by Jamie Shaw
“Did he tell you he wanted to keep you a secret?”
“YES!” I bark at him. “He told me not to tell anyone about us!”
“Forever?”
I want to scream at Leti again, but instead, I think back and remember what Shawn had said. He said that he didn’t want Adam and Joel to know because they’d make the rest of the tour hell. He looked down into my eyes and said, “Later. Just not yet.”
My molars ache when I stop grinding them together. “I think he wanted to wait until after the tour . . . ”
“And did you give him the chance to tell people after you guys got home?”
God, last night . . . Last night, my mom had asked him if he had a girlfriend, and he said he didn’t know. He looked right at me. In front of everyone. Like it was my decision. And after my outburst, he chased me. He chased me like I was the only thing he cared about.
When a fresh round of tears springs to my eyes, Leti stands up, wipes off his jeans, and holds a hand down for me. “Are you ready to go back now?”
“What do I do?” I stare up into his golden eyes, set into a soft face illuminated by the sun’s golden rays. He smiles warmly at me when I give him my hand.
“You chase him.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
ON THE HIGHWAY, my foot weighs heavy on the gas pedal of the beat-up Chrysler convertible that Mason and I fixed up my junior year of high school. I’m so distracted, I haven’t even turned the music on. My thoughts are as blurred as the cars I pass, and all I can do is stare out the dusty windshield as I make my way toward the same city where Shawn lives, the same place where we tuned guitars together on my roof.
I’m not chasing him.
There are still too many questions left unanswered. And part of me is afraid to ask—to even wonder. I know why I lied, but I don’t know why he did. I was the one he crushed six years ago. I was the one with everything to lose. But still, he lied just the same as I did, and I don’t know what that means. I don’t know what we are. I don’t know what I ever meant to him, if I meant anything at all.
I only know what a mess I made last night.
My brothers could have killed him, and maybe that’s what I wanted when I was screaming at him at the top of my lungs. I was furious—over a thousand lies he told, over a thousand lies I told, and over a thousand lies I believed even though no one ever told them. I thought he wanted to keep me a secret. I thought he was playing me for an idiot. I thought a lot of things, but after everything Leti said this morning . . . now I can’t think at all.
All I can do is drive.
Because even if I wanted to chase him, no one knows where he is. Rowan was the one who drove Leti to my parents’ house this morning, and before I left, she told me that no one has seen him since last night. He took off as soon as the guys got back to his apartment building, and now he’s not answering his phone.
I thought about calling him to see if he’d answer for me, but something kept my fingers away from his number. Maybe it was embarrassment. Maybe it was pride. Maybe it was fear. Or maybe it was all of those—six years and three months of bottled-up emotions that made me feel more vulnerable than I ever had.
Had he really been chasing after me, just like my mom said? Did he mean what he said on the roof the night of Van’s party? With my shades down and the wind in my hair, I want to believe it.
But it isn’t until I see his car parked in my driveway that a little part of me starts to.
I coast into the driveway and park the silver Chrysler next to Shawn’s black Mitsubishi Galant, hope flaring in my chest like a flame threatening to burn me alive. I clamp down on the fire, reminding myself that it’s just an empty car. He could be here to chew me out for humiliating him. He could be here to kick me out of the band.
With my nerves bunched tight in my shoulders, I gather my things from the backseat of the car and carry them up to my apartment, half expecting to find him in my unlocked room. When I don’t find him there, I dump my things in a corner and venture into the old lady’s house, entertaining her warm welcome home and casually asking if a boy stopped by to see me today. But apparently, the only boy she saw today was the neighbor boy, Jimmy, who crashed his bike into her mailbox because he was trying to hold his Labrador’s leash while he was riding, and thank God Jimmy was wearing a helmet, because he could’ve died on her lawn, and he broke her mailbox post, but his parents made him come over to apologize and fix it, and she wishes she knew if anyone did find that damn dog—
With my toes twitching in my boots, I back out of the room and eventually out of the house, with the old woman’s voice still talking to herself somewhere in the living room. I slip back into the garage, back up the stairs, and back into my loft, with only one place left to check.
At my window, I stare out at Shawn sitting on my roof, his long legs stretched over the shingles as he gazes off into nowhere. He’s in the same clothes he was in last night—a nice black button-down and an untattered pair of black jeans—and it’s like the night stuck to him, preserving his dark form from the golden sunlight stretching across the rest of the roof.
He’s untouchable, and even when I slide the window open, his concentration remains unbroken. I sit near him in the silence, having no idea what to say or feel or do. He could have gone anywhere last night—there have to be at least a dozen groupies within a one-mile radius of his apartment—but he’s on my roof, outside of my room, where no one would find him but me.
My head turns in his direction, but it’s like I’m not even here. He won’t even look at me. His green eyes are pinned on some distant place, and I’m not sure I’ve truly found him at all.
Eventually, I stop searching, and together, we stare out at the same spot on the sunlit horizon—me with my arms around my knees, him with his hands flattened against the roof at his sides. When he speaks, even the sun shines behind a cloud that sweeps across the sky. “I’ve been thinking all night of what I could say to you.” His voice is dry, unreadable, and it makes my stomach drop.
“Did you sleep here?” I ask.
When he finally gazes over at me, his thick black lashes hang low over tired eyes that tug at the splinters of my heart. His scruff is days old, his hair is an untamed mess, and in his all-black attire, he looks . . . beautiful. Heartbreakingly beautiful.
“I didn’t really sleep,” he says, and he stares back out at that invisible spot again. His chest rises on a heavy breath before deflating in a shallow one. “I don’t know what to say, Kit. All night, I’ve tried to come up with some way to say I’m sorry, for every single mistake I’ve made with you, but I still don’t have it.”
The hopelessness in his voice manifests in my own chest—an empty aching that makes me want to wrap my arms around him and pray he holds me too. Even if it means nothing to him. Even if it doesn’t change anything.
The sun peeks out from behind the clouds, and when he gazes over me, all I can do is stare back at him. “I lost you before I ever had you,” he says, “and all I’ve been doing is sitting up here feeling sorry for myself.” He shakes his head in silent admonishment of himself. “Do you realize how big of an asshole that makes me? That I’m so jealous of the guy I should have been for you, I can’t even find the right way to apologize for the guy I was?”
He’s saying all the things I needed to hear days, weeks, years ago, and I don’t even realize I’m crying until a tear slides over my lashes and trickles down my cheek. It’s hot and speaks of a million different things—of the sadness I feel that we’re over, of the regret I feel that we never began, of the relief I feel that he’s sorry, and above all, of the emptiness, of the distance that stretches between us until it’s much too far to cross.
The clouds open up for us, and light raindrops begin to mix with the shallow streams of tears on my face. Shawn just stares at me from across the void, until his somber voice says, “I should go.”
My head is shaking back and forth even before I find my voice. “No. Come inside.”
<
br /> I walk to my window ahead of Shawn, not waiting to see if he’ll follow, and inside my room, I wait and I wait and I wait. When he finally climbs in after me, his hair and shoulders damp from the rain, I want to hold his face in my hands and kiss the raindrops from his cheeks. I want to tell him I’m sorry too. Instead, I lean against a wall, my arms crossed over my chest to keep them from reaching out. I have a million questions, and if I don’t ask them now, I know I never will.
Shawn closes the window behind him, and then he sits back against the sill and waits for me to say something.
“Were we really together?” I ask in a moment of forced courage. I’m terrified of his answer, but I need to know it, even if it twists the knife in my chest. “After Van’s party . . . the roof . . . ” I wipe what I tell myself are raindrops from my cheeks. “What was I to you, Shawn?”
He considers his reply before saying, “Do you really think I wanted to keep you a secret?” When I say nothing, he sighs. “Kit, there isn’t a man alive who would want to keep you a secret. You’re . . . ” He shakes his head to himself. “You’re everything I never knew I wanted. I didn’t realize what perfect was until I got to know you, and then I thought you were finally mine, and . . . I just didn’t want the other guys making it impossible for us to get any privacy for those last two days. They would have been such assholes about it. I wanted you to myself.”
Resisting the urge to go into his arms, to make myself his, I say, “Why did you act like you hated me when I first joined the band?”
“I didn’t trust you,” he explains. “I didn’t realize you actually cared about the music. I thought you were only there to get even with me or something.”
“What about when I kissed you in Mayhem? Before the tour?” He pretended like he didn’t remember taking me to the bus, lying me down on a bench, or making out with me—right before I had to run to the bathroom to throw up.
“You were drunk,” he says sadly. “I was so wrapped up in finally getting to touch you, I didn’t even realize it . . . I felt like an asshole for taking it so far. And then . . . I thought you just wanted to forget.”
Because I lied. That morning, I was the first one to pretend nothing happened. Shawn only followed my lead.
“And on the roof of Van’s hotel? I told you about my crush on you in high school. I wanted you to remember.”
“I know,” he says, his expression hopeless before he drops it to the floor. “I know, but everything was going so perfectly, I didn’t want to ruin it.”
“I even tried to get you to remember on the bus after I found out. But you just kept lying . . . ”
Shawn shakes his head at the floorboards beneath his feet. “I didn’t want to lose you.”
But he did lose me . . . And now, I’m just lost.
“And six years ago?” I finally ask. The words come out strong and confident, betraying the doubt, the hurt, the brokenness inside me. “What about then?”
Shawn sinks heavier against the sill on a defeated sigh. “This is the part where I don’t know what to say.” He hesitates before lifting his gaze back up to mine. “I wasn’t a good guy six years ago. I’m sorry you thought I was, but I wasn’t.”
“Kale told me what he said to you,” I say. “After that night, when we . . . ” I trail off, unwilling to give life to the ghost of a memory, but understanding is clear in Shawn’s eyes.
“Do you think that’s why I didn’t call?” he asks after a while, and I don’t know if I truly want the answer to what I ask next.
“Is it?”
“Kit,” he says, like the words coming out of his mouth are hurting him to say. “What happened wasn’t your brother’s fault. I could have called.”
My voice threatens to crack when I ask, “Why didn’t you?”
Shawn’s eyes close for a moment, holding mine when they reopen. “I didn’t know you six years ago. You were just a hot girl I met at a party.”
Tears scald my face, and Shawn crosses the room to wipe them away. His thumb brushes lightly across my cheek when he says, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were fifteen, and if I had known it was your first time . . . ”
“You never would have done it,” I answer for him, my voice holding years of knowing those words to be true. What happened between us was as much my fault as it was his.
“I wouldn’t have,” he agrees sincerely. “I fucked up with you, Kit, and I’m sorry.”
“Did you ever even think of me?”
His palm is still cupping my face when he says, “At first . . . once in a while. But it’s not like I’ve spent the past six years thinking about you. I didn’t know what I lost when I let you go. You need to know that.” Both calloused hands thread into my hair to gently hold my face in place. “I wasn’t the guy you wished I was. I did forget about you up until you walked into that audition. I had no idea what I’d walked away from.”
“What about now?” The words push free in a moment of desperation I wish I could take back. But with my face in his hands—with my heart in his hands—I have nothing left to lose.
“Now?” he asks, never breaking his eyes from mine. I’m drowning in them when he says, “Now I think I know the answer to what you asked me out on your roof.” When I just stare at him, he says, “You asked me if I was half a person, and I asked you how I’d know.” His thumb grazes my cheek, his eyes clinging to mine. “You. You’re how I know.”
I close my eyes and let his words consume me, remembering that day on the roof so many weeks ago. He said it was like no one ever realized Joel was half a person until Dee came around, and when I asked him if he was half a person, he asked me how he’d know. Neither of us had an answer. Now, he says he does.
And my heart tells me I do too.
With my face still cradled gently between his calloused hands, I open my eyes and lift onto my tiptoes, meeting him in a kiss that promises to put me back together—even as it breaks my heart. He’s so close, but I feel like I miss him. Like I’ve always missed him. And I’m desperate to make this feeling go away—this distance, this emptiness.
His hands tunnel into my hair, and he draws me up as I draw him down, but we’re still not close enough. I need more of him, and I find myself walking him backward, step by step to the edge of my bed. When the backs of his legs are against it, I crawl on top of him, my knees sinking into the mattress next to his hips and my lips forcing his head down to my pillow. We’re both breathing heavy as I kiss him, as he kisses me back—little moans escaping my lips and big ones rumbling in his chest. His hands slide under the hem of my shirt, greedy for soft skin, and mine scratch over his scalp as I kiss him desperately, needing him more than I need to breathe.
He’s hard beneath me when he begins to sit up, to take control, but when I push him back down against my mattress, that’s when his self-restraint snaps. His fingers grip the hem of my shirt and yank it over my head in an unapologetic move that makes my skin burn hot. Even in just a bra, I’m burning up, so when he reaches behind me and unclasps it with an expert flick of his fingers, all I can do is thank him.
I thank him with my lips, my tongue, my hands—with the little sounds I make as he traces his tongue across my collarbone and dips scalding-hot kisses into the dip at the base of my throat. When he sits up this time, I let him, and the petal of my nipple is between his lips a second later. He curls his tongue around it—a wet, warm, breath-stealing sensation that has it blooming between his lips.
My back arches. My head falls back. My long hair cascades over his hand as he kisses and nibbles and pulls. And I don’t know what comes over me, but when I tip my chin back down, my fingers grip tight around his hair and I break his lips from my skin. He looks up at me with blazing green eyes—the forest in them burning to the ground—and I devour his mouth a shallow breath later, my hips sinking low on top of the stiffness inside his jeans. I moan at the sudden heat between my legs, my blood pumping fast when Shawn’s hands rock me even tighter against him.
“Shawn,”
I gasp, parting my lips from his on a moan, but he doesn’t release his hold on the frayed back pockets of my jeans. He moves me against him in a heated rhythm that my hips are eager to match, and when I can’t take the sparks that are flying between us anymore, I reach down and find the button of his jeans.
Shawn watches me as I unbutton him, as I unzip him, as I undo him by stripping out of the last of my clothes next to the bed—in full light, on full display, just for him. It’s too late to feel self-conscious, because I’ve already put it all on the line. He shimmies out of the rest of his clothes as I fish for a condom stashed in a drawer I haven’t gone to in forever, and when I hand it to him, he follows my silent request and slides it over himself—slowly, while I watch.
My bottom lip bears the sharp bite of my anticipation as his fingers glide over every hard inch, and I begin crawling on top of him before he’s even finished. I walk my knees up the bed until I’m hovering over his hips, and he lies motionless on his back, staring up at me.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asks, but his eyes are betraying his self-control. They’re on my lips, my breasts, my stomach, and lower. The feather-light touch of his fingers dances over my sides, then my thighs—giving me goose bumps, making my nipples harden, making it impossible for me to speak.
I don’t answer him. Instead, I lower my lips to his, kissing him slowly as my fingers scratch down his chest, his stomach, the thin line of hair trailing south of his navel. I wrap my hand around him and tease him with my fingers, relishing in the way his grip tightens around my waist. When I can tell he wants to push me lower, to steal control, I lift him to meet me, and then I rock down on top of him, just enough for both of us to feel it.
My breath catches in my throat, and he squeezes my hips almost painfully. With his lip pinned between my teeth, I sink down lower, deeper, until I can’t tell where he ends and I begin. The memory of how this felt with him in high school has faded, but God, I know it couldn’t have felt like this. My heart feels ten times too big for my chest, and each beat makes it impossible for me to think. All I know is that it’s Shawn between my legs, Shawn under my palms, Shawn holding me tight as I rock lower and lower still. There’s so much of him for me to take, and I want him—all of him, every single bit.