Read Falling for You for Free Online Page B

of them and say hey?” I asked him. “They’d probably love to hear from you.”
    “No,” he said firmly. “I’m not gonna do that. People move away. Things change. Life goes on. I’m making a new life here. A good one. A better one.” He lowered his voice. “Mostly thanks to you.”
    It sounded so strange—like we’d been going out for weeks, not for a day. I didn’t know how to respond, so I changed the subject and we talked about Blue October. I’d listened to a few of their songs earlier, and although I could tell they’d never be my favorite, they were all right. He thanked me a bunch of times for listening, and I knew it made him happy that I’d taken the time to check them out.
    Finally, he said he should go, since he needed to help his mom with something. Maybe I shouldn’t have felt relieved, but I kind of did.
    We hung up, and I went to the kitchen to get some food. Mom and Dean were talking. I hadn’t seen them yet, since they’d slept in, like they did most Sundays. I stopped at the edge of the hallway and peeked around the corner. They sat on the couch in the family room. Mom had her arms around Dean, whose back was toward me. She was using what I call her quiet-the-baby voice. I hadn’t heard it since the morning we got the news that Grandma had died. When Mom told methat Grandma had slipped away during the night, her battle with the cancer finally over, I was devastated. I couldn’t imagine what my life would be like without Grandma in it. So Mom held me in her arms, and tried to quiet me down. Just like she did with Dean now.
    “Shhh, it’ll be all right now, don’t you worry, honey.”
    He sobbed as she rocked him ever so slightly back and forth. “I’m so sorry,” he managed to get out.
    “I know, Dean,” she said. “You’ve already said that at least a half a dozen times. You need to pull yourself together and start looking for work. Tomorrow you’ll get yourself to the unemployment office, and you’ll find something real soon. I just know it.”
    They sat there, quietly, until he finally sat up, wiping his face with the back of his hands. He looked so small. Pathetic.
    I continued on into the kitchen. Mom saw me and called out my name.
    I peeked my head out. “Yeah?”
    “Dean here, he feels real bad about losing his job. We need to make sure he knows we support him and believe in him. All right?”
    “Sure,” I said, heading back to the kitchen, where I could roll my eyes in private.
    Their voices became whispers, and I felt like an intruder. I grabbed a couple of slices of cheese from the fridge along with a box of Wheat Thins and snuck back to my room, leaving them alone, the way they liked it best.
    •   •   •
    On Monday, Nathan was waiting for me by my locker. It took me by surprise. Even more surprising? He kissed me before I even had a chance to say hello.
    “I missed you,” he said, his eyes searching mine after I pulled away. What was he looking for? School wasn’t really the place to see if we could make sparks fly again.
    I went to work on my locker combination, trying to ignore the funny feeling in my stomach. “But we talked three times yesterday,” I told him.
    “You can’t do this on the phone.” He kissed my neck and then whispered in my ear, “Did you miss me?”
    It tickled. I raised my shoulder to my ear, gently pushing him away. “Maybe.” The truth was, I had thought about our evening together all day long. One minute I was sure we belonged together, and the next I wanted to send a cowardly text, telling him maybe we’d be better off as friends. Alix’s voice kept playing in my head, though. “ As soon as things start moving in that direction, you pull away.” I kept telling myself I needed to give it more time. It was too soon to know anything.
    Once I had my locker open, Nathan spun me around and kissed me again. This time, slower. Softer. “You must have missed that,” he whispered. “Right?”
    He gently tucked a