Breathe (Sway Part 2)

by Davis, Jennifer

  “Why does it matter? I’ve still seen it.” He grinned. “Well, not seen as much as felt,” he slyly corrected.

  The thought made me shiver. Justin didn’t miss it either. His smile widened.

  “I can’t believe you just said that,” I scolded.

  “It’s true.” He looked innocently back at me, a guilty smile edging up the corner of his mouth.

  “Well, that’s why I don’t want you to see it now, because you’ll be able to see it.”

  “You’re being ridiculous,” he stated, still staring seductively at me. “You have a beautiful body.”

  I tried very hard not to allow that to register in my brain to keep from being completely mortified. “Well, if it doesn’t matter, then you stand naked in front of me while I stare at you and we’ll see how you like it.”

  Justin snickered, eyes glimmering. “If we had more time I would definitely do that for you.”

  “You’re twisting my words,” I growled, blushing again. Instead of continuing to argue with him, I yanked and yanked until the sheet was free and I was able to keep covered.

  “No fair,” he whined. I stuck my tongue out at him as I marched away, stepping over my shoes in the process. I smiled a little remembering how he’d eventually taken them off of me last night. I went to the bathroom and locked the door so he couldn’t follow me.

  I didn’t want to think about what would happen next or the consequences being with Justin may bring. For now, I didn’t want to think about anything other than how good it felt.

  In the truck, I sat as far away from Justin as I could. I was propped up against the passenger door, gripping the handle so tightly that my knuckles felt like they could burst through my skin at any second.

  Justin was quiet, but kept smiling at me. It was funny how differently I saw him now and how it made me feel woozy when I looked at him. I had always thought he was good-looking, but now I felt that I couldn’t look at him long enough to fully soak in his beauty.

  His eyes cut from the road to me while we were at a red light, watching me while he chewed the corner of his bottom lip. I couldn’t think about anything but wanting to kiss him. I stared at his outstretched arms, suntanned and muscular, his hands gripped around the steering wheel and thought of how much I loved the way he’d held me with them.

  The feeling escalated to the point that I had to resolve it; otherwise I would not be in any condition to hide anything from Pam. Justin smiled at me again and I couldn’t bear it anymore.

  “Pull over,” I instructed.

  “Are you okay?”

  I must have looked frantic. “Just pull over.” He drove off the road, put the truck in park in a semi-wooded area, and looked at me for the split second I allowed before flying across the seat and straddling him. Knotting my fingers into his hair, forcing his hat to fall backwards, I gazed at Justin. He smiled. “Can’t get enough of me, huh?”

  “Guess not.” I shrugged.

  Once we were back on the road, I sat close to him. He put his arm around me and it made me happy, but unlike my craving, the panic I felt about making it past Pam hadn’t subsided.

  “She’s gonna know,” I blurted.

  Justin chuckled. “She won’t know.”

  “Yes, she will.”

  “She won’t,” he said, rubbing my arm.

  “She’ll be able to tell.”

  “How’s that?”

  “I’m not sure. She’s just tricky like that.”

  “Annie,” Justin said confidently. “She won’t know.”

  “What if she asks me? I can’t lie to her. She knows me too well. She’d know if I were lying.”

  “Calm down, Reynolds. She won’t know and there is no reason on earth for her to ask you something like that.”

  I thought about that for a second and in all the time Justin and I had known one another, she’d never asked either one of us if we were involved.

  “You’re right. I’m overreacting.”

  As we walked up the sidewalk, toward the house, Justin’s hand brushed against mine. I instantly slapped it away, stunning him. “What was that for?” he gasped.

  “Sorry, I thought you were going to try to hold my hand.”

  He laughed. “You are seriously paranoid.” I didn’t think I was that paranoid.

  “Hey you two,” Pam called, startling me. Justin snickered. I smiled at her, trying to gage it so that I didn’t smile too big or not enough.

  “How are you feeling today?” she asked me.

  “Fine,” I answered warily.

  “Good. What about you, Justin?”

  “I’m great,” he beamed.

  “Good.” She eyed the both of us closely. “Come on in.”

  “She knows,” I murmured to Justin.

  Larry was sitting inside reading the newspaper.

  “Hello, Annie,” he said, his tone all-knowing. “Son,” he nodded to Justin.

  “Why did you say hello to her first?” Justin asked, pretending to be offended.

  “She’s prettier than you,” Larry said and winked at me.

  “But I have your DNA,” Justin playfully protested.

  “Exactly.”

  “What do you need help with?” Justin asked Pam.

  “The linens need to be returned. Everything else is done.”

  I hoped he wanted to do it now, so I could get out of there. We followed Pam to the kitchen, and she gave each of us a bag. “While you’re over there, run by the boutique, please. Caroline has a garment bag for me. Come back when you’re done. We’ll have dinner,” she said.

  While Justin returned the linens, I went around the corner to Pam’s boutique to get the garment bag. As I waited for Caroline to come back from the storeroom, I heard a voice I never thought I’d hear again. It was equally as disgusted and angry as it had been the last time I heard it.

  “Well, I guess I was right.” I turned around and Eve was glowering at me, arms folded tightly across her chest.

  “Hi, Eve.”

  “Don’t hi me.” She untwisted her arms and placed her hands on her hips. “We’re not friends, so don’t hi me.”

  “I guess you saw Justin.”

  “And you—holding hands.”

  “This is not the place,” I warned her.

  “Oh, so you don’t want everyone in here to know that you were having an affair with my boyfriend?” she asked loudly. A few customers looked at us. I turned my back to Eve. For the moment, I was biting my tongue, not wanting to explode on her and make a scene in Pam’s store.

  “You’re not upset with me for spilling your little secret to Ryan are you?”

  “Justin and I are together now, but you were wrong about us before. We didn’t happen until—” “Until Ryan married that other girl,” she smirked. “Katie, isn’t it? The one he has that beautiful little boy with.” She smiled sinfully. “That must have been absolutely gut-wrenching for you.”

  “What the hell happened to you?” I asked her.

  “You happened to me. And she happened to you. Turn about is truly a beautiful, thing. Enjoy it, bitch,” she snarled. “Oh, and nice shirt, by the way,” she scowled and then turned to walk away. I was wearing one of Justin’s shirts.

  “Is everything okay?” Caroline asked, concern in her voice. I knew I had to be pale white, even with being as angry as I was. “Everything’s fine. Thank you.” I took the bag and stormed out after Eve. I couldn’t let her have the last word.

  “You’re just pissed that I ended up with what you wanted. That Justin wanted me and not you. Ironically, you had a hand in putting us together. If you hadn’t said all that crap to Ryan—” Justin came around the corner and I stopped talking. His eyes widened, looking back and forth between Eve and I.

  “You know she wouldn’t be with you right now if it wasn’t for Ryan dumping her,” Eve snarled. “From what I’ve heard, she would have been married to him by now, living in a certain farm house in the woods, getting ready to have his babies—” “That’s e
nough!” Justin yelled at her.

  “That’s right, defend her—cheater!” She glared at him.

  “She didn’t do anything, we didn’t do anything while you and I were together.”

  “I know what I saw—the two of you wrapped up in bed after graduation wasn’t innocent.”

  “It wasn’t what it looked like, and you know it,” Justin said quietly. “You and I were never going to make it,” he told her. “I did love you, and I was faithful to you, but I couldn’t do what you wanted.” He looked at me. “I couldn’t give her up.” He was talking to Eve, but said the words while looking into my eyes.

  “Jesus Christ!” Eve exclaimed. Justin and I whipped our heads in her direction. “You two really are something else.” She shook her head. “You deserve each other and I can’t wait until she breaks the shit out of your heart!” she yelled at Justin, before stomping away.

  I think I was too shocked to laugh, but I wanted to. I couldn’t believe the words that had come from Eve’s mouth. The last time she’d spoken to me, she’d had a hard time calling me a harlot, and now she sounded almost like Lindsay.

  “I guess she’s still mad about your breakup,” I said, trying to lighten the mood.

  “I’m sorry she said those things to you.”

  “Well, I see how she could have a hard time letting you go.” I smiled.

  “I just hope she doesn’t transfer to Harmon so she can stalk us.”

  The thought of her being around changed my temper completely, and seemed to have had the same effect on Justin. He took my hand and we walked quietly back to his truck, where we saw Eve again. She was getting into a white convertible of some kind.

  “Huh.” Justin cocked his head to the side.

  “What?”

  “I wonder where Eve got that car.”

  “Her parents, maybe?” I suggested.

  “Doubt it.”

  “Why?”

  He snickered. “You really are clueless about cars, aren’t you?”

  “I guess,” I agreed because I had no idea what the big deal was.

  “That’s an Audi TTS. It’s a sixty-thousand-dollar car, easy, and I know her parents would never have spent that kind of money on a car for themselves, much less Eve.”

  I didn’t care about Eve’s stupid car. I had more important things to worry about, like, hiding the fact that I was sleeping with Justin from Pam.

  41

  Annie

  “Do we really have to stay for dinner?” I asked Justin before we walked inside his parent’s house.

  “Yes. I love watching you squirm.” He grinned.

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Y’all want a beer?” Pam asked. I panicked. If we drank, we would have to stay and I wasn’t sure how long I would be able to stand hiding something from her.

  “Yes, please,” Justin answered. Then placed his hand on my back, and whispered to me, “Relax Annie. Everything’s going to be fine.” He seemed so sure of it that it made me feel better.

  “Let’s go outside.” He nodded toward the back door.

  Justin, Pam, and I went out to the porch to visit with Larry, who was grilling.

  As Pam and I talked about the boutique’s new spring line, I caught Justin staring at me in a way that would be inappropriate for his mother to see. Larry picked up on it and chuckled.

  “What’s funny?” Pam asked. “This damn meat is so temperamental,” he improvised. Pam waved her hand and rolled her eyes as if it were the dumbest thing a person had ever laughed at.

  It made me giggle and I mouthed to Justin to stop it. I was still smiling at him, which lessened the effect, so he continued to stare at me provocatively. I wiped away the smile and gave him a warning look, which he ignored.

  He smiled again and I looked away from him as if he were boring me with his attempts to exploit my anguish, and turned my attention back to the clothes in Pam’s look book.

  “Hey, Dad,” Justin said, pointing to the backyard. “Do you know what kind of tree that is?” Larry looked, focusing for a second. “That… is a silver leaf maple.”

  “Thanks,” Justin said and winked at me. What the hell was he doing?

  “Why’d you ask?”

  Justin held his hands out and bowed his head as if that was the cue he had been waiting for.

  “Annie likes them,” he announced with the biggest smile on his face. I shook my head at him and turned my bottle up to my mouth. “In fact,” he added, watching me carefully. “On the way over, she had me pull off the road so she could see some up close.”

  The beer I was about to swallow spewed from my mouth, across the table. Larry’s laughter sounded as if it were coming from the bottom of the Grand Canyon it was so deep. The man never missed a thing.

  “Well, sweetie,” Pam sympathized, handing me a couple napkins.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled as I wiped the mess from the table.

  “That’s okay hun, you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” I forced a smile, refusing to look at Justin.

  Larry took the steaks off the grill and carried them inside. Pam got up to follow him. I stood up, too.

  “We’ll be right in,” Justin told her. I stood against the porch railing waiting for Pam to be out of earshot.

  “What the hell, Justin?” I groaned.

  “All I said was that you liked those trees.”

  “That’s not all you said.”

  “She didn’t catch on.”

  “Larry didn’t either, did he?” I asked sarcastically.

  Justin leaned into me. I slid away from him. “I was only playing with you.” I stuck out my bottom lip, pouting. He moved my hair out of my face and kissed my cheek.

  “Stop it,” I mumbled. He leaned down, trying to coax my eyes to meet his. “She can’t see us,” he said, placing his hands on my hips.

  “We should probably go in,” I suggested.

  Justin laughed. “Whatever you want.”

  Justin and I made it through dinner unscathed. If Pam suspected anything, she never let on. We played cards after dinner. It distracted me so that I was my normal self, joking with everyone, including Justin.

  It was after eleven before we quit. Larry announced that he was going to bed after losing his third hand in a row. Pam threw her cards on the table and followed him.

  I tossed Justin a pillow and blanket, went to his room, and closed the door.

  42

  Justin

  I gave my parents half an hour to get settled in, then went to my bedroom, and locked the door. Annie heard me and rolled over. “I heard you lock the door. I’m not doing that here,” she said, panic in her voice.

  “Okay.” I smiled, as I lay down beside her, hoping that I could change her mind.

  “Did you and Eve have sex in here?” Annie asked. Why did girls have to care about crap like that? “Once.”

  “You took her virginity in here, didn’t you?”

  I laughed. “You say it like I stole it from her. She willingly handed it over, trust me.”

  “This is seriously weird,” she mumbled.

  “Why? You have an ex, too.”

  “But we’re not lying in the bed that he deflowered me in.”

  “We can go in the guest room,” I offered.

  “No, I already told you, I’m not doing that here.”

  “I’m not asking you to.”

  “Did you have sex with her without a condom?”

  “What?” I gasped.

  “Never mind,” she whispered.

  “No. I’ve never had sex with any girl without a condom. We talked about this, remember?”

  “Yeah,” she muttered, and turned her head.

  “Hey,” I leaned over her so that I could see her face.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I feel like I’m losing my mind. I’m jealous of a ghost.”

  “You don’t think I wasn’t jealous of Ryan? I asked. “I hated watching you with him. Thinking about him touching you, having a part of you that I wante
d.” I stroked her hair and smiled. “I was blinded by it, until last night. Until seeing the way you looked at me, the way your body responded to mine, it drowned my fear that you wouldn’t feel with me what you felt with him.”

  She took my face in her hands. “Our experiences are ours, and don’t have anything to do with anyone else.”

  “Being here, in the same place I’d been with Eve didn’t make me think of her, until you brought her up.”

  “Let’s forget she was ever here, then,” Annie said.

  “Kissing you will help me forget.”

  Annie chuckled.

  “Just one little bitty kiss,” I said innocently.

  “No.”

  I groaned and rolled onto my back. “I may just do it anyway. It worked when I kissed you last Christmas.”

  “So you did kiss me like that on purpose,” she said, as if she’d know it all along.

  “I didn’t plan it or anything, but I’ll tell you what got me thinking about it.” I sat up and looked down at her. She smiled at me. “When you visited me the first time at Martin and had too much to drink at the bonfire, I got you inside and put you in bed with me.”

  The smile vanished from Annie’s face. “I was in bed with you?” she muttered.

  “Yes, before I was forced to move you.”

  “Why did you have to move me?”

  She sounded so panicked that I wanted to laugh. “We were laying there and you were playing with my hair, telling me how much you liked it longer, which was why I

  didn’t cut it, by the way.”

  “Awe,” she cooed.

  “You kept putting your hands on my face, saying that I had pretty eyes, and then you said, ‘look at your mouth; you have such a pretty mouth’. Then, you asked if you could kiss me.”

  Annie’s eyes widened. “I asked to kiss you!”

  “I told you that Ryan would get mad at both of us if I let you kiss me, and you said that he would only find out if I told him, because you were very good at keeping secrets. And then you said about a hundred times that you thought I would be really good at it.”

  Annie covered her face with her hands. “Oh my god, I was trying to molest you. No wonder you kicked me out!” she gasped.