Excerpt: The Perfect Boy

The Cakery is far enough from the dance that it’s not full of Park Academy kids and, aside from a group of college-age girls squealing in the corner and a twentysomething hipster guy working behind the counter, me and Finn are the only people there.
“What’s good here?” Finn asks me as we stare through the glass at the cupcakes beneath it.
“It’s a cupcake shop,” I remind him. “By definition, everything is good.”
He laughs. I think if I ran out of oxygen, I could probably survive on hearing that laugh alone. “Okay, but what’s the best then?” he asks.
“I like the lemon.”
He considers this, or pretends too, and then says, “I think I like chocolate.”
“Lemon with chocolate frosting,” I say, as if I haven’t heard him.
“Chocolate with cream cheese frosting,” he says, ignoring me ignoring him.
The guy behind the counter - his name tag reads My name is Cutter! Welcome to The Cakery! - taps on the glass to get our attention. “You two look adorable,” he says. “Big date night at The Cakery?”
I’m about to laugh, embarrassed, and tell him we’re (sadly) just friends and are coming from our homecoming dance, but before I can open my mouth to speak Finn takes his arm and hugs me around the shoulders. “Yup,” he says, smiling at the guy. “We actually just came from our wonderful homecoming dance.”
I sense that in some way he’s making fun of me, but I can’t tell how and, quite truthfully, with him touching me like he is it’s hard to think about anything. It’s also hard to breathe like a normal person.
The Cakery guy nods and smiles at us. “You look very happy together,” he says. “Have you decided on which cupcakes you would like?”
“Chocolate for me,” Finn says, pointing, “and a lemon with chocolate frosting for my wonderful date.”
Yeah, he’s definitely making fun of me, and I would tell him to knock it off except that as long as he’s got his arm around me, acting nice and calling me words like wonderful and date, I really don’t have it in me to care too much.
Cutter hands us our cupcakes and wishes us a lovely evening. Finn grins back at him and we take one of the many empty tables, this one on the other side of the shop, away from both Cutter and the college girls.
Finn grins at me across the table. “That was fun,” he says, laughing.
“What? I know you were making fun of me, Finn; it’s not nice, you know, to make fun of people.”
He laughs some more. “I wasn’t making fun of you, I wouldn’t dare.” He tries his best to look shocked at my accusation but his shocked face is more of an I-know-you-love-it face.
“Oh, I think you would dare,” I say.
He laughs. I don’t know why this boy keeps laughing at me, but it’s certainly not helping the butterflies I’m dealing with.
“Will you stop that?” I ask.
“Stop what?”
“Laughing at me like that.”
“Like what?”
He is infuriating. “Like… like…” I can’t think of an appropriately insulting word so I just shrug. “Just knock it off,” I say.
He laughs again and I shoot him one of the angry looks I’ve learned from my oh-so-dramatic friends. “Okay, okay,” he says, raising his hands up in surrender. “I give; I’ll stop.”
“Thank you.” I smile at him.
He says, “You have a nice smile.”
This takes me by surprise. I want to say shut up, or marry me, or I love you. Instead I blush and say, “Thank you.”
He shrugs. “It’s true.”