It’s another moment of weakness on my part, a split second of hesitation that gives him the opening he needs.
He threads his hands through my hair. “You’re so beautiful,” he whispers. “You’re so fucking beautiful it hurts to be around you.” He pulls my head toward his. His mouth is firm and pliant at once, his hands cradling my head above him. I will pull away in a minute, I swear to myself, but God, this is a good kiss. I never want it to end.
He flips me so I am under him, so he is pressed between my legs, and the moment I feel him there, I begin to forget about stopping.
“I want to do so many things to you, I don’t even know where to start,” he says hoarsely.
He finds my mouth again, catching my breathy whimpers as he continues to press against me. The kiss is different than before. There’s something dark and desperate about it, something that seems to wipe away thought. I respond, allow myself to fall into the heat of it, to arch into his roaming hands and thrill at the pained noise he makes as I do so. His hand slides over the outside of my T-shirt, cups my breast. He uses his thumb against it, and even through all the layers of fabric, manages to draw my nipple into a hard point. The look on his face as he stares at it, at the reaction he’s wrought, rests somewhere between devotion and awe.
“Fuck,” he groans, leaning down to capture it between his teeth. I breathe his name out on a gasp, and the hem of my shirt begins to rise. I hear my own shaky inhale as his fingers brush my skin, his mouth and teeth pulling ever harder while his hand climbs past my rib cage.
Once we’re undressed, there will be no stopping this. There is no natural end point but one, and he will hate me tomorrow if I let it happen.
“James, stop,” I whisper, arching against him even as I say it. I’ve never wanted anything to continue so badly in my life.
He stills, but remains above me, coiled with tension.
“Not like this,” I whisper. “Not when you’re drunk.”
He looks surprised for only a moment before his face falls in horror. “Oh, fuck,” he hisses, rolling off me like I’m on fire.
“James, it’s okay,” I whisper. He’s face down beside me.
“No, it’s not okay,” he says. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” I plead. “I want this. I just don’t want you to be drunk when it happens.”
“It can’t happen,” he says. “It will never happen. You’ve got to leave.”
“Why?” I demand. “Just tell me why.”
“Too many reasons. Just trust me, this can never happen. I’ve fucked up so many things. But this tops all of them.”
“That’s ridiculous. If we’re attracted to each other and we’re both single, what possible problem could there be?”
He groans. “God, you’re not helping.” He turns toward me, brushing my hair behind my ear, his hand sliding back around my neck, that same pained look on his face I’ve seen so often, but never this close. “You’ve got to go,” he says. “Before I do anything else.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I argue.
His eyes flicker to my mouth, and his hand tightens in my hair. For a second I feel certain he’s going to kiss me, but instead he releases me entirely.
“Please,” he says. When I don’t move, his eyes narrow, and his tone grows dangerous. “Now.”
My pulse drums quickly for a breathless moment in which I consider defying him, consider bridging the distance, forcing him to see me as an adult no matter how badly he doesn’t want to. My desire and his thicken the air between us.
Pushing away and leaving him is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I should be proud of myself, but really I feel nothing but regret.
Chapter 30
JAMES
I wake up with my head pounding. I swear to God, I spent the whole night dreaming about her. I don’t feel like I’ve even gone to sleep yet. For a moment I lay there, trying to sort it all out, feeling feverish in my attempt to remember every detail, because so much of it still seems real. My pillow even smells a bit like her shampoo, for God’s sake. And then I remember one particular part. The one where she said, “Not when you’re drunk.” And I realize.
“Fuck,” I groan.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
She and Max are sitting at the kitchen table when I leave my room. I feel her watching me but I avoid eye contact with either of them while I try to figure out what the fuck I’m going to do about this.
Max tips his chair back. “You look pretty rough, dude.”
“No shit,” I say, walking past them to the coffee. “How many shots did we do?”
“I lost count at 15. What happened to you anyway? I look away for one minute and you’re gone.”
“That band sucked.” I turn away to pour the coffee, flinching. I really don’t need to hash out the whole night in front of Elle.
“I’ve never seen you drink like that,” Max says. “You were just in a weird mood from the moment we got there.”
I can no longer stand the unbelievable awkwardness of doing this with her here. I grab my coffee and stand beside her. “Can I talk to you for a sec?” I ask, my voice stern.
Obviously I can’t blame her for a fucking thing, but we’re all better off if Max thinks I’m about to lecture her.
She doesn’t meet my eyes. “Sure.”
She follows me to the deck with Max crowing something about her being in trouble that we both ignore. I take a chair and stare at the ground, drawing a blank with where to start. An apology would be best, but I don’t even remember what the fuck I did.
“Last night,” I begin, glancing at her sideways. “Did we…?”
“Did we…?”
“Did we sleep together?” I ask hoarsely.
Her eyes narrow. “No. And you don’t need to make it sound like you’re asking if we dismembered a body in the woods. If we had, it wouldn’t be the worst thing you’ve ever done.”
“It would be,” I reply. “It would hands-down be the worst thing I’ve ever done.”
She’s out of her chair before I even realize I’ve said something wrong. “You know what?” she asks, her voice raspy, as if she’s going to cry. “Fuck you.”
My hand wraps around her wrist. “I’m sorry. Just wait, because you’re taking that all wrong.” I stop to gather my thoughts. “It’s not that I don’t want to. If my memory of last night is correct, it was pretty clear I wanted to. There’s just...you’re young, and...”
“Seriously? I’m not that young, James. You’re only two years older than Ryan. I can guarantee you that I could walk inside right now and Max would agree I was adult enough to do anything I offered to do.”
I feel my hands tighten around the arms of the chair. “Don’t even fucking think about it.”
“I’m just making a point, which is that your objection to my age is bullshit.”
I sigh. “It’s not just your age. There’s other stuff too. With my family. My mom’s already having a rough time, and this would send her over the edge.”
Her mouth opens, and for a moment no words emerge. “Are you honestly telling me that who you date would lead your mom not to eat?”
I understand her disbelief. I wish I could tell her my suspicions, but God knows the last thing Elle needs this summer is one more family drama on her shoulders. I’m shocked she’s held up dealing with the ones already there.
“I know it sounds far-fetched. Just suffice it to say there’s some other stuff you don’t know.”
“So did you mean the things you said?”
I close my eyes. They are very few things in life worse than doing awful shit while you’re drunk and being unable to remember it clearly.
“I don’t remember what I said. And I don’t want to know what I said. But yeah, most likely it was all true.” I glance at her. “So are you going to tell me what happened?”
“What do you remember?”
I lay my head against the back of the chair. “I don’t want to tell
you because I’m not sure what was a dream and what wasn’t.”
“Why would you assume any of it was a dream?”
I look at her and sigh. “Because it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had fairly vivid dreams about you.”
She grins. “Really?”
“That hardly makes me unique. I’m sure every guy who’s ever met you has had the same. Look, I remember kissing you. And I remember you telling me to go to bed. And then we were in my room and there was more, but it’s all vague. That’s the part I’m less sure about.” I give her a pleading look, but she remains silent. She’s enjoying my discomfiture way too much. “So we didn’t sleep together?”
“No.”
“Did you, uh…” God, this is fucking agony. She’s really going to make me spell it out. “Did you give me…”
Her shoulders settle, and she laughs. “No. Nothing happened. I stopped it because when it happens, I want it to be something you actually remember the next day.”
I shake my head. “It’s not ever going to happen.”
She laughs, and the sound is slightly evil, like Max hatching a plan. “If you say so.”
Chapter 31
ELLE
After work that night, Kristy persuades me to go out. Since Ginny is gone and I know James will likely just avoid me, I’ve got no reason not to.
I follow her to a bar two streets over from work, and I laugh when I walk inside. “I can’t believe you chose a bar that is exactly like The Pink Pelican.”
“What you apparently haven’t learned about Rehoboth yet is that every bar here is exactly like The Pink Pelican. Look,” she says, nodding inside, “they even have a hot bartender.”
“I could do without another hot bartender,” I reply. “I’m just glad I finally get to try out my fake ID.”
Her eyes widen. “I had no idea you weren’t of age. You seem so much older.”
Raising yourself will do that, I suppose.
After we get our drinks, we fight our way through the crowd and manage to grab two barstools against the wall.
“So what’s the deal with you and James?” she asks. “I swear I’m not going to say anything, but there’s totally something weird going on with you two.”
It’s a relief to let it all out. This whole summer has been locked up inside me, since I can’t share so much of it with Ginny, and it releases like a popped balloon.
“That’s bizarre,” she says when I conclude. “I get the age thing, but what’s this weird ‘things you don’t know’?”
“I honestly have no idea.”
“Maybe he has a brain tumor. I saw that once, in a book. The dude had a brain tumor, so he’d hook up with the girl, but he refused to commit.”
I laugh. “I’m pretty sure it’s not a brain tumor.”
“Other possibilities—he has PTSD, he has a crazy wife locked in an attic, or you guys are competing for the same scholarship in your small Appalachian hometown,” she says, ticking them off on her fingers.
“He’s never been married, lives in NYC, and has never served in the military, but I’m pretty sure you nailed it.”
“You don’t know that he’s never been married.”
“We live in a three-bedroom house. I feel like I’d have heard a crazy wife at this point.”
“Anyway,” she concludes, “the important thing is this: if he’s slipped up twice, he’s going to slip up again, and you know what they say.”
I raise a brow. “I didn’t know there was a saying about repeated hook-ups.”
She slaps my hand. “No, dummy. The third time’s the charm. So we just need to make sure there’s a third time.”
On Saturday night, Brooks is having a party—one I know James is attending, which means it’s one I’ll be attending once I get off work.
James leaves before I do, without even a glance in my direction. I swear he says goodbye to every person on the floor but me. Once I’m cut, I go to the bathroom to change into the dress Ginny talked me into at the start of the summer. I look at myself in the mirror and decide that if I’m going all Kelly Evans tonight, I might as well not half-ass it. I dig the makeup out of my purse.
Kristy, still in her uniform, waits at the exit to drive to the party with me. She grins. “Wow. I didn’t know we were pulling out all the stops for this thing.”
“You have a boyfriend,” I remind her. “I don’t.”
“So that’s what tonight is? ‘Find Elle a man’ night?” she asks with a sly grin. “Or is it more specific to a certain bartender we know?”
I laugh. “It’s possibly a bartender we know.”
She bumps me with her hip. “Third time. Tonight’s the night.”
“I hope so.”
God, I hope so. That little seed of hope I started with last weekend is a dangerous thing. It’s grown like a weed, sprouted and bloomed inside me until I can feel it pressing outward against my chest, my rib cage, as if I don’t have enough space to contain it.
What would it be like to actually date James? Those hints of sweetness I see in him—what if they were directed at me? What if I got to wake up next to him every morning, hold his hand as we walked to work? It feels like this is supposed to happen. Since the day he helped me pick up my shattered school project, I have wished this day would come. It hasn’t even happened yet, and already it feels like I’m on the verge of arriving home after the longest journey.
I know he will be on the back deck at Brooks’ house because he always wants to be outside. I make a beeline for the rear with Kristy at my heels.
“In a hurry?” she asks.
I grin at her. “That obvious, huh?”
The back doors stand wide open, and James is the first thing I see when I step through them. That’s when I discover he already has company—Ashleigh. She’s sitting there with a smug smile on her face, tracing a pattern on his thigh with the nail of her index finger. He sees us and looks away, laughing at something she’s said.
All of my silly daydreams, my certainty—they fall apart like a house of cards, fluttering flat to the ground, as low as they can go.
The sight of them together makes me feel broken inside, unable to keep all my pieces together in any reasonable way. James and I haven’t held a real conversation since the morning after we hooked up, but I really believed he would come around. And now I’m faced with proof he won’t. Kristy takes one look at my wounded face and puts a beer in one hand and a Jell-O shot in the other.
“Don’t let her bother you,” she says. “If he was actually interested in Ashleigh, he’d have taken her up on it before now, because believe me, Ashleigh’s always had that on offer. Let’s go talk to Brooks’ friends. They’re all hot. Give James a taste of his own medicine.”
She turns on her heel and heads toward a big group of guys in the corner. All I want to do is leave, but it would be too obvious. I follow numbly in her wake, hoping alcohol will heal some of the pain.
We are welcomed with open arms into this group of strangers, which tends to happen when you’re at a party that is 75% male. Ginny joins us a few minutes later. I didn’t even know she was home, and I sort of wish she wasn’t, given the running commentary she’s got going about James.
“Ugh. Please tell me this is just a one-night stand and not some summer-long rebound. I know he misses Allison,” she tsks, “but with Ashleigh? Good Lord. I hope he wears a condom.”
Given how upset I am, leaving would be the mature thing to do. Certainly more responsible than drinking heavily and watching him out of my peripheral vision.
But as James has pointed out so many times, I’m nowhere near mature.
With cold-blooded practicality, I slam my second beer and choose the best-looking guy I see—the one who, as it turns out, is only a year younger than James. Within minutes he’s getting me drinks, asking about school, and after a few of those drinks, I’m perched on his lap. His name is Justin, he’s in med school, and if the fact that he’s already trying to figure out how many hours ap
art we’ll be once school begins is any indication, he really, really likes me.
“You know who you look like?” he asks.
I groan a little inside. “That model from the 90s?” I ask.
His brow furrows. “No. The girl from that zombie movie. The one where’s she’s not a zombie, and she helps this zombie boy turn human again.”
I may have found the only guy alive who hasn’t jerked off to a picture of my mom.
I drape an arm over his shoulder. “You’re my favorite person right now.”
Justin somehow procures liquor instead of keg beer, and soon I’m drinking a vodka tonic instead. It doesn’t matter. There’s a persistent knot in my stomach that never leaves.
“I really liked that zombie movie,” he says, putting his mouth against my neck.
“I think you’re confusing zombies with vampires.”
“I think as long as you’re letting me kiss you I’m okay with that,” he answers.
When James appears in front of us, I feel a shot of triumph. If I were being particularly honest, getting James’ attention is probably the only reason I’m in this guy’s lap at all.
“I think you’ve had enough,” he says, pulling the plastic cup from my hand. I suspect he’s had enough too.
“Thanks, Dad,” I reply. “But I think I’ve got it under control.” I yank the cup back from him and proceed to slosh it all over the front of my dress. His eyes travel over me before I’ve even had a chance to assess the damage myself.
“Inside. Now,” he demands.
Justin looks up at James. “I don’t know what your problem is, man, but she seems pretty happy right where she is.”
James grabs my hand and yanks me up. I could resist, and a part of me knows I should, but the bigger part of me doesn’t want to.
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