Chapter 9

I glanced at the caller ID though and saw that it was Jones. What was she doing calling me now?

“Sorry, I kind of, kind of have to take this.” I smiled awkwardly at Sean, not that things could get more awkward when you were sitting on top of a boy and you’d just kissed him when you weren’t sure whether that was cool or not. Although he seemed pretty cool about it, since he’d been getting into it when the phone rang.

“Where are you?” she cried when I answered.

“I’m—out,” I said. Landing on boys and kissing them!

“Well, duh, we know you’re out, silly—Emma and I are at your house looking for you! Gretchen’s house, whatever.”

“You are?” I moved aside to let Sean get up and sort of sat in the snow. He stood up and started brushing snow off of himself, then he smiled at me and started to walk back up the hill. The rest of the guys were already halfway up.

“How can you not be home? Gretchen said something about sledding. Who goes sledding anymore, I said. Get your butt over here!” Jones demanded.

“Right now?” I asked.

“Hello, we just drove two and a half hours to see you!”

I laughed. “Okay, Jones. I’ll be right there.” Although your timing stinks, I thought as I flipped my phone closed.

“So. Jones. Is he your boyfriend at home?” Conor asked, trudging toward me in the snow.

“What?” I asked.

“Did he drive down to see you tonight?” Conor asked.

“What are you doing, eavesdropping?” I asked.

“I lost a glove in the snow. I came back to look around for it,” he said. “I heard you talking—sorry.”

“Well. Not that you need to know, but Jones isn’t a guy. She’s Bridget, my best friend from home. She was at the rink with me that first day we met.”

“We met at the lake? When?” he asked.

“You know when,” I said. “You’re just making me say it so that I get embarrassed all over again.”

He just kept looking at me.

“I knocked you down, playing Crack the Whip. You caught me? Then you gave me back my hat?”

“Oh, yeah. Right.” He grinned.

“See, you remembered all along. Anyway, Jones is a girl. Her name is Bridget, so we call her Jones. It’s a book. And a movie. Bridget Jones’s Diary?”

“Yes!” He pulled a dark-colored glove out of the snow. “Found it.”

I couldn’t stop glaring at him. “Look, you don’t really think I’d be out here with Sean like this if I was seeing someone back home, do you?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. How should I know?”

“That is so insulting I can’t even tell you. I don’t have a boyfriend. I’ve never had a boyfriend, okay?” And this conversation is getting in the way of me having one now, or ever! I thought as I walked up the hill toward Sean.

“Well, how should I know?” Conor complained behind me. “I hear Jones, it sounds like a guy. Sue me.”

“Maybe I will,” I muttered as I walked toward Sean. Couldn’t Jones and Emma wait another half hour until I got home? And couldn’t they give me a little advance warning that they were coming? I get one fun sledding night, and they have to show up now?

Sean was pulling the toboggan back to the top of the hill, and I walked up beside him. He kicked a clod of snow at me, and I kicked some back.

“A friend from home just called and I have to get going—she’s at the house waiting for me,” I told him.

“Oh, really? That’s too bad,” Sean said. He didn’t suggest leaving with me, and I guess I couldn’t really blame him.

“You can stay,” I said as I glanced at the group of his friends watching us together. “It’s no problem.”

“You sure?” Sean asked.

I nodded. And suddenly I couldn’t wait to get out of there. The way those guys were all looking at me, like they were judging me. Had everyone seen me kiss Sean? And what did they think about it, if they had?

“Yeah—I’ll be fine. See you guys!” I gave a little wave and then wrapped my scarf more tightly around my neck as I turned to walk home.

When I walked off, I heard screaming and I glanced over my shoulder to see them hurtling down the hill on the toboggan, laughing and shouting. I watched them take another huge bump and go flying into the air.

A few minutes later, I thought I sensed someone following me. It was making me really nervous. I looked back and saw a figure in the shadows. “What are you doing?”

“I just want to make sure you’re safe,” Conor replied, walking about ten paces behind me.

“Of course I’m safe,” I said. “I’d feel a lot safer if someone weren’t following me and scaring me to death.”

“Sorry. But you’re going the wrong way.”

“I am? Shoot.”

“It’s this direction.” He pointed to the right.

“Oh.”

“Here. I’ll show you,” he offered. The two of us walked vaguely side by side for a while. “I have to get home to study anyway. I’m taking this lit class at the U, you know? We have an exam at the end of the week.”

“Really? That’s cool.”

“Not really,” he said.

I laughed. “The class, not the exam.”

“Right.” Conor coughed. “So. Are you and Sean like…an item?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe,” I said.

“Can I give you a little advice?” Conor asked.

“On finding gloves in the dark? Or what?” I asked.

“Be careful,” he said. “See…Sean has this way of drawing lots of people to him. And sometimes he hurts people when he doesn’t mean to, because he doesn’t realize.”

“Realize what. He’s popular? I think he knows that,” I said.

“Look. It’s not just about being popular. It’s—whether he really cares about anyone, besides himself. He’s incredibly selfish.”

“And you’re not,” I said.

“Come on, Kirsten. Trust me,” he said.

“Why should I trust you? Over him?”

“Because I have no reason to lie. I’m not involved.”

“But he is your brother,” I said. “And you are walking me home so that you can tell me to stay away from him. Which is over-involved, if you ask me.”

“Never mind. Forget I said anything.”

I could hardly look at him, I was so mad. First he thought I was rushing off to see my “hometown honey,” and now what? Was he following me home to make sure I wasn’t? And what was with the criticizing Sean? Brotherly love, it wasn’t.

I was relieved to see Emma’s car parked on the street outside Gretchen’s when we got there. “That’s Emma’s.” I pointed to the Explorer. “She’s here, too.” Maybe I should have had my friends come out, so I could show him that Jones was in fact a girl. But I didn’t need to prove anything to him. “Emma and Jones. Best friends.”

“Sounds like a musical group. Where do they live?”

“Outside Duluth, like me,” I said.

“You guys have plans for the weekend?” Conor asked.

“Uh, I don’t know,” I said. “Why?”

“Well, we have a club hockey game tomorrow morning. Outside, down at the lake,” Conor said. “It’s kind of a tradition. Playing outdoors like in the old days. Sean’s on one of the clubs and I’m on the other,” he explained.

“Why am I not surprised?” I mumbled.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Why wouldn’t he come closer? He insisted on talking to me across the lawn. Was he afraid I’d tackle him again, the way I did when he came here to shovel? “I would say thanks for walking me home,” I said, “but I think it’s more like thanks for following me home.”