The Hero Next Time: A Novel of the Terribly Acronymed Detective Club (Book 4)

Chapter Twelve: Sunny, Summer-Fall, 1978

"Rachel kissed me yesterday," Al confessed to Sunny as they delivered their papers. They'd taken on this route delivering the Royal City Record as soon as Rachel and Lauren had informed them that they'd taken the other available route in Queensborough. Sunny had jumped at the chance as soon as Al had suggested they do it together, just like the two girls did, and split the money. 

Sunny didn't mind earning a little pocket money for himself, even though he never really wanted for anything. His father and mother put a roof over his head, fed him, clothed him, and occasionally indulged his request for a new toy; Star Wars figures were his newest obsession, even if he was probably too old to collect them, and he and Al often brought them out to enact scenes from the movie, which Al had apparently seen without him. They even lent each other their figures to keep overnight. This new job, if you could call it that, allowed him to buy his own figures and not have to bug his parents for them.

What he liked more than that about the paper route, though, was that it got him out of the house for a few hours so he didn't have to pay attention to Bishan, who seemed to demand it so much. Plus he and Al got to talk just the two of them, an unexpected pleasure. He didn't know until Joe was absent that he created a different dynamic when he was around; he exuded an aura of unwillingness that made him not so fun sometimes. When they'd decided to incorporate the Lawrence Street Detective Club, Joe had moaned and complained that he did enough work when he wasn't with his friends. He hadn't wanted to go in with Al and Sunny on this paper route either, and now Sunny was glad he hadn't, because he thought he and Al had more fun without him.

Sunny turned to Al and said, "Say that again?"

"Rachel. She kissed me on the cheek. We were both at Ryall Park last night, having picnic dinners with our parents, and she got her hair cut--"

"She did?!" This surprised him almost more than Al's news of the kiss. He supposed he hadn't seen her yet today, so he wouldn't have had the chance to notice yet.

"Yeah, I guess the tangle in the back finally got too hard to manage. I don't know how girls can grow their hair so long, it would drive me crazy."

"I'll be growing my hair that long, some day," Sunny said.

Al blinked in surprise. "You will? Why?"

"It's part of my religion. Sikh men grow their hair, they never cut it. Did you notice my dad's turban? All of his hair is under there, it would be down past his waist otherwise."

"Wow," Al breathed. "I didn't know that. Are you looking forward to it?"

Sunny shrugged. "I guess. It's just what we do. Anyway, back to the kiss."

"Okay, yeah, so, Rachel was really self-conscious about her hair, she thought it was too short, like a boy's, and I said she'd never look like a boy to me, and she kissed me."

Now it was Sunny's turn to breathe, "Wow." He'd wondered himself what it would be like if Rachel kissed him, though he'd never allowed himself to hope she would.

They wheeled their wagon along and made a few more deliveries before Al confided, "I don't know what to do now."

"Do?" Sunny asked, confused.

"Does this mean she likes me? You know, like-likes me? Should I call her my girlfriend?"

Sunny felt a flare of jealousy and anger that surprised him. The audacity of this boy! To claim Rachel as his own! To take the girl they'd known since they were five, take her out of the circle of friendship and change her relationship to him and to all the others, all because of an innocent kiss! "Whoa, whoa!" he cried, more jovially than he felt. "You're getting a little ahead of yourself there."