He thrusts into my hand, and I feel him thicken and pulse in my palm. I slow my strokes and squeeze. He grunts in the back of his throat, and I feel him tense. I put both hands around his thickness and pump one hand near his base and the other at the head, and his eyes lock on mine and refuse to waver, not even blinking, and his mouth is open and he’s gasping, moving only his hips now.
“Des…”
He’s about to say something I can’t lie to or not respond to, so I lift up and kiss him, but then he breaks it and we both watch as he comes. A stripe of white spurts from him and hits my stomach. He thrusts again, and another jet gushes out of him and this one lands hot and wet between my breasts. I keep stroking him, and more seed spurts out of him, dripping onto my skin.
So…much…come.
I like the way it looks against my skin, the wetness of it on me, the fact that I brought it out of him.
He’s shaking, sucking in deep breaths, and I caress his length a few more times with one hand, and feel a few more drips on my belly, and then he flops onto the bed, gasping.
“Jesus, Des.”
“Same thing,” I say, using his own joke on him.
I glance down at my chest and belly, considering the white pool of Adam’s come glistening and cooling on my skin. God, I wish I could stay. I wish he could stay. I want more of him. I don’t want to be closed off and untrusting. I want to tell him things about myself.
I felt him touching my tattoos, and I feel an explanation in my mouth…
But he’s leaving. He’s going back to his Hollywood life, and if I open up now, it’ll only hurt that much more.
So I get up and move into the bathroom. I feel his seed dripping down my body, and I wonder if I should feel ashamed for what I just did, the whole night, and just now. But I don’t. I turn the water on and step in while it’s still scalding.
I rinse him off me.
When I get out of the shower, he’s dressed in dark blue jeans and a black T-shirt. He hands me a clean, folded pair of gym shorts and a T-shirt. “Figure maybe you’d rather wear these home, instead of the dress.”
Saving me the walk of shame, basically. So fucking considerate. Damn him. I take them, and put on my bra and underwear, then the shorts and T-shirt. He even lets me wear his sports sandals instead of my heels. My dress and shoes go in a bag, and he walks me in silence to the elevator, and we ride down to the lobby. Eyes go to me, and then away. If it’s obvious that I spent the night with him, the gazes don’t give it away. I don’t feel shame. I only feel regret that this had to feel like so much more, when it couldn’t ever be more than just one night.
A carriage taxi waits, and Adam hands me up, and sits beside me. He hands a hundred-dollar bill to the driver. “Another one for you if you take just the two of us.”
“Sounds good,” he says, and snaps the reins. “Where to?”
Adam gives him my address, and the horses start to move forward.
The ride is long, and tense. Neither of us is willing to speak freely, especially not in front of the cab driver. We stop at my building, and Adam gets out, hands me down, walks me to my door.
“I’m leaving in a couple hours,” Adam says. “Probably as soon as I can pack.”
“I know.”
Silence.
“Des….listen,” he starts, then lets out a breath. His fingers touch my chin. “You know, there are so many things I want to say right now, but I’m not sure where to even start.”
“This is what it was always going to be, Adam.” I lean in to kiss him, and feel my heart contract, feel it close and go cold. “You’re amazing. Last night was…and this morning…god. I don’t even have words.”
He seems to be fighting his own emotions, hunting for something to say. He touches his lips to mine, but this is a cold and passionless goodbye. “What’s your number?” he asks.
Such a lie. It’s not cold, or passionless. I’m just refusing to feel anything.
I can’t quite look at him. “I don’t have a number. I don’t own a cell phone.”
He seems puzzled by this. “You don’t have a phone?”
I shake my head. “Nope. No point. No one to call. I see Ruthie every day, and she’s…pretty much it. Plus, cell phones are expensive.”
“So how am I supposed to find you?”
I sigh. “God, Adam…”
He lets out a breath and steps back, accepting that I’m pushing him away. Accepting, but angry. “Okay, Des. Fine. I get it.” He steps backward again, hesitating, as if waiting for me to change my mind. I don’t, and he wipes at his face with a hand. “Goodbye, then.” He says this far too casually.
“’Bye, Adam.”
My heart completes the process of calcification as he turns and climbs into the carriage without a backward glance.
Chapter 8
Adam is gone, long gone. It’s for the best. But god, does it hurt—it never stops hurting. I’ve still got a few days left on Mackinac Island and I can’t wait to leave. I just want to get back to Detroit and to school and to the shit life I’m used to.
I don’t cry, because I don’t do that. And except for that stupid panic attack, I haven’t cried in a long, long time. But that doesn’t mean I’m not all sorts of fucked up. I sit on my bed and try not to think, not to remember, not to dwell. I completely fail at this. I’m still on my bed half an hour later, when I remember that it’s Monday, and I have work in…an hour ago.
Shit.
I scramble into my uniform and run pell-mell across town to the office.
When I stumble, sweating, into Phil’s office, he’s surprised to see me. “Des? Ruth stopped by earlier this morning to say you were sick. What are you doing here?”
God bless Ruthie, covering my ass. I wipe at my face. “I—I’m feeling better.”
Phil stares at me for a long moment, clearly sussing out the fact that something is wonky. Eventually he just shrugs. “Whatever. You’re here. Might as well get to work.” He gives me my assignment, and I set out.
I work hard, and when the shift is over, I work an extra hour to cover my tardiness this morning. And then I head to the stables and find Mack, the stable master.
Mack is a short, heavy, late middle-aged guy with a thick beard and gentle brown eyes. He’s hard on stable hands and easy on the horses, but he loves me because I love the animals. “Hey there, Des,” he mumbles, and hands me a manure rake. “Glad you’re here. Far end could use some help.”
“Sounds good.” I exchange the combat boots I work in for a spare pair of muck boots Mack keeps around for me.
I muck out the empty stalls with a will, stopping by the stalls that have horses in them to pet their noses and murmur nonsense to them. I’m delaying. I don’t want to go back to the dorm. I don’t want to talk to Ruthie. I don’t want to have to think about things.
So I work. I scoop horseshit and toss it in the wheelbarrow until it’s full, and then dump it, and start over again. I muck until my hands are blistered and my muscles ache.
More than they already did, that is.
Mack shows up and stands by a stall a few feet away, watching me work. Muriel, a black and white seventeen-hand Clydesdale, sticks her head out into the hall and bumps Mack with her nose. When I finish the stall, Mack takes the wheelbarrow from me. “Get outta here, Des. Gotta leave something for the other hands to do, you know.” He’s gruff and taciturn, but he understands my need to stay busy, and he never questions me.
It’s past sunset when I leave the stable and head back to the dorm. My hands throb, my back aches, and everything else is on fire. Ruthie is on her bed, reading on her Kindle. She sets her Kindle down when I come in, and stares at me expectantly. I ignore her, changing out of my jumpsuit and into a pair of shorts.
Which, belatedly, I realize, are the pair Adam left me. I sniffle, and Ruthie continues to stare at me.
“Des. Out with it already.”
I continue to ignore her as I make a mug of tea. Finally, I sit at the foot of her bed a
nd lean back against the wall. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
She snorts. “No shit. You don’t ever want to talk about anything. But…you gotta give me something. I mean, Jesus. I turn around and Adam fucking Trenton is standing there, asking for you. Add that to how shell-shocked you looked the night before…something happened to you, and he has something to do with it, and then you don’t come home last night, and now you’re here at…nine o’clock the next night, and you look like hell. So I say again, out with it, bitch.”
I pluck at the soft, slinky fabric of Adam’s shorts and hate how much I love that they smell like him. The shirt even more so. “I met Dylan Vale last night.”
Her eyes narrow. “Do not try to distract me. You’ll tell me EVERYTHING about that once you’ve told me why Adam Trenton was here, and why you’re wearing his clothes, and where you were last night.”
The only person on earth who knows I am—or was—a virgin, is Ruthie, and not even she knows the full reason why, although I think she suspects the truth. I shrug. “I was with Adam last night.” I trace my finger up and down my thigh and refuse to look at Ruthie.
“With Adam.” I feel her processing all the possible meanings, and then she sits up, scoots toward me, and takes my face in her hands, forcing me to finally look at her. “And when you say ‘with Adam’ you don’t mean with Adam, do you?”
I just stare at her for a moment, and then pull my face out of her hands. “Maybe,” I mumble.
“You lost your virginity to Adam Trenton?” she all but shrieks, and then claps her hand over her mouth. “Des! What the fuck? Have you lost your mind? What were you thinking? Holy shit. Holy shit. What were you thinking?”
“Ruthie, Jesus Christ woman, calm down.”
She bounces on the bed. “Calm down? Calm down? How the hell do you expect me to calm down? How did this happen? Why did this happen? What was it like? Speak, woman, speak!”
I clear my throat. “If you’ll shut the fuck up for five seconds, I’ll tell you what I can.” I take a deep breath and let it out. “I met him the other day. Friday. He was on a carriage tour, and he saw me, and for reasons I can’t pretend to understand, decided to jump off and come talk to me…” I tell her about the fudge and the ensuing visit to the bar, and the storm, and the church, and making out with him, and the panic attack. When I get to him showing up and taking me to the gala, Ruth freaks out again.
“Wait. Waitwaitwait. He took you to THE PARTY? Like the huge Hollywood event everyone at the hotel has been talking about ALL FUCKING SUMMER? Adam Trenton. The Adam Trenton. Took YOU…to the gala?”
I shrug miserably. “Maybe? Yes. Okay? Yes, he did. I didn’t know it was going to be like that. Jesus, I thought it was going to be…I don’t even know. I don’t KNOW what I was thinking.” I thunk my head back against the wall hard enough that it hurts. “Ow.”
“Holy fucking shit, Des.”
“Yeah.”
“Did they take your picture?”
I laugh sarcastically. “Only about a million times.” I grin at her. “Now do you want to hear about Dylan Vale?”
“You really met Dylan Vale? Like in actual real life? You spoke to him?”
My grin turns evil. “Spoke to him? I slow danced with him.”
Ruth stops breathing and waves her hands at her face. Why, I’m not sure. Eventually she gasps out a question. “Slow…slow danced? With my Dylan?”
I shrug. “Well, from what I could see, he belongs more to Rose Garret. But yeah, that Dylan. It wasn’t a big deal. I mean, he was every bit as hot as you keep telling me, plus maybe even a little hotter. But he was total nerd. He spent the entire dance telling me about the show, how it was HIS idea and how the producers had to beg him to read for the lead role, blah, blah, blah. You would have loved it, but it bored me to tears. I couldn’t care less about that show. But he was pretty fucking cute.” I twist a lock of hair in my fingers and look away. “Nowhere near as hot as Adam, but…still.”
Ruthie can’t quite breathe yet. “Jesus, Des. I’m so jealous I don’t think I can be friends with you for a few minutes.”
She gets up and rummages in our little freezer, pulls out a fifth of Absolut. She sits down on the bed with it, unscrews the cap, and takes a long chug directly from the bottle. She swallows, hisses, and hands it to me. I regard the bottle for a moment. I’m not a hard drinker most of the time, but this is a situation that calls for vodka straight from the bottle. I take a swig and chase it with my tea.
Ruthie takes my mug from me and steals a drink, then hands it back. “Dylan Vale aside—and you know I’m serious now, because Dylan is literally EVERYTHING—what happened, Des?”
I’m dizzy now. “We fucked.”
“Unpack that a little, sweets.”
“I wasn’t going to. I had a panic attack, for god’s sake. But…he’s just incredible, Ruth. I couldn’t not. I tried. But he kissed me, and I lost all sense. He’s sweet, and yet he doesn’t take no for an answer, and that’s just incredible. I mean, when I freaked out, he held me and didn’t ask what happened. He made me tea and held me, and then took me home. No questions asked. And then after the party, I just…I wanted him, Ruthie. I wanted him so bad. And I didn’t want to be a virgin anymore. I didn’t want to be afraid anymore, you know?”
Ruth takes a long time to answer. “Yeah. I do. I really, really do.” She takes another smaller sip and hands me the bottle. “Does he know?”
I shake my head. “I didn’t tell him anything. I mean, how do you explain that? Am I just supposed to stop him in the middle of the most amazing foreplay that’s ever happened and just be like ‘hey, by the way, I’m a virgin?’”
“Yes, Des, you are, if necessary. That’s not something you can just not tell a guy. That’s a big deal.”
I groan and take a drink, and let the warmth spread through me. “Exactly. And I didn’t want it to be a big deal. I just wanted him to want me, and to go with it. I would have chickened out if I’d told him. And he probably wouldn’t have kept going if I’d told him.”
She shrugs and nods at the same time. “I guess I get that. I still think it’s shady as fuck, and I’d be pissed if I was him, but I get it. So are you going to tell him?”
I shake my head. “Nope. He’s long gone.”
She’s sitting beside me, sideways on the bed, our heads against the wall and our feet hanging off the edge of the mattress. She rotates her head to stare at me. “He’s gone? Where’d he go?”
“He was only here for the weekend. He’s back to wherever they’re filming his movie. Some studio in L.A., I’d imagine.”
“So, let me get this straight: you gave your virginity to the Adam Trenton in a one-night stand, and he doesn’t know it?”
I nod. “That’s about right.”
“Are you going to see him again?”
I shake my head. “How? He’ll never come back to Michigan, and even if he did, how would he find me, or me him? And why? It was just a…one-time thing. I know it, he knows it. The end.”
Ruthie, even though she’s clearly starting to feel the vodka, looks at me far too perceptively. “You’re a shitty liar, Des Ross. You like him. You’re upset. You wouldn’t be drinking all my fucking vodka if you weren’t all kinds of messed up over this.”
I’m suddenly too drunk to argue. Thank god for that. At least now I can stop missing Adam for a few minutes.
I take the bottle of vodka and drink even more, until Ruthie snatches it from me and stumbles to the freezer and puts it away. “You’re a lightweight, babe. Gonna be sick if you keep that up.”
Babe. Adam called me babe. That was his thing. ‘Babe’ this and ‘babe’ that. I liked it.
No more babe.
“Don’ call me babe,” I slur.
“He call you that?”
I nod, and I can’t quite figure out why I’m horizontal, or why my pillow smells like Ruthie’s shampoo. Ruthie pats me on the head, and I realize I’m lying across her lap. She holds me, strokes my
hair, and now I’m wondering why her lap is wet. “It’s gonna be okay, Des. You’ll be fine. Hush, sweetie. It’s okay.”
Oh.
I’m crying.
Damn it.
* * *
The ferry ride back to the mainland is the longest boat trip of my life. And it’s followed by the quietest, longest, and most awkward car ride of my life. I’m in the back of a massive black Navigator with Gareth and Ruth, and we’re on our way back downstate. Back to filming. Back to life.
Eventually, after approximately three hours of tense silence, Rose groans in frustration. “Jesus, Adam. What the hell happened to you? You’re acting like somebody shit in your Wheaties.”
I can’t help but laugh. “Wow, Rose. Quite a turn of phrase there.”
“Well, it’s true.”
Gareth has dozed off in the front seat, and Oliver, the driver, is talking to someone via a Bluetooth headset.
I stare out the window for a long moment before answering. “Just…things didn’t go the way I expected.”
“With that girl? What was her name? Des?”
I nod. “Yeah. Des.”
She pats my arm. “Well, it’s not like you have time for that kind of thing right now anyway. But I’m not sure you did that poor girl any favors by putting her in the spotlight like that. She’s gonna get attention, and I’m not sure she’s ready for it.”
“Not much I can do now, is there?”
“No. I guess not.” She leaves it there for a moment, and then snorts. “I mean, if that’s how it is for you, then that’s how it is.”
I turn to stare at her. “What the hell’s that mean?”
She shrugs. “Nothing.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m not in the mood for fucking games, Rose.”
“There’s always something you can do, you big dumbass. You want her, you do something about it.”
“It’s not always that simple.”
She shrugs. “Of course not. When was the last time anything was simple?”
“She made herself pretty clear: One night, and that was it.”
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