Free Foreign Exchange by Denise Jaden Page B

TV.
    He doesn’t answer me, so I just switch it to the guide channel. He goes back to his puzzle.
    Mom traipses through the living room and up the stairs. I doubt it’s for good. She hasn’t said good night or made sure I’ll take care of tucking in Eddy. But still, it’s a reprieve.
    I take my seat beside Sawyer again , but this time I scoot my chair an inch toward him.
    He has his computer open, but of course he has no idea why I wanted him to bring it. We don’t have any World Architecture homework, other than a small section of reading from our textbooks. The computer takes the romantic pressure off, though. Then again, my mother does that in spades. 
    S ince I don’t know what else to do, I figure I’ll double check that the email for the foreign exchange program won’t work from his computer either. I’ve had things bounce back to my inbox before, so it could be a problem on my end. Probably not on Jennifer’s end as well, but it doesn’t hurt to triple-confirm.
    “Ca n you open your email for a sec?” I say.
    He lets out a breathy laugh and reaches for the mouse. “Sure.” After a second he asks what feels like a question that he doesn’t want to ask, but he just can’t let it go. “Checking up on me?”
    I hadn’t even thought about that. But now that he mentions it, I feel the urge to have a peek at whom he’s been corresponding with.
    “No,” I say with as much surprise as I can muster. “You can even open a new email and I won’t look at your junk if you’d prefer.”
    “My junk?” he says, laughing.
    My face instantly heats to a thousand degrees. Thankfully I don’t have to reply because Mom pads back down the stairs.
    I get a glimpse of his inbox, and don’t see much, other than a few messages from names I don’t recognize, and that one message from Tristan. He opens a new email, and then angles the computer to face me.
    “This is what I was thinking,” I say for Mom’s benefit . I angle the computer a little more toward me and try to keep my elbows in while typing in the email address for the foreign exchange program. Then I type a quick test message in the body.
    By the time I hit Send, Mom is busy hovering over Eddy, making sure I’ve been doing my sisterly duty and grilling him on whether he’s eaten and gone to the bathroom lately.
    “ This email’s been bouncing back,” I say quietly to Sawyer.
    He scoots sideways—toward me—trying to see the screen better. Our knees touch.
    Sawyer sees whom I’m writing to and navigates in his browser to the foreign exchange program’s Web site. He checks the contact info, pretty much the exact same thing I did earlier.
    But then he does something I didn’t do. He clicks a few places on the screen and somehow brings up the code of the site. I don’t have a clue about coding, but Sawyer helped Tristan design her modeling Web site, so he must know what he’s looking for.
    Or maybe he doesn’t. After a few seconds, he sits back in his chair with his eyebrows furrowed. Our knees are still touching.
    While he thinks, I have an idea. I open a new Word document and type:
    This isn’t what I had in mind for tonight. So sorry!
    Then, for Mom’s benefit, I point to the words and say, “What do you think of this?”
    Sawyer leans in to look at the screen. I watch for his reaction. A smile plays at the edges of his lips. He reaches up to the keys and types:
    What did you have in mind?
    He rubs his lips together like he’s trying to keep his smile at bay. My face has barely paled from my moment of talking about his “junk” and I can feel it darkening again.
    I put my hands on the keys to type, but I have no idea what to say. I don’t have sexy comebacks and the confidence to go with them like he does. I do better when I can show someone what I mean. And so I type:
    More something like this ...
    I’ve typed it. I’m halfway there, and I’m mentally running my mantra of taking risks like mad. I suck in a breath, move my hand