Make It Count

by Megan Erickson

  “What are you doing?”

  “Watching you.”

  “I’m just laying here. It’s really not anything exciting.”

  Alec chuckled and paused for a minute before speaking. “I’m trying to imprint this day, waking up next to you, you in my bed, in my mind. Don’t wanna forget it.”

  It was on the tip of her tongue to suggest it could be like this tomorrow and the next day, but she didn’t want to spoil the moment to talk about the future. Who knew what was going to happen when the real world intruded into their safe haven?

  Instead she rose up and pressed her lips to his, taking control of the kiss. He let her for a little before pushing back, surging his tongue into her mouth. She smiled into the kiss. She’d always been a take-charge girl in bed. But with Alec, the duel for control was exciting.

  She straddled him and lightly ground her hips into him. He groaned into her mouth and the deep vibration went right through her, flushing her body with heat. She ground down harder, and Alec growled while easily flipping her onto her back. He braced himself on his elbows and ran his lips along her jaw, behind her ear, and down her neck, leaving small nips. Kat had a momentary thought that she hoped he’d leave marks.

  His hips settled over hers and she instantly spread her legs, accepting him into the cradle of her body. He cupped a breast, thumb swiping her nipple, and she felt the echo of it on her cheekbone.

  “Kat,” he whispered, pressing kisses along her collarbone, a place she never thought before could be an erogenous zone. But Alec took his time, skimming his hands over her rib cage and stomach, while his tongue had a mind of its own, doing crazy things to the swells of her breasts and nipples.

  “God,” she moaned. “Right there. Yep, there.”

  He chuckled, his breath gusting over her wet skin. “Who’s on top here?”

  “You,” she said grudgingly.

  He grinned. A wicked, sexy, Alec grin that pronounced the curve in his top lip. “Yeah. Yeah, I am,” he murmured. And then he went back to his task of touching lips to every inch of her skin.

  She shut up, because she sure as heck didn’t want him to stop.

  When he reached her belly button, she’d had enough though. She grabbed a condom from the drawer beside his bed and shoved it under his nose. “Please. Now.”

  He peered up at her, eyes darkened with lust, and snatched the condom out of her hand. “Don’t think you’re winning this. I was heading for the drawer myself,” he muttered, rising on his knees to slip on the condom.

  “Less talky, more fucky,” she said, grabbing his shoulders.

  He came down on top of her in a heap, laughing. “You only swear when you’re turned on. It’s like screwing a sailor.” He kissed her long and deep, and at the same time, he positioned himself at her entrance and slid in.

  She arched her neck, enjoying the hot slide of him inside of her. He began to move, slowly rocking his hips while placing soft, moist kisses all over her face and neck. She felt beautiful and adored and she wanted this to last forever.

  She began to feel it building inside of her, as Alec found her spot and hit it over and over again, speeding up, and she met each of his thrusts.

  Kat came on a shout, the orgasm rocketing through her, curling her toes and digging her nails into his back. Alec buried his face in her neck, moaning her name and several other choice words as he finished.

  He kept his head there as they both took in air, his breath ghosting over her sweat-slick skin. Everything in her body pulsed with a satisfied ache. The weight of Alec’s body on top of hers was hot and an elbow dug into her side, but she didn’t care. She didn’t want to untangle from him, to feel the cool of the air when his skin no longer touched hers.

  “Christ,” he whispered.

  Kat bit her lip, unsure what to say.

  Alec finally raised his head, their noses almost touching, and stroked her face with his fingers, starting at the hair of her temple and ending on the hinge of her jaw. His brow was set in silent contemplation, as if he was memorizing the bone structure of her face. He gave her another peck on the lips and then slowly rose.

  As predicted, the loss of him was unwelcome.

  “I’m going to go to the bathroom and then head downstairs and make us some dinner.” He pulled off the condom and threw it in the trash, then pulled on a pair of jeans. “Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?”

  She smiled and nodded.

  He grinned at her, leaned in for another peck, and then walked out.

  She lay there for another minute, listening to the screech of the old pipes in the house as Alec used the sink in the bathroom. When his footsteps descended the stairs, she rose and pulled on her clothes.

  Thinking they could go see a movie, she opened up his laptop and pulled up a web browser. The home page was his e-mail and although she hadn’t meant to snoop, the subject line of one of the e-mails struck her—Talk to Kat yet?

  Hovering over the touchpad, Kat’s fingers began to shake. The email was from Danica. Maybe she wondered how their talk at the pizza shop went. Kat didn’t mean to click on the e-mail. She really, truly didn’t, but her finger did and when she opened it up and began to read, she wished to all heck she’d stayed as far away from the computer as possible.

  Just checking if you mentioned to Kat about how she might have dyslexia. Like we talked about, here are a bunch of links I researched for you. Let me know what she says! Glad you mentioned her struggling to me.

  Love, Dan

  Kat sat, frozen. She couldn’t feel her limbs and she wondered if they were even attached anymore.

  Dyslexia? A learning disability? She remembered overhearing a conversation between her parents about her neighbor, an elementary school classmate of hers.

  Did you hear about Elijah? her father had said.

  That must be so rough on him and his parents, her mother had answered, clucking her tongue. He’s going to be labeled as on the spectrum for the rest of his life, in special classes and nonsense.

  Kat remembered the cruelty of kids whispering behind his back, mocking his hand gestures and facial tics.

  All this time, she’d studied her butt off, believing that if she just worked harder, studied more, she could be like all the other kids. But if this were true, if she had a learning disability, then she’d never get better.

  Well, that was it. Screw this stupid plan and stupid school and stupid everything. Maybe she would be better off answering phones and ordering K-cups.

  And Alec . . . God, what had she been thinking? She’d been dreaming of some sort of future with him, and meanwhile he’d been talking to Danica about her like she was just another dumb tutoring student. Who’d always be a dumb student, if this e-mail was anywhere near the truth. Because she knew enough about learning disabilities to know they couldn’t be cured.

  The numbness slowly dissipated and in its place was a bone-chilling cold, which steadily warmed into anger directed at the one source in close range.

  Alec Stone.

  She didn’t belong with him. He’d never put up with her for long, and damn him for thinking she could be in his league.

  Before the tears could fall, she quickly rose from the desk and searched the room frantically for her purse. She had to get out of here, get home and wallow in self-pity alone. The last thing she wanted was for Alec to see—

  “Kat?” She whipped around and Alec stood in the doorway, two plates in hand, his expression confused. “What are you doing?”

  At the sight of him, her objective wasn’t to get home anymore. All the hurt, embarrassment and feelings of inadequacy during the last twenty years bubbled up in a rush. She had to release this poison, because right now it was racing through her veins. She had to get it out if she had to scratch herself to death to do it.

  “I can’t believe you.” She squared her shoulders to face him.

  He took one step inside the door and placed the plates on the bed. “What are you talking about?”

  She
pointed to the computer. “I went online to search for a movie and instead saw an e-mail from Danica.”

  He still looked confused, and she wanted to scream.

  “Did you think about me, or my feelings, at all when you were talking to Danica and speculating on whether or not I have a learning disability?” She spat out the last two words as if they were the poison-tipped arrows that were slowly sickening her bloodstream.

  Alec closed his eyes and ducked his head. When he met her eyes again, his were in a pained squint. “It wasn’t like that—”

  She cut him off, not wanting to hear what it was like, because she knew what she felt right now, and that’s what mattered. “Did you think about how I would feel?” she repeated.

  His breaths sounded uneven and he tucked his elbows close to his sides. “I guess I didn’t, or I would have done things differently,” he said quietly.

  She would have given him some points for honesty, if she could muddle through the anger dragging her down. He could take his good intentions and shove ’em.

  “Why couldn’t you come to me first when you had these suspicions? Because I wouldn’t understand?”

  His teeth clenched. “It didn’t happen that way. If you’d let me explain—”

  “Who do you think you are?” She snarled, on a rant now, only recognizing Alec as a dartboard for her insecurities. “Just because you’re some university tutor doesn’t give you the qualifications to . . . diagnose me or whatever. Your job was to tutor me, not analyze me.”

  His jaw clenched. “I wasn’t trying to analyze you, I was trying to help—”

  “You should have come to me first.” She swiped at the tears beading on her lower lashes. “All my life, people have talked about me behind my back.” The tears ran down her cheeks now and she couldn’t get them to stop. “You think I don’t know what people think about me? Kat is so dumb, look at her grades, she’s so flaky, thank God she’s pretty. I know what people say. I know,” she thumped her chest. “And I’ve become really good at ignoring it and not caring. But I thought you were different. I thought . . .” she laughed maniacally and ignored Alec’s stricken features. “I thought this was different.

  “Kat.” He stepped forward as she finally spied her purse on the floor near his closet and rushed to it. When she slung it over her shoulder and faced him again, she didn’t like the determined look in his eye as he spoke. “Do not stand there and say you thought it was different, as if you now think it wasn’t. Last night, this morning, us,” he gestured between them with a waved hand, “happened.”

  She nodded emphatically. “Yep, it did. Past tense. Happened. With a big, fat ED.”

  Now he looked sick and when he spoke, his voice was tortured. “Kat—”

  The front door slamming open cut him off. “Hello? Stone?”

  Max. Because life wasn’t complicated enough. Alec stood frozen, five feet from her, his eyes widened in horror that would have been comical any other day when she wasn’t furious at him and heartbroken. She considered opening up his bedroom window and taking her chances on jumping two stories to the ground. A fractured ankle might be preferable to whatever crap-show was about to go down.

  Footsteps sounded on the stairs now and each thump was like the theme from Jaws.

  Ba dum. Ba dum. Ba dum ba dum ba dum.

  I think we need a bigger boat. . .

  Max stopped in the doorway, frowning, his eyes roaming Alec’s bare chest and Kat’s flushed face. She was vaguely aware that the room smelled like sex, and she hoped to all that was holy that Max had a cold or something.

  “Uh . . . what’s going on?” Max propped his hands on his hips.

  No matter how mad Kat was, she wasn’t going to do anything to hurt their friendship without Alec’s consent. She cleared her throat. “Nothing. I . . . uh . . . forgot my purse. Alec let me keep it in his room last night so no one would steal anything and I forgot it. Just came back now to get it.”

  Alec hadn’t taken his eyes off her and his color still hadn’t returned.

  Max looked skeptical.

  “Right, Alec?” she prompted.

  Part of her still wished Alec would speak up. Right then and there. Declare his intentions like this was the 1800s and lay claim to her. Tell Max the truth. Then hold her in his arms while he told her he loved her and respected her and that e-mail was a mistake . . .

  But instead, he hauled that harpoon out of her heart, taking a bloody chunk along the way, when he said quietly, “Yep. She just came to get her purse.”

  She hid a sob behind her hand, murmured some good-byes through a film of tears and ran down the stairs.

  On the way home, she cleared her mind enough to focus on the e-mail. All she knew about dyslexia was that it was a type of learning disability. No one had ever mentioned it before. What did Alec think he was, some kind of teaching expert now?

  This sucked. She was tired of feeling out of place at school where everyone seemed to understand things she couldn’t. Where others aced tests without studying and wrote ten-page papers in one night.

  She was tired of being different.

  And the knowledge that she truly might be different. That she truly might not get better with extra studying was a punch she didn’t have the ability to block.

  And of all people, Alec had to be the one to see it. In what world would someone like him be with someone like her? Kat-land, that’s where. And unfortunately Kat-land was a mystical, fantastical place where she rode a unicorn through fields of golden wheat while eating chocolate that was somehow delicious and still fat free and cute little pheasants lined her path, blowing bubbles on her—because who didn’t like bubbles?—while telling her how brilliant and smart she was.

  Kat-land was awesome.

  Too bad it wasn’t real.

  Chapter Eighteen

  ALEC STOOD IN the shower, the water sluicing through his hair and down his back. He wondered how long he could shower without turning into a prune or Max invading his sanctuary. He could still hear his friend banging around in his room on the other side of the bathroom.

  After Kat ran down the stairs, Alec had mumbled about getting in the shower and bolted.

  What Alec really wanted was to melt into a pile of goo and be washed down the drain. That’s what he deserved. Because it was obvious he had hurt Kat. Twice. Not only for talking about her to Danica, but for turning coward and denying everything to Max. Because as soon as he had agreed with her, Kat had looked even more devastated than before. Which he hadn’t thought possible.

  With Max standing there, he couldn’t admit what he and Kat had. He thought that was the right decision, to stay loyal to his best friend. But as soon as Kat turned her back, he thought about never being able to laugh at her silly jokes, or run his hands over those soft hips, or smell that citrus shampoo on his pillow.

  And now he wasn’t so sure about his choice.

  He slammed his hand on the faucet, turning off the shower, and stepped out. He dried off hastily and wrapped a towel around his waist. As soon as he stepped outside of the bathroom, Max raised his head from where he was leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest.

  “Hey.” Max didn’t sound as mad as Alec thought he would.

  “Hey. What are you doing home?”

  “Needed to get a book for an assignment I need to work on tonight. I’m heading back home because I have to get up early to work at the garage.”

  “Oh.” Alec brushed by him and went to his room. Hopefully alone.

  Unfortunately, Max followed him.

  “So . . . Kat?”

  Facing away from Max, Alec slipped his boxer briefs on under his towel and then took it off to dry his hair. “What about her?”

  Max was silent, and Alec turned around. It felt like a face-off, and Alec really wished he was wearing more clothes.

  Max didn’t say anything, just squinted his eyes at Alec and shifted his weight from foot to foot. It was unnerving to see Max so uncertain, so lacking in c
onfidence.

  “What’s going on with you, man?” Alec asked. “You ever going to tell me why you’ve been so fucking weird this whole year?”

  Max took a deep breath, puffed out his cheeks and exhaled. He opened his mouth, but then winced and turned his head to look out the window. A prickly feeling crept up Alec’s spine. “Max?”

  “So, Kat was okay last night? You kept an eye on her?” Max kept his eyes trained out the window.

  “Kat was fine,” Alec said slowly, unwilling to lie anymore. And conveniently pretending there was no lying by omission.

  Max nodded and then turned to leave, avoiding all contact with Alec. “Great, thanks. See ya tomorrow.”

  When Alec heard the front door slam shut, he released the tension in his shoulders, then yelled in frustration. What the fuck was going on with Max? And most important, why wouldn’t he talk to Alec? Since they’d become best friends in first grade and shared lunches out of their Transformers lunch boxes, Max had always been transparent. He didn’t hold back, which actually resulted in many detentions and missed recesses when they were kids. And the weirdest thing was, he’d never been a bully, which was why his behavior toward Kat was confusing.

  Alec was a small kid with glasses. His mom called him a late bloomer, which was a nice way of saying it took for-fucking-ever for his voice to deepen. But Max had always been a stocky kid, friendly, unless you pissed him off, and then he had a face like thunder.

  An easy target for bullies, Alec was on his third pair of glasses that his mother could barely afford during first-grade recess. Some big kid named Kevin had been holding said glasses, twisting them in his pudgy fingers.

  And then, like some sort of Old West movie—minus the tumbleweed—a shadow fell over Kevin. The kid looked up, but he didn’t have a chance. Max grabbed Kevin’s wrist, wrenched it painfully and said “Drop ’em.” Like Kevin was a dog.

  Kevin dropped the glasses, no one ever bothered Alec again, and Max and Alec had been at each other’s side ever since.

  Alec flopped back onto his bed, sheets still rumpled and smelling like Kat. He missed her. He missed the old Max. He missed his life when it wasn’t complicated.