Just a Name

by Becky Monson

  I turn my face toward Nate and find him staring at me.

  “Neither of us have made out in a pub in London,” he says, his eyes earnestly on mine.

  “That’s true,” I say, feeling suddenly a little breathless.

  “We should fix that.”

  He leans in and kisses me gently on my lips and then pulls back and searches my face. Probably to gauge my reaction. He hasn’t tried to kiss me all day, and I’m glad he hasn’t. There was touching and hand-holding and I was okay with all that. It felt like too much to be prancing around London like a couple of twitterpated teenagers making out at every stop. Not that I’d do that with anyone anyway. Plus, I’ve only known the guy for four days. Well, in person.

  My reaction to his kiss is a smile because I like Nate’s lips on mine. They’re soft, and warm, and tender. I want him to kiss me again right here in this pub. So I lean in toward him and he meets me halfway, and when our lips meet, I melt into him.

  ~*~

  It all happened so fast, I’m not even sure how we got here. All I know is we were kissing at the pub and then the bartender made a comment about how we should get a room or something, and then he threatened to spray us with the hose, so we paid our bill, made our way to our hotel, making out in the elevator up to our floor, and when we got to Nate’s room, he invited me in to see his view and then he started tickling me and we ended up on his bed . . . kissing.

  So, I guess I do know how we got here.

  But man, this is fun. I haven’t had this much fun making out in a long time. We’re on the bed, Nate half on top of me, my fingers tangled in his hair as his mouth traces kisses down to my neck and collarbone.

  His mouth works its way back up to mine and we kiss for what seems like a long while, the intensity picking up as we go. Hands feel like they’re everywhere, like Nate suddenly has more than two. They’re in my hair, on my face, stroking my arm.

  Then Nate slides a hand down my side, over the light pink cotton T-shirt I’m wearing, and finding the bottom, he tugs my shirt up slightly and places his hand on the bare skin at my waist, his thumb making circle motions on my stomach.

  This does not have the effect I think he was going for, because all it does is send off warning bells in my head.

  Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries.

  This is going too fast. Way faster than I’m comfortable with. I allowed the imaginary no-kissing line I made in my mind to be crossed. While that’s been fun, I’m not going any further than that. That’s not my kind of thing. I fear this whole in-his-hotel-room-kissing-on-the-bed is leading Nate to believe we might go further than that, when that was never my intention.

  “Nate,” I say as he nibbles on my ear. “Nate,” I say again, this time a note of impatience in my voice.

  “Yeah,” he says, pulling his lips away from me, he lifts his head up so I can see his face.

  “I think . . .” I stop, trying to catch my breath. “I think maybe we should call it a night.”

  “What?” His eyes narrow.

  “Yeah,” I say, moving my hands to his chest. I push lightly to move him over, which he does, and then I pull myself to sitting. I reach up and grab a tendril of my hair, wrapping it around my finger.

  “Okay,” he says, dragging out the word.

  “I’m . . . I just . . . this is great and all, but I’m, well, I’m not . . .” I trail off. The understanding dawning on his face lets me know I don’t need to finish that sentence.

  He reaches up and rubs the back of his neck. “Right. Got it.”

  I lick my lips. “I’m sorry if I led you to think that. Honestly, I didn’t even expect us to kiss on this trip,” I say.

  “Oh,” Nate says, his eyes on mine. “And now you regret it?”

  “No,” I say, shaking my head. “I like it. A lot.” I give him a reassuring smile. “It’s just that . . . well, it can’t go any further than . . . that.” I start nibbling on the side of my bottom lip.

  “Right,” he says, running a hand through his hair. He appears a little lost in thought.

  “Okay?” I ask, a feeling of regret settling on me. This trip had been going well without the kissing. I thought it was going well with the kissing, but now I wonder if that crossed a line.

  “Yeah. I mean,” he huffs out a frustrated laugh. “I guess I was thinking we might have something here,” he says, his eyes focusing on something on the bed.

  “We do,” I say, and he looks up at me. “I think we’re becoming friends.”

  “Friends?” he says, the hint of irritation in his voice duly noted.

  “Well, yeah. Friends. I mean, where did you see this going?”

  This was not the right thing to say, or at least not what he wanted to hear, because Nate now looks mad. Or at least I think he looks mad since I’ve never seen him this way. This tidbit of info reminds me of how little we really know each other and although I was already firm in my decision, this solidifies it.

  “I don’t know, but I was willing to find out,” he says. “But you . . . I guess you’ve already made up your mind about it.”

  “Well, I mean, I’m only being logical. You live in California. I live in Orlando. I just figured—”

  “We’d go on this trip and that would be it.”

  “Well . . . yeah,” I say.

  He lets out a breath. “Okay, whatever you want.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask, feeling anger rush through me.

  He huffs out a breath. “No, you’re right,” he says, his voice full of irritation. “Best that we just leave it like it is.”

  I want to say it wasn’t going any further than this anyway, but it feels moot at this point.

  “I’m sorry, Nate,” I say. “I didn’t mean to—”

  “Whatever,” he says, throwing a hand back as if to dismiss it all.

  Feeling like I should probably leave, I stand up and grab my purse. “I’ll see you tomorrow?” I ask since the expression on Nate’s face and the tension in the room makes me wonder if I will.

  “Yeah, sure,” he says flatly, lying back on his bed, a bulging, muscly arm going underneath his head.

  “Okay,” I say, looking at him hoping his eyes will meet mine one more time, but he stays put, staring at the ceiling. I quietly let myself out.

  Chapter 25

  I wake up early with unease in my stomach over last night. I feel bad about how things went down with Nate. I could have said things better, I realize. I could have sugarcoated a little. Of course, had I been totally upfront with him regarding what I would and wouldn’t be doing on this trip, none of that would have ever happened. None of the kissing or the hand holding.

  This is why I have boundaries in place. Because when I allow myself to go outside of them, everything gets complicated. Well, I can’t say I know that—because I rarely go outside of them. But I assumed, and I was right, and now things are all kinds of complicated.

  How will the rest of the trip go? Tomorrow is Paris, and we still have five more days together. I don’t want this awkwardness between us. I want things to go back to where they were before. Before we kissed—back to the casualness of it all.

  I get out of bed with purpose. I’m going to make this right. Nate and I will have a talk, we will iron out any feelings of awkwardness, and maybe we can start over. I’ll run and grab breakfast first, though, as a peace offering.

  During my shower, I second-guess myself about this whole thing and I realize the one person who could help me with this is Quinn. Bree wouldn’t be helpful; she’d tell me I should have gone for it. Quinn, even though she’s been pro Holly-gets-some-loving on this trip, knows me. That’s why it’s still so weird I haven’t heard from her since I sent the text about Nate and me kissing the other night. I double checked last night, and I’m pretty sure my text went through.

  I find my phone in my bag and stare at it. Nothing. No texts, or any notifications, for that matter. It seems so out of character for Quinn. The fact that I haven’t gotte
n a text from any of my friends in the past couple of days seems curious.

  I wonder briefly if my phone is broken, or maybe the connection isn’t working out here even though I paid a lot of money to ensure it would. I don’t know much about how phones work, so I do what anybody in my position would do: I reboot.

  It takes a couple of minutes for my phone to boot back up and I get dressed while I’m waiting, putting on a black cotton weekend skirt and a mossy green fitted V-neck tee.

  A picture of my dad and me—the one I use as my wallpaper—shows up and I put in my password. Sounds and vibrations erupt from my phone, the dinging and pinging coming in so fast I almost drop it from the noise.

  That was the problem then. Stupid technology. My texting app says I have fifty-two new messages. So my friends really do care about me.

  I open the app and see a list of unopened texts. I see Quinn’s name first—I’m willing to bet at least forty of the messages are from her. There are also messages from Alex, my dad, the group text I have with my friends . . . and Logan.

  I decide to start from the top, so I open Quinn’s texts first. I press on her name and see that, indeed, most of the texts are from her. I scan through them, most of them not making a lot of sense since she was having a one-sided conversation.

  Quinn: Call me.

  Quinn: Holly, we’re all worried, can you please just call?

  Quinn: None of my calls are going through. Your voice mail isn’t working.

  Quinn: Your stupid hotel won’t answer.

  They keep going like this. The last one, time stamped from Thursday morning is the most confusing.

  Quinn: Don’t be mad at Thomas, okay? He didn’t think. I don’t know what compelled him to put that on MM. Are you freaking out? I’m so sorry. I had no idea. Don’t freak out, Hols. It’s not as bad as it seems. Too much to text. Call me when you get this.

  Not as bad as it seems? What’s she talking about?

  I go back to the message list and click on our group text—the one I have with Quinn, Bree, Alex, and Thomas, and see the time stamp is for yesterday.

  I open it up and the top message of our group text is from Quinn and all it says is “OMG.”

  I scan down to the bottom of the texts where the conversation started, my eyes quickly scanning the OMGs from both Bree and Quinn, and a “what the hell” from Alex.

  The original message is from Thomas.

  Thomas: Early rendition of Mugshot Monday, out today since I’m gone on Monday. Hols, you might want to pay particular attention to number three.

  Why would I need to pay attention to anyone on Mugshot Mondays? What’s he even talking about?

  And then my stomach sinks as I realize what it has to be. It’s finally happened.

  Thomas has found my mother’s mugshot.

  I feel suddenly sick, sinking down on the edge of my bed. I swallow hard, and with shaky hands I pull up my email app and wait for the emails to load. I stare at it, willing it to load with my brain, but it just says “checking for mail” at the bottom and nothing is pulling up.

  I shouldn’t jump to conclusions, but what else could it be? How am I going to explain this to my friends? The shame of it all has kept me from saying anything to anyone. I don’t want their looks of pity, which they will inevitably give me now that they know: mommy’s in jail.

  I’m going to murder Thomas. Couldn’t he have sent it to me personally instead of putting it on Mugshot Monday for everyone to see? Nathan’s on that list . . . as well as Logan. Oh gosh, I might be sick.

  I cover my mouth as if to keep myself from throwing up, and blink back the tears that are prickling behind my eyes. Maybe it’s not that bad. Maybe Thomas didn’t even mention that it was my mom. He did say for me to pay particular attention to it. But then why did my friends all have that reaction?

  My phone dings a bunch of times, jarring me out of my thoughts and causing me to almost let out a scream from the sound. I look at my inbox, scanning down through all the new messages until I see it.

  From Thomasmoore@JJandS.com: Mugshot Monday, early rendition!

  My finger hovers over the email, not sure I want to open it. I swallow hard and press on the message.

  The text pulls up, but the pictures are taking their own sweet time to load. I can’t bring myself to scroll down to the third mugshot, not wanting to see her face load on my phone. I’ve seen the mugshot before, having looked it up myself. But to see it on here will be so much harder. I just know it.

  The pictures start to load, the first mugshot pulling up. My hands still shaking, I use my index finger to scroll down the email until it gets to the third one. The last mugshot.

  As the picture finally starts to load, I prepare myself for it—for her.

  As the face comes into full view, I take in a sharp breath, my stomach taking on a whole new level of sickness. The mugshot is not of my mom.

  It’s Nate.

  Chapter 26

  I drop my phone as if it’s just burned me.

  And then I pick it back up and read what Thomas wrote.

  A familiar face on Mugshot Monday. Recognize this guy? Our friend Holly will. We’ll call him Nate Number Two . . . or Number Two for short. Looks like Number Two got himself into some trouble.

  Was his crime:

  A) Theft

  B) Possession

  C) Disorderly Conduct

  I’m so confused right now as I stare at Nate’s mugshot, his hair disheveled, his lips turned downward. It almost doesn’t look like him—the lively, energetic man I’ve been spending the past five days with. The one I was rolling around on a bed with last night. But it’s definitely him. I’d know that chin dimple anywhere.

  What the H-word. Actually, Quinn is not around and this deserves the full word. It deserves all the words. Hell. Hell, hell, hell.

  Without thinking about it, I grab the key card to my room, and walk—or rather, stomp—down the hall to Nate’s. I want answers and I want them now. I pound on the door. When I hear nothing from the other side of the door, I pound even harder.

  “Hang on,” I finally hear him say, his voice muffled through the door.

  I’m breathing so heavily, I feel like I might hyperventilate. At least I think that’s what this feels like. I’ve never experienced this before.

  “Holly?” he asks when he cracks open the door. His hair is a mess, and his eyes struggle to fully open. I’ve woken him up.

  Not caring, I hold up my phone. “Do you want to tell me what this is?”

  “Huh?” he asks, his eyes focusing on my phone. “There’s nothing on it.”

  “What?” I ask, turning the screen toward me, I see my phone has timed out and gone into sleep mode. Not exactly the confrontation I was going for. Stupid phone. I click on the home button and put in my passcode.

  “Can we talk about whatever this is later?” Nate asks, rubbing his eyes as we wait for my phone to open back up. “It’s, like, six in the morning.”

  “No, we can’t,” I say as I pull his picture up—his mugshot—full frame and shove it in his face. “Can you explain this?”

  He looks at the phone and then lets out a long sigh. He curses under his breath and swipes a hand over his face.

  “What the hell is this, Nate?”

  He opens the door wider so I can come in, but I stand in the hall, my feet set in place. I’m not going in there with him. No way am I falling for that trap. I will not be wrapped in a carpet and dumped in a river because of my own stupid choices.

  “Holly, it’s not that big of a deal,” he says. “Just come in and I’ll explain.” He motions with his hand for me to come in.

  “No thanks, I’m good right here,” I say, still holding the phone toward him.

  He breathes out again loudly. “I got caught with some of my buddy’s stuff,” he says, motioning toward the phone with an outstretched hand.

  “Stuff?” I ask, but I think I know what stuff is and I feel my stomach turn.

  “My buddy�
��s medication,” he says.

  “Drugs?” I echo, my stomach not only turning, but doing a bunch of somersaults.

  “Yeah, his prescription. I was holding them for him,” he says. “I got pulled over for speeding and the cop found them and took me in. He was a real jerk. He wouldn’t even listen to me.”

  “You were . . . holding them,” I repeat.

  My mind instantly replays a voice in my head . . . my mom’s voice. Back when I was only ten, before she left and after I’d found not just one, but three bottles of pills in her purse. “They’re not mine, baby. I’m holding them for a friend.”

  “W-when?” I ask, hoping this was something in his past—something from a while ago, but this picture on my phone would say otherwise.

  “A few months ago,” he says.

  “A few months ago?” I swallow. How is that possible? It would have been on his record a few months ago. They would have seen it in his background check.

  “Yeah,” he nods his head. “Look, I should have told you, but I didn’t think—”

  “But there was a background check,” I say, cutting him off. “That would have shown up.”

  “A background check?” Nate asks, his eyes scrunching up. “I don’t remember hearing anything about that.”

  “Yes. That was part of the deal—a background check on whoever came on this trip with me.”

  He shakes his head. “I was never told about a background check.”

  I run a hand through my hair, my fingers getting caught in the damp locks since I never got a chance to blow dry it. I don’t even have shoes on; I didn’t think to put them on.

  What does he mean, he was never told about a background check? Don’t you have to disclose that? And drugs? Of all things . . .

  I close my eyes slowly as I realize what happened. Jerry. Freaking corner-cutting Jerry. Of course. He never did the background check. That has to be it. I will seriously punch him in the face when I see him. What was he thinking? I could have been out here with a serial killer! Although that probably wouldn’t show up on a background check because serial killers aren’t usually free to roam the planet. But still.