One Little Lie: a hate to love rom-com

by Whitney Barbetti

  “I’ve never seen an elk in the wild,” I told him. “Unless you count Yellowstone.”

  “They’re all over the Tetons. This area is especially good for it.” He straightened and led me back to the front of the group. “You can hear the fresh water up ahead. I bet we’re near some game trails.”

  “How do you know so much about elk?”

  “My grandfather used to take me into these woods. Taught me a couple things. Better to be prepared than not.”

  It was similar to my own mantra. “I like being prepared,” I said with a smile. “Thank you for telling me about the horny elk.”

  He laughed, and the sound shook my heart. “Anytime.” The buzz from my phone was deafening. Adam’s attention turned to the pocket and I pulled it out. Again, the same student was reaching out to me on Facebook this time, asking if I had gotten his text. I ground my teeth and shoved the phone away.

  We resumed the hike, stopping only when we got to a small waterfall. The brush and trees were cleared from the bottom of it, so we were able to stand close to the mist. It was too cold to play in the water and even too cold for the mist, but it felt nice just standing in the light fog. My hair had come mostly undone from the hike and I itched to fix it but without a mirror, it was pointless. So when the mist hit my face, it plastered every loose tendril to my skin. I wanted to wipe it away, but let the desire to be perfect go for a minute so I could just enjoy.

  We ventured further, over a rocky incline, until we reached our destination: the top of the smallest mountain in the range. The top was flat from being windblown, with very sparse trees obstructing our view. People dropped their small backpacks to dig out their phones, but I just soaked it in. I had been on a few mountains around the world now, but no matter where my future took me, I knew that these jagged, shark tooth like mountains would always say home to me.

  “Okay,” Tori said, coming up behind me and looping an arm over my shoulder. “I guess the eight million mosquito bites were worth it after all.”

  “Pretty spectacular, isn’t it?” With Keane’s cabin behind us, you couldn’t see any signs of civilization ahead. Very little of the world was as unspoiled as this, as densely populated with trees and rivers that carved their twisty way through the mountains.

  “Adam, would you take our photo?” Tori asked and held her phone to him. Adam stood in front of us, posing us with the wilderness at our backs. After snapping the photo, he handed her the phone.

  “How are things going?” Tori asked Adam casually as she glanced through all the photos she’d taken. “You guys seem to be hitting it off well.” I elbowed her in the ribs, but she sidestepped me.

  Adam glanced at me and faced her. “We’re figuring things out.”

  “What’s there to figure out? You guys sure look pretty coupled up.” She tucked her phone away.

  “What I meant was figuring out the mess you created.”

  Tori frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “You were the one who gave my name to Hollis’s parents, right?”

  Tori glanced at me and I hoped I looked as contrite as I felt.

  “Your girl was in a pickle. I thought I was helping out.” She crossed her arms over her chest and shifted the weight on her back foot. She wouldn’t back down from Adam.

  “It might have been helpful if you’d discussed it with her first.” There was no love lost between Adam and Tori, and I hated that I was the cause of it on both ends.

  “It’s okay, Adam.” I placed my palm on his chest, hoping to thwart any frustration he might feel. But then again, where was this frustration coming from? “It all worked out. Didn’t it?”

  He looked down at me and I held my breath as I waited.

  “It did.” His arm came around my back. “I just don’t want Tori thinking she can bulldoze you as other people do.”

  “Tori’s my best friend. She would never bulldoze me.” Just then, my phone rang. I should’ve muted it, or turned off the cellular at the very least. I shoved my hand in my pocket and silenced it.

  Tori was pursing her lips, taking it all in stride. “No, you know something? He has a point. I shouldn’t have said that to your parents. While my intentions were good, my delivery sucked big dick.”

  “It all worked out,” I repeated. Because it had. “Let’s get a picture together, Adam.” I asked Tori if she could use her phone to take it, and then I stood next to Adam, with the same view at our back. I didn’t want to use my phone for the photo because I didn’t want to see the notifications from the people blowing up my phone. I could only compartmentalize so much; seeing all the missed texts and messages would send me into a tailspin I wouldn’t be able to easily escape from. I didn’t want anything to damper the mood.

  Tori held up her phone and snapped the photo. “Okay, we’ve got the boring photo out of the way, let’s get a real one.”

  I furrowed my brows and before I could ask her what she meant, Adam spun me so I faced him. I caught my breath when I faced him and before I had a second to react, he kissed me. It was the briefest of kisses, but enough to send my brain reeling when he pulled back. “Got it?” Adam asked Tori.

  She whooped. “That was pretty okay. Kind of cliche if you ask me. You could do better.” It was like she was challenging Adam, but I didn’t want to be a part of this game. When he leaned in this time, I pressed a hand to his chest.

  “I don’t want a fake kiss. I want a real one.”

  “How can it be fake? This isn’t some kind of movie magic; it’s you and me.”

  “It’s fake when it’s for everyone else’s benefit, to convince them that we’re dating.” I motioned to Tori. “This is going to go on our social media feeds and if we’re going to kiss I want it to be for real. For you, and for me.”

  He looked thoughtful for a moment. The wind picked up, ruffling the front of his hair. The end of my ponytail whipped me in the face. As I attempted to restrain it, Adam’s lips descended, capturing mine. His hands framed my face and he moved so close that our entire fronts were pressed against one another. The warmth from his body against the cold wind was welcome, so welcome that I inched closer. His lips teased and nibbled and his tongue flicked over my bottom lip. I melted into him.

  When he let go, he waited to speak until I looked up at him. “That was for me. As every other kiss has been.” His head bent so that our foreheads touched. “Trust me when I say that anytime I touch you, it’s for me. Or for you. It’s never been about them, not for me.”

  I couldn’t control the smile that spread my lips. It was such an Adam thing to say, such a romantic thing. Like out of one of my books. A fantasy, really. He smiled too, the kind of smile that poured right into me, filling me up to the brim. We just grinned at each other like two lovestruck idiots.

  It was on the tip of my tongue to say something that I had never said to any other guy, three words that meant so much to me—a promise and a gift.

  A realization filled me. I loved Adam. Like, real love. Not puppy love, not the love I swore I had in school. This love was made from knowing him, from spending time with him. It was the kind of love that people talked about in books and movies, the love that wouldn’t be easy to shake. Not that I would want to.

  “I make an excellent third wheel,” Tori said, pulling our attention away from each other. “Just sayin’.” She tucked her phone in her windbreaker. “It’s nice to see you guys swapping spit, though. Since she finally freaking admitted to it.”

  “What?” Adam asked, still holding onto me.

  “It took a whole freaking week for her to tell me you guys had kissed.”

  “Me too,” Navy said from a few feet away. She gave me two thumbs up.

  “Did you guys just recently start dating?” Todd asked. He’d been circling us, like a shark.

  “Yes,” I said at the same time that Adam said “No.” Todd looked between us, confused. Who could blame him.

  “We’ve known each other a long time,” Adam clarified. He turned to look at m
e. “But it feels like we’re just really getting to know one another.” He squeezed my hand in his. “And I like what I’m getting to know.” He squeezed me again, but this time it pinged deeper, somewhere I couldn’t reach.

  “God, you two look so perfect together it makes me sick.” Tori blew out a breath. “Does that mean you’re going to start writing him love notes like you do for me? I’m not sure I’m ready to duke it out with anyone else for your love, Hols.”

  “Love notes?” Adam turned to me.

  “Yeah, she writes on sticky notes and leaves them in places for people to find. I’m still finding the ones she left in my stuff after I spent the weekend at her parents’ summer house.”

  Adam’s stare was boring into me, and just as quickly as love had swept in, so did embarrassment. And it turned everything bitter.

  He knew.

  35

  Adam

  Tori had jogged my memory of the sticky note I had found in my locker senior year, and then re-found last week. I stared at Hollis, willing her to explain. But her eyes were averted, telling me everything I needed to know.

  I thought of the sticky note Casey had found in her textbook, one that Hollis had left for her.

  Was the note from her?

  “Hollis,” I said softly.

  Her phone buzzed loudly and I saw the frown come across her lips. I’d had enough of her damn phone darkening her mood.

  “Is that your dad?” I asked.

  When she shook her head, I held my hand out for her phone. She placed it in my palm and the screen lit up, showing a dozen notifications, including a missed call.

  “Who is Keith?”

  “Some guy from class.”

  “Paying client?”

  She shook her head.

  I dialed.

  After a minute, a man’s voice picked up. “Oh good, you called me back. I missed class on Thursday. I was suuuuper hungover, so I need the notes. Do you have my email?”

  Not even a hi. “Is this Keith?” I asked.

  Keith’s voice registered surprise at hearing another male. “Uh…yeah.”

  “Hollis is unavailable. If you would like to book her for tutoring, email her and she’ll let you know when she’s free.”

  “I just need her notes, man.”

  “And I just need you to email her instead of blowing up her phone, man.” Hollis’s eyes were going wider by the second. I shook my head, hopefully telling her that everything was fine. “Got it?”

  “Who the fuck are you?”

  “Her boyfriend. Who the fuck are you?”

  “Keith. We have a couple classes together.”

  “Yeah? And how many of those classes do you bum off of her work?”

  The ensuing silence told me everything.

  “How about you stop drinking on nights when you have class and figure your own shit out? Oh, and lose this number.” I hung up and handed the phone back to Hollis. “Sorry,” I said sheepishly.

  “No.” Her face was glowing. “That was wonderful.”

  “Keith sounds like such a dick. He didn’t even say hi,” I told her.

  “You never say hi to me either.”

  “Sure I do.”

  “No, you say, ‘Hollis’.”

  “Well, that is your name.”

  She smiled. “I know it is. But you’ve never said hi, hello, or even hey. It’s always ‘Hollis’ like we’re in the middle of a conversation and you’re using my name for emphasis.”

  Maybe because it felt like we were always in the middle of a conversation, ever since high school. A conversation that hadn’t yet finished. I would need to work on saying hi to her, though, because it seemed important to her. “Okay, well at least I don’t blow off my responsibilities for booze.”

  “That’s true. Is that what he said? That’s what he did all last semester too.”

  “Hollis, you gotta learn how to say no. N. O. Try it on for size. I think it would fit.”

  “You’ve already taught me this word. But I’ll work on it,” she said, her lips curved. She tucked her phone away. And then, seeing Tori hovering a few feet away, she seemed to remember what we’d been about to talk about before we’d been interrupted.

  “Tori, can we have a sec?” Hollis’s voice sounded shaky and weak. When Tori was gone, Hollis sighed and walked away, so that we weren’t right next to everyone else.

  Her hand dipped in her pocket to mute the buzzing that was happening, again, and she looked over her shoulder at me. Her cheeks were pink, redder than what could be blamed on the wind.

  “You wrote the note I found in my locker.”

  She nodded.

  “My speech…” I tried to remember exactly which speech it’d been. “You drew a rose on the note.”

  “I did. I’m not an illustrator. It was just to let you know which speech I was referring to.”

  “The Beauty and the Beast speech? In the Fairytales class, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were you ever going to tell me it was you?”

  She lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know. It’s kind of embarrassing. I told you I had a crush on you back then.” I didn’t think it was possible for her cheeks to redden anymore. I was wrong.

  “At first, I thought that note was a prank. Like right out of some 90’s teen movie.”

  “Why? Because the drawing was so bad?”

  “It was the drawing that made me believe it to be real.”

  “It’s real. I mean, it was real.” She was twiddling with a long piece of grass in her hands, like she needed to occupy herself somehow.

  I was struck by what she said. It’s real. Because this—right now—was real for me too. “It is real,” I said, correcting her. “Thank you for the note, Hollis.” A warm tenderness swept through me, making me see her in a different light. She was a kaleidoscope of complexity, and I yearned to know more parts of her, to see her in all the ways I hadn’t yet. I cupped her cheek in my palm, running my thumb along her cheekbone.

  When I dipped my mouth to hers this time, I took it slow. I treated her like something I was savoring, because I was. Being with Hollis felt as natural as any other relationship I’d ever had.

  My other hand moved up her spine until it met her neck. I cursed the fact that her hair was tied back and instead, dipped her back just enough in order for me to deepen the kiss.

  I held her gently, so gently. But I knew she was strong.

  We separated when the wind nearly blew her back. Her fingers went to her mouth, grazing across her lips. “That kiss felt like it was just for me.”

  I nodded, because when I had bent to kiss her, it was for her. But the thing was, it had turned into a kiss for me.

  36

  Hollis

  I changed into my sexy pajamas. I had really only packed them on a whim, but when I’d been putting the day’s clothes into my laundry bag, my hand had grazed the silky fabric and imagining wearing it for Adam had lit a thousand goosebumps across my skin. He was showering after spending the last hour stacking wood with Keane, and the room still smelled faintly of pine and him.

  I fingered the delicate straps of the chemise. The pajamas weren’t sexy in the amount of skin they revealed, but in the way you wore them, like a tease of what lay beneath. The top had a deep v-neck, the bust was maybe two tiny triangles of satiny fabric attached to a strip that barely covered my belly. They weren’t the kind of pajamas that required a bra or underwear.

  I never wore them. I had bought them on a whim, really, during an all too brief rebellion from practicality. The bottoms were little more than short shorts, except for the slit up each side that exposed even more leg. As far as the purposes of sleep, these pajamas wouldn’t cut it, because my breasts would fall right out of the top and likely get tangled in the wispy straps.

  If I made the conscious decision to put those pajamas on, I knew deep down I was telling myself exactly what I wanted from Adam. So much had changed. The day had been so revealing, so meaningful in ways I
hadn’t expected. He now knew I had written the note, and he didn’t think me lovesick or pathetic, like I always worried. No, if anything, he’d looked…comfortable. Like the secret had given him some kind of solace.

  The bedroom was dim, thanks to a lightbulb being out above the bed. It made it accidentally romantic. I didn’t want to talk myself out of wearing the sexy pajamas, so I stripped until I was completely naked, conscious of the fact that Adam could step out of the bathroom and join me in the room any minute. I wouldn’t be able to hear the water turn off, and for that reason I yanked the pajamas on hastily, praying that he didn’t walk in as I was tugging the top over my breasts.

  Every part of me tingled in acute awareness. Adam would join me in the room any minute, he’d see these pajamas and he’d know.

  Catching my reflection in the mirror above the dresser, I looked so much different than I usually presented myself. My hair fell in disarray around my shoulders, and its volume almost made my top look modest. But I could see the points of both my nipples straining against the fabric, and I almost gave up then, abandoning this idea altogether. I looked wanton, unrestrained, like I had experience in seducing guys. Which I didn’t.

  If I wasn’t so embarrassed, I might ask Tori for tips. To tell me how to shut my brain up, to tell me where to touch him so that he liked it.

  Burying my face in my hands, I wondered why I’d thought this was a good idea. I should toss the pajamas back into the suitcase where they belonged, but then I’d be naked until I dug out the pajamas I’d worn the night before. And if he walked in on that, I’d be in a worse predicament.

  Why was I always overthinking everything? Why couldn’t I be cool, see where this took us?

  I stood, resigning myself to throwing a sweater over the indecent top, when the door to the bedroom opened.

  I froze and so did Adam, who wore only a towel. I watched, both of us silent, as water trailed down his chest until it reached his waist, disappearing into the towel. His dark hair looked black, bits of it spiking up. I curled my hands into fists when I felt an urge to run my hands through it.