And then she’d surprised the hell out of me by randomly sharing a love of 80’s and 90’s pop culture. So not what I would have expected from Briarwood’s beloved athlete with the heart of gold. But then, nothing about Juliette had been what I’d expected.
I gestured for her to enter the room before me.
She walked in and then stopped short. “It’s so…clean.”
I laughed. Hell, I’d laughed more since meeting her than I could remember laughing over the last year. It wasn’t that she was so crazy hysterical, just that she constantly caught me by surprise. She never said what I would expect her to and everything she said was bizarrely genuine. Unlike most people I’d known, Juliette was insanely honest.
Which, conversely, made her something of an enigma. It also made two things clear. I no longer had any trouble understanding why she was so beloved. It was hard not to love someone so genuine and kind. But it also made the fact that she was hiding her failing grades an even bigger mystery.
I mean, I got it. I did. Or at least I thought I had before I’d gotten to know her. At first glance it was easy to assume that she didn’t want people knowing because she was a lemming who cared way too much about popular opinion. But now I knew better. I knew her better. I no longer believed she cared so much what everyone thought. I knew she worried about her reputation and about the team’s morale, but that wasn’t the whole story. It wasn’t about what everyone else thought, it was about what she thought. And what she thought was clear, she’d told me herself.
She thought she was stupid.
I’d gotten off the phone with her that night so ready to prove her wrong. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been so motivated. I’d spent the rest of the weekend brainstorming and coming up with ways to help her learn.
She wasn’t stupid. Of course she wasn’t. She just had to get out of her own way. Whether it actually turned out to be a physical thing or just a mental hang-up, she had a hard time learning through traditional means. But I knew without a doubt that she could learn, it was just a matter of getting through to her in a way she could easily grasp.
For now, though, I was stuck watching her study my room and trying not to wonder what she saw. I mean, I knew what she saw, and I knew what she meant by “clean.” For a teenager—or hell, for anyone, I guess—my room was pretty bare.
“Seriously,” she said, turning around to take in the bed, the bookshelf-sans-knicknacks and the stack of vinyl in the corner. “Where is everything else? Didn’t you finish unpacking?”
She looked so serious. Concerned even. I half expected her to offer to come over and help me unpack.
“I finished moving in before school started,” I told her. Before she could say anything about how there were no pictures up, no posters on the wall, I kept talking. “I guess I’m just a minimalist.”
She made a sound that I assumed meant she agreed with me. “My mom wishes I was a minimalist like this,” she muttered before spinning around once more to face me. “Can I look through them?” She gestured toward the records with an eager look.
“Yeah, of course.”
She was already kneeling in front of the stack, sorting through them with a gentle reverence that warmed my heart. I knew she didn’t collect records—she’d told me on the phone—but she had a surprisingly well-rounded taste in music and I heard her murmuring in appreciation every few albums.
I hovered over her awkwardly. I wasn’t totally inexperienced—I used to hang out with girls back before I realized that my family was far too transient for that kind of thing. I’d had girlfriends and hookups. Girls who’d been in my room countless times.
So I wasn’t entirely sure why this felt so tense.
She turned to face me, still kneeling on the ground. “Are you in a band?”
The question surprised a laugh out of me. “Me? In a band?” I shook my head. “No.”
She drew her brows together in question. “Why not?”
Seriously? I looked around as if the answer was obvious by the lack of people in this room other than us. “Having a band usually means having friends.”
“So?”
I stared at her for a moment. Yeah, she was totally serious. “So,” I said slowly. “I’m not exactly Mr. Popular, now am I?”
She rolled her eyes. “You could be if you wanted.”
I let out a snort that was part amusement, part disbelief. She made it sound so easy, and for someone like her, maybe it was.
She gave me a decidedly superior look as she sat back on her heels. “It would help if you stopped glaring at everyone all the time.”
“I don’t glare,” I said.
She started to laugh and the sound was…amazing.
Crap, I really needed to kill this crush before it went any further.
“You’re glaring right now,” she said, pointing at my face. “You literally just glared as you said ‘I don’t glare.’” Her low-voiced impersonation of me had me grinning despite my best efforts to not let this chick get to me.
I had to stop laughing at her stupid impersonations and stop marveling at the sound of her laughter, and for the love of God, stop staring at her lips when she smiled like that. Like we were in on some private joke. Like we were friends and maybe even something more.
Oh hell. I had to get away from this girl. I took a few hurried steps back. Maybe if I couldn’t smell her shampoo I could get a little emotional distance here.
“Seriously,” she said, shifting so she was sitting on the floor facing me. “People would love you if you just—”
“I don’t want people to love me,” I said too quickly. Her words had pricked at an old wound and I found myself lashing out. “I’m not like you. I don’t need people to like me to be happy.”
I watched her face fall and her eyes grow soft with hurt and sadness and…hell, I hated myself in that moment. I didn’t mean it like that. I opened my mouth to say that but couldn’t. Because maybe I had meant it exactly like that.
Something angry and familiar had me glaring at her. If there was any debate before, I was definitely glaring now and I knew it. People would love you if… She’d meant well. I knew that. But something about those words rubbed me the wrong way.
I didn’t want to make people love me. What good would that do? It would just suck that much more when they left. When I left. Whichever. People like Juliette couldn’t understand that being liked—being loved—it was a double-edged sword.
She frowned up at me, and I tried to ignore the mega-dose of guilt that welled up in the face of those puppy dog eyes she was giving me. Man, I was all over the place. Angry and guilty and wanting to kiss her so badly it scared the crap out of me.
Her eyes were still pleading with me to take it back. “I don’t need people to like me.”
I stared at her for a moment, not letting myself look away from the sad look she was giving me. It was a look that loudly and clearly asked that I back her up on that. She wanted me to say that she was right.
And maybe she was. Hell if I knew. It wasn’t like I knew her all that well. I was her tutor, that was all. We’d had a couple nice conversations, that was it. Who was I to say what she needed?
No one. I was no one to her. So I shrugged. “You’re right,” I said. “Forget I said anything. I don’t know you well enough to say something like that.”
She winced slightly and I had a feeling that wasn’t what she’d wanted to hear. But then, I had no idea how to talk to someone like Juliette. Someone so normal, whose life was so easy and perfect.
Except that it wasn’t, a little voice nagged. It might have seemed that way—and the rest of the school probably believed that. But that didn’t make it true. This girl was struggling with her own issues, just like everyone else.
That thought helped me get over the last of my weird angst—the old crap that still came up no matter how much I told myself I was over it. My dad leaving. My mom’s boyfriends coming and going. The constant stream of new schools, new friends
, saying goodbye.
I was over it. All of it. Until some happy, well-rounded, basketball star came into my life and started flipping through my vinyl like she belonged here. Like she was my friend. Like she was a real part of my life and my world. I turned away. “You ready to get back to work?”
The abrupt change of topic had her coming to stand. “Yeah, sure.” But that easy confidence she’d had before had vanished. That comfortable, cozy feeling when she’d first walked in had been replaced with a heavy silence. A tension that was palpable.
I’d done this. Alienating people was kind of my specialty, I guess.
I moved to the desk, where an outline of our study program was stored. Trust me, I was more surprised than anyone by how seriously I was taking this tutoring assignment. But now I was invested in Juliette’s success, and I wasn’t about to overthink why that was. Not now, at least, when she was here in my room and waiting for me to speak. “I figure today we’ll start with algebra and then—”
“Wait.”
I turned around at the sound of her voice. She sounded oddly serious and when I faced her she wasn’t wearing her typical smile and her sudden somber attitude made me nervous. “What’s wrong?”
She pulled her lips to the side in a look of concentration. Her brows were drawn together in a V and she was studying me like I was a lab experiment of some sort.
I shifted under that stare. “Jules?”
That seemed to snap her out of it. Some sort of decision had been made in that head of hers. “No,” she said suddenly and firmly.
“No,” I repeated. And then, “No, what? No, you don’t want to start with algebra or—”
“No, I don’t want to get back to work.” Her serious expression said that she wanted to talk. She wasn’t going to let me just shove that little altercation under the rug and go on like nothing had happened.
Of course she wouldn’t. The girl was too honest for her own good—about most things, at least. But her sudden and unusual intensity made me uncomfortable. I didn’t like the way she was looking at me, like she could see straight through me. Like I was so incredibly transparent. So rather than man up, I made a joke. “I see how it is. One A and now you don’t need to work anymore, huh?”
She ignored my lame attempt at a joke. Rightfully so, it didn’t really merit a comeback.
“I know what you must think of me,” she said.
I arched my brows. “If you’re going to say something about how I think you’re stupid, I am not going to have that conversation again. I mean it. You just see the world in a different way. That’s a good thing. You have a unique mind and that—”
“You think I’m a poser,” she said.
I blinked at her a few times as I digested what she’d said, noticing the way her cheeks turned pink at the statement. “A…what?”
She shrugged. “You think I’m fake, right? You think I’m a liar and that I only care about what people think and—”
“Whoa, whoa,” I interrupted. Her words were stirring up a mix of emotions that I couldn’t really name. Guilt, maybe, because I had thought that about her at one time, but I’d judged too harshly and too quickly. “I didn’t say that. In fact, I can safely say I’ve never once used the word poser.”
She let out a short, humorless laugh before looking down at the ground. “Look, I never asked you to cover for me that day in the parking lot. And I appreciate it but I—”
“I know,” I said. And I did. We’d never really talked about that fun little incident with the asshat Matthew and her other friends. But there was nothing to say. I didn’t need a thank you or an explanation because what I’d done? Telling everyone that she was my tutor? That had been all me. I just hadn’t wanted to see her so miserable, which she had clearly been. She’d looked scared and the moment I saw the fear in her eyes I knew I had to do something. I hadn’t meant to come to her rescue, and trust me, I was so not the knight in shining armor sort of guy. But that day I’d acted without thinking, and now it was clear she needed to know why.
“Look,” I said. “I don’t think you’re a poser or whatever. I don’t think you’re fake. I get that you have a reputation to protect and a team that’s counting on you. I get it, okay?”
She looked up at me through those thick eyelashes, her gaze searching mine as if to see if I was telling the truth. When she bit her lip, it nearly killed me.
I was so close to her. We were all alone in my room. It would have been so easy to kiss her.
And I wanted to. I wanted to kiss her more than I could remember ever wanting anything. I wanted it so badly I was seriously tempted to push reason to the side and say screw the consequences.
“I like Matthew.”
Her words were a tidal wave of cold water in my face. She liked Matthew? Desire was replaced by jealousy so quickly my head was spinning. It was the kind of jealousy that was so intense it was physical.
She closed her eyes and shook her head quickly. “He’s normally a nice guy and we’re friends and all, but he was acting like a prick that day in the parking lot.” She opened her eyes and her gaze met mine once more. “I hated the way he was treating you.”
Oh hell. She looked so freakin’ sincere. So sweet. Her eyes were soft and genuine and…did that mean she didn’t like Matthew as more than a friend?
Somehow that seemed more important than anything else. I couldn’t have stopped myself from asking her if I’d wanted to. It was useless to even try. “Do you like Matthew?”
She knew what I meant and I was glad she didn’t try to play dumb. She shook her head quickly, her cheeks turning even pinker as she pressed her lips together. Her eyes were searching mine, her hands clasping and unclasping in front of her.
She was nervous.
Hell, I was nervous. I never got nervous, but this was unlike anything I’d ever known. The atmosphere in the room had become too thick. Too heavy. The words between us seemed to linger in the air, weighing us down. But the unspoken words were even heavier. There were questions I wanted to ask. Namely, a follow up to that question about liking Matthew. Do you like me?
And there were questions in her eyes too. Questions and uncertainty and…desire.
I don’t know who moved first, but a second later I had her in my arms. I pulled her close until she was pressed against me, our bodies touching from chest to toe. Both of our breathing was labored, like we’d come together after running a marathon together.
I hesitated for just a second, my head hovering over hers as I gave her a moment, a chance to pull away.
But she didn’t, and I couldn’t wait any longer. When I kissed her, I forgot that this was a mistake. I forgot my own name. I lost track of everything except for how amazing it felt to finally taste those soft lips and feel her breath on my skin.
We sank into the kiss, tentative at first as we explored one another. I slipped my hands into her still-damp hair, cradling the back of her head so I could taste her fully.
She gripped my T-shirt, holding me close just like I was holding onto her and I groaned against her lips as I realized that she felt it too, this desperate need to be closer.
Just like that, the kiss turned from slow and gentle to needy and frantic. She was on her toes, eagerly meeting me kiss for kiss. I moved my hands down so I could wrap my arms around her waist and felt her loop her arms around my neck so there was no space between us. No air. Just this kiss.
I lost control. My brain switched off as the senses overwhelmed me—the taste of her lips, the feel of her tongue sliding against mine. The scent of her surrounding me, the feel of her skin under my hands when I slid them under the hem of her shirt to stroke her back, her waist. The softness of her crushed against me from head to toe, like we’d been made to fit together.
I don’t know how long we would have gone on like that if Gina hadn’t shouted down to me from upstairs, asking when we could eat.
I stilled at the sound of her voice—coming back to reality slowly and warily.
I
didn’t want to come back from that dream world. I took a small step away and used my hands at her waist to ease her back.
She was blinking up at me, clearly dazed, those lush lips swollen and red from kissing.
God, she was breathtaking.
And she was my student…sort of. Also, she was Juliette Helms—beloved member of Briarwood High’s popular crowd and so far out of my league we might as well have been standing in two different dimensions.
She was not for me. I told myself that as I dropped my hands to my sides. I didn’t want to think who she was for. No one at Briarwood deserved her. Definitely not some asswipe like Matthew, and definitely not some loner loser who wouldn’t be able to hang with her friends and who’d be out of town and out of her life at the first opportunity.
Hell, knowing my mom, we might be out of Briarwood by the summer. I might not even last until senior year.
All of these were excellent reasons to walk away right now. To shut her out and keep this strictly business.
But then she did the unexpected. She smiled at me as she touched her lips with her fingers. “That was so great.”
I stared at her, trying to figure out how to tell her that it was a mistake. That it should never have happened.
She dropped her hand but her excitement never faltered, nor did that smile. That sweet, beautiful, genuine smile.
I would run across shards of glass barefoot for miles just to see that smile.
And then she said it. “That was my first kiss.”
I stared at her for so long that epic smile started to fade. I felt kind of bad about that but that was nothing to how badly I felt for kissing her. “That…” I cleared my throat, inexplicably uncomfortable with this conversation since we’d just made out. “That was your first kiss, like...with someone you hardly know?”
The last of her smile trembled and fell.
And I was officially an ass.
“No,” she said as she dropped her gaze to her backpack which she’d dropped on my bed. “The first one. Period.”
Yeah, I was totally going to hell.
Her gaze shot up to mine once more and her obvious irritation was a bit of a relief, to be honest. “What did you mean ‘someone I hardly know?’” she asked. “I know you.”
The Perfect League Page 6