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you.”
    “Nice meeting you, too.” I stood rooted to the ground until he disappeared into the crowd, and then I made my way back over to the bench.
    “So?” Carter signaled to the bartender to close his tab. “How’d it go?”
    “Good, really good. We only spoke a few words to each other, but he’s going to call me tomorrow.” I felt like a giddy little girl. “I literally felt something when he touched me—something strong.”
    “It’s a pretty bad sign if he’s already given you an STD.”
    “You are so terrible!” I laughed. “Did you find any future victims while I was gone?”
    “Within the span of two minutes? No, but I realized we need to get you a few more dates tonight if we’re going to guarantee that you get laid at some point this summer.” He set a tip on the counter and clasped my hand, pulling me through the crowd and outside. “We need to go to a few more bars.”
    “What? Why ? I just got a guy, a guy who has already promised to call me tomorrow and made me feel a genuine spark when he only touched my hand. Did you not hear any of what I said back there?”
    “That was one guy, Ari.” He shook his head. “One. Who knows if he’ll really call you tomorrow? You trust him just because he said he would?”
    “Well, yeah…”
    “So, you’ll believe anything a complete stranger says to you?”
    “There was a spark, Carter…A genuine he-is-definitely-going-to-call-me spark.”
    “You need at least five other options.” He unlocked the doors to his car and motioned for me to get in. “That’s the biggest problem you have now. You need to actually date around and stop pinning all your hopes on the first guy that you supposedly feel a spark with.”
    “I don’t always do that…I at least wait until he kisses me first.” I laughed. “I’m a pretty good judge of kisses, you know. I can tell a lot about a guy from the way he uses his mouth.”
    “I’m sure you can.” He revved up the car and sped down a few blocks toward a more popular bar. “You have stars in your eyes right now over a potential phone call. I’d hate to see what you look like after you get kissed.”
    “I’ll record it one day and send you the video.”
    “Please don’t.” He looked over at me, laughing as he found a parking spot. “If it’s anything like you looked after meeting that guy in there, I never want to know. Now, get out of the car before you start staring into space, so I can show you how to get exactly what your pussy needs.”
    “Really, though? Have I ever told you how deep you are?”
    “No.” He smiled as he got out of the car. “But that’s only because you and I have never fucked…”

Fifth Grade

    Dear Carter,
    I don’t care what you say about Dawson Meade the 3rd. He will be my first kiss and he will NOT care about my braces. He will fall in love with me and ask me to be his girlfriend. And then you will be jealous because you will still not know what it fills like to be kissed.
    I’ll let you know how it goes after school.
    Sincerely kissed,
    Arizona

    Dear Arizona,
    I do not care about your first kiss, but you should know that Dawson is lame and he will kiss anyone. I saw him kissing hisself in the bathroom mirror last week. Trust me, he will care about your braces. They are still not pretty.
    And I will not be jealous because I’m getting my first kiss from Rachel Ryan today. She said we will do it like the French.
    I will let YOU know how it goes after school.
    Sincerely FIRST kissed,
    Carter
    Arizona balled up my note and rolled her eyes at me as the bell rang.
    I closed my notebook and followed her to her locker, where we always met after school.
    “Are you ever going to get those braces out of your mouth, Ari?”
    “Why do you care?”
    “Because I don’t want to hear you cry when no one but Dawson wants to be your boyfriend…It’s because of your braces.”
    I’d thought they couldn’t get any worse, but sometimes she stuck colored rubber bands in them