Free Picture Perfect by Alessandra Thomas

It’s just that the train doesn’t go anywhere near this place.”
    “That’s the thing about Philly. Awesome public transportation that takes you almost nowhere fast, because everything is so spread out.” Even as I said the words, I wasn’t thinking them. I was too focused on how he’d said “soon.” Like this was just the beginning of us hanging out and it was all perfectly normal. Like he could see into his future, and I was definitely in it.
    The cab had already made it to the highway, and I let my bag drop to the floor. “So you really are Nathaniel West from camp?”
    “The very one.” He looked at me and smirked. “What are you thinking? What the hell happened to that awkward fat kid?”
    I shook my head and laughed out loud. “I mean...I’m sure it was just a case of you growing up.”
    He chuckled. “Growing almost a foot and a half during junior high and high school, yeah. Also being the fat kid for five years, getting a complex, and working out like a crazy person from ages sixteen to twenty. I was annoying as hell.”
    “I know something about having a complex.”
    “Your leg?”
    I didn’t want to be that girl who complained about her weight on a first official date. I knew from reading Cosmo that guys hated it when girls didn’t eat, and when girls fished for compliments. Right now, I was thinking about exactly two things: how not to look like an idiot, and how to get him to kiss me again. Because, damn. I could not get the feel of his lips crushed against mine out of my head.
    He nodded, leaning forward and threading his fingers together. He had perfect hands—big and wide without being meaty, strong without being messed up. Long, solid fingers. They were hands that you just wanted to touch you. Everywhere.
    I suddenly felt very, very hot.
    I leaned my head back on the seat, letting the flying lights of city behind freeway construction blur into glowing lines. “I love riding in cars like this. I always loved feeling like the world was moving around me and I was still. Like nothing could touch me. Like even though everything was changing around me, I was the same.”
    He smiled, reached up, and tucked a strand of hair that had fallen out of place behind my ear. Which meant I was going to make Joey eat her Ferragamos. Or kiss her and thank her twenty times, because his touch was melting me, slowly, cell by cell, starting with this one spot at the back of my ear.
    If his lips ever touched there, I would die. I would actually die.
    “You know, you are the same Katie from camp. I can see it in your eyes.”
    “What are you talking about?” I laughed. I wouldn’t mention how thin I had been. I wouldn’t think about how I would never be that thin, not to mention scar-free, again. Not now.
    “The way you look at people. It’s the first thing I noticed when I saw you, you know. Like you’re curious. Like you want to know more about them, and in a kind way. Like you’re just waiting to love them. And then, uh...also...” He sat up and rubbed the flat of his hand against his jaw, looking like he wished he hadn’t started that last sentence.
    “What?” I nudged my knee into his.
    “Also, your hair. It’s...it hasn’t really changed. Still those gorgeous waves. Actually, when I saw current you...uh...posing, that’s the first thing I thought of. Past you. I mean, twelve-year-old you. Basically, that was my first kiss, and it was...formative.”
    I bit my lower lip, an instinct for How To Look Sexy I’d picked up freshman year in college when various boys’ hands would dance over my hip bones in crowded clubs, and biting my lip was a way I indicated that I would dance with one of them. They all understood. I was sure Nate understood, too, even if I didn’t mean to do it. At least, not in a cab barreling down the Schuylkill Expressway.
    My head hit the back of the seat, and I gazed outside. I didn’t think I could continue to make eye contact with him without babbling, or grabbing