I caught her band and pulled her close to me. She didn’t resist, but let me pull her across the small space that divided us. “I think so,” I said, sliding my arm under her shoulders. “An awful lot better.”
We lay like that, close to each other, and I could see the overhead clouds reflected in her eyes.
“Will you like that?” she asked, her lips close to mine.
“Maybe—I don’t know.” Then I kissed her, pressing my mouth hard on hers.
She lay still. I wished she would close her eyes and relax, but she didn’t. I could feel the hard muscles in her back resisting me. Her lips felt hard, tight and child-like against mine.
She made no effort to push me away. Kissing her like that was as good as kissing the back of my hand. I dropped onto my elbow again, releasing her. “All right,” I said. “Forget it.”
She shifted away from me. Her fingers touched her lips carefully, “You meant that to be something, didn’t you?” she asked, curling her legs under her and adjusting her skirt.
“Sure,” I said. “But what of it? Sometimes it’s all right, but not this time. The trick is not to rush this kind of thing.”
“No,” she said, looking at me seriously. “The trick is not to do it at all.”
Then I thought what’s wrong with me? What am I trying to do? I’d got a job on my hands. I’d got 25,000 dollars just around the corner with my name on it, and here I am gumming up my chance trying to neck a kid that meant as much to me as last year’s income tax return. I guess it was her hair. I was always a sucker for blondes.