by Donya Lynne
Nick drives, and Gunner sits in the back while I take the passenger seat up front. I feel his eyes on me the whole time.
My phone vibrates with a text, and I pull it out of my pocket. The message is from Gunner.
You look nice tonight. Got a hot date?
I bite my bottom lip and fight the urge to giggle as I type out a reply.
Only if you feel like going public.
Part of me would love to walk in on Gunner’s arm. All the other girls would be so jealous. But another part of me enjoys our secret rendezvous too much. It turns me on to think we’ll be at this party, pretending we’re not together, when he’ll be in my bed later tonight when we get home.
Maybe tonight will be the night.
All these years, I’ve been saving my V-card for Gunner. Other boys have caught my eye from time to time, but not like Gunner. Not enough for me to consider giving my virginity to them.
Gunner promised by the time he leaves to go back to Ohio State, we’ll have crossed that threshold. Which means that sometime between now and the day after New Year’s, we’ll have sex.
It’s surreal to think about. Being with him has been a fantasy of mine for so long that the reality taking place between us doesn’t feel entirely real. Every night when he comes to my room, I know he’s there, but it feels more like a dream. One he confirms every morning when he hardly says anything to me during breakfast. But then he shows up again the next night, and the dream is real once more.
We arrive at the party and the three of us wander in together before splitting up. I gaze after Gunner as he strolls alongside my brother, waving at a couple of old friends on the other side of the room.
A pang of loss and confusion settles into my heart. Looks like the part of me who hoped to be “his girl” tonight is stronger than I thought, because seeing him high-five his old bros and exchange hugs with Mindy Talbot and Stacia Stevens, two of the most popular seniors at Highland Creek, feels like green sludge in the pit of my stomach.
Mindy and Stacia are all flirty smiles and starry eyes, and it’s obvious both want a piece of Gunner.
Maybe they want to take a piece of him together. A threesome. I heard that they did that with another boy, and I thought for sure it would kill their reputation. It didn’t. Somehow the rumor made them even more popular. Girls want to be them, and boys want to be with them. All the boys.
I’m sure their promiscuity will catch up to them someday, but, for now, they’re riding a wave of popularity I can’t compete with. I can’t even imagine having a threesome. Mindy and Stacia are in a whole other league from me. A more grown-up league. A league more Gunner’s speed.
Biting back my jealousy and sudden insecurity, I grab a beer from a large bucket of ice and go in search of Julie.
I don’t normally drink at these parties. Not because I’m not old enough to drink, but because my parents raised me better than that. And because, unlike most of the people at the party, I don’t really like alcohol. But I need to take the bitter edge off seeing Gunner with Mindy and Stacia, as well as all the biting images of them together rolling through my mind.
The house is packed. The Walkers have a huge home, but there’s got to be three hundred kids here, and a couple of the smaller rooms have such tight quarters it’s like squeezing a lemon through a straw to pass to the other side.
I finally find Julie in the room we all call the ballroom, even though that’s not what it is. It’s big enough to be one, though.
The vaulted ceilings form a seam over the center of the room, from which three chandeliers hang at precise intervals. They’re made of shimmering clear glass balls of various sizes that look like Christmas bulbs. Each bulb has a small light inside, some are red while others are green, and the glass balls form an upside-down Christmas tree shape. Very festive.
The rest of the lighting in the ballroom is low, and music blares from speakers on either side of a DJ booth at the front of the room. I find Julie dancing with a group of our friends.
“Cameron!” She rushes forward to hug me. “Aren’t the chandeliers awesome!” She looks up at the one directly over us.
“Yeah sure.” I still haven’t recovered from seeing Gunner with Mindy and Stacia even though I’ve already killed my beer and it’s mellowed me out.
Julie frowns. “What’s wrong?” The music is so loud she has to yell for me to hear her.
“Nothing.” I force a smile, but Julie isn’t buying it.
“Okay, you’re talking to me right now.” She drags me toward a group of tables set up around the makeshift dance floor.
I plop down across from her. “Julie, come on . . .”
“Is this about Gunner?”
I gape at her. I told her Gunner would be staying at my house over Christmas, but can she tell there’s more? “Why would it be about Gunner?” I try to sound innocent.
“Duh, Cam. You’ve crushed on the guy since sixth grade. Everything is about Gunner.”
My shoulders collapse, and I melt into my chair. “He’s talking to Mindy and Stacia.”
“What?” Julie gives me her I’ll-slap-a-bitch look. “Those skanks. You’re so much better than they are, Cam.”
“I know, but—”
“No. No buts. If Gunner wants that trash, you don’t need him. You just wipe him from your mind right now and look for someone else, because any guy who thinks Mindy and Stacia are better than you needs to get lost.”
Julie makes it sound so simple. If only she knew how I’ve been spending my nights for the past week, she’d know things aren’t as easy as they seem. Maybe I need to tell her. Not everything, of course, because that would take away too much of the magic. But maybe I could tell her just a little.
I sit forward. “He kissed me.”
Julie blinks as if she has no idea what I just said, and then her eyebrows pop high into her forehead. “Who? Gunner?”
“Well, yeah. That’s who we’re talking about, right?” I duck my head and tuck my hair behind my ear.
Her mouth falls open and she makes an I’m-so-happy-for-you sound. She goes hot and cold faster than a broken faucet. “Cameron, oh my God, when? How?”
Wanting to keep the good stuff to myself at least until he leaves, I blather out a story about how he was helping me study for finals one night then just leaned over and kissed me. That’s sort of true. He did help me study. And he has kissed me.
She swats my arm. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me!”
I shrug. “I didn’t want to make more out of it than it was.”
And now that I’ve seen how dangerous it is to get involved with him—because I’m always going to have to deal with girls like Mindy and Stacia fawning all over him—not making more out of what he and I are doing is critical. I need to do a better job of guarding my heart or he’ll squash it.
“So he kissed you?” Julie bobs her eyebrows up and down. “Did you do anything else?”
“Nothing I want to talk about.” I’m regretting saying anything, because I hate leaving Julie hanging, but I also just don’t want to go into the details. At least not tonight.
“Oh come on, Cam, I’m your best friend. Tell me.”
“I promise I will, but not right now, okay? Later. After he goes back to Ohio.”
Julie growls in frustration. “You’re killing me here.”
“I know. I’m sorry. Let’s just dance and have a good time.” I grab her hand and drag her back to the dance floor as the song changes to a dance mix of Selena Gomez’s “Kill Em With Kindness.”
Poignant, given where my mental state has taken me. Not that Gunner is lying to me, but he’s not exactly making me feel secure in our relationship either.
Can I even call what we’re doing a relationship? He’s not my boyfriend. No one even knows we’re messing around with each other. As far as the universe is concerned, we’re just fuck buddies. And if we’re fuck buddies, doesn’t that mean he has the right to hook up with whoever he wants? For that matter, doesn’t
it mean I do, too?
These feelings and emotions are new to me, and I don’t know what to make of them. I don’t want to hook up with anyone else. Just Gunner. And we haven’t even hooked up. Not technically. I’m still holding my V-card. He said he’s going to take it before he leaves, but now I’m not sure. What if he’s changed his mind? Mindy and Stacia might have him upstairs in one of the bedrooms right now, showing him how much he doesn’t need me or my V-card.
The smart thing for me to do would be to just go home and forget everything. Lock myself in my bedroom and not come out until Christmas. I could get away with that now that I’m on break from school.
Before I can give the idea more serious consideration, I spin and catch Nick and Gunner entering the ballroom. Mindy and Stacia are nowhere to be seen, but a new complication has arisen. Simone Bradley. Gunner’s ex-girlfriend. They dated his senior year at Highland Creek. They graduated together, but she ended up going to North Carolina instead of Ohio State. They broke up before graduation.
But that doesn’t mean they won’t get back together.
His gaze connects with mine, and I turn away, pulling Julie farther into the mass of dancing bodies. The last thing I want is a front-row seat to the resurrection of his and Simone’s relationship.
For me, dancing is a release, and I let the bass-heavy rhythms swallow me. A new song spins into the mix, and I get lost in the music. It’s safe there. Safe where I don’t have to remember Gunner with Simone or Mindy or Stacia. It’s just Julie and me, and I dance and laugh with her, letting myself go. Sweat trickles down my back, and my long hair sticks to my face and neck, but I don’t stop.
Dancing is my third love behind basketball and band. Same with Julie. If not for basketball, we’d have joined the dance team. But the practice schedules conflicted, so we were forced to pick one or the other. It was a hard decision, but we decided on basketball.
Even so, we’ve been known to break into an impromptu dance routine on occasion. In fact, we’re known for it at these parties, and we’ve spent hours choreographing our moves and learning dance routines from music videos.
When the music changes again and Missy Elliott’s “WTF” kicks in, everyone around Julie and me lets out a cheer and pushes back to give us room. Julie and I threw down a routine to this song at the Walkers’ end-of-summer party a few months ago, right before school started. Someone caught it on video, and within the first week of classes, everyone at school had seen it. The coaches for the dance team and cheerleaders even asked us to teach them the choreography so they could perform it at the homecoming pep rally.
In other words, it’s a pretty epic routine.
Within seconds, the crowd has opened a large circle around us and half the cheerleaders and several members of the dance team have joined us and are already picking up with the choreography. Julie and I exchange glances and shrug as we join them, taking our places up front.
The crowd pulses with energy, surging and cheering. Some try to catch onto the steps.
And who should be standing right in front, his eyes glued to me?
Gunner.
Mindy and Stacia have reappeared by his side and look irritated that our performance interrupted their attempts at getting his attention. Simone is still nearby, too, but I can’t tell if she’s trying to get his attention or not.
When the song finally ends to a round of shouts for an encore, I’m out of breath, coated with sweat, and in need of major thirst-quenching.
Escaping to the room’s periphery, I find a bottle of water and down half of it as the crowd settles back down.
“That was awesome!” Julie says, crashing up behind me, snatching the bottle of water from my hand and downing the rest.
“Hey! That’s mine!”
“Want it back?” Julie pretends she’s going to stick her finger down her throat.
I hold up my hands. “Ew. No thanks.” I grab another bottle off the bar behind me.
As I open the new bottle, I glance toward where Gunner had been standing. He’s gone. So is his fan club. They’re obviously tittering off after him now that the show is over.
Julie and I accept high fives and fist bumps from a few more of our fans, and then we go back to dancing. Gunner is nowhere to be seen. After a while, Julie grabs my wrist and gestures toward the back of the room.
“I have to pee,” she shouts over the music.
I nod and follow her away from the undulating throng.
Outside the ballroom, the party is in full swing, and from the tight quarters, it feels like at least a hundred more people have arrived since I got here.
“Shit, the line for the bathroom is going to be long,” she says, tugging me along behind her.
“Luckily, there’s about ten bathrooms in this house,” I remind her.
“Yeah, and I bet they all have lines.” We start up the spiral staircase in hopes that we’ll have better luck away from the main crowd.
The upstairs isn’t quite as packed as the lower level, but there’s still a wait for the hall bathroom.
I stand beside Julie, and she squirms, shifting her weight from foot to foot.
“Nice moves downstairs.” A couple of guys give us thumbs-up as they approach.
Looks like our epic dance routine is making the rounds again. Someone must have recorded it on their phone and e-mail blasted it to everybody.
“Thanks,” I say, gazing after them as they pass.
I see a flash of red as a door opens down the hall. It’s the same shade of red as Gunner’s shirt. My view is temporarily blocked by a trio of laughing girls, and then they move to one side.
My heart drops. Gunner is coming out of what looks like a bedroom, and Simone is with him. She’s straightening her blouse. They’re smiling and talking animatedly, totally engaged with each other. So engaged that he doesn’t even notice me staring painfully at him.
“What is it?” Julie asks as we inch closer to the bathroom. “What’s wrong?” She follows my gaze then sucks in her breath as she turns back to me. “Oh, Cam, I’m sorry.”
What just happened? Are Simone and Gunner back together? Did they just have sex? An empty ache settles in the floor of my chest. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel. Gunner and I weren’t a couple or anything, but it felt like we were heading that way.
I creep back to hide behind Julie as I peer at him. He closes the bedroom door then follows Simone toward the stairs at the other end of the hall.
“Are you okay?” Julie asks, taking my hand.
My heart drops as I lean against the wall. I swear if the thing weren’t there I would fall over. My legs don’t feel like they can hold me up on their own right now.
“No,” I say honestly. Why lie? Julie will just know I’m fronting.
“Maybe nothing happened.”
“They were coming out of a bedroom,” I remind her. “She was straightening her shirt.”
“I know, but . . .”
“Yeah . . . but nothing.” I drop my face into my hand. “I’m such an idiot.”
To think I had a chance with him.
“You’re not an idiot.”
We move up another place in line.
“Just a fool then.”
“You’re not an idiot or a fool, Cam.” She stands quietly for a moment. As we move into the spot at the head of the line, she squeezes my hand. “Do you want to go home?”
The night started out so well, but it’s been nothing but an emotional roller coaster since walking through the door. I don’t want to be here if I’m going to have to watch Simone climb all over Gunner and vice versa.
I sigh and nod, meeting Julie’s eyes as the bathroom door opens. “Yeah.”
She darts forward then turns back to me. “Give me a minute, and I’ll take you. Just . . .” She flutters her hand and bounces on the balls of her feet like she’s about to burst. “I’ll be right back.”
She quickly shuts the door, and I’m left in the hall to wait for her.
Alone
.
That word just became my least favorite word in the whole world, because I have a feeling I’ll be in my bed alone tonight for the first time since Gunner got back.
Chapter 7
“Text me if you need me,” Julie says, dropping me off at home.
I wave as she drives away then head inside.
I break into sobs the moment the door closes behind me.
It feels like a hole has opened in my chest and my heart is trying to break free to leap to its death like a suicide jumper off the top of the Empire State Building.
Sniffling and wiping tears from my eyes, I trudge up the stairs to my bedroom.
The house is quiet. Mom and Dad won’t be back until morning. Nick and Gunner might be out several more hours. And I’m going to my room to cry myself to sleep.
In my bathroom, I set my phone on the white marble counter and can’t help checking it for messages.
Nothing. No text from Gunner.
Splendid.
He’s probably with Simone.
In my reflection, my mascara is a tear-smudged mess, my eyes are bloodshot, and my face is blotchy. I’m an ugly crier. Just like my mom.
Nothing a little makeup remover can’t fix.
I wash my face, take a shower to wash off all the dried sweat and bad memories of the evening, pull on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, climb into bed, and turn on the TV.
I don’t care what’s on. I just need noise. Anything to help drown out the buzz of painful, insecure thoughts shooting through my mind. I settle on Divergent. Theo James is hot, and that kiss he puts on Shailene Woodley is incredible. Maybe daydreaming about Theo doing that to me will help dull the ache Gunner has left in my heart.
But Theo’s voice reminds me of Gunner’s, and before I know it, I’m heartsick again.
I still don’t know why Gunner waited all this time to be with me. Our midnight rendezvous could all just be for a notch in his bedpost. Maybe all I am is a conquest, and once he returns to Ohio State, he’ll shack back up with whatever girl he’s moved on to since his last girlfriend, the Libra who was no good for him. Or maybe he’ll go back to her. After all, he’s a free man. He can do whatever he wants.