I felt a hard tap on my shoulder. “Excuse me?” a girl’s voice demanded.
I turned to see Justine Hildebrandt, Cara’s best friend, standing with her hands on her hips. “The end of the line is back there, in case you didn’t know.”
“Oh, we weren’t—,” I started to say, but Justine cut me off, indignation flashing in her eyes. She glanced at Josh with a lot more anger than the situation called for, but continued to talk to me. All of a sudden, I had a pretty good idea what her secret was.
“Right. We saw you two cut in front of us,” she said. “Don’t think we didn’t.” A group of JV cheerleaders stood with her, nodding their heads in unison. At least Cara Lassen and her perfect highlights were nowhere in sight.
“No, really,” I managed. “Kaylie just wanted to say hi.” I reached out to grab Kaylie’s arm, but she was so blissed out talking to Steve she didn’t even notice we were about to be ambushed by the entire Gompers High School cheerleading squad.
“Ease up, Justine,” Josh said to her. “I’ve been saving Lucy’s place.” He smiled at me. “What took you so long?”
“Um,” I squeaked, startled by the fact that he’d actually said my name out loud.
Josh reached over and put his arm around my shoulders, and it was everything I could do not to gasp. Nobody had touched me for such a long time that just a little bit of contact made my knees wobbly. I tried to savor the weight of his arm on the back of my neck, the faint, warm, clean smell making me want to turn and bury my face in his collar. My heart was beating so fast I was sure he would notice the jolt of energy that ran up my spine. I should have stopped time then—framed this one perfect moment so I could go back and look at it again and again. His shiny brown hair flopped in his eyes as he gave me a barely perceptible wink.
Justine leaned back and crossed her arms in front of her chest. “You’re here with her?” I didn’t blame her for not believing him. I could hardly believe I was standing in front of a bunch of cheerleaders with Josh Lee’s arm casually draped around my shoulders.