by Jessica Roe
I tilt my head, because I don't know. “A feeling, I guess.”
He stares at me for the longest time. “Funny how well you know me,” he muses quietly. “after everything we've thrown at each other. You're right. Not that I don't love tattooing – being able to create art on a person's body is incredible. But it isn't what I want to do forever, not like Digby and Reid.”
“So what do you want to do?”
“I want. . .” He pauses, turning back to look up at the sky as if he's too embarrassed to meet my eyes when he tells me. “I want to be an artist. I don't want to just hide my art at home where nobody else can see it. I want to show it, maybe even sell it.” A long sigh escapes him. “I've never told anyone else that before.”
I'm touched that he shared it with me. Something flips over inside my stomach, because he's such a frigging cutesicle stick when he's all shy and bashful like that. “You've never tried to sell it before?”
“No fuckin' way,” he replies automatically, shaking his head like that's the most absurd idea he's ever heard.
“Why not?”
“I don't know. I'm probably not good enough anyway. It's just a dream.”
“Please, I've seen your work. You're amazing. Your tattoo work,” I amend, when he looks at me suspiciously like he thought I might have sneaked a peak earlier while he was in the shower. But it's true. Fábia once showed me the elaborate tattoo on her back that Walt must have spent so many hours on. The tattoo spanning right across her shoulder blades is of a fiery avenging angel riding on the back of a fearsome Manticore. It's seriously hardcore yet so unbelievably beautiful. I lean up on my elbow over him, suddenly very excited as a thought forms in my mind. “You know one of Silver's best friends owns an art gallery, right?”
“He does?”
“Yeah, Nathan. I think you met him once when he came up to the city. It was the night you told that guy I was flirting with that I was actually a guy in drag and you kept pointing at my crotch and telling him to look for a bump.”
He chuckles fondly at the memory. “Ah, good times.”
I pointedly ignore that. “So Nathan. You gonna give him a call?”
“And say what? Hey, guy I've only ever met once before. We don't know each other but do you want to show my art in your gallery?”
I shrug, because it's not like I know how the process goes or anything. Jeez Louise. “Nathan's pretty cool. I just think it wouldn't hurt to give him a call, is all. I can get his number from Silver for you. If you don't do it, I will.”
He smiles sweetly over at me, a strange look on his face.
“What?” I want to know.
“Just. . .” He shakes his head. “. . .you hate me, yet you still get excited over the idea of me following my dreams. I just think you're incredible, that's all.”
Despite the cold night, my cheeks warm considerably at the compliment. Nice Walt is harder to handle than asshole Walt on so many levels. “I don't hate you.”
“You don't?” He raises a disbelieving eyebrow.
“Fine,” I admit. “The other Walt – the one who calls me mean names and steals my underwear – maybe a little. But the Walt who's sweet to me and takes me to dinner at his grandparents' house and punches a guy in my honor – that Walt I definitely do not hate.”
His eyes light up like I've just made all his dreams come true. I don't know how to handle an expression like that. “Well that's. . .good to know.”
“I like this side of you,” I tell him softly. “It's new. I feel like most people don't get to see it often, which is just a damned fine shame.”
He glances down at my lips, and for a moment I think he's going to kiss me again. And in that moment I realize I'd probably let him. But instead he quickly sits up and slides off the car. He bows dramatically in front of me and holds out a hand for me to take. “Milady.”
Pursing my lips in amusement, I take his outstretched hand and let him help me off the hood. Without a word, he reaches into the car to steal my iPod from my purse, and a second later What's Up by 4 Non Blondes comes on over the speakers. I grin, because this is my favorite song and I had no idea he even knew that.
“What are you doing?” I demand, laughing.
“Asking you to dance.” He holds out his hand to me again.
Unable to hold in my smile, I take it, and Walt pulls me out into the overgrown grass. The long blades are damp and they brush against my legs, soaking my cold feet and calves, but in this moment there's no place else in the whole world I'd rather be.
We sway to the music, grinning uncontrollably at each other. Walt spins me around and out, then pulls me back to his chest as he laughs. The tall grass doesn't exactly make an ideal dance floor so mostly we just sway, but I like the way he holds me close against his hard body.
This is. . .perfect. Too perfect.
Suddenly I can take it no longer. I drop his hands like they're on fire and step back, ignoring the hurt on his face.
“Ibbie, what-”
“Shut your face hole for a minute. Just. . .what the eff, man?” I demand. “What was that kiss about?” Waving my arms around me at the field and the car and the music, I add, “What is this about?”
“I. . .” His mouth opens and closes as he fights internally for what he wants to say. He runs a hand through his neatly combed hair, spiking it up again. That little bit of familiarity is oddly reassuring. “Can we sit again?”
I nod and follow him back onto the hood. We sit at the edge this time, our legs dangling over. Walt is so close to me that our thighs and knees press tightly together and I don't find myself moving away. The heat coming off of him seems to seep into my skin; it feels incredible. One of his hands come up to cup my cheek and he turns my face, making me look at him.
“Can I kiss you again?” he asks huskily. “Before we talk?”
Obviously I should say no, because if I let him kiss me again then I'm not going to be able to put two coherent thoughts together and that would be bad, as none of this is making sense as it is. But instead of being a sensible girl, I find myself tilting my face up to meet his and parting my lips. He takes my mouth softly this time, savoring me. His teeth graze my bottom lip as he pays that one attention first, and then my top lip. He kisses my chin, my cheeks, and then my lips once more.
Our kiss quickly heats up until we're practically lipbanging as we try to get more of each other. Walt presses forward and soon we're laying down again. Like a wanton hussy, I hitch my leg over one of his, gasping into his mouth when he grips my thigh with his strong hand. I kiss a path down his cheek and chin, wanting desperately to feel the skin of his neck with my mouth to find out if it tastes just as good as it smells. It does. His stubble scratches at my skin in a way that makes my whole body break out into goosebumps and sends sparks of pleasure shooting throughout my entire being. Oh man, how did I ever dislike his stubble? His stubble is the best thing ever. A soft moan escapes from the back of his throat when I kiss his neck, his hot breath brushing over my skin. He grabs my face between his hands, crushing my lips back onto his.
I could just kiss this man for hours and hours and never get tired of it.
There's not a sliver of confusion in his eyes when he pulls back to look at me this time, none at all. Clearly he's not experiencing a complete and utter mental breakdown like I am.
“It shouldn't have taken seeing you with my brother for me to work up the courage to do that,” he murmurs, pressing my swollen bottom lip with his thumb. “I've been such a fucking coward.”
“Whuh. . .” His kisses have successfully robbed me of my voice. Is he saying that he likes me? That he's liked me since before I dated his brother?
“If I'd known kissing you was all it took to get you to stop talking then I might've tried that the first time we met,” he teases.
But I'm in no mood for jokes. “Walt. . .”
“I want you to give me a chance.” He squeezes his eyes shut as if it's too hard to look at me as he says it. “Fuck that. I need
you to give me a chance. I need to prove to you that I'm not the asshole you think I am.”
My heart pounds. “A chance for what?”
“For us,” he replies simply, and my mouth drops open.
“You want to. . .to be with me?”
His eyes snap open, filled with a new determination. “Not right now, okay? Not tonight. I'm gonna give you a month, Ibbie. Not because I think it'll take you that long to get over my schmuck of a bother, but because I want him so far gone outta that head of yours that you barely even remember his name. So a month.”
“And then what?” I almost hesitate to ask.
His dark eyes seem to penetrate right to my very soul. “And then I'm coming for you, Isabel Ibbot. I'm coming full force, and I'm going to win you over. Then I promise I'll never, ever lose you.”
I blink. My mouth gapes open and closed like a fish. This was not how I expected tonight to go. There are a thousand things I could say right now. A million. There are a thousand things I want to ask, to demand an explanation for. But once again I've been shocked into silence and the only thing that comes out of my mouth is a pitiful, “Oh.”
Walt leans closer and kisses me once more. This time it's a closed mouth kiss. It's soft, sweet, yet spine tingling. Then he rolls off the hood and lifts me down.
Neither of us speak a single word as we climb inside the car. Neither of us speak a single word as he shuts off the music and starts up. Neither of us speak a single word as he pulls out of the field and we make the drive home. And then neither of us speak a single word when he drops me off at my apartment an hour later. I guess that's just how we roll.
Chapter 9
Ibbie
I TRY TO get on with my life over the next couple of days but everything I do feels robotic, forced. My evening with Walt replays over and over in my mind to the point where concentrating on anything else proves to be impossible. The kiss, the different side to him, the dance, the kiss. Oh man, the kiss.
Sabrina notices – probably because I accidentally turned all of her white shirts pink when it was my turn to do the laundry.
“I love you, but if you don't get a grip on whatever's got your panties in a twist then I will have to kill you,” she informs me firmly. “God, what are the guys at work gonna say when I show up in pink?”
People at work notice too, because I fluffed my lines up on two consecutive nights and normally I'm one hundred percent on form.
Blair also notices, and out of everyone she's the one who'll let me get away with it the least. “You're quieter than usual,” she observes. It's one of my rare days off, and instead of sleeping in and watching TV in my sloppy jammies like I should be doing, she's dragged me out to Lake George so we can hike Prospect Mountain. It's actually a lot of fun, but since I complained pretty much the entire four hour drive out here, I definitely won't be admitting that. She claimed it was because she wanted to get some photos, but though she's brought her camera, I know it's just a ruse. She just wanted to get me away so she could find out what my deal is. “It's freaking me out. Quiet Ibbie is wrong. Just wrong.”
“God, am I really that talkative that it weirds people out when I have nothing to say?” I wonder out loud. “Cringe attack.”
“So. . ?”
“Maybe I've just decided to transform into a quiet person.”
She eyes me doubtfully, then we both fall about in laughter, unable to keep straight faces. We come across a large boulder and sit down for a couple minutes of rest.
“How's the wedding planning going?” I ask to change the subject, because if you brought up an upcoming wedding to most brides then it would be a surefire way to distract them for at least, like, five hours. Unfortunately, Blair is not most women.
“Haven't even started,” she replies. “Now spill.”
I actually do want to spill and I'm not sure why I didn't the second Walt dropped me off the other night, so with a relived sigh I tell her everything. Blair is the best friend ever, because when I tell her about Alex ignoring my calls her eyes narrow angrily on my behalf, and when I tell her how nice Walt was and how he drove me out to his grandparents' house, she keeps shtum even though I know she wants to ask me a million questions, and then when I tell her about Fauna and about Aleix's reaction to seeing me, she stands up and balls her little fists and threatens to hunt him down and pulverize his nuts. I'm tempted and all, but I make the tiny spitfire sit her ass back down because I'm not finished. I tell her about Walt kissing me in his old bedroom and about the windmill and the dancing and the second kiss. And when I tell her about Walt admitting that he wants to be with me it's such a weight off my chest that I can't figure out why I didn't tell her sooner. Usually I love to gossip. Walt's got me in such a frigging tizzy!
She takes it all in, nodding her head up and down and not being at all surprised and shocked like I expected her to be. I mean, a little awe and outrage might be nice. Jeez. “So Walt's into you?”
“I guess so.”
“Totally called that one.”
“You did not.”
“Did so. When he first started texting you.” She sticks her tongue out triumphantly when I realize she's right. “So how do you feel about him?”
“I don't know. Confused, mainly.”
“Do you think you might wanna try dating him?”
“I don't know,” I repeat, getting frustrated – mostly with myself, but I'm fully prepared to take it out on her. That's how I know Blair really is my BFF, because we can give each other a hard time and still love each other after.
“You must know,” she continues, not willing to give me a break. “Deep down. Do you want to be with him, yes or no?”
“I. Don't. Know!” I protest. We're both getting annoyed now. “It's complicated.”
“No it's not. Yes or no, Ibbie? Yes or no?”
“I don't-”
“Yes or no?”
“Blair-”
“Yes or no?”
“Yes!” I yell, and then I freeze when I realize what she was doing. She was pulling an answer from me because she knew I'd never be able to come to a decision on my own. Damn it, she's a sneaky son of a gun!
Her grin is triumphant. “Ha!”
“No,” I say. “I don't mean. . . How can I want to be with him just because he was nice to me for one night? It doesn't make up for an entire year of him being awful.”
She scoffs, arching one of those perfect eyebrows at me. Girl's got some strong eyebrow game going on. “Yeah, because you were so innocent. You remember the time you put that stuff in his drink to turn his pee blue?”
I smile at the memory of him leaving the bathroom looking seriously freaked out. “Oh yeah, that was a good one. But he totally started this whole thing. I tried to be nice to him when we first met.”
“Well I think the two of you have had sexual tension the whole time. That's all it is. Sometimes people just can't express when they like each other. I remember back when I was falling for Silver I used to make fun of him all the time. Mostly just to get his attention, I think.”
“You still do that.”
She grins. “I still want his attention.”
I pink her cheek. “You're so friggin' cute.”
Slapping my hand away, she asks, “So what are you gonna do about Walt?”
“Do?” I blink. “Nothing!”
“Don't you think you should at least talk to him?”
“Um, no. He said he was going to give me a month, therefore I have a month to hide out in my apartment and do nothing.”
“Seriously, you're just gonna wait? And stew? And get all up in your head about everything when you could just confront him?”
“You waited when Silver left you for three months.”
She rolls her eyes at my sullen pettiness. “Because I was still in high school and he was still a teacher. But you and I, Ibbs, we're not high school kids anymore. We don't have to sit around waiting for life to happen to us. We can just live it.”
I stan
d up, throwing my hands in the air and refusing to admit that she's making sense. Mostly because I don't want to admit it. “You're so annoying! Why are you being so pushy?”
Her arms fold across her chest and she glares at me. “Because I know you like him. And I just want to see you happy. Because I love you to bits!”
“Yeah well. . .I love you to bits and pieces. AND PIECES!”
We continue to scowl at each other for almost a whole minute before we finally lose steam, both realizing that as far as arguments go, this one was pretty lame. Neither of us are good at fighting each other.
Blair is the first to cave and smile at how dumb we are. “That was fun.”
I sit back next to her. “Yeah, we should argue more often.”
She nudges me with her shoulder. “You need to talk to him.”
“I know.” I nod, because she's right. Even if it's just to get answers to the squillion gazillion questions zooming around in my brain, I really do have to talk to Walt. “So seriously, it's been over a month and you haven't even made one teeny, tiny little wedding plan yet?”
A long sigh escapes her as she shrugs. “It's just that. . .I want to be married to him more than anything, but I don't know if I can deal with the stress of a big wedding. I'm not that kind of girl, you know? If I could, I'd just drag him away to some hot beach and do it right there in our swimwear.”
That actually sounds like it would be perfect for Silver and Blair, but, “Felicia would kill you.”
“Yeah. Sometimes I feel like the wedding day stops being about the bride and groom and becomes more about everyone else.” Her face brightens. “Oh hey, maid of honor, right?”
That's my Blair. Even when asking something as huge as this she still manages to sound cool and casual. I squeal happily, throwing my arms around her shoulders and squeezing the eff out of her even though I'd totally known it was coming – because if she hadn't picked me I would have had to end her. “You know I will! I'm so excited!”
“Good. Hey, you wanna start heading back? I'm starving.”
“Me too. I'm so fungry I could eat a horse. If we make our way back down now we could find a diner or something in time for dunch.”