“
After school, Peter and I are lying on the couch; his feet are hanging off the end. He’s still in his costume, but I’ve changed into my regular clothes. “You always have the cutest socks,” he says, lifting up my right foot. These ones are gray with white polka dots and yellow bear faces.
Proudly I say, “My great-aunt sends them from Korea. Korea has the cutest stuff, you know.”
“Can you ask her to send me some too? Not bears, but maybe, like, tigers. Tigers are cool.”
“Your feet are too big for socks as cute as these. Your toes would pop right out. You know what, I bet I could find you some socks that fit at…um, the zoo.” Peter sits up and starts tickling me. I gasp out, “I bet the--pandas or gorillas have to--keep their feet warm somehow…in the winter. Maybe they have some kind of deodorized sock technology as well.” I burst into giggles. “Stop…stop tickling me!”
“Then stop being mean about my feet!” I’ve got my hand burrowed under his arm, and I am tickling him ferociously. But by doing so, I have opened myself up to more attacks.
I yell, “Okay, okay, truce!” He stops, and I pretend to stop, but sneak a tickle under his arm, and he lets out a high-pitched un-Peter-like shriek.
“You said truce!” he accuses. We both nod and lie back down, out of breath. “Do you really think my feet smell?”
I don’t. I love the way he smells after a lacrosse game--like sweat and grass and him. But I love to tease, to see that unsure look cross his face for just half a beat. “Well, I mean, on game days…” I say. Then Peter attacks me again, and we’re wrestling around, laughing, when Kitty walks in, balancing a tray with a cheese sandwich and a glass of orange juice.
“Take it upstairs,” she says, sitting down on the floor. “This is a public area.
”
”
Jenny Han (Always and Forever, Lara Jean (To All the Boys I've Loved Before, #3))