Squinting one eye at me, Dany seemed to shake herself apart. Then she came back together in an instant, her focus laser-like and intense. “You and Dave Echols broke up, right?”
That was the first touch of her needle against my ego bubble. Slowly, I nodded. “We did. Yeah. Why?”
“I think he’s so great,” she gushed.
I hesitated. “Okay?”
“So talented, I mean, most guys who play the guitar are kind of douchey about it. He’s just so authentic and intense and dedicated, you know? Of course you know! You know him so well, and, I mean, I heard that you broke up with him to date Will Spencer, holy crap. I mean, no judgment, you have to live your truth. Fearlessly pursuing and all that. But for me personally, Dave is just . . .”
Squeezing her hands into fists, she shook them. It was like there were words out there for what she meant, but she just couldn’t find them. This was weird. She was weird. The whole thing was weird.
Now trying to escape, I nodded and took a step away. “He really is great.”
“Wait,” Dany said. She lunged at me. For a split second, I thought she was going to hit me. Instead, she grabbed both my hands and squeezed them. “I’m doing this all wrong!”
“Doing what?” I was almost afraid to find out.
Dany dipped a little. For a brief, horrified flash, I was afraid she was going to kneel in front of me. I don’t know why—the theater people did stuff like that all the time. And she was just enough over the top that I didn’t put it past her. Thankfully, all she did was clutch my hands to her chest. Which was also weird.
“I just want you to know I honor your place in Dave’s life. And I respect you as a woman and as a sister artist. So I’d like your blessing.”
Stupidly, I said, “For what?”
“To ask Dave out,” Dany replied. Her eyes were so wide and green and earnest. She blinked at me like a little forest creature.
I said the first thing that came to mind, which was both stupid and utterly fitting. Something right out of Jane’s absurdly sprawling fantasy novel collection. Somehow, I even said it sincerely.
“Go with grace, my good kinswoman.”
Dany left two coral kiss prints on my cheek and insisted on putting her contact info into my phone, but, thank God, that got rid of her.
~
One period before the end of the day, I was so ready to head home. The morning’s exhilaration had worn off, and lunch had completely tweaked me out. All I wanted was to get through independent study, get Jane, and then get the hell out of Dodge.
I wheeled out of the orchestra room and crashed right into Dave. Rebounding off his chest, I was startled before I realized it was him, and flustered after. He looked strangely great in a new scarlet Polo. The color suited him; he looked smooth and regal, like he was walking through the masses, but somehow stood apart from them.
I finally managed to say, “Jeez, I’m sorry, I didn’t see you.”
“What’s this about playing for the athletics banquet?” he demanded. There was no softness in his eyes. They were the same shade as a storm on the horizon. His jaw was squared and stiff, like he was grinding his teeth.
“I think it’s actually just a party,” I started.
“I don’t care what it is,” he said. “Gigs like that are a band decision. We both agree, or it doesn’t happen.”
The words struck me like a slap. Never once in three years had we ever worried about saying yes to anything for the band.
Too baffled to be defensive, I said, “I didn’t realize you’d have a problem with it. I can go tell her no right now if you want me to.”
He jerked, looking away from me. In his jaw, a muscle pulsed. It was the briefest flash of anger. I guess he managed to beat it down, because when he looked back at me, he shook his head no. “I want it. But things are different now. Remember? You wanted them to be different.”
Yet another pang of guilt flickered in my chest. “No, you’re right. From here on out, we make band decisions as a band.”
“What if I already had plans?”
Confused, I pulled my backpack onto my shoulder. “I don’t follow.”
“Maybe I had plans,” he said. “Maybe I had a date. I’m just saying.”
People streamed around us in the busy hall, laughing and talking as if we didn’t exist at all. It made it hard to find the Dave I knew in all the chaos.
I didn’t think we could be more awkward than we were in that moment. So, I decided to find out for sure. Putting on a way more casual face than I felt, I said, “Funny you should mention dating, though. Dany Kilpatrick cornered me at lunch today. Wanted to know if you were available.”
Instead of relaxing, Dave stiffened. “What did you tell her?”
It felt like a trick question. Shifting my backpack from one shoulder to the other, I shrugged. “I said you were great, and she should ask you out.”
Looking past me, Dave sighed. Then, with a forced smile, he said, “In any case, it’s not really your business. So . . .”
“Okay,” I said flatly.
I don’t know why it hurt my feelings when he said that. It was incontrovertibly true. Dave’s personal life was no longer my business.
“You still have access to the calendar,” he said. “Just update it whenever. Let me know when it’s on there.”
“You bet,” I said.
The bell finally rang, putting an end to this miserable non-conversation. Hurrying down the hall to my last class, I pulled my phone out. I fired off a quick text to Will—all it said was 1st day back missing you so much. Then I ignored the uncomfortable, barbed ache in my chest.
TWENTY-THREE
With Jane’s help, I set a custom ringtone for Will.
Now when he called, my phone purred, “Hey, Athena.”
I was almost embarrassed to admit to myself how much it turned me on when I heard it. I couldn’t help it. If I heard that whisper, it meant time with him. Long hours talking to him, or watching as he walked me through his life at St. P-Windsor.
One night, he took me to the sciences building. It was a sprawling, gothic hall, with sharp peaks and angled arches that didn’t welcome you to its doors. They warned you that you weren’t prepared for what waited inside. After dark, the doors still unlocked, it accepted visitors in its shadowy corridors.
“You can’t be scared,” Will laughed. He took the stairs two at a time. “You’re four hundred miles away from the monsters in Strickland Hall.”
“You lie,” I told him. “You’re wrong. They can come through the phone lines.”
Making his eyes wide, Will held his camera in front of his face. With a slow zoom in, he laughed maniacally in the background. It was completely ridiculous, and yet, a thrill of terror washed over me.
“Please don’t make me hang up on you.”
His lunatic expression melting to one of amusement, Will winked. “Your wish is my command.”
I lay back in my bed, my laptop cuddled in the crook of my arm. Its warmth and light bathed my face, mirroring the sensations that swirled through me. Catching up with him after my evening shower was turning into a nightly habit.
With the time difference and our respective schedules, our long calls almost never started before eleven at night. Though I was running short of sleep, it was worth it to have the time alone with him. I tried less and less hard to hide myself during each call.
Will had a great view of my bare skin. My hair pulled up, I bared my throat and my shoulders. The towel slipped slow, showing off way more than a sweetheart neckline; the curve of my breasts cast deep shadows of cleavage. I was almost tempted to take a screenshot for myself. I felt lush and gorgeous and ripe. From the way Will’s eyes tracked my every move, he must have thought so, too.
“By the way,” I said, as his footsteps echoed down an eerie hall, “Mom and Dad ar
e okay with me driving out for your homecoming weekend. I thought it might be a problem, but Mom convinced Dad it was okay.”
With a grin, Will said, “Have I mentioned I love your mom?”
He turned down a narrower hall. It really was terrifying. Carrying the phone into an unlocked room, a strange glow illuminated the edges of the screen. Tension mounted; I heard something liquid and bubbling. The hum of an unfamiliar machine. And then suddenly, something white and floating and obviously dead filled the screen.
I shrieked.
Will laughed. Instantly, he sounded sorry as he turned the camera to face himself. “It’s okay, Sare. It’s okay. I’m sorry.”
My heart pounding, I demanded, “What the hell is that thing?”
The picture shifted. Lights went on, chasing shadows away in an abrupt, blinding flash. A chair screeched on the floor, and my perspective changed. With Will narrating, he panned his phone slowly along a bank of aquariums. “It’s the physio lab. The professor keeps anatomical specimens in here. There’s fetal pigs—that’s what I showed you—along with cats, rats, cow hearts . . .”
A little nauseated, I pulled a hand down my face. “Ew. Seriously, Will?”
“Sorry,” he said. I softened, as I could tell he meant it. His sincerity came through, even as he left the lab. Voice low, he murmured as he headed out of the building. “Hailey did the same thing to me when she was here studying last night. I thought it would be funny.”
I was getting used to all the Hailey mentions. Sort of. Sometimes she popped up in his videos. It wasn’t for long. She just photobombed, waved and said hi, then disappeared. Her face decorated the background of half his Instagram shots. I told myself there was no reason to worry about Will making a friend, even if it made me feel uneasy.
Didn’t he text me as soon as he got up every day? He sent long e-mails from his English lecture. All day long, texts came in. Check out this gargoyle in the chapel. And I found a tiny wishing well, see? And Have to read Scarlet Letter again. This is proof there’s no God. There were videos, and our nightly calls. His Instagram account was packed with different shots of campus, tagged specifically for me. He even threatened to start a Tumblr.
Seriously, Will couldn’t have done more to make sure I was included in his day. I was probably just tired from lack of sleep. And lonely, because even a hundred videos couldn’t replace one good hug.
Rolling onto my stomach, I curled my arms and rested my chin on my hands. “I’m glad you took me there. I’ll just have nightmares for a week, is all.”
When Will returned to his dorm, his room was quiet; it turned out Antwon had better things to do most nights than to come home. When Will sprawled on his now-familiar couch, I shifted my position, too.
Will’s eyes went wide. “Sare?”
All I had done was sit up. Putting the laptop on the edge of my desk, I sat up and let my towel fall. My skin tightened, both from exposure and from the rush I got from his expression. It wasn’t a full-body nude by any stretch, and the only light on in my room was the pale flicker coming from the computer screen. But there was enough flesh and illumination that a sharp hunger filled Will’s eyes.
“Promise me no screenshots,” I said, defensively crossing my arms over my chest.
I caught a glimpse of myself in the local video window. It felt heady and powerful to realize that I thought I looked nice. I’d never considered the possibility that I might be objectively sexy. It was always Will’s reaction that let me make that leap. When he looked at me, I was sexy.
Raising an eyebrow, I prompted him, “Promise?”
Hilariously, Will crossed himself. “I swear on my life.”
“Okay, you flash me so we’re even.”
His video feed blurred. For a second, I saw his desk lamp and his ceiling. Then the picture righted itself and there he was, stripped to the waist. He turned his phone vertical and propped it on a shelf nearby. His smooth, sculpted chest fed down to the narrow streak of his waist.
His pants hung low, revealing the slightest curve of his hip. A shadow of dark hair, just hidden from sight. Tight denim outlined a hard curve behind his zipper, and a flush washed over me. I made myself look at the rest of him.
He wore jeans, but his feet were bare. I don’t know why that stirred me up, but it did. He looked so comfortable in his skin. Lanky and long, his shoulders like fine Italian-cut marble, I realized just a second too late that instead of taking the edge off missing him, this sharpened it. What I wanted was for him to reach for his button and peel everything away. But I wanted him to miraculously be at my bedside while he did it.
“Much better,” I said, my voice thin.
His gaze traveled over me. Even from a distance, I felt its heat on my skin. A blush tingled as it rose on my chest. Could he make out the color-shift from so far away? He had to see the way it lifted everything. I felt the ghost of his hands on me, the phantom trace of his mouth in places it had once explored. Between my breasts—between my thighs.
A slow, hungry smile touched the corners of Will’s lips. He was no more naked than he would be at a game of touch football. Comfortable, he scrubbed his fingers through his hair and teased. “So where are we going with this?”
“You’ve arrived at your destination for the night,” I replied. Then I dropped my pillow in front of the camera on my computer.
Across the miles, I heard Will cursing under his breath. He made me brave, but I wasn’t that brave. Or crazy. I wanted a lot of things. A Fender Stratocaster with a hard case. Blueberry pie for breakfast every day. A million dollars so I could make it rain—but that didn’t mean I was going to get them. Or that I should.
Rolling off the bed, I grabbed my robe. I tied the belt, and then double, triple checked it before I pushed the pillow out of the way again. I was once more completely decent, and a little thrill still lingered.
“So what you’re saying is that you’re a tease,” Will laughed as he sprawled back. He was decadent with his body. Shameless. Then again, I could walk out of my house on Saturday morning and see shirtless guys all up and down the street—mowing lawns, going for a jog.
“You got plenty,” I told him, amused.
Lazily rubbing his own collarbone, he nodded. “I figured. It’s for the best. I don’t know if Antwon is coming back tonight, and I’d hate to start something I couldn’t finish.”
The flush in my cheeks turned to a sear. Though I’d started by flashing him, I hadn’t thought about it all that much. Just a few short weeks ago, I never could have imagined getting naked on camera at all.
Hell, two seconds ago, I was sure that was as much as I was willing to show. But it niggled in my head that Hailey was two doors down. If Will didn’t want to wait, he didn’t have to.
Suddenly, I was seriously contemplating more. My base animal self certainly wanted more. I ached all over, missing those moments when we were closest together, remembering how it felt to kiss him, become tangled up in him, move together as one.
“We could try it,” I said finally. The words felt like honey on my lips.
Even with the occasional glitch in the video, I could tell Will was interested. He all but vibrated from it.
His skin was taut, too. Muscles rippling as he moved, his edges were sharper, more defined. His face, too. The narrowness of his eyes told me he was thinking about it. The flick of his tongue between his lips told me he wanted it. The feeling was mutual.
Dragging his lower lip through his teeth, Will leaned forward. “I know somewhere I can take you. Not tonight. Saturday?”
A tightness filled my chest. It stole my breath as I leaned forward, too. We had promised to find a way to be together even when we were far apart. And though it had been easy to ignore our physical needs at first, it had been just that: ignoring them. They may not be at the forefront, but they vibrated through me just beneath the surface. They certainly ha
dn’t gone away.
I kissed the pad of my index finger, then pressed it to the camera. “It’s a date.”
TWENTY-FOUR
At the Eden, things were very much not the same with Dave.
A form-fitting Henley replaced his usual crisp, preppy plaid. Instead of soft, clinging jeans, he wore a skinny pair, and gone were his generic boat shoes. Instead, he sported a pair of black Chucks. The ragged hems of his jeans dusted the crisp white laces, teasing in contrast. His blond hair was freshly cut, with a bit of spike to it now.
He moved comfortably, throwing his head back to laugh as he talked. He slipped his hands into the back pockets of the jeans, loose-limbed and relaxed in his own skin. Apparently, now that he was allowed to flirt with anyone he wanted to, he did it before the show, too.
The smallest part of me was surprised that he didn’t acknowledge me. But the reasonable parts beat that into a paste. We weren’t together anymore. He didn’t have to help me set up. I was completely capable of sound-check on my own.
It was even all right that mingling before the set, he stayed on one side of the stage while I lurked on the other.
At a table on my side of the stage, Grace, Jane, and Ellie sipped at their drinks as they waited for the show to start. Having them there made me nervous. Though I usually had a bolt of adrenaline right before performing, this was different.
Tonight was a wild card, our first performance since the breakup. I had no idea what to expect. And I hated that. That was the one constant with Dave—I always knew what to expect. I always knew that performing would be amazing; I always knew that we would laugh afterward. Now all of that was gone.
When the lights switched down, I steeled myself and stepped onto the stage. Too many bodies and burned coffee perfumed the air. Though it was a bar, most of the hardcore drinking happened upstairs where the dance floor pounded away with bright lights and electronica.
Pulling my guitar strap over my head, I watched Dave bounce in place a couple of times before taking the stairs up.
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