Don't You Wish

by Roxanne St Claire

  I roll my eyes, so over Bliss.

  “You know, Ayla, I’ve had just about enough of you,” Bliss says, eerily echoing my thoughts with a little wobble and an inky black fingernail in my face.

  “Whatever, Bliss. Go snort your brains out if you want.”

  “That’s not why I’m going.” She lifts her brow, adds a hand to her hip, and wets her lip. “Trent texted me and asked me to come.”

  “Trent, my brother?” I half laugh the words.

  “What, you think that’s funny? That he might not like me?”

  “I’m pretty sure he likes Bianca, but, whatever, knock yourself out. I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to see you.” And call you the queen of Skankovia.

  She leans forward, a glint in her eye. “Something is so up with you.”

  “You know what’s up with her,” Jade says. “Lay off her.”

  Bliss stares me down, a tiny flare in her nostrils that reminds me of a bull. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you in the past week, Ayla Monroe, but I for one don’t like it.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I don’t know. I just don’t know, but you’re different. You think you’re better than us, like you are above approach.”

  Her wordkill isn’t even funny anymore. “You’re drunk, Bliss,” I tell her, stepping away when I see Ryder out in the hallway talking to some kids.

  “Maybe I am,” she says, determined to follow me. “But I know you better than anyone. I’ve known you since second grade. Something about you is … different.”

  “It’s the whole thing with Ryder,” Jade insists, sliding her arm through mine in a touching act of defense. “Cut her some slack.”

  Bliss takes a step back, eyeing us both, then silently places a plastic cup on the table and takes off for the group in the hall.

  “Remind me again why we’re friends with her,” I say to Jade, only half kidding. Why would I hang with someone like that—since second grade?

  But Jade just tilts her head. “You two used to be inseparable,” she says.

  “Two peas in a pond, as Bliss would say,” I reply.

  She laughs. “If I didn’t crack you guys up by giving the entire ninth-grade class nicknames, I don’t think I’d have ever squeezed into the inner circle.”

  “I feel like she hates me half the time.”

  “Oh, it’s more than half, babycakes.” She nods to the hallway, where Bliss is inches away from Ryder.

  “I know she’s got the hots for Ryder.” A blind man could see that. “But he’s mine.”

  “And Trent’s your brother, and if he’s drunk enough tonight, Bliss’ll be humping him like a dog in heat. In fact, if she could skin you and wear your flesh, she would. That’s how bad she wants to be you.” Jade shakes her head, her exotic features drawn in concern. “Unless of course she could ruin you and take your place at Crap Academy.”

  I lean back and take a new look at Jade. She’s sarcastic and sharp and kind of painfully in love with fashion, but I like her. The question is … do I trust her?

  She goes on with her little speech, also just drunk enough to say more than she normally does. “That’s why since you’ve been acting so different, she’s been really uptight. She doesn’t feel right unless you stoop to her level. Which, I hafta say, you haven’t been doing this week.”

  Oh, God, I want to confide in someone, anyone. Should I tell her? Would she believe me?

  Not for the first time, I wonder why Ayla chooses friends she can’t trust. Because if Lizzie Kauffman were right here with me, I’d tell her everything.

  Before I can say a word, Ryder breaks free from the group and strides toward me. “I got a DD to take us home,” he says. “The limo smells like five kids puked in it.”

  “Five kids did,” Jade says dryly. “See you tomorrow, A-list. I’ll have the scissors and champagne.”

  Ryder turns me around slowly in a move so criminally sexy, it has to be illegal. “What’s that all about?” he asks, his words not slurred but definitely loose.

  “Nothing.” I look up at him, this golden god of gorgeousness who is about to rock my world. “You ready?”

  “Yeah.” He lifts one corner of his mouth and slides a single finger down my neck, dipping it in the top of my strapless dress, sliding it all the way into my cleavage. “Ready, willing, and way more than able.”

  I think I might die.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  In the back of an Escalade driven by some kid named Justin, Ryder presses me against the door and barely comes up for air. Justin angles the rearview mirror away to give us privacy.

  Ryder’s a good kisser. I know I lack experience, but whatever he’s doing, it feels pretty good. His mouth is open but not too wet. His hands are busy, but not all over me. His throat makes a sexy little catch that does something funny to my stomach.

  Or maybe that was my throat, because we’re too connected at the mouth for me to tell the difference. My head feels light, my arms heavy. I feel like I’m chugging up the rails of a roller coaster with no idea what’s over the top, or maybe in a movie theater when the scene gets dark and creepy and you just know the girl’s about to come face to face with an ax murderer.

  My whole body is fired with anticipation and that sense of not being able to stop the inevitable, even though it’s going to scare the holy crap out of me. But I kind of want to be scared. I want the inevitable.

  Don’t I?

  “Hey, lovebirds,” Justin says. “We have arrived at your destination.” He fakes a GPS voice, and I laugh nervously as Ryder and I break apart.

  “Thanks, dude,” Ryder says, climbing out and pulling me down the high step.

  The Escalade heads off into what looks like a tunnel of trees with branches that meet in the middle. For some reason, I stare at the brake lights until they’re gone, rooted to the spot.

  “You know, Ryder, I didn’t bring any clothes.”

  He just laughs. “You aren’t going to need them. Let’s go, babe,” he says, the endearment both grating and, well, endearing. “Time’s up.”

  Is it? My time as a virgin? My time to hold him off? I follow him, barefoot, my shoes in one hand, my clutch in the other, to the side door of a very dark house. He moves by instinct, no doubt a pro at getting into his own house under cover of darkness.

  “You know I gave up fishing in the Keys for this,” he says, a little something in his tone that slows my step. Like he’s warning me: You better be worth it.

  Inside a dark laundry room, the air-conditioning instantly chills me. He takes my shiver as a cue for another kiss, adding a lot of tongue as he pushes me against a washer and his right hand crawls up my side, the palm pressing against my boob.

  Palm. Against. Boob.

  Wait till I tell Lizzie.

  “Oh, shit!” he exclaims, jerking away. “The alarm.”

  He disappears around the corner, and I hear the digital beeps of him disarming the alarm. “Got it,” he says. “With five seconds to spare.”

  “That would have been ugly,” I reply, imagining a shrill alarm.

  “Just what we need, the Gables cops showing up.” He returns, holding out his hand. “Let’s go to my room.”

  My stomach flips. “ ’Kay.” But I don’t move.

  “Ayla.” He tugs my arm.

  “I’m sorry. I just …” Am having a bout of terror and second thoughts. Only, for me, they’re first thoughts.

  I’ve barely had a make-out session with him, just had my first hand-to-boob contact ever, and now I’m going to have full-blast sex? Yeah, I’m scared spitless.

  “You want a drink?” he asks with a tinge of impatience.

  “No, I don’t need to be …” Drunk. But maybe that would cure my temporary paralysis. “No.”

  “Then, come on.” He pulls me toward him, deeper into the house. “My balls are blue.”

  “Lovely,” I say, curling my lip at the image.

  He laughs a little, hustling me through a rambling d
imly lit house, not nearly as nice as mine, but still reeking of comfort and cash. My bare feet tap on tile, a hollow sound that matches my heartbeat.

  When we reach his room, he practically pushes me in. I haven’t even adjusted to the lack of light when he starts to kiss me, much harder now, tongue and hands and body everywhere this time.

  I push away. “Wait a sec, Ryder. How about a little romance?”

  “Jesus, Ayla. We’ve been talking about this since freaking September.”

  And it’s what, November?

  He backs me farther into the room, my knees hit a bed, and we tumble down onto rumpled sheets that smell vaguely of sleep. He’s on me in an instant. Weight. Boy weight. It’s so different from anything else I’ve ever felt.

  “Just … go slow,” I say.

  He obliges me with a slightly less furious kiss, sliding his leg over my hip, getting me fully under him. I don’t even want to think what this is doing to a two-thousand-dollar dress.

  The true ludicrousness of that thought, along with world-class nerves, makes me laugh, and Ryder lifts his head.

  “What’s funny?”

  “Nothing,” I assure him. “I’m just nervous.”

  “Don’t be,” he says, tenderness in his voice for the first time. “It’s nothing to be nervous about. It’s fun. Believe me. Relax.”

  So Ryder hasn’t saved his virginity for me. For some reason, that hurts a little. He kisses me again, tenderness gone, and suddenly both his hands are on my boobs, and I swear I can hear some beads popping off the dress as his hips rock against mine. The bulge on my stomach is … daunting.

  I try kissing back, really getting into it, waiting for the first tingle, the first burst of heat, the first little ache that makes me want to close my eyes and sigh and shudder and all that.

  All I feel is … smothered.

  “I can’t breathe,” I tell him, trying to push him off me.

  I think I’ve read too many of Mom’s books. Because none of that good stuff is happening. Right now it’s just noisy breathing and heat, none of it too terribly exciting, especially because it feels like Ryder has twenty hands and definitely three legs, and he’s panting in my ear.

  He looks at me like I’m crazy, bunching the dress and pulling it up to my crotch, his hands greedy on my thighs, his fingers close to … me.

  “Wait a minute.” I fist my hand on his chest.

  He groans. “Holy shit, Ayla. I’m dying.”

  The blood is pounding in my head, and my hands are sweaty and my legs are shaking for all the wrong reasons. “I’m …” In so far over my head, I really can’t think straight. “I’m not sure … what to do.”

  He grabs my wrist and drags my hand between his legs. “Do this. Like you always do.”

  Panic pops inside me. Flat-out horror. I don’t want to touch that. I don’t want to do any of this. I yank my hand free and push his chest, my heart punching my ribs like a machine gun.

  “Ryder, I don’t know what I’m doing here,” I say, the words tumbling out.

  He balances over me on one straightened arm, looking down, looking scary, his face far less attractive than the first time, when I saw him and nearly melted at his hotness. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means … exactly what I said.” I wish I could explain this to him. “I really don’t know what I’m doing here.”

  Here, in this world. And here on this bed.

  “You’re my girlfriend. That’s what you’re doing here. Focus.”

  I cringe at the demand, but my mind is sliding all over the place. Should I try the truth? I mean, if I can’t speak the truth to my boyfriend, who expects me to give him my virginity, then who can I tell?

  “I really don’t know why I’m here,” I say again. Pathetic.

  “Damn,” he mutters, sliding off my hips. “I told you I loved you. I got condoms. What the hell else do you want?”

  “You told me you loved me.” I say it as a statement, but really I don’t believe him. No boy has ever said that to me, and for a second, I’m sorry this whole time/world/heaven/dreamy thing has stolen that moment from me. Because knowing it might help me out here. “Can you say it again?”

  “I love you.” He says it so fast, it sounds like one word.

  Still, I wait for the words to mean something.

  They don’t. Not any more than my first hand-to-boob action.

  “Ayla, what the shit is going on with you?” he asks, searching my face as if he’s seeing me for the first time. “You were totally, like, ready to go for it a week ago. You told me you couldn’t wait to not be a virgin anymore. What was all that about it being a meaningless thing you carry around that you don’t want?”

  Virginity would be meaningless to Ayla Monroe. But it isn’t to Annie Nutter, currently residing in Ayla’s body.

  How can I explain this to Ryder?

  “Listen to me.” I scoot up, decisions and words forming in my head. I have to tell someone or I’ll die. Why not someone who professes to love me? Ryder’s maybe not my first choice of confidant (which should tell me a lot about having sex with him), but he’s right here. And he deserves an explanation.

  As far out as this one is.

  “Haven’t you … noticed that I’m … different this week?”

  “Oh, man. Are you on the rag?” He jerks his hand off my thigh like he’s been burned. “I mean, that’s cool, but—”

  “No,” I clutch his arm. “It’s much deeper. It’s much more confusing. See, about a week ago, I was a different girl.”

  He drops back onto the pillow with a disgusted sigh. “Jesus Christ, Ayla. Why don’t you just tell me you want to break up?”

  “I don’t want to break up. I just want to … tell you what’s changed.”

  “I don’t care what’s changed.” He rolls over onto me, a sudden move that surprises me. “I want to get laid. You want to get laid.” He sticks his hand right down my top, flat against my bare boob, like he’s going to rip the whole dress off me. “Quit thinking so much and let me fu—”

  “Hey!” I shove him off, set off by a fuse deep inside. Not the fuse I thought would explode when a boy touched my bare chest for the first time. A fury fuse. “Don’t.”

  “Come on,” he says, his voice shaking a little as he switches tactics to open his pants, tearing the fly down. “Start with me, then. You like that.”

  “No,” I say, alarm working up my spine into the base of my skull. “I don’t.”

  “You told me you did last week, Ayla. What was that about in your pool?”

  I have no idea. “I don’t remember,” I say honestly.

  “Well, I do. You promised we’d do it on homecoming night.” He’s actually starting to whine. “You promised.”

  “I didn’t promise.”

  “Like hell you didn’t.”

  I take a shuddering breath and fight to stay calm, trying not to think of the position I’m in. Nearly naked, alone with a very pissed off and horny kid. I have to try … the truth.

  “Ryder, I didn’t promise. Ayla Monroe promised. And I know I look like her and live like her, but …” I manage to push him back far enough to look right into his eyes. “I’m someone else now.”

  “What the goddamn hell does that mean?”

  “It means … that my soul has changed.”

  He’s speechless. Jaw dropped, eyes wide, body frozen. “What?”

  “Deep down, I’m different. Something happened. I woke up a few days ago and I was here, but this isn’t where I belong. It’s where Ayla Monroe belongs, and I know you think you know her, but I’m not her.”

  He’s still staring, and my words are running together like melted ice cream on hot pavement.

  “It’s like I’m in a different universe or something,” I finish weakly. “Like a dream, only it doesn’t end.”

  Not a word, just a long, unbroken gaze of … nothing. I wait for an eternity before he finally speaks.

  “You gonna do it or not
?”

  I blink at him. That’s all he has to say? “Not,” I whisper.

  “Cock tease.” He practically spits the words as he pushes off the bed.

  “Ryder, I’m trying to tell you something very serious and very real and very scary to me.”

  “Yeah, well I’m trying to tell you something very serious too.” He adjusts his pants, letting them hang open, boxers exposed. “I can have any girl in Croppe Academy. Shit, any girl in freaking Miami.”

  “I’m sure you can,” I say softly.

  He looks at me for a long time, then walks into the hall. “So get the hell out of here.”

  “Will you take me home?”

  “No.”

  “Where are you going?”

  I hear him snort. “To jack off.”

  I stay perfectly still, pressed into a lump of sheets, cold and sad and more alone than ever.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  I try Jade. I try Bliss. I even try Trent. All I get is voice mail as I stand on a shadowy street near the University of Miami at one in the morning, my wrecked Vera Wang dress riding up my thighs as I walk toward lights and traffic. Maybe I can call a cab, I think, when a noisy car rumbles toward me, slowing down as I blink into a high, narrow-set beam of headlights.

  Instinctively I back into the shadows, until I hear the driver say, “Ayla?”

  I squint into the zipped-down plastic windows of an old Jeep and see the outline of a hat. “Charlie?”

  “What are you doing here?”

  Charlie. The homeless boy who I’m not supposed to talk to. “Can I have a ride?” It never occurs to me not to ask.

  “Yeah, hop in.”

  I round the back of the Jeep, and the knot in my chest that was making it so hard to breathe loosens a bit. He reaches over to push open the door, an inviting move that touches me. “You okay?” he asks, his voice so kind I almost fold in half.

  I didn’t realize just how bad off Ryder left me. “Yeah.” Although, I’m shaking.

  “Need to sober up?”

  I shake my head. “No, I haven’t been drinking. I’ve been … I need to go home.”