Free Future Perfect by Jen Larsen Page B

when it comes to shopping and making practical decisions, even about tiny things like how many packages of forks we need.
    â€œI don’t want Grandmother’s coupon,” I say. I told Hector about the coupons when we first started dating. He had looked puzzled by the idea. He looked at my body as if he was trying tounderstand the problem. The birthday bribes have always seemed like an abstract thing to him. This will be the first year he’ll be around when I get one.
    â€œThe coupon,” he says. “Oh. Well. Maybe you won’t get one this year?”
    He leans in to kiss me again. He knows I don’t like it when he does it in public. I dodge him by leaning down to grab a package of Wonder Woman paper plates. Her head is still dangling from my wrist. On the plates she’s punching the air. She looks determined, and she looks focused.
    â€œSuperhero theme,” I say. I wave the plates at him and he is distracted.
    â€œReally?” he says, delighted. “Everyone will wear masks!” I am pleased to have made him happy. “And have secret identities! What’s your secret identity?” He pulls out the plain napkins I had given him and starts piling in the superhero-themed ones.
    â€œI don’t need a secret identity. Secret identities are for people with something to hide.”
    â€œYou never hide anything,” Hector says.
    â€œOf course not,” I say.
    He kisses me on the forehead and brushes my hair back behind my ear. “Let’s get masks anyway.” He darts ahead of me and around the corner.
    I pull Wonder Woman streamers off the rack and follow him to the masks. Superheroes and masks will be whimsical. My fatheris always telling me I need more whimsy in my life. Less taking things so literally and seriously.
    Hector piles masks into my arms because there’s no more room left in the basket he’s got. He pulls my ponytail holder off and pushes a tiara into my mess of hair because my arms are full and I can’t nudge him away. He snaps on his own squirrel mask like it’s a hat. It mashes down his curls. I am looking for a cart, and then hear Hector talking to someone behind us.
    â€œDoes your sister need a basket?” the girl says. Our age. She doesn’t go to our school, because I don’t recognize her. She is white and pretty and pink-cheeked. She looks like the kind of girl who goes to all her school’s games, both home and away, and has six football boyfriends.
    I think that, but how do I know? I shake my head. I’m just as bad as anybody.
    â€œNo,” Hector says to the girl. He smiles at her and turns away. He doesn’t know what she was implying? I catch up to him. I am glad to resist the urge to glance back at her when he drapes his arm over my shoulder and rubs his thumb on my bare arm. He is just a little bit taller than me. When I look over at him he’s smiling. Brown eyes almost gold. I press my cheek against his just briefly, a short hug, and he grins at me as if I have just thrown my arms around him and squeezed him until he was breathless.
    The first time we had sex was on the beach behind my house, on a blanket from the trunk of the car, and I tried to cover myselfbecause it was cold, because I couldn’t imagine wanting to know what anyone else thought about my body. I just wanted him to touch me and he did, moving his hands across my body and down my sides and touching me everywhere, all of my skin, all of it bare and the moon up in the sky and his face close to mine and that smile on his face and his whisper that he loved me, he loved me, he loved me and I was so beautiful and he loved me, until I buried my face in his neck, not sure I could withstand the force of him anymore.
    The force of him is sometimes too much to bear. Even at a party shop. This boy.
    â€œHector,” I say, and stop. I’m not sure what I want to say to him. I can’t stop myself from glancing behind us