“Okay. I’m going with the penance theme. You could do the same?” I wanted to help.
“It’s like I hear you talking but you’re not making any sense. Wanna explain that penance thing?”
I popped him on the arm. He wasn’t dumb, but he did seem distracted. Probably some girl. I kinda wished it was Mila, but he never talked about her.
“Seriously, you want me to tell you everything? You gonna ask me to write your paper next?” I said.
He laughed, his eyes glittering. “Nah, Weinstein knows my handwriting.”
I grinned. “Okay, here’s the shortened version but listen good, ‘cause I’m not repeating it.” I cleared my throat. “Crusty old sailor kills the albatross. Oops. Now the ship has bad luck. The other sailors curse him, and tie the nasty bird around his neck—hence the saying ‘albatross around my neck’. Then they all die of thirst. It’s his fault, blah, blah, blah. He suffers and gets so thirsty he bites his arm to drink the blood—yeah, that's gross. He gets a visit from some supernatural beings that scare the bejesus out of him. In the end, he unconsciously blesses some slimy creatures in the ocean, therefore releasing the curse, and the albatross drops from his neck. Bam. He’s paid his dues. Penance is done. Over.”
“Poor dude. Ship happens, I guess,” he said.
I laughed loud enough that Cuba gazed at me, his eyes narrowed in on Sebastian’s hand on my desk. Suck it, I wanted to say. But that was completely juvenile.
Instead, my eyes couldn’t seem to stay off Cuba. Today, he wore Religion jeans and a navy shirt that clung to his chest. And of course, he gazed right back at me, an unreadable expression on his face. I wished I knew what he was thinking. If he really loved Emma or not. If they were planning to get married or get engaged or live together or whatever people did when they’re having a baby. Part of me, the crackbrained side, begged him to tell me I had it all wrong, that all the whispering they did wasn’t them planning a future. But I knew it would be a lie. It’s what he did best.
I dropped my eyes from his. Why was I so fickle about my feelings for him? I hated it.
I glanced up at Sebastian, noticing that his eyes kept darting over to Cuba and Emma too, which was so…
And before I could finish that thought, my phone vibrated on silent with a text.
Weinstein graded papers and Sebastian pretended to write, so I eased it out of my hoodie front pocket.
Dorchester Hotel. Bar. This Friday, 8 PM. Wear a dress.
My mouth dried as I read it over and over, but it didn’t change. I would be doing this.
“Hello, Tiny Dancer, you alive?”
“What now?” I snipped, my nerves frayed.
He twirled his pencil around his fingers. “Did you know we’re trying out Spider as our new guitar player?” He went on to explain that Leo was stepping down to manage the band for a while and focus on his gym.
Well. I hadn’t known that tidbit since Spider had been avoiding me. He ignored me in the halls and ate his lunch in the band room, according to Mila.
Two weeks ago, as soon as I’d walked through the parking lot Monday morning and seen his Range Rover pulling in, I’d gone over to talk, wanting him to know I appreciated his offer of monetary help, but I’d handled it in my own way. I’d also wanted to go off on him for chucking me out in the damn snow. My tires had been slashed. What if I’d frozen to death? Okay, maybe that was a stretch, but what if Cuba hadn’t found me?
When I’d reached his car window on Monday, he hadn’t looked right, eyes closed, head tossed back, his mouth open, sounds coming out I couldn’t hear. Moans, I’d deduce later when I was alone. As I raised my hand to get his attention, I saw the girl that bobbed up and down at his crotch.
Like glue was holding me there, I watched the spectacle until the end. I studied his weird sex face, feeling repulsed yet fascinated by what it told me about him. It wasn’t a voyeur thing, but more of an affirmation. A tiny part of my heart did belong to Spider, and who knows what could have come of it if I hadn’t met Cuba, but to watch him with someone else so blatantly, when he had told me he loved me. It hammered home the fact that he wouldn’t be faithful to me. He wouldn’t. Much like Cuba, he filled his life with empty moments, trying to numb himself or erase some pain I didn’t get.
And his sex face? It didn’t look happy. Not at all. It looked bitter and angry and hard. It reminded me of people in Ratcliffe who’d been there too long.
And then as he came, his eyes had popped open like he’d known I was there the entire time. And he hadn’t cared.
“I think Spider needs a band,” I said to Sebastian.
He arched a brow. “You gonna be a groupie now? Cause I’m taking applications. Oh, wait. Aren’t you dating Spider some?”
I rolled my eyes. “We’re not a couple.”
He mulled that over. “Does Spider know that? He looks pretty intense when he talks about you.”
He looks intense when he comes too, nearly popped out of my mouth, but I squashed it.
“He’s not even speaking to me right now.” My mouth twisted. “So much for being best friends.”
“Ah, forget about him then. Come to the party anyway,” he said. “You know you want to.”
One last hurrah before my audition perhaps. I hadn’t been to any social events all year.
He must have sensed me waffling. “And best of all, you get to hear me sing. You won’t be able to handle all the sparkle I shoot off. I actually recommend you stand back about eight feet.”
I chuckled. He was infectious.
“When is it?”
He grinned and sat up straighter, seeing a victory. “This Friday at The Dorchester, seven to midnight and includes a catered meal. Party of the year, Tiny Dancer.”
My stomach churned and bubbled. The party was during my thing.
The room spun a little, and I gripped the edge of my desk as it all sunk in.
No, no, no.
“Dovey?” he asked, pushing his desk back from me. “Dude, you gonna hurl?”
I jumped up and my books and papers flew around my feet. I didn’t care.
My classmates were going to be at the same hotel I was.
“Dovey?” Cuba said, snapping up too, his eyes lasered in on me, and heaven help me, it made it worse. It shot my freak-out all the way up to subatomic level. He. Would. Be. There.
My stomach clenched, and I flew out the door, down the hall and straight out to the quad where I bent over and gasped in deep breaths.
While I lay under someone in a posh hotel room, my classmates would be downstairs in a ballroom, dancing and celebrating.
I WALKED IN to BA on the day of the dance a wreck although I tried to cover it up with cheetah stilettos and a black leather mini-skirt. I swept my hair up with gold clips on the side, and let my heavy bangs hide my eyes. With a big pair of sunglasses perched on my nose, I went into the building.
On auto-pilot, I strolled to my locker. Cuba was there, but it barely registered. Too much other stuff had taken up residence in my head, pushing everything else out, him included.
He leaned against the wall, watching me. “Hey.”
“Hey,” I nodded, opening my locker. Playing it cool. He’d tried to talk to me after the episode in Lit, but I’d shut him down then. I didn’t want him asking questions.
He sighed. “Listen, we haven’t talked much this week, but…do you want to come to the dance? We’re allowed to ask as many girls as we want.”
Oh, it was like that then. Ask as many girls as you want. Seriously. Why did he care if I was there or not? I didn’t need his weirdness right now.
“Sebastian asked me already.”
He straightened up, eyes flashing. “He did? What about April?”
I stiffened at his tone. “So? He says they aren’t dating.” Not that I cared. “Jealous?”
He fidgeted. “No.”
But it felt like a lie, confusing me. Again.
I turned to go when he said, “You still hate me, don’t yo
u?”
That wasn’t true, but I couldn’t have this conversation right now.
He grabbed my hand and spun me back around.
“What are you doing?”
“Something I should have done when I saw you in the snow,” he said, locking his fingers with mine until we were holding hands.
He pulled me past other students, some who stopped to stare and grin at us, like it was a lover’s spat, but it wasn’t. It was him being complicated and moody. And then it hit me. Was this him chasing me? Like he used to? And didn’t that just send a wake-up call straight to my heart, making me weak.
He stalked into the library, directing me past the empty circulation desk—thank goodness—and into a narrow hallway that led to the study rooms. Most of them were used as isolated detention spots. But other things happened there, too.
He checked one of the rooms to make sure it was empty and guided me in. I let him. Because I was curious. That’s all.
He shut the door, leaning against it. Like I’d try to leave?
“Want to explain yourself?” I said, crossing my arms.
“Is there something going on with you and Sebastian?”
My mouth opened. “Oh, that is rich. You have Emma, and you really are jealous. Catch a clue. I have. We are over.”
“Stop punishing me, Dovey. I want us to—” he stopped.
“What?”
He rubbed his hair, furiously. “I don’t know,” he exclaimed. His voice throbbed with uncertainty, and it made me catch my breath because most days I felt the same way, lost and unsure. I clasped my hand over my chest, protecting what lay there.
He froze. “What’s that?” He stared at my pink skull shirt, and I looked down at it. Had I dropped some syrup from my waffle this morning? Because that was entirely possible.
“Is it syrup?” I dropped my hand, pulling my shirt down at the hem, surveying the fabric.
His entire body softened, and he sauntered over to me, his lids low. “What’s underneath your shirt?”
“Nothing,” I said, catching on.
His heat surrounded me as he closed in, and I guess I could have backed up, but I didn’t, letting him get in my space, letting his scent fill my nose. There’s no denying my body ached for his; it was my heart that held back.
“You’re wearing the necklace I got for you.”
My chest rose up. “I crushed that necklace the day you broke up with me. In the parking lot of Vespucci’s, as a matter of fact. Stomped it until there was nothing left but dust. Dust in the wind, Cuba, dust in the wind.”
“You called me a liar,” he said, “but you’re one, too.” He slipped one hand around my neck and the other underneath my shirt, his warm hand skating up my belly and past my bra to the cleft where my pendant lay. He clasped it in a fist, his eyes searching mine like a man deranged, like a man confused by something he didn’t understand.
And my entire body fluttered for him, and it felt deliciously right to have his hand on me, yet wrong. But why was it wrong I asked myself. My mind clouded, forgetting all the things that separated us. He had me under his spell, the underlying implications of it scaring me.
Why did I want him more than anything, even dance?
His fingers ran up the length of the chain, gently tugging on it until it rested outside my shirt, the glass ball glinting, the little dandelion stalks visible. I glared at them. Traitors.
“You still wear it,” he breathed as if to himself, his fingers twisting it around.
What could I say?
“Don’t break it,” I said, afraid he’d destroy the fragile glass like he had my heart.
He gazed down at me. “I lay awake at night wondering if what you felt for me was real or just because I was your first. That I could have been anyone, and you would have loved them.”
What? My brow wrinkled. If he’d been stringing me along last year, his comment made no sense.
I looked up at him. “It was real. How could you doubt it?”
He got all twitchy and dropped the pendant, his face intense. “Do you still love me? Don’t lie to me, but then, fuck,” he ground his teeth, “don’t tell me the truth either. I don’t know if I can take it.”
My pulse pounded at his broken words. But they made me angry too. “Why are we doing this?”
He paced away from me, his voice escalating. “I’ve tried for a year to ignore you, and I just can’t do it anymore.” He pounded his fist against the desk in the room once…twice.
“Try harder,” I shouted. “You fucked up with me. And I won’t let you do it again. Stop with the games and lies, already.”
And then.
He rushed over to me. “I never lied to you. Not one single time,” he whispered, his eyes crazy with need and sadness and so much emotion that I wanted to...
“Dovey, please believe me.”
I shook my head and pulled away, but his big body followed, backing me up until I had nowhere to go.
“We haven’t kissed in a year,” he growled, eyeing my lips.
I licked them, and he groaned.
He moved in closer until we were nose to nose. “That mouth is mine,” he said, his eyes blazing. Cupping my cheek, he took my mouth hesitantly, almost as if he were afraid I’d run, or perhaps, he was afraid he’d run. His lips feathered over mine gently, his tongue massaging mine, reigniting flames that had never been distinguished to begin with. And heaven help me, our kiss was fire and ice rolled into one. Love and hate, light and dark, our lips made a perfect symmetry.
“I hate you,” I lied when we came up for air.
His eyes darkened. “I like how you hate me, Dovey,” he said in a raw voice, grasping my chin with firmness, dipping his head and owning me, our tongues dueling it out to see who’d come out on top. I nipped at him, and he nipped back, but in a soothing way, as if trying to placate me.
My lips recognized the perfect weight of his, my body arched toward his, remembering home. I let him dominate my lips, taking liberties as his sucked on my upper lip and then my lower one. He took my mouth like he needed it to breathe and heaven knows, I needed his. Nothing had changed. I still craved him, all his edges and sweetness.
I vibrated from that kiss. I spun out of control. I lost all sense of where I was and life became all about being with him. I ran my hands through his thick hair and held on, the pain of the past unraveling, thread by thread.
God, I’d been fooling myself. I still loved him.
A loud clanging bell permeated my consciousness, saying we were late for Lit. And then I heard Mrs. Whitman getting ready for her study hall class in the library.
What was I doing?
I pushed until he rose up, his eyes full of heat.
“The bell,” I said, shifting out of his arms, needing some space to think, but he pulled me back.
“Don’t run, Dovey. Stay here. Talk to me. Let’s figure out—”
There was nothing to say. What could he possibly say to change the fact that he was going to be a father or that I was going to be a call girl? And that is a euphemism.
“Explain Emma,” I said.
He wore a somber look on his face. “Can you trust me when I say there’s nothing between us? I can’t tell you much more because I gave Emma my word I wouldn’t talk about the baby or the circumstances until she was ready.”
“Emma, Emma, Emma. It’s funny to me that you claim to not be any good at relationships, but that is only with me. With her, you’re perfect.”
He lasered in on my pendant. “You still love me.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Your kiss said otherwise,” he said huskily, his eyes examining mine.
“I’m good like that. I fuck well too. It makes all the guys think I love them, even the one I give my virginity to.”
He flinched at my words, and I wanted to yank them back. He sighed heavily. “That day on the quad last year…it hurt me to say those awful things to you.”
“Then why do it? Why wall yourself off fr
om me for an entire year?” Unless…
I bit my lip. “Do you blame me for your mother’s death? Is that why we broke up?”
“No.” He swallowed, his throat seeming to bob painfully. “That’s not why we ended. Maybe I’ve led you to think that, by not answering your questions, but I don’t blame you.”
I was so confused.
He continued. “All that fault lies with me. For Cara too. Don’t you see? Time after time, I put my needs in front of others. That night in the car with you, I chose to ignore her calls. She wanted me home, and I didn’t go. And I knew she wasn’t right. I knew she was teetering.” He beat his fists against his leg. “I don’t deserve you.”
Oh.
My voice came out thin and high. “You destroyed us because you don’t think you deserve love?”
He closed his eyes and nodded.
My heart fluttered, and I sagged down in a seat working through the truth, seeing that entire day through different eyes.
This beautiful man had loved me.
“All these months of ignoring me…” I petered off.
He nodded. “On purpose but not why you think. I didn’t use you or lie to you. It’s just…we can’t be together, Dovey.”
My heart seized. “You gave me up? What we had?”
He looked away, his lips set. And that was a yes.
Because that’s the penance he wanted.
I wanted to be comforted by this new knowledge, but I wasn’t, imagining him forever lost in his void of nothingness with other girls, punishing himself. All those years in the future when we’d think of each other and know the other held someone else in their arms.
For him, it would be some floozy he didn’t give a shit about. Emma.
With limbs that felt too heavy to lift, I stood. “I’ve been where you are when I was a kid. Living is the most important thing you can do for those around you. You have to stop wallowing in your self-pity—”
“Stop,” he said. “Don’t hit me with your psychology. It won’t work. I’m done with real relationships. I only disappoint. And hurt.” A muscle ticked in his jaw.
“You drove me home to Ratcliffe when my car didn’t start. You even had my car fixed. You took me to your house when my tires were slashed. You’re still taking care of me. And I see you. I do. You are a good person, and you can’t base your whole life on one mistake, one decision. I know deep inside you, you still want to have hope.” I paused. “Because living without love is a terrible thing.”
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