Twelve Truths and a Lie Read Online Free PDF Page A

crumb?”
    “Well, this is embarrassing,” I muttered, as her hand remained for a moment longer on my jaw. It felt soft and delicate and instantly warmed me from the inside. “You’re not going to wet your thumb like my mom used to do to clean my face in public, are you?”
    Laughter burst from her lips, and her eyes crinkled in the corners. “Nicole always says she can’t believe the things she does to her twins that she swore she’d never do as a mom.”
    “I bet that’s one of them,” I said. “See, you couldn’t even help yourself.”
    “You should be thanking me,” she said, biting her lip and averting her eyes. “You wouldn’t want to go all the way home with snack crumbs on your face.”
    “Right,” I replied, making my eyes comically wide. “Because the person next to me at the stoplight might poke fun at me.”
    She erupted into giggles and held onto my arm as she doubled over. I found it infectious, my chest rumbling with a snicker. “Next thing you know, you end up on some girl’s Instagram page, with the header: This guy would be even hotter if he wasn’t such a slob .”
    My grin faltered as I realized what she’d said, that she considered me attractive. My eyes met hers as her cheeks colored into a rosy tint.
    “I, uh,” she stammered and then pointed behind her to her car. “I should…”
    “This was nice,” I said, helping her out of the awkward moment.
    Thing was, I hadn’t felt any pressure from her tonight, to act a certain way or say what she wanted to hear, and that was really cool.
    “Glad you showed up,” she said, her eyes finally meeting my gaze.
    “Me, too,” I replied, blowing out a breath of relief before working up the nerve to ask something else. “Do you think we can…”
    She looked at me expectantly as she held her car door open.
    “Exchange phone numbers?” I said, shrugging. “No pressure to show up again for our club but just in case something else comes up.”
    “Absolutely,” she said, her cheeks flushing pink again, either from the cold or the mention of keeping in contact. “That would be great.”
    Was it pathetic that I was already looking forward to next week?
    We pulled out our phones and while she programmed my number, I took the opportunity to stare at her under the glow of the streetlamp. A few red ringlets of hair fell over her shoulder, and she kept pinning them back behind her ear. She also had a smattering of light freckles on her cheeks and even some on her neck that made her more appealing.
    We were just friends. But friends could still admire each other, as long as no lines were crossed and nobody felt uncomfortable, right?
    “Okay,” she said, tossing her phone on her passenger side seat. “I’m freezing my butt off. I’ll see you soon.”
    “Have a good week,” I said, backing away to head to my car parked clear across the lot. I waited until she pulled out of her parking space before driving away.

5
    Aurora
    I t had been a busy workweek , and I couldn’t help wondering how Cameron was doing. He was so easy to talk to and I deliberated if I would get over the hump of my blinding attraction to him so we could simply be friends. No pretenses or pressures. That would be fantastic and refreshingly cool.
    He hadn’t gone overboard on cocktails at the bar the other night either, and that made me even more comfortable. I wasn’t certain whether he had a true dependency on alcohol or not—some people abused drinking, used it as an escape—but I reminded myself that it wasn’t my problem to solve. And that felt good.
    I headed out the door to meet Nicole at Sydney’s dance studio recital.
    Every year, Sydney reserved center stage seats for us, which we relished because the productions she worked so long and hard on were always impressive.
    She was an excellent dancer herself and darn could she teach kids—ballet, hip-hop, tap, and jazz, you name it. Parents lined up around the corner to sign up in the fall for her