Free The Moon and More by Sarah Dessen

caught.”
    “I really don’t,” I told her. She made a face, clearly doubting this. “But it’s not like we have a lot of options.”
    “Other people manage.”
    I held up my hand. “Stop right there. Remember what I told you. I don’t want to hear about you and Morris.”
    “I’m not talking about
me
,” she replied, offended. “I don’t sneak around like that.”
    “You do it in the car or dunes instead?”
    “I don’t do
it
, period. You know that.” This was true. Daisy was a virgin, and planned to remain one until marriage. While the reasons for this tended to vary from person to person, among the people we know it was usually religion based. Daisy, however, was not a churchgoer. But her family was her faith. Mr. and Mrs. Ye, first-generation immigrants, were upstanding, hardworking, morally centered people who expected their children, especially their oldest daughter, to follow suit. In their family, there was no rebellion, no back talk, no sneaking a boy home at lunch. These things just DidNot Exist. My mom, battling with my sisters and me throughout middle and high school, once asked Mrs. Ye how she managed to keep her kids so in line. She just looked at her. “They are children,” she said. “You are adult.” It was just that simple. At least at their house.
    “Order up!” Eddie yelled, hitting the little bell by the register. Daisy started to move but I shook my head, going over to pick up our slices and her mom’s sandwich. I was just sliding into my seat when the front door beeped again. Looking over, I saw my dad, Morris, and a couple of other guys from Dad’s crew coming in. Morris headed right over, but my dad just waved en route to the counter. I waved back, wondering if my hair looked damp from a distance.
    “Hey, girl,” Morris said as he plopped down beside Daisy, sliding an arm around her waist. She presented her cheek for a kiss. Two months together and they were like an old married couple.
    “Morris!” my dad called out. He and the other guys were up at the counter ordering. “You eating or what?”
    “Yeah,” Morris replied. “Get me—”
    I kicked him squarely in the shin, as hard as I could. He squeaked, then looked at me. “What?”
    “Are you seriously asking him to order for you?”
    He glanced at my dad, who I could tell, even from this distance, was annoyed bordering on irritated. Next step was pissed, and nobody wanted that.
    “
Go over there
,” I said, my eyes level on him. “
Now
.”
    Morris slid away from Daisy, shooting me a look, then loped back to the rest of the crew. My dad watched himapproach and order, his expression flat. When Eddie was done ringing everyone up, my dad slid some bills across the counter. He’d told me a million times there was no such thing as a free lunch, but somehow Morris managed to get one. If it wasn’t too much trouble to order it himself.
    I looked at Daisy, who was chewing a bite of pizza, her eyes on the parking lot. “Don’t say I’m too hard on him,” I told her. “He needs to learn this stuff.”
    “I’m not saying anything,” she said. I was never that fond of any of Daisy’s other boyfriends—a volleyball player, a guy who may or may not have been gay, a creative-writing student at Weymar who wrote about nothing but aliens—mostly because I never thought any of them were good enough for her. Times like this, though, I would gladly have welcomed any or all back.
    “Emaline.”
    I turned to see my dad a few tables away, standing while the rest of his crew, Morris included, got settled with their slices and drinks. “Yes?”
    “Got a minute?”
    I nodded. “Sure.”
    As I got up to follow him outside, I was braced for any number of conversational possibilities. There was my damp hair, and the fact that I might be busted, again. Also, there was Morris, who had provided yet another reason he should never have been hired. Both were uncomfortable topics, but at least Morris was secondary shame, so I