Jake made every big meet with my parents. He and Mom had come to an uneasy truce.

“Bren, don’t you think that dating a little more would be a good thing?” she had asked the night before I went back to school.

I’d said it before, and I would say it again; my mother was the best mother on earth, but she was no dummy. She had seen most of the whole sordid thing unfold right in front of her eyes, and she was dead set on milking the momentum of it.

“I will,” I said honestly. “If I meet someone great, I will hang out with him. I promise. But, Mom, I have to say this; Jake is awesome. It sounds like the biggest teenage clichй, but you don’t understand what he’s like.”

Mom sighed a long, tortured sigh. “Jake is a great guy,” she said with no real conviction. “But that doesn’t mean you two have to be joined at the hip to be happy.”

“I hardly see him,” I protested. “We only see each other for a few hours in school, and he works a lot. Plus that I have cross country, and I’ve been seeing Kelsie more.” Kelsie and Chris decided to spend more time with friends, since they’d been practically living together and getting on each other’s nerves. I was glad that she reached out to me. “I’m not exactly weeping every minute I’m not with him.” Though I did get sad without him. Especially when the panic of our breakup rushed over me once in a while.

“I just want you to keep your options open,” Mom said, and then she said a few more things that were basically along the same line of the first statement, and I listened respectfully, but as soon as we were done talking, I gave her a kiss and when she left my room, I called Jake. I did not tell him what Mom and I talked about.

Because things with Jake were still a work in progress, which I liked, but had to be careful with.

Like I had to balance what ‘freedoms’ I wanted with what might hurt his feelings. Hence, no direct hanging out with Saxon. Who had, since our last meeting at my sick-bed, been in and out of the pants of a half a dozen girls, at least that could be confirmed. That didn’t really creep me out; what was weird was the kinds of girls he was picking; brains, cross-country runners, and artistic girls, all types that in some form or another I liked, respected, and felt a definite connection with. He only ever commented on it once, in Government.

We were viciously trying to capture more blue states in a geeky bid to control Sanotoni’s U.S. map. I said something random, and he laughed. That wasn’t that out of the norm; I had a fair ability to crack Saxon up.

He looked leaner, a new set of tattoos peeked out from under the sleeves of his Blondie t-shirt, and his hair was cut in a low mohawk. He also had a lip ring, which he moved with his tongue incessantly. Now he was laughing and the silver hoop around his bottom lip gleamed. “You’re damn funny, Blix.”

“I’m glad I can amuse you.” I rolled my eyes at him, but I actually meant it.

“It’s not as easy as you’d think,” he confessed. “I know I have a short attention span, but that’s only because I’m hard to amuse, not easy. You were the only girl I’ve ever met who kept my interest.” He grinned, a tight, angry slash of his mouth. “But you and Jake deserve each other. Don’t you?”

I looked busily down at my paper. “I’m not answering that,” I said quietly. The good mood was gone and we were back to business.

Other than Saxon, Jake and I tried to spend more time with other people, friends and in groups. My t-shirts, the fairytale ones, sold as quickly as the ones I had made for Frankford’s up-and-coming band, Folly, had, and without an awesome group of musicians to push them. Kelsie encouraged me to bring them to some local art fairs, and I was doing really well selling them and meeting fantastically cool people.

Like the guy who made knee-high leather boots by hand. Apparently Steven Tyler from Aerosmith had three pairs. I met a lady who made bark baskets based on an ancient Native American template. I also met jewelers, instrument makers, weavers, and wood carvers. It was like this whole other community within a community.

And Jake was mostly cool with it. “I want you to do your thing,” he said, as he glared at the young drum maker’s apprentice with dreads and a big smile for me and Kelsie. “I trust you.”

And that was the truth. If nothing else, Jake knew I was honest. Even if I couldn’t tell him right away, Jake knew I’d always eventually come clean. Even if my compulsion to always tell the truth had so much more to do with my inability to deal with any bottled-up emotions than a truly good spirit.

Not that that was easy. Once Jake and I had lounged around kissing and laughing for an entire afternoon, I made him tell me. Everything. I came clean too, because I thought it was important to do it. Even if it sucked. Which it did.

Apparently the condom wrapper on the bed hadn’t been a prop. Nikki hadn’t been anyone he particularly cared about, but that hadn’t stopped him from sleeping with her and easing into a casual dating relationship. Which added one more intimacy to his already overlong list.

And even though he’d slept with Nikki, he had no problem being incredibly pissed that Saxon and I had fooled around. We had found a spare, quiet afternoon to just be together in his little boring room. But we got to talking, and talking turned into arguing. Mainly about why my few sessions fooling around with Saxon carried more weight than his sex with Nikki.

“But you likedhim,” he argued, his face rigid with anger.

“But you screwedher,” I said coldly.

We stared each other down until Jake nodded. “Fine. Can we call a truce?”

“I don’t know. Can we?”

“I want to.” He pulled me back into his arms and kissed me soundly. “Are we done driving each other crazy for a while?”

“I think so,” I said. And that was the truth, too.

And it was the truth that it felt good to be back with him. I loved to hear the rumble of his truck, which now pulled right into my driveway; I didn’t want Mom and Thorsten not knowing, and they were surprisingly cool with it. Mostly because February and March were so cold they made your stomach clench when the wind blew, and the thought of me in Jake’s always-warm truck was comforting to them.

It was on the way to school one random day in March when Jake brought up the one thing I hadn’t imagined him having any interest in.

“So I have junior prom this year.” He flipped radio stations.

“Oh, yeah? Do you have a hot date?” I snuggled next to him.

He laughed. “Maybe. Maybe not. My girlfriend is smoking’, but she’s this wild liberated woman. I’ll ask her, but she might shoot me down.”

“Don’t you think a wild, liberated woman might want a poufy dress and some body glitter and a corsage?” I was already getting a little rush just imagining it all.

“Are you saying you’ll go with me?” Jake asked.

I leaned over and kissed his neck, smooth and hot-skinned and perfect. “Of course I’ll go with you. You’ll dance with me, right?”

He blushed a little. I loved it. As I salivated over his reddened skin, he looked straight ahead wildly. “I want to. But my spine is pretty much soldered directly to my hips, Bren. I’m not really good at dancing.”

“I’ll teach you,” I promised. Not that I was world class, but I had a few moves. And the point of a prom was dancing. “And I’m not going to be able to go to the shore or anything after prom.” Speaking of the point of the prom.

He laughed again. “Do you really think I was expecting to weasel your virginity away on prom night? Do I look like that much of an uninspired jackass?”

“Don’t ask,” I teased. “You can go back out with your friends after you drop me, or Mom can give me a ride home.”

He shook his head. “I know you try to be all fair-minded, but give me some credit. I’m not going to split after prom without you, and I’m sure as hell not asking Mom to come pick you up.” He shivered. “That just gave me a chill. Like, an actual chill down my spine.”