Read 1986: Why Can't This Be Love (Love in the 80s #7) for Free Online

trying to escape him, I kissed a total stranger in a photo booth. At this point, Lisa just left me, so I spent the next few hours with the guy I kissed while bowling. That was before I decided to call and see if it was okay to go out with him.” I paused for dramatic effect. “Oh, what do I know about him? Well, let’s see. He’s chivalrous. I know this because he got in a fight with a guy he didn’t know to protect a girl he also didn’t know. Oh, and he’s vandalized a car, but it was because the owner of the car is a dipshit. Also, he plays a mean game of bowling, likes heavy metal music, and has really nice eyes.”
    Dylan hunched his shoulders. “You think I have nice eyes?”
    I stared, dumbfounded. “That’s all you got from that?”
    He grinned, rubbing his arms. “Dance with me?”
    “What? Here? Now?”
    “Just you and me.”
    Down below, a new song played, Bryan Adam’s ‘Heaven’ leaking out over the night, replacing Madonna.
    Dylan offered me his palm, but I ignored it. Facing him, I slid my arms around his waist, my cheek coming to rest against his chest. His skin, where it was bare, was cold, and along with the cologne and leather scent, smelled strangely of vanilla.
    “You should have kept your jacket,” I murmured.
    His arms circled me, drawing me in closer, his body swaying with the music. Everywhere his body touched me, my body came alive, a different kind of alive, something I’d never felt before. Even in my daydreams. It had a wicked, electrifying feel to it.
    “How did you find this place?” I asked.
    “Last time I visited my uncle, I met a group of friends up here to smoke a doobie.”
    “A joint?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Oh.”
    When he chuckled, his chest vibrated against my ear, and I liked the way it felt, comfortable and warm. “Have you ever smoked a joint?” he asked.
    “Uh ... no.”
    Pulling me away gently, he twirled me, his eyes on my eyes, before tucking me close again. Street lights near the path and down below washed out our faces and bodies, transforming us into paper cutouts. I felt like we were standing on this fine line separating the real world from a black and white sketched version, like I was inside the A-ha “Take On Me” MTV music video staring at a guy crooking his animated finger at me from the pages of a comic book.
    He was the guy, and I was the girl taking a chance on love.
    “Do you have a girlfriend back home?” I asked suddenly, my throat seizing up on the question.
    Dylan’s muscles tensed. “I did.”
    I glanced up at him. “But not anymore.”
    “No.” His gaze dropped, finding mine. His eyes were eerily dark and animal-like in the night. “What about you? You got a boyfriend I should know about?”
    “No.”
    He murmured under his breath, something that sounded suspiciously like, “Men are fools.”
    Cupping my neck with his hand, he kneaded the muscles, and incredible, nerve-defying sensations flooded my body, waking me up, warming me.
    My eyes swept closed.
    “I’m eighteen,” Dylan revealed suddenly. “I’m at one of the inner city schools in Cleveland, but before that, I was at the alternative center. Considered too much trouble, I guess, for the traditional classroom. That’s the problem with the city. Social division is more prominent. If you live on any sort of government assistance, you’re suddenly trumped with the outcasts and criminals and shunned by the richies.”
    My eyes flew open to find him peering down at me, his forehead creased. He seemed older somehow, jaded. “Why do you say that like it’s a warning?”
    “Because girls like you don’t spend time with me the way you are right now unless we’re talking sex, and until tonight, I’d started to think maybe I was trying too hard at life. After everything that went down at home, the car I smashed … I don’t know. I started thinking maybe I should accept the lot I’ve been given. Go to trade school. Get a job in my neighborhood.”
    We stopped dancing,