I was only crazy for one boy, but he’d graduated.

“Eh, Hannah?” Kieran, one of the guys in our group, walked over to me, looking a little nervous. “Can I talk to you?” He nodded toward a corner where we’d have a little privacy.

Sadie grinned mischievously. My stomach dropped a little when I realized where this was going.

Reluctantly, I followed Kieran over to the corner.

He stuffed his hands in his pockets, looked back at our friends, and then turned to me with a shaky smile. “So… I was, eh… I was wondering if you wanted to go out with me sometime?”

Crap. I hated this. I hated rejecting anybody. “Oh, Kieran, I’m really flattered.” I smiled with a shrug. “But I think we should just be friends.”

He frowned. “That’s it?”

I nodded, wondering what else I was supposed to say.

He made this snorting, huffy sound and turned on his heel, striding angrily back to the guys. Whatever he said had them looking over at me in puzzlement.

I gritted my teeth, two seconds from deciding to walk away from every single one of them, when Sadie came hurrying over. She looked pissed off.

“What is your problem?” she asked, arms crossed over her chest. “Three of the guys have asked you out in the last two months, Hannah, and you’ve said no to every single one of them. They think you’re a lesbian.”

I rolled my eyes. “Of course they do. It’s easier to believe that than the fact that I don’t fancy any of them.”

“Kieran is hot.” Sadie pouted. “Do you think you’re too good for him?”

Why were we friends again? “No. I just… I think I like older boys.” It was mostly true and I was hoping it would get her off my back.

Thankfully, this was the right move. It was something Sadie could understand. Her expression cleared and she was just about to open her mouth to say something when a tall, familiar figure caught my attention.

My heart immediately started pounding.

Standing by the window, near the escalators, was Marco. My eyes followed the broad planes of his shoulders, then moved upward to his profile. My heart raced harder, a sharp ache piercing my chest as I realized he had a girl pinned against the railing near the window. The pain intensified as he bent his head to kiss the girl.

Really, really kiss her.

I think my heart shattered into a million pieces.

I looked at the floor, attempting to unsee things while I tried to catch my breath.

Marco and I had kept in touch since he’d graduated and moved on to Edinburgh College. He was working part-time at his apprenticeship while he did the carpentry and joinery course. I knew this because we still hung out. We talked on Facebook, texted each other, and every now and then he’d call me and I’d go meet him somewhere, like I’d done that night at Douglas Gardens. Nothing romantic ever happened, and he never said anything as sweet to me again as he had that night, but I had been beginning to hope the sexual tension I felt between us was mutual. I was sixteen now. Guys told me I was pretty and I knew I looked older than a lot of the girls my age because of my height and my figure. I was hoping Marco would see me differently. But nothing had changed.

I wasn’t stupid. I knew there were other girls, because some of them had bragged at school about hooking up with him.

It was different seeing it with my very own eyes, though.

Sadie snapped her fingers in front of my nose. “Did you not hear me?”

I blinked, trying to breathe through the pain of unrequited torturous idiotic love. “What?” I asked sharply.

“I said I heard a rumor that Scott Wilder fancies you. He’s older.”

“Scott Wilder? The sixth-year?”

Sadie nodded excitedly. “He told his friend Jamie and Jamie is Amanda Eaton’s big brother. Jamie told Amanda, who told Vicky, and Vicky told me. Scott is so hot, Hannah. You’d be so lucky!”

And so it was with the burn of disappointment in my gut that I found myself saying, “Yeah. He is.”

Sadie’s eyes widened. “Oh, my God! I’m totally telling Vicky to tell Amanda.”

Disappointment turned to anger, and I lifted my gaze and looked over at Marco as he put his arm around his date and walked her onto the escalator. “Don’t bother,” I told her. “I’ll friend Scott on Facebook. We’ll go from there.”

I swore Mum and Dad to secrecy when I told them I was going out on a date. My family – as in Braden and Adam – could get really overprotective and I didn’t know how they would react to the fact that I was dating. To my surprise, Mum and Dad were okay with it, and despite Dad’s glaring an alarming amount at Scott when he picked me up for our date, they acted cool enough about the whole thing. Well, Mum did.

“You look great.” Scott beamed at me as we walked away from my house.

It didn’t feel right using Scott to get over Marco, but we’d talked a little lately and Scott actually seemed like a really nice guy. And I’d have to be dead to think he wasn’t hot. He was good-looking and he was taller than me. That was always a plus. I’d decided to give tonight a real shot and since he was taking me to D’Alessandro’s for dinner, I also decided to dress up a little. I was wearing a shift dress that came to just above my knees and I’d looped a belt around my waist to give my figure definition. Heels would have worked with the look, but I’d gone with flats so I didn’t end up towering over Scott. It felt a little strange going to Marco’s uncle’s restaurant for my first date, but since he didn’t have a great relationship with his uncle, I knew there was no chance of bumping into him.

“Thanks. You too.” And he did look good. He was wearing a pair of suit trousers, a shirt, and a waistcoat. Very dapper.

He grinned at me and I wished, oh, how I wished, it had made my stomach flip like Marco’s grin always did. “I’ve wanted to ask you out for ages.”

I smiled. “Well, here we are.”

“You’re not like other girls, Hannah. You’re so confident and smart and gorgeous. It’s a little intimidating.”

I made a face. “Believe me, I’m not intimidating.”

Scott didn’t look convinced.

I didn’t want anyone putting me on a pedestal. Ever. “Okay. I snore.” I nodded in earnest. “I can’t lie flat on my back if I’m sleeping in company because of it. And not normal snoring. It’s this weird, breathy kind of snoring that’s almost as annoying as elephant snoring. I know because my sister once recorded a video of me on her phone. I’ve been afraid to sleep in a room with another human being since.”

He threw his head back laughing, just as I’d intended him to do.

“When I was little I called my dad’s great aunt Virginia Aunt Vagina the whole time we were visiting her. My parents were mortified and had no idea how to explain my inappropriate error to me, so I pretty much called her that until I understood the difference.”

By this time Scott was choking on laughter. We reached the restaurant and he held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, I’m no longer intimidated.”

“Good.” I smiled at him as he held the door open for me and we stepped into the warmth of the restaurant.

Scott gave his name to the hostess and she led us through the front dining room and into the back dining room to a cozy table for two.

There was a little awkwardness when we sat down so I resorted to my fallback – teasing. “So, cradle snatcher, how does it feel to be on a date with a sixteen-year-old?”

“It helps that she doesn’t look sixteen. And anyway, a little birdie told me you’re seventeen soon.”

“In a few months.”

“We’ll be seventeen together then. Late birthday,” he explained. “I don’t turn eighteen until my first semester at uni.”