Meg Cabot - Missing You

“Oh, right.” Rob actually laughed at that.

“I’mnot ,” I insisted. How dare he laugh?He was the one who wouldn’t level with me about Miss Boobs-As-Big-As-My-Head. Not that I’d brought her up lately. But still.

“I can’t sit around and do nothing about this guy, Jess,” Rob said.

“I know that,” I said. “And we won’t be doing nothing. We’re just not going to hurt him. Physically, anyway. Look. You’re just going to have to trust me on this.”

Which was when he looked down at me and said, an incredulous look on his face, “Oh, right. You mean the way you trust me?”

I knew what was coming then.

And I also knew I was nowhere near ready for it.

“I gotta go,” I said, and whirled around to seize one of the boxes and head for my parents’ front porch.

But Rob—just as I’d feared he would—slipped out a hand to catch my arm.

“Jess.”

His voice, in the still evening air, was gentle…though his grip, as I tried to shake it off, was most definitely not.

“I seriously don’t want to talk about this right now,” I said through gritted teeth, keeping my gaze rooted on my parents’ front door. No way was I going to look him in the eye. Noway. I’d melt if I did. I’d melt into a puddle of tears right there on the lawn.

“We have to talk about it sometime,” Rob said in that same gentle voice. But his grip didn’t loosen one iota. “I’m not letting you go until we do. Not this time.”

“You have to let me go,” I said, still keeping my gaze glued to the front door. My mother had painted it blue. When had she done that? It had always been red before. “The paper boy will call the cops in the morning if he gets here and finds us like this.”

“I don’t mean we have to do it tonight,” Rob said. And now he did relax his grip. I yanked my arm away and turned to glare at him. It was safe, I knew, to look at him. So long as he wasn’t touching me.

“But we’ve got to talk about it sometime before you leave to go back to New York,” Rob went on. His expression, in the light from the moon that was just beginning to rise, was as serious as I’d ever seen it. “I know you don’t want to, but I do. I have to. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to move on if we don’t.”

I had to laugh at that one.

“Oh,” I said. “You haven’t moved on?”

He frowned. “No. What makes you think I have?”

“Gee, I don’t know,” I said sarcastically. “Maybe it was that blonde I saw you making out with.”

The frown deepened. “Jess. Itold you. That—”

“Jessica! There you are!”

My mother’s voice rang out across the lawn.

Thirteen

I turned around to find Mom on the front porch, looking down at us.

“Aren’t you going to invite your friend inside?” Mom wanted to know.

Then she flicked the porch light on and saw who “my friend” actually was.

“Oh,” she said, startled. “Hello, Robert.”

Rob looked as if he tasted something foul. But his voice, when he spoke, was friendly enough. “Hey, Mrs. Mastriani.”

“Well,” Mom said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize—I didn’t mean to interrupt—”

“It’s okay,” I said, bending over to retrieve my boxes. I lifted them both without a problem. That’s how freaked out I was. I didn’t even notice how heavy they were. “You didn’t interrupt anything. We were just saying good night.”

“Right,” I heard Rob say as I hurried to cross the lawn. “We were just saying good night.”

“Call me in the morning, Rob,” I said, climbing the steps to the porch. “So we can talk about what we’re going to do about thatsituation .”

“I’ll do that,” Rob said, behind me. “Good night.”

“Good night, Robert,” my mother called to him. Then, to me, as I was crossing the porch, she said pleasantly, “What have you got there, Jessica?”

“Just some videotapes,” I said, brushing past her and heading into the house in the hopes of getting away before she noticed how red my face was…and how hard my heart was slamming into my ribs.

Fortunately, Mom didn’t seem to notice how discombobulated I was. She wasn’t interested in what was in the boxes I held, either. She was more interested in finding out what was going on between Rob and me.

“Videotapes?” she echoed, closing the front door behind us. Outside, I heard Rob start up his truck. “I see. Well. I didn’t know you and Rob Wilkins were back in touch.”

“We’re not,” I said. “Well, not really. We’re just…we’re working on a project together, that’s all. Something to do with his sister.” I had started towards the door to the basement—my dad had set up a den down there where he could watch sports undisturbed.

“I didn’t know Rob had a sister,” Mom said.

“Yeah. Well, neither did Rob.”

“Oh.” My mom had always been able to put more meaning in a single word than anyone I knew. ThatOh spoke volumes—mostly about how not surprised she was that someone of Rob’s ilk would turn out to have an illegitimate sibling.

“And what about that girl?” Mom wanted to know. “That one you said you saw him kissing that day?”

Now more than ever, I wished I’d kept my mouth shut about Miss Boobs-As-Big-As-My-Head. At least where my parents were concerned.

“Was that his sister?” Mom asked.

“God, Mom. No!”

“Oh,” Mom said. “Well, what, then? Are you just going to forgive him for that? You were off, risking your life, fighting a war, while he—”

“Mom,” I said with a groan. “Knock it off, okay?”

“Well, I’m just saying,” Mom went on, “if it happened once, it will happen again. That’s the problem with boys like that.”

I paused in the basement doorway and looked back at her from over my shoulder.

“Boys like what, Mom?” I asked her in a very quiet voice.

“Well, you know,” she said. “Boys who haven’t had the same advantages you had growing up.”

“You mean Grits,” I said, impressed at how even I managed to keep my tone.

“No, that is not what I mean,” Mom said, looking offended. “I’m sure Rob is a very nice young man—his penchant for kissing other girls behind your back aside. But you know perfectly well he’s never going to leave this town.”

“What’s wrong with living in this town?” I demanded. “You and Dad live here. Douglas lives here. If it’s good enough for you, why isn’t it good enough for me? I mean, for Rob?”

“How can you even ask that?” Mom asked with what I’m positive was genuine wonder. “Jessica, you have so much potential. Why would you want to waste all that staying here in this backwater town, when you could have a real career—travel, meet exciting new people, make a real difference in the world?”

“You know what, Mom?” I said. “I’ve actually done all that. And look where it got me.”

She gave me a sour look.

“You know what I mean, Jessica,” she said. “You’re a sought-after inspirational speaker, thanks to your former powers and all the good you did with them. Why, I’ve had letters from groups asking if you’d address their organization from places as far away as Japan. They’d pay all your expenses and as much as twenty thousand dollars in speaking fees. You have a very profitable career ahead of you….”

I looked her dead in the eye—which was kind of hard because I’d started down the steps to the basement and she was standing above me, and she’s taller than me under normal circumstances anyway.

“And that’s the future you see for me,” I said. “Traveling all around the world, talking to people about a power Iused to have, the good Iused to do. What about doing good now? Without benefit of my powers? Because there are things I can do now, Mom, that don’t involve extrasensory perception.”