It was fairly unusual for someone to be able to silence Abby.  Michael had managed to win a good ten seconds from her, quite an accomplishment.  She ended the long spell with a pretty grin.  Most guys tried to use some slick line, or just leaned in and took what they wanted.   Neither approach fared well with her, but Michael was a breath of fresh air on this beach for a lot of reasons.<br/><br/>A voice in her head, the one she attributed to her mother, told her that she'd be foolish to get involved with a roommate, someone she lived with.  So, of course, she not only ignored it but did the opposite, just as she would have if her mother were standing next to her.<br/><br/>"Well, I could tell you there's only one way to find out, but that wouldn't be true.  So..."  She made an exaggerated pretense of considering.  "I think I'll say 'what harm can one little kiss do?'  But I might come up with something a little more clever by then.  If it's a whole minute away and all.  That'll be the general gist, though."<br/><br/>She was working on picking up the lingo of the local kids.  She felt as though her east-coast educated accent and the influence of her upper-class family made her speech stand out like a sore thumb.  And she wanted so badly to be one of them.  But the slang didn't come easily to her yet, and she felt, oddly, like she wasn't obliged to be something she wasn't around Michael, even though she<em>had</em>only known him an hour.<br/><br/>"I hate to plan too far ahead, but then what will you do after that?"<br/><br/>