A Boy Like You (Like Us Book 1)

by Ginger Scott

  He and I—we don’t match.

  “So, you threw with my dad this morning,” I say, sliding into the stool at the end of the counter. Wes looks up at me surprised, and I notice my words get Kyle’s attention too. I know this will make him jealous, that my father’s giving Wes extra time. I guess I want Kyle to be just a jealous as I am.

  “Yeah, uh…he offered after practice. Said he’d be there, if I wanted to show,” Wes says, taking short looks to Kyle. This isn’t fair; I’m putting him in an awkward spot. “Did he say something about it?”

  His eyes catch mine under the shadow of the brim of his hat, and they practically glow, they’re so crystal clear. I get lost in them for a second, but shake the trance off quickly, breathing out a short laugh through my nose and shaking my head, giving my attention to Kyle. This makes Kyle’s day.

  I feel Wes watching me though. And I feel bad. It’s not his fault he’s gifted. It’s not his fault that he was able to get my dad to do something I haven’t been able to for years. None of this is his fault—but damn if I don’t blame him anyway.

  The theater grounds don’t open for a few more hours; to kill time, Kyle spreads out a few of his movies for us to pick from. Taryn is always the most vocal, so we end up going with Jaws, which isn’t really a slasher movie, but we all love it anyhow. We spend the next two hours mocking the naïve swimmers on the beach, and Taryn and I overdo our screams in reaction to the shark. TK finds her girly scream adorable, and before the end of the movie, she’s nestled between his legs, her back against his chest and his arms wrapped around her body while his mouth plays along her neck.

  I envy Taryn now too. Not that she’s with TK, but that she’s with someone, gets to feel something like that. I’ve never had that. I’ve never really wanted it. But lately…

  I’ve found my way to the middle cushion of the sofa, right between Kyle and Wes, and the three of us don’t move an inch for the last thirty minutes of the movie. The tension is suffocating, and the second the credits roll, I step over the coffee table in front of me in lieu of choosing a side to walk in front of, leaving the two of them alone as I retreat to the kitchen to sneak another shot of my whiskey.

  “Kinda early for that, isn’t it?” Wes startles me, and I hold his stare, the lip of the bottle resting against my mouth. He leans against the wall opposite me, and loops his thumbs in his pockets, waiting me out. My lip curls up on one side, and I tip the bottle back, letting it coat my throat and chest again. I keep looking at him, and make slow deliberate steps in his direction until I’m close enough to touch him if I wanted to. I hold the bottle up and raise an eyebrow. He only pushes my hand away and steps to the side.

  “I’m good. Not big on whiskey, especially at four thirty, before a drive-in movie,” he says, every word rife with disdain.

  “You’re not my parent,” I say, running my arm along my nose. I choose those words purposely, keeping them trite and clipped. I point at him with one finger, the rest still wrapped around the bottle, and I hold the hard line on my mouth. I think about taking one more drink right now just to spite him. I don’t, and that’s because his reprimand worked on me. A little. A lot.

  “Besides, it makes the movie way better,” I say instead of drinking, closing the cap while I drown in my own cocktail of liquor and shame.

  I put the bottle away again, turning my back to him, hoping he’ll leave—hoping he’ll come closer. He doesn’t move at all, but I hear his breath shift, ready to speak. I no longer intimidate him, which is exactly what I wanted, but it also makes me vulnerable.

  “You saw us,” he says. My mouth grows tight and my jaw clenches in an automatic reaction, but I don’t turn to face him. Instead, I shift my things in my backpack, feeling for his shirt, and I clutch it in my hand. “I can tell by the way you reacted when I asked if your dad told you. He didn’t tell you, and that’s why you’re mad. You should have come, if you saw us. I bet your dad would have liked that.”

  Ha! That statement gets me. Not wanting to play psychoanalysis with him anymore, I pull his shirt from my bag, spin on my heels and grab his hand in mine, stuffing his shirt in his palm, closing his fingers around it. The feel of him is instant, and my knuckles become stiff and rigid, fighting against letting go of my hold. It’s the whiskey making me feel that, which means I’ve had enough—for now. I take a big step back to force distance between us, but I keep my eyes trained on his, and I keep my voice calm.

  “I’m not mad that he didn’t tell me, Wes. I’m mad that he picked you instead of me. And no…he wouldn’t have liked it if I joined you two. That’s the real problem. My father…he doesn’t really like me much at all,” I confess, my throat finding it hard to swallow as I breathe. Wes’s eyes flash with the slightest realization and quickly wash over with sympathy, which is too close to pity, and I don’t want that.

  “Thanks for the shirt,” I say, grabbing my bag from the counter and reaching in for one last thing. “And you owe me a new iPod. I broke mine, trying to keep up with how great you are, so…here.”

  I lay my busted device in his other palm, the cracked screen facing him, and then I walk back into the living room and convince the rest of our group to leave for the movie festival a little early so we can get a good spot.

  Taryn rides with the Stokes boys, and I hop into Kyle’s backseat, which throws off Conner’s plan to sit next to his girlfriend. I’m sort of done with boys for the night, though, so when I refuse to make eye contact with him, Conner finally relents and takes the front seat so I can pout in the back next to Layla.

  I like Layla. She’s quiet and shy. She likes to be in the room with us, but never really participates. And she never asks questions. I’m done with questions. In fact, I’m pretty done with talking for the rest of the night if I can manage.

  The gates are open when we arrive at the drive-in, and because we’re so early, we get a prime spot. I ditch everyone and hit the snack bar, wasting time walking from screen to screen, munching on full bites of buttery popcorn until my stomach hurts. No matter how far I roam, though, my eyes are always quick to find Wes sitting on the top of his truck, his legs hanging against the back window.

  The sun is finally starting to set, and it paints the sky with strokes of purple and orange. The colors make me sleepy, and they also give me peace. Not quite ready to return to chaos, I pull myself up on top of a wooden fence that divides the car spaces from rows of plastic chairs. Two little girls are playing in the sandpit in front of me. What starts as a castle they work on together—quickly turns into a war over who gets to decide how their kingdom is built. They remind me of Taryn and me, though I never argued. I just let her have her way, and when I really wasn’t up for it, I went and played by myself. That doesn’t seem to be the pattern for these two, though, as within seconds sand is flying in the air as they kick towers of dirt at one another and start a screaming match.

  “Hey, girls,” I say, not even garnering as much as a head turn. I’m hit with some of the sand from their fight, so I pull my fingers to my mouth and blow a loud whistle that gets them both to stop. The one on the right lets the grains of sand trickle through her fingers, and I grin at the thought of her dropping her weapon.

  “Come here,” I say, urging them closer. They’re timid at first, but when one starts to come closer, the other one shoves her in the arm, and they both suddenly sprint until they’re touching the fence post next to me. “You two are friends, yeah?”

  They both glance at each other and crinkle their noses, wobbling their heads because they’re still mad and they don’t want to admit that they’re friends. That means they’re probably best friends.

  “How about you forget about the castle and the sand and all of that crap…” I say, chuckling to myself when their eyes widen at the word crap, “and you take the rest of my popcorn to share during the first movie?”

  The one with dark hair, clearly the Taryn of the pair, grabs my bag without question, while the other one stands behind her, her mouth slowl
y stretching into a smile.

  “We should wash our hands,” she says to her friend, her words lisping through her missing front teeth.

  “Nah,” I say, kicking off from the fence and wiping my buttered fingertips along my jeans. “It’s just dirt. Germs are bullshit.”

  I wink at them both and walk away to the sweet sound of their giggling. I feel proud. As stupid as that was, I accomplished something huge back there. I might have saved a friendship.

  My phone buzzes in my pocket, which halts me instantly, and the good feelings from before drain fast. It’s Saturday. It’s still early, but…it’s happened early before. I gaze around the various lots to get a feel for how crowded things are, to see if Kyle would be able to get back in if he had to take me somewhere. The drive-in is far, but I could still walk. And my dad could wait. I prefer to make him wait.

  I unload a heavy breath and pull my phone out, ready to feel the sick feeling that comes over me every single time I go through this. But it’s not my dad. It’s Wes.

  Nice work in the sandlot. The movie starts soon. TK snuck in Cokes. I saved you one.

  I read his short text over a few times, and I keep my head low so he can’t see my smile. But I am smiling. The grin on my face is unmistakable, and the fluttering in my chest feels better than the whiskey did earlier. I write him back:

  Thanks. Be there in a sec.

  After I hit send, I glance up and notice Emily’s car now pulled next to Kyle’s, and I also see a girl sitting next to Wes on top of his truck. It’s McKenna, and she’s wearing a dress out here…on one of the coolest nights we’ve had. The skirt is blowing up her legs in the breeze, and she’s holding her arms around her body, rubbing her hands on her bare arms. I sense it coming before I get there, so by the time I step up to the bed of the truck and see McKenna wrapped in the shirt I slept in last night, I can do nothing but laugh.

  I feel like a fool.

  “Cokes?” I say, quirking an eyebrow up at Wes, pretending to be unfazed by the fact that Malibu Barbie is tittering inches away from him.

  “I set yours up here,” he says, turning to reach for it behind McKenna, only to see her clasping it in her hands, taking a long sip.

  “Right, you know what? I’m good,” I say, pointing to Kyle’s car, where I left my bag and where I plan on hiding for the next several hours.

  “Joss, wait,” he says, sliding down from the roof, his feet heavy when he lands on the ground. McKenna leans over and watches his every move, and when her eyes make it to me briefly, I blow her a kiss, which makes her smile fall flat.

  “You’re a bitch, Joss,” she fires at me.

  “You, too, Kenna. You too,” I say, shaking my head and refusing to give her any more of my time.

  “What the hell, Joss?” I’m so shocked by him saying anything remotely assertive to me that I freeze and stare at him, blinking. “Why do you have to make everything so damn hard?”

  Still blinking. After a few seconds, I shift and look back up to McKenna, her fingers tapping on the side of the can while she pretends not to watch our conversation. She’s hanging on every word. God, for a second there, when he texted me, I thought he was into me, and I actually felt a rush. It’s amazing how in two seconds my brain can whiz through scenarios where—he’s kissing me, I’m holding his hand, I’m lying on his lap watching these stupid movies. When I replay it now, he just said the movie was starting and he saved me a drink.

  “I’m not making anything hard, Wes,” I say, glancing behind him toward the roof of his truck. “Oh, she looks cold. I should let you go.”

  He opens his mouth to speak and moves like he may take a step toward me, but I ignore it, turning and walking over to Kyle’s car, shutting the door behind me as I crawl into the backseat and pull out what’s left of my bottle. Yeah, I am making this hard. But I also know how this ends. Wes gets to be my dad’s darling, and I’m the girl who isn’t good enough. I’m just the worthless mistake that ended my parents’ marriage—at least, that’s how my dad sees it. Wes can have him.

  “What are we drinking?” Kyle asks, opening the other door and sliding in next to me.

  We both press our feet against the backs of the front seats and lower ourselves from view. As pissed as I was over Kyle’s acting like there was more to us earlier, I hope Wes is watching us now. We’re just below the window view when I pass the bottle into his lap.

  “I shouldn’t…I’m driving,” he says, holding the edge of the bottle against his lip.

  “Yeah, like that shit’s stopped you before,” I say, tipping the bottom up so the liquid hits him. He jerks back, and a small bit spills down the front of his chest.

  “Fuckin’ Joss, now I’m going to smell drunk no matter what,” he says, sitting up and leaning forward, blotting at his shirt. He turns his head sideways, and at first he looks genuinely mad. The left side of his mouth gives way to a grin though. “I might as well drink now, then, I guess.”

  “Hell yeah, Marley,” I say, knocking my knee into his while he takes a long drink, letting out a slow breath after it slides down his throat.

  Kyle and I stay huddled in the back for the next five hours. I only break out once when I have to pee, and while I don’t look fully, my eyes catch enough to see Wes sitting on top of the truck and McKenna sitting next to him. I force myself to ignore it on my way back, quickly climbing into the car and sinking into the dark cave of Kyle’s backseat.

  The bottle was half empty when I took it, but there was still enough for Kyle and me to string along a pretty damn awesome buzz throughout most of the movies. The last show starts at eleven, and I can tell Kyle’s getting restless. He pushes open his door and walks to the rear of his car, not bothering to go all the way to the restrooms to pee, and I hear Taryn chastise him for it. It makes me laugh, so I get out and threaten to do the same thing.

  “You two always get our asses kicked out of this thing,” Taryn says, picking up a handful of gravel from the ground and tossing it at us.

  “That’s the best part and you know it!” I yell, turning in a full circle with my arms stretched out. I’m spinning slowly, but the way the stars swirl above me makes me dizzy enough to stumble on my feet. My back finds warm hands before I run into anything, and when I gaze up, I see Wes’s eyes peering down on me.

  “We should get you home,” he says, his mouth a firm line. I spend a few seconds weighing my options and enjoying the feel of him against me as I tip my head back even more. He’s tall enough that he’s a full head above me, and with my forehead pressed into his chest as I lean back, I can see his eyes clearly, and that same familiar feeling from the first time I met him floods me again.

  “Oh, Christopher,” I say, reaching my arm up and around his neck. “Didn’t you hear me before? You…are not…my parent.”

  I feel him sigh against my back, and I start to laugh, happy I’m frustrating him. Seconds later, my legs are swept out from under me, and I’m being rushed to Kyle’s car, carried in Kyle’s arms.

  “Hey,” I giggle. I’m a little drunk. I’m more than a little drunk. I should put up a fight, but I’m too happy being carried around. I like that Kyle’s greedy for me, even if he isn’t the one I want.

  “You and me need to race, Stokes. Come on; let’s get out of here. We’ll hit the old highway,” Kyle says, jingling his keys by his face. A few people parked nearby start to yell at him to be quiet, and he tells them all, “Watch the fuckin’ movie!”

  “Kyle, stop. I’m not racing you, man. Just calm down,” Wes says, holding one hand up and shaking his head in apology to the still-angry people around us. Kyle holds his hand up, waving it haphazardly, mocking Wes.

  “Dude, Wes…it’s like Joss said…you ain’t my fuckin’ parent,” Kyle says, his laughter stopping abruptly before he leans forward and spits on the ground. “Now get your ass out on Fairfax Road, pussy.”

  Kyle climbs in and closes the heavy door of his piece-of-shit car, firing it up and revving the engine. I stand at the passenger si
de, the open door in my hand, one foot inside, resting by the seat.

  “Don’t do this, Joss,” Taryn says, walking up to me, bending forward, and looking inside the car to survey Kyle. I hold her stare for a few seconds, while Kyle yells for me to get in. I’m about to give up on everyone, to slam his door shut and to begin my long walk home, when Wes steps up behind her.

  “Don’t get in that car, Joss,” Wes says, tipping my danger scales instantly.

  Lowering my brow, I do my best to scare him, smiling just enough that I feel like the devil himself has taken over my body. “Stop me,” I say, climbing in quickly and slamming the door shut, my fists slamming down on Kyle’s dash.

  “Go, go, go!” I scream.

  Kyle doesn’t hesitate, spinning his tires and kicking up dust and rock that has the already-angry crowd now getting out of their cars ready to attack him. They’re too slow though, and he’s peeling down the dirt drive and through the exit in seconds. I crawl up on my knees and hug the back of my seat, looking through the window and counting until I see Wes’s truck pull out behind us.

  “He’s coming. You’ve got at least seven seconds on him,” I say, turning back to face the empty roadway ahead while Kyle speeds toward Fairfax.

  Farmland hugs us on both sides of the road, and the rumble of Kyle’s motor echoes loudly, filling our car.

  “We need fast music,” I yell, flipping through stations on his radio until something good finally comes in, Foo Fighters blasting through his speakers. I pull my sweatshirt over my head so I’m only wearing my thin tank top, and I push my body out my window, sitting on the frame of the door and holding my sweatshirt by the hood like a flag.

  “Woooooo!” I scream, pieces of my hair flying loose from my hair band and slapping at my face. “They’re getting closer, Kyle. You better press that shit to the floor!”