by Sarah Sutton
“Sophia.”
I finally sat up, unable to avoid it any longer. “My mom’s pregnant.”
The words sounded harsh in the air. Ugly. Awful. Walsh’s silence felt so loud. Louder than the buzzing in my head.
And then Walsh took a step closer to me, running a hand along the back of his neck. “I—I don’t even know what to say, Sophia. I thought your parents were getting a divorce.”
I shrugged again. The bed jostled as he sat down beside me, my attention drawing from the boring ceiling to his features. His hair was sticking up ever so slightly, golden locks silky and soft-looking. I wanted to push my fingers through it. “They were. Not anymore.”
“Because now they’re having a baby?” Walsh frowned when I nodded, reaching down and tracing his finger one of my hands that rested on his sheets. “How do you feel about that?”
“It sucks. It doesn’t matter.” I pulled a move from the Walsh playbook, and I wanted to pat myself on the back. Dodging conversations, avoiding it as much as possible, was his thing, and I was totally changing that subject. “How are your parents? You said you did housework today.”
“We were supposed to, but…plans changed.” With his free hand, Walsh tucked a stray piece of hair from my bun behind my ear, his eyes and body exceedingly gentle and warm. I could snuggle up and sleep in that warmth. I could live in that warmth, could stay here forever. “They ended up going somewhere. That’s why Janet’s here.”
I knew I needed to ask him what changed, where they went, but I couldn’t think beyond his touch grazing my skin. Brain, he’s just touching my cheek, and barely at that… You need to focus.
His thumb brushed further along my cheekbone, feather-light and warm. The touch had me holding my breath, afraid to move and startle it away. It unlocked something inside of me, some place in my heart, and the words started to flow untended.
“I don’t want to be like my parents, Walsh.” The words came out strangled, like they had to be dredged up from deep inside me. It cracked me apart to say it, to admit that fear. Tears made my throat burn and tighten. “Always fighting, always playing games. Trapped in a ceaseless loop of pain and drama.”
An endless soap opera with shouting and yelling and crying and kissing. That wasn’t love. That was insanity.
I didn’t want to be like them, but maybe I already was. I mean, I was playing a game. I was fake-dating Walsh Hunter in efforts to build up my article. I was focusing on my own selfish dreams even though it was ruining someone else’s. A wash of horror coasted over me, following in realization’s footsteps, leaving me shivering.
Walsh lifted his leg up on the bed to face me fully, body leaning towards mine. “Sophia Vanessa Wallace, you aren’t like your parents.”
He didn’t know. He didn’t know how I was, not truly.
But I wanted him to. I wanted Walsh to know how I was, how I could be, just in the way I wanted to know him. Every thought, every desire, every dream. I wanted to know it all, and even though it was a terrifying thought, I wanted him to know all of me too.
In that breath of a moment, I realized how close we were, how close his mouth was to mine, and all those other dark thoughts escaped into the corner of my mind.
I touched my fingertip to the scar on his cheek, bumping over the slight pale divot in his skin. I wondered if he could hear my quick beating heart, could see how I barely breathed.
The Fourth of July did me in, and I fell for him, lost in the universe that was—is—Walsh Hunter. Stupid inflatable flamingos and blue-raspberry slushies ruined everything. It ruined the prospects of walking away from this fake dating thing with a written article and my heart intact, with a journalism program and a clean conscience. All of that went down the drain and for the first time ever, I allowed the treacherous thought into my brain.
What if I scrapped the article? What if I made this real?
And then Saturday night, with his mouth so close to mine, his words echoing in my head ever since.
“What’s going through that head of yours?” Walsh’s eyes were dark, darker than they usually were, pupils seeming to swallow the blue. My fingertip traced down from his scar to his jawline, causing him to draw in a shallow breath. “Sophie?”
With my eyes on his jaw, I didn’t even think—not a single thought. “I really want to kiss you.”
I refused to look up and meet Walsh’s gaze—refused. But I watched as his mouth parted ever so slightly at my confession, felt when his hand reached over and touched the side of my knee. A tempting touch, coming as close as he could. “I thought you made a rule.”
I was losing heartbeats, misplacing them in the fog in my mind. Half of my brain was telling me to stop, the other half begging me not to. A mild pain gnawed at my chest—the longer I held back, the worse the pain became. “I know,” I whispered back, all of the butterflies in my stomach taking flight at once.
And when I leaned in to kiss him, his mouth met mine halfway.
Walsh’s lips—oh, his lips were as soft as I’d always imagined, a different kind of thrill running through my veins. Warmth spread through me, starting from where Walsh’s mouth touched mine and moving down to where his hand brushed my knee.
He’s kissing me back. He’s kissing me back. Walsh Hunter is kissing me back.
And then that hand moved. One, two, ten fingers touched my waist with gentle pressure, pulling me flush against him. Not even a centimeter existed between us; the air was absent between our bodies. It made my thoughts even foggier, my own fingers delving into the soft hair at the back of his head.
And it was this ginormous breath of fresh air into my lungs, clean and pure and right. The fog of despair in my head was starting to clear the more his scent and taste infiltrated my senses, filling my brain with a different sort of haze.
Kissing Scott had never been like this, like I was on fire, in the middle of a firework, about to explode. If this was what kissing was like—true kissing, with pure abandon and no hesitation—I knew I’d missed out on this entirely. Those absolutely rare times when Scott kissed me, they were hesitant or domineering, him trying to brand me as his with his mouth. But with Walsh, it was a mutual sort of fire that existed between us, and I loved every moment of it.
My teeth grazed Walsh’s bottom lip, and the low noise he made in his throat had every single thought in my head scattering. His lean body moved over top of me, positioned so he maneuvered his weight off of me. The soft fabric of his pajama pants brushed against my bare legs, the silky sheets embracing my arms. I couldn’t keep up with each emotion that flew through me: desire, happiness, relief. More, more, more.
Walsh’s mouth brushed my lips, my jawline, where my pulse beat in my neck and then back to my lips. It was a path of fire and ice, there and back, and I never wanted him to stop. My hair tugged as Walsh threaded his fingers through it, popping it out of its bun and fanning amber locks onto the pillows. I could feel his chaotic heartbeat under my hands, like his heart wanted to jump from his chest. My fingertips brushed the edge of his shirt, grazing his bare side.
I had no warning. One minute, Walsh’s mouth curved around my own, our legs tangling in the knottiness of his sheets, and the next he pulled away from me, the spell broken like a splash of ice water to a sleeping figure. He drew in a sharp breath, edging just out of reach.
A deep, haunted look lived in Walsh’s eyes, so dark that it was almost unrecognizable to me. It wiped away the magical moment, the buzz fading fast.
I sat up, air refusing to drag into my lungs. My hair hung in front of me, wild. “What’s wrong?” I asked him, almost afraid to ask the question. “Walsh?”
“I…” His voice was rough, scratchy, and his chest was heaving like he’d just ran a marathon. The fire quickly faded from the surface of my skin. “I just—I can’t kiss you.”
“Did I overstep?” I pressed a hand to my forehead as embarrassment flooded through me. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—I just thought that you—”
“I knew Sc
ott was cheating on you.”
Walsh said it quick, the words almost rushing together. Like he was trying to rip off a bandage. It took my brain several tries to catch up, to fully understand what he said. Because what he said—it didn’t make any sense. “Uh—what?”
“I knew Scott was cheating on you with Jewel. I-I knew they were together, the night of the party.”
My lips tingled as I tried to figure out what he was talking about. The night of the party. He caught Edith and me at the door, directed us toward the dancefloor.
“Bayview is a big school,” he said quickly, almost desperately, where I still felt confused. “When people talked about Scott’s girlfriend, I just assumed that was who Jewel was. I’d seen them together a few times before, at parties or at games. It took me a while to realize you were his girlfriend.”
Uh, okay, but I didn’t see the big deal in it. Why did he sound so nervous?
“How long?” I asked as if he hadn’t spoken. I mostly wanted to know how long Scott had been seeing her while seeing me. “How long did you know about Scott and Jewel before realizing?”
For a moment, Walsh didn’t speak. It was a blissful moment, full of silence and anticipation as I held my breath, before he finally answered. “Two weeks before you and Scott broke up. You were in the hallway with Edith and Zach…he pointed you out.”
The words punched the air from my lungs. Two weeks. Scott cheated on me for two weeks. Or more. Everything was screwed up between us, but I never really understood how much. And Walsh knew about it. Zach knew about it. And if Zach knew, did Edith know? Did everyone know? Everyone but me?
Walsh finally looked into my eyes, his own wide and wary, a crease forming between his brow. “Scott’s a jerk, Sophia. Worse than a jerk. He’s a cheater. You didn’t deserve the way he treated you. He needed to realize how much he messed up.”
There wasn’t going to be an argument from me there. Scott was a jerk. But honestly, why did Walsh look so tense? Why was this something that he’d stopped kissing me for? I mean, cool that he wanted to be honest, but why was that so important at that moment? Because my tingling lips didn’t think so.
Until my brain snagged on his final words. “He needed to realize what? What’s that supposed to mean?”
Walsh, from those few inches away from me, said nothing.
“He needed to realize how much he messed up,” I echoed in a voice that resembled a whisper. Slowly, so slowly, the pieces started to click into place. One by one, like puzzle pieces. “You invited me to the party because you knew he’d be there. With Jewel. Did you invite me so I’d see?”
Walsh just watched me figure everything out, jaw clenched so tightly that I could see the muscle pop from here. He looked the same as before, but never in my life had Walsh seemed so unrecognizable. It was like looking at a totally different person.
Everything stopped. My heartbeat stopped, the pounding in my head stopped, my thoughts came to a terrifying halt. “You did. You planned this fake relationship. You knew it would rile him up, throw him off his game, if he thought that he lost his girlfriend to you. It wasn’t because you wanted to help me. It was just to rub his face in it.” The more I spoke, the louder my voice got. “You came in and declared your love for me—it was all on purpose. It was all part of your plan.”
Scott’s words came back to me in that moment, words that I’d immediately brushed off. He’s only dating you, Sophia, so he can mess with me.
“It’s not that simple,” Walsh told me, drawing in a shallow breath. “I know it seems and sounds like it, Sophie, but it’s—”
I shoved up from the bed in a swift, jerky movement. “It’s Sophia.”
The moment rapidly cracked apart like glass, and I inhaled the broken shards in, cutting my lungs. All the times Walsh asked about Scott came running back to the front of my memory, and everything just clicked. All along, he hadn’t been trying to help me, to keep Scott from being rude to me. No, all along he’d been trying to make Scott jealous. That was why he picked the dog park—he knew Scott played basketball there. That’s why he took me to Ryan’s party. Why he posted pictures of us together.
I stared at his figure in this perpetual state of disbelief, blood pumping so loudly that I could barely focus. My voice sounded strangely normal when I spoke, as if I were unaffected. “This’ll go great in my article.”
Confusion was the first emotion I saw cross over his expression, cracking apart the wariness for a split second. “What?”
“Oh, you know, my article.” Looking down at him still sitting on the bed, I felt my knees begin to shake, my fingers following suit. I clenched them into fists, clamping down on the wave of emotion. “The one I’m writing for the newsletter? This will go nicely between the Royals paying off opposing teams and stealing extracurricular funding. See how perfect people think you are then.”
“Paying off—what? What are you talking about?”
“You never did ask me why I’m writing about baseball.” Anger made my heartbeat loud in my ears, my words nearly drowned out by the sound. “Haven’t you ever heard of undercover journalism, Walsh?”
He just watched me, confusion clear in his features, but not a single hint of anger showing through. Why wasn’t he furious? I was threatening to ruin his reputation—and my own in the process—his carefully threaded rep that he thrived off of. And he was acting as if I were talking about the weather. As if he didn’t care. He gets to upend my life and isn’t the slightest bit bothered—what kind of a robot was he?
Walsh said, “I didn’t mean to hurt you, Sophia.”
Oh, no. He didn’t get to say things like that. Things that made my heart begin to thaw, made the furrow in my brow ease slightly. My lips still tingled from the memory of his, and in that moment, I hated him. I was right about him before, standing in the hallway on the last day of school. He may have a pretty smile and great hair, but everything inside was just selfish, selfish, selfish.
“Right,” I said finally, voice like acid, “because you didn’t think of me at all.”
I woke from this dream where Walsh Hunter was someone I understood, cared for, when in all honesty I had no idea who he was. I was starting to think that I never did. It was strange to think that, just a few minutes earlier, everything had been fine. Normal. I’d come to his house expecting…well, I didn’t know what I’d been expecting, but it wasn’t this. Not even remotely close.
“Be on the lookout for the article,” I told him, resting my hand on the doorknob. Walsh saw the tears in my own eyes; I could see the exact moment he discovered them. Walsh looked at me with a gaze so full of pain it was like his heart was the one that was breaking, shattering. As if he were the one whose life was being turned upside down. Just another lie. “I heard it’s written by your favorite nerdy author.”
And I turned and walked out, shutting the door behind me. And even though I’d left him behind in his bedroom, as much as I hated it, I could still taste him on my lips, a numbness that I couldn’t rub away.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Rainwater poured off my clothes and pooled in my sandals as I stepped underneath Edith’s porch, my sandals making a squelching noise whenever I took a step. My bike wheel spun from where I’d thrown it down in the grass, rushing to find cover.
I knocked, hard, wondering if Edith would even come and answer the door. I had no idea what time it was, but since it was one-ish when I was at Walsh’s, no doubt it had to be close to two in the morning by now. I didn’t bring my cell phone with me—because that’s just how my life worked—so I couldn’t call her for a ride or a heads up.
Her bedroom light was on, though muted by her curtains. I could’ve walked over there and knocked, though I wasn’t totally convinced that she wouldn’t call the police. Or at least sic her dog, Roxi, on me.
So, instead, I knocked. And I knocked. And knocked. “Edith, it’s me,” I called as loudly as I dared. “Edith!”
And then I heard it—the glorious sound of the dea
dbolt flipping over. But when the door pulled wide, it wasn’t Edith on the threshold, not her father or even her little brother.
It was Zach.
And his eyes were so, so wide. “Uh—hi,” he said, blinking rapidly. “W-What’s up, Sophia?”
“Sophia?” Edith’s head appeared on the other side of Zach, peeking around him. Edith blinked, and it gave me time to take in her appearance. Like I said, it was probably two in the morning—surely my bike ride in the rain lasted as long as it felt—but she still wore her day clothes, a pair of denim shorts and a tank top. Eyeshadow still glistened on her lids. “What are you doing here? Why are you wet?”
I didn’t wait to answer them before I shoved my way inside, causing Zach to back up a step. That was when I noticed his feet were bare—no shoes, no socks. “Why is he here?” I demanded, my residual anger from Walsh transferring. And the way Zach was staring at me, like a deer in headlights, just made me feel angry. “It’s late.”
“Shh, little brother’s sleeping,” Edith whispered quickly, glancing at the back of Zach’s head. “Um, maybe you should get your stuff, Zach.”
He didn’t need further encouragement. Without another word, Zach turned, almost ran into Edith, and started down the dark hallway. He probably wasn’t even out of earshot before I went into it. “Why is he over at two in the morning? Why are his socks off?”
“He was keeping me company until Dad gets back,” Edith said, tucking a curled strand of hair behind her ear. She even still had her studded earrings in. “He went out to a concert on a date—a concert, can you believe it? I think he’s having some sort of midlife crisis.”
Thinking about Mr. Bradley going on dates was strange, but not the most important thing on my mind right now. “You have a boy in your room without your dad being home? He doesn’t allow boys even if he is home.”
Zach came back into the foyer, this time with his shoes on and his jacket slung over his arm. He glanced at Edith. “Thanks for, uh, the advice.”