I Like You Like This

by Heather Cumiskey

  Hannah looked back at Deacon, wishing she could read his thoughts, but he was already looking away, his hands jammed into his pockets.

  With much effort, her mother straightened her body and pushed herself away from the car. Finally, she noticed Deacon off to the side. “Who are you?”

  “Deacon, Hannah’s friend,” he replied, reaching his hand out. But instead of shaking it, her mother used it to steady herself as she stepped past him and walked warily back to the house.

  When she was safely inside, Hannah looked at Deacon. “I’ve never seen my mother drunk before—”

  “She wasn’t.”

  “Huh? What do you mean?”

  “Her pupils were huge.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Nothing.” Deacon shrugged. “Forget it.”

  “I . . . I should check on my sister.”

  “That’s cool. Wanna go to the movies tonight? There’s that new Talking Heads movie, or maybe we could see Thief of Hearts . . . or Crimes of Passion?”

  “I think you’re on a roll there,” she said with a laugh.

  Deacon grinned. “So what time should I get you?”

  “I’m still grounded,” she said and sighed, her fingers busily twirling strands of hair as she crossed her other arm underneath her elbow.

  Deacon’s beeper went off. “One sec,” he said, glancing down. When he saw the telephone number, his jaw tightened.

  “What?”

  “Nothing, just can’t stand this guy . . . I may need to shake him loose.”

  “Why . . . ahh, never mind, it’s none of my business,” Hannah said.

  Deacon reached out, took both of her hands, and draped them around his waist. He clasped his own arms around Hannah’s back and began to kiss her. His lips felt silky against hers. Hannah felt his warm tongue enter her mouth. She moved her body to touch his and it set off a delicious storm of tingling sensations ripping through the front of her. Reflexively, she pulled him closer—but then she remembered they were standing in front of her house. Suddenly self-conscious, she thought about her mother and pulled away.

  “Sometimes I can’t believe you’re here with me,” she said breathlessly, unable to look into his eyes. “I met you a week ago and it still feels so . . . surreal.”

  “I can’t believe I never noticed you before.”

  “I can,” she said, screwing up her face like he was crazy.

  “No really, you’re so cool and easy to be with . . . mature, too, not like other girls . . . and you use big words like ‘surreal.’”

  Hannah laughed. “Seriously, you can date anyone you want in the school, maybe you already have—”

  “I don’t date.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t date.”

  “Then what are we?”

  “I like you,” he said and gently cupped the side of her face. This time she leaned into his palm and closed her eyes, letting the electricity from his hand run through her.

  Abruptly, his beeper went off again, awakening her back to reality. Hannah watched him walk over to his car. He came back holding her book bag.

  “I still want to hang with you,” he said, his chocolate-brown eyes conveying a different meaning as he slid the strap of her bag over her shoulder.

  “Sure,” she assured him, trying to sound nonchalant though her stomach twisted slightly as she wondered how she was going to get out of being grounded.

  “Call you later,” he said. He glanced back at her house and lowered his head to kiss her again. Then, with another look at his beeper, he got into his car and started the ignition, giving her a quick wave before peeling out.

  Hannah stood outside until his car disappeared into a small dot. Her heart felt full, yet sad at the same time, and it had everything to do with him. So this is what it feels like, she thought.

  She took a deep breath before opening the front door. She closed her eyes, letting herself enjoy the magical moment a little longer. Then she stepped into the place where the pain lived.

  “Come here, Hannah,” her mother said in a weak voice, her legs propped up on the arm of the corduroy couch in the living room. Though she looked and sounded beat, her mother’s words came out fighting.

  “That display you put on in the driveway made you look cheap.”

  “Mom, we’re just friends.”

  “A boy like that is going to give you a reputation.”

  “Better than what I have now,” Hannah muttered under her breath.

  “What did you say?”

  “Nothing . . . he just gave me a ride home.”

  “Who is he, anyway?”

  “Nobody.”

  “Nobody wants to be with you?”

  “Basically,” Hannah said. She heard the TV in the other room. “Kerry okay?”

  “Of course she is,” her mother replied, her tone unmistakably indignant.

  “She’s only six, Mom.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “No surprise, my parents won’t let me go to the movies tonight,” Hannah told Deacon later that evening, sitting cross-legged on her bedroom floor and twirling the phone cord around her fingers. “Guess it’s Friday Night Videos again for me.”

  “Nah, let’s talk some more, I’ve got time.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Home.”

  “But I called your beeper.”

  “Yeah . . . you can call my other number . . . it’s separate from my parents’.”

  “Okay. Wow, your own number. Impressive.”

  “Not really,” Deacon said, sounding distracted.

  “I would love that—” Hannah heard his beeper going off and she knew she’d lost him. “Deacon?”

  “Later tonight, okay?” he said as he hung up.

  Hannah curled her legs into her chest and rested her head on her knees, feeling bored and lonely all at once. She squinted at the stains on the carpet from her LSD trip, remembering how she thought she was going to die that weekend. If only she had a girlfriend or an older sibling to talk with about all the strange and exciting things happening to her—someone to help her navigate the beautiful yet dangerous enigma in her life that was Deacon.

  Hannah cautiously touched the sides of her nose as she rose to peer into her mirror. It definitely felt better, and most of the yellowing had gone away. She smiled, thinking about what he said about her eyes and how she was different from other girls; she’d never realized that could be an asset. Deacon was pretty different than most boys Hannah knew at school too, and he was undeniably gorgeous—everyone could see that. But why me? He was two years older; maybe he didn’t know what a loser she was in her grade. She shook her head. None of the boys paid any attention to her, and the ones who did acted like jerks, snickering and calling out her name to make fun of her. It had been like that for as long as she could remember.

  “Why not me?” she told the girl staring back at her with her hands on her hips, but she only got an eye roll in response. Chagrined, she headed to her closet and began to primp for her “date.” Late night bedroom rendezvous would have to do for now.

  Hours later she lay in bed bored, rereading the same page in her Seventeen magazine on how to apply makeup before school in less than four minutes. The dimple-faced model on the page sported short, bouncy hair, nothing like Hannah’s untamable abundance, and naturally she didn’t have her abominable skin. Why did these types of magazines always leave her feeling worse about herself? Thanks for the subscription, Mom, but it doesn’t seem to be working.

  She pushed the magazine aside, wishing she had a good book to read. Her neck felt stiff from not moving. She’d spent an hour on her makeup, and ever since she’d been lying on the bed like Snow White awaiting her prince, her hair carefully splayed atop her pillow.

  A pair of headlights danced across her window. She immediately froze. Then she heard a car idling outside her house, and she felt her pulse go into overdrive. She glanced at her clock: 11:34. She jumped on top of he
r bed and craned her neck to see what she could, pressing her face against the window, but the car passed; it was nothing, yet again. Hannah felt her nose twitch as she turned off her bedside table light and pulled her comforter up to her chin. She listened and waited, wishing he’d get here already.

  Any possibility of sleeping in, even for a Saturday, was greatly reduced with Hannah’s curtains open. She’d left them that way all night, hoping Deacon would show, and now the sun was infiltrating her small room with all its force. Reluctantly, she lifted her face off the pillow then fell back down again, burying it further. It took a couple of times to crack open her mascara-glued eyelashes. She blinked away the gunk smeared across her contacts. Her eyes and skin itched from sleeping in her makeup, a fact that had been recorded by her pillowcase.

  She flipped her pillow over to hide the black stains, then rolled onto her back—still fully dressed, her bra feeling two sizes too small.

  She thought about Deacon and started to worry. It was too early to call. She closed her eyes, but not to sleep; tears trickled down her cheeks and into her ears. As always, she felt like a fool.

  CHAPTER 18

  “HEY.”

  “What happened to you?” Hannah tried to sound casual, but the question came out more accusatory than she’d wanted. She had avoided taking a shower all morning, not wanting to miss his call. Her diary had received the bulk of her rant as her brain rehearsed several smart responses she’d give him for standing her up, but at the sound of his voice, all of her pluckiness dissolved.

  “It got too late,” he said, his voice sounding groggy. Hannah pictured him still in bed. “Sorry . . .”

  “It’s okay,” she replied, her fingernails absentmindedly scraping some of the makeup from the previous night off her cheek.

  “Can I swing by and get you?”

  “My parents are home, probably not.”

  “Tell them you need to study at the library and I’ll pick you up there.”

  Hannah saw Deacon’s car parked around the corner as she hopped out of her parents’ station wagon. She was grateful that her little sister had a birthday party that afternoon, a convenient fact that had distracted her mom from asking her too many questions. Hannah hardly ever asked to go to the library to study, preferring the solitude of her bedroom to the cliquey study groups she always found there, composed of the same classmates she dodged during the week. Saturday afternoon, though, she figured it would be pretty empty. And besides, she wasn’t planning on staying there for long.

  “I have to stop at the drug store later today,” her mom yelled to her as Hannah climbed out of the car, ignoring the faces Kerry was making at her from the backseat. “Have any quarters to call?”

  Hannah nodded without looking back, hustling toward the library’s large double glass doors. When she entered, she stopped just before the checkout area, looking around for him.

  The first floor resembled a ghost town: just a few kids and their parents. She had just walked past the elevator and was heading toward one of the rectangular study tables near the windows when someone grabbed her shoulder and pulled her into a small hallway. His exuberance startled her. Before she knew what was happening, he pressed his mouth down on hers, leaving her gasping.

  “Hi, you look great.”

  “So do you,” she said, letting his dazzling smile wash over her. He smelled really good as he wrapped his arms around her, too. It felt like a dream to Hannah, to be so wanted.

  “I missed you.”

  Deacon opened the passenger door for Hannah and gave her a quick kiss before she got in. His attention never left the white Buick parked in the corner of the lot with the engine running. He couldn’t tell if they were the same two undercover cops from last night—the ones who stopped him on some bullshit charge. He still felt lucky they’d let him go, though the whole thing left him unsettled; to hassle him then release him wasn’t what cops did in his town. But then again, Deacon had a feeling that they weren’t from around here.

  Feeling shaken, he had waited out the rest of the night parked between two cars on Hannah’s block, catching glimpsing of her looking out her window. Seeing her calmed him, so he’d just sat and watched her.

  Now his instincts told him that a decision would have to be made in the next minute or so. He purposely wasn’t holding today, which was definitely the right call. But why are those two back again?

  “Are you hungry?” he asked, maneuvering his rearview mirror to give himself a better look. He grabbed Hannah’s hand and kissed her fingers before gunning it out of the parking lot.

  He steered Hannah to the back of the diner, where they could be alone and he could still see the front entrance. Only then did he relax a bit. He still didn’t have much of an appetite.

  He watched her dip each French fry in her gravy with a delicate determination he found fascinating. Her lips strangely captivated him, as did her sensual neck when she swallowed. He licked his lips, making her blush—something she seemed to do a lot.

  “I used to come here as a kid with my dad . . . a long time ago,” she said quietly, glancing around. “Hasn’t changed much.”

  “Were you close then?”

  “Sort of.” Hannah stopped eating and pushed her plate aside. “What about you, are you close with your parents?”

  “Hardly. They do their own thing . . . I do mine.”

  “They give you a lot of freedom, it seems. I’d love that. Mine are super strict.”

  “Mine aren’t around much, too busy campaigning. It’s more of a strategic marriage.”

  “They didn’t marry for love?”

  “No . . . not love,” he said, letting the last word linger on his tongue as he reached across the table for her hands. “Brrrrr, cold,” he said, making her smile. “What about you? Ever been . . . in love?”

  “I don’t—maybe,” she said, shifting in her chair and avoiding his eyes.

  “I can see how the boys would fall for you. Getting lost in those eyes. They look green now with what you’re wearing.”

  “Hazel.”

  “So pretty. And that wild hair,” he said, sliding his chair closer to her to run his hand through it. “So cool how it springs back when you pull it.” He chuckled slightly, rolling her curls between his fingers.

  “I hate it,” she said, but she didn’t pull away. Her Irish skin reddened further, but he could feel her hand warming up to his and see her body beginning to relax.

  He leaned all the way across the table. “I don’t, I think it’s cool . . . different,” he whispered in her ear just before kissing her neck. Hannah squirmed like it tickled, then turned her face to his.

  “You like that?” he teased. She nodded shyly. He gave her the kiss that she wanted, but then he went for her neck again, this time not letting her get away.

  CHAPTER 19

  MAYBE THERE WAS A TEMPORARY TRUCE GOING ON. NEITHER Gillian nor Leeza paid any attention to Hannah at the bus stop on Monday morning. All the worry that had built up in her shoulders while she got ready for school slowly melted away. Quietly, she thanked God for small favors. If knowing Gillian’s secret ensured her some peace, she was more than happy to take it—and she couldn’t help but feel a little bit powerful, too.

  “Hi,” she said enthusiastically as she plopped down next to Peter on the bus.

  “Hi, yourself. Good weekend?”

  “Very.”

  “Ready for our quiz in Mrs. Myers’s?”

  “Ahh . . . guess I forgot.”

  “You’ll probably ace it anyway, she likes you.”

  “Not when I missed her class last week,” Hannah said, rolling her eyes. She looked past Peter out the window and noticed it was beginning to rain.

  “How did you break your nose, anyway?” he asked after a moment.

  “Long story.” She watched the water droplets on the window a row ahead of them elongate into thin streaks, changing form the more the bus picked up speed.

  “It had something to do with that guy, De
acon, didn’t it?”

  Hannah shook her head no, but could feel her ears getting hot.

  “I saw you that day in the hallway with him. He sold to you, right?”

  “No . . . he didn’t,” she said, yanking on pieces of her hair. Peter’s liquid eyes made her turn away. She started to get up out of her seat, throwing her book bag over her shoulder and swinging her legs out to the aisle, but they were still blocks away from school.

  “Hannah, I . . . ” Peter’s hand gently touched the sleeve of her jean jacket. She looked down at her forearm; his fingers were long and honey-colored, like the rest of him. “He’s not a good guy. You should be careful.”

  Getting off the bus, Hannah did her best to shake off Peter’s comments. She could feel his eyes on her, and she nearly stumbled off the last step. Around her, the rain had stopped, replaced by the fall sun threading through the clouds, making her wish she’d worn her sunglasses. She inhaled one of her favorite smells: that sweet, earthy scent after a long-awaited rain, when the world seemed saturated in color and clean for a brief moment. But even that didn’t lift the sour taste in her mouth.

  Hannah searched through the throngs of kids loitering outside, knowing she’d feel better once she saw him. She frowned when she realized he was with that same jock again but approached them with a cordial grin, wondering why Deacon hadn’t introduced them to one another yet.

  “Hi, I’m Toby,” the guy said without a hint of warmth when she reached them, his eyes dissecting every inch of her. She felt instantly uncomfortable.

  “Hannah.”

  “Catch you later, bro?” Toby said as he slapped Deacon on the back, sliding his hand across it. He didn’t wait for an answer before walking away.

  Hannah squinted at him as he left. He was like a jittery child, checking out people to either side of him and self-consciously running his hand through his auburn hair.

  “What’s his deal?” Hannah asked.