Lovestruck Summer by Melissa Walker (best management books of all time txt) 📕

and in some ways he is. He sets everyone’s mood—upbeat and light, dark and moody, thoughtful and refl ective. Song after song he makes great choices, and it’s not an easy skill.

78 Eleven amazing tracks later, I’m in music heaven and Sebastian takes a break. He comes over to me and kisses my cheek before he slides into our semicircular booth. It’s like he’s already my boyfriend. I fi ght the urge to get giddy and girly. “You guys are cute,”says Jade, whip- ping out her phone and snapping a photo of us. “I’m emailing it to you for Facebook,”she says to me. Sebastian scoffs. “Don’t tell me you’re into social networking,”he says, rolling his eyes. “Just to keep in touch with my friends,”I say, feeling self-conscious. The truth is, I live on Facebook. And it’s been helping me deal with the bad TV that Penny watches almost every night. “Those sites are for social retards,”he says, which annoys me for a couple of reasons: 1) Because that’s so not true, and all my friends are on Facebook. 2) Because “retards”just isn’t a cool word to use. But then he gives me a smile, like he’s joking around with me, and my annoyance melts away.

79 When Sebastian goes back to his records, I peek at the photo. It’s perfect—he’s perfect. Floppy brown hair hanging over his glasses, pale, lanky arm around my shouder, ironic smile. He’s exactly who I pictured for my summer fl ing. Now if I can just get the fl ing part going . . . “Have you guys kissed yet?”asks Jade, reading my mind as I stare at the photo. “Nope,”I say. “But I’m going to fi x that tonight.”“It shouldn’t be too hard,”she says, glanc- ing in Sebastian’s direction. “He looks pretty smitten.”I lock eyes with him and he gives me a small wave. “So who’s your summer prospect?”I look back at Jade, realizing that though we’ve talked extensively about my dream guy, she hasn’t yet shared anything about hers. “Who, me?”she asks. “No, I’m talking to the imaginary girl on your left,”I say. “I’m a free bird, Quinn,”she says. “I do not want to be locked down.”

80 “Is a summer fl ing equivalent to a jail sen- tence?”I ask. “For me it is!”she says, laughing. “I like being single.”“Whatever works,”I say, but I wonder what her deal is. She changes the subject to whether she should go light or dark for her next nail polish change, and I let her drop the guy talk, for now. A few minutes later, when Sebastian’s set is over around midnight, Jade seems ready to leave. “I have to go,”she says. “But you’ve got your car now, right? So . . .”“It’s fi ne,”I say, worrying that my asking her about guys made her have a Cinderella complex. “I guess I’ll see you later.”“Monday!”she says, calling out to me as she edges her way to the door. And then she’s gone. It’s weird—Jade hasn’t ever called me to hang out during the week, aside from the occa- sional midday burrito break. I know she’s busy at Amalgam, but I’d defi nitely welcome a dinner out with her instead of fruit-and-candy plates at home with Penny and Chrissy while we watch

81 reruns of The Bachelor on TV, which has become my nightly routine. I shrug. Maybe I’ll try to get her to open up a little more at work. Right now, I’ve got something else on my mind. I walk over to Sebastian and help him stack his albums into a plastic carrying crate. “How do you fi t these on your Vespa?”I ask. He laughs. “I don’t,”he says. “The owner lets me lock them up in the offi ce here since it’s my steady gig.”“That’s convenient,”I say, completely dis- tracted. Must get him to kiss me. I send a please- smooch-me vibe in his direction. We walk to the offi ce and I follow him in through the locked door. He kicks it shut behind me, and as soon as he puts down the heavy crate, he spins around and grabs my waist. I almost drop my crate on the fl oor, but he shifts it from my hands to the desk and before I know it, we’re kissing. And I don’t mean the kind of kissing that is light and sporadic—I mean the kind that is full-on, deeply passionate, melt-me- in-your-arms making out. My vibe worked! His hands are now on my hips and he pushes

82 me back against the metal desk in the corner. I sit on top of it, wrapping my legs easily around his waist. I’ve made out with guys before—I even had a six-month-long relationship in elev- enth grade, and that guy convinced me to sleep with him before I realized he was bad news—but Sebastian is by far the hottest guy I’ve ever kissed. The band outside, My Almost Life, is playing a song called “Sweet and Lowdown”and I know I’ll have to buy their CD so I can remember this moment. After twenty minutes stuck together, a knock on the door makes us both freeze in place. Sebastian moves quickly to the other side of the room as I hop off the desk and straighten my shirt. A guy named Mel walks in. At least, I think his name is Mel. He’s wearing one of those bowling-league shirts with a name tag sewn onto it—but maybe he’s just being ironic. “Hey, Seb,”he says to Sebastian. “Sorry to interrupt.”He fl ashes one of those annoy- ing Heh-heh smiles that macho guys give to each other, and Sebastian looks down. There’s a long pause and I realize Sebastian

83 isn’t going to rescue us from this situation. “That’s okay,”I say, slightly irked that I’m the one who has to ease the awkwardness. “We were just locking up some albums.”Then I grab Sebastian’s arm and rush out of Mel’s offi ce. We walk past the bar and burst through the doors and out into the