I cry out for his touch.
His hold on my shoulder prevents my body from moving up, forcing my middle to take the entire impact every time he pushes his fingers in.
My boy doesn’t slow down once I start to come; he goes harder and deeper and rougher. While I rock and roll through waves he causes, I hear him whisper, “Your pussy is so fucking pretty, Bliss.”
Tears fall from my eyes, down into my hair. It’s too much. I feel him at my heat, in my ear, on my chest. He pulls my top down and bites my nipple until I scream and clutch and grip.
“I can’t—” I begin, only to be cut off by his lips, and his tongue, and his hands.
Thomas pushes … So far, so deep, so into me. He touches and rubs and presses from the inside. He keeps his palm pressed hard against my clit, still and strong and bold, and so fucking certain. My hips keep circling, and my muscles still squeeze.
My lips shake and plead and beg. “Please don’t stop. Please, Thomas, don’t stop."
He drops to his knees.
Then his lips are where his palm was.
His tongue is where his fingers were.
My eyes open, and all I see is the ceiling. My voice is stuck, and my mind is momentarily clear.
Then I fall.
I reach down and tangle my hands into his hair. I hook my left leg around his shoulders, ensuring he never leaves … never stops.
There is nothing more beautiful than his lips on me.
He kisses my middle like he kisses my mouth: dirty, deep, and long. I can’t keep still. I lift and push, feeling his chin and his nose and his laugh.
With his fingers back inside, he kisses between my folds. Soft and puckering, he tells me how good I taste between open mouthfuls. “You’re sugar coated, baby. I knew you would be."
And with one more hard push and deep kiss, my world spins, and I arch.
On my stomach over his messy sheets, I’m spent, tired, and slack as he pushes my hair back and kisses between my shoulder blades. Thomas’ hardness presses against my hip, but when I move, he says, “Stay just like this until we have to leave.”
So we do.
We’re content and quiet and close until I’m almost asleep and feel him get up and go into his bathroom.
With Her.
Curling up, I sometimes wish he would keep that bitch hidden from me like he does with everyone else, but there’s comfort in knowing he uses around me. It’s sick and contorted, and I wish I was brave enough to ask him to stop, but if he has to use, I want to know when and how and where. I want to be included, even if it’s only through the door.
When he returns to his spot that has grown cold, I ask, “What if I used?”
Dusty kisses the top of my shoulder. “You wouldn’t.”
“But what if I did?”
Thomas rests his head in the center of my back. I bring my arms up and lay my head on my left elbow.
“I don’t know, Leighlee. It’s not something I can even consider. It’s not you.”
I turn in his arms and lean up. His dilated eyes shift away. “It could be me. It’s not hard to get.”
Love covers his eyes with his forearm. His bare chest rises and falls with steady breaths. His jeans are low, showing his boxer briefs. I have a silly thought about sticking my finger in his belly button. I want to touch the hair that leads below the waistband of his dark green Fruit of the Looms.
He smirks. “I’d find who gave it to you and break their fucking neck.”
NOTHING ABOUT my boy changes as cold weather turns warm. The school year is almost over, and he still hasn’t decided what he wants to do after graduation.
“I’m not going anywhere, Bliss. You still have another year of school, so I’ll just play ball at the JC or something,” he says. His pockets are fat, and he’s having a good time; he’s set. “You don't have to worry about this shit now.”
Meanwhile, our friends’ lives slowly come together.
Enjoying the near-summer night, Becka, the boys, and I are on the Castors’ back deck, smoking a bowl and sharing a bag of chips and a two liter of soda straight from the bottle.
Passing the pipe to Petey with a lungful of smoke, Ben holds his finger up like he has something to say. He stands from his seat and reaches into his back pocket, exhaling as he presents a white letter envelope that’s been folded in half.
“I got this today,” he says, sitting down.
As he removes a sheet of paper from the envelope, Petey passes the bowl to Becka. Dense smoke hovers in the air above us, and the scent of marijuana taints the fresh smell of the water spraying from the sprinklers.
Weightless and past faded, when Rebecka passes the pipe to her brother, and he passes it directly to me, I shake my head. Thomas shrugs with a lazy smirk and holds the lesser of his evils to his lips with his lighter. Sparking a couple of times before the flame ignites, its orange glow lights up his face.
Ben holds up his letter with the fancy letterhead. “I got into Oregon State.”
Excitement for the boy who once drove the getaway car bubbles in my chest and comes out as joyful laughter. Pete stands up and hugs his friend, and Becka goes right into how she and I are looking into UCLA, USC, UC Berkeley, San Diego, and Santa Barbara.
“We’ll take whatever we can get,” she speaks for both of us. “Bliss and I just want to go to California.”
Dusty’s expressionless, flipping his green BIC between his fingers. “Do you actually think your parents will let you off your chain, little girl?”
Playing indifferent, I shrug. “Mom says they’ve been saving so I can go.”
California makes my stomach flip. When my parents get on my back about my future plans, I jump online and look at schools to appease them. I also send out for information to show Rebecka that I’m on the same page as she is for show.
Once we’re both out of high school, we won’t have to lie anymore. Then what? Will Thomas and I just take off like we’ve always planned? Where the fuck are we even going?
“What about you, Pete?” I ask to change the subject. “What will you do after high school?”
Lazy-faced and low-lidded, he answers, “There are no acceptance letters in my mailbox, little sister.”
“Because you didn’t apply,” Becka teases. She bats her eyelashes before shoving a handful of chips in her mouth.
“But I got that auto body job in Toledo,” he says.
As pretty in pink and dumb in blond bicker back and forth like we don’t know what’s going on between them, my boy’s knuckles are white and his eyes are distant. I have no doubt California is on his mind.
“HE ASKED you?” Thomas takes a drag from his cigarette, staring into the forest of trees in front of his house. He’s rooted, with the exception of his hand which flicks his cigarette, and his chest that inhales and exhales thick smoke into the evening air.
“Yeah. Earlier.”
My parents are under the assumption that I’m at a late movie with Becka, but she’s actually at Smitty’s. With Lucas and Tommy out of town, Thomas and I were supposed to spend the entire day together, but he’s lost in the hell he always loses himself in and forgot about me.
Instead, I spent time with Oliver at my house, in front of my TV, drinking fucking apple juice while he talked with my dad.
“You’re not going.” Dusty’s dark stare falls on me.
I cross my arms over my chest and let my keys jingle from my finger. “I told him I wasn't going.”
My boy drops his cigarette butt to the concrete driveway, and red-orange embers flake off. Burning nicotine doesn’t go out right away, and the urge to step on it is almost as strong as the urge to tell him I wanted to say yes to Oliver.
“Did you think it would be okay?” He actually smiles, but it’s delirious and dope-slanted. “Like the concert?”
“I told you I said no, Thomas.”
I’m apathetic as he takes the few steps to close the distance between us and bothered when he grabs my chin and forces me to
look up at him. Love pushes my head back and tilts it to the left and right, looking at my neck … searching but finding nothing.
“Were you with him?” he asks, releasing my face from his smoke-scented grip.
“I just told you he came over.” I slap his hand away.
Cocaine plays her tricks, whispering untruths into his ear, making him paranoid and disillusioned. She swims under his skin and slithers around his bones, overwhelming his heart, twisting his thoughts and actions against me.
“You know what I mean, Leigh.” He grabs my wrist and pulls me close. Madness breathes in against the inside of my arm before burying his nose in my hair and inhaling.
“There's nothing to find, Thomas,” I whisper softly, wrapping him up in my arm. “I don't want to go anywhere with him, but you're never here when I need you.”
“Stop.” He groans deeply, burrowing his fingertips into my back as he grips onto me.
“Where were you?” I ask, tied up with this boy. “Why are you always away from me?”
“ALL RIGHT, I have chicken soup, cold medicine, and a temperature taker.” Rebecka drops the grocery bag at the end of my bed; a can of condensed soup rolls out.
From under my heavy comforter and a couple of extra quilts, I smile at my best girl. “Thank you.”
Her blue eyes cross looking at the tip of the thermometer. “I don’t know how to use this thing, so maybe just stick it in your armpit.”
Sweating under the amount of unneeded blankets I have on top of me, I hold my hand out and throw it across the room when she gives it to me. The only way I could get out of going to prom was to tell everyone I’m sick. My parents were easy to convince, but Becka won’t let it go.
I swat at her, but she manages to press her palm to my forehead, as if she knows what she’s looking for.
“Eww,” Becka says, wiping her hand on her sweats. “Your head is sweaty.”
It’s all these damn layers I’m under, I think to myself.
My girl stomps her foot, fresh-faced with wet hair. “I cannot believe I’m going to prom and you’re not. You suck.”
I spend the entire night watching the clock. Rebecka texts perpetually, hoping to make me feel better about being left out with photos of all of our friends, of her and Smitty, of stupid things like the tacky disco ball that hangs above the gym floor, and the fake flowers the school used as table centerpieces.
The dance is over, and my phone is silent by the time love steps in quietly though the back door. We spend the night and early morning watching movies on his cell phone, eating ice cream bars and whispering not to wake my parents up.
Prom doesn’t come up once, and I’m glad.
When school comes on Monday, it’s hard hearing stories about the monumental school dance, and it’s all anyone talks about. This person hooked up with this person, and that girl’s dress was so ugly, and Oliver kissed Casey, the girl he went to prom with at the last minute.
“I mean, you guys aren’t dating, right?” she asks. I didn’t even know she was in my calculus class, but someone told her Oliver was mine, so she thought she’d come to me before I went to her.
“No,” I say, shaking my head.
Casey is pretty-ish. Blond hair, brown eyes, she’s simple and semi-popular, and until today, I never noticed her. Now, I see her all of the time. She wears the same jean shorts almost constantly, and has freckles on her nose, but nowhere else. Her locker is on the other side of the hall, five down from mine.
It’s been two weeks since prom, and I still don’t know how I feel about the Casey/Oliver kiss. Rebecka says she’s a skank, but she’s not. He’s not wrong for kissing her, either. They’re cute together, and it kills me.
Not that they’re together. But his lips were on hers, not mine … and it’s disorienting.
I’m in the lunch room at school, searching for light brown hair, black eyes, and a crooked smile. Instead, I find Oliver—tolerant and observing—waiting in line for lunch. When our eyes catch, he comes over and takes the chair next to my own. He smells like simpleness, like cut grass, grip tape, and Carmex.
“Hey,” he says quietly.
Before I reply, my soul senses the one I was looking for. When he walks into a room, I know it. My body knows it. My heart and lungs and spine and nerves, know it. Everything sparks and straightens and comes to when my boy is near.
Thomas walks past me and kicks a leg of my chair, spinning and shoving me away from my skater boy. “Princess kid.”
Oliver stands up, provoked. “What’s your problem, Castor?”
Petey turns around and walks backward for a few steps and laughs, like he enjoys my torture. Dusty sits at a table on the opposite side of the cafeteria and ignores us.
“He’s such a jerk,” I say, brushing it off so no one thinks anything is out of the ordinary.
Oliver takes his seat after placing my milk in front of me.
Eventually, he calms, and when his eyes aren’t so concentrated, I finally ask, “You kissed her?”
Oliver looks at me and pauses before nodding with an unreadable expression.
With his hand on the back of my chair, we leave it at that.
Despite how hard he made it, Dusty will graduate.
The thought of her first born out on his own crushes Tommy, no matter how many college applications she passes him. I have a sneaking suspicion she’s relieved when she finds her efforts tossed in the trash. Lucas, on the other hand, lays his disappointment on thick, unamused by Thomas’s lack of enthusiasm about life after high school.
“What are you going to do, Dusty?” he scolds his son. Our dinner table conversation flips from Dusty’s new shorter haircut to college.
Mischief smirks. “I don’t know, Dad.”
Tommy tips her wine bottle upside down over her glass, capturing every drop, and Rebecka drops her fork—full. I keep eating my chili dog.
“You graduate in a week, and you’ve accomplished nothing.” Lucas pushes his plate away.
I take another bite.
“I have an appointment at Oregon Coast in two weeks. I’ll go there until I figure something out.”
His confession surprises me more than the haircut does.
Lucas snorts. “Community college? You little, thankless mother—”
The argument lasts over an hour and results in Thomas’s departure. But he comes back for me, and we sneak out into the night when the rest of the family is dreaming.
Thomas completing high school is the first step in the right direction—our designed path. One more year, and we’ll be what we’ve always talked about being: gone and together.
“I’m nervous.” Dusty smiles, lit by the moonlight.
From love’s lap, I lean my head back against the car window and extend my legs out in front of me. Holding smoke in his lungs, he offers the blunt to me between his thumb and pointer finger and places it to my lips. It tastes like oranges and sour citrus, smooth and glowing.
“Don’t be,” I say, exhaling.
“You’ll be there tomorrow.” It’s not a question. His hand slips between my thighs.
“Front row,” I whisper, melting as his fingers push into me.
AS THE loud speaker announces, “Thomas Levi Castor,” Becka and I hold up our handmade sign that boldly states the obvious: Dusty Delinquent.
My best girl and I jump up and down on the football field turned commencement venue and shout as trouble reaches for his diploma from the principal who has given him more detention than attention. Unmoved by accomplishment, love doesn’t acknowledge the crowd or make a grand gesture like some have before him. Thomas walks off the stage and pulls the white cap with the tassel from his head.
“I can’t believe he did it,” Rebecka says with a slight smile on her dark red lips.
Before my guy even reaches his seat, Petey’s name is announced. Dumb in blond accepts his diploma and waves it around, proud of his moment with a smile that steals the show. Ben follows as Pete exits stage left, receiving hi
s certificate gimmick free.
Although I hate her, I clap for Valarie after her name is called, and when Mixie crosses the stage, blushing and wide eyed, I think about her stomach which never grew.
The florist I ran into before we got here said, “Peonies are a flower a boy can appreciate.” So with a bouquet of sunset-colored peonies in my hand, when the ceremony wraps up, I run for her brother.
He’s looking around from the middle of the field, not yet seeing his sister and me in a full sprint. The hem of my sweetheart dress skims my thighs, and my wedges sink into the soft grass. The smile on my face is the size of the sun and just as bright.
“Dusty!” Rebecka calls as we close in on him.
He sees us and his shoulders drop. Relieved, he takes a few steps in our direction, but we make it to him first—and jump.
Rebecka leaps in his arms, and when he spins her, I jump on his back.
“I’m proud of you,” I whisper in his ear. My boy leans his head back, nuzzling his nose in my neck for the smallest of moments. But it’s enough, and I know.
It’s our deal, and love is the smallest of moments.
Our families show up, as do Petey and Ben. While Becka hops all over them, I give Thomas his flowers.
“They’re from my family and me,” I say, telling him the truth with my eyes.
Holding the flowers with the same hand he carries his cap in, Dusty reads the small card from the posy.
Ask me again, it says.
Between hugs and congratulations from all sides, he lifts his eyes from the card and keeps them on me. Unwilling to wait, he wants to do this now—ask me now.
I press my pointer finger against my lips.
Not in front of everyone, I say with my gaze.
Thomas’ smile dims, and his mostly blue eyes darken. As if he’s suddenly too restricted, he takes off his gown and untucks his shirt, taking a slow step back from everyone.
“Can we go?” he asks openly, patting his pockets for his pack.
With a nervous heartbeat in my throat, I turn to my parents and say, “I’m going to Becka’s for a while.”
Delinquents (Dusty #2) Page 12