by Hazel Grace
Together.
Like a couple of people who are dating. Someone she was comfortable with.
Someone who wasn’t fucking me.
I can feel every nerve ending in my body tense then recoil, ready to lash out the biggest bitchfest of my entire life. I want to yank her from Country Chuck, with his red flannel shirt and blue jeans (get him a cowboy hat and he’ll be perfect) and get us somewhere alone where we can talk.
Actually, I’ll yell, she’ll shut the fuck up.
I impatiently postpone my move, waiting for her to make the wrong one so I can corner her. But the guys she’s with won’t leave her side, and my entire shit is slipping through every cell in my body.
When the next song starts, Taylor grabs her hand and they begin to walk off when Country Chuck clasps Sawyer’s free one, jerking her back to him.
This motherfucker wants to die.
He leans forward, getting close enough to tell her something in her ear because the music is that loud.
I try to relax, I don’t need to get kicked out of here, nor do I want to get into a fight to break up whoever's party this is. But, shit, it’s going to come down to someone getting a broken nose and Sawyer going home with me.
Finally, Sawyer breaks free from Chuck and begins sifting through the crowd. And that’s when I move.
Squeezing through people, they make their way to the back of the house and toward the long hallway where the bathrooms and bedrooms are. Taylor knocks on a door and waits, before opening it and walking in. While the girl who haunts my every thought stands outside, leaning against the wall with her back toward me.
I stalk toward her, watching her foot tapping along the hardwood floors to the beat of the music. Leaning in, I don’t smell her normal flower perfume. The dampness of her hair clings to the back of her neck that’s pushed aside to one of her shoulders.
My jaw tweaks, I’ve wanted to be this close to her for days. I go to bed with her as my last thought before drifting to sleep and, thank fuck, I don’t remember my dreams. I can only imagine how vivid they would be.
My body draws toward hers on its own, and I don’t stop it. Instead, I hover my lips near the shell of her ear. I want to softly bite down and suck on her lobe, hearing her gasp and melt into my chest. Instead, my annoyance and the saturated moments that just happened minutes ago come to the forefront of my brain and I’m not placid at all when my words come out sharply.
“What the fuck are you doing here, Bases?” Her body jolts, making her almost stumble forward, as she spins around to face me.
Sawyer’s brown freckles stick out prominently on her nose and under her eyes, something I notice after she’s out in the sun for a long period of time. Her cheeks are flushed, lips puffy from...I clench my hands into fists.
“Colson,” she breathes, clenching her shirt over her heart. She closes her eyes. “You scared me.” I don’t respond.
I fucking can’t.
Because the next shit out of my mouth is going to sober her up as quickly as I’m sure it was for her to get buzzed.
“What are you doing here?” Her voice is soft and relaxed as she opens her lids and peers up at me.
God, this girl.
I want to own the living shit out of her and fuck her up for anyone after me.
I tower over her, wanting to dig my fingers into her waist and wrench her against me, but I latch on to my inner strength that somehow is still intact.
“I could ask you the same thing,” I counter.
“Well, I was...we were —” My eyes slit, but I keep my voice in a drawl.
“You were, what?”
“Taylor’s in the bathroom.”
“Yeah? Who are you here with?”
Her eyelids crinkle. “Who are you here with?”
“The boys,” I deadpan. She steps to the side to look behind me; for who, I have no fucking clue.
The guys I came with are already having a grand ‘ole time, something I should be doing, but I’m too busy getting into my feelings over a chick that wants to stone me with her words and berate me with parading a dude in front of me.
“Oh,” she mutters. “Are you having fun?”
Fun?
No, I want to punch a wall or Chuck. I need to get so fucked up that I can’t even form a thought or think of even what her name is.
“Not exactly,” I reply.
She frowns. “Why not? You like parties.”
“Because I’ve been too busy watching you shake your ass in front of one dude just to dance with another.”
Her eyes widen as she gapes at me. “You were...watching me?”
“Kinda hard not to when you look like a drowned rat.” The look of shock that she was wearing quickly fades into a hard furrow of her brows, and I brace myself for her temper. The one that seems to only come out around me.
Yes, I push her buttons.
Absolutely, I like to see her riled up. It keeps me somewhat grounded while being some sort of a high when her cheeks glow with exasperation or rage because I did something. Not going to deny either that I’d love to know what makeup sex is like with her.
“Thanks,” she rebukes. “You can go fuck off now.” Turning on her heel, she dismisses me without a second thought. Replacing me just as swiftly as I could any chick at our school.
Karma does work in mysterious ways.
My hand clenches her forearm, and I tug her toward the furthest bedroom down the hall. She’s shocked at first then, realizing what I’m doing and where we’re going, tries to halt in her tracks.
“Colson,” she snaps. “I’m with someone.”
“Oh, I fucking know,” I seethe, striding inside the empty room and closing the door behind us.
Sawyer steps back from me, trying to see me in the dark, so I oblige by finding a light switch and flicking it on. I stand in front of the door, blocking her only exit unless she wants to squeeze her ass through the small window behind her.
It wouldn’t fucking be a disadvantage for me.
“What do you want?” she leers, irritation in her tone.
I stand where I am, afraid of what I might do if I get too close to her. I can’t control anything when I’m around her, and I fucking hate it. I loathe that I have impulses for this stupid girl who won’t even talk to me when all I want to do is make sure she’s fine.
Yeah, I still wanted to fuck her, she’s fucking beautiful. But, geezus fuck, I just wanted her to answer me and not be flogged like a walking STD.
“Music was too loud,” I convey, making this sound like it’s okay that I just forced her into a room with me. “I want to know why you haven’t been returning my text messages. And why you’ve been avoiding me like you’re going to turn into stone by just looking at me?”
“I’m done,” she simply conveys.
I narrow my eyes. “Done?”
“That’s what I said.” She crosses her arms along her chest like that’s going to end our conversation.
“We never began,” I counter with my eyes turning into slits.
“And we’re not going to.” I take the step that my legs have been nagging me to do and stare at her.
“All I wanted to do was take you home that day,” I explain. “You were upset and—”
“You’re killing my buzz, Colson. Just get over it.” My jaw loosens because I don’t expect her to be so...me in this situation. That she doesn’t look as frazzled as I feel or remorseful for her clear neglect of just telling me to fuck off instead of driving me crazy with acting like I don’t exist.
“Who’s the fucking guy?” I sneer, jerking my head toward the door behind me. “You dating again now?”
“No.”
“Then why does he think it’s okay for him to touch you?” Her brows furrow, and she looks at me like I’ve lost my damn mind.
I think I have.
In all my life, I’ve never spent this much time on a girl. One that is getting more of a fucking mouth on her as the weeks go by.
“
You think you can,” she rebukes.
Cause you’re fucking mine.
Because I want to be the first thing you think of when you wake up, just like you are mine.
“I have time invested.”
“Liam is a friend.”
“And you let all your guy friends fucking touch you like that?”
“Fuck off,” she scoffs. “We’re done here.” She begins to stride toward the door, but I block her path.
“You got my fucking attention, Bases,” I snarl. “And I’ll be fucking damned if that tall motherfucker gets to kiss you before I do.”
“You are obsessed with that night,” she enunciates. “Who cares, I don’t sit there and—”
“You’re fucking lying,” I counter. “I see the way you look at me. How your cheeks flush when I get too close or the fact that you held my hand next to your boyfriend just because you wanted to. You regret your decision to kiss him over me, and I’m not the only one who thinks that.”
“What do you want me to say?” she snaps, her hands going up in the air. “That I wanted you to own me for just a moment without you terrorizing or taunting me with it? For you not to throw in my face how my body would, more than likely, mesh and melt with yours? That as much as I hate myself for holding your hand, that I still wouldn’t take it back because it was the one moment I could keep where we were just normal? Where you weren’t asshole Colson and I wasn’t stupid little Sawyer.”
Sawyer takes a step toward me, and I lock up. Every piece of me calls out to her. Every fragment of my body wants to feel hers, and I don’t know what or how to make it stop.
The words that I should say never leave my mouth, my subconscious and the devil on my shoulder won’t let me forget how much I want her. It’s a double-edged sword, gutting me out because she doesn’t want me but entering my stomach smoothly because maybe she does.
“Well, guess what,” Sawyer continues. “I’m not going to say any of those things. As far as I’m concerned, you and Gavin don’t exist to me. And soon, I won’t exist to you two either. You’ll be leaving Freemont, and I’ll be wherever. If you’ve never kissed a redhead before, go ask Gina Masters, she dyes it a different shade every two weeks. I’m not going to admit any—”
“You just did,” I croak out, feeling my body become rigid because she just confirmed that she likes what small things we’ve shared. That I wasn’t the only one that thought about it because I was starting to lose my grip on reality.
Sawyer’s face softens, but she doesn’t avert her gaze from mine. With whatever liquor she has coursing through her veins, it’s emptying out every dirty little secret that she’s kept hidden away.
“Who’s the guy, Sawyer?” I ask her again softly, closing some more of the distance between us.
“I told you, just a friend.” She blinks, holding her ground to mine.
“Looks like more to me.”
“Again,” she chants. “I don’t have to explain anything to you.”
Before I know it, we’re chest to chest, her widened eyes expose her glazed irises at our lack of space and how every time we’re like this the sexual tension sparks between us. That our secrets start to claw themselves out of the depths of our souls and wanting to act upon them.
Her chest starts to come out in heavy, silent pants, and in her drunken state, I don’t want her scared of me or thinking that I’m going to do something. Like, kiss or throw her on the twin bed in the room with the sailboats on it.
“I’m not going to kiss you, relax,” I tell her.
She swallows. “Good.” I lean toward her lips, feeling the shattered breaths leaving her mouth hit my chin.
“I’m going to kiss you when you are fully sober and not at a college party. I’m going to do it when—” The bedroom door behind me bursts open, and I don’t get to turn around before I hear another male’s voice.
“What the fuck are you doing?!” I’m whipped around by my shoulder to come face to face with Country Chuck. His face is crimson, painted in pissed off and ready to throw down with me.
“I know him,” Sawyer chimes in. “We go to school together.” He doesn’t look at her, still keeping his narrowed eyes at me.
“Still doesn’t fucking explain why the hell you’re in an empty room together.”
“We’re fucking friends,” I bark. “Can’t say the same for you with your dick all up in her ass.”
Pain hammers into the side of my head. I didn’t see the sucker punch coming, but my jaw certainly feels it. I take a staggering step back, shocked at first, off my game being the second.
Immediately, I barrel into his stomach, knocking him into a dresser or wall, I’m not sure, hearing things rattling off a surface. A hit plows into my ribcage, and I return the gesture with one to his spine, pushing off him to get a better swing on him.
This dude is tall as hell. I’d have to grab a chair or step stool to get evenly level with him. So, I take the only free shot I have and deliver a jab to his stomach. He cowers over, a little, which still gains me no access to his face. Cocking back to catch his side again, Sawyer’s red hair flashes in front of me, her hands coming around me in a bear hold.
“Colson, stop,” she pleads, advancing me backward. My body immediately softens against hers, my eyes glued on the ass clown behind her until he moves, making me tense up again.
“Get out of the way, Bases,” I snarl, trying to pry myself out of her grasp.
“I don’t want you to get hurt,” she whispers into my chest. Her arms lock tighter around me, and I snap.
I’m tired of this shit.
The hold that she has on me.
The way she cares but doesn’t want me to know.
The fact that I pushed aside my tunnel vision of leaving Freemont and staying the hell away from her to stand here just to fight over her.
I break from her hold and squeeze her forearms. “Tell him to go.”
“What?”
“Show me that you care about me,” I profess. “Tell your friend to leave.”
“But I—”
“You better get your fucking hands off her,” Country Chuck sneers, stepping closer to us.
I don’t say anymore, I just wait for her to make a move. It’d be a small gesture, but it’d mean something. She isn’t with Gavin, we’re both free to do whatever we want, and I need to know, for sure, that she puts up a facade to save face or because she would feel guilty.
“I’ll only be another minute,” Sawyer says calmly to the asshole behind her. She’s still peering up at me, crushing my self-pride and esteem into crumbs. No force or pull has ever ridden the hit-it-and-quit-it rule for me.
“I’m not leaving you alone with—”
“Then stand outside the door,” Sawyer retorts. “Count to sixty.”
“Sixty fucking seconds,” he growls, making his way out the bedroom door. I don’t waste any time the moment the door clicks closed. I open my mouth, but I almost choke on my words because Sawyer wraps her arms around my neck and kisses me.
On the cheek.
Her lips press into my skin, searing them into my bloodstream and stirring my confusion, control, and doubt into one bucket of turmoil. My fingertips find her waist, and I pull her closer to me, but the moment our chests touch, her lips break away.
“Colson,” she whispers so softly that my cock stirs and I can’t breathe. The tender way she calls my name, the closeness of her body.
I want this girl.
I want her to be mine.
It’s not lost on me, it hasn’t been for quite some time now, I’ve just been keeping myself in the shadows of denial where it’s safe. I’m starting to change the promise I made to myself of not letting anything or anyone get in my way of a scholarship and breaking free of this town.
I can’t fight her off, she pulls me in with such ferocity that I don’t know what to do or how to push it away. Something about her calls to me, softly compelling me that she won’t hurt or hold me back. That Sawyer is so much diff
erent from the country girls I’m used to.
She’s not a country girl, she’s from the Midwest.
“You and I can’t be together,” she says, looking into my chest. Her fingers clutch my T-shirt as though the soft cotton will give her some comfort. “We have this attraction, I won’t deny it, but I can’t do it. I don’t trust you and I won’t give myself away again to a guy who has to be with another girl every week. I won’t sit here and listen to your lies or that I’m the only one in your life. You are who you are, and I’m me. You don’t want—”
“I want you,” I break in on a broken exhale. “I’m not Gavin. I don’t bullshit to—”
“You’re close enough.” She attempts to break away from me, but I keep her where she is, gripping her waist. Where she belongs, close to me, pressed up against me, and in my arms, where I’ll keep her safe.
“Sawyer.” Her real name snatches her attention, and she looks up at me. The glazed coating over her eyes is disappearing, I killed her buzz, but I want her to remember this. I want her to memorize my words.
I know that she’s upset about how shit went down with Gavin, it’s fucking annoying, but I get it. She offered herself and her time to him just for him to fuck it up.
All I know is that I won’t.
I couldn’t if I tried because I’m losing the battle between keeping her at arms’ length and completely face planting into the depths of the point of no return.
“You’ll find that we’re very different in a few ways,” I tell her, gently rubbing my fingers along her lower back. “I know you don’t have a reason to trust me, especially after...everything. I’m just asking for you to be open-minded.”
“I have been,” she mutters. “More than you deserve.”
“I know. Just keep it open for me, let me prove myself, Bases. No bullshit or—”
“Sixty!” Country Chuck calls out behind the closed door. Sawyer abandons the inches between us and steps away. This time, I let her, still holding her green pools in my line of sight.
“I have to go,” she recites. I nod, not wanting her to leave. Not wanting her to leave with him. “I just want time to myself. Please don’t—” The door to the bedroom swings open, and I know that her keeper isn’t letting us have another second.