Little Lies

by H Hunting

  “I dunno, like a mickey? I didn’t have any of the small ones, and Lav has been on a Jell-O kick like she’s seven again, so I figured I was doing the world a favor by recycling. Plus, we’re dudes.” He motions to me and the other guys. “Pudding-cup-sized shots seem way more reasonable.”

  “You’re an idiot, Mav,” River snaps. “Look at her.” He motions to Lavender, who’s still hugging her brother. “If she pukes, you’re cleaning it up.”

  “Don’t be mad, Rivy. I promise I won’t puke.” Lavender pats him awkwardly on the cheek.

  River blows out a breath, his frustration obvious. “You can’t promise that, Lav.”

  “Okay. Well, if I do puke, I’ll be really quiet about it.” Lavender tips her head back and smiles up at her brother, who’s a good head taller than her, although pretty much everyone is.

  Even that small movement sets her off-balance, and she stumbles back a step. River grabs her arm to keep her from falling over.

  Lavender has never been particularly coordinated. She could fall over an idea. Drunk Lavender is a damn mess.

  A damn hot mess.

  A damn hot, sexy mess.

  Lavender is no longer the quiet, awkward, anxious, knobby-kneed little girl with bruises all over the place and paint in her hair. She’s grown up in the years since I last saw her. A lot. She’s more woman than girl, and she has all the curves to prove it.

  “I’m fine.” She knocks her brother’s hand away. “Besides, I’m not worried about seeing Kodiak anymore, so that’s a good thing.” She shivers, and her breath puffs out in white clouds. She drops her voice to a whisper. “Is he still here?” She brushes her hair out of her face and adjusts her headband thing. It’s still sitting wonky. “Do I look okay?” She smooths her hands over her hips.

  River closes his eyes, exhales slowly, and tips his chin up. When he looks back at her, his expression turns dark and grim. “Yeah, he’s still here, unfortunately.”

  Lavender’s eyes go wide, and she twists around, her gaze landing on me. I watch a dozen different emotions pass through her vibrant blue eyes, all of them making me want to slam my head into a brick wall. “Kodiak.”

  My name is more a breath than a word, but I feel it like a hit of cocaine.

  “She’s seventeen, fuckhead. Don’t get any ideas in your dick.” River elbows me in the side and puts a protective arm around her, turning her away from me. “Come on, Lavender. Let’s get you some carbs and your bed.”

  “He was there the entire time.” She glances over her shoulder, stumbling along beside him as he rushes to get her upstairs. She’s too uncoordinated to move at the speed he’d like, so he picks her up and carries her through the kitchen. She doesn’t fight, but her body is rigid, and her gaze stays locked on mine until she disappears up the stairs.

  Maverick runs his hands through his hair. “Shit, this is bad.”

  “We’ll go up and stay with her,” Lacey and Lovey say in unison.

  “River isn’t going to leave her side now.” Maverick’s gaze darts to me and back to them.

  Lovey props her fist on her hip. “But she’s going to need help getting out of her cosplay outfit.”

  “She can’t sleep in it,” Lacey agrees. She grabs her twin’s hand, and they rush after River and Lavender.

  “That’s your baby sister, huh, Mav?” Dawson smirks. “So, like, when she’s not jailbait, can I take her on a date?”

  Maverick’s grim expression shifts into a wide smile, but it’s not friendly in the least. He clamps a hand on Dawson’s shoulder. “You so much as look at my sister, and I’ll hold your arms while my brother replaces your tongue with your dick. And believe me, he’s crazy enough to do it.”

  Dawson’s eyes go wide, and he raises his hands in submission. “Whoa, dude, I’m kidding.”

  Maverick throws his head back and laughs, and Dawson joins in. His is nervous though. “Me too,” Mav says, grinning and shaking his head no. His smile drops. “Lavender is off limits.” His hard gaze shifts my way. “To everyone.”

  Maverick and I don’t talk about Lavender, ever. It’s understood that she is not a topic for discussion.

  After my family moved to Philly, it was easier to pretend she didn’t exist and I hadn’t fucked her up by being me. In the five years between moving and now, I’ve avoided every single family function in which I might’ve ended up in the same space as Lavender.

  Until today.

  Because there’s no way I’ll get out of seeing her over the holidays, so I figure I might as well rip the bandage off and get it over with. Except I’m starting to think that wasn’t the best plan. Not after years of nothing.

  This must be what an addict feels like when faced with a syringe of heroin and no one to stop him from jamming the needle into his arm.

  River doesn’t come back downstairs, and neither do the girls. The party goes on until after five in the morning. Maverick disappeared two hours ago with his current girlfriend. BJ is crashed out on the couch with some girl curled up in his lap like a cat. I should call an Uber and go home.

  I head down the hall, toward the front door, with my phone in my hand. I hit the button, but the screen stays blank. Shit. My phone is dead. I’m keyed up and exhausted at the same time. My gut twists as I glance toward the stairs. I should look for a charger. Instead, I find myself climbing the stairs to the second floor.

  My mouth goes dry, and my hands grow clammy. This is a really bad idea. I’ve spent years reminding myself of all the damage I did to Lavender when she was too young to comprehend how dangerous I was for her. Five years avoiding. Five years exorcising her from my system. Yet here I am, looking to be possessed all over again, with no real understanding of why.

  Well, that’s untrue. I know exactly why.

  Next year she’s supposed to stay here and go to a local college, but the year after that, there’s a chance she’s going to end up going to school with us in Chicago. Robbie goes to school there, and now so does Mav. River’s been talking about the kinesiology program, and the university has a kickass football team too.

  I need to learn how to deal with Lavender again, eventually. I can’t avoid her forever.

  This is how I rationalize my actions. I pass closed door after closed door and stop at the one with the sign fixed to it. It reads TEEN GIRLS INSIDE: ENTER AT THE RISK OF YOUR _____. Followed by a picture of a squirrel holding a set of nuts.

  I glance down the hall; no light comes from under any of the doors, including the one I’m standing in front of. I listen for voices, but all I hear is the sound of my own breathing and the pounding of blood in my ears.

  I curl my fingers around the doorknob. Feel the heady rush of adrenaline as I turn it, ever so slowly. It’s so quiet, I can hear the mechanisms clicking inside, like a bomb preparing to detonate. When it doesn’t turn any farther, I push, holding my breath as the hinges creak.

  There’s no way for me to justify my actions to Maverick, or worse, River, if either one of them found me in here. I wouldn’t have a best friend anymore, and after years of separation, it’s nice to finally have him back, good to finally be playing for the same hockey team.

  But even that isn’t enough to stop me, which tells me more than I want it to. I’m so fucked up.

  Just so fucked.

  I push the door open a little more, quickly this time, to prevent it from creaking. A clock glows on the nightstand between the two double beds. A soft beam of light travels from the bathroom to the bed, cutting a line across Lavender’s body. She’s curled on her side, facing the door. Most of her covers have been kicked off, and her bare legs are stretched out across pale sheets.

  Her long hair fans out in a chaotic wave across her pillow, one arm stretched toward the door, palm up. I don’t understand how after all this time I can still feel the same unbearable pull. For years I’ve had to build walls and detach myself from her, from all the bad choices we made as kids. All the bad choices I made. All it takes is seeing her and the sound of my nam
e to storm the gates and force me to my knees.

  I don’t realize I’ve moved until the floor creaks under my foot. I’m halfway into the room when Lavender shoots up in bed. She sucks in a gasping breath, and her eyes dart around. She was always a light sleeper—unless she’d had a particularly severe panic attack; then she could sleep like the dead. A full-on party could happen around her, and she wouldn’t move for hours.

  “Hello?” Her voice is thick with sleep. She squints and leans toward the nightstand, patting around for her glasses. I use the momentary distraction to step back into the hall, pulling the door closed behind me.

  I don’t stick around to see what she’s going to do next. Instead, I rush to the end of the hall, to the last empty bedroom on this floor. The comforter is already rumpled, telling me I’m not the first person to use this room tonight.

  I close the door, yank my shirt over my head, and shove my jeans down my legs. I pull the covers down and slip between them, slamming my head against the pillow. “So fucking stupid.”

  I don’t know what the hell I was thinking, creeping on Lavender. It doesn’t serve a purpose, other than to make me more aware that I’m not even remotely over losing her.

  I stare up at the ceiling, adjusting to the inky darkness and trying to calm my heart and my breathing. A chandelier hangs above my head, teardrop crystals glinting despite the minimal light. I focus on those, on taming the panic over my reckless actions.

  The sound of footfalls in the hallway spikes my already-frantic heart rate. I don’t breathe as I wait, unsure if I’m hearing things now. I swear I can feel her on the other side. The doorknob turns, and long seconds pass before the door creaks open.

  She slips through the narrow gap and closes it behind her. Her breathing is quick and shallow. She’s wearing a shirt that hits her mid-thigh. I don’t move, focused on keeping my breathing even. It’s pointless. She’s not an idiot. She knows it was me creeping in her doorway like a desperate douchebag. Eventually she moves away from the door, toward the bed.

  I don’t know what she thinks is going to happen. Or what I’ll do. It’s closing in on six in the morning. I’ve been drinking for twelve hours—not to mention the edible I had earlier in the evening. All of my decision-making skills are flawed at best and damning at worst.

  Lavender reaches the end of the bed and comes around the side I’m lying on. Her fingertips travel along the edge of my comforter-covered leg. I jerk my hand away when her fingers brush mine.

  “What’re you doing in here?” My voice is barely a croak.

  She cocks her head, blinking in the darkness. She’s not wearing her glasses, which means I must be blurry. “I could ask you the same thing.” Her voice is smokier than I remember. Soft, sexy, knowing.

  I try to inject some disapproval into my tone. “You should go back to your room.”

  Her fingertips glide up my arm, causing a wave of goose bumps to flash over my skin. “And you shouldn’t have been creeping in mine, so it seems like we’re even.”

  “What do you want?” I snap, frustrated with myself for creating this problem I don’t know how to solve.

  She chuckles, but it’s flat and jaded. “Answers. Acknowledgment. An explanation.”

  This isn’t the Lavender I remember. She wasn’t this ballsy. Maybe it’s the alcohol. “You’re drunk and not making sense. Go back to bed, Lavender.”

  “Do you think you can still tell me what to do and I’ll just do it? I’m not a little girl anymore, Kodiak. I think for myself now. Why were you in my bedroom?”

  “I-I was looking for a place to crash.”

  She scoffs. “And I thought I was the shitty liar.” She leans down, long hair brushing over my arm. “Did you want to see what you left behind?”

  “You’re the one who never came to say goodbye,” I bite out. It’s really the only thing I have to hold on to now.

  She barks a humorless laugh. “I was going to, but you know what made me change my mind?”

  My stomach sinks, and I stay silent.

  “I saw you kissing that girl, the one you took to your eighth-grade grad dance.” Her fingertip moves in a rhythmic figure-eight pattern over my biceps, an infinite loop, mirroring the one I seem to be forever stuck in when it comes to her. I’m not sure if it’s meant to calm me or her. “I know she was friends with Maverick’s girlfriend at the time. I thought maybe you went with her as a favor. It hurt, but I could understand why you would take her. She was pretty.” She sits on the edge of the bed, her hip resting against the outside of my leg. “I looked out the window and saw you there, and for a moment I thought maybe you were waiting for me to work up the nerve to come over. But you weren’t. You were kissing her in our spot.”

  “She kissed me.” I’d been so angry at the time. Angry that Lavender had given me up so completely. Angry that she’d been strong enough to survive without me.

  “You kissed her back.” It’s not an accusation; it’s simply a statement of fact. “And maybe I could’ve gotten over that too, but it was where we used to go when we were kids and wanted space from everyone else. The place you used to go when you needed to be alone. You sat there all the time after . . .” She trails off, not needing to finish the statement. After they took you away from me. “And then you ruined all of those memories for me.”

  “Lavender.”

  “Why, Kodiak? Why there? Why somewhere I could see? Why was she even there?”

  Because Maverick invited her. Because he was thinking about himself and what he wanted. But I don’t tell her that, because in doing so, I’d be opening a door I can’t afford to step through.

  A shuddering breath leaves her. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter anymore. None of it does.” Her hand smooths over the comforter, perilously close to parts of me I have no business wanting her to touch. But I do, and it’s messing with my head. We’re not kids anymore. We’re teenagers, vital and alive, with an excessive supply of hormones to interfere with our decisions.

  She reaches the edge of the comforter, and her fingertips find the bare expanse of my chest. She settles her palm over my heart, so soft and warm.

  “There you are,” she whispers.

  My fingers flex beside her knee. “Lavender.”

  “It’s okay. We’re okay.” My skin burns where her hand rests. “I needed to know if it would feel the same after all this time.” Her palm slides up, over my collarbone, along the side of my neck. “I wasn’t sure if it was all in my head or not.” And there’s the vulnerability I remember.

  I say nothing, do nothing. I need to tell her to stop, but I don’t want to. I want to soak in this feeling, because in a lot of ways, it does feel the same. But it’s also so very, very different, because the innocence of childhood has disappeared, and in its wake are feelings that only existed in the periphery before—a whole different kind of need. A new thing to become addicted to. Obsess over.

  Something else I can’t afford to indulge in.

  “This isn’t a good idea,” I grind out.

  “Oh, I know.” She shifts, and suddenly she straddles my hips, settling over my erection on a low whimper.

  Too far. This is way too far. I understand now what everyone was so worried about. What they all feared would happen over time. Because it is happening, right now, and I don’t want to stop it.

  Reality hits hard when Lavender leans down, her hair sweeping across my chest, breath washing over my face. She still smells faintly of vodka. There’s a chance she’s half drunk, despite having been asleep for hours. It would make sense. Lavender generally isn’t this bold, at least not the old version of her.

  I consider the ramifications of allowing this to happen, whatever this is. Lavender is still in high school. I can’t feasibly date a high school girl, let alone my best friend’s little sister—with whom I already have a tumultuous history.

  And that’s just stating the really fucking obvious. There’s also how easy it will be for me to drag her right back down into my pit of hell wh
ere she depends on me to make everything okay.

  We’re doomed. I’ll ruin her, just like they said I would. I don’t want to shatter someone who’s already cracked.

  I take her hands in one of mine, gently—they’re so delicate, so warm, so fucking perfect—and sit up in a rush. “No, Lavender.”

  I tip my head back, and her lips connect with my neck. “I can feel you, though,” she whispers against my skin, rolling her hips. “You want me.”

  I can’t admit she’s right. I can’t tell her what she wants to hear, because then she’ll be under the false belief that one day, we’ll be able to be together. And we won’t. We can’t. If I break her again, I’ll never survive it. I barely did the first time around. So I do what I must to save her from me.

  I slide my free hand into the hair at the nape of her neck and grip. For a moment I just breathe, aware this is the very last time I’ll ever have her like this—close, needy, vulnerable. And I hate myself for being too weak to love her without destroying her.

  “I’m nineteen, Lavender. A breeze makes me hard. You show up in my room in the middle of the night, half-undressed, and climb into my lap. All I need is some friction, doesn’t matter who it’s from.”

  She stiffens and tries to free her wrists. “You came to my room first.”

  She’s right, but I won’t admit it. I drop my mouth to her ear. “What did you think would happen when you came in here? Did you think I would kiss you? Touch you?”

  She flinches. “Kodiak, please.”

  I drag the end of my nose along her cheek, loathing myself for this, and hating even more that I’m still hard. “Is that a yes, then?”

  She swallows thickly. I can feel her throat working, trying to form sounds. Nausea rolls through me as I stroke down the side of her neck with my thumb. Her skin is damp, pulse thrumming violently.

  “Shhhh,” I soothe and press my lips to her temple. I breathe her in, the sweet scent of her skin, her shampoo, her fucking fear, steeling myself for what I’m about to do. “Did you think we would be something to each other after all these years?”