Between Seasons by Aida Brassington Page B

thought I was really into it, so he stuck his tongue in there.” Sara screwed up her face and shivered. “It was so gross.”
    “Don’t knock the ear-tongue thing. That’s one of my standard moves.” Patrick raised his eyebrows, trying not to imagine his hands on Sara in the back seat of his Chevelle. He and Ginny had groped each other in that car more than a few times –after the Tastee Freeze closed, there was a parking lot in the back that was black as coal… a good spot for making out and going all the way. Now that he thought about it, it wasn’t like he knew for sure she’d liked him licking at her ear like that, but she seemed to.
    “I turned my head to get his slimy tongue out of my earhole, and he planted this giant sloppy kiss on me. It felt like he was trying to suck my face off… it was just all big, overly soft tongue lying in my mouth, like he was too lazy to move it around, and it just… oh God, it felt so nasty. And that was when my dad chose to open the front door.”
    Patrick’s hoot of surprise filled the space, but Sara didn’t even flinch – she obviously hadn’t heard his outburst. “Ginny’s dad caught us once. I mean, we weren’t doing anything… not really. But if he’d walked in just five minutes earlier, he would have caught her with her hands down my pants.”
    “Dad was so pissed off. He had this constipated look he got when he was about to start yelling. Jimmy took one look at him and zoomed off across the street like there was a fire under his ass. Why do guys do that?”
    “Do what?”
    “I mean, I didn’t even know how to kiss, and even I knew that was bad. You’d have thought he’d have learned… I heard he kissed half my graduating class.”
    He could listen to her talk for hours, and sometimes she did. The more he learned about her, the more he liked her. Not that Patrick had many choices when it came to people he could be friends with, but if he’d known her before he’d taken a header down the stairs, he’d have hung out with her. Hell , he’d have chased after her and probably made a total ass out of himself trying to convince her to go out with him.
    Her telephone rang, interrupting Sara’s story.
    “Hello?” She smiled – what Patrick thought of as her sisterly smile; it was the same look he’d always gotten when talking to his annoying aunt –and let her feet slip off the seat. “Oh, hey, Jules… yeah, everything is good. How about you?” She laughed, face transforming as her smile widened into something more genuine yet almost cautious . “Yeah? Well, good luck with that… no, no, I’m just sitting here with my laptop… yeah, I’m writing… nah, it’s fun writing. It’s d oing okay. Well, better than –what? I have. I don’t know. I mean, sometimes it’s hard , and sometimes it’s not… er, well, I’m picturing someone as I write. The guy in the photo I found.”
    A loud roaring filled Patrick’s ears as Sara continued talking. No way. There was no way she could mean that. I mean, it’s weird enough she’s able to pick up on my thoughts , he thought. How was she putting this all together? It was as if Sara had a better fix on all this ghost crap than he did, and he’d been living with it for decades… not that it had helped him figure out all that much.
    “… know, but it’s, well, I don’t think I need to head back to the funny farm, but I’m half in love with him.”
    What? Patrick’s eyes bulged, staring at Sara while her fingers pull ed at the hair at the back of her neck.
    “Oh, Jesus, Jules, relax. It’s not like I’m sitting around here pining for the guy. He’s got to be, like, around sixty by now. I may be hard up and lonely, but I’m not going to head out and find a sugar daddy… oh, please, like you’ve never fantasized about someone you didn’t know. Okay, fine, you haven’t… you’re a perfect Christian.” She stuck her tongue at the phone as she pulled it away from her ear for a moment.