He rests his hand on my knee and squeezes it.
“Wanna do some more math homework?” I ask.
Luke cocks his head to the side, smiling. He doesn’t say anything. His hand slides up my leg, then back down.
I know where this is going. I’m not sure how I feel about kissing him or anything. So I pull my legs onto the bed and crawl up to the headboard. I grab my notebook and pretend to focus on my Trig homework.
Luke rubs my shin through my jeans.
I don’t think anybody ever told him that shins are not an erogenous zone. I offer a nervous smile before focusing on domains, ranges, and functions.
“Skye?”
“Yeah, Luke?”
“Is there anything going on here? I mean, between us?”
That’s so sweet of him to ask.
“Um, I don’t know?” It’s the truth. I really don’t.
“If there is, you would tell me, right?”
“Yeah.”
I can’t get over how sweet Luke is. Such a contrast from cocky Dante. Dante is a take charge kind of guy. He knows how to get me worked up without even trying. I mean really worked up. Before Dante, sex was something I did just to do it. So I could say I had. But with Dante, it was different. Dante made me feel like sex is something I need. Only with him, of course. But the need is intensely overwhelming. Yes, in the past few weeks, I’ve thought about the sex I had with Dante plenty of times. The orgasm I had in the wave pool at Blazing Waters. Him pushing me up against the front door of my own house and pulling his cock out. Coming harder than I ever thought possible in the dark library meeting room. Begging him to fuck me behind the church across from North Valley. Yes, begging. I would happily beg again. Well, as long as he followed through. It’s when you beg and the guy bolts that it’s a problem. I don’t want to think about that right now. It’s getting me worked up for all the wrong reasons.
Luke crawls up the bed and sits down beside me.
I don’t want to think about this right now, not with Luke.
He reaches over and takes my hand away from my notebook, squeezing my fingers in his. “I missed being with you, Skye,” he says in a soft voice.
I wish I could say, “Me too,” but I can’t. I honestly haven’t thought about sex with Luke since forever.
Luke’s other hand slides between my upraised knees and strokes the inside of my thigh. He’s being totally obvi. But we haven’t even kissed yet. He’s getting way ahead of himself.
“Luke,” I sigh, and squeeze my legs closed.
He retracts his hand instantly. “Sorry. Maybe we should just study,” he says gently. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Between your AP classes and the SAT, you have a lot on your plate. I don’t want to get in your way.” Luke lowers his leg onto the floor, about to stand up. He sounds really hurt.
I’m an ass. I grab his wrist. “Wait, Luke.”
He gazes at me longingly.
“Come here,” I pull him back onto the bed. “I missed you too, Luke.” He’s such a sweet guy. Who wouldn’t miss a sweetheart like Luke?
His eyes dance, locked on mine.
The next thing I know, we’re kissing. Luke rolls on top of me and his hips sink between my legs. We’re both wearing jeans, so I feel safe. I don’t know if I want to start having sex with Luke right away, but making out? I can totally do that.
Our lips press together as our tongues fight. I drape my hands behind his neck and he thrusts himself against me. My eyes are closed and I surrender to the tickling in my core. This isn’t so bad. It almost feels like Dante—
Okay. This is wrong. I can’t be thinking of Dante while Luke makes out with me. This isn’t fair.
Does he notice? The way his tongue throbs in my mouth with obvious need, I think not. Luke is really into this.
I can’t do this to Luke. I try to push his tongue out of my mouth with mine. It reminds me of when you’re at the dentist and you push that sucker thing out and the hygienist removes it. So not a turn on. “Luke,” I grumble.
He snaps his head back. “Are you okay?” His eyes search mine. “You’re not into this, are you?”
“Sort of?”
He smiles, “It’s okay. We can wait. I don’t mind.” He rolls off of me and—
He slides right off of the edge of the narrow bed. I grab for him, rolling to the side, and we both thump onto the floor in a tangle of limbs.
“Ow!” I shout. I land smack on my back and hit my elbow. It really hurts. I cradle my arm to my chest. What did I do to it? “Owwww!” I moan.
“Are you okay?” He touches my elbow and the pain is instantaneous.
“Stop! That hurts!” I whimper. Did I bust my funny bone?
He lets go, but he’s still on top of me, on hands and knees.
WHAM!!
My bedroom door blasts open and Dante barrels into the room, shouting, “GET THE FUCK OFF HER!!” He knocks Luke onto his back. Luke skids across the carpet and whacks against the side of the bed. The bed jumps and knocks against the wall. Dante dives at Luke and grabs a fistful of Luke’s black T-shirt collar, holding a threatening fist high in the air, ready to hammer down on Luke’s face.
“What the hell, man!” Luke shouts, glaring up at Dante.
“Let go of him!!” I shriek, grabbing Dante’s arm, which shakes with barely restrained rage.
Dante’s face whips around, his brows dark with hot fury.
“Stop, Dante!”
“Get off me, man!” Luke grumbles.
Dante’s arm relaxes and he releases his grip on Luke’s shirt. “Sorry, man,” he mutters. He offers his hand to Luke to help him up.
Luke bats his hand away.
Chastised, Dante backs up a step. “Sorry, man. I’m really sorry. I just thought…” he trails off.
“What did you think?” Luke growls.
I’m totally confused myself. “Didn’t you leave to go to the store, Dante?”
“I…” he stammers.
“Yeah,” Luke insists, “I heard the front door close.”
Dante swallows hard. “Sorry, I, uh…” he glances between me and Luke. “I’m really sorry. I don’t know what came over me.” He’s looking right at Luke. “Are you okay?”
Luke lifts his arm, which is abraded along the bone up to the elbow, examining it. It weeps red, the skin burned off from when Dante pushed him into the rug. “Fuck, man,” he winces. “Look what you did.” It looks bad, but he’ll live. He won’t need stitches. Just some antiseptic and a few Band Aids. Luke looks up at me, judgment in his eyes. “I told you this guy was crazy.”
“I’m really sorry,” Dante says sincerely. “I heard Skye shout ‘stop’ and I thought she was in trouble.”
“In trouble?” Luke spits. “From me?”
I have to agree with Luke on this one. I’ve never been afraid of Luke. He’s too nice.
Dante sighs, “I’m really sorry, man. I just reacted.”
Luke frowns, “Reacted? All the way from Vons? How did you get here so quick?”
“Yeah,” I say thoughtfully. “It was like two seconds from the time I fell off the bed to when you busted through the door.”
Dante’s features spasm when I mention falling off the bed.
“Were you standing outside the door?” I ask.
Dante turns away. Busted.
Luke sneers, “He totally was. He never went to the store.”
“Is that true, Dante?”
Dante stands tall, his hands resting casually on the hips of his jeans. He shakes his head, his lanky blond hair dangling over his brow. A shaky smile spreads across his mouth. I think he’s embarrassed.
“I knew it!” Luke barks. “He was spying on us, Skye.”
“Dante,” I demand in a friendly voice. “Were you spying?”
Dante looks at me and smirks. His cheek dimples and he rolls his eyes. “Sorry.”
“That’s fucked, man,” Luke growls. “Do you think I’d do something to hurt Skye?” Luke is really pissed now.
“I don’t know,” Dante mutters.
“Dante,” I snicker. “Luke is a sweetheart.”
“Sorry,” Dante says meekly.
“This guy is a dick,” Luke seethes.
“He said he was sorry,” I defend.
Luke snorts, “Are you taking his side? He tore my arm open.”
“It’s not torn open,” I dismiss.
“Look at it!” Luke holds it up.
The only thing that got torn open was Luke’s pride. “I’m sorry,” I say. “Dante is sorry. He didn’t mean to hurt you, did you, Dante?”
Dante represses his smirk, “No.”
“Look at him,” Luke accuses, “this is a big joke for him.”
Dante rolls his eyes. “I didn’t mean it, man.”
I suddenly feel like I’m parenting a couple of fighting grade-schoolers. Now is the part where they’re supposed to kiss and make up, or whatever boys do. Shake hands, I guess.
“Then why did you slam the door open and knock me down?” Luke demands.
“I told you, I thought I heard—”
“Me raping Skye,” Luke cuts in. “I know what you were thinking. This is ridic, Skye. I’m outta here.” Luke grabs his books off the floor and stuffs them into his backpack.
“Luke, relax,” I sigh. “It’s no big deal. Dante apologized. Can we go back to doing our math homework and forget about it?”
Luke sneers, “Yeah. Sure. Whatever.” He zips up the main pouch of his backpack.
“Luke?”
He barges past Dante and stops in my doorframe. “If you want help with your math, I’ll be at my house.” Then he storms down the hall.
I consider going after him, but for whatever reason, I don’t.
A minute later, the front door closes.
A moment after that, another door opens. Not the physical kind. The metaphorical kind. Dante is standing on one side of the threshold and I’m standing on the other.
oOoOoOo + O+O+O+O
“Sorry about that,” Dante says, embarrassed.
“It’s okay. Nobody got hurt too badly.” I sigh.
“Maybe you should go after him? That was a dick move on my part. I don’t know what came over me.”
I search Dante’s eyes. Why does it feel like he doesn’t want me going after Luke? Is it the way his eyes glimmer when he looks at me? Is it that cocky smile stretching across his straight teeth, the one that melts me every time I see it? “He’ll be okay.” I don’t know what else I’d say to Luke right now anyway. I think he needs some time to cool off. There’s no sense talking to him while he’s fuming. I’ll call him later. Looking at Dante, I realize that this is the first time I’ve been alone with him since Phoebe showed up in his life. Phoebe. The Saxon Klaxon. Any warm thoughts I had toward Dante suddenly freeze. “How’s Phoebe?” I ask sourly.
“She’s good.”
Does that mean that they are good too? Despite how much she irritates me, I’m dying to know what’s going on with them. Just for general gossip reasons. That’s all. “You two seem pretty serious. How are things?”
He shrugs. “They aren’t.”
“What?” I gasp. “Did you break up with her?”
“No.”
“Oh.” Disappointment.
“We were never together.”
“What?!” I laugh. Hope.
He shakes his head.
“I call bullshit,” I chuckle. “I’ve seen her hanging all over you plenty of times.”
“And what did you see me do? Was I hanging all over her?”
I smirk and open my mouth to spew, then stop myself. “No,” I say truthfully.
“It was a pretty good show, wasn’t it?”
“Show? I’m totally confused.”
“For your dad.”
“What?” My nose wrinkles. “What are you talking about?”
A satisfied grin spreads across Dante’s face. “I bet your Dad thinks I’ve been sleeping with Phoebe, right?”
That was my assumption. “Uh, yeah, I guess. Probably.”
“I bet he thinks I’m totally into her, right?”
That was also my assumption. “Yeah.”
Dante chuckles, “I should totally be an actor.”
“I’m not getting it…”
“Do you know what a beard is?”
“A what?!”
“You know, a beard.”
“Like a lumberjack beard?” I’m not following this at all.
“No,” he snorts. “Like a gay beard.”
“A gay beard? Oh! You mean, like when a gay guy pretends to have a girlfriend for work or whatever? Because he’s not out?”
Dante taps the tip of his nose.
“You’re not gay,” I laugh, then stop short. “Wait, are you?”
“No,” he chuckles.
“Oh yeah, duh. You’re totally bi. Right?”
“No.”
“Wait, then how is Phoebe your gay beard?”
“She’s my straight beard. For your dad.”
I squinch my eyes shut and shake my head. “What?!”
“Skye, do you think I hooked up with you at the library and every place else just because I wanted an easy lay?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
He grins, “You don’t know me very well, do you.”
“Not really.”
“I don’t hook up with people.”
“You did with me.” I roll my eyes.
His face does this thing that I can only describe as falling apart, but it happens so fast, it’s put back together again a split second later.
“Wait, are you serious?” I marvel. Hot guys like Dante hook up with hundreds of girls. Usually, they don’t remember the women’s names the next day, if they ever knew their names at all. That’s what hot guys do. It’s in the U.S Constitution. We learned it in Government class the other day. I swear.
He nods slowly. “I’m totally serious.”
It takes a moment to sink in. Part of my brain is unwilling to believe what I’m hearing. My heart, on the other hand, is going crazy, fluttering in my chest, trying to fly skyward and soar with the clouds, where hopes and dreams hang out. “Are you, you know… are you still into me?”
He nods. “All the way. Into you,” he winks suggestively.
That wink sends a bolt of lightning shooting up between my legs, but I ignore it. “Dante, why didn’t you tell me!”
“Did you not notice your dad? He knew what was going on with us from the moment he met me. Maybe not what we did exactly, but he’s your dad. He knows your moods. He knew something was up, Skye. And it freaked him out.”
“This is insane.” I’m smiling from ear to ear. “So, you’re not dating Phoebe?”
“Nope.”
“Or having sex with her?”
“Nope.”
“Are you into her?”
“Nope.”
“Come on,” I laugh. “She’s super hot. And smart. And nice. And funny.”
“And?”
“Look, I may not be in Calculus or whatever, but I can do the math. Phoebe is a catch. And you’re telling me you’re not into her and didn’t screw her once?”
“Nope.”
“I totally don’t believe you. She would know. She would be like, ‘Dante, why aren’t we having sex? It’s been like twenty dates. Why aren’t you making a move on me?’”
He nods. “We had that conversation.”
“What did you tell her?”
“I go slow.”
“What?” I laugh. “That’s ridic.”
He shrugs.
“Don’t you feel like you’re leading her on?”
He chuckles, “What’s with the double standard? Women go out with guys all the time without giving it up. Sometimes, after a bunch of dates, they break it off without ever having sex with the guy. Nobody thinks that’s strange. Why can’t a guy do the same thing?”
“Because guys always want sex.”
“Some guys save themselves until marriage.
Or so the legend goes.” He winks.
I snort, “You’re not saving yourself. You’re not a virgin. Wait, are you?”
He looks at me thoughtfully for a long time.
I gasp. “No way! You are NOT a virgin!”
He arches an eyebrow.
I laugh. “I so don’t believe you are a virgin!”
“Why is that so hard to believe?”
“Look at you!” I wave my hands at him “You… you’re hot Dante. Women throw themselves at you. Don’t tell me they don’t. And the way you act when we fooled around? Come on! You have tons of experience.”
“Maybe I watch a lot of internet porn.”
“You? Why would you need to watch it? You are porn!”
He smirks.
“You’re not a virgin,” I dismiss.
“No,” he laughs.
“Ass,” I slap his arm. “I knew you couldn’t possibly be one.”
“But it made me seem pretty amazing for a minute, didn’t it?”
I roll my eyes. “Amazingly idiotic. So, did you make out with Phoebe?”
“A couple times.”
“Then you’re totally leading her on.”
“Why? Because I made out with her?”
“Yeah!”
“A guy can change his mind. Or is that something only women get to do?”
“Well, no, but—”
“I changed my mind. I decided I didn’t want to pursue her any more.”
“When did you decide that?”
“Just now.”
“Oh. So wait, you were interested in—“ I stop myself.
Dante grins at me.
I narrow my eyes, “What did you just say?”
“I said, I decided I didn’t want to pursue Phoebe just now.”
I blink several times, unable to speak. “Dante? What are you saying.”
His grin widens into twinkling territory.
“Dante…” I blush.
I stare at him in utter disbelief.
He arches an eyebrow.
I press my palms against my face and shake my head. “Is this happening?”
“Is what happening?”
“Us?” I peer through my fingers.
“I want it to.”
“What about my dad?”
“We’ll worry about that if it becomes a problem.”
I drop my hands. “Are you serious?”
“About you? Very.”
My heart spins out of control. “Dante?” It’s all I can say.
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