swung at me with his right hand. I blocked the punch and hit him with a straight right on his nose again. This time I broke it.
He yowled and took a step back and covered his face with his hands. Then he took his hands away a little and saw the blood and stared at it. Then he stared for a moment at me. Then he turned and pushed through the people watching and went away, walking very fast.
'Wow,' Barry said. 'You can really fight.'
I dropped my hands and nodded to him.
'Keep it in mind,' I said.
And went back into Martin's.
Chapter 28
I walked Jeannie home later that night. When we got to her house, we stopped and she turned and faced me.
'You're always taking care of me,' she said.
'Not always,' I said.
'I'm serious,' she said. 'You took care of me on the river. You defended me from Croy.'
She seemed kind of intense. I didn't know what to say. I was a little uncomfortable.
'You like me,' she said. 'Don't you?'
'Sure,' I said. 'I known you since first grade.'
She stood close to me, looking at me. I realized I was supposed to do something.
'I mean, you really like me,' she said.
'I do,' I said.
She sort of lunged forward and put her arms around me and raised her face. I realized I was supposed to kiss her. So far in life, I'd had more fights than kisses. She pressed herself hard against me. A feeling of, like, overheating flashed through me. I felt a little short of breath.
'Show me how much you like me,' she whispered. 'Kiss me.'
I stared down at her face. Her eyes were closed. I realized I didn't quite know what I should do. Some of the women my father and my uncles brought home had kissed me on the cheek. I knew I shouldn't kiss her on the cheek. Okay, I thought, and took in a breath and bent down a little and kissed her on the mouth. She kissed back hard with her lips tight together. It hurt a little where the inside of my lip was pressed against my teeth.
I felt more of the overheating feeling. But not much else. No stars fell. No skyrockets. No moon-beams. No music. She kept pressing against me. I didn't think this was going the way it should. I liked her fine, but not the way I think she wanted me to. And I thought we might be making a mistake that we weren't really ready to make. On the other hand, there was that overheated feeling and the sense that I didn't want to hurt her feelings.
She broke off her kissing and leaned back with her arms still around my waist and looked up at me.
'My mom doesn't come home until eleven,' she said. 'You want to come in?'
From off to one side, where there was the me that always looked on calmly, I heard myself say, 'Sure.'
My voice sounded kind of hoarse, I thought.
Chapter 29
'No surprise there,' Susan said. 'A young woman with an abusive absentee father whose mother feels a woman is incomplete without a man.'
'I was a little surprised at the time,' I said.
