by Cameron Lund
“Well?” Danielle says, motioning between Andrew and me. “We’re all waiting.”
“Right,” Andrew says. He brushes his hands off on his shorts and then moves closer to me. He’s actually going to do it. I feel my pulse quicken, my heart in my throat. My mouth is dry and I reach my tongue out to wet my lips, tasting tequila on them, the sting of lime. This won’t be so bad. It’ll be over in a few seconds. That’s all it will take—all people will expect. Just a few seconds, his lips against mine in a peck, and then it will be done. Except a part of me doesn’t want it to be over that fast. A part of me wants more than a few seconds, more than a few minutes, to sink into him, to melt against him. I shake my head and push that part far away.
“Okay,” I say, letting out a shaky breath.
“Okay,” he says back, threading his hand through my hair. I wonder if any part of him wants this too. I can’t let my emotions show on my face, just in case no part of him wants me at all.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Sophie Piznarski get up and leave the room, and Cecilia lean forward to watch, her hands pressed so hard into the floor they’re turning white. But then all I can see is him, green eyes focused on mine. And then I can’t see anything at all as my eyes close and our lips touch. It’s just as I remember it. I didn’t realize you could grow familiar with someone’s kisses after only kissing them once—but that’s what it is: familiar. He tastes like home. I never knew home had a taste, a smell, could feel like someone’s lips on mine—slightly chapped and dusted with salt. All I can hear is the rush of blood in my ears—if anyone is clapping or cheering, I can’t tell.
It ends just as quickly as it began, and as I pull away, my eyes flutter open and I remember where we are: surrounded by people, surrounded by the girls of Andrew’s past, the girls of Andrew’s present. I look away from him, trying to focus my eyes on anyone, on anything else.
“Collins, your turn to spin!” Danielle says. She hands the bottle to me and I take it with shaky hands, my heart still beating wildly in my chest. I feel slightly out of my body, like everything is happening to someone else and not to me. I sit back down, and the circle parts to make room for Andrew and Hannah on either side of me. Hannah squeezes my knee and I look over at her and she breaks into a big smile, clearly pleased with herself.
“Spin, Collins,” Danielle says again. She’s drumming her black fingernails against the wood floor.
I feel dizzy as I lean forward and place the bottle down. I don’t want to spin—I’m already too confused, too disoriented, and kissing Ryder or Chase or Simon or anyone will only cloud my head more. I want to think about what’s just happened with Andrew, to figure out what it means. If it means anything at all.
“Spin!” Ava shouts, her tone light and gleeful. I turn my head too quickly to look at her, and she blurs—two Avas in one, four boobs bouncing as she claps her hands together. She raises her arms up to cheer and a trail of light and color follows the motion. I have to shake my head to clear it away.
“Spin!” somebody else says, and then a chant starts: spin, spin, spin.
I lurch forward and raise a wobbly hand to my mouth.
“I don’t feel well,” I say. “I’m gonna be sick.” I trip as I try to get onto my feet, my sock slipping on the polished wood floor.
“Ouch, Reed!” somebody taunts. “How rank is your breath?”
I run down the hall to the bathroom and slam the door before anyone can come after me, shutting out the sound of the laughter and jeers from the other room. Leaning over the sink, I run some cold water and splash it over my face, then rest my head against the mirror, the cold glass making me feel better. Maybe I can hide in here, my face on the glass, until everyone moves on, keeps drinking, and forgets I was ever here in the first place. Would anyone even notice?
There’s a soft knock on the door.
“Collins?” It’s Andrew, voice muffled. “Are you okay?”
I don’t answer.
“Can I come in?”
There’s a long pause as I consider if I can handle lifting my forehead off the mirror. I don’t know if I want to be near him.
“I’m fine,” I say, my voice raspy. “I just didn’t feel like playing anymore.”
“Because I’m a horrible kisser?” I can hear the playful note in his voice. “I know for a fact that’s not true. I have sources.” There are some shuffling sounds outside, the tapping of his fingers against the door. “Maybe I’m such a good kisser you were overwhelmed with bloodlust and you had to get out of there. It’s—”
“Bloodlust is a thirst for blood.” I pull my head off the mirror. “I don’t want to kill you.”
I open the door a crack and see him grinning on the other side. He comes in and shuts the door, sitting down next to me on the edge of the Jacuzzi tub. Even though it’s the downstairs bathroom, the one right next to the guest room, it’s still huge, twice the size of my parents’ bathroom. Next to the sink, there’s a framed photograph of Danielle from middle school, standing proudly next to a horse. I turn away from her stare.
We sit in silence on the edge of the tub. Somehow it was easier to talk to him through the door, to remember how to be his friend when I couldn’t see him. Now that he’s next to me, his left leg against my right, the slight smell of him—his sweat, his shampoo, the beer that’s now drying in his hair—is making me dizzy.
“Is this how it’s going to be?” I ask finally. I pick at a thread hanging from my shorts. “I was always so proud of us because we’d managed to stay friends after growing up. But maybe we just have to accept the fact that it doesn’t work.”
“Of course it works,” he says. “It’s been working for years. Just because we kissed in a stupid game, it doesn’t mean we can’t—”
“It wasn’t just that stupid game,” I say. “It was everything else. It was the Plan. It was you seeing me naked, touching my boobs.” Saying it out loud, I burst into unexpected laughter. Andrew starts laughing too, and I feel something ease inside of me.
“They’re nice boobs,” he says, and I swat him. His eyes widen and he loses balance, falling backward into the empty tub. I yelp as he pulls me with him so that I land hard on his stomach, bumping my elbow against the porcelain.
“Ow!” I hold up my elbow where I know a bruise is going to form. But I can feel him shaking with laughter beneath me, and so I’m laughing too. It all feels so natural again, like the old days.
“Can we just stay here the rest of the night?” I ask. “I don’t want to go back out there.”
“Deal,” he says, leaning back into the empty tub and rearranging himself so we fit sort of comfortably. He sits back against one end and brings his legs inside, bent at the knee. I sit back against the other end, so that we’re facing each other. The tub’s nozzle is right next to my neck and I have to tilt my head to the left to avoid it. He folds his arms behind his neck and closes his eyes, pretending like we’re in a real hot tub.
“Comfy?” I ask.
He nods with his eyes closed. “Remember when we used to take baths together? How did we ever fit?”
“You weren’t a hundred feet tall back then.”
“You’re still the same size,” he says, and then breaks into a grin. “Most places.”
“Shut up.” I push him with my bent knee.
“Hey, we should turn the water on. Pretend it’s ten years ago. Hot tub time machine.”
“What?” I ask, even though I’ve heard him.
“Let’s fill up the tub.”
“We’re in our clothes,” I say, knowing as I say it that I’ve started blushing.
“So? Live a little. I have to wash my hair anyway.”
“Yeah, you stink.”
“Cecilia dumped a beer on me.”
“You probably deserved it.”
“Yeah, I did,” he says. Then he unbends his leg and reaches
a foot up to the faucet, using it to turn on the water. It shoots down onto my shoulder.
“Turn it off!” I shriek. “It’s cold!” I scramble to get out of the stream, but the more I move, the more I slip, water spraying everywhere.
“It’ll warm up in a sec,” he says, and I reach a hand under the faucet to splash him. But even as I do, I feel the stream of water turn deliciously warm. “See?” he says when I splash him again. He wipes the water off his face and runs a wet hand through his hair. I give up and lean back against the wall of the tub, finding myself enjoying the feel of the warm water as it streams down onto my neck and shoulders. Slowly the tub fills up around us, and my shorts grow heavy and uncomfortable.
Andrew’s gray T-shirt gets darker as it dampens, sticking to him like a second skin. I look down at my own T-shirt, hoping it won’t stick to me in the same way, and I pull at the bottom hem, lifting it away from the shape of my body so he can’t see.
“Fuck it,” Andrew says, and he reaches down and pulls his shirt off, throwing it onto the tile floor, where it lands with a wet smack. “Much better.”
“Drew!” I say, scolding him, though something in me tightens at the sight of his bare chest again, at the trail of hair that connects his belly button with the waist of his shorts. His hair is wet and sticking up at all angles, and droplets of water are stuck in his eyelashes like snowflakes.
“What?” He raises his hands out of the water to motion to his bare chest. “This is just like a bathing suit. No biggie.”
“Right,” I say, trying to take a deep breath, remembering too easily the kiss we shared earlier. “I’m not taking mine off.”
“Fine,” he says, flicking at the water with his thumb. “I’m not expecting you to.”
“Fine,” I say.
“Fine.”
And then I do, my hands reaching for the hem of my shirt like they don’t belong to me, like they’re someone else’s hands and they’re not under my control. I peel my shirt up and over my head and set it down on the side of the tub. My bra is gray cotton and might be a little see-through, but I try not to think about it. He’s staring at me, and I’m staring back, the air between us thick.
He reaches down into the water and undoes the button of his wet shorts, and I mirror him, reaching down to undo mine. We peel them off at the same time, and the water sloshes out of the tub. I lean forward, trying to shimmy out of the heavy, wet fabric. He leans forward too and lifts his knees, his legs on either side of me, holding me in place. His shorts are still half off, but he’s stopped undressing, because now the front of him is pressed up against the front of me, and our faces are less than a foot apart, and I’m not thinking or breathing. The heat of the bathwater is making my head spin and I feel dizzy again, but not in an unpleasant way, like before. Not like I’m going to be sick. No, it feels like the moment on the top of the roller coaster, the moment before you fall, the moment that you’re weightless.
Then he closes the space between our lips and kisses me, his wet chest pressed against mine, slippery and warm and delicious. The water is still coming out of the faucet behind me, the sound of it rushing like the blood in my ears. He reaches a hand up into my wet hair and pulls me even closer to him, biting my bottom lip, the feel of it sending a chill through me despite the heat of the bath.
All I can think is more more more. I need to get closer to him. I want to be as close to him as possible, to become a part of him, to sear together like two atomic particles.
And then there’s a loud banging on the bathroom door.
I’m jolted into awareness, my eyes opening so fast there are stars behind them. Andrew’s eyes are open too and his breathing is ragged. He leans into me, trying to capture my lips again.
“Just ignore it,” he says.
The banging continues, loud and insistent.
I shake my head, trying to get my bearings, to come back into my body. And then the weight of it all crashes down on me—everything I’ve been trying not to think about.
“Keely, are you in there?” It’s Hannah’s voice at the door.
I reach behind me and turn off the faucet, and when the roar of it is gone, the silence is deafening. I shake my head again and try to back away from him, but his knees are still holding me in place, and we’re tangled together in his shorts. I remember what he said to me earlier: I’ve been looking for you. The same line he’s used on every girl at every party. He said it to Cecilia on my birthday, and then took her into the bathroom, into the shower. I can’t believe I fell for it, not when I’ve got his script memorized. I’ve always felt bad for the girls who have fallen for Party Andrew. And now I’m one of them.
“Let me go,” I say, trying to get away from him. Water sloshes over the tub and onto the tile floor. He moves his knees, leaning back against his side of the tub and pulling his shorts back on the rest of the way. “This is all one of your moves, isn’t it?”
He runs a hand through his hair and shakes his head, water spraying in all directions.
“What are you talking about?”
“How many girls have you taken a bath with?”
“Keely!” Hannah’s voice is still calling from the other side of the door, high and strained, and I can tell from the pitch of it that something’s wrong. I try to stand up, but the floor of the bathtub is slippery and I wobble, putting my hands out on either side for balance.
“I can’t believe after everything, you’re trying to get with me.”
“I’m not trying to get with you,” he says.
I know I’m as much to blame for this as he is, but it’s too hard to think about. It’s like what he said to me a few months ago, about how it’s easier to feel nothing than to get hurt. Maybe that’s why he hasn’t told Danielle the truth, why he’s using me as a distraction.
“I have to go,” I say, climbing out of the tub. I put my wet shirt back over my head and it’s freezing cold, clammy on my skin.
“Wait,” he says, and I stop for a second, my hand on the doorknob. But I can’t turn around. Hannah is still pounding on the door, so I open it. I’m surprised to see that she’s crying. Trails of mascara run down her cheeks and her breath is coming out in little gasps.
“What’s wrong?” I pull her into a hug, forgetting my clothes are soaking wet, that Andrew is standing behind me, still in the tub, shirtless. Hannah doesn’t seem to notice.
“He’s back for the summer,” she says, reaching a hand up to her eyes. “He’s here at the party.”
“Who?” I ask, though it should be obvious. There’s only one person who can make Hannah so fragile, so easy to rip apart, like a paper doll version of herself.
“It’s Charlie,” she says. “Charlie is here.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
“WHERE IS HE?” I pull out of Hannah’s hug to scan the room behind her. I was already upset before this, but now I’m feeling murderous. And Charlie is the perfect target.
“I don’t know.” She wipes at her cheeks. “I just saw him for a second and I ran. I didn’t want him to see me cry.” Her voice is coming out in little hiccups. “He can’t see me like this.”
I feel Andrew’s presence behind me and then his hand is on the wet fabric of my back.
“Are you guys okay?” he asks, and I shake away from his reach.
“We’re fine,” I say, moving closer to Hannah. I can’t be near him. Hannah looks back and forth between the two of us, her eyes widening, and I see her take in our wet hair for the first time, the fact that Andrew isn’t wearing a shirt.
“Wait, what’s going on?” she asks.
“Come on, we should get you home,” I say, “before Charlie comes over here.”
“Keely,” Andrew says, reaching out to stop us. “You were going to stay over, right? I can take you guys home tomorrow.”
“I can’t stay here.” I turn away from him. Suddenly I feel just a
s fragile as Hannah, like a paper doll myself. I don’t know whether it’s the tequila that’s still making me so dizzy, so unsteady, or whether I’m just reeling from the nearness of him. There are little droplets of water running down his chest and my eyes follow one as it trails down his skin and disappears beneath the waistband of his shorts. “And put on a shirt.” I grab Hannah and pull her down the hallway, leaving him behind us.
There’s no one sober enough to drive, so Hannah and I decide to walk. The air is warm enough, even at this time of night, and I’d rather walk a few miles in my wet clothes than spend any more time at this party, with Andrew and Danielle and Charlie, the Death Eater. Besides, it feels good to move, like with each step the tequila is leaving my body, clearing my head.
We’ve barely made it past the driveway when Hannah pounces.
“Okay, so what the hell was that back there? Why wasn’t Andrew wearing a shirt?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I’m not sure why I can’t tell her. The Plan was her idea to begin with. Really, I should have told her the moment I asked him. It’s just that now it’s too late. And talking about Andrew out loud—about all the things that have happened and almost happened between us—makes me afraid of what I might say. I start walking faster, like there’s a chance I can outrun my problems. Hannah speeds up too.
“Come on, Keely. I’m not an idiot.” Her tears have stopped and she looks fierce, wild. If there’s one good thing that could come of tonight, of my mistake with Andrew, it’s that Charlie seems to be gone from Hannah’s mind. We’re the perfect distraction. “Were you guys hooking up?”
“No!” I say, the word rushing out of me. It just feels easier to deny everything than to have to think about it. But I can’t do that to Hannah. “I mean, I don’t know. Yeah, we were . . . kissing. We kissed, okay? It all happened so fast.” I throw my hands up in the air, wishing I could take back the past few hours. Or even better, the past few months. “But it doesn’t matter anyway. It was stupid. He’s in love with Danielle, and I know that, but I still fell for it. We always knew he was a player, right? I just never thought he would play me.” I’m practically running now, and Hannah is running right alongside me.