by Craft, Maggi
I told myself I had to snap out of it. There would never be anything between Slayde Price and me, other than maybe a friendship. I had to go in there, apologize for hurting his feelings, check my email, and then go to bed. I would stay out of his way. I looked at my reflection in the mirror and swore to myself that no matter what he said or did, I was not going to look at him like he was the most beautiful thing on earth. Not that I would ever do that. I could contain my thoughts and control myself. This will be fine. I can handle this.
Or so I thought. I wasn’t prepared to see him sitting there without a shirt on. He didn’t look like he did in high school anymore — that was for sure. Now his body looked like it was chiseled out of stone. He was beyond beautiful. Where did this guy come from? It was like his DNA was altered to perfection. It wasn’t even fair for anyone to look that way. I was losing my mind. I had to stop drooling all over him like a fool with my mouth wide open.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, startling me.
“Oh, nothing.”
“You came back.”
“What?” I asked. I wasn’t even really sure what he said. All I was thinking about was running my hand down his chest. What the hell was wrong with me?
“You came back. I thought I was already getting on your nerves and that you were going to go stay in a hotel or something,” he said.
“Getting on my nerves? Why would you think you were getting on my nerves? I’m having a great time with you, but I feel like I’m in your way.” There, I managed to say something intelligible. Whew!
“Are you crazy? You’re not in my way. Look, I don’t feel obligated to spend time with you or offer you a place to stay. I did that because I wanted to. I genuinely want you here. I’m not fake, Arden. I always say what I think, and I never do anything that I don’t want to do. The sooner we get that straight, the better off we’ll be,” he said and flashed me that crooked little smile. I am so screwed!
After we finished off a bottle of wine, we decided to go sit out on his tiny balcony and watch the people in the street below. I think we both had a good little buzz going.
“At ten o’clock, if you look over there, you will see an awesome fireworks display,” he said, pointing out into the night sky.
“What’s so special about ten o’clock? Why not midnight?”
“I don’t know. I just know it happens at ten o’clock.” He smiled at me.
“Do you always bring girls out on your balcony to watch the fireworks? Is that your thing?” What in the hell am I saying? Shut up! I silently screamed at the crazy person in my head.
He laughed. “No! I mean, it’s my thing, as in mine alone, but no, I don’t bring girls out here to watch the fireworks.” He laughed again. I started to tell myself, He has to think I’m an idiot, but that thought left my mind when he grabbed my hand and laced his fingers through mine. “So, what are you doing here? I mean, what did you do with yourself after you graduated?” he asked. My heart was racing. I could barely breathe. What was I doing here? Was that what he had asked me?
I could barely think with him holding my hand, much less concentrate on answering him. This is ridiculous. He’s just a guy. That’s all. I’ve been around guys. Why I was getting so nervous around this one was beyond me.
After a few awkward seconds, I finally answered him. “I’m still in med school, and I haven’t taken a break since I started as a freshman in college. With all the extra credits I took over the last eight years, I was actually able to work in a summer break this year. Actually, my advisor suggested it. I will go back and do a few weeks of research before the fall semester, but I do think a break was exactly what I needed. Since Kenedy was here, it seemed like the perfect opportunity.”
“What kind of doctor are you going to be?”
“A surgeon. Right now, I’m just thinking general surgery, but I’m really interested in neurosurgery too.” He looked kind of blank. “What about you?”
“Me? Well, I don’t know. Maybe I’m just here to get the hell out of LA for a while. Or maybe I’m just here to piss off my dad.” He let go of my hand and folded his arms across his chest. “I don’t really know. The opportunity presented itself, and I took it.”
“So, you aren’t going to college when this is over? Are you only here modeling? Or are you taking any college classes?” I knew Kenedy had made such a huge deal of getting to study abroad while following her dream of modeling, but I suspected she was not taking her academics that seriously.
“I took some classes the first two years I was here, but I’m not taking any right now. I don’t know about going to school later. I was offered baseball scholarships from three SEC schools, but I’m sick of living my life for my dad. I love him and all, and I appreciate everything he does for me and the opportunities that he gives me, but I just don’t want his life. He was gone all the time. My mom was always following him around the country, and that’s no way to have a normal life. That’s all I want — a normal life.”
“A normal life?” I couldn’t help but laugh. “You call this a normal life? Most kids dream their whole lives of playing baseball for a college team or going to study abroad. This, my dear, is not a normal life.”
“I guess you’re right.” He laughed. “I guess you’re right.” And he put his arm around my waist.
My whole body stiffened. My stomach was doing somersaults, and I had goose bumps on my arms. He was being a little touchy-feely. Not in a perverted kind of way, but in a cute, flirtatious kind of way. I didn’t know what he was doing, and I didn’t think he did either. Maybe it was the wine. Hell, maybe I needed more wine. I slipped out of his arm and went back to the kitchen for a refill.
I heard him behind me, and when I turned around to see what he was doing, he took the glass out of my hand and placed it on the counter. He put his right hand on the small of my back, and pulled me closer to him, looking into my eyes. I wasn’t sure what he was doing at first. Then he leaned down and gave me a soft, sweet kiss. It took me a whole second to process this, but I don’t think he noticed, because he just pulled me closer and deepened his kiss. I was definitely in shock. My legs felt like they might fail me, and I wasn’t sure I had breathed at all since he first touched me. My head just kept repeating over and over, Slayde Price is kissing me!
After what was without doubt the most perfect kiss of my life, I looked down and shyly said, “Good night.” And went off to bed. The thought of that kiss kept butterflies in my stomach all night. Good thing I drank all that wine; the butterflies eventually got tipsy and passed out too.
*****
I woke the next morning to the smell of something cooking. I was starving, and the smell of bacon and something buttery and sweet made my mouth water. I jumped out of bed, threw on some shorts, and went out to find Slayde cooking. “What in the world are you doing?” I asked him.
He looked up with the most innocent smile. “Cooking banana pancakes. Aren’t they your favorite? I hope I didn’t wake you.”
OK, that creeped me out a little. How did he know banana pancakes were my favorite? My own mother didn’t pay enough attention to me to know that. I mean, really, it was kind of weird. “No, you didn’t wake me, but how did you know that banana pancakes were my favorite?” I sat down to a huge plate of pancakes, which I wouldn’t be able to eat in a week’s time, much less in one sitting. But they sure did smell good.
“You told me.”
“When? Last night?” I must have drunk more than I thought. What else did I tell him?
“No, not last night. One night at my parents’ house. Remember, we were all in the pool late one night, talking about all kinds of random stuff, and you said banana pancakes were your favorite food. So when I woke up and decided to cook, I thought I’d make you banana pancakes.” He smiled again.
I couldn’t believe he remembered that night, or me being there. Much less what my favorite food was. “That’s one heck of a memory. I don’t remember telling you that. So what was Kenedy’s favorite food? I k
now she used to stay over at your parents’ a bunch. What did you cook for her?” Did I really just compare myself to a long-time girlfriend?
“I have no idea.” He shrugged his shoulders, looked away, and started cleaning a pan. “I don’t recall ever cooking for her.” He looked back at me as I stuffed a huge mouthful of pancakes in my mouth. “Did she ever say I cooked for her? I don’t know — maybe I did.” He looked back down at his dishes.
I took a gulp of orange juice to wash down that bite of pancakes. They were actually really good. I was impressed.
“I don’t know. You know Kenedy. She loves to run her mouth. She told me plenty of things you did for her,” I said with raised eyebrows, “but I don’t recall cooking being one of them.” Just then, I realized what he must have been thinking, because his face was red. I knew he had had sex with my sister, and now he knew that I knew. I started blushing too. Little Miss Virginity over here, picking on the sinners. I had to change the subject. “So, what are you doing today?”
“I got a callback from yesterday. So I’ll be doing that for a few hours, and then I don’t know. What about you?”
“I’m not sure yet. I was thinking about looking around on the Internet for things to do.”
“Well, you have a good day and I’ll be back soon. If you feel like hanging out, I’m sure I can give you some suggestions.” And with a wink, he was out the door.
I shook my head at myself for letting him make me so nervous. That kiss last night was amazing, but surely he’d had too much to drink. That’s all that was.
*****
I’d only been in Paris a few days, but I already needed to do laundry. Staying with a hot guy was keeping my wardrobe in rotation. It wasn’t like I could let him see me in the same pajamas twice.
I was getting ready to go find a Laundromat when Slayde came in. “Where are you going?”
“To do laundry,” I said with an exaggerated frown.
“You want some company?”
Absolutely, if it’s you! “You want to do laundry?” I asked, trying to play it cool.
He nodded. “I could use some clean clothes too. Give me a minute and I’ll come with you.”
As we headed out the door, he grabbed my bag. “I got it,” I said, but he ignored me and took it anyway.
We had been walking down the street a few minutes when I finally asked, “Where are we going?”
He stopped and looked at me. “I was following you.”
Was he serious? I stared at him. He was serious. I giggled. “How would I know where to go? I just got here. Have you not washed clothes since you got here four years ago?”
He looked away, and I thought he looked a little embarrassed. “Actually, no. I have someone pick them up once a week and bring them back.”
“You know you’re a freak, don’t you?” I couldn’t help but find it a little amusing. Of course he didn’t wash his own underwear.
“Hey, that’s not very nice.” He pretended to be angry. He squinted, and his lips drew into a tight, forced scowl, but the sides of his mouth curled up, and I wound up getting that little half grin I loved so much. Slayde asked a woman walking past us, and she gave us directions to a Laundromat.
“Dammit,” he said as he threw our bags onto a table.
“What?”
“I forgot detergent.”
I pointed at the wall. “Lucky for you, they were counting on that.”
He smiled at me. “Lucky me.” He started to hand me my laundry bag but then stopped and looked at it funny. “Whose bag is that?”
“Mine. Why?”
He pointed to the monogrammed initials on the front. “What does the E stand for?”
“Emily.”
“Your first name is really Emily?”
“Yeah, why?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I just didn’t know, that’s all.” He looked back up at me. “You don’t look like an Emily.”
I just laughed and threw all of my clothes into a washer.
“And Slayde’s not my first name. I’m named after my father, so I prefer to go by my middle name.”
After we got our laundry started, we walked across the street and grabbed a coffee. Then we went back to wait on our clothes.
“How do people do this all the time?”
“What? Laundry?” I asked, trying not to laugh.
“Yes.”
“Nobody made you come,” I said.
“No, I’m fine since you’re here, but I’d hate doing this alone. I’d be bored.” He pointed at some guy in the corner, reading a paper.
“Oh you get used to it. We do it in shifts at school. Or we make a study group out of it.”
He hopped up on a dryer to sit. “So, what happened to you?”
“What do you mean? Nothing that I know of.”
“I mean, you just left school a year early.” Had Slayde Price noticed I was gone? “I thought you’d switched schools or something, maybe gone to school with all the other smart kids, but your sister said you graduated early. Why? Didn’t you like high school?”
It would be hard for someone like him to imagine missing out on high school, but I hadn’t been in the Slayde Price cool-kid club. “Well, I wanted to get on with life, you know.”
“Not really. Tell me.”
I hopped up on the dryer next to him and sat cross-legged. “Growing up, I had to take care of both Gia and Kenedy. Which meant getting them fed, getting the homework done, doing the laundry, and making sure they actually got up and went to school. Bottom line, it sucked. I loved them, but I resented them too. It wasn’t their fault any more than it was mine, but I still resented them for it. I just wanted out of there.”
“Don’t you have another sister?” he asked. “I think I met her once, but she didn’t live there.”
“Yeah, Isabelle. She lives with her father. She got lucky, I guess. She only visited when she had to, and I can’t say I blamed her.”
“OK, I don’t know how to say this without sounding nosy or tacky, but you all have different dads?”
I was a little embarrassed, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it. So I answered him, but I didn’t look him in the eyes; I stared at the washer. “The only father I remember is Isabelle’s. His name is Garrett Chandler, and he is some hotshot attorney in Los Angeles, and he didn’t want her around us. She only visited on weekends once every few months.
“Isabelle is my favorite sister, for sure, probably because she has had little to no influence from our mother. Her father must have met Mom in passing, because I don’t remember ever seeing them together. As soon as Isabelle was born, he got custody of her and only allowed her to see us when he had to. He said that there was no supervision at our house, and he was right. He didn’t have much patience for any of my other sisters, but he always let me visit. I would go stay with them at least once a month and sometimes go on family vacations with them.
“And that’s it. Mom had a boyfriend for a while, but he wasn’t any of our fathers. None of us know anything about any of them except Garrett, and if we ever asked, Mom just said, ‘You obviously don’t need him.’ But it feels like I obviously don’t need her either.”
He seemed to handle and process all that information surprisingly well. “You just left and never looked back?”
“I really didn’t plan on leaving and never going back, but Kenedy and Gia can be extremely hard to deal with. They gave me hell, and I stayed stressed out worrying about them. So when I left that house, I felt like a free woman. I just didn’t want to go back there.
“When my friends went home for the weekends or holidays, they enjoyed being pampered by parents who missed them, and had all their laundry clean when they came back because their moms had taken care of it. Not me. I went home at first thinking I’d be glad to see my family, but it was like walking in to work. Usually Mom wasn’t there and hadn’t been there in days. Sometimes the housekeeper would have come, so I wouldn’t have a huge mess to clean up, but no one co
oked for me or did my laundry or even sat down and asked me how school was going. Some weekends Mom didn’t even call, much less stop by the house and see me. Finally I just stopped going home unless I had to. Which meant holidays only.”
“Gosh, I knew your mom was never there when I was, but I thought that was just a coincidence. I didn’t know you had all that responsibility dumped on you. That really sucks.”
I didn’t want his pity. I faked a smile. “It all turned out fine. I love school. I love my friends. I never go home.”
“Tell me about your friends.”
“You must be really bored,” I joked, but when he didn’t smile, I said, “Well, Milly, that’s my best friend and roommate, she’s in med school too. She’s a few years older than me, but she’s so much fun. She’s from Texas, and she and I have lived together for years. We have pretty much all the same classes. We’re inseparable. She’s more family than my actual family.”
“So you left high school and just went off to college to party it up?”
“No. I mean, we have fun, but we have to study a lot.”
“Why didn’t Milly come to Paris with you?”
“Oh, she had to retake a class. She struggles a little, but it is really hard.”
“So, all you do is study? No boyfriend?”
I could feel myself blushing. “I don’t have time for a boyfriend. Not now, anyway.”
“Well, that’s good to know.” He got off the dryer and started switching his clothes over.
I wasn’t sure what he meant by that. I didn’t say anything and just started helping with the load of clothes. Once we had it all in the dryer, I asked, “What about your family?”
He shot me a sly smile and raised his eyebrows. “You mean Brady?”
I rolled my eyes. “No thanks. I know what he’s doing.”
“Oh, you still talk to him?”
“No, but I can only imagine. And I really don’t care.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Uh, yes. We’ve been broken up for years. I don’t care what he does. What about you?”