by Devon Ashley
“Or I could turn around,” he amended slowly, tossing the shirt at me and rotating one hundred and eighty degrees with his hands up in the air.
I didn’t argue. I was cold and wearing the type of bra that didn’t hide that fact – as the guys would say, my headlights were shining. But I was slow to actually switch the clothes out, too busy admiring the muscle definition Robert had going on across his backside. Sophie was right. We really needed to hit a few swim meets. Support the team, you know?
“Thank you,” I said when I was finished, and he took it as permission to turn back around.
“I’ll just add it to your tab.”
He took my camisole and hung it in the tree to start drying. I had doubts it would anytime soon, but we were gonna have to put on our respective shirts when we returned to the dorms later.
“For the record, we usually swim in our bikinis. I wasn’t planning on swimming that night.” I had panicked as we walked through the woods that night, so we stopped at the pond to give me time to calm down.
“That’s too bad,” I heard him mutter. “So were your parents mad? I pretty much made myself scarce once you were awake so you’d get to spend some time with them. What’d they say about your accident?”
He returned to the river and bent down to dig around at the water’s edge.
I released a long sigh within myself. I hated telling people this part. Pity sucks.
“Nothing. Only Sophie was with me at the hospital.”
His head whipped around in surprise. He actually sounded a little mad. “They didn’t come down to check on you?”
“Robert,” I said slowly, “I don’t have parents. I don’t even have relatives.”
His eyes remained hardened as he tried to figure out my puzzle.
“I’m a ward of the state.”
“Really? I didn’t know that.”
“It’s not really something I advertise.”
“No, I guess you wouldn’t,” he replied softly. “So, did they die?”
I shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. I was abandoned after birth.”
Here comes the dreaded ‘I’m so sorry’ part everyone always feels obligated to say. But as it turned out, he was the first to ever skip it.
“So…if you’re an orphan and the system’s responsible for you, how’d you end up here?”
Ugh…another secret I don’t like to tell people. “Scholarship,” I said dully.
Shocked, he practically shouted, “You’re one of the scholarship kids?” I nodded my head and he added, “I had no idea. You don’t…look the part.”
By that, he meant the other scholarship kids were easily recognizable by their clothes; which were either old, cheap or a decade late in style compared to their designer-labeled classmates. And since this school didn’t make us wear uniforms, they stuck out like a sore thumb on a daily basis. As for me, I had little money to my name, and only what I managed to make from my job at a bookstore in Rutland during summer and holidays. The only reason I dressed like my wealthy classmates was cause Sophie shared her clothing with me. Even before she ever knew I was a scholarship kid, she had befriended me and offered to share. Thank God we’re the same size. I didn’t need another reason to feel like an outcast.
“Good to know. Only Sophie knows about my parents and the scholarship. I’d like to keep that quiet, if you don’t mind.”
“Yeah, sure.” He rose to his feet and commenced skipping the stones in his hand. “Your secret’s safe with me.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. Awkward moment over.
“So tell me. Last year when we had English Lit together...”
“Yeah?” I confirmed.
“Exactly how long had you been watching me in class before I caught you that first time?”
I think my heart literally fell into my stomach; like it jumped ship, suicide-bombed, jumped without a parachute (you get the idea). I know my body froze, which wasn’t gonna help me lie my way out of this. Robert had sat one chair up and two rows to my right and I spent quite a bit of time gazing at him. It worked perfectly, being right handed – I simply used my left arm to brace my head at an angle towards him while I wrote. Most people would’ve assumed I was looking down at my paper and not at him.
I was about to open my mouth and deny any wrong-gazing, when he cut me off with, “Before you answer that question, I want you to recall who was sitting in the chair behind you, in the row between us.
I narrowed my eyes and tried to recall. I spent so much time watching Robert I paid little attention to anyone else. But…I gasped. “Jhett!”
“That’s right.” The curvature of his lips was just evil. He knew he had me. Jhett had a perfect view of me just like I had a perfect view of Robert. Damn! Damn you small school with your small classes where everyone knows everyone else and totally rats you out!
I opened my mouth but when he lifted his eyebrows at me in anticipation I chickened out.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
“Uh…”
He laughed and slowly walked towards me. Scratch that. Swaggered. There was definitely some swaggering to those steps. “Uh, is not a number. Come on. I already know the number, I just want to hear you say it.”
It completely flustered me the way he neared. He took slow, purposeful steps, and he refused to divert his eyes elsewhere, like he was enjoying watching me squirm and back myself against the tree.
“One. Little. Number.” He perched an arm beside me and used it to lean his body against the tree. I’d be lying if I said my eyes didn’t sneak a quick peek at his chest as he leaned in closer. The heat of his body brought the hairs on my skin to stand at attention, the smell of the citrus in his cologne made my stomach do flip-turns, and the glint in his eyes seemed to captivate mine into submission.
I licked my lips slowly. He already knew so there was no avoiding it anyway. “November, probably.”
“Thank you.” His free hand caressed my cheek and his lips gently brushed mine. His kisses were slow and controlled, and once his lips skimmed mine a few more times, his tongue slid into my mouth. A ticklish vibration spread behind my neck and through my lower abdomen. He pulled away just as I was ready to reach out and bring him closer.
“November? Really? Man, I didn’t catch you until March.”
“Wait. What? I thought Jhett ratted me out.”
He huffed. “Please. Jhett would never notice something like that. Lit bores him. He was probably in a daze the whole time.”
If he were still wearing a shirt, this was the point where I would’ve forcefully grabbed the collar and yanked him toward me, just to tighten the cotton’s grasp around his neck. Instead, all I could do was grunt my disapproval and kiss him before his smile got any bigger.
My hands pressed against his chest and I was suddenly reminded that he was half-naked. My hands trailed up and swept behind his head, and I tangled my fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck. Robert’s hands forcefully followed the curves of my side down toward my hips, then reached around to my back and began to rub upwards.
I moaned and buried my head in the crook of his neck. And it wasn’t a good kind of moan. My breaths became deep and fast and I bit down hard on my molars to fight the sharp pains pricking my backside.
Frantic, he froze and asked, “What?”
“My back,” I blurted, but his neck muffled my cry. It still hadn’t completely healed from my accident, when my back was scraped raw from the boulder. Since the meds ran out, I only had to deal with minor aches and sharp pricks when I overstretched the scabs. But Robert’s rubbing caused the t-shirt to snag some of the scabs and I felt them rip from my skin.
His hands went under the t-shirt and gently patted the roughness my skin. “Oh my God, I am so sorry. The bandages were gone from your wrists. I just assumed...” He kissed the side of my face. “Come on. Let’s get you back.”
Before we left, I had him hold me there at the river until the pain passed. Alright, really I just lik
ed having an excuse to snuggle into him, something I had been daydreaming about for a year now. He surrounded me with taut muscles and his cologne was heavenly – something citrusy, softened with a hint of lavender mixed in. God, I was just dying to tilt my head the extra few inches and kiss on his neck.
He walked me all the way to my door and kissed me gingerly once more. I had just said goodbye and was about to close the door when I felt resistance. I backed out of the way and let the door swing open again.
“I’m going to need your number.”
I bit down on my lower lip and my eyes automatically diverted away from his face. “Uh…”
“You don’t have a phone, do you?” He was actually kinda shocked. What teenager didn’t have one, especially at this school?
“I don’t really need one. I mean, who would I call?”
“Email?”
“I do have that, but I never check it.” Again, he looked a little appalled. “Again, who would I email? I didn’t keep in touch with the kids I met in the system and Sophie’s the only one here that I really spend time with, and I room with her. So…”
“Wow. You’re going to be a little more difficult to date than I anticipated.”
I loosely crossed my arms and leaned against the door frame. “Yep. It’s gonna require a little effort on your part. Like physically leaving your room and crossing that horrible hallway that protects you from the cold and snow, and actually come talk to me in person.”
“Alright, alright. You win. Personal contact it is. So how about you meet me for lunch tomorrow?”
“Sure.” I reached over and gently tugged him towards me. “See how easy that was?” His body pressed up against me and his lips brushed mine once more. My insides did a happy dance.
“I want you to remember this arrangement when I stop by unexpectedly and you have green goop smeared all over your face and you’re too embarrassed to open the door.”
I playfully pushed him away.
“Can’t be embarrassed if I don’t open the door to let you in, now can I?”
I stepped back into my room and heard him chuckle as he stepped out of view.
An hour later, the ibuprofen had calmed my back completely and I was comfortably lying on my stomach in bed when Sophie tried to sneak in. I let her tiptoe all the way to her bed, and heard her stub her toe on the desk chair I accidentally left in her path. So many expletives…
“Fuck. Shit. Ow. Crap.”
I reached over and flipped the switch for the lamp and she stopped mid-hop, scrunched over with one foot in her hand.
“Hey, Soph.” I practically sang. “How was your evening?”
She eyed me suspiciously and I returned the glare. Cautiously, she asked, “You know, don’t you?”
“At least I didn’t hear it from Robert, but imagine our surprise when we saw the two of you dippin’ in the pond.”
She stood and pointed at me. “There was no skinny in our dip. See?” She pulled back the shoulder of her shirt and I saw the familiar orange cord of her bikini.
“Soph! Why didn’t you tell me?”
“There was nothing to tell! We just ran into each other tonight in the commons. Jhett said you and Robert were supposed to go on a date and we thought, hey, let’s go take a dip.”
“I don’t know, Soph,” I teased. “You two looked mighty friendly.”
She playfully shrugged. “What can I say? We hit it off.”
“Did you kiss him?”
She pretended to fan herself with her hand. “A lady never tells.”
“Good thing you’re not a lady.” For a second she actually pretended to be appalled, but her face returned to normal when I added, “Not with that mouth.”
“Yeah, that screws me every time.” She closed her eyes and inhaled a long, deep breath and released it. “Jhett is a good kisser. But I’ve gotta say, swimmers must have excellent lung capacity cause that boy never wanted to come back up for air.”
She gathered her robe and a change of clothes and headed for the shower.
“Aren’t you gonna ask if I kissed Robert?”
She blew a puff of air through semi-closed lips. “Please. I’ve seen the way you two have been staring at each other forever. Of course you kissed. Just like I also know that’s all the two of you did.” She flashed me a little wink before closing herself off in the bathroom.
I stepped out of the Rutland public library and hoofed it to the nearest bus stop. The library at the academy didn’t offer a lot outside the world of research material, so I always went to the public library for pleasure reading. And, yeah, I really meant pleasure reading. Don’t ask me why I liked the Harlequin novels, I just did. Weird considering I couldn’t read any of the sexual content without blushing and scrunching my face, and I swear I always turned my head in shame. I felt like such a peeping tom throughout the novel, but for some reason, it didn’t keep me from reading them. Maybe I’m secretly hoping they’ll help me overcome all the sexual anxieties I seemed to have myself.
I tucked the book deep into my bag. I actually had time to start it before the bus came, but no way did I have the courage to read it in public. Not with the scantily dressed woman smothering the nearly naked man all over the front cover.
I kinda dazed out for the ten minute wait, so I didn’t realize the whistle was directed at me until I heard my name called out. I turned my attention to the maroon truck in front of the bus stop, and saw a teenage guy with a baseball cap leaning over to speak through the passenger side window. He sorta looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him, yet he said my name a second time and waved me over.
“One date and you’re already ditching me? How can I pick you up at the academy if you’re hanging out in town at some random bus stop?”
Huh. Did I mention this guy I’d never met but knew my name was kinda cute? “How random could it be if you found me without looking?” He pressed his lips and nodded his head a few times. Now that I could get a better look at the face hiding beneath the cap, a name flashed into my head. “Chance, right?”
“Ah, see? I knew we’d been introduced,” he joked.
I agreed with him on that, but for some reason or another, I had no freakin’ idea who this guy was.
“So, why were you picking me up?”
“Wow. Exactly how hard did I hit your head the other day?” Suddenly it all came rushing back. The soccer ball, the cute guy, the snow cone. But that was a dream, wasn’t it? I know it was, cause I remembered waking up and being bummed that it was only a dream.
So....was this a dream too?
It was a little weird, but luckily I was good at going with the flow. “Apparently hard enough I don’t remember making a date with you.”
“Oh, well, truuust me. You did. You also said I was the hottest guy you’d ever seen and that you wanted to pleasure me in ways I never thought possible.”
I huffed. “Really?” I challenged disbelievingly. “Cause that doesn’t sound like something I’d say.” Certainly not out loud…
“What can I say? You were incredibly high from the pheromones coming off me.”
“Probably choking, in fact,” I replied, narrowing my eyes at him.
His grin spread so far it should’ve taken flight, and after we stared each other down for a few seconds, he asked, “So are you comin’ or what?”
“What the hell,” I decided, and climbed into the Ford truck.
He laughed and adjusted his cap. “Try to hold back on the enthusiasm. I wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.”
He shifted the truck into gear and pulled back into moving traffic. I had my nosy moment and subtly scanned his vehicle. Dusty consoles, tons of coins and gum in the storage compartments and the half cab behind me was stuffed with clothes, shoes, text books, school and gym bags and tons of things that needed to be chunked into the nearest trash bin. Typical teenage boy. I could only imagine the mess he had going on in the bedroom.
“So where are we going?” I asked.
“I
thought we’d head over to the Revival Theatre and catch one of the movies they’re playing tonight.”
“That’s that place that just plays the old ones, right?”
“Yeah. But now that I don’t have to go get you, we’ve got an extra forty-five minutes to kill.”
“Then I want my snow cone,” I said quickly.
He smiled and replied, “I see you haven’t forgotten that part of our afternoon. You forget me but remember the snow cone. That can’t be good.”
Fifteen minutes later, I had his so-called life-changing snow cone within my grasp. As I looked down at a blur of colorful stripes, I asked, “So what am I looking at here?”
He pointed at each stripe as he said, “You’ve got wild cherry, which isn’t as sweet as most cherries, cola, watermelon, leche, which is like a creamy vanilla, followed up by blackberry.”
I just nodded my head as he listed them off. My stomach gurgled a little – and not in a good way. “That’s…really interesting.”
“Don’t knock it till you try it. And you’ve got to get all five flavors in at the same time.”
I scraped my teeth across all the colors, half expecting my tongue to be disgusted and spit it out. But surprisingly, the flavors blended remarkably well, as no one flavor overpowered the others.
“Hmm…I expected it to be sickeningly sweet, but it balanced out better than I expected.”
“It’s good, huh?”
I nodded my head and took another bite. I offered the snow cone to him teasingly. “Willing to swap spit with me now?”
“Maybe. Ask me again at the end of our date.”
Yeah, right. As if I would beg for a kiss. I began devouring the snow cone myself.
“So what are we watching tonight?”
“It’s eighties weekend so we have a choice between Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Beverly Hill’s Cop. Which would you rather see?”
I shrugged. “I haven’t seen either before.”
“What?!”
I almost sloshed the snow cone all over myself when I jumped – he was that loud. I’ve seen very few movies in my life and his reaction was pretty typical. Everyone’s always so appalled that I hadn’t seen their personal favorites. What few movies I had seen had mostly been horror movies from a few dates I’d gone on.