“What. Did. She. Say?” I ask, grinding out each syllable. Gretchen is so busted.
“She told me she knew I liked you and that I’d better ask you out soon or she’d blow my cover.”
“What?!” (SO BUSTED.)
“And so all along I was trying to think of how to do it but, like…I don’t know how to do—” He swallows. “I didn’t know how to ask you. And that song… Well. It said exactly what I wanted to say.”
All I can do is sigh. Aside from wanting to strangle Gretchen, all I can think of is kissing Levi.
“Bee?” he asks.
“Yes?”
“Will you go on a date with me?”
“Only one?” I blurt. Smooth.
I hear his laugh and imagine him smiling in that big way of his. “I mean, I’m not picky.”
“Tomorrow is Sunday, you know.”
“I do know. And I’m all yours, if you want me.”
I nod, and then I remember he can’t see me. I lick my lips and close my eyes and say, “Yes. I definitely do.”
Chapter 24
My first thought the next morning is, Oh, my God. I get to go on a date with Levi.
My second thought is, Why is the sun so bright this early in the morning?
My third thought: Why does my face feel swollen? WHY CAN’T I BREATHE THROUGH MY NOSE?!
Frantic, I roll over and check my phone. It’s 10:52, and Levi is supposed to pick me up at 11:00, and I’ve slept through all my alarms. Not only that, but my nose is stuffy, my head is pounding, and my skin feels sensitive to the touch.
I call Levi, but after a few rings it goes to voicemail. I know him—he’s always on time. He’s going to be here in five minutes whether I like it or not. But I don’t want him to come over because I’m sick and he’ll catch whatever I have. He doesn’t have time for that in his busy schedule.
I call him again. No luck.
I groan. I sneeze. I sneeze again. I drag myself into the bathroom for tissues. I blow my nose—
Levi rings the doorbell. My heart both leaps and breaks. What is he going to think of me missing our very first date? Surely he’ll be gracious, but I feel so bad I’m sick to my stomach. (At least, I’m pretty sure it’s not the flu.)
Throwing my hair into a messy bun, I trudge to the front door. I can see Levi’s spastic hair, the straight line of his nose and jaw, through the small square window. I turn the handle and let the door swing open, the sun immediately blinding my poor, sickly eyes.
“Bee?” he asks, and even though I can’t see him clearly, I can tell he’s bewildered by my appearance.
I groan. “Levi,” I start, and have to pause to sneeze into my sleeve. “I slept through my alarms. I think I’m sick.”
“Oh my God, Bee.”
He reaches for me. I should be the better person and tell him to stay away, and that maybe he should throw some garlic and holy water at me before he leaves. But I can’t resist when his fingers gently caress my neck, pulling me close. One hand remains on the back of my neck, and he uses the other to secure my arms around his waist.
When he kisses the top of my head, my whole body melts. “Levi, I don’t want you to catch this.”
He tightens his arms around me. “We’ve been breathing on each other for the last week. If I’m going to catch it, I already have.”
I sigh. He really wants this, then. “Okay. I’ll get ready,” I say, and step back into the house.
“No way,” he protests, following me in and locking the door behind him. “We’ll just hang out here today. We can watch movies and, like, I dunno. I’ll make you tea or something.”
I gape at him.
“Is your family here?”
“What?” I snap out of my trance. “Um, no, they’re all out today.”
“Goodie. I say we watch Back to the Future.”
I blink at him. “Are you sure? I mean, seriously—aren’t you worried about catching this?”
His eyes practically have stars in them, they twinkle so brightly. “Who cares?” He stands with his hands in his pants pockets, eyes drifting slowly over my face. “I’ve wanted this for too long, Bee.”
I let out a heavy breath. “We’ve known each other for a month.”
“I know. Like I said, too long.”
“Fine, then. You asked for it.” I’m a bundle of nerves and fear and joy and pure amazement. I push all that down, however, and hold out my hand. As sure as the stars in the sky, his fingers wrap around mine, and my heart is calm.
We start watching the movie in the living room, but the surround sound almost bursts my sensitive eardrums, so we move into my bedroom. I thought this would be weird, but now that I’m sitting beside him on a pile of pillows (and under a pile of blankets) I’m incredibly comfortable. Too comfortable to move, in fact, which means Levi keeps getting up to get more tissue, or tea, or toast. (Toast is the only thing I can eat today; everything else sounds disgusting.)
Tom comes home at the end of the movie, to find me curled up in bed with Levi. He’s taken completely by surprise, and despite having been Levi’s friend for a while, he looks suspicious. Levi, on the other hand, looks completely unperturbed.
“Hey, man! What’s up?” Levi reaches out his hand, which Tom hesitantly grabs.
“Um, just wondering what you two are doing in bed together. But no biggie, I’ll just—”
He starts to back up, so I say, “I’m sick, you loser, and Levi’s helping me.”
“Like, how much?”
Levi looks at me like he’d like to know, too. (He’s not taking Tom seriously at all.)
“I’m ready to tell both of you to leave if you don’t quit this.”
Levi smiles. “Should we tell him?”
I tilt my head back and meet his gaze for a second, my insides briefly melting at the expression on his face: pure happiness, and hope.
I nod. “Okay.”
We both turn to Tom. “We’re dating now,” I say.
“She’s pregnant,” Levi says at the same time.
I hit his chest as hard as I can with the flat of my palm. “Don’t.”
Tom raises his hands in surrender. “I’ll just back out of here until you decide you want to tell me what’s really happening.”
And just like that, he’s gone.
“Wow,” I say, drily. “That’s going to scar him for forever.”
Levi looks incredibly pleased with himself as he closes the laptop on our legs and places it on my reading chair. His eyes catch my new bookshelf and all the glorious books inside, and he smiles. “You’re a reader?”
“Yeah.”
Still sitting with his arm around me, his gaze drifts from the top to the bottom in slow motion, as if reading every title. “I’m surprised,” he says finally. “I would have pegged you as a romance reader, but I see absolutely no romance titles on your shelf.”
I feign a gasp. “I read far classier novels than Harlequin, thanks.”
He laughs and nods at my top shelf. “I see a lot of John Green. And Maggie Stiefvater.”
“As one should see on every shelf.”
“I’ll get on that as soon as possible.”
I smile and sink down into the bed, my head resting on my pillow. Levi keeps his hand on my hair, stroking softly.
“You don’t have to be here, you know,” I wheeze. I’m on a high with him here, but he has to know I’m not going to keep him prisoner. He has to feel free to leave whenever he needs to. I’d expect this from a doting husband, maybe, but this was supposed to be our first date and—
“I know that, Betty.” His fingers dig a little harder, turning what was a light caress into an incredible massage that sends tingles all the way down to my toes.
“You’re good at that,”
I say, and blush for absolutely no reason other than that he’s touching me with kind, loving fingers while sitting on my bed. (Take that, romance novels.)
“It comes from spending one too many nights with a stressed out, cookie baking mom.”
He’s so good, this pretty boy I’ve caught and captured inside my heart. I think about all the things we have to learn about each other. All the secrets we have yet to tell. (Sex, I think, and girls and past relationships and sex. Ugh.) I tuck these topics into an ask-when-necessary file in my brain. All the while I’m gazing at him dreamily, which I don’t realize until he looks down at me.
“What?” he asks.
I shake my head, biting the inside of my mouth to keep the stupid words inside.
Levi takes a deep breath, and I think he’s going to argue, but instead he says, “Is your name Benedetta?”
He asks this with such conviction that I almost take him seriously. But then I snap out of it. “BENEDETTA?” I gasp.
He cringes. “I take it that’s worse?”
I laugh at him. “You’re so far off.”
“Well I don’t think it’s fair that you know my full name, and I only know one-third of yours.”
“Too bad.”
“Come on, Belladonna. Just tell me your middle name, for starters.”
I squint up at him, hesitating.
“You can’t deny me this. You’re sick on our first date—you owe me!”
I can tell he’s joking (his eyes sparkle and his mouth quirks and then he’s laughing at me), but I feel bad. I do owe him. So I reach up and run my hand through his frazzled hair and pull him down so his ear is by my mouth.
“My middle name is Aurora,” I whisper.
“I like that name,” he whispers back, and I feel his breath on my neck.
It makes me warm. “Thank you.”
He catches my hand that’s woven into his hair, pulls it down to his chest, and holds it there. My other hand drifts around to the back of his neck, making sure he doesn’t move. Not quite yet. I’m not ready.
With a sigh so quiet it’s like a breath catching in his throat, Levi closes the gap between us and kisses my temple. My pulse thuds so wildly I’m pretty sure he can feel it, beating right against his soft mouth. And this is how we stay, him curled over me, our faces touching, our hearts like a broad river running between us.
Chapter 25
“Gretchen, I know what you did,” I say, very seriously. I flop onto my back on my bed, one hand holding the phone to my ear, the other tucked under the pillow at my head.
Gretchen squeals. “I sure as hell hope that means he finally asked you out.”
“Your smart mouth is going to get you in so much trouble!” I shout. “How could you do that?!”
“HE ASKED YOU OUT, DIDN’T HE?” she yells back.
“YES, BUT I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH MYSELF.” I groan. It’s been a few days, but the fears have already begun to settle. (What if I’m a terrible girlfriend? How does one average human rise to the occasion of dating the world’s prettiest boy?)
“Just accept this gift I’ve given you,” Gretchen argues.
“It’s too much, too awesome.”
She snorts. “Get over yourself.” A pause, and a very suspicious hmmm. Then, “Has he kissed you yet?”
I groan again. “Dude, we’ve been on one date and spent the Fourth of July together. This hardly calls for kissing. Besides, I’m not ready for it yet.”
I can just feel Gretchen’s eye-roll. “You. Are. A. Liar.”
“I am not.”
“You so want him to kiss you.”
“Yeah, but not now.”
Gretchen makes another humming noise, this time disbelieving. “And how is he going to feel about your, um, unusual but honorable conviction? You know, your most important decision ever?”
“Shhh!” I blush. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”
Gretchen snorts. “Whatever. I’m just happy you’re finally together. Guess what? I’m sending you a letter in the mail.”
“What?!” (Thing You Should Know About Me #12433: I like to write and read handwritten letters. I even hang the most special ones on my wall because I’m a sentimental old goat.)
“Yeah, I found this old stationery in a recently unpacked box from the garage, and thought I’d make your day.”
I’m about to answer when my bed dips. I whip around, shouting incoherent nonsense in a brief moment of terror before realizing Levi is lying down beside me. He almost falls off from my jostling.
“Shit! Bee!” he exclaims, but he’s laughing.
I scramble, realizing I’ve lost my phone in the fray. I find it—right as it slips into the crack between my bed and the wall.
Thump.
“Leviiiiii,” I groan, smacking him on the arm as he clumsily gets off the bed. “You made me drop Gretchen.”
“Sorry, sorry.” He leans over the crack where the phone fell. “Sorry, Gretchen!” he shouts.
I yank the bed away from the wall, he pulls the phone out, and before I can take it, he puts it to his ear. “Sorry, Gretchen,” he repeats. “Totally my fault.”
I sit on the bed, heaving a breath. When I look up, I find my sisters standing in my doorway, their mouths and eyes open wide.
Astrid’s lips shape into a wry smile. “We’ll be watching you two.”
I run a hand over my face. “Goodbye, Astrid.”
She and Millie turn on their heels and run, down the hall. Levi puts my phone back in my hand and sits beside me on the bed. When he kisses my cheek, I feel myself automatically leaning into him.
“Sorry I scared you so badly,” he whispers, his chuckle tickling my ear.
I lose it, then. I break into laughter so hysterical I’m pretty sure I’m going to cry. I press the phone to my ear, lying back on my bed, legs dangling off the edge next to Levi’s. (Although his feet actually touch the ground.)
“Gretchen?” I gasp into the phone.
She’s laughing just as hard as I am. “What just happened?”
“Levi…erm…surprised me.”
“Oh, my gosh! All I heard was screaming and then muffled talking and then a loud bang, and terrifying laughter.”
Levi lies down beside me, still chuckling. I move so he can tuck his arm under my head. “Sorry Gretchen,” he whispers again, his mouth close to the speaker on my phone (which means it’s also close to my mouth). I push him back a little, rolling my eyes.
“She forgives you,” I say, poking his ribs.
Gretchen protests, “I do not. Tell him I don’t forgive him! Oh, just let me talk to him.”
I turn on the speaker and Gretchen’s voice comes blaring through. “LEVI! I don’t forgive you.”
Levi gives me a bewildered look. “I’m sorry I interrupted.”
“Well.” Gretchen hmphs, like she’s blowing out a deep breath. “At least you’re treating my girl right.”
“I’m trying. I mean, I’ve only had a few days to get it wrong.”
I smile at this. “I can get off the phone,” I whisper, “if you want.”
“No, no. She was there first,” he says. “I’m fine hanging out here.”
My smile turns to a grin. “Okay.”
Gretchen, still on speaker, sighs heavily and says, “Levi, please tell me your hair is as glorious in real life as Bee makes it out to be.”
I stop. I freeze and squeak and oh my goodness Levi is looking at me, confused.
“What?” he asks. “What about my hair?”
Gretchen snorts. “Bee obsesses over your hair. She thinks it was made from gold when the gods fashioned it on Mount Olympus.”
“Bee likes my hair?” Levi sounds incredulous.
I want to dig
my own grave right about…five minutes ago. “Gretchen, can you just talk about normal things, please?”
Gretchen laughs so loud it’s like she’s laughing into a microphone. “You miss me, Bee. Admit it.”
I’m a little sullen, about to reply that yes, I miss her very much thank you, but Levi gets there first. “Billie misses you all the time. It’s like the plague.”
“Billie?” Gretchen asks. “Is that a new nickname?”
Sudden terror grips me. “NO,” I say, too loud and too fast. “Levi’s trying to guess my name, but SHH GRETCHEN PLEASE DON’T TELL HIM!”
Levi grabs the phone from me, looking so suddenly vexed that I’m worried he’ll burst a blood vessel. “She knows? Gretchen, you know her name?!”
“Of course I know her name, I’m her best friend.” Gretchen sniffs.
“Gretchen, tell me,” Levi begs.
I gasp. “Gretchen Taylor McKenzie, if you betray me I will…do something horrible to you.”
Gretchen grunts. “I won’t betray you, Bee, just calm down. I just…can’t believe you haven’t told him.”
Levi pouts at me but speaks to Gretchen. “I’m her boyfriend now. I deserve to know.”
“One day, Levi, you’ll be promoted to Bearer of the Name.” Gretchen laughs. “It won’t be half as awful as you think.”
Levi thinks this is hilarious.
When the phone call is over, I lie next to Levi with his arm beneath my head and my arm slung over his stomach. I play with the seam of his shirt, feeling the soft fabric between my thumb and forefinger, my head nestled into the crook of his shoulder.
This is so new. So raw. I feel like I’m opening up, piece by piece. Showing myself to the world. And it’s all Levi’s fault.
So I let him hold me, in this new way that feels like he’s drawing me out. He’s searching, reaching; I’m the one he wants. His finger—just a single, soft finger—runs up and down my arm. I resist the urge to shiver and lean into his touch, but it’s a losing battle. He laughs, quiet like a breath, and pulls me in tighter. It’s like he’s trying not to break the moment, same as me, and I thank him silently for it.
The Color Project Page 17