"I was," Peter said, trying to keep the heat from rising to his cheeks. There was probably a better and cooler way to play this, and it surely did not involve openly admitting that he had indeed been waiting for her. Girls wanted wild and spontaneous, not carefully calculated and meticulously planned. But there was no taking it back now. The best he could do was work the false confidence angle; make sure that she didn't notice how nervous he truly was.

God, she was beautiful. Easily the prettiest girl in her class, if not all of Darrow High. What was he thinking, trying to ask her out? She was so very, very far out of his league. He'd known that before, of course, but standing in front of her now, with the afternoon sun in her hair and that slight smile on her lips, it became all the more obvious. It took serious effort not to visibly deflate. "I thought maybe I could walk you home," he said in a low voice, as if he were admitting an embarrassing secret.