Cherry Red Summer (Emely and Elyas Book 1)

by Bartsch, Carina

  I’d thought Alex and Sebastian were cute together, but after two hours of lovebird songs, all I had was a pounding headache. I wasn’t going to hold out much longer, that was sure.

  Next to me, Elyas folded his arms on the table and rested his head on them. He was turned so he could look at me.

  I’d come to expect his persistent watching, although it still caused the same uneasy feeling as when I’d first seen him again in Berlin.

  Luca. I should concentrate on Luca. Think of him, not the jerk next to me. Luca was my only hope. If he was even half as great as he was by e-mail, then—

  “By the way, I already spoke with the others. Everyone is going to be there,” Sebastian said—much to my surprise, to me and not to his girlfriend.

  “Oh, right! I’d forgotten,” Alex said. “What are you doing next Saturday, Emely?”

  “Me? Why?”

  “We’re going camping, and you’re coming along.” She grinned.

  “Camping?” I asked. “Who’s we?”

  “Alex, Elyas, Sophie, Andy, Domenic, Jan, Yvonne, Jessica, me, and hopefully you,” Sebastian said, answering for Alex. I saw Elyas’s expectant smile and knew I’d better stay home.

  “Darn it all, but I don’t have a tent,” I said.

  “I’ve got one,” Elyas said.

  I looked at him pityingly. “That’s great. I hope you have a lot of fun in it.”

  “Naturally, you’ll be sleeping in my tent. I already arranged it with Sebastian,” Alex said.

  What did “already arranged” mean? Had anyone thought to ask me? “I don’t know . . . ,” I mumbled. “Where are you going?”

  “Sophie’s parents own a big piece of land out in the sticks,” Elyas explained. “We all drive out there every year and have a little fun. Nothing major, but it’s always a great time. And we only stay one night.” He looked at me in anticipation.

  Sophie. Another reason not to go. I remembered all too well how displeased she’d seemed to make my acquaintance. Honestly, the two other belles—Jessica and Yvonne—hadn’t been any warmer to me.

  “Are you sure the group would even want me along?” I asked.

  “Why wouldn’t they?” Sebastian asked.

  God, now I’ve painted myself into a corner.

  “Everyone was really nice—well, almost everyone, at least,” I started, keeping Elyas in the corner of my eye. “But the girls . . .” I stopped.

  “Did I miss something?” Elyas asked.

  “No, not really,” I added quickly, not sure how to express myself. “Let’s just say they didn’t necessarily seem excited to meet me. But maybe I’m just imagining things.”

  “Oh, you mean Sophie,” Sebastian said with a wave. “Don’t worry about her. She’s got a weird way of dealing with Elyas’s . . . acquaintances.” I noticed Elyas casting Sebastian a warning glare.

  Then I remembered what Domenic had said at the club, a comment along the same lines. “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Let’s just say Sophie doesn’t like to make friends with people she’ll never see again.” Sebastian had hardly finished his sentence when he became the recipient of a vigorous kick under the table.

  I snorted and leaned back. “Let me guess: Are they usually people with hazel eyes?”

  “Huh?” Sebastian asked. But why would he understand? Elyas probably didn’t share his pickup lines with him.

  “Oh, nothing,” I said, staring at my glass, which was half full of Coke.

  What had I expected? I knew about Elyas’s talents with women and how he masterfully used those talents. I was just one acquaintance of many, I reminded myself. Everything in the car was likely an act.

  “In any case,” Sebastian continued, “Sophie has since found out you’re a friend of Alex’s and that things between you and Elyas are . . . different. She doesn’t have a problem if you come.”

  “Sebastian’s right, Emely,” Alex insisted. “Sophie’s actually really nice.”

  I didn’t say anything as the expectant looks from the table burned into me.

  “I need to think about it,” I finally said. If I’d said no right away, Alex would have pestered me into saying yes eventually.

  “Oh, you’ve got to come!” she said. I nodded quietly, hoping she’d leave me alone.

  To my relief, she did. And with that, her attention was once again focused solely on Sebastian, who didn’t need any prompting to gaze back into Alex’s eyes.

  I’d had enough of all this happiness. I drank the rest of my Coke in one frustrated gulp.

  It would be another hour and numerous chirping lovebird songs before I finally survived the evening and walked back to Elyas’s car with him, exhausted. I had no choice but to ride home with Elyas because Alex and Sebastian were going back to his place.

  Elyas had been rather quiet all night. As we walked, I caught his profile, and couldn’t shake the impression that something was bothering him. But I kept my questions to myself because Elyas wasn’t the sort of person who liked talking about his emotional life, and I was probably the last person he would want to talk to about it.

  We arrived at his Mustang in silence. I stood by the passenger side and waited for Elyas to unlock the car. But instead of putting the key in the door, he raised his eyes and looked over the roof of the Mustang at me, an indefinable expression on his face.

  “Would you like to drive?”

  I stared at him as though he’d just announced he secretly wears women’s lingerie.

  “Har har, Elyas,” I sighed, putting my hand on the door handle. I winced when he tossed the keys over the car.

  The silvery metal reflected in the streetlights as the keys sailed, and I snatched them out of the air. It took a moment for me to look back at him. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “If you don’t want to, obviously I can drive instead.” He shrugged.

  Something wasn’t right here. Elyas never voluntarily let anyone drive his car. “OK, Elyas. What’s the catch?”

  “There’s no catch.”

  “No catch? No intimate connections I’ll owe you afterward?”

  “No catch, no ‘intimate connections.’ But if you put off deciding too long, I might change my mind.”

  My eyes alternated between Elyas and the Mustang as joyful anticipation flooded my body. Whatever drugs he was on, he was apparently serious.

  I didn’t consider for another second and sprinted to the other side of the car. My fear that he would just snatch the key back from my hand wasn’t borne out. He casually walked around to the passenger side and waited for me to unlock the door. I had no freaking clue what was going on, but I liked it!

  I unlocked my door and got in. Here again. I unlocked the door for Elyas, and took in the smell as I looked around, stroking the steering wheel.

  I vaguely noticed Elyas buckling up. I was beaming, and my stomach was tingling. As I moved to put the key in the ignition, I looked over at Elyas to share my excitement, but stopped when I saw his face was white as chalk and his fingernails were digging into the seat. I inserted the key and then leaned back.

  I looked down at my hands. “Why are you doing this, Elyas?”

  “Sorry,” he said, trying to smile. “It’s just tension.”

  “No, I mean why are you letting me drive your Mustang?”

  “I just wanted to do something nice, make you happy. That’s all.”

  “Make me happy . . . just because? Just like that?”

  “Just like that,” Elyas confirmed. He was subjecting himself to this torture to do something nice for me?

  “In the event that you would like to thank me, I wouldn’t object, of course,” he added.

  “Aha. So there is a catch.” I should have known.

  “No,” he quickly said. “No catch. I said ‘in the event that you would like to.’”


  “And what, in your opinion, would be an appropriate way of expressing my gratitude?” I crossed my arms.

  “A kiss on the cheek?”

  “You’d let me drive your Mustang for a little peck on the cheek?”

  “I’d let you drive it without the kiss,” he said.

  “But?”

  “No buts. I’m not expecting anything in return,” he replied. “Just in the event that I do something nice for you and you want to do something nice for me—well, then you would know how.”

  OK, that was cute . . . And at the same time tremendously mean! How dare he!

  “I kiss you, or you kiss me?” I asked, wanting to nail things down in advance.

  He thought for a second. “I kiss you . . . So, is that a yes?”

  I sighed. “That’s an ‘I’ll think about it.’” Why was a silly kiss so darned important to him? I didn’t understand him. But since I had devoted more than enough energy tonight to thinking about him, I pushed all that aside and focused on the Mustang. I started the engine, which thanked me with a sudden roar. I put it into first gear and cautiously pressed the gas. After all, Elyas’s heart was going to need to make it through the whole drive.

  After a few yards, I was back in my element. Blood raced through my veins, mirroring the Mustang’s movement through the night. I held the steering wheel tight, and my muscles reacted to the least acceleration. It was as though I owned the streets of Berlin.

  Elyas behaved as he had on our first spin. I could only hope his fingernails wouldn’t permanently gouge the leather seat. Once we had driven halfway, Elyas started to relax. He sat back and put his hands in his lap, though he still dug into his thighs when we rounded sharp corners. Thankfully, his little gasping noises diminished.

  “Try to shift with more finesse,” he said.

  I looked at Elyas; that was his first sentence in a while. “Sorry?”

  “You’re shifting too hard,” he said. “Keep your eyes on the road, and just feel the engine, listen to how it sounds.”

  I followed his instructions.

  “Now just ever so slightly give it a little gas. Slowly.”

  I pressed on the pedal exactly as he said. Elyas leaned back and closed his eyes. “Can you hear it?” he asked. “You can feel it when the rpm are too high and you need to shift. Like . . . right now.”

  I pressed in the clutch and shifted up a gear.

  “See? Now try and notice that yourself.”

  I focused solely on the sound. “Like now?”

  “Wait for it . . . now.”

  The engine sounded softer and stopped jerking.

  “There’s a slow curve coming up, so shift down to third.”

  When I did, he said, “Ugh!” and grimaced. “What did my transmission ever do to you?”

  “You said I should shift down.”

  “Yeah, but with feeling.”

  “I did!”

  “No, you didn’t. Finish this curve. Then I’ll show you what I mean.”

  The street straightened out, and Elyas put his hand over mine on the stick. “OK, a little more gas.” The tachometer gradually rose, and when the engine revved too fast, Elyas gently pressed on my hand. I stepped on the clutch, and he shifted into fourth, much more fluidly than I would have done it. Now I saw what he meant. I looked at Elyas and smiled.

  “Did you feel the difference?” he asked. I nodded, suddenly noticing his warmth on my hand. There was an awkward beat of silence. I blinked and turned my attention back to the road. Elyas cleared his throat and took his hand off mine, and the warmth vanished.

  We didn’t say a word to each other for the rest of the drive, and it took me twice as much effort to stay focused on driving.

  The silence was still there as I parked in front of campus. The leather of Elyas’s seat crunched as he leaned back. I stroked the dashboard and looked outside.

  “I’ve always wondered why you never criticize my driving,” he said.

  “Why should I criticize it?”

  “Because everyone does. You should hear Alex when she’s in the car with me.” He rolled his eyes. “She gets all panicky whenever I go over forty. But you—someone who otherwise criticizes me all the time—you never breathe a word. And now I know why: your driving is even worse than mine.”

  I laughed. “That’s not true.”

  “Hello? Yes it is.”

  “I don’t drive one bit like you. It only occurred to you to comment on my driving because you’re a complete wuss of a passenger.”

  His mouth fell open. “What an incredible smart-ass you are!”

  “What would we do if they ever banned smart-assery?”

  “See to it, Miss, that you get out of the car right now, on the double. Otherwise, I’ll extract you myself with my bare hands.”

  I grumbled, reluctantly unbuckled, and opened the door. Outside the car, my hand traced the edge of the warm hood and black roof. The car was so beautiful. I sighed. I noticed too late that Elyas was watching me.

  Was I imagining things, or did the Mustang look even better with him leaning on it?

  “So? Did you think about it?” he asked. A wave of tingles passed through my body. He meant the kiss.

  “On one condition,” I said.

  “Anything.”

  “You keep your hands behind your back.”

  He smirked. “OK,” he said, though I still had my doubts. He took a step toward me and calmly entered my personal space, which I had so stubbornly tried to maintain. Why did I always feel so helpless when he did this?

  “Does that mean . . . ,” he whispered, “that I may kiss you now?”

  My stomach churned and my palms grew sweaty. I hesitantly nodded, and found myself lost in his sparkling eyes. I gulped as his face slowly moved toward mine. My heart started racing. Don’t close your eyes! Just don’t close your eyes!

  My breathing faltered as he tenderly brushed his cheek over mine. His lips touched my flushed skin, sending shivers down my spine. He nestled his cheek against mine, lingering in that position for a moment. The electric sensation paralyzed me; I didn’t dare move.

  If I had ever thought a kiss on the cheek couldn’t be romantic, I now stood corrected. It got hot—so terribly hot that the air around us seemed to be burning.

  That feeling continued as his smooth lips touched my skin. I blinked. I had lost my sense of orientation. Was the world upside down, or was I?

  As his face moved away, I cleared my throat, trying to regain clarity in my head. But Elyas’s look made me even dizzier.

  “So . . . was it bad?” he whispered.

  The only bad thing was that I had liked it. “It was all right,” I said in a hoarse-sounding voice.

  “All right? My heart stopped beating, and all you can say is it was all right?”

  “Don’t exaggerate.”

  “I’m not exaggerating one bit,” he whispered.

  His eyes. Looking at them was like jumping into the ocean without any hope of ever reaching the bottom.

  My inner voice screamed, trying to remind me that I was staring at him again. I gradually came to.

  “Well, uh . . . g-good night,” I stammered.

  Elyas put his hands in his pockets and looked at the ground for a second. “Sleep well, my angel,” he said, smiling.

  I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans and nodded. After a moment of silence, I walked on wobbly legs toward my dorm.

  CHAPTER 19

  WHO AND WITH WHOM?

  Dear Luca,

  How is my virtual dream man doing? Well, I hope?

  It’s a complete mystery to me how you continue to come up with so many questions. Fortunately, your latest batch is easy enough to answer. Without further ado, here are my answers to your Proust questionnaire:

  Favorite color: Turquoi
se and black.

  Favorite flower: Sunflower.

  Favorite animal: Dogs in particular, but I like all animals. (Except spiders; they’re creepy crawlies!)

  Favorite food: Noodles, chocolate, and anything sweet.

  Favorite nonalcoholic drink: Coffee!

  Favorite alcoholic drink: Strawberry Margarita and Tequila Sunrise.

  Religion: Atheist.

  Favorite sport: I’ll ignore this question.

  Sunrise or sunset? Sunset.

  Where do you want to spend your honeymoon? No idea. I don’t plan on getting married.

  Where would you like to be kissed once? Is it me, or is that a come-on? Either way, any place would be nice as long as I’m being kissed by the right person.

  Have you ever lied to anyone: No.

  Personal goals: Overthrow the government and create world peace!

  What position do you like to be in when you fall asleep? No one’s ever asked me that. Usually I lie on my side with my legs either slightly bent or pulled up toward my stomach.

  I hope you’re satisfied with my answers. Will I be getting yours now, too? You can take your time filling it out because I won’t be back until Sunday. I’m going camping, though I don’t even own a tent. Strange but true! Remind me to get a new cell phone number and new friends who can take no for an answer. I don’t know what I’ve gotten myself into. I don’t even know all the other campers. And the ones I do know . . . Well, best not to talk about it.

  I wish you were coming—and I mean that, seriously.

  Have a nice weekend, dear Luca, and don’t do anything silly while I’m gone!

  Yours,

  Emely

  I rested my chin on the desk and looked at the screen. It wasn’t a lie: I wished he were coming. Alex would be glued to Sebastian most of the time, and all I’d have left was Elyas.

  Maybe it was time I finally got over myself and arranged to meet Luca. It was too late to have him join us on the camping trip, but the second I was back home, there would be no excuses anymore. I was going to have to face up to my fear. Soon. Every day that went by made it unnecessarily harder.

  Sighing, I looked at my watch and winced. My bus was leaving in half an hour, and I hadn’t packed yet. I jumped up and surveyed the room. This was so typical of me! If only I had made up my mind sooner about camping I could have spared myself this stress.