Suddenly, I started feeling nauseous in a different way. Had David changed his mind? Had I done something to make him not want to have sex with me? Was it my zit? Had he noticed it?

But it seemed highly unlikely a guy would change his mind about having sex with his girlfriend over a zit.

But wait a minute. I didn’t even want to have sex with him. So what did I care?

Was it something else, then? Was it what had happened on MTV? Oh my God, had my announcing I’d said Yes to Sex on national (cable) television killed the spontaneity or something? They are always going on about how sex should be spontaneous in Cosmo. Had I somehow ruined that?

Well, what if I had? Good. I don’t want to Do It, anyway.

But this didn’t seem very likely, either. Sex isn’t the same kind of big deal to boys that it is to girls. Or at least it doesn’t seem that way. Oh, sure, boys all want to have sex. But they don’t obsess over it the way we do. They just do it.

At least, that’s how it seems in movies, like American Pie.

So where was he? This waiting around was killing me. I just wanted to tell him I wasn’t going to Do It and get it over with already.

I waited for five more minutes. Still no David.

What if something had happened to him? What if he’d tripped in the shower and hit his head and was lying there unconscious with his mouth open, his lungs filling up with water even as I was sitting here?

Worse, what if David had simply changed his mind?

HOW COULD HE CHANGE HIS MIND AFTER I’D BEEN DOING ALL THAT PRACTICING?

Before I even knew what I was doing, I was on my feet and storming for the door. How dare he? How DARE he change his mind after putting me through what he’d put me through all week? HE wasn’t going to be the one to decide we weren’t having sex after all. I was the one who was going to decide that. I had already decided that, long before he had.

I charged down the dark, empty hallway, thinking of all the things I was going to say to him—or not say to him. He certainly wasn’t getting any Hellboy quotes out of me now. No way. He’d had his opportunity for Hellboy quotes and completely wasted it. No more Love Means…Willing to Wait for him. He was going to get Bon Voyage. That was what he was going to get.

When I got to David’s room, I could see light shining out from the crack under his door. So he was still up. He was still up! He just hadn’t bothered to move his lazy butt on down the hall to let me know we weren’t having sex after all. Yeah, thanks! Thanks for letting me know! Who knows how long I would have stayed up, waiting to say no to sex, before I realized he wasn’t even coming?

Which was why I threw open his door without even knocking, and stood there, glaring at him, my chest heaving. But not in a romance novel kind of a way. More in an I’m Going to Kill You kind of way.

David looked up from the book he was reading in bed.

A book on architecture.

While I, his girlfriend, had been sitting for what seemed like hours, waiting for him to come deflower me already.

David seemed more than a little surprised to see me. You know, considering.

“Sam,” he said, closing the book—but leaving, I couldn’t help noticing, his finger inside it, to hold his place, “is everything all right? You’re not sick or something, are you?”

Seriously. I almost lost it, then and there.

“Sick?” I echoed. “SICK? Yes, I’m sick. Sick of WAITING for you.”

This made him take his finger out from the book and actually set it aside. He looked concerned.

He also, I couldn’t help noticing, looked totally hot. Mostly because he didn’t happen to be wearing a shirt. But also because, let’s face it: David always looks hot.

“Waiting for me?” David, looking genuinely perplexed, wanted to know. “Waiting for me for what?”

I couldn’t believe it. I COULDN’T BELIEVE HE WAS ASKING ME THIS. Hot or not, what kind of question was this?

“TO HAVE SEX,” I almost yelled.

Only I didn’t want to wake his parents up. Let alone the Secret Service.

So I whispered it.

Loudly.

But even though I whispered it, instead of shouting it, David still looked totally shocked. His face, in the warm light from the reading lamp beside his bed, started to turn as red as my hair used to be.

“Sex?” he echoed hoarsely.

“You know what I’m talking about,” I said. I couldn’t believe this. What was wrong with him? “You’re the one who brought it up.”

“I did?” His voice kind of broke on the word did. “When?”

“Outside my house,” I said impatiently. What was wrong with him?

Maybe he really had slipped and hit his head in the shower. “Remember? You invited me to Camp David to play Parcheesi.”

“Yeah,” David said, now looking blank. But also still hot. “Which we did already.”

Which we did already. Oh my God. I couldn’t believe he’d said that.

Also, that he’d still looked so hot saying it.

“But I didn’t mean…” David stammered. “I mean, when I said Parcheesi, I meant—”

Something cold gripped my heart. Seriously. It was like someone had dumped a whole glass of ice water over my head, and a bunch of cubes had slid down my shirt.

Because it was obvious by the expression on David’s face—not to mention, the way he was acting—that when he’d said Parcheesi, he’d really meant…Parcheesi.

“But,” I said, in a small voice, “you…you said you thought we were ready.”

“Ready to spend the weekend together with my parents,” David said, his own voice uncharacteristically squeaky. “That’s all I meant by ready.” Then, his eyes widening, he went, “Is THAT what you were talking about the other night? When you said you’ve said yes to sex?”

“Well, yeah,” I said. “What did you think I meant?”

David kind of shrugged. “I just thought you were trying to make a point to my dad. That’s all. I didn’t know you were REALLY…you know. Saying yes to sex.”

Especially since he hadn’t even asked me.

“Oh,” I said.

And wanted to die.

Because it had all been for nothing. All of it, the worrying, the long talks with Lucy, the Just Say Yes to Sex thing, slut solidarity—all of it, for nothing.

Because David had never meant for us to have sex this weekend. I was the one who’d jumped to the conclusion that Parcheesi meant sex. I was the one who’d assumed when David had said he thought we were ready, he’d meant he thought we were ready for sex. I was the one who’d said yes to sex, when it turned out no one had even asked me.

It had all been me. I had brought all that worry and angst upon myself.

For nothing.

God. How totally embarrassing.

“Um,” I said. Now I was the one turning red. I mean, what could he be thinking about me? Here I’d come, barging into his room, demanding to know why we weren’t having sex already. He must think I’m a total raving lunatic. “Yeah. Listen. Um. I’ll just, um, be going.”

Except with each step back toward the door, I couldn’t help noticing stuff. Like how good David looked in the glow of the lamplight.

And how green his eyes were, the exact color of the lawn at the Kentucky Derby.

And how he still looked so confused, in an adorable, geeky-boy kind of way, with his hair kind of sticking up in back, where it had gotten mushed against the headboard as he was reading.

And how wide and comfy-looking his chest was, and how good it would feel to rest my head there, and listen to his heartbeat….

And suddenly, I heard myself say, “Um, could you just wait here a second?”

Like he was going somewhere.

Then I turned around and ran as fast as I could back to my room.

When I came back, I was even more out of breath.

I was also holding a brown paper bag.

David glanced at it, then up at me.

“Sam,” he said, in a suspicious—but not necessarily displeased—voice. “What’s in the bag?”

So I showed him.


15

When I let myself into the house the next day, I was shocked to see my father sitting in the living room, listening to Rebecca play “New York, New York” on her clarinet.

“What are you doing here?” I blurted out, as Manet, who’d run to the door at the sound of my key in the lock, jumped all over me.

Rebecca lowered her instrument and said, “Excuse me. I’m still playing.”

“Oh,” I said, taken aback. “Sorry.”

My dad, who wasn’t reading the paper, talking on the phone, or doing anything, actually, except apparently listening to his youngest daughter’s performance, smiled at me a little painfully as I stood there waiting for the song to end. When it did, he clapped, almost as if he’d really enjoyed it.

“That was great,” he said enthusiastically.

“Thank you.” Rebecca primly turned a page of the book sitting on her music stand. “And now, continuing my tribute to the nation’s greatest cities, I will play the song ‘Gary, Indiana’ from The Music Man.”

“Uh, could you wait until I’ve gotten a refill?” my dad asked, holding up his empty coffee mug. Then he hurried out into the kitchen.

I looked at Rebecca.

“What,” I asked her, “is going on here?”

“Those Big Changes Dad was talking about the night you said yes to sex on TV,” she said with a shrug. “They’ve decided to spend more time with us. So I’m going to play him every single song in my repertoire, to see how long until he cracks. He’s held up surprisingly well, so far. I give him two more songs.”

Stunned, I carried my overnight bag into the kitchen, lured there by the smell of something baking. I was shocked to see my mom, and not Theresa, bent over the open oven door, going, “Do these look done to you, honey?” to my dad, who was refilling his coffee mug.