by Lia Riley
But guess what? I’m depressed now. This very instant I should be rocking out in my best cosplay costume. Instead I roam my studio in boy-shorts underwear and a ratty tank top, eating peanut-butter oatmeal straight from the pot.
There’s a knock, probably someone wanting to hear the gory details about my accident. I throw open the door, and Tanner stares at my bright green face and pink cotton panties.
“You.” I dive backward, stumbling on a pair of knee-high boots, nearly landing on my ass. I recover just in time, if you can call this hopping-on-one-leg, extra-booty-shake move a recovery.
He shoves forward my oversized purse like it projects a force field. “Your bag…” His gaze bounces around my disheveled studio and settles on my bed, unmade after a day of rolling around in a grown-up temper tantrum.
“Great. Thanks.” My embarrassment is no match for this rush of anger. “And hey, thanks for narcing me out.”
His jaw tightens. “You wanted to jump off a bridge?”
“No, you idiot. It was a story.” I wave my hands. “Fiction.”
That gets his eyes on me. “What?”
“I was playing around with an idea for my graphic novel.”
He blinks, clearly confused.
I breathe slowly and explain in short, easy sentences the whole ridiculous situation. Something crosses his features, maybe relief but also defense.
“That’s messed up.”
I stalk to the dinette, which is covered with paper, pens, half-doodled sketches, and random envelopes scrawled with half-formed cartoons. Everything about my work space looks messy, just like my mind.
“No!” I spin around and go from angry to heart-pumping, limb-tingling, good-thing-I-don’t-have-a-butcher-knife-to-give-you-a-flesh-wound rage. “What’s messed up is you trying to assume the role of the big hero.”
He rocks from one foot to the other. “I didn’t come to fight.”
“I worked my ass off bagging groceries for months to pay for Comic-Con. Instead? I get mowed down by a Segway and locked in a hospital for three days on suicide watch.”
“Maybe think before you write.”
“Way to censor, Big Brother.” I make my voice dead, a barren wasteland where nothing will ever grow. “There is this book 1984. I’m sure you don’t read, but it’s about—”
“I know 1984.” He doesn’t look at me. “Why do you think I’m an idiot?”
“Because it makes your hate easier to accept,” I blurt.
Oh God, I want to take those words back so much. Instead they stomp around the ensuing silence like Godzilla in Tokyo.
“I don’t hate you. You hate me.” He digs his fists into his upper thighs.
His hands transfix me as a realization creeps in. I fight on the outside, rail against life or people until the pain doesn’t hurt. Maybe Tanner is fighting, too, but his rage is quieter, tearing him up from the inside.
“No. I don’t hate you.” As soon as I say the words, I know they are true. He’d been a lightning rod to blame because despising myself or Delilah hurt too much. The real Tanner, flesh and blood before me, isn’t perfect, and I’m still pissed about what he did to Talia, but he’s…he’s…Shit, what is he?
I get the sense I could rip him to shreds and he’d stand there and take it. But I don’t want to. All I know is he’s not the enemy that I’ve made him out to be in my head. When I’m near him, it’s like remembering the words to a favorite song.
But I’m Sunny and he’s Tanner, and that means we have history. It’s not as easy as turning a fresh page and starting again.
Right?
We stare at each other. If someone peeked through the window, they’d think we were imitating two goldfish, lips opening and closing, making no sound.
I’m putting myself in a position of weakness. Quick—rebuild the wall. Man the battlements. “Look.” I fiddle with my feather hair extension. “Don’t even worry about it. I haven’t slept well the last few days and—”
“Sunny.” The N spreads over his tongue like honey on a hot day while his gaze drops to my bare legs.
Muscles clench deep inside, and what is life?
His breathing hitches before he clears his throat, coughing into his bent elbow. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.” I force an airy tone even as the earth’s axis lurches the same way it did that night in John Boy’s room. “You know me, right? Always an open book.”
“What’s all over your face?”
Huh? This is where he steers the conversation—off on some scenic route like he’s driving Miss Daisy?
I trace my fingers over the thick grit coating my cheek. “Oh, right. It’s just a mask.”
“For what?”
“Beauty,” I mumble, stepping backward with a shrug. Maybe if we have more space between us, it—
He reaches in an unexpected flash and wraps his hand around my wrist. My nerves zap to life as if his touch is a live wire strike. “You know you’re already fucking gorgeous, right?”
“I do?” I pull free, ignoring the hot lick of heat in my chest. “I mean, I don’t think I’m a troll hag or anything, but—”
“I was worried about you.” His brows aren’t furrowed with disapproval. No standoffish attitude creates a wedge of distance. In fact, we’re close, as close as we’ve been in a long time.
I shiver even though it’s not cold and reach for a crumpled skirt on the floor, hiking it above my hips, then head to the kitchen sink to wash off my face. Welp, time to add “Having sexy Tanner Green feels while looking like the Incredible Hulk” to my list of “Things I Didn’t Expect to Do Today.”
“I wasn’t sure what was going on with you, but I didn’t want to take a chance,” he says from behind. “I’m sorry I told the cops, but I needed to know you were okay.”
My anger recedes like a wave on the shore. I flick off the tap and take my time turning back around. “Guess it’s nice to know if you really thought I’d jump, you’d care enough to tell someone.”
“Is that what you think? That I don’t care?” The colors in his irises are fascinating, like watching a smoke signal and trying to decipher the meaning. “Jesus, Sunny.” He’s hoarse. “I care.”
Two little words and I swear we are another inch closer.
“You do?” Yet another inch. He still smells exactly the same, like Irish Spring soap and peppermint. How can he do that? It creates this unfair illusion that nothing’s changed in the years we’ve been adrift from each other.
“So much.” A hundred guys have given me this look, but now it’s Tanner and there’s a strange sense of indefinable rightness, as if to him I’m something more than a random hookup. A light, floating sensation tugs behind my knees, spreads up my hamstrings. When did the world stop making sense?
“I’m sorry you missed your convention,” he rumbles. “But not that I spoke up. You deserved no less.”
This gallant shtick shouldn’t send me into a pleased twitterpated fluster. How am I not immune? I’ve watched how his mere presence propels other girls into a mess of simpers and hair twirling. Take Talia for example. All through high school and straight into college, Tanner Green was the alpha and omega of her girlhood fantasies. She never directly admitted it, but I had two functional eyes.
Tanner did, too, though to his credit, he pretended not to notice.
I used to have a strange feeling things weren’t always peachy keen between him and Pippa. I don’t know what was up with her or the rest of the Stolfi family. They joked around and smiled. You’d think everything was cool unless you ever caught a good look at anyone’s eyes. Sometimes we’d all be hanging out and he’d stare at me like a guy under siege, as if I could charge in on a white horse and liberate him Joan of Arc–style.
I did my best to ignore it for my friend’s sake…and mine.
Finally, Talia moved on, went to Australia, and fell head over heels for a surly surfer, Bran. The verdict is still out where that guy is concerned, but at least she no longer fixates on Tanner. He hu
rt her so much, but for the first time I wonder.
Did Tanner hurt too?
Maybe I shouldn’t care, but as big as he is, there’s something lost about the way he holds himself, like he’s this baby bird fallen from the nest.
Eh. Blame Mimsy. I’m a sucker for hopeless causes.
“What are you working on?” He glances at my vintage dinette set buried under paper.
“I’m playing around with this graphic novel thing.” I fidget with the waist of my skirt. “I can draw the characters, but I hate writing.”
“Why?”
“I don’t like words. I trust action. Drawing is alive to me. Words are stiff. They never say what I need them to.”
“Want to tell me about it?”
“My story?” I crinkle my nose. “Like out loud?”
He crooks his mouth in one corner. “Yes, with actual words out of your actual mouth.”
“Now?”
He shrugs. “I don’t have any big plans tonight. Do you?”
I pause, considering. “No. I guess not. It’ll be like the old days.”
We used to lie in my bed, side by side, and make up stories. I’d always start with “Once upon a time” and then do a setup. After a few minutes, he’d pick up the thread, add his two cents, and we’d go back and forth. Our plots were always crazy. There was one about mermaids who become pirates who eventually ruled the South Pacific from thrones of crab shells in Tahiti. Or the vengeful mountain lion who came down from the hills at night and ate our enemies—a personal favorite.
The far-distant past suddenly feels very present. I see the boy he was and reconcile him to the man he is now. No, not a man. He’s not quite there yet. He’s, like, right on the cusp and, Jesus, he’s beautiful.
I walk to the orange love seat, sprawl on a cushion, and pat the space beside me. “You want to come sit?” I tuck my ankles under my ass and hold out my hand like Magneto to a hunk of steel. That’s all it takes. By my next breath he’s there, lacing his fingers with mine.
“I don’t know how to do this.” The tense line of his lower lip—of his whole body—is palpable.
“What?” I keep my voice soft, light, even though he’s gripping my hand tight, almost crushing my knuckles. “You don’t know how to hold hands?” I draw him down. A strange happiness blooms deep inside as he rests his head on my lap, the warmth of his skin sinking into my bones.
Can starting over our friendship be as easy as once upon a time?
Chapter Seven
Tanner
Keep your shit together. My cheek settles against Sunny’s leg, right above her kneecap. There’s this adorable freckle in my line of sight and the hint of a scar, faded to a dappled white, on her shin. I grip too hard, my palm sweaty against her skin. My heart pounds. She’s going to notice. I can’t deal with this. I can’t breathe. I can’t—
When she eases off my hat, sinks her fingers into my hair, a tremor vibrates between my shoulder blades.
“Feel good?” she whispers. All I can manage is a nod. Any more and I’ll fall the fuck apart. She massages my scalp, and maybe to her this means nothing, but to me it’s everything I’ve tried not to think about.
“Relax.”
“I’m not sure I know how.” I’ve been tired, tense, and stressed for so long, relaxed is a foreign word, a language I’ve forgotten how to speak.
“Oh, Green.” She sounds almost tender. I try to jerk away but her featherlight grip holds me in place. “When’s the last time you’ve been touched, just because?”
“No idea.” None. My mom hugs me on occasion, an awkward, darting side grab while she stares with sad eyes, wanting to ask how I am but scared of the answer.
Sunny slides her hand from the top of my head, traces my jaw and circles my mouth. Her thumb brushes the seam of my lips. I’m seized by an inexplicable urge to bite her¸ then lick away the hurt. What the fuck is wrong with me?
“When’s the last time you’ve been kissed?”
The memory strikes me like a gut punch. Pippa’s heart-shaped face, her too-small mouth and too-big eyes. I tried to hold her tight and she recoiled. I kissed her then, so hard our teeth hit, and she pulled back. She always pulled away. Hated when I touched her body, her beautiful, perfect body. Afraid something would jiggle. She didn’t get that any slight imperfection was part of the good stuff, a little secret that only made her better. She wiped me from her mouth. “Don’t,” she whimpered. “You know I can’t.”
“Then I can’t either.” I had grabbed my board and torn for the door. “I can’t do this anymore. I’m done.”
“Tanner—”
“I mean it for real this time. I can’t keep going if you won’t get help.”
“I know.” She ground the heels of her palms into her sockets. “It’s not fair to you.”
“This isn’t about me. I love you, Pippa.” And I did. I really did. Maybe not as a girlfriend, not anymore, but as someone I’d known for so long there wasn’t a clear boundary where she ended and I began.
“I know you do.” She lowered her hands and gave me a tearful smile. “But maybe I need to figure out how to love me too.”
The next day she was gone. A neighborhood tweaker sped through the stop sign, leaving her brain-dead.
“Tanner?” Sunny’s voice yanks me to the present.
“It’s been a while,” I mutter.
“Talia?”
“No.” I take a deep breath. “I never kissed Talia.”
“What?”
This time I move fast, faster than she can stop me. The far edge of the couch is safer territory. “You heard me.”
“But you—”
“I fucked her—there’s no other word for it.” I bury my face in my hands. “I fucked Talia but never kissed her.”
“Tanner.”
“I can’t…I can’t go back there. Please. Stop.”
“What happened?” Sunny rises to her knees and braces my face with her hands.
I want to scream. I want to punch a wall until I make it a window.
“What happened that night?”
“I slept with T.”
“Yeah.” Her jaw tightens. “I know.”
“We were wasted. Everything happened fast. One minute we were talking, and the next I had her shirt off. Her hands were in my pants. I didn’t know what was happening. No, wait. That’s a lie. I knew. I knew exactly.”
“You wanted to feel close to someone after losing Pippa.”
“I…Wait.” I shake my head. “No. You make it sound better than it was.”
“I’m sure it was awful. Pippa was Talia’s sister. You were her boyfriend. That’s one hell of a ghost between you guys.”
“I didn’t…I couldn’t. I…I didn’t…” Christ, I can’t believe I’m saying this.
“Didn’t what?” Sunny keeps pushing.
“I didn’t come.”
“You pulled out?” She frowns.
“I wore a condom but faked coming or whatever.”
Her eyes widen a fraction. “Guys do that?”
“I knew, the moment I was inside her, that it was wrong. I was angry at her, at me, at life. And she cried, Sunny. She cried and I…Fuck it, I cried too. And I didn’t come. I just stopped. And we lay there. And she cried until she fell asleep, and I didn’t even offer to hold her. I had nothing to give. Nothing.”
“And you left.”
“Finally, yeah. After the sun came up. I sat there awake all night, and when I saw a lifeguard come onto the beach, setting up the station, I bailed. I didn’t leave her in the dark. I’m not that big of an asshole.”
She holds up a finger. “But you did leave.”
“Yeah.”
“Why didn’t you ever say anything? Put it right? You hurt her, Tanner. Hurt her bad.”
“Sometimes…there aren’t words.”
“I get that.” She doesn’t avert her eyes. “Sometimes there really aren’t.” She reaches over and tugs the afghan from the back of the couch, draping i
t over us.
“What are you doing?” I ask as she slides an arm around my back, gently tugging me against her.
“Holding you.”
“Why?” My body is stiff. I’m not used to touch being offered freely.
“I don’t know,” she whispers.
Her honesty relaxes the knot inside me. I don’t know why either, but I’m grateful.
* * *
I snap to a strange and hazy alertness and rub my eyes. “Shit, what happened?”
“We fell asleep.” Sunny wiggles free. “Ah, so did my arm. Ouch.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” She shakes her hand out. “You looked like you could use more rest.”
“I don’t sleep great.” The clock on the wall shows we dozed for about an hour.
“I know.” She reaches out and strokes the skin beneath my eye. “Those are some dark circles, my friend.” And then she leans in and we’re here, locked in a room without an exit and I never want to leave. The world is nothing except her mouth hovering centimeters from mine. Every time she breathes, I feel it. Fuck, I taste it. My biceps inadvertently flex, and goose bumps break out across the base of my spine.
I reach for her, and my fingers instinctively curl in on themselves. Pippa allowed touching only in permitted places. I don’t know Sunny’s approved spots, what’s allowed, where I can go.
Sunny grabs my fist and slides her grip to my wrist. She takes hold of my other hand with her free one and raises both above my head. As she pulls, I rise to my knees until our stomachs crash against each other. She’s still almost but not quite kissing me, and I’m afraid if I move, this moment will vanish. With my arms up, it’s like she’s got me under arrest, and maybe she does. Fuck, she can throw away the key.
“Are you going to kiss me, Green?” Her hot breath delivers a shock wave of lust to my dick.
Fuck, yes is what I want to say. Christ, I’m so hard it hurts. But everything I want to do crams into my brain until all I’m left saying is, “Want me to?”
Dumbass.
My lame question shifts something in her. She releases me, leans back, and settles against the couch, folding her hands over her stomach.