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Adae that ran all the way down the highway bridge From here I’d have the perfect platfor us fro

I could have painted LORI LOVES ADAM right where I was, above the embankment At least technically I was still on dry land, or over it But his brothers would call us lightweights They’d beeneach sea the ledge The embankment fell away I was over the lake

A quarter of the way across, which see the can of spray paint with one hand and hanging onto the bridge for dear life with the other, I turned to look behind me My house, Adam’s house, and Adam’s parents’ marina lay across the water frohts edging the ht, their reflections rippling in the water Everyone must have been pooped from the festival on the lake that day

Not a single boat motor broke the silence—only the occasional clackclack, clack-clack of a car passing on the other side of the concrete wall and a nervous vibration through the bridge

“Kkkkkk,” cae Lori McGillicuddy This is the police”

I glared at Adae beside me with his hands cupped over hisonto the bridge at all

“You startled h below to kill ht still hurt And ere not here for his adrenaline rush

We were doing soether

He touched ht you”

He probably could have What he lacked in good judgth and coordination Of Endless Suth and coordination, which accounted for at least one of the ti

But his fingers on le His skull-and-crossbones pendant glinted in the starlight, and his strange light blue eyes watched h I was precariously balanced and about to deface public property, I used ment to lean forward and kiss him

He seemed surprised for a split second Usually he was the one to start things between us Then he slid his hands into my hair and kissed me back

I felt the paint can slipping throughit harder, I loosened

He pulled me closer and held me steady “Even I think this is not the best place to make out,” he breathed

“If you say so” I was kidding Personally,with my balance

“I could have fallen instead of you,” he said in e “Oh, wait, I already fell” He touched the tip of er “For you”

“A!” I cried “Adam, that’s so sweet!”

He grinned “Did you like that? I thought of it about an hour ago, ere in your base it”

“I did like it You are a very good boyfriend Who would have guessed?” With a final aze at him—God, ere such idiots, but it was fun to be an idiot in love

—I turned back to the bridge and scanned the surface for a clean space to write our naraffiti Just above me was AOAN

LOVES LOKI, which Adam had painted very sloppily last weekend, then crossed out e had a fight I could have her up for a blank slate, but I was not as fond of playing Tarzan as Adam was Finally I decided on a space do that had been painted over so many times, it would make a nice dark backdrop for my red paint I shook the can one more time, held it out to Adam to pry the top off, and crouched to write

“You’re sure you don’t want me to do it?” he asked

“No thanks When you want your naraffiti, you have to do it yourself” He laughed “I was in a hurry, and the paint ran when it rained Besides, you knehat Iof LORI LOVES ADAM “Yeah, I knehat youthe M “There Soether Sole to in a relationship We commit a misdemeanor”

He took the paint can from me “The police chief ’s son’s name is up here, so I wouldn’t be too worried Co one battered deck shoe in front of the other, but still barely holding on to the bridge, his fingers brushing the erous

We reached land and hiked up the e lot The streetlights gently lit the trucks and eht fishermen No one stopped us as alked up the steep asphalt to Adaotten aith it

My fingers were raw froh Other than that, everything had gone perfectly ht, Adareat time at the lake festival We and our brothers had perfor show for an enormous crowd Not even Adam had broken a bone And noe’d spray painted our love for each other on the bridge without a single ht was Too Good To Be True

As he opened the passenger door for me—he never locked the doors, because he liked to telimpse of my reflection in theEven after eous, I tell you It clumped a little in the humidity, but it looked like I’d created that piecey effect on purpose with styling gel I was a vision of blonde loveliness

That was the last straw A day this happy and good hair, too? Now I knew so aas about to happen

Adrenaline had propelled e That started to drain away now Fatigue set in—fro in the festival show that afternoon and worrying the last few days about whether Adaether

“What’s wrong?” he asked fro the paint can in the payload

“I’ood hair day”

“I hate it when that happens” Gatheringit forward over my shoulder, he kissed the back of my neck

I shivered in the heat The adrenaline ca back, and I was not so tired

“The night is young,” he growled between kisses “I have an idea of e can do now We’ve kissed before” Kiss “We’ve made out” Kiss “But we’ve never made out as an official couple, in the privacy of my Secret Make-Out Hideout”