Play Me Backwards by Adam Selzer Page B

playing.
    That one came on a snowy night when we were hanging around outside of Sip, the coffee shop a few doors down from the Ice Cave, waiting for rides home. I was holding the lamppost with one handand sort of swinging around it, and Anna was bouncing back and forth to stay warm.
    When I saw that she was shivering, I stepped away from the lamppost and dared to put my arm around her. When she didn’t shove me away, like I thought she might, I put my other arm around her too, so we were hugging. Then I looked at her and she looked at me. I wanted to ask if I could kiss her, but I’d read that you should never, ever ask for a kiss—you just move in confidently, slowly enough that if she doesn’t want to kiss you she’ll have time to say, “So, anyway,” and fast enough that you don’t seem too nervous.
    For a second I stood there, worrying that she could feel my erection through my jeans, then I started to move in slowly.
    She didn’t say, “So, anyway.”
    She let me kiss her, and as I kept my lips on hers I felt myself warming up. You know how when you’re cold and you slip into a hot shower you just feel this tingling in your head, like all of the cold molecules in your body have been led there to be burned up?
    It was like that.
    And I swear to God it started snowing harder the second our lips touched. The next morning there was a ton of snow on the ground and school was canceled. It was the fourth or fifth biggest snow in Des Moines since they started keeping track.
    The kiss may not have been as well-executed as the kisses I shared with Paige; we were just a couple of eighth graders who knew nothing about kissing, pushing our faces together and hoping for the best. But it snowed so hard that they closed the schools for two days, and only a hell of a kiss can make it do that.
    I couldn’t imagine that I’d ever see snow falling in the glow ofa streetlight and not think of Anna again. And the February that I started seeing Paige, it seemed like it was snowing all the time. Even in March, when the snows stopped coming, being around Slushees kept the feeling alive.
    Paige seemed to know that she still had to compete with Anna, even though I told her she wasn’t moving back. Sometimes when she kissed me she did this thing where she’d seal her lips against mine and sort of suck the wind out of me. It felt great, but a part of me felt like she was deliberately trying to suck every trace of Anna out of my body.
    She even mentioned Anna once herself.
    â€œBrent Flores asked her out in seventh grade, you know,” she said.
    â€œYeah? I didn’t know that.”
    â€œEither that or sixth. She called him something in French and walked away. And I’m sorry, but that’s just rude.”
    I nodded a little. “Well, did he actually ask her out properly, or try to use some lame pickup line?”
    â€œKnowing him, a lame pickup line. But still. Who tells a guy off in French?”
    I was about to stick up for Anna, but then we came to a red traffic light and Paige kissed me some more. By the time she was done I had just about forgotten what she’d said.
    Just about.

12. SCHEMES
    One day in early March, I arrived at the Cave to find George and Stan poring over a large book. A yearbook, from the looks of it. George was chewing on a pencil and looking nervous.
    â€œWhat’s that?” I asked.
    â€œDustin’s yearbook from last year,” said Stan. “We’re just doing a little work on the store’s mailing list.”
    â€œYeah?”
    George looked up. “Just a new business initiative,” he said.
    â€œWe’re matching faces to the names in the database,” said Stan. “Getting into the twenty-first century and shit.”
    â€œVery fancy,” I said.
    â€œAll Stan’s idea,” said George. “All Stan. That’s why I pay him the big bucks.”
    And he slapped Stan on the back and