Pretty Guilty

by K. L. Cottrell

  She stops walking, inhales slowly, and lifts her eyes back up to me.

  I give her a reassuring smile.

  Next thing I know, she has her arm curled around mine. As she tugs me through the doorway with her, she says a little breathlessly, “You’ve got a way with words, you know that?”

  My blood is on fire, I tell you.

  3: Coralie

  I’m walking on a wire here.

  I’m out on a date with a living guy while a dead one watches and comments.

  I’m pretending to be a normal girl even though I have a very abnormal secret.

  I’m stupid.

  But I have to say I love it.

  Will isn’t just good-looking. He’s intelligent and funny, too, I’ve learned in the past two hours. He has good taste in music. We come from very different lifestyles, but we’ve discovered we share views on the couple of important topics that have come up in our conversation. He’s nice and, unless you count the hot way my skin has started humming from his presence, he makes me feel comfortable.

  And to think I almost didn’t come out with him. I mean, this thing won’t last long—Aaron’s ghost isn’t something I could keep from a guy and mentioning it would send that guy running. But for now? Yeah, for now, I’m having a great time. I’ll keep my secret to myself and enjoy my one night of fun.

  ‘You belong wherever you want to be, you know.’

  I loved that.

  I also love the way Will laughs. He’s laughing now with his head dropped back, eyes shut, shoulders shaking. He’s laughing over how I can recite damn near every line of Superbad, to my super religious parents’ displeasure; he thinks I’m funny, too.

  Even Aaron can’t ruin the good mood I’ve found myself in. I know this for a fact because the bastard’s been around all day and I’m still grinning from ear to ear as Will collects himself enough to say over the music, “You are the greatest girl I’ve ever met. Hand on the Bible.”

  Yes, with Aaron once again hissing to me that I’m a murderer, I only lend my attention to the way Will’s hair feels when I reach up to pull a piece of cheese out of it. “I must say, I feel the same way about you, guy wise—” I laugh, “—even when you’ve spent God knows how long with pizza cheese in your hair.”

  He laughs again, too. “What? I have cheese in my hair?”

  I hold it up for him to see.

  “Well, that’s embarrassing!”

  “No way! You are wicked charming.”

  The way he glances between my eyes and lips says that might’ve earned me a kiss if we weren’t around so many people—he is, after all, a gentleman.

  The thought makes my stomach do a somersault, and the wire I’m walking on thins. I know if he tries to kiss me at any point tonight, I’ll let him do it, and I’ll let myself do it back.

  He opens his mouth to say something and I’m dying to hear what it is, but I hear a different male voice speak up first. Not Aaron’s, either, although this voice is accusatory just like his. “You shouldn’t be allowed to look so happy when you’re responsible for my best friend’s death.”

  I flash hot in a much less enjoyable way than what Will inspires. I roll my eyes to Eddie, who’s standing by our bar table with his arms crossed. Used to, his eyes were sharp on Aaron because he couldn’t understand why he was so crazy about me when I couldn’t care less about him. Now they’re sharp on me because I killed Aaron. Or so he thinks.

  I snap, “That’s quite a bold fucking claim to make, Edward.”

  He snaps back, “You’re quite the bold fucking bitch to call it a claim when you know it’s true.”

  Will’s tall stool scrapes the floor loudly as he springs out of it. His expression is so hard it actually sends a chill through me. He steps up to Eddie with total confidence, like he’s miles taller than him and not the same height. “Apologize to her.”

  Eddie glares at him. “I ain’t got anything to apologize for, stranger.”

  “Do it,” Will says warningly.

  “I’d rather drink piss! She’s the one who’s done something wrong!”

  “Oh, yes, I remember!” I interject sarcastically. “Now that you say that, I distinctly remember pouring shot after shot after shot after shot of tequila down Aaron’s throat and then saying, ‘Hey, you know what would be fun? A late-night walk in the middle of the street!’”

  “You make me sick,” Eddie snarls, turning back to me. “You were the last one to see him that night. I know it’s your fault he’s gone. You hated him.” He jabs a fingertip into my forehead. “I never knew why he adored you so fucking much, because you—”

  In short order, he’s sporting a bent-backward finger courtesy of me and a bloody nose courtesy of Will, and bar employees are running over, shouting for the two of us to get out.

  I can tell just from meeting Will’s angry blue gaze that he’s over this place. I am, too—even with Eddie being in too much pain to keep running his mouth, I’m fine with leaving. We settled our small drink tab earlier, so he tosses down some cash for our pizza, but it doesn’t look like it’ll cover it; if I had to guess, he originally intended to pay with a card. But I don’t care. I stack the rest of my pizza in my hands and stride away from the table.

  “Hey, no taking things with you!” one of the employees barks.

  “I’m taking it!” I holler.

  “Listen, little girl, getting kicked out of here means—”

  “I’m taking the pizza!” I bellow as Will, who’s appeared up ahead of me, opens the door to the bar so I can walk outside.

  So much for nothing ruining my good mood.

  Isn’t it bad enough that Aaron’s been saying I’m the reason he’s dead? Now Eddie’s going to start saying it, too?

  I mean, yeah, I made Aaron’s drunk ass get out of my car that night after our one and only date, and then I left him on the side of the road. But it’s not my fault he got run over afterward. That is not my fault. He shouldn’t have gotten so wasted on our date that he didn’t know how to keep his damn hands to himself. It was his fault.

  So I don’t know why my stomach has started cramping. Why my throat has gone dry.

  “He’s right and you know it,” Aaron gurgles from right behind me. “You killed me. You’re a murderer.”

  “Shut up,” I huff out. I try to gulp in the icy night air, but I can’t. I can’t get a good breath. My chest feels tight and I’m starting to feel disoriented. I can’t—

  My knees hit the snowy sidewalk, followed by my pizza and then my hands. I hear a not-gurgling voice—Will’s—worriedly rush out my name.

  “I didn’t kill him,” I insist as I stare at the ground and gasp for air. “I didn’t. Goddamn it, it’s not my fault he’s dead! It’s not!”

  “Of course it isn’t!” I feel a strong hand slide through one side of my hair, push it back from my face. “Breathe in slow. Everything’s fine. In slow and out slow, Coralie!”

  My eyes fall shut and I try to do what he says. I don’t manage very well.

  “In slow and out slow,” he says again, more slowly, indeed. His hand curves around the back of my neck. “You’re fine. Everything is fine, okay? Breathe.”

  Mmm, yes.

  Everything is fine, isn’t it? I’m being touched yet again by Will Whatever-his-last-name-is. How could anything be bad when he’s touching me?

  He keeps talking to me. After a minute, once I’m back to breathing normally and being relaxed, I sit up on my knees. Keeping his one hand where it is on me, he uses the other to grasp one of my arms and help me stand. As we face each other, I look at him and realize he’s got my beanie and coat tucked under one of his arms. How thoughtful. I’d forgotten to take them with me when I walked out.

  “Better?” he asks.

  I nod.

  “Good.”

  I want to apologize and thank him, but I can’t speak. The thumb of the hand on the back of my neck is slipping around to skim over my throat. It’s distracting in a really nice way.

 
; “Did our date get ruined?” he murmurs now, looking like he’ll understand but be greatly disappointed if I say yes. Also looking like he’s distracted by what his thumb is doing.

  If he’d asked that a minute or two ago, I would’ve said yes. Back then, everything was shit. But this is now, so I shake my head. No, our date did not get ruined.

  “Off the property, you two!” I recognize the bark of the employee from before. “Now!”

  There’s no way he’s talking to anyone other than us, so Will reduces our points of contact from two to one: his hand on the small of my back. We leave the fallen pizza and walk away.

  He asks if I’d like to just drive around in his car for a while, and I say yes. We only get to the Wal-Mart two blocks down, though, and then we park in the lot so we can talk without having to worry about other cars and stoplights.

  Between the warmth of the heater, the sound of his voice, the way we start touching hands, and the happy fact that Aaron has disappeared, I’m soon back to feeling good. Laughing. Making Will laugh, too. Even the mention of our encounter with Eddie doesn’t completely stress me out.

  “You got him good,” he says proudly.

  “So did you! I’ve never had a guy fight someone for me before. I may be little, but I’m a tough girl. I can take care of myself.”

  “I believe that. What’s his problem, anyway?”

  My hand twitches in his. “He thinks I—”

  “Right, yeah,” he rushes out so I don’t have to finish the sentence, “yeah, but why?”

  In my mind, I see an extremely inebriated Aaron toppling onto the dark ground. It was the last time I saw him, because the next thing I did was hurry back into my car and drive away without a backward glance, and he died sometime after.

  “He’s just mad,” I say. “Doesn’t want to be mad at his dead best friend, so he’s mad at me.”

  “Hm. Well, I guess that makes sense, but it’s not right.”

  I shrug. “Oh, well.”

  “No, not, ‘Oh, well.’ He can’t walk around talking to you like that just because he’s mad. He especially can’t put his hands on you out of anger.”

  “Oh, he can.” I grin. “He’ll just pay for it.”

  He grins, too, and then we’re laughing and applauding one another again.

  And then kissing.

  I’m kissing Will and he’s kissing me, too.

  I don’t know which of us started it and I don’t think he does, either. He inhales sharply through his nose just like I do. But neither of us moves our mouth away—well, I do, but only to press it more firmly into place with his.

  His hands push into my hair. When he’s got them around my head, both of his lips close around my bottom one and tug. It makes me moan, and I wrap my hands around his wrists and open my mouth. His tongue finds mine without hesitation and the touch is easy and perfect, like we’ve been this way together before, and I just…

  …melt.

  I’ve never melted from a kiss before. I’ve never even melted from sex. Gotten hot, yeah. Sweated, yeah. Melted, no.

  Which is why I don’t turn him down later when he hesitantly asks if I’m interested in going home with him. I don’t want him to stop making me melt.

  “This isn’t something I do,” he murmurs as he traces one of my eyebrows with a fingertip, “but with you, I want to. I don’t know why. I don’t know what it is about you that just opens me up.”

  I’ve never done something like this, either, on a first date. Or a second. I did it one time on a third date years ago. But Will has already become special to me. Like for him, tonight is a different story for me.

  In his dark house, we haven’t gotten half of our clothes off before I get the feeling that this is a story I’m going to like, short as it’ll be.

  Tangled up with one another in his bed, our hands and mouths and hips making each other moan against skin and into ears, I know this is a story I’m going to like.

  He makes me feel happy. No, it won’t last, but it’s something.

  I have to admit I was wrong about what I said this morning: today has not been another regular day. A huge happy birthday to me.

  *

  “C’mon, Coralie,” Aaron slurs in a drawl. Because of how close his voice sounds, I know he’s leaned forward where he’s sitting behind my driver’s seat. “G’me a kiss.”

  The alcohol on his breath is so strong it almost makes me gag. Or maybe I’m almost gagging from his words. “No way in fiery hell.”

  “Please?”

  “No. Be quiet.” I’m beyond sick of him. I can’t drop him off at his house fast enough. This date was a mistake.

  I feel his hand slide around the seat and across my stomach. “Cor—”

  “Don’t fucking touch me!” I shout, swinging a fist at where I think his face is. He grunts loudly, yanks his hand back. “How many fucking times do I have to tell you not to touch me? Are you that fucking wasted, Aaron? God!”

  “We’re on a date!” he slur-shouts back.

  “We were on a date,” I correct him, “and hell if I know why. I thought it’d make you leave me the hell alone somehow, but I should’ve known better.” I’ve honestly never done anything so dumb in my life.

  “But I like you s’much. Please lemme….” His hand is back on me, now straight-up grasping my breast.

  I snap.

  I screech to a stop in the shoulder and, ignoring the pepper spray on my keychain, maneuver the lower half of my body into the backseat. I scream myself hoarse as I kick every part of him I can reach. “You bastard! You make me sick! What is wrong with you? I don’t fucking want you! How dare you touch me like that after I said no?”

  To my astonishment, he taps into some of his strength and manages to band an arm around my legs. I gasp as he shoves his other hand under my shirt. He mumbles about me shutting up and letting him make me feel good, his sweaty fingers now digging into the flesh above my bra.

  As he tries to pull me all the way into the backseat, my vision flashes red even in the darkness of the car. I deliver the hardest kick I can muster to his face, causing him to shout in pain and let go of my legs. I scramble back into my seat and see the lights of the Speedy Stop just down the road, but he deserves worse than getting ditched at the gas station, so I get out of the car. I yank open his door, and I’m surprised and also not at the strength I’m suddenly capable of—beyond enraged, I haul him out of his seat and launch him toward the ground like he’s the one who’s short and slender, not me.

  “Whuthefuck?” he complains as he tumbles onto his ass on the asphalt. “Is this the street?”

  “You’re damn right! Get your own ass home!” I slam his door shut.

  “No. No, waijusasec.” He awkwardly tries to get up. “I’m sorry.”

  “Like hell you are!”

  “No, I—I am! Don’t leave m—”

  But I’m back in the car now and promptly speeding away.

  At home, the rage gives way to disgust and panic. I was assaulted back there and it could’ve been even worse—damn it, why did I put myself in that situation with him? I’m lucky he was so drunk that I could fight him off. If he’d been able to handle himself just a little better, what would’ve happened to me?

  I lock myself in the bathroom and jump into a shower so hot it hurts. After I’ve scrubbed my skin just about raw, I curl up in the tub and bawl like a fucking—

  “Coralie?” A deep voice breaks into my mind.

  I gasp and realize all of a sudden that hands are on me again. “No! No!” I cry out, my voice weak and strangled. I wrench away and—

  “Coralie!” the guy exclaims now as I fall through open air and land hard on…the floor?

  Yes, the floor. My eyes are open and I can see a lamp is on above my head. I’m not in my bathtub. I’m not even in a room I recognize. My heart pounds with anxiety. “Where am I? What the fuck? Where—?”

  “Hey, hey, hey,” he says quickly, and I fling my gaze toward him.

  …Will
.

  Will is looking at me from over the edge of the bed. He’s on all fours, his dark hair a mess from sleep, his bright blue eyes wide and concerned. “Hey, it’s me. You’re with me, remember?”

  Yeah.

  Yeah, I do. I do remember now. Will is who was just touching me—touching my arms, my senses belatedly tell me, because he was shaking me awake. And he touched me earlier, too. He made fucking delicious love to me.

  I glance around as I clumsily get to my feet, remembering when the room was dark and he and I were kissing while we made our way to this bed. I look at him again and remember pulling him on top of me while he put his mouth on my neck and made room for his body between my legs—my spine tingles as I remember how incredible it felt when he gripped my thigh and sank himself—

  “Are you okay?”

  I inhale shakily and blink the memories out of my mind. And as I focus on the real him, I spot something utterly terrible behind him on the bed.

  Aaron’s bloodied ghost gives me a broken smile and says, “Being dead isn’t so bad, you know. I finally get to watch you sleep.”

  My terrified heart leaps into my throat and I shake my head wildly.

  Will asks, “What’s wrong?” in a way that tells me he’s noticed my fear.

  So this is how it happens.

  This is how my fun time with him ends.

  “I—I have to go.” I turn and stagger toward the door.

  “Huh? No, hold on a minute!”

  Still shaking my head, I babble, “I’m sorry. I have—it was so fun—you’re so great. Thank you for all—but—but I have to get—”

  I’ve just made it out of his room when I feel his hands on my shoulders. They pull me to a stop as he says, “You don’t have clothes on, Coralie.”

  I glance down and, wow, he’s right. Not even underwear. Oh, I remember why: after our first time together, we watched both Avengers movies and then did it again, and it was so good that when it ended, we fell asleep before we could put clothes back on.