bob’s house to work on the annual fundraiser. This year we were hand painting ceramic chess pieces blue and gray, the PHS school colors. The student body had ordered more than we expected, so Bob had called in some favors to get more people to help us paint. Josh was on that list because Bob had helped him on his computer program.