Trace just fixes his intent gaze on his cock, which now quivers with a little bead of pre-cum on the head. Could he really be as close as I am? I groan again, to show my hunger. He grips himself in one hand, re-positions himself over me, then, slowly draws his girth up to my hole. I feel the tip of him—round, wide, hovering—as he gazes into my eyes. The purity of his expression returns with full force. As we lock eyes, he pushes the rest of himself slowly inside me. My mouth parts. I feel myself tense and slacken with the unfamiliar pressure, I feel a twinge of pain as my body shifts to accommodate his size once he's fully immersed, eased by my wetness, we smile at one another, and it's un-tentative. It's the surest I've ever been about anything.
Trace starts to rock inside me, his lower back guiding his thrusts. His breath grows heavy. His eyebrows scrunch. Each time, he pulls himself nearly all the way out of my body—until he pushes back with a fresh strength. I reach down and grab hold of his ass; feel his cheeks firming and flexing below my palms. I bring my knees up, lending him a new angle; I raise my ass slightly, so he can drive even deeper into me. Each time, his hugeness hurts a little less.
“Yes, Trace,” I murmur into the crook of his lowered ear. My own breathing grows rapt. He leans over me, and our raised nipples touch. He's thrusting faster now, and I feel myself widening again, I feel my legs tensing. I've never come this way before—from just a cock.
“Get on your knees,” he commands me, right as I'm hovering at the tip once more. “I want to take you from behind.” My nails are digging into his back, but still I'm compelled to obey. He slides out of me, and I weakly turn my body toward the carpet. Trace guides my hips to a raised position, parallel with the floor. He runs his hands around the swells of my ass. Without the confirmation I seem to find in his eyes, I am briefly embarrassed. Here's another position I've never tried with anyone else.
I'm immediately surprised by how good it feels. How easy and slick his entrance is: how ripe and willing my cavity is. I curve my back like I'm a cat, I shake my hair out along my spine. Trace lurches forward and sinks a hand into my mane, begins to tug slightly on my hair. In response, I ram my ass against his cock, and am surprised once more at how great the rough-housing makes me feel.
His thighs are strong; I know because I reach one hand back to caress his thrusting hips, to trace the fuzz along his upper legs. While his other hand kneads the flesh of my ass, pulling me back and towards him in repetitive motion, I feel myself once more approaching a crest. I feel inches away from coming, and he's only been inside me for a few minutes.
“Fuck,” I hear Trace grunt above me. I swivel my head, so we're making eye contact again. His green eyes are hell-bent; possessed with a strange fury. His hand burrows deeper into my hair, yanking my chin up.
“I want you to come now,” he tells me. His voice is surprisingly articulate, given our combined effort—the sweat running down my chest, collecting between my tits. But once more, my body bends to improbable will. It's at the top of one thrust. His dick, now comfortable inside me, seems to expand and contract just as it rams my G-spot. The moment I begin to feel a new warmth inside me, a new moisture collecting in my hollow—I come. With two rattling, urgent cries, we come together on the carpet. Our wetness slides out of me and tickles the insides of my thighs. I groan, as I have never groaned.
Trace pulls himself out slow, then quickly rolls over to rest on the carpet, beside me. He’s still panting. I watch his chest rise and fall. Suddenly, I'm aware of the pain in my knees—the grating sensation of a fresh rug-burn greets me, and I sink forward, onto my thighs. The material is itchy and unfriendly on my skin, but most of me doesn't care—because I'm actually tingling all over with an incredible sensation. It's like every part of me has become liquid, and I could spread and seep and sink into the floor. I flatten one cheek against the ground, I let the room's chill wash over my body. It's odd: we're in the very same place, ten minutes away from the past—but everything feels different.
Don't say anything, Joanna. You will not be the first to speak. It's like When Harry Met Sally. The power is yours to give away.
“Wow,” I breathe.
Dumbass.
Trace's eyes are closed, but a peaceful smile hangs over his features.
“You know, I don't usually—I don't want you to think I'm—well. You know.”
Trace still doesn't say anything, but I think I see a muscle in his jaw twitch. He lets out a long, rattling sigh through his nostrils. He seems to sink further into the carpet. The party sounds are returning, slowly but surely. I think I hear voices outside the door.
“Don't think about it too much,” he says, finally. His eyes are still closed.
“What do you mean, 'don't think about it?'” Unbidden, I recall the evening of our first meeting. The animal sounds in the garage, that girl he must have had in his room—oh, God. Am I actually an idiot? Did I really just fall for some hot guy's line, in order to get laid in a basement? Here, at this oh-so- predictable high-school party?
But before I can articulate some fresh neurosis, Trace rolls over. He opens his eyes, and I'm back on the earth again. Tied to his sincerity, this truth. He winks at me.
“So what now, Harter?”
“What do you mean, 'what now?”
“I don't know! What do we do now? We've got my parents, and Claudia, and err—Mr. Mahoney. What are we supposed to tell them all?”
So very un-When Harry Met Sally, Jo.
“Don't think so much,” Trace repeats, in his maddening way. “What do you feel like doing? Physically, I mean? Right now?”
He wiggles his eyebrows. And yes, the cool, comfortable feeling along my skin is saying: do it again. I want you inside me again, telling me exactly what to do. I want to feel you in new places, for longer times, forever...
“Mind in the gutter, Prine,” he laughs. At last, he touches me again; his damp, slightly sticky fingers come to cup my raised hip, and I realize then how comfortable he makes me—Trace doesn't make me afraid, or at all insecure about my body. Lying naked next to my foster brother on this crappy basement rug is just fine with me.
“I guess, I feel like...jamming.”
“Bingo!” He laughs again, with his full chest voice. “You know there's an opposite of the Mean Reds. I'm not sure there's a proper name for it, but I call 'em the Happy Mondays: when you want to bang something out because you feel so damn good.”
We lie still for another moment on the ground, eyes fluttering open and closed. But finally—too soon—he sits up, resumes pulling up his pants, and comes to stand. Like a gentlemen, he passes me my toga, leggings and panties—bunched where they've fallen—and looks away while I get dressed. I keep waiting for the snicker-y grin to fall off his face, but it doesn't.
“Let's get your violin,” Trace says. My heart plummets a little as we walk towards the door. This basement is our funny little Eden, I guess. An 'Eden' with a gross rug and no furniture.
It's funny to hear Trace start banging on the door again (whereas I had totally forgotten we were locked in here...)—but before I can lend my support to the noise, the outer door swings open, towards us. Trace takes a startled step back, and I lurch around to see who's greeted him. I'm even smiling, because I'm such an insensitive asshat dork.
“Glad you guys didn't kill each other,” Claudia-my-best-friend says. Her words drip with scorn. Her eyes are red. She doesn't look at all like she's been laughing with a crew of admirers recently. I can't tell just how much she knows, but she definitely knows, and it's not like we make for a convincing cover-up story. I notice, the moment real light falls into our love-nest, that Trace's shirt is half-buttoned, and my hair is a crazy bird nest.
“Claudia!” I cry out, but she turns hard and trots down the hallway, fast. I go to follow her, but Trace extends an arm to stop me.
“She needs time, Jo.”
“She's my best friend! Oh my God. Oh my God, I actually can't believe we just did that to her.”
“She wants s
pace!” His green eyes plead. It would be so easy to follow these eyes to the ends of the earth, but then, wouldn't it be so wrong? What about my parents? Wouldn't they be horrified to learn I was making it with their foster child? I definitely wasn't thinking about them, mid-moan on the carpet. My throat feels dry again. I had totally forgotten about my best friend—the one person in my life who I try to never forget about. I am absolutely the scum of the earth.
Yet Trace draws me into a hug, and I sink into him. Wordlessly, he takes my hand. He steps out into the hallway, where I can hear the party going in full swing. At first, I bow my head—it seems pretty likely that most of these basketball players and their wifeys heard us going at it, after all—but the longer he holds me, the stronger I feel. I raise my head, and hold it up tall.
Chapter Nine
November 1st
“Joanna! You're...glowing!”
“What?”
“Earl, look. Jo is glowing. A mother can always tell.”
“What are you even talking about? I'm totally regular-colored.”
“But she's got a little extra light in her cheeks! Am I wrong?”
My Dad slides his glasses an inch or so down his nose, peering at me with his professor-face. I can feel myself blushing under their scrutiny, but I also don't give a rat's ass.
Dad doesn't say anything, but he smiles a little. My mother just shakes her head, and re-directs her attention to The New Yorker.
“I'm not crazy. I know that look. I had that look when I met your father. He was the most strapping stoner on the quad –”
“Alright, sweetheart. That's enough of that. The kids will be late for school!” My mother grins across the table at Trace, but I don't look up.
Not looking at him is as difficult for me as it probably was for Orpheus, but with every fiber of my being I concentrate on our spelt pancakes. Every so often, his extended forearm falls across my sightline. The hastily rolled cuff of his new button-down, a deep crimson, seizes my attention like something shiny. Then there's the soft, tangled hair racing from his wrist to his elbow.
Like you could keep your cool, while the boy who rocked your world all weekend long is holding up his end of the subterfuge at your family's breakfast table.
I close my eyes for a second, and I see us, back on Friday night: him and me stumbling over the grass outside Hank's house, flagging down a ride home (as Claudia had, very rightfully, ditched me at the party). He and I laughing over one another, like drunken hyenas. I'd felt drunk without having had a single Natty Ice. Some now-faceless basketball dude had finally abandoned us at the end of our driveway, after Trace had slung me over his shoulder with ease like the perfect jock, he'd carried me inside to his secret studio...oh, the music we'd made. I'd shown him my violin. He’d looked so reverent, as I rushed through the first few bars of a Nocturne that was written for piano.
“I'm not really on my A-Game right now,” I'd said, setting my bow down after just a few measures. I couldn't help it. How was I supposed to concentrate when we were safe in our own home, perfectly alone and totally free to go to town on one another? But, Trace had made me play more. He'd even asked me to close my eyes, and pretend he wasn't there, as he had when I'd played his kit. After I'd finished a movement, I'd jumped a little at discovering his hands on my hips, his mouth on the back of my neck...
“And why are you wearing that big, silly scarf, darling? It's not that cold!”
Because if I take off the scarf, Mom, you'll see the five blooming hickies your own darling foster kid has imprinted onto my throat...
“J and I better get a move on, Janice. Those basketball guys don't mess around.”
I can't help but flick my eyes up at that: those basketball guys? I think I catch the tail-end of one of Trace's snarky grins, before I dive back into breakfast. We haven't been able to hold a proper conversation for a full day now—Janice and Earl corralled us into seeing a Civil War documentary Sunday night, during which we both made eyes at one another across the theatre seats—so I've had no real indication of how school today will go. But, if he's actually letting me hitch a ride to school with him and his jock friends... My life could not be more of an eighties movie, I can't even.
Outside, just past the purview of my parents (and Dad seems visibly relieved to be released from drive-your-daughter-to-work duty), I reach for Trace's jeans. Just one tentative squeeze on the ass. He keeps his gaze level, fixed on the horizon of the end of our street—but he smiles.
He'd put his hands on my hips, then sunk straight to his knees. He'd murmured into the backs of my thighs: “You play so beautiful.” I'd turned to face him, set the instrument down, then let him have me again. We were both sore by this point, but it didn't matter.
I'd let myself cry out in the garage, relying on the soundproofing to staunch my sound. It had been so humid in that room. He'd pulled himself out fast, letting his pants fall to the floor with a dull thud. I'd been ready for him. I'd wrapped my legs around him, there on the floor, and hugged him so tightly to me that for a second I couldn't tell which of our heartbeats was which. I couldn't even wait for him, that second time, I'd come first, and harder than I had just hours before, at the party. We’d fallen asleep like that, from what I could remember—naked and soaked with our own juices.
Even though I'd woken up the next morning in my own bed...
“Here they come,” Trace murmurs, tilting his face so his lips brush against my hair. He leans into me a little, and I take the opportunity to squeeze his fingers. I know, from my previous “relationship,” that the tricky part of “first like” can arrive when other people get involved. What feels amazing in secret can shudder and collapse in the light of day.
I really, really don't want that to happen.
My mother pokes her head out the window, and I swear Trace actually leaps in the air to create the illusion of distance between us.
“You kids have a good day, alright?” Janice hollers, shielding her eyes to the morning sun. From the driveway, Hank leans on the horn of his muffler-less Toyota, and Trace slings his backpack over one shoulder. I take a deep breath and follow.
“Hanky-Panky,” Trace says, rolling up to the driver's side. “My sister-wife is riding with us today. That cool?”
“Gross!” I say, my voice arriving in space way more shrill than I mean it. “Don't call me a sister-wife. We're not really siblings.”
“I was just joking, J.” Now, Trace covers his eyes with those impenetrable Aviators that make him look like a celebrity rapper. Without the ability to read his eyes, I'm thrown. I already wish we hadn't left the house today.
“Don't care about your creepy bullshit, Harter. She can come.” I open the back-door of the car, hoping Trace'll follow me—but he takes shotgun, which I soon learn is a strategic move. The back of Hank's car is like a sea of abandoned fast-food containers.
“You get the stuff, or what?” Hank says to Trace. I glimpse (at) the older boy's eyes flickering suspiciously in the rearview mirror. Trace doesn't take off his glasses, nor does he acknowledge his buddy—instead, he leans out the passenger window and waves a little rabidly at my mom, who's still grinning out the window, like some cartoon of a neighbor in the nineteen fifties.
“Not now,” Trace cedes, through clenched teeth.
“What are you guys talking about?”
“Don't worry your pretty little head, nerd girl.”
What happens next is fast: Trace lodges a right-hook straight into Hank's shoulder. It's a childish gesture, but all three of us note the power behind it—this was the punch of a man who does not fuck around. Hank braces his shoulder (“Jesus, man! I was just kidding!”), Trace swivels in his seat to look at me. He pulls the glasses an inch or so down his nose, and I see that his green eyes are smiling. And just like that, the glow is back. Everything is hunky-dory.
“Just take us to school, Hank. No detours, y'hear?”
“Whatever, partner. Fuck.”
The rest of the ride is silent. Trace
leaves a hand draped across the gnawed-looking middle space in Hank's car, where I figure cup-holders are supposed to be. I place my hand on top of his, and together, we make warmth.
* * *
School is another story, for one thing, there's a lion pacing in front of my locker: Claudia. Her hair is even twisted up into the topknot she makes when she wants to be taken seriously, and she's never looked at me the way she’s looking at me now—like I'm a stain on some favorite dress. Like I'm pond scum.
Which, of course, I am.
“Oh. It's you.”
“Listen. Can we please talk? Why haven't you been responding to any of my messages?”
“I only have one thing to say to you: 'you're a huge skank and a terrible friend.'”
“Claudia!” I take a tentative step towards my BFF. We've never fought like this before. A part of me wishes Trace was standing next to me, but at the same time I know this is a battle I need to fight by myself.
“Look, remember when we were in eighth grade? And you stole my Pudding Pak at lunch and then later tried to claim it was an accident? Remember that?”
“I so don't care where this is going.” Ever the drama queen, Claudia tosses her head like a horse, and I catch a whiff of her cucumber-melon shampoo. She's already speaking several decibels above what's hallway-acceptable.
“Just...hear me out! Remember how I caught you, and you were so sad and ashamed, and I said that it was okay, we could always just give one another a 'pass?'”
“You want a 'pass?!' For FUCKING my DATE while the date was still HAPPENING?”
It's like the hallway freezes, and everyone looks up from whatever they were doing. I can actually hear a little cone of silence rippling out around us as people decide to watch.
“I just want you to believe that our friendship goes so much deeper than guys. I love you, and I never meant to hurt you, and –” the next thing I feel is copper in my mouth, because Claudia's slapped me so hard that my gum is bleeding. When I look up into her eyes, I see that we're both shocked. She looks almost scared. Her eyes flick from her red palm to my face and back again.
A Family Affair: My Bad Boy Foster Brother Page 10