“Of course.” My finger taps her Rudolph nose. “Remind me to buy a space heater for up here.”
“Aren’t those dangerous?”
“Not the newfangled ones. You’re going to be staying here for a while, so we need to make it livable.”
“Oh, I am?”
“Yep. And you’re coming to a Christmas party on Saturday night with me.”
“Oh, I am?” she repeats.
“Yep.”
“Where at?”
“Two floors down. Lots of food, and Santa Claus will be visiting.”
“Count me in,” she says with a wry smile.
“Then it’s a date.”
She goes to speak, but I place my finger over her lips. “Goodnight, Bray.”
I pat myself on the back as I make my way downstairs. I didn’t kiss her. I didn’t even attempt to kiss her. But the urge was stronger than ever.
Chapter 30
Zain doesn’t have finals today, but I know Izzy does because we spent hours piled over diagrams of frogs and deciphering pictures of cell stages. Zain goes to basketball practice then swings back around and sneaks me out of the house.
When we get to school, my nerves set in. The last time I saw her, she was helping Percy deceive Beth. If I can catch her here, maybe I can make her believe me. After all, I have proof.
The warning bell rings, and I run to her locker, barely catching her.
“Izzy!”
She stops, wide-eyed. I’m holding her arm with a death grip. “You have to tell Beth.”
She jerks from me. “Leave me alone, it’s none of your business.”
“You’re my sister.”
“You’re a liar. You said he was with you, but he’s with me.”
I look over my shoulder. Zain’s being detained by a teacher who caught us running in the halls. I didn’t stop for a reprimand, but Zain is taking it like a champ.
I yank Izzy to me and whisper into her ear. “I’m pregnant with his child. You have to tell Beth.”
“No! He said you’d lie to me. You’ve betrayed us both. You need to go.”
“Izzy, you have to believe me.”
“I have to take my final.”
She tugs free, elbowing me in the jaw.
I wrap my arm around her waist, unfold the ultrasound photo, and flash it, pointing to my name and date. She stops for a moment then hands are around me.
“Get off her,” Sebastian says in a gruff voice.
He swings me around until my face is against the locker and pulls the small black and white picture from my hand, immediately backing away.
Izzy cries, running into her classroom.
“I knew it,” Sebastian yells.
He flicks the photo. I grab for it as it floats down.
Zain tackles Sebastian to the floor, and a teacher yells at them both to break it up. Zain’s face is so red I think he’s in danger of having an aneurysm. “Son of a bitch!”
The late bell rings. Sebastian knees Zain in the groin and rolls him over before jumping up and sprinting down the hall dropping F-bombs.
Zain takes my hand and practically pulls me to his car without saying a word. Once we’re buckled, he slams his palms on the dash and curses just as much as Sebastian.
I crumble the photo in my coat pocket. I only took it for leverage and proof. Now three people other than Percy know.
“You saw it, and you hate me.”
“What?” he seethes.
“You know, and now you’re mad.”
“Hell yeah, I’m mad. I want to kill him for touching you.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“Sebastian is supposed to be good. I can’t believe he just slammed you against those lockers.”
I take a deep breath. Zain thinks my secret is that Sebastian was an abusive boyfriend?
“He was mad. He thinks I cheated on him with you. He’s never hurt me, and I don’t think he was trying to this time.”
“I don’t care what he was trying to do. He can’t manhandle you.”
I touch his white-knuckled fist, and he instantly softens.
“Can we go home?” I laugh, slightly hysterical. He didn’t see the picture. If he had and knew what it meant, he’d stand up for me, and I have no doubt he’d believe me.
“What are you laughing about?”
“I just called your house home, and I’ve been hiding in your attic. Kind of a sad version of home, don’t you think?”
He wipes his palms then holds my hand. “I’d love to be your home, Bray.”
My breathing shallows, like I don’t want a loud breath to break this moment. But I have to break it. If Zain had seen the picture, what would he think?
I need a plan, and it can’t be to work with Jillion or to stay in Zain’s attic. I need something solid, and I need it now.
Chapter 31
“Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” Potter yells.
He’s placed his little recliner right next to the french doors leading to the sunroom to have a perfect view of the mistletoe Mom hung in the walkway between the kitchen and family room. He gets just as excited making people awkwardly kiss as I did at these parties when I was younger.
In keeping with my goal of staying in the friend zone with Bray, I’ve avoided walking under it, keeping my butt planted in the kitchen, making sure the hor d’oeuvres trays covering the granite countertop stay full.
The current victim is my little sister, Addie, and my dad’s morning show co-host’s son, Gavin. Her face is as red as the ribbon hanging from the mistletoe. She’s half a head taller than him like most eighth-grade girls are over the eighth-grade boys.
Allie’s cheeks are sucked in, and she’s giving Addie a death stare from her perch next to Bray on the fireplace hearth. I may have heard Allie mention her crush on Gavin a couple of times. This will not end well. I wish I could telepathically get Potter to let this one go.
Gaven gives her a quick peck on the cheek.
“No! No! No!” Potter yells. “The rules are the kiss needs to be on the lips. And you have to hold it for five seconds.” He may or may not have gotten that rule from me last year.
Allie stands and storms out. Mom and I are the only ones who notice as the focus is on Addie and Gavin.
He leans in with a stiff body and presses his lips to hers while Potter counts to five. If I’m correct, all fifty people on the bottom floor of my house are witnessing Addie’s first kiss. How memorable for her, and I can’t wait to never let her live it down.
“Hey, you.” Bray bumps her hip against mine. “Let me guess, Allie has the hots for the guy Addie just kissed.”
“Yep. How’d you know?”
“She was over there mumbling under her breath, ‘Don’t do it. You know I like him.’”
“Oh, the trials and tribulations of being in middle school.” I jingle the bell on the end of her Santa hat.
“Zain!” A hand shakes my shoulder from behind.
“Hey!” I turn my back to the fridge, allowing the new arrivals to expand our circle. “This is my friend, Brayleigh.”
“Hi, Brayleigh. I’m Ethan, and this is my wife Bailey.”
“Ethan is my dad’s producer,” I say.
Bray’s arms cross over her stomach after she shakes their hands. “It’s nice to meet you. I need to run to the restroom.” She walks away, rolling her shoulders forward and chewing on her bottom lip.
“New girlfriend?” Ethan says.
“Just a friend.”
“Uh-huh. Interesting way to look at a friend, buddy.” He slaps me on the back then goes to greet my dad.
Yeah, yeah, so I wear my heart on my sleeve when it comes to Bray.
Mom joins me in the kitchen. “The garbage can is full. Can you empty it and take it out?”
“Sure.”
Potter kicks me as I walk by on my way back inside. His laughter rings out as I tickle him relentlessly.
“Leave me alone. I’ve got mistletoe duty,” he says with jagged breath, pushing me away.
I turn and run right into Bray.
“Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” Potter’s chants echo through the rooms.
She quirks her lips. I don’t need to do this, but I so want to. And Potter isn’t going to let me get away with not doing it.
Her eyes twinkle with the flashing lights on the Christmas tree. I lean down and feel her breath exhale onto my lips.
Keep it simple, Zain. Closed mouth. No tongue. I fight off all the raging desires to wrap my arms around her and press our bodies together. They’re putting up a tough fight, leaving me feeling bruised and battered on the inside.
My lips brush against hers. Keeping it chaste, I concentrate on Potter’s numbers and pour water on the firestorm that’s brewing beneath the surface.
“Three.”
Her lips move slightly. If this doesn’t end soon, I’m going to lose all control. My lips are beyond tingling. Electric currents are shocking me.
“One.”
I step back and put distance between us, but it only makes my heart strings weave together even tighter.
“Thanks for taking me as your date,” Bray says when we sneak away to the attic.
“Thanks for coming. I hope you had fun.”
“I did.”
It’s that awkward moment after a date when a guy tries to determine whether or not the girl will allow him to kiss her. I know I shouldn’t. I pledged not to. But my lips beg for more. The earlier kiss was not enough. Lightning strikes through my veins.
Screw it.
I close the distance between us and wrap my arms around her, holding nothing back. My mouth covers hers, wanting her sighs and taking them when they escape. Her hungry lips rain hot kisses that fuel the forbidden desire coursing through my body.
This is perfection.
It’s everything I never knew I wanted in a kiss.
Our tongues dance to a melodic rhythm as she touches my chest. I drag her toward the crawl space, knocking over boxes but not losing contact with her pouty flesh.
We fall onto the piles of blankets and clothes. My lips wander from hers, tracing the contours of her arched neck with wet heat. The attic feels like a sauna, both our bodies feverish.
I need to stop.
But I can’t.
This past year of wanting her has turned into this uncontrollable need.
This overwhelming hunger.
My hands run down her side, causing a shiver to course through her body. I slip my hand under her Oh, Fudge! t-shirt as my lips possess hers once again.
“Zain,” she whispers against my mouth.
“Yeah,” I mumble.
“What are we doing?”
I lift myself off her and smack my head against the low rafters. “Ow. I’ve got to stop doing that.”
She rubs my head. I close my eyes and swallow down the feelings her touch gives me.
“I shouldn’t have done that,” I say between deep breaths. “I tried to control myself, but I can’t help it.”
“I know. I want you, too. I just…can’t.” Her eyes cut through me, sending ice spears to my heart.
I nod. “I’ll let you sleep.”
I crawl out of the hidden alcove and ignore her when she calls my name. So many reasons point to staying away, but how can I when she is what every part of me desires?
Chapter 32
I wake up from a nightmare freezing. There’s no way I’m staying up here after that. I climb out of the attic and into Zain’s room, thankful his mom makes him keep it unlocked. The first thing I do is lock it.
Zain’s soft breaths make me hesitate.
He’s sprawled across his full-size bed on his stomach, so there’s not a huge amount of room, but I’m able to slide in without disturbing him. I lie here a minute getting warm, thinking about Ethan and Bailey. How they held hands the whole party and entertained Potter during dirty Santa. It sucks that I’m the one pregnant when they’d be great parents and love the child.
I touch Zain’s calves with my frozen toes. He flinches.
“Zain,” I whisper.
He shifts his weight until he’s facing me, eyes still closed.
“Zain, are you awake?”
He puts his arm around me and pulls me in until our chests are touching. Then he lifts his leg so we can both be in fetal position. “Your feet are cold.”
“I was freezing up there.”
His palm covers my ear. “So is this.”
“I know.”
He pulls the quilt over our heads. “This will be better.”
“Can I sleep with you tonight?”
“Yeah, but you’ll have to wake up with me so we can sneak you back to the attic. Mom was supposed to buy a heater, but I’ll get one tomorrow.”
“I had a nightmare.”
“Yeah?”
“My bio mom broke out of prison and kidnapped Milo.”
He opens his eyes, questioning.
“She went to prison a year before we were put into foster care. They sentenced her to six years, but it’s only been four.” My nose stings. “She’s supposed to be in prison, but she’s not. I saw her at the party. No one told me she was out.”
“That’s why you wanted me to hide you?”
“Yeah.”
Zain rubs my arm. “Is your dad in prison, too?”
“Yeah, but he was a good dad who was depressed and made a mistake. He got ten years. It’s not right.”
“Milo’s not in danger. It’s okay,” he says, smoothing my hair.
“No, Percy could be worse.”
Zain rolls over and turns on his lamp. “What are you telling me, Bray?”
“Ever since I was born, my mom would touch me and have me touch her. It was like learning colors to me. I thought it was normal. She told me it was normal. She’d drop me off at school and kiss me on the mouth, and no one said anything. I’d seen other parents do it. But I wasn’t like the other kids. I knew about sex and—”
I swallow hard. I haven’t told anyone the details since the trial. Foster parents read my file, so I’ve never had to repeat it.
“You don’t have to give me details if you don’t want to.”
I shake my head. “I need to tell you everything. Because when I’m done, if you can look at me the way you did when we were making out, it’ll be enough. I’ll put up with all the bad if I can have you by my side.”
He touches my cheek. “Okay, I’m listening.”
“In kindergarten, I was always touching myself to get feeling, you know? And then sometimes when I’d play house, I’d get completely naked and try kissing other kids. I didn’t know.”
He nods, grazing my cheek with his thumb.
“One of the teachers got suspicious and called child protective services. They took me into a room with Barbies and asked me to point where my dad touched me and other questions like if I still wet the bed. My dad had to stay out of the house for a week while they investigated. Eventually, they chalked it up to curiosity, and my dad was able to come back home.”
Zain laces his fingers with mine. “Did he ever hurt you?”
“No, and he never suspected I was being abused. We moved, and I was homeschooled by my mom. The abuse went from every once in a while to every day. We’d watch porn while eating cereal. It’s like they were cartoons.”
“Oh, Bray.” Zain shakes his head.
“Then she had Milo, and it became less frequent. Like she’d lost interest, and I was angry. One day, I heard him crying, and I checked in on him. Mom was naked and was—”
A tear rolls from Zain’s cheek, but h
e’s still listening.
“He wouldn’t stop crying. Dad came home and thought Milo was sick. I was mad at her and jealous, but I was also worried about my infant brother. So I told Dad what she’d done.
“I’ll never forget the look on his face or how filthy I felt because I’d let her do those things to me and had enjoyed them. I was so stupid. What thirteen year old thinks that’s normal?”
I shiver, feeling all the disgust resurface. Like she’s touching me all over again, and I’m back to the girl who let it happen and didn’t say anything because most of it felt good. That was the hardest part. Knowing that I’d liked what she had done to me.
“I never liked reciprocating, but it was the price I had to pay for my fix. I’m so disgusting.” I choke on my words. Here I go self-sabotaging, telling him my innermost secrets. “And you shouldn’t want me.”
Zain sniffles.
I can’t look at him and see the look Dad had, the repulsion. He said it was toward her, but it’s how I felt about myself.
“I’m going to pause you,” he says. “You’re not a bad person, and you’re not gross. I feel lucky to be around you.”
“You don’t know the full story.”
He squeezes my hand, and I continue.
“She was taken away that night. I had to go to therapy. I had to learn that what she had been doing was wrong. That I was a victim and a survivor. That it wasn’t my fault. And that I was brave for telling. That Milo was too young to remember.
“Things were getting better for us with her gone. But Dad didn’t know how to be a single parent. He got depressed and started drinking. He always told me how sorry he was. That he should have known to have them investigate her when they were questioning him.
“One night, Milo got a really high fever. Dad had been drinking. He put us in the car to go to the emergency room. There was a deer. We crashed.
“Then he was taken.
“We got shuffled around, and I learned that the system was broken. People aren’t always decent. I was abused physically, sexually, and verbally. I kept telling. They kept moving us. Then we found a good home, but they decided I was too much trouble. I’d been drinking to cope, and there was an incident where I chopped a girl’s braid. I knew the ball was going to drop, and I didn’t know how to function. I was taken away from them and put with the Schneiders.
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