by Ginger Scott
I feel him.
It’s amazing what his touch does. He’s at my door and grabbing my hand, refusing to let it go once I’m standing, and instead threading our fingers together like it’s normal, something we’ve always done.
Like he’s mine, and I’m his.
I can’t help but notice the smile on his face when we approach the entrance to meet up with Gabe. He’s proud, but not like I’m some checkbox he’s accrued to meet the standards of those he’s trying to impress. I know it isn’t fair to think—Trevor’s never really made me feel like arm candy. Actually, we’ve always felt like a team. But for some reason, when I’m with Cody, it gives my relationship with Trevor new perspective, and it’s starting to feel a lot less like love.
As we walk up, Gabe nudges his arm into a girl with dark purple hair and a nose ring. I can’t help but flinch when I see her eyes zero in and scowl at my hand in Cody’s. I’m defensive, and find myself pulling in closer to him. I pretend it’s just the cold, but it’s really my irrational fear of judgment from this girl I don’t even know.
“Hey, dude. What the hell, you’re like 20 minutes late,” Gabe says, pounding his fist with Cody’s other hand, and nodding at our hands with a smirk. Cody just rolls his eyes in response and lets go.
“Hey, you,” Gabe says, opening his arms wide to give me a hug, “so glad you decided you were up for this. You’re gonna love it; I promise.”
“Oooookkkayyyyy,” I say, looking around and taking in the screams coming from all directions. I’m not really much of a horror fan, and I’m a little nervous that I might cry in front of them all.
“Hey, this is Jessie,” Gabe says, directing me to Miss Purple-Hair. She’s managed to form a friendlier smile now, but I still notice the hesitation in her eyes as we shake hands.
“Hi, Jessie. I’m Charlie. It’s nice to meet you,” I say, using every last socialization skill I’ve learned from Trevor—firm shake, eye contact, follow-up question. Check. “So, how’d you and Gabe meet?”
She seems to like my directness, and I can feel her ice toward me melt, if only a little.
“I’ve known these dickheads since kindergarten,” she says, punching Cody in the arm—hard.
“Oww, bitch. What the hell?” Cody says, rubbing her target, and wincing while he shakes his arm out. I think he’s pissed at first, but then he pulls her in to his side for a tight squeeze.
“Yeah, we all grew up on the same block,” Cody says, winking at Jessie before letting her go. I start to feel jealousy creep in, but she’s back at Gabe’s side the second she leaves Cody, and it’s clear from the way she looks at Gabe that he’s her only interest.
We make our way to a makeshift ticket booth, and Gabe shells out $40. Cody tries to hand him a twenty, but Gabe punches him in the chest lightly and tells him to keep it. I love watching them interact—they truly love each other, like family.
The guys walk ahead as we enter a set of gates to the farm property, and I’m trailing behind with Jessie. I can feel her urge to question me, and I know she will. I can sense how protective she is over the two boys in front of us, so I’m less offended than I was at first, but it doesn’t mean I’m going to give her anything.
“So, I hear you’re dating Trevor?” she goes right in for the kill. I have to admire her for that; she has guts, and I wish I had a fraction of them.
I rub my hand on my cheek, almost as if she slapped me with her question. I nod yes before I speak, giving myself time to form a response, not that it helps.
“Yes, we’ve been dating a little more than a year,” I say, chewing on my tongue and forcing myself to stop.
She meets my eyes and squints a little. She pushes her lips together to form a tight line and then nods. “Right. Well, I’m glad you made friends with Cody. He’s a good guy,” she says, letting the last words linger slowly on her lips, to make sure I understand. And I do—probably more than I let on, or admit.
“Yes. He is,” I say, looking at him as he walks ahead of me now, his arm slung over his friend while he talks in his ear, telling him some dirty joke, or talking about the short skirt in front of them, I’m sure.
Jessie keeps her eyes on me, but she lets up her grilling for the time being. “Hey, douchebags. How about you spend some time with your dates?” she says, kicking at the back of Gabe’s shoes just enough to make him trip.
He turns around in seconds and scoops her up, racing with her to the line at the barn and swinging her around to make her dizzy. Her giggle fills the air—it’s such a foreign sound, her happiness. The way she laughs, so freely and honestly. Nothing rehearsed—just genuine life happening, in the moment.
I turn to Cody, and he smiles with tight lips, and holds his arm out once again, his hands stuffed in his pockets. I can tell he’s a little cold. “Hey, do you need this?” I ask, starting to pull my arms from the sleeves of his jacket. Cody stops me instantly and just pats my hand as he pushes it against his bicep and pulls me in close.
“I’m fine. I got that for you,” he says, looking down at me with a wanting expression. I look away quickly, knowing if I don’t, I’ll be lost.
The closer we get to the door, the more nervous I am. I can hear people screaming, and the strobe lights are giving me short glimpses of fake blood and gory faces inside, making my legs want to run. My heart is pounding, and for once, it’s not because Cody’s next to me. No, this is actual fear.
It’s our turn next, and Gabe and Jessie run in through the dark hall, screaming with laughter. I squeeze onto Cody’s arm tightly and reach up with my other hand to blot away the tear that’s forming in my eye. I’m pretty sure I’m terrified. I’m done trying to hide it—instincts have taken over, and when we push through the first curtain and a zombie jumps out at me, I clutch onto Cody’s chest with my nails digging in hard.
Jessie and Gabe are long gone, probably joining in on the scaring fun, making others cry for help, no doubt. I’m clinging to Cody like a frightened kitten, wishing I could get closer to him and drown out the sounds. I feel his arm shift, and I panic that he’s trying to push me from him. He doesn’t; instead, he reaches around to the back of my head, pushing my face into his chest, and pulling his jacket up to protect me and hide my eyes.
I can feel his pace pick up, and I just let him guide me the rest of the way through. He steps quickly to the side, and I follow. I’m relieved when I hear a door squeak open and once again recognize the softer sounds we were hearing outside. Cody pulls me over to a bench and sits me down, then kneels in front of me.
“Charlie, are you okay? God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know you’d get so scared,” he says, holding both of his hands to my cheeks and tucking my hair behind my ears. I let go of squeezing my eyes shut and open them to see Cody looking right back at me. He isn’t laughing. He isn’t even smiling. He’s just focused on me, and my fear—and making it better. I take a deep breath and reach up to grab his hands.
“I’m okay. I’m okay,” I say, moving to stand. He stands with me and puts his hand under my chin.
“Are you sure?” he’s so worried. And as much as I NEVER want to set foot inside that barn again, I wouldn’t trade the way Cody’s looking at me afterward for anything. I just gulp and nod, unable to speak. He pulls me in for a hug and holds my head to his chest for a full minute before he lets go, and I’m pretty sure I could sleep standing up if it were in his arms.
“We should find Gabe and Jessie,” he says, sliding his hand down my arm and grabbing hold of my fingers. It’s clear he isn’t letting go again.
We find Gabe and Jessie at a lemonade stand, and it’s cute to watch them from a distance. They’re sharing a drink, and even after knowing each other for so long, their love seems so young and new.
“How long have they been dating?” I ask Cody.
He smiles at first, then laughs softly to himself. “Pretty much off and on since the sixth grade. She’s in every school dance picture with Gabe, minus prom—she went to that with me,” he says. I
must not hide my jealous response well, because he starts to laugh when he looks at me. “Not as my girlfriend. They weren’t dating at the time, and my date had just dumped me. She felt bad.”
“Oh,” I swallow hard, embarrassed that Cody noticed my green streak. “That was nice of her, though…I can’t really see you getting dumped. Are you sure it wasn’t the other way around?”
Cody’s face gets suddenly serious, and we stop walking. “I’m sure. I was in the chair for six months after my accident, and Kyla, my ex-girlfriend? She just wasn’t up for all that.”
“Hey, man, that was awesome,” Cody leaves me and starts talking to Gabe suddenly, clearly wanting to leave the conversation we were having. I touched on something, and I can tell it was uncomfortable for Cody, something he probably prefers to keep buried, and I get that—probably more than most.
“You okay?” Jessie asks, sliding up next to me, and offering me a drink of some frozen lemon thing.
“Oh, thanks. I’m good. Yeah, that was a little intense,” I gesture to the barn. “I’m sort of a wimp.”
She laughs, and then throws an arm over my shoulder, dragging me to a section filled with rides and carnival games. “Girl, that shit’s scary as hell. I laugh the entire time so I don’t pee myself. You’re not a wimp. You made it through,” she says, slapping down a dollar for a set of three balls. She throws them at a stack of jars and knocks down every single one. The guy hands her a giant stuffed monkey, and she pushes it back at him, scrunching her face. “Just give me the little one. I don’t have room for that thing.”
Jessie tosses the tiny monkey holding a heart to Gabe and blows a kiss in the air. He hugs it like a little boy and rolls his eyes at her, laughing. “I’m gonna marry him someday, you know,” she says, chewing on a stick of gum, and holding out her hand with the pack for me. I take one, hoping it will calm my nerves.
“Yeah? You two are pretty great together,” I say. She looks right at me then, and nods.
“We are. It took awhile, growing up. But we were always great,” she says, turning back to watch her man throw darts—and miss everything, not just the balloons. I feel her arm slip through mine and squeeze, and I can tell I just won a level of approval—and maybe a new friend.
We spend an hour walking the game aisles, and Jessie’s the only winner. She wins a stuffed monkey for each of us, and it becomes our inside joke for the rest of the night—naming the monkeys, stealing them and hiding them, then begging to give them back.
We decide to try our hand at the corn maze before we go home. The woman at the entrance gives us each a map and a puzzle piece. If you find the other five pieces hidden in the maze, you win a pie, an entire homemade apple pie. I look at Cody with puppy dog eyes when I find this out.
“Will you win me and the monkey a pie? We want pie, pweeeeese?” I say, holding the small stuffed monkey’s hand and stroking Cody’s chest with it. He busts out laughing and throws his arm around me.
“Sure, come on, Charlie—let’s go win you a pie,” he says, waving the map over his head and pointing in the air like he’s signaling to Charge!
Cody pulls me through the entry to the maze at a quick pace, and he’s jogging at first, passing up a group of junior high girls who giggle when he says, “Excuse me.”
I watch them huddle together and cover their faces while they check Cody out, and I laugh at their exchange—both because it’s adorable to see, and because I could easily join them like we were at some slumber party, making goo-goo eyes at the cute older boy next door.
“They are sooooooo crushing on you,” I joke, elbowing him in the side. He pounds his fists on his chest at my joke, like Tarzan, which only makes me laugh harder.
“I’m all man, of course they’re crushing on me,” he says, almost on the verge of howling.
“Oh my god, you realize you’re bragging about being the pin-up dream for 12-year-olds, don’t you? Don’t get all carried away,” I say, trying to hold in the rest of my laugh.
Cody’s eyebrows lower as he turns his head to look at me and slows our walking down. He’s twisting his lips together, thinking, and then finally settles into a wide smile.
“Uh huh,” he says, and leaves it at that. He walks ahead of me a little, his posture perfect, and his hands dangling from his thumbs looped in his pockets.
“What does that mean?” I ask, brushing into his arm and catching up to his pace.
“Ohhhhh, nothing,” he says, clearly tempting me now. And of course, I set the trap.
“No, really…what does that mean,” I’m actually a little irritated now at his smugness, even though I know he’s only being playful. Cody takes a sharp turn while he’s looking at the map, and I follow him. There’s a table at the end of the passage, and we both look at each other.
“We found one!” we shout, running in the direction of the table with the black cauldron on top. Once we get there, Cody reaches in and pulls out a puzzle piece. I snap it in place with the first one we were given, and I can already tell the puzzle is going to be a pumpkin pie.
Cody holds up his hand to high-five me, but I just look at it and scowl as I walk by. I’m getting my edge back, I can tell, because Cody’s the one catching up with me now.
“Hey, don’t be mad. I was just teasing you,” he says, reaching for my arm to turn me around. I’m not really angry, and I want him to know—I don’t want him thinking I’m a drama queen. I smile when I face him, and I can tell he’s relieved.
“I know, I just hate teasing like that—makes me feel like you’re making fun of me,” I admit.
Cody’s smile falls a little at my words, and he reaches around my body to pull me in for a side hug while we’re walking. “I’m not teasing to be mean. I promise,” he says. “I was just going to say that those girls aren’t the only ones crushing on me…that’s all.”
He can’t look at me while he’s talking, and I’m so glad, because my eyes are wide with guilt, and my breath has stopped. It’s the most blatant admission he’s made about our flirting, and I’m not going to deny it, because yes—I’m crushing on Cody Carmichael. Hell, I’m doing more than that—I’m freaking falling for him!
I notice his smirk, and it matches my own. I hear him almost start to speak more than once, and each time, my heart thumps in anticipation.
“I have an idea—it’s a game we can play, you know, while we trek through the rest of this farmland and spend an hour looking for four puzzle pieces so you can get a pie,” he says, taunting me.
“Hey, that’s homemade pie, thank you very much!” I defend.
“Right, totally worth it then,” he says, a sassy snarkiness to his tone. I roll my eyes in response.
“Okay, what’s this game you propose?” I say, sighing a little for emphasis even though I can’t wait to hear the rules.
“Okay, well, it’s called tit for tat,” he says, and I laugh as soon as the words leave his mouth, resulting in a disapproving glare.
“Sorry,” I say, slapping my hand over my mouth to keep my reaction in check.
“Don’t make fun of the name. It’s just what we’ve called it for years—no judging,” he says and I nod, crossing my heart while I do. “Me and Gabe used to play with Jessie and a few of our other friends in junior high and high school. It’s sort of like truth or dare—with a twist.”
I’m intrigued. I’m not sure how much I’m willing to share, but the desire of learning some of Cody’s secrets has an undeniable pull on my heart. Cody continues to explain.
“I’ll start. Here’s how it works, I share something with you, and you have to share something equal back with me. It’s fair, because the person asking has to answer their own question first, make sense?” he asks, biting at the inside of his cheek, almost worried that I’ll pass on his idea.
I think about it, and decide there isn’t much I have left to hide from Cody, and even those sheltered parts of me are ones I’m more willing to share with him than others. My only concern is the dare part of the game
, but I feel pretty confident that Cody won’t lead me into anything dangerous or humiliating, so I go for it.
“I’m in,” I say, holding his stare, not wanting him to see the mess of nerves I am underneath it all.
We’re barely walking, and Cody lowers his brow before he speaks again. “I was 16 the first time I had sex,” he says, and whoooooooosh, all color is gone from my face. Holy hell! I didn’t think he would hit so far below the belt this early in the game. I’m not sure I want Cody to know this part, but I’m not chickening out this early. I turn away from him before I answer.
“I was 20,” I swallow, knowing he knows what this means, and who it was with. I clench my teeth while I think of my next move; I wasn’t expecting this to stress me out so much. There are so many things I want to know, so I decide to take a small risk since he asked such a personal question to start.
“I’ve only been in love once, and I don’t even know if it’s real,” I say, letting out a heavy sigh with my admission, and also bracing myself for Cody’s response.
“Me, too,” he says. His answer comes fast, but it’s short and powerful. I know he’s talking about the girl in the picture, the girl I’m pretty sure is Kyla—the one that left him when she thought he was broken, and he probably needed her most.
“The night you slept in my room…in my arms?” he starts, his voice giving out slightly. “That’s the happiest I’ve been since my dad died.”
The heaviness of his confession smacks me hard in the chest, and I lose my footing a little. Cody notices, and pulls me next to him, but doesn’t say anything. His focus is on our feet and the path in front of us. We’re not following the map any longer, but rather meandering around winding rows of corn, avoiding the crowded areas at all costs.
I don’t know how to answer his confession, so I say the closest thing that comes to mind. “That night was the scariest decision I’ve ever made,” I say, almost a whisper. I tell him the truth, though he doesn’t know all of the details of the turmoil that played out in my heart and head that night—or now, for that matter.