Closer

by Mary Elizabeth

  But she apparently still lives at home.

  “Where’s your brother?” I ask, trotting to keep up with her little, but mighty legs.

  “Don’t know,” she says, opening the massive front door to a party spread wall-to-wall. “He and my dad got into an argument earlier, and he took off. I’m surprised he didn’t go to your place.”

  “I haven’t heard from him.” Anxiety instantly ups my heartbeat. The last time Teller took off, no one saw him for two days. He returned with a black eye and broken ribs. “Maybe I should call him.”

  “Ella, no.” Maby takes my wrist in both of her hands. She walks backward to face me, bouncing with bone-jarring beats and persuasive treble. “For one night, forget him. Let the boy make his mistakes, and tonight, we’ll make our own.”

  “You better get me drunk then,” I say as she guides us toward the kitchen.

  My only girlfriend grabs a bottle of cinnamon rum from the countertop and passes it to me first. We swallow throat-searing swigs, using beer to chase the burn to our stomachs. The prickle in my limbs is immediate, and the touch of apprehension that could have ruined my night disappears. My face warms, and my entire body only gets hotter when Maby forces me to dance. Surrounded by bodies, lyrics, and carelessness, I toss my hands up and move, throwing caution to the late winter wind.

  The floor beneath my feet vibrates, and my hair sticks to heat on the back of my neck. Husher and Emerson eventually find us, bidding more liquor and dance partners. My brother twirls and dips me, like our father used to do with our mom before she took off, until Nicolette comes around.

  Her cheeks are a shade lighter than the deep red lipstick on her kiss, and her slender body is coated in a sheen that shimmers under the dim light. She’s in a short black dress, and her tousled, sandy-colored hair is in a high bun that’s fallen to the left.

  “You came!” she says, opening her arms for me. The sweet smell of champagne is on her breath, but her tacky skin smells like lavender and honey. “I’m so glad you’re here, babe.”

  “Happy birthday,” I reply, returning the gesture. It’s the first time she’s ever touched me, let alone greeted me with an entire sentence.

  We dance until our legs are gutless and tender, and the heat in the house becomes overwhelming. At midnight, Nicolette opens a wall made of glass doors, and the bitter night gusts overhead. She blows twenty-one gold sparkling candles out on a three tier cake, and the cops show up, puffy-chested and superior.

  “Who hired strippers?” Nic laughs in the doorway. The bottom of her bare feet are dirty, and her bra straps show from under her dress. Candle smoke idles in the air.

  “There was a noise complaint.” Three of them shine their flashlights past the host and Emerson, only to see a hundred or so red-faced college kids waiting for them to leave so we can turn the music back up.

  “It’s my birthday,” sloppy like the rest of us says. She straightens her dress. “These are my friends.”

  “I don’t want to see any of you on the road tonight,” one of the police officers warns. He leans forward to study our faces, as if he can memorize them all.

  “No, sir,” Nicolette says. “Never, sir.”

  She’s the first to jump into the pool with her clothes on, and the first to be cut off from alcohol—something she doesn’t handle well. It’s past two in the morning and the party’s half the size it was when I arrived, and the people who linger settle on couches and chairs, taking it easy. We’re aware Nicolette’s losing her shit in the kitchen, but only my brother acknowledges it.

  “You can get the fuck out of my house,” she cries, shoving her fists into Emerson’s chest. “It’s my party.”

  He holds a bottle of vodka above her head. “You’ve had enough, babe.”

  “You don’t know my life!” she shrieks.

  I push myself from the edge of the heated pool and float onto my back. The floral printed dress I’m dressed in sticks to the shape of my body, and water whooshes in and out of my ears. Steam rises from my exposed skin as the early morning gets cooler by the minute. I’m counting stars when my feet graze against someone and I straighten myself to apologize.

  “I’m sorry,” I say to the blond boy who took my foot to the ribs. I’ve drifted to the deep end of the pool, so my toes don’t touch the bottom like I expect them to. Unprepared for nothingness, I go under without air in my lungs.

  “Careful.” The guy I kicked yanks me to the surface and holds me against his body.

  Blinking water from my eyes, I smile once I get a clear view of my savior.

  He’s cute.

  He’s cuter than cute.

  He’s almost worth drowning for.

  I think of Teller for a moment, but stop myself before guilt creeps in and crashes the party. We’re not official, and he wasn’t here to save me from a watery grave. We haven’t even kissed. And after six months of riddles and a halfway commitment from Tell, I can use a confusion-free moment with a good-looking guy.

  “What’s your name?” I ask, swimming toward the end of the pool. My back faces the house, and Nicolette’s breakdown comes to an end, leaving only the sound of water hiccupping in and out of the filter to accompany us.

  “Max.” Bright blue lights glow beneath the water to his face, illuminating his soft smile and softer eyes. “You?”

  “I’m Ella. Nicolette is my brother’s girlfriend.” I lift myself out of the pool and sit on the tile edge with my feet in the water.

  “Who’s Nicolette?” Max sits beside me. Water cascades from his tanned skin and drips from his sun-bleached hair, like some kind of beach bum. He smells like chlorine and beer and salty ocean.

  “We’re at her party,” I say with a smirk. “This is her house.”

  “Oh, well, I came for the brews.”

  I wring moisture from my hair and laugh at his honesty. “That makes two of us.”

  Comfortable stillness falls upon us. Partygoers, here and there, stumble out to the backyard but turn back to the house when they feel how cold it is. Ankle deep in heated water, my feet are warm, but the rest of my body freezes. Thin wet cotton does nothing to hide how hard my nipples are, and my teeth chatter.

  “Have my eyebrows turned to icicles yet?” I ask Max, wiggling my brows.

  He leans in to take a better look, dramatic and funny, leaving mere inches between our faces. His breath blazes against my chilled skin, and his fingers brush against mine, shooting the wrong kind of chills down my backbone. As tight pressure fills my chest, regret tap, tap, taps on my shoulder, making it impossible for me to disregard my affection for Teller.

  “I should go inside.” I scramble to my feet and turn toward the house only to come face-to-face with the object of my loathing.

  “Did you just kiss him?” Teller asks, staring over my shoulder at Max.

  Regret dissipates to yearning, letting go of tight pressure, topping me with warmth like sunlight instead. As my body defrosts from the inside out, a smile bends my lips and my heart’s beat charges adrenaline through my just-frozen veins. He’s a shot of intensity I take straight to the head, and I’ve missed him.

  “Where have you been all night?” I step forward, but stop in a shallow puddle because of the dark look in Teller’s eyes.

  “Did you just fucking kiss her?” he asks Max, disregarding me.

  Standing between innocence and misplaced anger, I’ve witnessed enough of Teller’s lack of self-control to know that blond boy needs to leave. I hold my arms out to keep them apart, but it doesn’t stop either from coming closer. Teller pushes his chest to my hand, and his heartbeat pounds against my palm. Up close, his eyelids are rimmed red and his pupils are ink black and expanded.

  “Max, you should leave,” I say, pressing my palms to Teller’s chest. He hasn’t even looked at me.

  “I didn’t kiss your girl, bro.” Max walks by, grinning. “But I should have for all the fucking trouble she’s causing.”

  There’s nothing I can do once Teller shoves away f
rom me.

  “Idiots!” I scream, smacking water as I stomp my foot. My voice carries over the fistfight breaking patio furniture, through the still night wrecked by violence, and into the house for everyone to hear.

  But there’s nothing anyone can do to stop him.

  “Wake up, you stupid son of a bitch.” I kick the bed frame. The headboard bashes against the wall, shaking windows and both nightstands; a bottle of water tips over. “Teller, wake up.”

  He’s on his stomach, dressed in nothing but a pair of plaid boxers and black socks, sleeping on top of the covers. The bastard’s right foot hangs from the edge of the mattress, and he still has a hat on his head. Bloody knuckled and bruised, the fight he got in the night before is evident on his body and in the condition of his room.

  Dirty clothes mound in the corner, full ashtrays and empty booze bottles are littered across every surface, and schoolbooks sit piled, open-faced on the corner desk. The air smells like grass stains, stale beer, and rust from the blood.

  “Get the fuck out of here, Ella.”

  “Max needed ten stitches thanks to you.” I rest my hands on my hips. “You’re lucky he didn’t have a concussion.”

  “Ten? That’s it?” Teller lifts his head and smirks. Sleep lines crease the side of his swollen face. There’s a small bump bulging from the bridge of his nose, and his right eye is black and blue.

  “What was that about, Tell?”

  He covers his head with a pillow and mumbles, “Get out.”

  “Something’s up.” I open his curtains, scattering particles of dust. The late afternoon sun stings my eyes, and I squint against the sharp light before I turn toward the source of my frustration. “I don’t hear from you for almost a week, and then you show up out of nowhere and beat the shit out of some guy who didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Leave.” Teller flips me off. The ten feet between us is the only thing that stops me from breaking his tattooed finger off at the knuckle.

  “No.”

  Anger stacks on top of annoyance, draped with a thick layer of regret, glued together by disappointment. Emotion twists my insides dry, leaving brittle bones for my heart to beat on, scattering powder into my blood. Undigested alcohol stirs in the pit of my stomach, and sleeplessness reddens the white in my eyes. I came here hanging by a thread, but Teller’s indifference severed the cord.

  I grab the glass bottle by the neck from the windowsill and send it across the bedroom. It sails through empty space, end over end, dripping sour beer before the brown glass collides with the wall and shatters. Teller sits up, wide-eyed and confused, as I throw a second over his bed. We watch it hit the wall and splinter, spraying day-old liquid across the gloss finish, sprinkling razor-sharp shards to the floor.

  “Ella, don’t fucking do it.” Teller approaches, palms up in surrender.

  The third bottle narrowly misses his head and clips the bedpost, breaking but not shattering like the other two. Without another bottle near me to throw, I improvise, chucking a shoe, a pair of jeans, and then a bottle of cologne at his body.

  “Knock it off,” target practice groans, taking cologne to the chest.

  My temper chases air from my lungs, but fury has me scattering for more things to throw. Determined to beat him down one textbook at a time, I sprint to Teller’s desk before he can grab me and fling seven hundred pages of anatomy across the room.

  “Do I have your attention now, asshole?” I shriek, tossing his notebook next. Spiraled lined paper flaps before landing on his bed.

  “Dammit, Gabriella. That’s enough.” Teller takes a scientific calculator to the jaw before he’s able to wrap his arms around me. “Are you fucking crazy?”

  “Let go of me,” I kick and scream.

  His bare chest presses against my back, exposed through my scoop-necked sweater, and his lips brush across my neck as he whispers, “I’m sorry, okay. I’m sorry.”

  Teller’s low tone drives a shiver down my arms, and I drop the pencil I considered stabbing him with.

  “Is anyone here?” he asks, turning me to face him.

  “No.” I knock the hat from his head, showcasing a head full of dirty dark hair.

  Green eyes outlined with bruises are bright with desire, and his large hands rest on each side of my neck. My hair’s in a messy bun, and it took effort to wash my body and brush my teeth this morning, so I don’t know why I feel beautiful under his stare. But I do.

  “Why do you even care if he kissed me?” I ask, inhaling a shaky breath.

  His thumb sweeps across my collarbone, and Teller licks his busted lip, pulling me closer until our bodies are flush. “How can I not?”

  “What are we doing?” I give no protest as he pushes me toward the bed and gladly open my legs for him once my back hits the soft mattress. “What is this, Tell?”

  Broken lips leave bloody kisses on my skin, starting from the soft spot under my ear to the hollow part of my throat. He holds himself up on his hands, indenting in the pillow under my head, and strokes deeply against my softest place.

  Teller’s big, and hard, and barely sober, but with only my leggings and his boxers separating us, I don’t mind getting drunk on his breath, his skin, his one hundred proof lust. Sliding my hands up his sides, my fingers tremble over muscles that flex each time he thrusts against me.

  “Tell me what this isn’t,” Teller whispers, lowering himself to his elbows. “Try to tell me this isn’t everything.”

  I inhale his words, tasting their sweetness on my tongue, and part my lips for more when the bedroom door opens.

  “Where are your keys? You parked your car on the grass again—oh my God!” Mili Reddy, Teller’s beautiful, sophisticated, stunned-stupid mother, closes the door as quickly as she opened it. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know Ella was here. Shit, sorry. The car can stay on the lawn.”

  Her son drops his forehead to my shoulder and groans, and I hide my blazing face in his neck and laugh. I’ve met Teller and Maby’s parents, Theo and Mili, a dozen times in the last six months, but our encounters up to this point have been nothing less than polite. I may be fully dressed, but the woman of the house saw me utterly exposed.

  “I didn’t think anyone was here,” I say. “No one came to the door when I rang the doorbell, so I walked in.”

  “If she didn’t come in when you were throwing shit against the walls, she wasn’t here.” Teller sits on his knees between my thighs. “This isn’t your fault. She should have knocked.”

  Hiding my face under my hands, I say, “Kill me now.”

  Teller gets off the bed and adjusts himself in his boxers. Despite bruises and wounds from a match that wasn’t his to fight, this guy is drop-dead gorgeous. Vivid pigments mixed with shades of gray decorate his skin in elaborate art and teenage rebellion, and I have no doubt that any unmarked spaces will be covered eventually.

  He’s a masterpiece.

  “I’m not going to kill you, but I am going to take a shower before my dick snaps off.”

  Five minutes go by before I crawl out of bed and head toward the bathroom to splash cool water onto my burning cheeks.

  “It’s only me,” I say, pushing open the door.

  Steam envelops me, thickening the air, rushing out to the bigger, colder bedroom. My bare feet step onto the lush rug in front of the sink, and I’m glad I can’t see my reflection in the mirror. Frigid water pools in my cupped hands, and I take a small sip before wetting my face, instantly chilling my temperature.

  “I’m still in here,” I say when his water shuts off, patting my face dry.

  Before I can escape, Teller opens the glass door and steps out with a white towel around his waist. His dark hair drips to his shoulders, and his feet leave footprints on the mat outside the shower. Embarrassed all over again, I turn away from him and squeeze my eyes closed, as if I wasn’t willing to let him inside of me ten minutes ago.

  “Forgive me,” he says, standing right behind me. I can smell soap on his skin. “I fucked up l
ast night. I was fucked up.”

  “It’s okay,” I reply like a whisper.

  He reaches past me with his chest once again pressed to my back, and I look when he tells me to.

  Written on the foggy mirror, dripping condensation where his fingertips touched, returning our reflections in his words says we’re going to be okay.

  Now

  I watch the battery die each time my phone rings, wielding a New York area code. For the last two hours, while Teller sleeps on the bed beside me, I’ve done nothing but sit in the dark until the next time Joe’s family calls, blessing me with moments of light. My finger hovers over the Accept button, but twenty-three attempts later, I’ve yet to answer. My battery clings to life at two percent, and the voicemail box is full.

  “You can’t ignore them forever,” I whisper, telling myself I’ll pick up the next one.

  It comes a few minutes later, vibrating in my hand but not ringing out loud. The battery life plummets to one percent, and it’s now or never. They deserve answers. The Wests should know what happened to their son. Joe’s parents, although I only met them twice, deserve to hear it from the person their only child spent his life with.

  I press the green Accept button as the screen turns black, and I’m not mad at it.

  Tossing my cell to the end of the bed, I lie back and appreciate darkness so bleak I can’t tell if my eyes are open or closed. Oblivion takes the edge off, and I can breathe for the first time since the accident, sinking into nothingness.

  “Are you awake?” Teller’s voice smashes silence to pieces, dragging me to the surface of awareness.

  “Yes.”

  “What time is it?” He sits up and exhales heavily.

  “After two in the morning,” I say. My traitorous eyes adjust to the obscure, and I can see Tell’s shape at the edge of the bed. “Are you okay?”

  His bare shoulders bend, and his head falls forward. We’re alone with our inner struggles, but when Teller cries out for the first time since he led me upstairs after the crash, I don’t hesitate to inch across the bed and wrap my arms around him.