“Don’t cry,” I repeated. “Got it.”
Tiffany rolled her eyes. “I meant happy tears.”
“You’re not wearing that.”
All three of us turned to my dad in the hallway.
My black, floor-length dress had a plunging “V” in the front and one in back. It was sexier than anything I’d ever owned, but I was so close to eighteen, I could taste it. It was time for Manning to see me as an adult. “Yes, I am.”
“Cathy,” Dad said in his are-you-serious tone.
“I helped her pick it out,” Mom said.
“It’s too revealing.”
“It’s too late,” Tiffany said. “Corbin will be here any minute.”
None of us had heard Manning come in the front door, but he walked up behind Dad. His eyes started at my hair and scanned over my collarbone, following the plunging neckline to the point between my breasts. “I agree with Charles,” he said.
What? He couldn’t be serious. I’d done all of this for him, from picking out the dress to giving Tiffany free rein over my hair and makeup.
“Manning,” Tiffany scolded. “You’re supposed to be on our side.”
“Find something else in your closet,” Dad said to me. “I already conceded about you getting a hotel room with your girlfriends for the night.”
Manning arched an angry, thick eyebrow. “A hotel room?”
Dad turned to Manning. “Her argument was that it was better she stay and watch out for her drunk friends. Do you believe it?”
Manning looked pissed. “No.”
“I don’t see why it needs to be so sexy,” Dad said. “At least find a sweater to put over it.”
“No,” I said, curling my hands into fists. Why did I need their permission to dress sexy when I was nearly eighteen? It seemed unfair. “I’ve done everything you’ve asked of me the last four years—longer even. I deserve this.”
“You’re being unreasonable, Charles,” Mom agreed.
“Because I want my daughter to come home safe?” he shot back.
“Daddy, she’s going with Corbin,” Tiffany said, walking over to stand in front of them. “You know Corbin. You know his dad and his family. Honestly, is there anyone safer she could be out with?”
Manning looked at the ground, but after a moment, Dad sighed in defeat. “I suppose not.”
A limo pulled up outside. My house had been designated the spot for our photoshoot, so next came the parents, who parked along the cul-de-sac.
“Looks like people are arriving,” Mom said, looking out the window. “Outside, everyone. Come on. Let’s not ruin Lake’s night before it’s begun.”
I’d gotten what I wanted, and maybe I should’ve been happy about that, but when Manning reached for Tiffany’s hand to lead her outside, all I felt was shock.
He reached for her hand.
Not the other way around.
It was a simple gesture, and maybe it didn’t mean anything—but maybe it did.
Corbin arrived next, slotting his dad’s Mercedes into the collection of foreign cars. He stepped out in one fluid movement, all six-foot-two of him, and buttoned his suit jacket. He’d gelled his hair off his face. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him wear it that way. Smiling, he walked toward me. The red corsage he carried almost matched the sun-kissed tip of his nose, and I knew from that alone that he’d already taken his board out in the twelve hours since he’d flown in.
“Oh, my,” Mom said. “He’s grown up. Even more handsome since leaving for college. You’re a lucky girl, Lake.”
Corbin swooped in to kiss my cheek. “You’ve got it wrong, Mrs. Kaplan,” he said. “I’ll be the luckiest guy at the dance for sure.”
I smiled up at him. “Thank you for coming. It means a lot.”
He covered his heart. “It’s my pleasure.”
Mom snapped a picture. Tiffany came over to position us for photos, tickling me in the process until I broke into laughter. “Stay still,” she complained, but snickered.
My smile faded when I locked eyes with Manning. He stood on the front patio, arms crossed, his expression pinched. The line of his jaw as taut as the veins in his neck.
From behind, Corbin put an arm around the front of my shoulders, kissed my cheek, and turned me away.
At dinner, Corbin told stories from college that made everyone at the table laugh. Between bruschetta and gnocchi, he laced his hand with mine and leaned in. “Having fun?”
“Yes,” I said honestly. Mona, Vickie and the rest of my friends didn’t hide their envy. Even Val, who’d turned down a few boys to come alone, asked if I wanted to trade dates. Corbin wasn’t just handsome but funny. He drew everyone’s attention at the table, but his attention was all mine, and my friends noticed.
His skills carried onto the dance floor. Corbin and his brothers had attended ballroom dancing classes to surprise his mom for his parents’ twenty-fifth wedding anniversary a few years ago, so he effortlessly took the lead during slow and fast dances. Some of my friends cut in, and after Corbin, their dates felt clumsy, grabbing at me. Corbin always came back for me.
After, we took over an entire floor of the hotel. Val, Vickie, Mona and I had our own room, but everyone congregated in a suite someone had rented. The boys pushed all the furniture to the perimeter of the room. Corbin played bartender while we danced, Val and I karaoke-ing to Shania Twain.
“Doing all right?” Corbin asked when I stopped by the kitchenette-turned-bar for a breather. “Have you ever had three drinks in a row?”
I laughed, pushing his shoulder, but I was the one to take a step back. “I’m fine. Did you say three?”
I was definitely buzzed—and more relaxed than I’d been in months. I hadn’t planned to drink tonight, maybe a few sips before the sleepover, but part of me just wanted to let loose for a night. I’d thought getting accepted to school would get my dad off my back, but it was still non-stop with college crap. He and I were going over dorms and playing phone tag with my new roommate’s parents and Mom took me shopping at Target practically every week. Dad had created a college summer reading list and had even taken off work early one day to drive me to the campus bookstore. The last couple weeks, we’d been getting into the really important things, like my class schedule. He wanted me to choose a major, and business was at the top of the list. He didn’t want to talk about electives like drama. Not until I’d decided on a major, even though everything I’d read said I didn’t need to right away.
Tonight wasn’t the time to stress. I took a long sip of orange juice and rum, watching Mona drunk-dance in the middle of the room. She didn’t seem to notice the song skipping until her date opened the tray and took the CD out.
“Hey!” she said, swaying.
He blew on the disc, wiping it on his dress shirt. “Just keep dancing.”
“But you stopped the music.”
“I’m surprised you even noticed. You’re more smashed than a pumpkin.”
She giggled as he put the CD back in and hit play on “1979.”
“I can’t believe I almost didn’t come tonight,” I told Corbin. “This is the best night I’ve—” I was about to say ever had, but that would be a lie. No night would ever compare to the ones I’d spent with Manning, especially the one under the stars. “The best I’ve had in a long time,” I finished.
He smiled widely, as happy as I’d ever seen him. “Yeah? I’m so glad. My prom was shit.”
Corbin and his friends had gone solo. From what he’d told me, they’d arrived at the dance, swooped in on some other guys’ dates, and spent the night drinking and gambling.
A girl reached between us for a handle of vodka, her cranberry juice making my nose wrinkle. “Why didn’t you guys take dates?”
“I didn’t want to. If I couldn’t bring the girl I wanted, none of them got to have a date.” He shifted as the girl grabbed a stack of Solo cups and took them into one of the bedrooms. “In case it isn’t clear, that girl was you.”
I laughed a
little. Corbin had always been charming, but he’d had a lot more girls to practice on since leaving high school. “You didn’t even ask me.”
He hesitated. “I was going to. I told Tiffany. She said your dad would neuter me if I tried, and you know something? I believe her. I mean, you’re almost in college and your dad was still looking at me tonight like he wanted to put me underground.”
“He’s protective.”
“They both are.”
I shook my head. “My mom? She was more excited about tonight than I was.”
“I don’t mean her. I’m talking about Tiffany’s boyfriend. He was giving me the same look.”
My throat dried. To anyone else, Manning had no reason to act that way over me. Had he watched Corbin and wished it was him?
Corbin topped off his drink. “But that’s probably because of me, not you.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I don’t think it was you her boyfriend was being protective of. See,” he cleared his throat, “I used to have this little crush on Tiffany. When I was a sophomore and she was friends with my brother.”
“I know. She told me.”
He leaned a hand on the counter. “I’m sorry.”
“Why?” I asked.
“For not telling you. I was afraid you’d, you know, blow me off if you found out.”
I shook my head. “I’d never blow you off, Corbin. You’re a good friend. You always have been.”
“I don’t mean blow me off as a friend,” he said and got quiet.
I looked into my drink. We’d been friends so long now, I’d thought it was clear that was all we’d ever be. But as he said it, I knew I hadn’t really believed it, and that I’d almost expected this. Did it make me a bad person that I’d let him go through all this anyway? “Corbin—I don’t . . . I’m not . . .”
He stepped a little closer. “Lake, I like you. I’ve told you this before.”
“I know, but that was a while ago. I mean, so much has happened since then. You’re in college with tons of girls, in a whole new city. We don’t even live in the same state.”
“We could.”
We’d had this discussion on the phone before. Corbin liked to tease me that some secret part of me didn’t want to go to USC. That I was only doing it to please my dad. It wasn’t true, but after my conversation with Val and Vickie about schools, and before my USC acceptance, I’d been thinking what-if. “I got into NYU,” I told him.
“What?”
“Nobody knows except Tiffany. And I’m not going. I already have a roommate and everything at USC, which is where I want to be.”
He shook his head. “Come visit me for a week after finals. I’ll take you around the city. You’ll change your mind, you’ll see.”
“No. I didn’t tell you so you’d convince me to go there.” I flicked my nail under the edge of my Solo cup. “I just wanted you to know, I have thought about other options, and USC is still what I want.”
“What about drama?” he asked. “I heard you were great as Sandy in Grease last year.”
As the understudy, I’d only gone on two nights when Ashley Hurley, the real actress in our class, had lost her voice. It’d been so far outside my comfort zone, but thrilling, too. “USC has a great film program,” I said, even though I hadn’t worked up the courage to point that out to my dad.
“And New York has fucking Broadway.” He took my hand, pulling me a little closer. “And it has me.”
“Corbin.”
“What?” His lips quirked into a knowing grin. He took my drink out of my hand and slipped an arm around my waist. “Want to dance?”
“We already did,” I said, but smiled as we swayed back and forth. “Like five times.”
“Sixth time is a charm.”
I gave him a look. “Like you need any more charm.”
“Yeah? You think I’m charming?” He lowered his mouth to my ear. “How do you resist?”
Could he feel my cheek warming against his, the uptick of my heartbeat? I hoped not. If he thought I was giving in to his advances, he’d never let me off the hook.
“If you guys were both seniors, you so would’ve been voted cutest couple,” Vickie said, passing through the room. She spent enough time around me to know Corbin and I weren’t more than friends, but she refused to believe it anyway. While I was looking at her, Corbin leaned in and put his lips to mine. Automatically, I kissed him back before a wave of guilt hit me. I started to pull away like I had on the couch, then stopped. Maybe it was the alcohol, but I wondered what it would feel like to keep going. Kissing Corbin felt more natural than kissing anyone else, probably even Manning. I knew I’d feel a lot of things with Manning, but I wasn’t sure natural would be one of them.
Corbin pulled away. “So you had a good time tonight?”
“Yes.”
“There’s a game of Kings going in the other room,” he said. “You want to go play?”
I’d enjoyed the first round, but I didn’t think I could keep up now without getting too drunk. The day was beginning to catch up with me, and nothing really sounded better than just hanging out with Corbin. “I think I’m good,” I said. “But I can watch if you want to.”
“I don’t. This is your night. Is there anything you wanted to do that we haven’t yet?”
“Not one thing.”
Corbin looped our intertwined hands around over my shoulder. “Come on. I want to show you something.” He handed me my drink and took his before leading me through the suite. Some of our friends began to whistle, even though I was pretty sure all the bedrooms were occupied.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked.
“Away from these goons,” he said, opening the front door to lead us into the hotel hallway.
I didn’t want to think too hard about it. I leaned my weight on him, snuggling into his side. His cologne smelled good, but underneath, he was pure Corbin—surfboard wax and sunscreen. He took a sip of his orange juice and rum, then leaned down to give me a wet, citrus-y kiss. Was just kissing Corbin so bad? We zig-zagged down the hall, leaning left before overcorrecting to the right. Our drinks sloshed, our teeth clinked. He tasted good, felt good, too, but it was still weird to be kissing my best friend.
He stopped all of a sudden, setting his drink on the carpet. He fished his wallet from his back pocket and held out a room key.
I released his hand, flipping the plastic over in mine. “What is this?” I asked dumbly.
He nodded at the door behind me, and what he was trying to tell me clicked. I looked from the door to the key and back. “You got us a room?”
“Yup. Before you say no, just come in and look around.” He swiped the key, and the door opened with a click. He turned his blue eyes on me. “I know you weren’t expecting this, so there’s no pressure, Lake.”
I peeked into the room, more out of curiosity than anything. It was smaller than the suite but just as nice. Nicer, even, because there wasn’t music blasting or people everywhere. I spotted a bottle in a bucket of ice. “There’s champagne,” I said.
“I know. I put it there.”
“When?” I asked. “You’ve been with me all night.”
“Earlier.” He opened the door wider to reveal a white bedspread dotted with red rose petals. “I know it looks romantic, and that’s because it’s supposed to be.” He crooked a corner of his mouth. “But it doesn’t have to be if you don’t want.”
“Oh.”
“You all right?” he asked. “You’re a little pale.”
I touched the doorframe. “It might be the alcohol.”
He laughed. “It might be the sex.”
I smiled despite my apprehension. It was so easy with Corbin. Easy to talk to him—like Val, he actually listened when I spoke instead of trying to one-up me like my other friends. Easy to laugh with him, to be around him. Easy to love him. I did love Corbin, so why couldn’t it be easy to fall head over heels for him? To get butterflies? Maybe it would be, if only I
gave him a chance. After all, Manning seemed to be doing that for Tiffany. He’d taken her hand earlier tonight. I downed a courage-bolstering sip of my drink and entered the room.
The door closed behind me as Corbin dimmed the lights. He followed me in and lifted my drink from my hands to set it on the nightstand with his. Tucking some of my hair behind my ear, he said, “We can take it slow. Talk for a while, even.” Then, he kissed me again. I forced myself to focus on his lips, his breath, him. I wasn’t doing anything wrong. A lot of girls in my class had either had sex or were planning to tonight. None of them had someone as sweet and fine as Corbin, I was pretty sure.
Corbin deepened the kiss, and my body pressed into his of its own accord. Feeling how solid his chest was, my nipples hardened. Doing this didn’t necessarily have to mean we were official or anything. I wasn’t sure I could ever be official with anyone, not as long as my heart belonged to someone else. Was that fair to Corbin? Maybe. He’d had sex before and hadn’t made anything official with anyone. He’d always been a gentleman to me, but I knew that wasn’t the case with other girls.
Corbin circled my waist and walked me backward to the bed. The thought of lying down with him pulled at something deep in my belly—the something I was pretty sure I was supposed to feel about sex. He slid his hand down my lower back and over my backside, pulling me against him. As his hardness pressed against my belly, I couldn’t help my small gasp.
He groaned. “I’ve wanted this for a long time, Lake. This is so perfect.”
“I don’t know if I want to do this,” I blurted.
“Why not?” He kissed my temple. “Give me one good reason.”
Manning.
“I’ve never . . . I don’t think about you like that.”
He lowered my hand to his pants, right over his zipper. “Like what? This?”
I was touching Corbin’s penis. I might’ve laughed, except that it felt very serious. “This could change our friendship.”
“I hope it does.”
Corbin could have college girls, but he wanted me. My existence didn’t anger him. He didn’t keep things from me, not even his feelings. He didn’t hate me or my clothing or my choices. He took my face in his hands and kissed me harder, sweeping my desire up to the next level. I slid my hand along him. I didn’t know what to do, except that I knew I was doing it right, and not just by the pained moans coming from him. I was the one touching him, and yet my tummy was fluttering.
Something in the Way: A Forbidden Love Saga: The Complete Collection Page 42