I’ve hurt Nolan, and I’m the biggest dick in the world for doing it. But this trip will lay her doubts to rest, a do-over for our first date, a second chance for that epic beginning. It’s everything she deserves. Or, at least, it’s a start.
I think about the time I’ve wasted…how Nolan’s been there for everything in my life—even the times she sat there in those stands while I was on the field…my head not where it should have been at all. I was focused on partying, getting laid, having some girl make me feel like a king for five minutes. I wanted to be the guy everyone told me I was supposed to be—the hero, stepping into my brother’s shoes.
All that time Nolan was there…watching. I should have been looking back.
I ditched my last class to be here for this moment. Her backpack is weighing down her shoulders while she walks to my Jeep; I’m glad her overnight bag is already packed and tucked in the back seat from this morning. She thought it was strange when I asked her to pack a full change of clothes, sweatpants and sweatshirt, toothbrush, her favorite songs on her iPod, a flashlight, and an orange crayon. When she questioned it, I told her we might be doing something that would get her a little messy, but I didn’t breathe a word about the fact that it might take about twenty-four hours.
I put the orange crayon on her list just to mess with her, because I like the way she bites her lip before she pushes me, grinning. It’s just one of a million tiny things she does that I like. I doubt she’ll actually pack it though. Nolan—she’s always been good at reading my bullshit; I don’t think she’ll fall for this one.
I watch her every move as she tosses her heavy bag into the back with a thump, pulling her other bag to her lap, clutching it as she buckles herself in, her fingers nervously working the bag’s zipper back and forth. I stare at her hands, and for a brief second, I flash to my fantasies—to that little thought buried in the back of my head about tonight—Nolan is going to be in my arms all night; there’s a chance…
“So, where is this mystery date?” she asks, snapping me back to the present, my lap more than obvious what I was thinking about. I shift my weight, rev the engine, and move the gear into reverse, hoping she doesn’t notice I have the hard-on of a junior-high boy in health class. I take a deep breath, then look at her, her eyes full of hope that I’m going to give in and tell her early. I wish I could, because maybe, just maybe, she’d be as excited as I am over the thought of sleeping together, and maybe…
I stop myself there. I know better. If I tell her we’re leaving town—that I’ve concocted a lie with her friends so she can sleep out under the stars with me alone—she’s only going to spend the entire trip trying to talk me out of it. Nolan’s a rule follower—one more of the million tiny things I love.
Love.
“No, no…all will reveal itself,” I say, catching a glimpse of her bobbing leg, the nervous energy seeping from her. She’s anxious. Anxious is a whole lot better than being doubtful and worried. For now, this gamble is paying off.
Traffic is in my favor today. Our trip through the desert highway is quick; we’re buzzing south on the interstate in no time. I can tell that Nolan’s anxiety is picking up, though; I’m pretty sure she’s realized that this date I have planned—it’s not going to be over by curfew.
“Reed, maybe I should call my dad? I think he was thinking I’d be home by nine or something?” Nolan asks, her nail-biting picking up at a frantic pace.
She’s legitimately worried now, so I cut her a break. “Not a problem, already got it worked out,” I say, unable to help but smile while I talk. I hope like hell she’s smiling after I tell her this next part. “See…you’re spending the night at Sarah’s tonight. She worked this whole thing out with me.”
Shit. She’s not smiling. Her face looks shocked. I think I’ve stunned her. I also think she might think she’s actually spending the night with Sarah, and that makes me laugh a little. I keep my focus straight ahead on the car in front of us for the next mile, until I can get my massive grin under control.
When I finally sneak a look at her again, her brow is pinched, that small worry line forming on her forehead. I don’t like that line—I’ve put it there too often.
The entire trip takes about two hours. We’re right on schedule when I make the turn off of the interstate into the mountains outside the city. I’m watching the Tucson city lights fade in my review window as we climb higher into the desert hills. Soon the cacti give way to pines and forest brush. I always loved coming here with my dad and brother; the way the desert hides this forest oasis is almost like a fairytale. This place doesn’t feel like it should belong, like it’s fleeting and might disappear at any second.
That’s sort of how I feel about Nolan. The way she’s been carrying her doubt, like she might give up on us and run. To think that my time with her might be brief hits me in the pit of my stomach; I push the gas a little harder, like I’m racing against two clocks now. So this is regret.
The turn is coming soon. I start to slow the Jeep down again after a few minutes, hunching forward on the wheel to watch for the small wooden sign marking the road. I’ve never driven this road at twilight, but I remember the sign is crooked, leaning just enough into the roadway to make it hard to miss.
My bright beams glimmer off of the metal post, and I hit the break a little too hard, Nolan is gripping her seatbelt and pushing her feet against the floor to stay in her seat. On instinct, I reach my hand over her chest, bracing her, holding her in place. She wraps her hands around my forearm.
I leave my arm there for a few extra seconds. I like it—her touch. I like that it feels like she needs me. This girl…I could marry her one day.
The campsite comes up quickly, so I pull off into a thick section of trees, kill the motor and practically leap out of my Jeep. I sprint to the back and pull out my large hiking pack, the sleeping bags tightly rolled and tethered to the top; then I race over to her door, my breath held, waiting for her to react.
When the realization of what we’re here for hits her, the coordination it took to pull this off becomes worth it in an instant. Her lips make that slow curve upward, quivering with emotion until her smile stretches the width of her face.
That smile—that’s the one I did this for, the one I’d do anything for.
I don’t even wait for her to speak. Instead, I start spreading out our camping equipment, setting up the tent, dumping pieces from my pack. At one point, I actually laugh lightly to myself—the kind of release that comes from making someone else happy, and my heart is pounding so hard that my ears are practically thumping. I’ve never been this happy making someone else happy.
Huh…
“Are you just going to sit there, or are you going to help me set up camp?” I tease, snapping her from her daze. She actually shakes her head, like people do when they wake up from a dream. I love that, too.
Love that.
I love that I made her do that.
I love Nolan Lennox. I’m going to give her the stars to prove it.
“Oh! Yes, sorry. I was just taking it in,” she says, leaping from the Jeep and rolling up her sleeves to help me. As much as we need to set up the tent, I can’t help but waste the minutes away looking at her—touching her. The second she’s within reach, I drop everything and pick her up—holding her to the sky, spinning her until the stars swirl around her face, her hair blowing in different directions, her cheeks blushing with happiness, her smile making me feel whole.
“Happy birthday, Nolan!” I say, letting her body slide down into my arms, my lips finding hers, my forehead resting on hers, my breathing matching hers. Everything—her.
“Reed?” she whispers.
“Uh huh?” I say back, my hands finding her hips, swaying us side-to-side, my eyes closed while I think of how this small piece of her feels under my touch—how badly I want to feel her, more of her. But I won’t cross that line with her, not until she’s the one asking for it.
“We probably should set the tent up,�
� she whispers again, my eyes opening enough to catch a view of her lip, tucked in her teeth. She’s thinking about that line, too.
“Oh yeah, that’s what we were doing,” I joke, closing my eyes again while I flex my fingers once more, just enough to burn the memory in place before letting go.
The tent is pretty simple; we have it set up within minutes. I get a fire working quickly while Nolan sits on the sleeping bag I’ve rolled out next to the wood, her arms hugging her backpack to her chest. Her eyes practically paint me with their stare; disarming as it is when she studies me, it also feels damn good. She’s been looking at me like this for years now, like I’m someone. She did it the first time our eyes met—it filled me up with this strange sensation, which I ignored.
Goddamn how many things I’ve ignored.
“What’s up?” I ask, her eyes still watching my every move.
“I was just thinkin’,” she smiles.
“Yeah, I get that much,” I say. “Whatcha thinking?”
“Well, I get the clothes, and the toothbrush. And the flashlight?” She furrows her brow. She’s trying to figure out the bag—the list of things I made her pack. She’s working up to the crayon; it’s so damned cute. Holy shit, I think she actually packed it!
“Oh, yeah. Thanks! I’ll need that. I don’t have one of those,” I grin, grabbing the flashlight from her backpack and pushing it into my pocket, turning around again quickly, hiding my grin because I know she wants to know about the rest.
“Why my music?” she asks next.
I pause at the fire, the sparks finally kindling enough for the flames to take over the work, and pull Nolan up to stand in front of me, my lips dusting hers. “Duh, so I can dance with you under the stars,” I say, teasing her, tilting her chin so her eyes can take in the sky.
“Okay, okay,” she says, a breathy giggle escaping her mouth. “But…orange crayon?” She asks, her eyes coming back down to meet mine. She pushes from my arms just enough to reach her backpack by her feet, pulling the small crayon from the bottom. It’s brand new, probably from a box she had to buy just to get it. I can’t help but start to chuckle, my lips hurting from trying to hold my laughter in.
“Damn it,” I yell, my arms limp at my sides and my face parallel to the sky. When I look back at Nolan, I can tell she’s confused—maybe a little worried. “Oh, it’s nothing really. I just owe Sarah twenty bucks.”
She’s still staring at me, and now she looks suspicious. Crap, that’s not the direction I want tonight to go.
“Sarah said you’d pack anything I told you to, and I didn’t think you would. You know, because you’re so pig-headed,” I say, pulling her hair lightly. “I threw that on the list as a test, and she won!”
I bend down to open up the cooler I brought, pulling out a few sandwiches and fruit slices I prepped for dinner, but quickly notice that Nolan’s still staring at me, her bottom lip sucked in tightly.
“I could just sort of pretend I didn’t bring it, you know,” she says, willing to lie just so I can win a stupid twenty-dollar bet. I look at the crayon, then to her, and smile, tucking it into my pocket with the flashlight. “No, that’s okay. I don’t go back on my bets,” I say, pressing my thumb to her lip. I hand her a paper plate with half a sandwich on it, and we both kneel down on my sleeping bag for our makeshift picnic.
Once our dinner is done, we take a small hike by flashlight—not as far as I wanted to go, but I didn’t really think out this whole walking-over-cobblestones-and-tree-roots-in-the-dark thing. More than once, I lose my footing. I’m extra careful to go slow for Nolan.
We make it to the small lake—the same one where I fished with my dad as a kid, and skipped stones across the water. We got a little carried away at the water’s edge, splashing water and kicking our feet in with our shoes in our hands. When Nolan started to physically shiver, I got her out, wrapping her legs around my front and carrying her back to the campsite. I set her down, lying on the sleeping bag next to her, my head resting on my elbow while I watch her look at the sky.
Her brown hair is blowing across her face; her smile could light up the moon.
“So, do you want your present?” I ask. This part is like ripping off a Band-Aid. It’s the moment all of the tiny moments leading up to it were about. I’ve almost chickened out on giving this to her a dozen times, even as recently as the drive up here. But fear—that hasn’t served me very well when it comes to this girl. I think it might just be time for a dose of courage.
“Okay,” she says, closing her eyes and holding her hands out. She’s mimicking the same thing I did when she gave me a gift for my birthday. I sure as hell hope my gift can measure up to hers.
I pull the folded paper from my pocket, clutching it one more time, realizing this is it. When I place it in her palm, it suddenly becomes harder to breathe.
“You…wrote me a poem?” she asks. It makes me laugh, probably because I’m nervous.
“Oh, god no. You don’t want me to do that, trust me. It’d be awful!” I say. “It’s a letter.”
As she starts to unfold the creases, pressing the paper flat against her chest, my heart picks up, faster than ever before; my body is suddenly on fire, my head a little dizzy.
I’m having a fucking panic attack!
“Wait!” I say, my hands quickly covering the first words on the page. Nolan looks up at me, her eyes…happy. Everything about her face is an angel. I know, despite how absolutely terrified I am that she’s going to read this letter, laugh in my face, and hotwire my Jeep to leave my ass in the woods, it would still be worth it to show this girl exactly what I think of her. She needs to know I think of her—only her. If she stays, I’ll know she’s mine. But she’ll also know I’m hers. “Wait…you need to know something first. You need to know when I wrote this.”
“Okay? So…when did you write this,” she asks, her hands trembling now, the letter shaking in her fingers.
“That night after the winter dance our sophomore year,” I say quickly.
Pull the Band-Aid off!
I keep my eyes on hers as long seconds pass, her gaze locked to mine, like she’s looking for proof. She’s still looking for the trick, the gotcha! There’s no trick here, though. It’s just me, being honest…for once in my goddamned life.
Finally, her head falls forward as she begins to read the words I wrote a year and a half before—words I wrote when I wasn’t even sure what they meant. I read them while I waited for her in the school parking lot, and over the last week, I’ve read them so many times, I have them memorized. Now, my lips move along with certain parts when I know Nolan’s reached them.
She laughs lightly when she gets to the funny parts, but it’s when her eyes flutter, when her fingers wrap even tighter around the collar of her shirt, gripping at it, that I know she’s found the reason behind it all.
“Tonight I danced with a girl who stole my breath away,” my lips speak silently, Nolan’s eyes glazing over. As she reads on, I let my eyes go to the letter, my mouth still reading the words along with her silently. “You’re not mine. But what’s strange is it felt like you’ve always been mine…as beautiful as you were tonight—I think maybe you’ve been beautiful all along. And I’m just stupid.”
I’ve. Just. Been. Stupid.
When her hands lower the letter, her eyes give way to tears; I pull her into my arms. Finally, she feels like she’s mine.
“I guess I knew I loved you then, too,” I say, my heart full and happy, the feeling strange, but welcome. “I’m sorry it took me so long,” I whisper, my lips grazing her ear, her heartbeat reaching out from her chest, reaching out for my own.
“That just kicked the shit out of my scrapbook and the varsity letter,” she says, a small laugh escaping through tears, her hands moving to her face to wipe them away. That scrapbook she made me, the letter she gave me from my father’s varsity year—I knew that I loved her then. All that energy wasted talking myself out of it. So much time…
I kiss her s
oftly, afraid to kiss her any deeper, afraid I won’t be able to stop. She takes one step backward, our lips part—her hand is flat on my chest as she pushes away. At first, I think she’s just giving us the space we probably need, being the responsible one. Then her hands reach for the bottom of her sweatshirt, pulling it slowly up and over her body, her hair falling loosely in all directions over her bare arms.
I swallow once—choking down any stupid something I feel the urge to say right now. Now is not the time for clever; now is also not the time to be a gentleman. Now is the time to wait—the time to hold my breath, and talk both sides of my conscience into coming to an agreement about what I think might just be happening right now!
Her shirt comes off next, followed by the small tight tank top she was wearing underneath. She’s standing here before me—her breasts damned near the most perfect things I’ve ever seen. All I can think about is how much I want to touch them, touch her, taste her.
Do not…be an asshole, Reed!
I wait for permission. I wait while she reaches for me, pulls my shirt up over my head, and slowly slides her bare skin against mine, her lips leaving a trail of kisses along my shoulder, neck, and face.
That’s enough waiting.
As soon as her teeth graze my ear, I reach my hands deep into her hair and pull her face to mine, kissing her hard and rough. She responds—her tongue and mouth just as hungry as mine.
This is the single greatest feeling of my life. My mind races several moves ahead, hoping and wishing. Yet, when I feel Nolan’s hands working to unsnap the button on her pants, something inside me clicks, and my heart surges—those balanced scales in my head warring with one another again, trying to keep me from fucking this up.
I slide my hands down her arms, gripping her wrists, holding her still. “Nolan, you don’t have to do this; that’s not what tonight was about,” I say. Tonight was about me being honest, about me proving to her that she’s my girl— she doesn’t have to compete with anyone. I don’t want to cheapen that, but my god does her skin feel amazing next to mine.
Losing It: A Collection of VCards Page 21