Seconds later, she texts again.
Oh no, wait. Cash and I are going to a random party. Sorry.
I slam the phone down on my bed and cross my arms, then fall into my computer chair, spinning around and around. How did she even find out? Stupid question. It was a huge party. There could’ve been a hundred people who would’ve told her.
This is ridiculous. I got a Dr Pepper, some huge meathead trying to do who-knows-what to me, and some guy I have an obviously unrequited crush on who drove me around with his girlfriend. Exchanging that for a hugely pissed off April was, admittedly, a really sucky trade.
I get another text a few minutes later and almost don’t answer it, but the thirty seconds I spend resisting just stress me out like crazy. So I pick it up. My pulse falls to a manageable rate when I realize it’s Drew.
Busy today?
Nope. Wide open.
Let’s go up to our spot. Work on your blog.
It sounds like a really good idea. Better than it should.
I’ll be over in five minutes.
15. How to Make a Possibly Huge Mistake
I throw my hair up without even bothering to brush it and pull a bra and tank top over my head. Yoga pants and a light jacket, and that’s about as fancy as I’m going to get today. Not like it’s going to make a difference to Drew.
I walk out the door and over to Drew’s window and rap lightly on it.
“You comin’?”
He opens the window and gives me a devilish smile. “Of course. Wouldn’t want to let your readers down.”
He climbs through his window and pushes it closed behind him (best way to get out of the house without having to deal with his mom) then pulls his keys out of his pocket. I hop in the car with him, surprised at how calm and collected I’m able to keep myself, all things considered. He starts the hunk of metal, and we sputter down the road.
He side-eyes me when we get close to the overlook. “Hey, you remembered your jacket this time.”
“Well, yeah. You certainly weren’t gonna give me yours.”
“Nope. I am not a chivalrous man.”
He shifts down and puts the car into park, and we get out. The breeze is crisp, and the air smells like fall. I’m suddenly glad he didn’t ask me to come at night or sunset or anything otherwise considered make-outey. The sun is warm enough for just this hour that I barely need the jacket.
Drew crosses over to the backseat on my side of the car and pulls out the fuzzy blanket from forever ago.
“You and your blanket again. I feel scandalized,” I say.
He rolls his eyes and folds the blanket under one arm, reaching out the other one and resting it on the small of my back. It’s an intimate touch, almost possessive, but Drew and I have never been overly sensitive about where we’re allowed to touch each other.
We walk together just a little ways away from the car, into the cover of the trees. There’s this little place here, if you take the time to find it, that is perfect: flat, shady, covered with leaves that have been softened by the perpetual dew. Even in the fall, this one spot is humid, which takes some of the bite out of the cold. We’ve visited it many a time.
He hands the blanket to me when we get there. “One sec. I forgot something.” And he runs off, leaves crunching beneath his feet. I spread out the blanket and sit, leaning up against the nearest aspen, not thinking much of anything. It’s too peaceful here to allow the rest of the craziness in my life to seep in.
It doesn’t take him long to get back; Drew’s a fast runner. He comes back into the little grove with a couple thermoses in hand. I somehow missed them when they were in the car.
“Ooh, what’s in these? Something meant to lower my inhibitions?” I tease him.
He sits down next to me and hands me one. “Maybe.” His eyes are sparkling. “But I don’t need trick substances to do that. You asked me to do this, flat-out, with none of that crap. I’m just irresistible.”
I shake my head and bring the thermos to my lips. It warms my hands, and whatever is inside is still steaming. High-quality beverage container. When I taste it, I shouldn’t be as excited as I am, but I’m totally thrilled.
“Cider. You brought me apple cider.” I take another taste. He was telling the truth; it’s not spiked.
“With a drizzle of caramel I melted in the microwave myself, I’d like to point out.”
I laugh and drink again. Cider is like my crack. If he was planning on taking me out here to teach me to make out, this was an unwise choice. I don’t know any guy who could get me to willingly pry my mouth away from it for any reasonable length of time.
We sit there for a while, drinking in silence, until he sets his down.
“So …”
“So …” I parrot back, only willing to remove the thermos long enough to speak a syllable.
“We gonna do this thing or what?”
I giggle. “You shouldn’t have brought me this if you really wanted that to happen.”
“See, I thought I was earning nice-guy points. I very rarely get those.”
“Oh you’ve got them,” I say between tiny drinks, “it’s just there’s no way you’re getting this away from my lips anytime soon.”
He narrows his eyes at me and sits cross-legged inches from me for a while, watching me drink, paying particular attention, I notice, to my mouth.
I lower the thermos a bit more than I generally do between sips, just once, and he moves faster than I’ve ever seen him move, snatching it away and tossing it to the ground in one fluid motion. Before I can react, he grabs the back of my head and pulls it toward him, meeting my mouth with his own.
Even if I wanted to overthink everything, I couldn’t, not with everything his lips are doing to me. I make a high little sound of surprise and he pulls me closer to him, until my body is pressed against his. One hand is still knit in my hair, the other on the small of my back, and he doesn’t have to hint to me to part my lips. They just do.
He explores every bit of my mouth, and this time it doesn’t feel foreign. It feels—dizzying. And right. He tastes like cider—warm spice and apples and perfection. I move my lips, my tongue, with his, and I understand now why making out is such a big deal to everyone.
Before I’m ready, he pulls back and looks me in the eye, intense and focused and terrified. And I don’t want to stop. I lean forward, totally high off of all the sensations rushing through my body, and kiss him. I’m grabbing at his jacket and he shrugs out of it, leaving it abandoned on the blanket, but it’s not enough.
My hands find their way beneath his shirt, and I run my fingers over his stomach, his chest. He pulls back for just an instant, breathing shakily. Everything on him is trembling hard. But he kisses me again, deeper, forceful, and it steals my breath. And I steal his shirt, peeling it off, wanting to feel his skin. I climb on top of him, not thinking. Not letting myself care that this is Drew. That I can’t be with him. That he could hurt me worse than anyone could. All I can let myself feel is his heart pounding against my palm, the urgency when he kisses me, everything I can’t believe I’ve never gotten to feel until this moment.
He sighs, low and gravelly, into me, and flips us over until he is on top of me, kissing me deeply, greedily, like he’ll never kiss anyone again. When I feel his fingers trailing up my bare stomach, I don’t pull away. I don’t want to. I want to let him.
I raise up just a little, to shrug out of my jacket, and he pulls back from my mouth. Slowly, questioning me with his eyes, he takes off my shirt. I could stop him at any time if I wanted to. But I don’t. And when he reaches around to unclasp my bra, I let that happen, too. If he didn’t do it, I think I would have.
I lie back on the blanket, feeling every twig, every leaf underneath it, with goose bumps all over my skin, from Drew, and from the cold. But he doesn’t care about the goose bumps. He just sits there, breathing hard and staring at me like I’m the most beautiful thing that has ever existed. Tender. And hungry. And he kisses me again, slowly. It feels so differ
ent this time that I almost don’t notice one of his hands sliding up to a part of me that my shirt has always covered.
Almost. But when something hard brushes against my leg, and his other hand starts playing at the waistband of my pants, I notice. And when he breathes my name and goes to kiss me again, I’m suddenly terrified. Because as much as everything in me wants it, I can’t do this. I can’t.
I say, “Drew,” into his kiss, and he pulls back from me.
“What?”
“I … I can’t. We can’t.”
He draws in a breath and blinks hard, like he’s trying to make the world focus. Then he looks at me, really looks at me, and that glazed look disappears.
“Renley. Oh man, R, I’m sorry.” He scrambles backward, guilt all over everything. “I shouldn’t have … I didn’t mean to … Dammit. I’m sorry—”
“Drew,” I say, sitting up. “Stop.”
He shuts up and stares at me, wide-eyed.
“I took your shirt off, remember?” I say.
He starts to relax, but just barely.
“This was just as much me as it was you. I just can’t do this.”
“No, I don’t want you to,” Drew says.
I recoil like he’s just slapped me and a panicked look comes over his face.
“No, that’s not what I meant. Of course I want to. But you’re not ready for this. I don’t want to be someone you regret.”
“And I … I don’t want to be another notch in your bedpost.”
A look I’ve never seen on anyone travels across his features. Confusion, anger, and extreme sadness, all tangled into one. I immediately want to take it back.
“You,” he says huskily, bringing a hand to my face, “you could never be anything to me but the person I love most in the world. You are everything. A notch in my bedpost?” He sits back, running his fingers through his hair, hard.
“That’s not what—”
“It’s okay.”
We sit there in tense silence for a few seconds, and Drew puts on his shirt and jacket.
“Yeah, we should go,” I say.
“Yeah. I just …” He pauses awkwardly, then looks pointedly downward. “I, uh, need a second.”
“Oh.” I look away, bright red.
“It’s gonna be a lot longer than a second if you don’t put a shirt on.”
I’m totally horrified. I forgot I was topless. I put on my shirt and bra in a semi-panic and reach for the cider that’s dripping from the thermos. I drink it to occupy myself while we wait, and after what seems like forever, he stands.
“Let’s go,” he says, and we get silently into the car and roll away from our spot.
It’s uncomfortable. He’s seen me halfway naked, and touched me places no one ever has, and I don’t know how to feel.
“Don’t hate me,” I say.
“I don’t hate you,” he says through gritted teeth. But then he breathes out, “A notch in my bedpost.”
I look away from him, and then back to his face. “I didn’t mean that. I know you would never treat me that way.”
He slams on the brakes and swerves off the dirt road, shutting off the car. “Treat you what way, Renley? What exactly do you think I do with those girls?”
“Um.”
“I don’t lie to them. They know exactly what they’re getting with me. I don’t promise I love them and then kick them out five minutes after we screw. And I’ve never cheated on a girl. Ever. I don’t know why you think I’m this terrible guy—”
“I don’t—”
“Or why you think I’m not worthy of a relationship. But I am not your dad. I’m not your crazy mom either. I would never do that to you. I promise all those other girls one night. And I give it to them. And I promise you that I will never stop loving you. And I won’t. Because I don’t break my promises, whatever they are.”
I can’t even look at him when I say, “I’m sorry.”
He tries to start the engine, but it just rolls over. And again. And again. “Shit,” he says, voice harsh and clipped. Then he leans back. “This happens sometimes. Just wait about half an hour and it’ll start magically working again.”
“I’m sorry, Drew.”
He turns his head to look at me. “I don’t want you to be sorry. I want you to know what you’re worth.”
I choke back a cry when he says that, and my eyes moisten. He slides his seat back until it’s as far as it will go. And he lets me climb into his lap and throw my arms around his neck and cry.
16. How to Kick an Apple Cider Habit
When I click PUBLISH, I feel weird, like I’m revealing part of myself I don’t want to reveal. Not to anyone, but especially not to all of cyberspace. But it needs to be done. This is going to make me the vast majority of what I need to get to New York. So I tell the world how to make out, and hide behind the identity of SweetLifeCoach.
I can’t stop thinking about Drew, which is frustrating. It’s been days. I don’t want to think about him. And I don’t want to get sucked into remembering what it felt like to kiss him, what his hands felt like on my body. Even just lying there in the quiet remembering everything is addictive. And I can’t.
Every time I remember what it was like, it’s interspersed with knowing that I can’t hold on to that forever. Right now, the way he is, what we have, I can do this. But if I let myself fall in love with him, eventually he will get bored. And he will leave.
I can handle not kissing him again, I think. But I can’t handle having no one to hold me while I cry like a wimp about my mom or dad or evil stepmother or whatever. I can’t lose that. I won’t. So I’m not going to text him. I’m texting someone else.
How goes the trigonometry?
Abysmal, Seth responds.
Apparently, he’s good at English.
You free? I ask.
Yeah. I’ll come over.
See you in 30?
Sounds good.
I take the next half hour to get ready, making sure everything is perfect, and notice that my roots are starting to show. I wonder if I can get April to redo them for me or if I’ll have to fix them myself. I can’t really go to a salon. I’m not an expert on everything I say I’m an expert on, but I have some principles.
I pick up the phone to text April, but stop short. What if she wants to come now and I have to say, “Can’t! Hanging with Seth!” We’ve hardly talked since I blew her off and I don’t want to risk making everything worse. So I purse my lips, set the phone down, and wait.
I hear the doorbell ring and my dad answers it. I stay in my room at my desk, finishing up my makeup before he sees me. Just as I finish my cat eyeliner (which I’m awesome at now, by the way), Seth knocks softly on my bedroom door.
“Come in,” I say, and I spin around when he walks in, knowing full well how rockin’ my legs look in this tiny skirt. From the way his gaze flicks down to my ankles and back up, I think he knows it too.
He swings his backpack around and sets it on the floor, then sits down with it.
“Do you want anything to drink?” I ask. “I’ve got …”
He pulls two cans of Dr Pepper out of his bag and I smile, then wonder if maybe he thinks I like the beverage more than I actually do. I conclude he doesn’t, because I’ve brought a bottle to cooking nearly every day since the class started, so it’s a fair assumption.
I sit in front of him (carefully, attempting to avoid a wardrobe malfunction) and pop open the can, then take a drink. I wish this was apple cider, I think. But that line of thinking is dangerous. I want it to be Dr Pepper. I had enough cider the other day to last me through the year. Lie.
“Thanks,” I say, taking another drink, because no matter how much I’m craving apples and spice, this soda is good.
“No problem.”
He unzips his backpack and pulls out his trig book and notebook, then lays them out on the floor.
“So, what are we going over today?” I ask him.
“This.”
“Oh yeah
. Trig terminology sucks. You kind of have them all screwed up everywhere.”
He stares at the paper blankly, and I go into a lengthy, boring explanation of cosines, sines, and tangents.
He blinks at me.
“These are basically just formulas you have to memorize. Like, in cooking, you just know three teaspoons equals one tablespoon. You don’t have to think about it. You don’t have to understand it. Just memorize it.”
“I can do that.”
And we spend the next, like, fifteen minutes going over different sides of the triangle and where they are and which term they belong to. It’s a triangle; there are only three. So how we spend that amount of time boggles my mind. He just really sucks at math.
Then again, these were probably the thoughts going through his head when I didn’t know what a mushroom cap was. So.
After going around in circles (ironically) for fifteen minutes, Seth slams the notebook down and I jump. “My brain is dead,” he says.
“I’m not going to argue with you.”
He makes a face at me. “I didn’t think tutors were allowed to belittle their students. Not good for their fragile self-esteems.”
“I expect full vengeance next time we cook.”
“Prepare yourself,” he says, grinning. Then he stands. “You wanna get out of here?”
I stand with him, already heading toward the door, then hesitate. “I don’t know.”
He frowns.
“It’s just—and this is gonna be a little awkward—you have a girlfriend.”
The frown disappears from his face and he shakes his head. “Not exactly true.”
And, cue heart in throat. “You don’t?” I somehow croak, past the vital organ now blocking my trachea.
“No. We broke up a few nights ago. Actually, the night of the bonfire. After I dropped you off.”
“Oh,” I say.
“In all honesty, I wouldn’t be over here right now if we hadn’t called it quits.”
I just stand there, frozen. There are very few reasons that could be true. “Why would that make a difference?”
“Come on,” he says.
How to Make Out Page 10