“Who are you?” I asked.
He paused. “I’m a guy who can’t believe he’s here with you.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Maybe I could ask you who you are instead.”
I tensed in his arms. Now he was sounding like Micah—or, at least, who Micah was supposed to be. The game player.
“It sounds like you already know a lot about me,” I said.
“I’ve heard a few things.” He tentatively rubbed his thumbs into the crooks of my arms where I knew it was damp and as humid as the air had suddenly become in this red building. “For one thing, I know you went to college.”
No use avoiding that story. I’d posted about it on TellTale, and my secret admirer had probably pieced together just who Carley Rios really was from all my posts. “College wasn’t for me.”
“It’s not for everyone.”
“You, too?”
“I’ve got to work to pay my way. College wasn’t in the cards.”
Hurt rose to the surface. “At least you didn’t bomb out of any classes. I couldn’t cut it there. How’s that for a confession?”
He coasted his hands to my forearms, enveloping me in a hug that felt so good I reveled in it, sighing.
“I saw those TellTales, Carley, and you’re not dumb. You might’ve hit a roadblock, but you’ll get over it.”
He ran one of his thumbs over my bracelet as if he knew I’d created it, like he knew that I’d give anything to make an idea like this succeed and I’d show everyone that I didn’t need college.
“I’m glad you have confidence in me,” I said. “My stepdad constantly makes me feel like such a moron, so I hear it all the time. And I’m pretty sure that he thinks I’m going to be a failure in whatever I do.” I laughed a little. “All I want to do is get away from him. You probably read those TellTales, too.”
“I saw them,” he whispered even more softly against my ear. “Just don’t listen to him. He’s a right bastard.”
“You know him?”
Now it was my secret admirer’s turn to tense up, but then he loosened his hold on me. “Everyone knows Toby Taylor, Esquire. He’s the Scrooge of the town.”
He was very up on Aidan Falls current events. How could he be Micah?
But I didn’t care if he wasn’t. Actually, I was relieved, because it’d made no sense that I’d felt next to nothing for the guy I’d met at the party last night. Sure, Micah Wyatt was hot, but I hadn’t gotten interested because of his looks. Every time I’d seen a TellTale from my secret admirer, I’d fallen a little bit more for whoever was writing them. It was like every post was a flower I was folding between two sheets of wax paper, sustaining those precious words so I could go back to them again and again.
Whoever this was, I didn’t want to leave his arms. I liked it here. It was the most comfortable place I’d been for a long time. Maybe ever.
“Why,” he asked, “did your mom marry your stepdad?”
“I don’t know.” Every time he stroked his thumbs over my skin, I got more and more buzzed. “They’d been dating online for a year, so it wasn’t a head-over-heels thing. I’ve even asked her what made her fall in love with him, and she says that he seems like a hard-case on the outside, but inside, he’s really strong and supportive, and someday I’ll come around to seeing it. She thinks I’m just bitter because she left my dad, but I think there’s something to what she said—that she needs support. She used to be a hairdresser, but she actually considers herself to be an artist. My dad didn’t think that was practical, and they’d fight about her wanting to quit her ‘real job’ to explore her touchy-feely side. Things just got worse between them from there. I would’ve stayed with him, but he travels for work all the time, so I ended up moving with Mom to Aidan Falls. I can’t afford to be on my own yet, but it sounds like you know that tale, too.”
“I get it. And I get that Toby Taylor allows her to work in that art studio for a living now,” he said. “She fell in love because he understands her.”
He seemed to sense that it was time for me to ask who he was again because he pulled me closer to him, my back to his chest. He was all muscle, tall and solid.
I gave a soft sound of pleasure, and I wasn’t sure he heard it as much as felt it in the give of my body.
It seemed so right, being next to this person, talking with him about everything. It was as if we’d known each other a long time and tonight was meant to be, so when he pressed his mouth to my ear, I let it happen.
Meant to be . . .
“What about you?” I asked. “I don’t know anything about you except . . .”
I trailed off as he kissed my ear, sending a quake down the center of me, splitting me apart until I ached and died for more.
“Except what?” he asked against me.
“Except I think that you’ve got things that bother you, too,” I said. “You just don’t like to talk about them on your TellTales. Is there a reason you won’t show yourself to me?”
“No. I told you that I like it this way.”
“And I do, too. For now.”
I’d echoed his earlier words. For now. They hinted at a future beyond this steamy, breath-stealing present.
Was there a future?
It was his turn to sigh, and tremors filled me as he spoke.
“What do you want to know, Carley? Should we trade stories, and I’ll tell you that I live with a big family where I’ve always faded into the background? Should I say that my single dad had a revolving door of girlfriends who brought along their own kids and usually left them behind? He’s a nice guy with a good heart but should’ve never been a parent.”
Whoa. I hadn’t expected him to come so abruptly clean. And he went even further.
“I guess I should also tell you that I was just as much of a nonentity to everyone else, too. I might as well have been a ghost in school, for all it mattered. I was the guy in the jacket that swallowed him up as I sat by the rear window in class, never saying a word. Would you have seen me if you’d been there then, Carley?”
Probably not. In high school, I’d been popular. I’d had stars in my eyes and I’d thought I was going to conquer the world. When I found out that I didn’t have that kind of future in me, it’d been a shock.
“Maybe I would’ve seen you, if I’d have been looking,” I said. “Why would you think I wouldn’t want to see you now?”
“Because you’re from another world. LA, land of movie stars and big-city lights.”
“Were you afraid I’d turn my nose up at you and you’d come off like a—”
“Bumpkin? A ’neck? Yeah.”
I hadn’t taken any psychology classes, but I wondered if my admirer didn’t usually get attached to people except if it was from afar, like on TellTale. He had never mattered to the people in his house or out of it, and if someone like him—or me—tried to matter online, it didn’t hurt as much when no one noticed you.
“The last thing I ever thought about you,” I said, “was that you were a bumpkin. I actually thought—”
“What?” He sounded like he was bracing himself, like he’d taken a lot of noiseless punches and was anticipating one more.
“I thought that you knew just what to say to a girl,” I told him. “I’ve never had anyone say such perceptive things to me before.”
He seemed to absorb that and, with a burst of emotion, pulled me to him like I might disappear if he didn’t hold on tightly enough. I grasped his arms, wishing that this moment could be as eternal as a picture, always preserved in time, never-ending.
“Carley,” he said in a strangled whisper, and I went liquid, unable to stand up on my own except for the way he was keeping me upright.
Then he pressed his lips to my neck, just below my ear, and I dug my fingers into his arms. Encouraged, he nuzzled me, kissed me again, but t
his time in the sweet spot where my neck met my shoulder.
I was getting moist between my thighs, juiced and ready, even if things were going so fast with him . . . ridiculously, giddily fast . . .
So what? I led one of his hands down until his palm was flat on my belly. My muscles rocked, tiny explosions that imitated the beat of the driving music downstairs. He snuck his fingers under my blouse, playing my skin with light strokes.
“My Carley,” he whispered, so intensely that I would’ve done just about anything for him at that moment in the near darkness.
Except stay in the dark.
At the end of my patience, I started to turn around, but he must’ve known all my moves, because he slipped one hand over my eyes, blinding me, then covered my mouth with his in a scorching kiss.
My knees buckled, but he caught me, keeping me standing by wrapping his other arm around me. He brought me against him until I could feel every hard part of him. He was as ready for me as I was for him.
Meanwhile, he still shielded my gaze, even as he devoured me in a slow, agonizing kiss. His lips were soft, and all I could think of was the latest TellTale he’d posted over the shadowed picture of a firm chin, a full lower lip . . .
I pulled that lower lip into my mouth and sucked. I traced my tongue over it, getting an even better picture.
A tortured sound came from him, a hungry growl, and he slid his tongue into my mouth, exploring me, daring me to meet him stroke for carnal stroke.
I’ve touched you, he’d written to me. Kissed you. Undone a button on your shirt then another and more than that until I see what you look like underneath it all. I’ve breathed against your skin, getting dizzy, getting hard . . .
I wanted to see how hard he was now, wanted to dive right in and experience all of him because I didn’t want this feeling to end. Maybe I was that desperate for attention.
Maybe this was just the way I was and I’d never known it.
Reaching down, I skimmed my hand under his T-shirt, touching his belly. Skin. Hot. So hot . . .
I started to go lower.
I must’ve shocked him with my forwardness because he pulled away from me, his hand dropping from my eyes.
And there he was, my secret admirer revealed.
6
At first, all I saw were his dark, dark eyes, which seemed so wounded and surprised at the same time, then black hair that was cut short in the back, leaving the long hank in front to flop over his forehead. The last thing that registered with me were the high cheekbones sculpting a face that was both familiar and unfamiliar, a face that was almost too rough to be handsome.
The guy I’d caught a glimpse of at the party last night, I thought. The one who just disappeared into the crowd.
Then I pictured him with a knit cap, an army jacket, and work boots.
Bret.
I’d seen him working on the yard at my house but had never really known he was there. He’d been right about no one ever noticing him, but why would he have stood out when he’d always kept his head down, always kept—as I said—to the shadows?
“It’s you,” I murmured, even though I should’ve always known.
He didn’t say anything at first. It was like he had become one of the pictures he’d posted on TellTale and there were a million messages written over him for me to read clearly: I wish she hadn’t turned around. I don’t know if she’s going to stay or go. What now?
I was in such a confused haze that I found myself walking away, just so I could flee from this loud music and from a situation that was suddenly very real. I walked down the stairs, through the red lights and the dancing kids and out the door into the cool night air.
Bret caught up with me as the bouncer closed the door after us, and when I looked at him again, it seemed like he had so much to say without any idea how to say it.
But hadn’t he already confessed to me that this was why he’d used TellTale in the first place?
“Everything you told me,” I said. “Was it . . . for real? Or is this just a game?”
He sent me a lowered look, his hands fisted at his sides. Moonlight barely touched him, making him seem dark, lonelier than ever, like a guy who wrote self-destructive songs and listened to the lyrics on the wind as they came to him. “Every bit of this is real. Why would you think it wasn’t?”
“Because . . .” I was about to say that normal guys didn’t romance girls like this. But what was normal anymore?
And hadn’t I met him here because it wasn’t normal and I’d been craving some of that?
A profound sense of discomfort attacked me. Funny that I hadn’t been this unsettled back when I didn’t know who my secret admirer was, back when I thought I’d been at my most vulnerable. Little had I known that I’d be ten time more exposed and vulnerable now, person-to-person.
I wished I could shut a door on all of this, but then again, what was new?
Yet I was so tired of hiding away. So tired. And Bret had helped me to see that . . .
He had to recognize every emotion as it passed over my face, and he took a step toward me, then retreated, opening one of his hands in an agitated plea. Then he clenched his hand again.
“You were expecting someone else altogether,” he said tightly. “That’s the big problem, isn’t it?”
“I wasn’t expecting . . .”
“The yard guy?” His smile was sad and maybe a little angry. “Right. Jesus, Carley, you asked me why I didn’t approach you without TellTale, and when I told you about my past, I only told you part of the reason. There’s also the fact that I wondered if Toby Taylor’s new daughter would turn up her nose at the help. I truly didn’t think you would, though. You seemed . . . different.”
“Than my stepfather? That’s because I am different.”
The music inside the club kept rapping at the walls as we both stood there in silence. Was I the snob he was thinking I was? But why did it matter when we weren’t in high school anymore and there were no more homecoming queens and kings?
Gradually, it dawned on me that this stalemate had nothing to do with him being the yard guy at all, and he was only revealing his own doubts. Ultimately, this was about me, not him.
“I’m not turning up my nose at you. It’s just . . .” I took a breath. “You were right there the whole time. Maybe I’m a little unnerved that I was so unaware, totally clueless.”
“You didn’t seem to be spooked when you showed up here, ready to find out who I was. You seemed into it. Am I wrong?”
No, he wasn’t. “Talking to you face-to-face is just different.” I held up my hands. “Maybe the stakes are lower when you’re on something like TellTale. You don’t have to see what’s in the other person’s eyes. You only have to imagine it, and that was good enough for me . . . until it wasn’t. I told myself that I wanted to find out who you were, but I think I was being braver than I really am . . .”
“Maybe you were the one playing the game then.”
His comment shook me up. Had I been more into the pseudo-relationship than the reality? Was I even good for anyone until I figured some key things out about myself?
But it seemed that my secret admirer had already figured me out, long before I had.
My thoughts rushed me, every little thing I thought I’d known about Bret: what Diana had said about him not being into girls and being “slow.” Him coming around the house’s corner this morning and catching me in a towel and bra and how Diana had laughed at him when he’d turned his back on the sight. He hadn’t done that because he was gay. It was because he, the guy who revealed a more aggressive side on TellTale, had been acting like a gentleman. He had been lost in that bulky jacket of his, going back to his private corner where he wouldn’t be noticed, just like he’d been doing at the party Diana had taken me to.
“You were there,” I said. “Last night. Were you watching me
then?”
“That wasn’t why I went to the party.” By now, that hank of dark hair had fully covered one of his eyes. “A friend needed someone to drive him around since it was his twenty-first birthday. I didn’t plan to see you—you just happened to be there. And when you were talking to Micah Wyatt . . .” He laughed softly. “God, I came close to just going over and getting you away from him and telling you everything about me.”
He’d been jealous? “You were going to tell me with another TellTale post, though, not person-to-person.”
He nodded, his jaw stiff. “When I realized that Micah might get to you like he’s been notching all those other girls on his bedpost, I had to make a choice. But last night wasn’t the time to finally get your attention. You were with Diana Hill, anyway.”
“Do you know her?” From the way he’d been talking, it seemed like he did. “She told me you went to school in another county, among other things.”
“She probably thought that was true. But she was in my class at school, one of those girls who tried real hard to be popular, and she did that by degrading the people who were different or who didn’t talk much to others . . . or ignoring them completely and spreading gossip about them, anyway.”
She’d been wrong about Bret, probably even mistaking him for another kid she hadn’t known who was actually “not into girls.” Wow.
He continued. “I transferred late in my senior year and . . .”
“She never really noticed you.”
He shrugged. “That’s okay. I actually felt sorry for her, because I wondered if the way she acted would ever catch up with her. It seems like all the people she thought were her friends aren’t there anymore.”
My throat started to burn, because how many people or things had I overlooked in life or misestimated when I hadn’t been paying any attention or was too busy to notice? Had there been other Brets, or was he the one I’d always been meant to meet?
He seemed to take assurance from the fact that I hadn’t gone anywhere yet. He moved toward me, tentatively at first, then with a surer step, leaving a space between us that hummed with undeniable awareness. I drew in a shaky breath as he spoke.
Whisper (Novella) Page 4