A few minutes pass.
I can come get you.
Guilt and nervousness pinch my heart while longing-love pulls at it.
We’ll be there, I tell him before returning my phone to my lap.
The boys have stopped playing and talk about heading in. Smitty’s mom wants her sons to stay home for dinner, and I think Becka will want to stay if he does.
Tap-tip-tapping my feet on warm concrete, I choose my words carefully.
“Don’t Dusty and Pete have a game tonight?”
“Yeah.” She nods. “At eight.”
Half playing my part, half deciding how to ask if she wants to go, I’m cut off when she stands up.
“Come on,” she says. “Let’s go home and change.”
BACK AT her house, I trade my dress for a tee and short-shorts while my girl doesn’t change a thing.
But she grabs her board.
I SPEND the next night in Toledo, dancing with my girl under the full-moon light.
Smitty, Stephen, and a few other boys pile driftwood together and set fire to it. Flames crackle and climb as Becka and I kind of sway, sort of stumble toward the bonfire, and when I hold my empty red Solo cup up to Oliver, he smiles.
Skater-strong and quietly-kind looks good in firelight.
“Wow, Bliss,” he says, his subdued smile growing as he reaches out. “An empty cup. For me? That’s so thoughtful.”
I’m not too drunk to misunderstand his teasing, but the warm tips of his fingers brush the backs of mine as he takes my empty, and I giggle.
“Fill it up,” I tell him.
Oliver’s eyes glint. He takes a drink from his own red cup and next to him, Jackie passes a bag of marshmallows to Laura, who passes it to the boy in front of me.
“How about this instead?” he suggests, sitting down beside me with the bag. He gets two skewers ready, but on my other side, Becka’s a step ahead.
“You have to get closer than that,” she says, I think to Smitty, or everyone. Anyone who’s listening. “Otherwise it won't melt all the way through.”
Her first marshmallow falls off the skewer.
Her second catches fire and burns black before Smitty can blow it out.
Laughing, I keep my own mallow a cautious distance from the flames.
A few minutes pass.
A few more.
Oliver laughs.
“You're never going to get anywhere like this,” he finally says, pulling his marshmallow away from the fire and offering me crisply toasted golden goodness.
Readying a fresh one while I savor summertime Heaven, he passes me the skewer and shows me where to hold it relative to burning warmth.
“You do have to get a little closer,” he tells me, low and deep between flicker-pops from the fire and the echo of waves lapping against the beach.
With his help, I toast the perfect one.
And then two more.
“So,” he says, sipping from a fresh cup. He offers me a drink, but I’m content with toasty vanilla sugar. “Becka said you read Catcher in the Rye for the banned books assignment?”
“Becka lies,” I reply, kidding without thinking.
Oliver kind of smirks.
“I’m going to read it,” I clarify. “I just haven’t started yet.”
“It’s an easy read,” he says, his smile effortless on his lips. “You could finish it in a day.”
“That’s good.” I nod. “Considering there’s only like, a day left.”
“Well …” Oliver takes another drink. The fire in front of us crackles higher, and his tan skin glows, smooth and soft and inviting. It’s hard to not want to touch him.
“I could help you if you want. I read it last summer. If you finish the book tomorrow, I could help you with the paper Sunday.”
“Yeah?” I ask.
“Yeah. I mean, if your parents are okay with that?”
Looking down, I hide my sad laugh in the back of my hand.
“Yeah,” I say again. “My parents will be fine.”
“DO YOU guys want anything? I could order a pizza. Are you hungry?”
“We’re okay, Mom.”
“Are you sure? I just brought some zucchini and tomatoes in from the garden. I could whip something up–”
“Mom,” I look up from where Oliver and I sit at the kitchen table and repeat myself clearly. “We’re okay.”
Nodding, she gives her biggest, warmest smile and finally leaves.
“Sorry,” I offer, opening my laptop.
Oliver shakes his head like it’s nothing. We work quietly and well together, and after a while, I hear Mom go outside.
While he reads over my final conclusion, I sit back in my chair.
My mother has no reason to be more wary of Thomas than Oliver, but I know she is. Both of my parents are, and it makes me sort of worry they notice more than I think. Not only was Mom fine with Oliver coming over, she’s been practically floating since he got here, and now they’re both outside leaving the two of us in privacy like some kind of sign that’s supposed to show they trust me, but it’s not about me at all.
They’d never leave Dusty and I alone together.
Like love just knows, my phone vibrates in my pocket.
Baby, baby, baby.
My heart flutters and pangs at the same time.
The most I’ve seen my boy was two days ago on the field. He didn’t come home, and I know he’s out with Her.
“Alright,” Oliver says. “I think you've got it. This is good.”
I smile tightly as he passes my laptop back.
“Thank you,” I manage.
He glances at me with eyes that I can’t deny are beautiful.
But have no effect on the precious pain in my chest.
“IT’S HIS birthday, and his mom probably won’t remember.”
On the other end of the phone, Dusty sniffs, but the silence in the background matches the silence in my room, and all I can think is at least he’s home.
“She asked Mixie for pot last week.”
Poor Petey.
“Why would she ask Mixie?” I ask, curling up in my bed.
“I don't know. Can I pick you up tomorrow?”
“Thomas …”
I’m cut off by a knock on his door and I hear his mother’s voice.
With no summer left, I’m up past one in the morning with spun-love, thankful we were interrupted so I don't have to tell him no again. We’ve been on the phone for a couple hours and he’s with me, but he’s all over the place. Tomorrow’s the first day of school, and at this rate, neither of us is going to sleep tonight.
“Sorry,” he says, sounding tired as he returns to the phone. “She keeps printing out all these admissions applications and bringing them to me. She leaves them on my desk when I’m not here.”
Brushing the sleeve of his baseball hoodie across my lips, I stare up at my ceiling in the mostly dark.
“She just loves you,” I tell him. “She wants what’s best for you.”
“You’re what’s best for me,” Thomas replies.
Behind faded-soft navy cotton, I smile.
“So let’s do it together,” I say. “Where do you want to go?”
Trouble sniffs again and I hear him shifting, opening his window. I catch the spark of a lighter and his words come out with smoke.
“I don't know, Bliss. When can I see you?”
Under covers I wish were his arms, I sigh.
“We’ll be at school tomorrow. We’ll see each other–”
“No.” Love stops me with strained desperation in his tone. “I need to really see you.”
HALFWAY THROUGH the school day, my whole body starts to lag.
Running on almost no sleep, my limbs weigh like dead weight and my eyes sting under shimmery shadow. My patience dwindles while my mood unevenly swings, and my heart drags, sore for much needed closeness.
On my way to English, I square my shoulders and make my way through the hall crowded with commoti
on and full of every face except the one I want to see. As I turn the corner toward the stairs, I see Ben, but he’s alone. We smile, but inside, all I want is love I can’t help.
As I enter the classroom, I see Oliver turning his paper in.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey.” I bring my binder closer to my chest.
Once the lecture's started, my tired mind wanders. It’s almost lunch, and the possibility that Dusty maybe skipped altogether seems more likely with each slowly passing minute. I want to text him, but my seat isn’t inconspicuous. The more I think about him ditching, the more frustrated I get.
Isn’t seeing each other just a little bit better than nothing at all?
When the bell rings for lunch, I’m the first to stand up.
I walk with Oliver, but when I spot pastel-pink hair, I step ahead and reach for my girl.
Groaning dramatically, she leans her head on my shoulder. “Could this day drag on any longer?”
“Tell me about it,” I say, curling my fingers between hers, resting my palm on her cast as we head to the cafeteria.
Conversation-busy and laughter-loud, it smells like baked hash browns and cinnamon rolls. I scan the long, table-lined room as we get in line, but still don’t find tall, dirty-blond and delinquent.
While Becka grabs a chocolate milk, I take a white, and Daisy strides up with an orange. We walk to the stairwell that leads to the commons and sit on the bottom step, the skater-tomboy, then the girly-girl in the middle, and nerd-fabulous on my right. She tells us about her new boyfriend, and B shows off the purple T-Rex Oliver drew on her cast. Keeping my knees pressed together under my dress, I stretch my legs out and talk about perfectly toasted marshmallows when my best friend insists. Mostly though, I drink my milk and just listen. In between frustration and frayed-short nerves, I kind of relax into the moment, and I’m overcome inside with never wanting to forget this.
A cotton-candy knockout, a strawberry sundae sweetheart, and a vanilla soft-serve misfit, we're undeniably different, but we complement each other, and there's comfort in how we fit. We live in a world where innocence is stunted and short, but there’s strength and acceptance here.
Cafeteria commotion grows louder, and I glance up from my open-toe heels. Students file down the stairs across from us, and just like that, my pulse recognizes love’s proximity before he’s anywhere in sight. Beats like butterflies rush against my ribcage, and in the same second, at the top of the steps, I see black on black Converse and bare ankles, then strong calves and knees under black cutoffs. Dusty's wearing Petey's Motion City Soundtrack tee, and as this boy comes into view, he flashes his most defiant smirk.
With the chaos of a hundred or so other kids between us, all my heart wants finds my eyes for a single, insubstantial second. His smirk curves into a smile, and my blood tingles through my veins.
Blinking, I look away and breathe secretly, deeply. Pushing impatient fingers through my curls, I slowly exhale.
This is a different kind of learning to breathe.
While all my exhaustion and missing and bitterness melt into pure want, I concentrate on not giving away this love that still feels so much like a crush.
There is nothing in me except how much I want Dusty’s teeth and lips on my lips right now.
It’s not even fair to want someone as heavily and wholly as I crave this person. I feel too small to contain it, and all he did was look at me.
Quick with my eyes, I take in the whole picture.
Strolling next to Pete, he stops at a table full of people. Valarie calls my soul’s name, and my chest caves in when he looks at her. Low-fiving Tanner and pocketing his hands, Dusty’s nothing but instigating grins and rebellious black, and I look back down at my pastel-painted toes. I focus on what Daisy’s saying about some upcoming election, but I feel love’s look all over me.
Glancing up again, I meet careless eyes for another fragment of a second.
I dare you, his look says. Come on, girl.
Helpless, my skin warms and my cheeks blush. I give my full attention to Daisy to distract myself, but my legs tremble to stand and run to the source of my longing.
Harsh and hated, the bell rings, and I despise having to leave with my friends. I shoot Thomas one last glance, but he’s not looking anymore, and nothing about love is easy.
It’s stubborn and unfair.
Love is forcing myself to not look over my shoulder as I walk forward. It’s returning to the third floor empty handed, starving for skin on skin contact and deepest wholeness. It’s taking my place next to altruistic dependability when all I want is a self-indulgent monster to kiss me until I can’t breathe and bite until he breaks skin.
Carrying the burden of yearning in my already worn-out limbs, I fill my lungs with measured breaths and suffer through the rest of class. There’s only one left, and I have to go home after this, but at least alone in my room I won’t have to fight or hide.
Sociology is my last stop, and I slump down in a seat in the back.
Not staring at the minute hand on the clock takes conscious effort.
After about twenty minutes into reading requirements and extra credit possibilities, between soft tingles and instinctive warmth, my phone vibrates in my lap.
My pulse thunders under my skin.
Come out here, princess pie.
Exhaling a slow breath, I look around and think quickly about how to exit.
I know it’s the first day of school, and I know the boy waiting for me is a bad influence to say the least, but knowing doesn’t assuage my yearning or lessen the pull I feel toward the hall. Knowing doesn’t stop me from closing my notebook or slowly raising my hand.
“Leighlee?” Miss Carson meets my most unimpeachable look.
“May I be excused?” I quietly ask.
When she nods, I stand. Leaving my notebook so it looks like I’m just going to the bathroom, I head toward the door and turn its heavy handle.
Frenzied and strung-out, the muscle that wants nothing more than what’s meant to be floods me with beats as I enter the hallway. I glance left and right, and when I don’t see Thomas, hesitation twists my stomach, tightening around my conscience until he steps around the corner.
Messy dark blond is summertime overgrown, curled a little at the edges and falling into eyes I can't find any blue in, but when love looks, I see him.
Seeing only me.
I all but sprint to him.
Dusty grins, taking confidently slow strides in tandem with my quick-clicking heel steps.
“Don’t fall, baby.”
Reeling, I reach for his hand the second we’re close enough, and my rebellion interlocks our fingers, warm and tight and right, as he kisses the top of my head. I pick up my pace to keep up with his as we walk, and he leads us down a back set of stairs toward the school’s basement.
Outward from where his hand holds mine like a magnet, eager anticipation flows through me. I don’t know where we’re going, but I’d follow this feeling anywhere.
Lit with old fluorescents that shine half-burned out, the hallway he guides us down grows darker as we go, and every step I take is somewhere I’ve never been before. I squeeze love’s hand and pull myself closer. He glances down at me, and high eyes glint gritty light.
“You scared, Bliss?”
I smile. “No.”
Within a few more steps, he opens a door leading us into a pitch-dark room that smells sort of like pot, but more like rust and machine heat and years of abandonment.
“Where …” I start to ask, but stop when Thomas flips a switch. Yellow-orange bulbs flicker over our heads, but their glow is minimal and dust-hindered, and they’re so old I can hear them buzz as they strive to function. There’s a furnace in the corner and boxes piled high against the wall to our left, but I don't notice much more before I hear the door close.
Turning to the boy whose hand is still wrapped around mine, I step closer so that we’re face to face, save for the few inches of hei
ght he’s always had on me.
“Hi, girl,” he says, like I'm the only one in the world.
“Hi, boy,” I whisper, lost in his.
Bringing my other hand to his side, I take another step closer, basking in his warmth in the mostly dark. Soaring on love and harder drugs, Dusty grins higher and brings his lips to mine.
He kisses me and my heart goes wild.
We bend and move together, burning up. We cause and affect, pulling strings and pushing buttons, kissing so deep I can’t catch my breath even when my meaning lifts to let me.
Leaning into and depending solely on each other, we turn and turn. We stumble but don’t fall, and I don’t want to ever not be kissing him. His kiss is so full, so passionate, I feel it in my knees. I grab onto him for life and his hands grip and slide everywhere, up my sides, in my hair and down my back, picking me up and pressing me into a wall I didn't know we were near.
Breathless and dizzy, I’m unable to contain small sounds as love steals kisses down my neck. Pushing and pulling my dress and bra strap out of the way, he kisses my shoulder and chest and I lean back, up and into him. Reckless footing shifts, and I go totally soft when I feel how hard he is. I moan in the dim light and he pushes against me.
“Hold on,” Thomas whispers, starting to move. “Hold onto me, Leigh.”
I lift into him and cross my ankles around his back, tilting for more of his kiss as my dress rides up between us. Tinted with dank vanilla and Doublemint and heavy with consequences, solid strength and uncontrollable need surround me. Starting between my legs, desperation opens and aches and tingles deeper with Dusty's rhythm. Telltale sparks tighten and thrill, and delicate tension yearns for more pressure, more weight, more of him.
Smiling in my neck, love moves with intent.
My skin heats and my heart flies. My breaths sound like pleading around us, and he’s low-toned and short of breath when he speaks.
“I’ve wanted you so long,” he says, lips and teeth and breath under my ear, undoing me. “I think about you all the time. I can’t stop thinking about you …”
Gripping the back of my thigh, Thomas raises me up, moving harder where I need him most.
“You’re in my chest,” he whispers, lost and on edge sounding. “You’re here. You’ve always been here, Bliss. Always …”
Delinquents (Dusty #2) Page 7