The Pretty App by Katie Sise Page A

letting me go that I barely registered his insult.
    “I imagine Blake will fit right in with city life,” Leo said, and even though he was smiling, it was like he was also standing up to my dad’s insult. It made me want to kiss him.
    My mother glanced from Leo to my dad, holding her flowers and beaming like Miss America. I think a part of her always wanted to be more laid-back—to let me do the things she never got to as a teenager, like go on a date to Chicago with a hot boy. She’d married my father so young; her entire life had been ruled by him. And now he scared her just like he did the rest of us, and I got the feeling from stories her old high school friends told me that she wasn’t who she used to be. “It sounds lovely,” she said. I felt a wave of sadness watching her mauve lipstick crack when she smiled.
    “Indeed,” my father said, putting his hand on the door like he was going to shut it in our faces. “And we don’t want to keep you.” He looked at Leo. “Blake’s weekend curfew is midnight and we expect her home by then.”
    “I plan to have her back by eleven,” Leo said, like he made the rules. He slipped his arm through mine, and as composed as my father had been up until that moment, I saw him bristle at Leo’s touch. I carefully extracted myselffrom the embrace, and Leo didn’t push it.
    I waved to my parents as we walked toward the car. Leo opened my door, and I thought about Audrey and how we used to make fun of the ridiculous, over-the-top dates the couples took together on The Bachelor . I had the fleeting desire to text her and tell her that being the girl on the over-the-top date didn’t feel so ridiculous. Now that it was actually happening, it felt kind of amazing.
    I slid onto the tan leather seat. There were two steaming cups of coffee in between us, and when Leo climbed in on the opposite side, he said, “I figured you were a milk-and-sugar kind of girl.”
    I smiled. “Skim?” I asked.
    “Obviously,” he said.
    I thanked him as he backed down our driveway and zoomed down the street. I considered my jeans and flats and then turned to Leo, who was smiling so deviously that for a second I worried he’d say this was all a trick—just a joke that I’d fallen for. But instead, he said, “You look nice,” which felt oddly date-like, and even though I knew that was the definition of what we were doing, it didn’t really feel like it yet. Or maybe I just didn’t want to let myself hope that it was something romantic. I couldn’t get a read on this guy: What if this was just more of his typical showmanship? This could all be about doing something cool, not about doing something cool with me.
    “I should’ve changed,” I said, gesturing to my T-shirt and then to his oxford and chinos.
    “I think you look great,” Leo said, turning on the radio.A DJ announced a Mariah Carey song as the first one in a Top Ten Songs of the Nineties countdown.
    “How did you do that with my parents?” I asked. The DJ started singing along with Mariah, missing her high notes by an octave. “That was like a magic show.”
    Leo adjusted the radio until a DEVI song came on. “Parents aren’t that complicated,” he said, as moody guitar chords filled the car.
    “I’m pretty sure mine are.”
    He shrugged. “I find that if you just treat adults like you’re all on the same playing field, it goes well.”
    I drummed my fingers on my thigh. “You’re pretty confident,” I said.
    Leo laughed. “Not always,” he said, glancing at the manicured lawns racing by. “So do you like Chicago?” he asked.
    “I love it,” I said.
    “Good,” Leo said, smiling. He rolled down the car’s windows. “I hoped so.” The wind attacked us as we picked up speed, and my hair flew behind me like Beyoncé’s does in concert. “Have you been to California?” Leo asked, his fingers tapping along with the hard bass of the song.
    “No,” I said, shaking my head. “But I want to go to LA. Just