Fifty First Times: A New Adult Anthology

by J. Lynn

  I glance at my phone, checking to see if I have a message from Garrett. I feel a little bad telling him last minute that I can’t make it to his party, but he’ll understand. Especially if I can go into work on Tuesday with a boyfriend on my résumé.

  I feel something brush against my hand, and realize that it’s Zach’s hand. He’s not looking at me, and is still talking to Haley, so it must have been an accident.

  He looks at me, then looks away just as quickly.

  Hmm. Maybe not an accident.

  I grin and put my phone away. Garrett hasn’t bothered responding which means he’s likely already drunk, probably on the hunt for a rebound from high school girl. That, or he’s forgotten all about his invitation anyway, and doesn’t care.

  I follow the group up the stairs toward the loud music, feeling a little bit like an impostor. I’m so not a party girl, and I’m positive it’s written all over my not-low-cut sweater. But the house is packed with scantily dressed girls barely standing upright, and I realize nobody’s likely to notice me, much less judge me. I relax a little.

  “Remember,” Corrie shouts in my ear, before Haley drags her away. “Don’t drink anything you don’t actually see poured from the keg.”

  “Thanks, Mom!” I call as she disappears into the mess of people. I feel a hand on my lower back. Zach. “She’s right, you know,” he says, his lips against my ear. “Careful what you drink. Some people suck.”

  He guides me toward the keg and finds us two keg cups, which he fills himself. I take a small sip of the one he hands me. I’m not a big drinker, but I kind of like beer. But I tend to stop at one. Maybe two.

  I’m about to ask what people do at a party like this, but then Zach takes my hand and leads me toward the back of the house where it’s quieter. Not quiet. But quiet enough so that we find a somewhat secluded corner of the room. He positions me so I’m out of the way of jostling bodies, and I let him, my shoulder blades against the wall, as I take another sip of beer.

  He’s not wearing his glasses tonight, and although I sort of love his glasses, he also looks really good like this, his blue eyes all dark and watching me.

  “So, tell me I’m not the only one who noticed that terrible smell in poli sci today,” he says.

  I let out a horrified laugh. “What was that?”

  “Who do you think it was? Cornrows who eats that birdseed shit all during class, or tall girl in the front row who drinks chocolate milk like it’s going out of style.”

  “Definitely Birdseed Guy,” I say. “That stuff can’t be good for the digestive track, right? Not unless you’re part of the aves class?”

  Zach lets out a little laugh that makes his eyes crinkle in the corners. “Aves class. God. This is why I like you, Annie.”

  I blush a little and take a sip of my beer. It’s warm, but maybe if I drink enough I’ll stop feeling so damn nervous around this guy who seriously seems to like me. And for all the right reasons too.

  As though reading my thoughts, his voice goes serious. “I wish I’d met you a year ago.”

  “Why, what happened a year ago?” I ask, trying for cheeky, and coming out . . . squeaky.

  He looks away for a moment. “Bad relationship. Guess it happens to all of us at some point or another, right?”

  Some of us don’t have relationships happen to us at all.

  “What happened?” I ask, jumping at the chance to get to know him better, even though I’m not sure I really want to know about his ex.

  He glances down at the cup he’s barely touched. “Melissa. And she wasn’t bad news, at first, you know? She was fun . . . a little more wild than me. She made me feel alive and young, and all that crap.”

  We are young, I want to interrupt. But I don’t.

  “Things slowly got out of hand. It started out as breaking curfew. A lot. My parents were pissed, but I think deep down maybe they figured that was part of having a seventeen-year-old son. And then there was the drinking. I didn’t do much, but she did. A lot. So there was a lot of driving her home, trying to sneak her past her overprotective mother, and hoping she didn’t puke until I could get her into the bathroom.”

  “Yikes.”

  “Yeah. And despite all this, I didn’t see the grand finale coming.”

  This can’t be good.

  He takes a deep breath, like he really needs to get it off his chest. So I let him.

  “Melissa’s older brother sometimes hooked her up with weed,” he says quietly. “I didn’t partake—not because I’m a saint, but I was on the varsity basketball team and didn’t want to risk it, you know?”

  I nod.

  “But . . . she’d left a baggie in my car one day. Just left it there on the front seat after I dropped her off at her friend’s house. Throw in the fact that I was late for practice, and was speeding. Enter the cop, and . . .”

  My heart sinks. “No.”

  “Yup. Let’s just say my high school friends still call me MIP because they think it’s funny. As you can imagine, my parents didn’t find the whole minor-in-possession bit quite so humorous.”

  “Zach.” I put my hand on his arm. “I’m sorry.”

  He shrugs and stares over my head. “It’s probably good that it happened. Forced me to start making better decisions. In friends.” His gaze drops to me. “And girls.”

  My mouth goes dry.

  He takes both of our cups and puts them on a window ledge above our heads, before settling his hands on my waist. My heart is hammering. This is it. Zach Harrison is finally going to kiss me.

  “I like you, Annie,” he says, his forehead coming down to rest on mine. “I like that you’re smart, and that you can make me laugh, and have the biggest, most gorgeous blue eyes I’ve ever seen. I like that I could introduce you to my mom someday without sweating like a pig, and I like that you make me want to be better—”

  “Yo. Harrison.”

  Zach and I both freeze at the sound of his name, and he slowly lifts his face away from mine with a meaningful this-isn’t-over look.

  God, I hope not.

  “What’s up?” he asks, turning toward the interloper.

  I groan when I see who’s standing behind him. I knew I recognized that voice.

  Garrett Reed looks stunned to see me, and his eyes move from me, to Zach, to the minuscule space between us, then back to Zach again.

  For a second I could have sworn I saw something dark cross his face, but now he’s just the usual smirking Garrett. “You brought that Corrie girl, right?” he asks Zach, ignoring me altogether. Typical.

  Zach nods.

  “She’s wasted, man. Someone needs to get her out of here. Her sister’s even worse.”

  “Already?” I ask, incredulous. “We’ve been here, what, ten, fifteen minutes?”

  Garrett shrugs, not really looking at me.

  I sigh and move away from Zach reluctantly. “I’ll get her,” I say. “She’s my roommate.”

  “I guess I should probably get Haley,” he says reluctantly. “Think you can keep Corrie away from the keg while I take Haley home? Then I’ll come back, and—”

  “I can help,” Garrett says.

  I glance at him in surprise. “Help?”

  “It’s my party. I’m not letting a drunk girl in a tiny dress and a goody-two-shoes walk home alone in the dark.”

  His party? This was Garrett’s party? Of all the annoying coincidences . . .

  “I said I’d come back for her,” Zach says, his voice a little edgier than I’m used to.

  Garrett shrugs. “Suit yourself man. I’m just saying, by the time you get Twin A home, who knows what Twin B will have gotten herself into . . .”

  “He’s right,” I say reluctantly. “You take Haley, and Garrett and I can get Corrie.”

  “You know him?” Zach asks, jerking a shoulder toward Garrett.

  “We work together.”

  Zach looks between the two of us before nodding slightly. “Cool. Thanks man,” he says to Garrett. “I r
eally appreciate it.”

  It’s subtle, but I’m pretty sure Zach’s use of the first person just then is his way of letting Garrett know that we’re all on Zach’s turf. That I’m on Zach’s turf. And I guess I am . . . sort of.

  Garrett just nods. He still hasn’t really looked at me, and that bothers me for some reason. Surely he’s not mad that I backed out on his party? Well, I thought I backed out on his party . . .

  Zach promises to come over as soon as he gets Haley home, and then disappears into the crowd.

  I expect Garrett to give me crap, but instead he just jerks his head in the direction of the other room. “Your girl’s this way. Does she have a jacket?”

  “Yeah, it’s in that pile by your front door,” I say.

  “You grab that. I’ll get her.”

  I reach out and snag his sleeve, pulling him to a stop before he can move away. “Garrett.”

  He glances at my hand, before meeting my eyes, his eyes oddly unreadable.

  “Thanks,” I say simply.

  He nods once. Twice. “Any time.”

  HALF AN HOUR later, Garrett and I are sitting side by side on my bed, and trying not to laugh at the unattractive mess that is Corrie when she’s passed out drunk.

  “Do think we should, like, close her mouth?” Garrett asks.

  “Only if she starts snoring,” I say, watching as Corrie flings a hand over her head before making a soggy, snuffling noise before rolling onto her side.

  “So,” Garrett says after several seconds.

  “So,” I say, thinking his next line will be something along the lines of I should be going.

  “Two lies, Ms. Gilmore. I’m surprised at you.”

  Huh? I turn my head to look at his profile, which is surprisingly close. We hadn’t turned on any lights in an effort to get Corrie from party mode to sleepy mode. It apparently worked. She was asleep the second her head hit the pillow.

  And now I’m kind of tempted to turn on the light, because I’m all too aware that I’m sitting almost hip to hip with Garrett Reed, only the soft glow from the streetlamp outside to break up the darkness.

  “You’ve lied to me twice.”

  I frown. “About what?”

  “First, about coming to the party . . .”

  I held up a finger about that. “I never said for sure that I’d come to the party, I said I’d try. Plus, it’s not like I went MIA. I texted you and said I couldn’t make it.”

  “Except you did make it, albeit by accident. Which leads me to the second lie. I thought there was no boyfriend in the picture.”

  “There’s not,” I hedge.

  He studies my profile. “Didn’t look that way from where I was standing.”

  “Come on,” I say, elbowing him. “Like you’ve never made out with a girl at a party.”

  But Garrett doesn’t take the bait, and instead sits waiting for an explanation.

  It’s weird—in the same way Zach seemed to know that I’m not the type of girl to kiss a guy in a game like spin the bottle, Garrett seems to know that I’m not the type of girl to kiss a random guy at a party just because.

  The comparison between the two guys is a little unsettling, partially because I’d always subconsciously put Zach in the prince category, and Garrett in the . . . Well, I don’t know exactly what category I’d put Garrett in. I do know that that category seems to be changing tonight.

  And that weirds me out more than anything.

  I look away quickly. “Zach’s not my boyfriend,” I clarify.

  “But you want him to be.”

  I lift my shoulders.

  He runs a hand over his mouth and gives a little laugh. “I so did not see this happening when I invited Zach to the party.”

  My gaze flies back to him. “You invited Zach to the party?”

  “Sure. We sit next to each other in econ. Help each other out with notes when the other person zones out. He’s a good guy, Annie.”

  He says it begrudgingly, but that’s not what gets me. It’s his use of my first name. He always calls me Gilmore, or Anners, or a handful of less-flattering nicknames.

  “I should have figured you’d be the one to tell him to bring hot girls,” I say, trying to lighten the mood.

  “I certainly didn’t mean you,” he grumbles.

  “Hey!” I say, a little offended, especially since it’s a soft spot of mine. “I can be hot.”

  Garrett closes his eyes. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Then what did you mean?”

  He opens his eyes then and turns his head slowly to face me, and suddenly I’m extra aware that it’s really dark in here and that I can feel his breath on my cheek.

  I turn my face, just a little, and now I can feel his breath on my lips. And it feels really, really nice.

  Too nice.

  Because this is Garrett Reed, and . . .

  “Gilmore,” he whispers, his face moving imperceptibly closer. My face tilts up. My eyes close.

  For one horrible second I want Garrett to kiss me. Not a slow, sweet melding of mouths, but the hot, hard kind of kiss that quickly escalates to me peeling his shirt over his head, his hands unfastening my bra . . .

  I want him to push me back against the pillows, and . . .

  There’s a soft knock at the door, and we both spring back as the door slowly opens.

  “Annie?” A voice whispers.

  It’s Zach. Oh God, Zach. I spring to my feet.

  How was it I’d gone my entire life with a couple of lame kisses I could count on one hand, and I’d come this close to kissing two guys in the same night?

  Except only one of them liked me. Only one of them had been carefully courting me for months, if you could say that about a nineteen-year-old. And the other . . .

  I glance over my shoulder at Garrett, but he’s already on his feet, pulling on his wool jacket, his expression the same old, easygoing, cynical mask I’d gotten so used to.

  I should be relieved. It had been a fluke. I’d been an easy target for a horny guy who’d just broken up with his high school girlfriend.

  But I’m not relieved. I feel . . .

  Crap.

  I don’t know what I feel.

  “Night, Anners,” Garrett says, giving my hair a little tug like I’m the annoying kid sister. He moves toward the door, and he and Zach do one of those weird guy-handshake things, although they don’t exchange any words.

  I watch Garrett, waiting for him to turn around and look at me. Waiting for his eyes to help me understand what the hell just happened. But he’s gone without even a glance my way.

  Forget about it, Annie. Count yourself lucky for not doing something stupid with a guy who’d never ever bother to call you the next day.

  I move toward Zach, trying to force my brain to that moment we had earlier at the party. I try to remember that almost-kiss, instead of the other one that nearly just happened.

  His hands find mine, pulling me in. I close my eyes for a second, partially because this guy is so damn good, but also because I’m feeling a little guilty for my almost-but-wasn’t moment with Garrett.

  “Sorry about tonight,” he says, putting his lips close to my ear. “Not exactly the Friday night I’d envisioned.

  I let out a long breath. “I’m just glad we got Corrie and Haley out of there. They’ll have a headache tomorrow, but it beats some of the alternatives.”

  He nods. “It’s a little like parenting, huh? Except with really big, slightly skanky babies?”

  Right on cue, Corrie lets out a loud snore. I giggle. “Yeah, something like that.”

  “You going to sleep?” he asks, his thumbs rubbing over my palms.

  I meet his eyes. “You mind? It’s been kind of a long week and a long night.”

  And I need some time to think.

  “Sure.” His hands squeeze mine. “Good night, Annie.

  “Night, Zach,” I whisper.

  He turns away, but he turns back at the last second. “One of these days
, Annie . . .”

  I give him a little half smile. “Yeah. One of these days . . .”

  But my smile fades after I’ve closed the doors. One of these days. . .

  For the life of me, I have no idea how I want that sentence to end.

  Four

  GARRETT DOESN’T SHOW up to work on Tuesday.

  Not on Thursday either.

  And I can’t even legitimately get mad, because Mrs. Ramirez told me that even though he had a scheduling conflict this week, he’d still stopped by to pick up some work to do from home so I wouldn’t get stuck with all of it.

  I wish he’d stop pulling these good-guy stunts. It’s throwing me off balance.

  And the other guy in my life hasn’t been around either. Zach has some massive biology project that’s taking up all of his time. I guess it’s not a bad thing. It gives me plenty of time to figure out . . .

  Figure out what?

  Who I want?

  It’s not even really a contest. I mean, Zach and I are practically going out, and Garrett is . . .

  Hell, I don’t even know where Garrett is, much less who he is, or what he is to me.

  And by the following Tuesday, a week and a half since the might-have-been-an-almost-kiss-but-probably-wasn’t, I’ve convinced myself that I don’t care.

  Then he shows up.

  “Anners,” Garrett says, strolling into our shared office space like he has a hundred times before. “You do something different with your hair? It’s looking a little flatter than before.”

  Just like that, we’re back.

  I’m relieved.

  I think.

  “How’s Zachary?” he asks, plopping into the chair across from me. “Dreamy?” He flutters his eyelashes.

  Yup. We’re definitely back. It’s as though that sexually charged moment in my room never happened. Thank God.

  “He’s great,” I say, putting on a bright smile.

  Garrett’s eyes narrow for a fraction of a second, as though he senses—and wants to call out—my BS. But then he grins right back. “Can I be maid of honor at your wedding? I’d look great in whatever pink poof you’re going to make your bridal party wear when you and Mr. Perfect trot down the aisle.”

  “I am not going with pink poof at my wedding.” I snatch back the muffin he’d just swiped from my plate. “And I’m not certainly planning my wedding with Zach.”