Lines (Greyford High Book 1)

by Anna B. Doe

  “Yes,” I confirm decisively, shifting a bit closer to her. “You have something there. I couldn't see it because of the low light.”

  “Ohh. Did I get it?” She wipes at her mouth again giving me the opportunity to come another bit closer to her, just enough to have her in my reach.

  “Hmm ... I'm not sure.”

  I lean closer to her, so close that I'm in her personal space and can feel her sweet scent surround me. It's all over her room actually, but it smells slightly different on her.

  Light, sweet, addicting.

  The palm of my hand cups her cheek, and I feel her go still beneath my touch. Softly, so slowly, I let my thumb glide over her skin, getting rid of imaginary crumbs on her face.

  “That was one damn good cookie,” I utter in low voice, trying not to startle her.

  “Yeah,” she whispers. “My favorite. Chocolate chip cookies with cherries and a bit of chopped almonds.”

  “Yeah, damn fine cookies,” I agree, looking down at her. Cookies are the last thing on my mind. My other hand finds its way to her hand and I interlace our fingers.

  “What are you doing, Derek?”

  I chuckle and let my thumb slide over her lower lip. They are soft and pink and they part a bit with my touch.

  “I'm going to kiss you.” I lean into her and whisper in her ear, giving her a fair warning, a chance to move away on time or to say no.

  My hot breath touches her skin, and she shivers under me. I look at Amelia from the corner of my eye to reassure myself that she isn't scared this time. I want her to want this. I want her to want me. “And this time there is no running away or crying.”

  Amelia

  His lips touch my cheek.

  I know he’s trouble. I know I shouldn't have listened to him and stayed sitting where I was. I should have simply taken the cookie and gone back to sit at the desk.

  Maintaining the distance between us is imperative if I want to prevent this thing from happening. But the way he looks at me, he knows what he’s doing. He knows I can't resist the pull he has over me. Sometimes I wonder if this is all some crazy dream.

  Like a sleepwalker, I go to him. And then in a matter of seconds, we come closer and closer and closer. Then finally, he is in front of me, his hands on me. And those hypnotizing blue eyes stare into mine.

  And then his lips are on my skin.

  Skin against the skin.

  He leaves small, closemouthed kisses down my cheek, which are more like a simple press of his mouth against my flesh. The stubble on his cheeks is scratchy against my soft cheek. Slowly his head dips until his lips are on mine.

  This time it isn't like last. There is no hurry or anger or need to conquer. It’s no less intense, but it’s sweeter.

  His hand stays on my cheek, holding me close to him. His mouth slowly sweeps over mine, thoroughly memorizing my lips.

  I sigh beneath the light pressure of his lips, giving him just enough space to sneak his tongue in my mouth.

  This time I meet him halfway, enjoying the feeling rising in me.

  He shifts and pulls me to him, right onto his lap so that I’m straddling him. My eyes open in surprise and my hands grab at material covering his shoulders. Derek gives me a wicked, boyish smile before his hand finds its way to the nape of my head and he pulls me down, to meet my lips once again.

  We continue kissing like that ... seconds, minutes or hours. It could have been days, weeks, or even months and I wouldn't notice. When we’re like this it is so easy to forget, to lose myself in him. We are crossing every line that was drawn between us, our worlds—a line that’s better left uncrossed—but I can’t find it in me to care. And he sure as hell doesn’t seem to. We are like two lost souls, searching to find something that’s been missing for a while.

  “Lia, dinner's ready!”

  Mom's howl from the downstairs breaks this tiny bubble of ours into pieces.

  “Shit,” Derek groans, his head hitting the bed in distress.

  I try to get off him, but in a hurry, I trip over my own feet and fall on my butt. “The door is open,” I whisper looking horrified at the door and then back at him.

  “I know.”

  “I was all over you on the floor in front of my bed and anybody could have come and seen!” I'm so shocked and mortified that I can't find the words to express everything going through my head.

  “Don't do this.” Derek lifts his head of the bed and looks at me. “Don't do it. Nothing could have happened. We would have heard them. It wasn't that bad.”

  “Wasn't that...”

  “Lia!”

  “Coming, Mom!” I yell back at her and then look back at him. “This is not happening again.”

  “Why not?” His eyes narrow at me, and I can see the anger in the way his body stiffens.

  “We can't,” I protest. “This is not right.”

  “You keep on thinking that. I'll make you see it my way.” Derek stands up and takes his backpack. “Come on. Your family's waiting.”

  He didn't stay for dinner.

  I sigh and turn to lie on my back to look at the ceiling. It is almost 2 AM and I still can’t stop thinking about him. So instead I stare at the dim glow of the stars, hoping they’ll take me to the dreamland, but all I can do is think.

  When we came back down, he apologized to Mom and told her that his family called him to come home so he couldn't stay.

  Derek is such a good liar I almost believed him, and I knew for a fact that nobody called him. He was too busy tempting me into getting close to him so he could kiss me to pay attention to his cellphone.

  With regret, Mom sent him home, but not before she made him promise to stay for dinner the next time he came over. And then, during the whole meal, she couldn't stop talking about him. How tall he is. How cute he is. How hardworking he is. How polite he is. I almost laughed out loud on that one. There is nothing polite about Derek King. Not a polite bone in his body. And she sure wouldn't think like that if she, instead of yelling from the downstairs, climbed up to tell us to come to dinner. Or maybe she would. After all, we were talking about my mother here, so I couldn't be 100% sure.

  Even after he left, he was still present here.

  Following dinner, I help Mom clean everything and then return to my room. But he was there.

  Well, he wasn't there, there. But his spirit was in my room. It was so not a good idea to let him inside. We should have stayed downstairs or even gone to the library. Then I wouldn't have this problem of seeing him sitting on the floor in front of my bed. Or standing in the middle of my room looking around.

  His smell—subtle and not overwhelming like most guys—is manly and fresh. It reminds me of some herbs or something. I’m not sure exactly what, but it’s stuck in my room, another reminder that he was here. A boy was in my room, something that hasn’t happened before and I didn’t think it would. But it did.

  I will probably never be able to take Jane Austen's book in my hand ever again and chocolate chip cookies with cherries and almonds will always remind me of the way he kissed me.

  I catch my finger tracing my bottom lip. It isn't the first time I caught myself doing that this evening. I can't stop thinking about it, about the way he kissed me, and how the boy who kissed me had nothing to do with the boy I’ve known my whole life.

  It’s like there are two people in his body. But, that is exactly what I shouldn't let myself forget. There are two of them. No matter how passionate, sweet, and tempting his kisses can be, he isn't always like that.

  He is a King.

  King of school.

  King of ice.

  And King of his own life.

  So I do the only reasonable thing, I turn around and urge my way to sleep. Nothing good can come from daydreaming, or in this case, night dreaming of the boy with piercing blue eyes.

  Derek

  For the next week, I ignore her. It isn’t even that hard, or so I like to tell myself.

  Coach loves to keep our schedule intense
so we don’t do stupid things, like party too much, not that that ever stopped us before. He likes to believe in his methods, and we like to keep him thinking what makes him happy. If he isn’t happy with something, he becomes an even bigger dick than usual during the practice.

  So, like a good minion, I get up in the morning, do my workout in the gym, ignoring Sanders as much as I can. We both keep to our truce, but it’s a fragile deal. I go to my classes, and afterward, we have practice in the rink—drills and scrimmage—after which I stay alone to do a few more laps around the ice and practice my shooting before finally taking my shower and going home.

  Only to repeat it all the next day. After a while, I start to feel like a robot.

  That doesn’t mean I don’t see her. We have classes together after all. But even if we didn’t, I would find a reason to look for her in the hallways and cafeteria. She’s still sitting with the Sanders twins for lunch, and as much as I want to go there and tell him to go to hell and stay away from her, I need to cool off and think of a game plan.

  She thinks we aren’t right for each other, that I can’t change, so I’ll show her she’s wrong.

  “Daydreaming again, aren’t we?” Drew lowers his tray to the table and slides in the chair next to mine.

  “Just thinking,” I reply, throwing a fry in my mouth.

  “About who?” I shoot him an annoyed look, but he just laughs at my exasperation. “You know, the annual senior sleepover is coming next weekend.”

  “So?” I pick at my food disinterestedly while keeping an eye at her table. She’s laughing. Like really laughing. I can imagine the sound of it in my head—light, resonant, and filled with happiness. And it’s at something he said. It makes me green with envy. I want her to laugh with me. I want to be the one to make her laugh, to make her smile.

  “So you can go to her house, offer to take her to school, and then plant your sleeping bag right next to hers. If you are lucky maybe she’ll let you hold her hand—the closest thing you’ll come to getting into her granny panties.”

  At the last remark, he laughs loudly, like he just said the funniest freaking joke in the last decade.

  “Sometimes you can be a real prick, Hill,” I snap, standing up. I so don’t have the patience to deal with him being a jackass right now.

  “Ohh, come on! It was a joke,” he yells after me. “Can’t you even take a joke anymore?”

  I roll my eyes at him, and without looking back at my friend, get out of there.

  Andrew’s words don’t leave my mind no matter how much I tell myself they are stupid. Hell, he is stupid. The only thing he knows about girls is how to fuck them. He is the ultimate love 'em and leave 'em kind of guy.

  Why does he even care so much about all of this? What does he get from messing with me about Amelia and being a prick to her?

  I know he has his issues with girls. After all he’s been through with their gender, how his mom treated him, the guy’s allowed to have some issues. I really pity the girl who falls for him. But not because of his popularity, athlete status, or money, but really falls in love with the guy hiding behind all of that crap. It is easy to love people on the outside, loving all the deep, dark parts of someone, that… that’s hard.

  “Derek, dinner’s ready in a few!” Dad yells from downstairs.

  Sighing, I sit straight on my bed and scratch the back of my head. So much for reading Pride and Prejudice.

  I look down at the book sitting in my lap. I took it from Amelia’s room while she wasn’t looking. Maybe reading it would help me get a clearer picture of who she is, and more importantly, what she wants in a guy. Chicks like that shit, don’t they?

  The cover is well worn like it was read a hundred times before now. I wouldn’t surprise me if it really is true, but it’s also well taken care of. There is no writing inside the book, or god forbid, dog ears.

  Like he can sense my train of thoughts, Ace wiggles his tail and jumps off the bed. He looks at me expectedly with those almost ice-like eyes—I’m telling you, this dog is more intelligent than most of the humans—waiting for me to get up.

  Since I took him home—something my mother still isn’t too happy about—he gained some weight.

  A bath and a trip to the vet gave him a presentable look. The doctor said he had some bruising and was malnourished, but nothing that a regular meal, rest, and care couldn’t cure. So far he was right.

  Ace still isn’t 100% comfortable with strangers, and sometimes he looks at my parents like he expects them to kick him or something, but he took a liking to me, for whatever reason that may be.

  Giving up, at least for now, I leave the book on my nightstand for later. Even if I never finish it, I can use it as an excuse to go back to Amelia’s place outside of our project meetings and say I took it by accident so I’m returning it now.

  On my way to the door, I look at all the clothes thrown on the floor of my room. I’m not much of a tidy person. I only clean when I know I’ll have company, which is almost never.

  If guys come to my house, we stick to the game room, or man cave how my mom likes to call it, that is downstairs. The only person who is actually in my room is Andrew, and he is practically a family so he doesn’t count. I should probably pick it up and throw it in a laundry basket so when Magdalena comes in a couple of days to clean the house it’s not such a mess. Deciding to do it after dinner, I get out of my room.

  Just as I come down the stairs with Ace next to me, the doorbell rings. He doesn’t bark, but I can hear a soft growl coming from him.

  I look at the door frowning. We don’t usually have company at this hour.

  “I’m here! I’ll get it!” I yell at my parents who are probably in the back of the house where the kitchen is.

  Our house is a traditional, two story house. It has more than enough room for the three of us and it also has a big yard with a pool and a small pool house in the back. It is small but big enough to have casual pool parties with friends during the summer.

  I open the door and stop in my tracks when I see the person standing in front of me. “Diamond,” sighing, I’m not able to hide my annoyance. “What do you think you are doing here?”

  The need to look over my shoulder to ensure that my parents are not behind me is huge, but I keep staring at her. Every lock of her blond hair is curled to perfection and her makeup is in place. She’s wearing some kind of dress and high heels, although it’s an October evening and it’s starting to get pretty cold at night.

  “Hey, you!” She smiles and leans into me to kiss my cheek. I don’t reciprocate, but she doesn’t seem to care. “I was in the neighborhood so I thought—why not stop by and say hi?”

  “We don’t live anywhere near the center or mall, Diamond.” I point out, just wanting to make her go away. She didn’t try to come to my house before. Why now?

  “Well,” her hand squeezes my upper arm, her smile big and sugar-sweet, “we haven’t hung out in a while, so I decided to drop by and see if you want to hang out.”

  She’s so close to me that her strong perfume asphyxiates me. I disengage her fingers from my hand and push her away from me. I know what she means by “hang out”, and I’m not interested in hanging out with her at all.

  Not now or again.

  One time was two times too many. I’m also not interested in my parents coming out to check who’s at the door and finding her here.

  No bringing girls home—that is my only rule. The only girl I plan to bring home and want my parents to meet is the one who matters.

  That sure as hell isn’t Diamond Morgan.

  “I’m not interested. I thought I told you that already, Diamond.” Getting out of the house and quietly closing the door behind me, I leave Ace behind the closed door. I know he won’t like it, but I don’t want him near Diamond. “What happened between us was one time thing, nothing more, so you should really go now. My folks are here and we are having this thing…”

  Her eyes narrow at me, and for a split seco
nd I think I can see angry fire burning in their crystal blue depths, but with a few quick bats of her long, dark eyelashes there’s nothing there.

  “Ohh, I see.” Her smile is sweet and understanding. Maybe she finally gets it. I’ve been telling her since the end of the summer that I don’t want anything with her, but she sticks to me like a lost puppy. “Don’t worry, we can hang out another time. See you at school!”

  Then she marches away as fast as she came here, leaving me standing glued to the spot and watching her go.

  I’ll give her that; she isn’t stupid, not even close.

  Diamond is a girl who likes to mess around with guys, all of them popular athletes who like to talk in the locker room. It isn’t a big secret or anything. When they talk about her they always drool over her hot body and excellent oral skills, but nobody mentions her brains. And she has them. She isn’t so ignorant or silly enough to ignore my requests to leave me alone, no. She knows what she wants, and she is going to do anything to get it.

  “Derek?”

  I turn around and look at my father.

  Dr. Matthew King looks good for his forty-eight years. He is tall and still has a few inches over me. His shoulders are wide like in the day he played football in high school. People often tell me I’m a spitting image of my father and they are right. We share the same facial features with blond hair and blue eyes. The only thing I’ve got from my mother are my lips.

  “Who was it?”

  “Oh, no one important,” I lie with a smile. “Just some guy from the team. He thought he forgot something in my car when I gave him a ride earlier.”

  “Did you find it?” He opens the door and we go back inside. Ace is sniffing around me, getting in between my legs.

  “Nope, I guess he left it somewhere else.” I shrug.

  “How’s the team doing?” Although Dad never played hockey, he fully supports me and goes to as many games as he can. He never tried to pressure me into playing football instead of hockey, and I’m glad for that.

  “We are doing fine.” I hate to admit it, but Sanders is a good addition to the team. Even though we can’t communicate to save our lives off the ice, on the ice we have a killer connection that could help us bring the trophy home at the end of the season. “You should come to our first game in a couple of weeks.”