The Nice Boxset

by Jasinda Wilder

  “But what?” I felt my heart pounding in my chest. This could change everything.

  He took a lock of my strawberry blonde hair in his fingers and twisted it. “What if there was more? Between us?”

  “More? Like, together?”

  “Why not?”

  I felt a rush of anger. “‘Why not?’ Are you fucking serious, Kyle? That’s the answer you give me?” I slid forward on the branch, swung my leg over, and lowered myself to the next branch down.

  In seconds, I was out of the tree and running through the cornfield. I could hear Kyle behind me, calling for me to wait, but I didn’t. Home was only a mile away at that point, so I ran. I threw open my front door so hard it shook the house, startling my mother so bad she dropped a glass. I heard the smash of the glass hitting the floor, my mother’s curse, and then I was slamming my bedroom door and falling onto my bed, sobbing. I’d held it together that long, but in the sanctuary of my room, I could let go.

  “Nell? What’s wrong, sweetie?” My mom’s voice on the other side of the door, concerned and sweet.

  “I don’t…I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Nell, open up and talk to me.”

  “No!”

  I heard Kyle’s deep male voice behind my mother’s. She said, “Nell? Kyle’s here.”

  “I don’t want to see him. Make him go away.”

  I heard my mom talking to Kyle, telling him she’d talk to me, telling him it would be okay. It wouldn’t, though. Why exactly I was crying so hard, I couldn’t quite figure out. I was a hundred different kinds of confused.

  I was excited to go out with Jason. Or at least, I had been. I tried to picture Jason’s hand in mine, his arm around my waist. I tried to picture myself kissing Jason. I shuddered and had to push the image away, almost nauseated. So why had I been so happy? Just because I’d been asked out by a cute boy? Maybe. I mean, it was pretty common knowledge that Nell Hawthorne was off-limits for anyone and everyone. I’d been asked out before, last year when I was fifteen, around homecoming. Aaron Swarnicki. Cute-ish, but boring. Dad had flipped out and told me I couldn’t go out. I could go to homecoming, but that was it. It had kind of just spread, unspoken but understood: Nell is off-limits. No one asked me out again after that. Dad was a pretty influential figure in our town. Only Kyle’s dad was more important, and that was just because he was a congressman. Daddy owned several of the strip mall buildings in town, and several more in the surrounding counties. He was on the city board, had the ear of the mayor, the state governor, too. Through Mr. Calloway, he also had access to national political figures. Meaning, no one wanted to cross Jim Hawthorne. It was all strange, now that I thought about it. Maybe Daddy had said something to the boy who had asked me out.

  My mind spun back to Kyle. To his sudden, extreme reaction to Jason having asked me out. To the way he’d looked at me in the tree.

  To my own reaction to his “why not” comment.

  ‘Why not’? That was the best he could come up with? I was angry all over again, and I couldn’t stop it, even though I knew it was irrational. I didn’t want him to want to go out with me just because. I wanted it to mean something.

  I tried to picture being with Kyle as more, whatever that meant. I could easily picture our fingers tangled together. Candlelit dinners. My face on his chest, his lips descending to mine as the sun set behind us…

  I told myself to quit being so melodramatic. But…I couldn’t shake the image. I could almost feel Kyle’s arms on my back, his hands spanning my waist, brushing dangerously close to my butt. I could feel the secret thrill of wanting his hands to move just a little lower. I could almost feel his lips, warm and soft and wet, slipping over mine…

  I blushed and squirmed on the bed, rolling to my back and wiping my face.

  What was wrong with me? I was fantasizing about Kyle all of a sudden?

  I needed to get outside. I needed to run. I stripped out of my school clothes and put on my running shorts, sports bra and tank top, ankle socks, Nikes, and grabbed my iPod. Running usually cleared my head, and that was what I needed right then.

  I stuck the earbuds in my ears as I descended the stairs and rushed out the front door, pretending I couldn’t hear my mom calling my name. I put on my running playlist, all the silly, empty, upbeat pop songs that I could push to the back of my head and just run. I stretched briefly and took off, heading for my usual five-mile circuit.

  I passed Kyle’s driveway and mentally cursed myself for not thinking. He was waiting for me, his own earbuds in, shirtless, in gym shorts. I’d seen him like this a thousand times, his sculpted abs rippling in the sun, a dark line of hair running down his stomach and disappearing beneath his shorts. This time, though, I had to swallow hard at the sight. I mean, I knew Kyle was hot. I’d always known that about him, and always appreciated it. I mean, I was a normal, hormonal sixteen-year-old girl with a healthy appreciation for a sexy male body. I just hadn’t really thought about Kyle in that way. Like, as an object of desire.

  I didn’t slow down, though, and he fell into step next to me, our footsteps syncing naturally. Even the two-step rhythm of inbreath-outbreath synced immediately.

  We didn’t speak, didn’t even look at each other. We just ran. A mile, then the second, and then we both started to flag. I pushed the pace and he matched it, and then pushed it even faster, and then we had our second wind. We blew past the gnarled tree stump that marked the third mile, breathing hard now, sweating. I forced my gaze to the road ahead, forced my thoughts to emptiness, Lady Gaga in the background. Run, run, run, breathe and focus, swing my arms. Don’t look at Kyle. Don’t look at the sheen of sweat on his bare chest, don’t watch the bead of liquid trickling over one nipple and under the bulge of his pectoral, don’t imagine myself licking the droplet away as it touched the rippling field of his abs.

  Shit! Where did that image come from? Licking him? Get a grip, Nell. Get a damn grip. The self-admonishment didn’t help. The image was burned into my brain now. Kyle, on his back, in a grass field. Sweat running over his bronzed skin, hair messy and wet. Lowering my face to his chest, pressing my lips to his breastbone, then licking away a glinting bead of salty liquid.

  Oh, god, oh, god…ohmigod. This was bad. These weren’t good thoughts. Weren’t innocent thoughts. Weren’t BFF thoughts. I was a virgin. I’d never licked anyone. Never kissed anyone, even. Sure, I’d watched a few steamy rated-R movies with Jill and Becca, and we secretly watched True Blood together all the time. So…we knew how it was supposed to go, and I’d had my own little fantasies and girly daydreams, but…with Kyle?

  I was just channeling Sookie and Eric. Obviously. Except Kyle looked more like Bill…

  I jolted back to awareness, and Kyle was a few steps behind me, and I was full-out running, arms pumping wildly. I pushed harder, ran faster, pushing the images and the sudden ridiculous desire for my best friend away, and just ran. Legs turned to jelly, breathing ragged and burning, vision blurring, desperation in place of blood, confusion in place of oxygen, that kind of running.

  Kyle slid into my peripheral vision, pacing me, straining, and then his conditioning took over and he peeled away, faster than I could ever hope to run. All-state football star at sixteen fast. Already being scouted by U of M and Alabama and UNC fast.

  I stumbled, slowed, stopped, then slumped forward with my hands on my knees, panting. Kyle was a dozen feet away, doing the same. We were on the crest of a hill, the forest out to our left, our houses a few miles behind us, the ridge with our tree visible off to our right. Wildflowers swayed in a breeze, welcome and cool in the early September evening heat. I made myself walk around, forgot myself and peeled my tank top off and wiped my face with it.

  I stopped walking again, head tipped back, trying to slow my breathing, tilted my head back and draped the shirt over my eyes to sop up the burning sweat from my forehead.

  “You should stretch out,” Kyle murmured, only inches away.

  I started at the sound of hi
s voice, his sudden proximity. My heart started pounding again, nerves this time rather than exertion. Which was stupid. This was Kyle. He knew everything about me. He’d seen me naked.

  Which was the exact wrong thing to think in that moment. I tugged the shirt off my eyes and looked up to see him gazing down at me, expression intense but otherwise unreadable. He was taking deep, dragging breaths, and I knew if I wasn’t careful, I might end up convincing myself it wasn’t just post-run panting.

  I licked my lips, and his eyes followed my tongue’s path. Bad. This was bad.

  “Kyle…” I started, then realized I didn’t know what to say.

  “Nell.” He sounded calm, confident. Unaffected. But his eyes…they betrayed him.

  He turned away, bent over with his feet together, and began stretching. The moment was broken, and I turned to stretch as well. When we’d both finished, we sat down in the grass, and I knew we couldn’t avoid the discussion anymore. To cover my nerves, I tugged my hair free from the ponytail and shook it out.

  Kyle took a deep breath, glanced at me nervously, then squeezed his eyes shut. “Nell, listen. When I said ‘why not,’ that was…it was stupid. It’s not what I meant. I’m sorry. I know how that must have sounded to you. I was just so upset and confused—”

  “Confused?”

  “Yes, confused!” Kyle said, almost yelling. “This whole thing between us today, it’s confusing. When you told me Jason asked you out, I just—it was like something in my head just…snapped. I pictured you out with him, maybe even kissing him, and I…no. Just no.”

  He scrubbed his face, then lay back on the grass, staring up at the blue sky scattered with shreds of white and stained orange by the lowering sun.

  “I know how this is gonna sound but—when I pictured Jason’s arms around you, his lips touching you…I couldn’t handle it. I thought, ‘Hell, no! Nell is mine.’ That’s when I ran off. I couldn’t figure out why I was so possessive suddenly. I still…I don’t know where this is coming from.”

  “I don’t, either. I mean, I was surprised by the way you reacted, but then I went home and thought about actually going out with Jason, and…it just didn’t fit. I couldn’t imagine it.”

  “So are you still going out with him, then?”

  I paused. “I don’t know. I guess not.”

  Kyle glanced at me, then pulled out his iPhone, the earbuds trailing from it. “Does he know that?”

  I sucked in a breath. I hadn’t called him to cancel. “Shit, no, he doesn’t.”

  Kyle’s lip quirked up in a grin. “You’d better call him, then, huh? He’ll be wondering where you are, I imagine.”

  I glanced at my iPod: 6:54 p.m. “Can I use your phone?”

  He scrolled through his contacts, yanked the earbuds free, and handed it to me. I hit “Send” and pressed it to my ear, the rubber case still damp and warm from Kyle’s grip.

  Jason’s exuberant voice came through the phone. “Hey, Kyle, my man! Whassup!”

  I sucked in a hesitant breath. “Actually, Jason, this is Nell. I’m calling from Kyle’s phone…I—I forgot mine.”

  “Forgot yours? Where are you? I’m pulling up to your driveway right now.” His friendly, excited voice took on a confused tone.

  “Listen, I’m sorry, but I can’t go out with you.”

  A long silence. “Oh, I gotcha.” His voice drooped, and I could picture his features falling. “Everything okay? I mean —”

  “I just—I may have said yes too quickly, Jason. I’m sorry. I don’t think…I don’t think it’d work.”

  “So this isn’t a rain check, is it.” His words implied a question, but his tone was a statement, flat, tense.

  “No. I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s fine, I guess.” He laughed, a forced bark. “Shit, no. It’s not. This is kinda shady, Nell. I was all excited.”

  “I’m so, so sorry, Jason. I just realized, after really thinking about things…I mean, I’m flattered, and I was excited that you asked me, but—”

  “This is about Kyle, isn’t it? You’re with him, on his phone, so of course this about him.”

  “Jason, that’s not—I mean, yeah, I’m with him right now, but—”

  “It’s fine. I get it. I think we all knew this was coming, so I shouldn’t be surprised. I just wish you’d told me sooner.”

  “I’m sorry, Jason. I don’t know what else to say.”

  “Nothing to say. It’s all good. I’ll just…whatever. See you in chemistry on Monday.”

  He was about to hang up, and a flash of inspiration jolted through me. “Jason, wait.”

  “What.” His voice was dead, flat.

  “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but…Becca has had a crush on you since seventh grade. I guarantee she’ll go out with you.”

  “Becca?” I could hear him considering the idea. “Wouldn’t that be weird? I mean, what would I say? She’d think she was my second choice, or something. I mean, I guess that’s true, but not like that, you know?”

  I thought about it. “Just tell her the truth. I backed out on you, last minute. You already have reservations, and I thought she might like to go with you instead of me.”

  “Think it’ll work? Really?” His voice took on a new life, excited once more. “She is pretty hot.”

  “It’ll work. Just call her.” I rattled off her number, and he repeated it.

  “Thanks…I think. But, Nell? Next time you’re gonna break a guy’s heart, give him a bit more notice, would you?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Jason. I didn’t break your heart. We hadn’t even gone out yet. But I am sorry for standing you up like this.”

  “No worries. Besides, maybe something will work out with Becca and me. She’s almost as hot as you. Wait, shit, that didn’t come out right. Don’t tell Becca I said that. You guys are equally hot, I was just—”

  I couldn’t help laughing. “Jason? Shut up. Call Becca.”

  I hit “End,” handing Kyle his phone back. He stared at the phone. “That was pretty slick, Nell. I gotta hand it to you.” He glanced at me quizzically. “Does Becca really have a crush on him?”

  I laughed again. “Hell, yes. She’s been mad in love with Jason Dorsey since…well, I told him seventh grade, but it’s been longer than that. Way longer. Like…since fourth grade. Forever. Another reason why I should never have said yes to him, I was just…I was excited, Kyle. Getting asked out by cute boys is a big deal, and you and Jason are the two cutest guys in the whole school.”

  Kyle grinned at me, rakish and mischievous. “You think I’m cute?”

  Oh, god. Oh, god. This was trouble. I couldn’t meet his eyes. The grass was suddenly really, really interesting.

  “You know you’re hot, Kyle Calloway, so quit fishing for compliments.” I tried the flirty, joking tack, hoping to distract him from the fact that I was blushing hot red from forehead to cleavage.

  It didn’t work. “You’re eight shades of red, Nell.” His voice was all too close. His breath was hot on my neck.

  What was going on? What was he doing?

  I looked up, and Kyle’s eyes were centimeters from mine. He was lying on his side, and his fingers were reaching for me. I couldn’t breathe suddenly. He was brushing my hair behind my ear, and I couldn’t focus on anything but his sculpted body and his fiery eyes and his hand in my hair and his mouth, his lips, so close, his tongue tip running over his lower lip. Suddenly Kyle was someone else, someone different. Not the little boy I’d grown up with, but a young man with his features, his eyes, his strong jawline, but an intense, grown-up, almost hungry gaze.

  I didn’t know this Kyle, but I liked him. I wanted to know him.

  Electricity surged through me, startling my eyes shut, shock dragging a gasp through my lips as Kyle pressed his mouth to mine. Wet heat and soft power thrilled through me, surprise giving way slowly to wonder, to delight.

  Kyle was kissing me. Oh, god, oh god…ohmigod. I liked it, so much. My first kiss.

&nbs
p; I was breathless, unable to move for the incredible feeling of lips touching lips. Foreign but perfect, questing and hesitant. He pulled away, leaving me even more breathless and mourning the loss of the kiss.

  “Nell? I—you…?” He seemed unsure of himself, of the kiss.

  I smiled at him, our faces still so close I felt my lips curving against his. My hand drifted from my lap to his arm, then to his face, my fingers splaying around his ear, my palm against his cheek. He let out a sigh of relief, and this time the kiss was mutual. I pressed in, moving my lips against his, breathless in wonder again…or still.

  A thousand questions that had cropped up in my mind when watching movies showing people kissing were answered. What did you do with your noses? What nose? All I knew was his mouth against mine, slightly tilted. Hands? They seemed to know where to go on their own. To his face, to his nape, to his arms. I could breathe even as we kissed, obviously. When I was younger I’d wondered if I would have to hold my breath. Now I was delighted to understand that I could kiss Kyle forever, I’d never have to break for breath. I didn’t want to.

  I wasn’t sure how much time passed while we kissed there in the grass on the hill. I didn’t care. Nothing mattered but the delirious joy of Kyle, of my first kiss, of making out with my best friend, the only guy I’d ever really cared about.

  This wasn’t just perfectly natural, it was the only thing I could imagine happening, and I couldn’t figure out how it hadn’t happened before now.

  Then, suddenly, I was lying down in the grass, blades crushed and tickling my bare back beneath the strap of my sports bra. Kyle was above me, weight partially on me, partially supported by his arm. His palm planted into the grass next to my face, and I curled my hand around his arm, the other on his nape, making sure he didn’t pull away, didn’t stop kissing me.

  Suddenly I understood so many things.

  I understood the danger in a kiss. The heat and the power and the lightning. I felt something hard pressing against my hip, and I knew what it was in a flash of heat. The kiss broke, and Kyle shifted away, pulling his hips back. His gaze flickered over my body, and I blushed, both from his attention and from the knowledge of what I’d felt.