*** I'm curious if you're liking Kass or Eli's storyline more? Please hit the star button if you are enjoying these characters and want more... ***

I shouldn't be surprised that Sebastian didn't ask why I was hanging out with Kass Bateman, or why I'd "accidentally" eaten peanuts when I'm usually so careful about it. Sebastian doesn't ask much, and I'm pretty sure the last thing that's crossed his mind is the possibility that Kass and I were making out in Chantal Harter's backyard.

Unfortunately, it's been crossing my mind all morning. I barely slept, reliving it, and trying to make myself believe it was real.

I'm pretty sure the whole make-out session was more about proving a point than any kind of attraction to me. What would a hot, tough chick like Kass Bateman ever want with someone like me? The most embarrassing part was that I'd imagined the two of us like that before. A lot.

Even though I'd never so much as kissed a girl before last night, for some reason only moments after I mimicked her strong kiss, my lips took on a life of their own. My whole body took on a life of it's own, as if my fantasies were simply taking over my body and acting themselves out.

Not that I minded. At all.

Feeling her start to soften under me was the best thing I'd felt in my whole life, and if not for my allergy attack—not to mention her sudden right hook—I could have stayed like that with her for hours. Days.

Sebastian's the guy who's been with a million girls. Even though he rarely talks about it, it's clear to anybody with eyes that he knows his way around the female gender.

All morning, I've been trying to think of a way to ask him if this is normal. If he'd ever had a girl kiss him in anger and have it turn into something...else.

I'd met Sebastian Brown near the start of freshman year. I walked into study hall one day after school and took a seat next to a black-haired guy near the back who bobbed his shaggy head like he had a song playing in his head. I'd never been to study hall, but before Mom got sick, I'd never missed a full week of school either.

I dug into my backpack, and pulled out my biggest textbook, Advanced Biology, and tried to ignore the fact that no one else had books on their desk. I felt eyes on me from all directions. I didn't belong in there, and the multitudes of delinquent teenagers in the room were trying to catch my eye to make sure I knew it.

Vice-Principal Burke was lecturing students up at the front of the classroom, which didn't exactly make it easy to concentrate. I could think of better places to catch up on homework: the middle of a rock concert, white-water rafting, the wrong side of a firing line. But my science teacher had suggested I drop in here, so I was willing to give it a shot.

By the time I'd completed my third biology problem, the dark-haired guy next to me had also pulled out a textbook. I ignored him and moved onto my next problem.

"Psst. Hey, man," the guy said, still with the head bob. "Do you know anything about pronouns?" He pulled out a black pen.

I furrowed my brow and nodded.

The guy got out of his chair, scraped his desk along the linoleum until it was next to mine, and then plopped down beside me. I stared down at his desk, feeling my ears redden. Mr. Burke glanced at us briefly, but turned away after his eyes settled on our open textbooks.

The black-haired kid whispered again. "This is screwed up." He thumbed through his textbook. "Why can't I just say 'him'? I mean, who says 'I am taller than he?' No one talks like that, dude."

I stifled a laugh. No one talks like you, dude. At least no one in my world. But I didn't say it. I barely spoke to people at school, and I didn't want to get into an actual conversation here. At least not one that went beyond pronouns.

But then I had an idea. "What's your name?"

"Sebastian."

"Okay, Sebastian." I cleared my throat, trying to find a voice that wouldn't crack with my nerves. "What kind of music do you listen to?"

"Bands you'd know?" He didn't wait for my answer. "Fall Out Boy, Pearl Jam, Muse—"

"Alright, let's start with those," I said, stopping him. The guy had good taste in music, I'd give him that. I turned to a fresh page. "Who's the better guitarist, Bellamy or Trohman?"

Sebastian stared at me blankly, and I realized I needed to work in layman's terms. "Matthew Bellamy is Muse's—"

"Yeah, I got it, dude," Sebastian said. "I'm just...how the hell did you know that?"

I wasn't into having him spell out the reasons for his surprise—well, you're a dork, dude—and nor was I into exposing my private passion for music to this stranger. "Okay, so Bellamy is clearly a better guitarist than—"

"Trohman, Joe Trohman." He nodded so fast I swore he must have just choked back some awfully strong coffee. "And Wolstenholme kills anyone on bass."

"Okayyyy." I nodded as though Sebastian was the expert, even though Wolstenholme wasn't my favorite bassist. "But the idea is to get to the pronouns here." I circled my pencil on the paper as I explained. "There's an implied verb. That's what you're missing. Think of it this way," I wrote as I spoke. "Bellamy is better than he is."

Sebastian nodded, following my pencil with his eyes.

As he took this in, I smiled. This teaching stuff wasn't so hard.

"Wow, you really know a lot about music, dude. What do you play?"

Maybe teaching wasn't my gift. "Uh, a little guitar. Some drums." I had no idea why this was falling out of my mouth. I'd fiddled with drums twice before I transferred out of band in middle school, and guitar lessons dried up early, the moment Dad informed me we couldn't afford them anymore. "Actually, not really. Not anything. Not well."

"I'm putting this band together. I was thinking of playing guitar, but I could do bass." He tilted his head up, as though he could see the whole scenario playing out on the classroom ceiling. "We're looking for a singer, too. Hey, you sing, man?"

I shook my head. "I'm not good or anything." In truth, my classical guitar teacher had done some vocal coaching, and she seemed to think I had a decent voice. Of course, I'd given up practicing lately, since I wasn't learning anything new. But Sebastian didn't need to know all that. Nobody needed to know about my inner workings.

"Should have heard me when I first started," he went on, undeterred. "Don't sweat it, dude. I'll show you some stuff."

"I'll, uh, think about it." I stared at my tapping pencil. "I should get back to my biology homework."

He flipped my textbook closed to check out the cover. "Ha! Why are you even in here?"

"I missed some school last week. Mrs. Alvarez suggested I come in here to catch up."

"No effin' way!" Sebastian laughed. "To detention? And you believed her?"

Oh great. How dorky did I look to this guy now? "Well, you know, I'm just not thinking straight lately. My mom's been sick and all." It just fell out of my mouth, for lack of another excuse.

"Yeah? Like how sick?"

I stilled my pencil. Concentrated on it. "I don't know." The honesty of the statement hit me like a two-by-four to the head. I didn't know. Why hadn't I even asked?

"Is she gonna die?" Sebastian asked casually, as though it was another grammar question.

I stared at him. It was the foremost question on my mind, so why couldn't somebody ask it? My parents had hidden in their bedroom for all the important conversations of the last two months. "Maybe. I guess. No one tells me much."

"Mmm. Well, if you change your mind about my band, decide to get your mind off all that shit and lose yourself in some music, give me a shout. I'll teach you everything you need to know."

He'd jotted his phone number in my notebook, never asked another emotionally charged question, and we've been best friends ever since.

***

Sebastian doesn't even ask for an explanation when I stop at our locker and tell him, "I think I'm cutting today." I had to leave the house before Dad this morning and at least make a show of going to school. I hoped by stopping in at homeroom first thing, it might circumvent, or at least delay, the call Dad would get from the school office.

"Yeah?" Sebastian asks, looking over at me. It's his way of saying tell me if you want, but you don't have to, dude.

I still haven't thought of a way to bring up the thing with Kass, so I tell him this bit of truth: "Woke up feeling shitty after the EpiPen last night. Going to go get some sleep while my old man's at work." Or, more likely, I'll just think about Kass some more. Sebastian always calls his dad his old man. It's the first time I've tried out the phrase. It definitely doesn't sound the same on me.

"You're good for the park later though, right?"

As usual, Sebastian's main priority is that I won't let the band down. I assure him I'll be there to do my part with the band at the park. I probably should be worried about working up the nerve for that, as well as submitting all of my outstanding school assignments, but I'm less and less concerned about those things every day.