"Oh look, it's snowing," I said. As we walked to his car, chunky snowflakes fell on our head and shoulders. Apparently winter had decided to move in.

Tanner left the bag with the prime rib on the hood of his Accord where it would stay cold, but took a Styrofoam box and some plastic forks out so we could eat the cheesecake inside the car. I liked the fact that he'd packed plastic forks. It meant he'd thought about it and wanted to eat dessert with me tonight. Well, either that or he thought my family was too poor to afford utensils.

We climbed into his car and he turned the heater on high. I shivered for a minute, but I wasn't sure if it was from the cold or just being so near to Tanner.

At first we didn't talk much. We just said the usual sort of, "So what have you been up to?" small talk. I watched the snow glittering in the light of the street lamp and wondered if that's all he'd say. But when we were nearly done eating, Tanner's face grew serious and I knew he was getting ready to say whatever it was that he'd come to say. He leaned against his door so he nearly faced me. Slowly, as though he'd given it a lot of thought, he said, "I've told myself since Monday night that things would never work out between us so I ought to forget about you."

I shrugged as though hearing this didn't bother me. "Oh? How's that going?"

With an almost accusing look, he shook his head. "Not so well. It turns out you're hard to forget." He waved his fork absentmindedly in my direction. "It's probably your eyes. Did you know they're the exact same color as the ocean at Oahu?"

"I've never been to Oahu."

"You'll have to trust me about that then." He took a bite of cheesecake and considered me for a moment. "It could also be your smile. When you smile you look like you have all these secrets you're about to share, like you'll let me in on some inside joke because you think I'm special."

"Oh." I didn't plan on smiling then. It just happened.

"We seem to smile a lot around each other," he said. "Have you noticed that?"

I nodded.

Tanner gazed up at the ceiling of the car. "Of course maybe it's just impossible to forget you because Richard brings you up every five minutes."

I stiffened. "Rick talks about me?"

"Oh yeah. Mostly along the lines of: How can you like the girl who wants to ruin my life? Or, Mom, talk some sense into Tanner. He can't date Chelsea. She tried to kill me."

The fork went limp in my hand. "He told your mother I tried to kill him?"

"Yeah, death by locker door." Tanner sent me a reassuring smile. "Don't worry, Mom didn't believe him. Very few people are actually killed by locker doors." Tanner's warm blue eyes rested on mine and his voice softened. "Besides, my parents like you."

"Your parents have good taste."

"So do I. I have good taste." His gaze turned intense then, and my insides warmed by degrees. "I want to keep seeing you, but I'm not sure how to work this out. Do we try to reach a truce with our siblings? Do we ignore them and pretend we're both only children? Or maybe we should lie to each other—I'll say I think your sister is sweet and you can tell me my brother is charming."

"Let me try that." I put my fork to my mouth, gently tapping it against my lower lip. "I think Rick is charming."

Tanner nodded, his lips slightly twitching. "And Adrian is a sweet girl."

I pointed my fork in his direction. "I can tell you're lying." Tanner dipped his chin down and laughed. "Well, you said 'charming' like it was an insult."

"Yeah, and let me tell you Rick is the prince of charming."

Tanner took my fork, put it with his into the empty Styrofoam container, and set it in the backseat. "Okay. Maybe we just need to agree that we'll both do our best to be nice to each other's siblings and never talk about them again. We can't change them, and we don't want to spend our time together discussing them anyway."

"Right," I said. "And actually now that you mention it, I think it would be best if we didn't hang out at my house. Since Adrian broke up with Rick, well, I just don't think she needs any reminders of him."

"That's fine," he said, and sounded relieved that I didn't want to force him into spending time with Adrian.

So much for honesty being the best policy. I was getting an A+ on this ethics test.

"We can go other places. I'm not working Saturday." Tanner moved closer to me. With his arm stretched across the back of the seat, he played with the ends of my hair. I shivered again and this time it was definitely not from the cold.

"Good."

I knew he was about to kiss me and then the subject would be gone forever, so before he did I said, "Tanner, did you know your brother is singing a song about me for the auditions?"

He leaned closer to me, his hands twining through my hair. "He changed his mind about that. He's singing a different song now."

"He is?"

"Yeah, as I recall he had a change of heart around about the time I held his guitar out a second-story window. Plus, I told him I wouldn't ever help him lug around his band equipment again if he kept bothering you."

He ran a finger down the nape of my neck, which made it very hard to do things—like concentrate on the conversation, and breathe.

"Do your parents know about all of this?" I asked.

"They overheard some of it, but they didn't say much. They couldn't really because my grandmother was too busy lecturing about how young men treated young women when she was a girl. Opening doors. Holding chairs. That took quite a while."

I considered this while Tanner slid even closer to me. If Rick had decided not to sing "Dangerously Blonde," wouldn't he have told Adrian about it? He would have told her he was doing it for her and then Adrian would have triumphantly told me about it.

But that hadn't happened.

Then again, if Rick had told Tanner in front of his parents and grandmother that he wasn't going to sing the song, that meant something. Maybe I really didn't need to get up in front of everyone in a skating outfit and sing.

I should have felt relieved or hopeful, but I didn't. I realized with almost a shock, that even if Rick didn't sing "Dangerously Blonde," I still wanted to audition for High School Idol. I wanted to do it for me and I wanted to win.

When had that happened? When had I stopped mocking all of those people with singing ambitions and become one of them?

Tanner bent down and kissed me and I kissed him back. His arms felt warm and comfortable and for a few moments I didn't think of auditions, or Rick, or anything. There was just Tanner and me, and he was holding me close. It was enough.

Chapter 16

Friday brought rain, which immediately turned to ice, and then it snowed some more. This didn't mean that the football game would be canceled. Football players are too rugged for that, or fans too insistent, one of the two. What it did mean was that we got to wear our cheer sweats and gloves. It also meant, unfortunately that instead of riding in the school van with our advisor, we would ride in the school bus with the guys.

Moscow's high school is only a twenty-minute drive from PHS, but Mrs. Jones won't drive us anywhere if the roads are icy.

I don't mind riding to a game with the team, but trust me, riding back home with a bus full of riled-up, sweaty guys is not something anyone would voluntarily do.