by Roe, Amy
Every word he’s said in the past few seconds has left me breathless. I stare at him with my mouth hanging open in disbelief. I did not think that was going to be his response.
I lean forward, bracing myself with my hands on his chest, and I kiss him and kiss him and kiss him. After what seems like an hour straight of making out, I notice that he likes touching my butt a whole lot.
“You’re a butt guy, aren’t you?”
He shrugs. “I appreciate every part of your body equally.”
“No, you’re definitely a butt guy. That’s always where your hands end up when you touch me.”
I’m sick of waiting for Brady to make a move. I arch my back and slide my hand down his abs. I make it to his waistband before he stops me.
He slowly sits up, taking me with him. “We’d better go downstairs and get some homework done before my parents come home and catch us up here.”
I wrap my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck, refusing to let go when he stands.
“Brady, please,” I whimper.
He breathes out a heavy sigh. “You scare me, Reese.”
“I scare you?” I ask, bewildered.
“Yes, I don’t know how to handle you.” He buries his face in my neck. “What you want and what you can handle are two different things right now.”
I’m completely speechless. I don’t understand.
“Babe, it’s just”—with me still wrapped around him, he leaves his bedroom and carries me down the stairs—“we have a lot of homework.”
In an effort to lighten the mood, he smacks my butt, and I scream. I’m so very frustrated right now.
For three hours, we do our homework. Every now and then, we take breaks to get a snack and make out.
When our homework is finished and I’ve packed my books away, he walks me out to my car. Since I arrived earlier, I haven’t even thought of the chaos going on at home. Brady has a way of making me forget the bullshit.
Just before I leave, Brady grabs my shoulders and looks me straight in the eyes. “Just so you know, you do something for me that nobody else does.” He looks down at the bulge in his pants.
My jaw drops, and I laugh, embarrassed. “Oh my God! I’m so sorry! I didn’t even do anything!”
“You walked, and when you walk, your ass looks hot. I’ll have you know that I’ve never had a spontaneous hard-on in my life.” He hangs his head, shaking it.
I place my hands on each side of his face and kiss him.
This morning, I feel confident and braver than I ever have. I’m wearing a black skirt that I bought when my mom took me shopping for school. I swore that I’d never wear it. I pair it with a sleeveless white crocheted shirt and a pair of black flats. I add diamond earrings and head downstairs.
My parents are sitting at the table across from each other. They seem fine—at least as fine as they are any other day.
“Good morning,” they say at the same time.
“Good morning.” I rummage through my bag that I dropped on the table when I got home last night. “Can you sign this, please?” I toss a permission slip on the table between them.
Dad looks at it and then at me. He opens his mouth to say something, but then he closes it when he notices what I’m wearing. He looks me over, and I wonder if he’s going to tell me that the skirt is too short.
“You look very nice. What’s the occasion?” he finally says.
“No occasion.”
Mom hands me the signed permission slip, and I shove it into my bag.
“Okay.” Dad appears anxious as if he has something more to say, so I wait. “Your mom and I are going out of town tonight to that B and B in Green Valley. You’ll be okay?”
“Yeah, I’m staying in tonight.” I don’t really know that for sure, but I say it, so they won’t worry about me. “Have fun, kids. I have to run.” I head out the back door, and I hope like hell that they do have fun and that whatever mess they had going on last night is over with.
“Stop pulling at it, Reese! You look hot!” Chelsea scolds me.
As soon as we get to school, I’m fidgeting with the skirt. “I’m gonna puke. I want to go home and change.”
“No, you don’t. Just walk beside me and stop with that nonsense.”
“Okay. Okay, I’ve got this.” I smooth out my clothes and take a deep breath.
First hour, I notice that Brady isn’t in his seat. The two girls that spend most of the class fighting for his attention are actually paying attention to the lesson. I sneak my hand down into my bag and check my phone. There’s a text from him.
Babe, woke up late. See you at lunch.
I smile and focus my attention back on the lesson.
I’m excited as I make my way to the lunchroom since it’s the first time I will see Brady today. As I’m waiting near the entrance, the two girls who sit near Brady in bio class approach me. Just as they reach me, Brady pops out from the senior hallway. I return his smile. Apparently, the girls think I’m smiling at them, and they look disgusted. Senior girls are such bitches. I roll my eyes at them and then focus on Brady.
They stop just long enough to insult me.
The one who sits right next to Brady is the first to speak, “Nice skirt.”
The one who sits next to her adds, “If you’re a nun.”
“Forgive me for liking my skirts longer than my vagina.”
They gasp and glare at me, and just as they are about to say something else, Brady swoops in and plants a kiss on my lips. He wraps his arms around me and grabs two handfuls of my ass.
“Do you know what I love today?”
“No, baby. What?” I lay my head on his chest, looking up at him.
“Your ass in this skirt,” he says to me, looking at the girls.
They huff off as we look at each other, laughing.
“And your mouth.” His fingers trace my lips.
“My mouth, huh?” I lift my chin, inviting him to kiss me.
“Yep. The more confident you get, the dirtier this little mouth gets.”
He kisses my mouth. “I love this mouth.”
Brady goes on ahead of me while I stand in the food line with Chelsea.
As we approach our table, Brady and Connor are having a heated debate about something. Brady’s gaze meets mine, and he stops talking mid-sentence. I sit next to him, and he never takes his eyes off of me.
“You’re so fucking hot,” he whispers before kissing my cheek.
I never imagined I could be so happy. Brady makes me forget all about the nonsense that came before him.
This is going to be the year for me.
I’m sitting downstairs, waiting for Reese to get out of the shower. She’s taking forever. I’m bored, so I decide to go up to her bedroom and snoop around. Maybe I can find something that I don’t already know about her.
Her room is a typical teenage girl’s bedroom. Pink shit is everywhere, and clothes and jewelry are hanging on every piece of furniture. There are a lot of pictures of her, mostly with Kyle or Chelsea, on her corkboard. The bashful girl in the pictures is the same one I met a few months ago. She’s smiling and even laughing in some, but her eyes look different. She’s changed so much.
I walk over to her nightstand and sit on the edge of her bed. I pick up an almost empty bottle of lotion and pop the cap to smell it.
Oh, yeah. That’s her smell.
The smell alone could make me hard without her even touching me. I make a mental note of the brand and the scent. She’ll be getting a gift very soon just to let her know how much I love the way she smells.
A set of dog tags that have Kyle’s name on them lay beside a frame that says Best Friends on it. There’s a photo of her and Chelsea in the frame. Nothing of mine is here. I want something of mine in her room.
All last week in metals class I worked on a charm for Reese. It’s a heart with the word love spelled out on it. I put everything I had into it, and it’s the only thing I’ve made in class that’s worth a s
hit. As a matter a fact, I’m impressed with myself. I don’t want her to take it too serious though so I wasn’t going to give it to her anytime soon. I’ve been carrying it around in my wallet and figured when the time was right I would give it to her. I guess now is as good a time as any. I pull it out my wallet, and I walk over to her desk. I grab a Post-it note, and I jot down a message to her, just to make sure she doesn’t read more into it than I mean.
I LOVE SPENDING TIME WITH YOU, REESE.
I put it on the nightstand and then drop the charm on top of it. I hope it earns a place next to all these things that mean so much to her.
I see her schoolbooks lying on the floor, so I decide to sit down and do her homework for her. She hates math, so I start with that. I’ve done a few of the harder problems, and then I’m bored again.
How long does it take to wash your body?
I contemplate going into the bathroom to see if she needs help, but I promised myself that I wouldn’t do anything to make her have to say no to me. She calls the shots, and she hasn’t called that one.
I look at the other papers lying around, and the title on one of them catches my eye. I pick it up and I’m shocked at what I’m reading.
AM I A VIRGIN?
CHECKLIST
1. FIND A GUY. MATT.
2. FLIRT.
3. MAKE OUT.
4. PURCHASE CONDOMS AND SPERMICIDE.
5. HOTEL ROOM.
6. ???
Okay, this is surely some kind of fucking joke.
Am I a virgin? Well, you are or you aren’t, and she already told me that she was.
Find a guy? Why the fuck does it say Matt? Who the fuck is that?
Condoms and spermicide? I saw those in her purse the night that she had the panic attack.
What the fuck?
Checkmarks are by numbers one through five.
Was this a plan to lose her virginity, and she stopped before she went through with it?
Yeah, that’s obviously what this is. It makes sense. Chelsea said that Reese was about to do something stupid, but she wouldn’t say what. No, if this was a plan to lose it, then why is it labeled, Am I a virgin?
I’m sitting on the floor, leaning against her bed, when she finally walks in.
She looks at me, smiling, her hair wet and sexy. I can’t let that distract me though.
I hold up the paper. “You wanna explain this?”
She presses her eyes closed for a moment. Then, she opens them and walks over before taking the paper from me. She quickly becomes pale as a ghost, and I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t worried about her. But I’m pissed, too.
“Brady…” She drops her hands to her sides, letting the paper drop to the floor. “It’s not what it looks like.”
“It looks like a plan to lose your virginity—except, according to this, you don’t even seem to know if you are a virgin. How is that even possible? It also looks like that I wasn’t even your first choice.” I stand and try to get around her. “I would never in a million years have pegged you for this bullshit, Reese.”
She holds her hands to my chest, not letting me get past her. “You have it all wrong. That’s not it at all. I mean, it’s complicated.”
“Yeah, I’ve noticed you say that a lot. My name isn’t on that paper, Reese. Who’s Matt? And why is he crossed out?” I point to the paper on the ground.
“Don’t leave, Brady.” She sucks in a deep breath, and her expression is one I know too well.
“So, you fuck me over, and you’re the one having the panic attack.”
I stomp out of her bedroom and slam her door. I run down the stairs, but when I make it to the bottom, I come to my senses. I run back up the stairs to her bedroom and press my ear to the door, listening to see if she is really having a panic attack. I don’t hear anything at first, and then I hear a gasp.
Thank you! This was a team effort, and so many people played a part. Thank you!
To my husband, Mike—Thank you for loving me even though I ignore the hell out of you in favor of giving all my attention to these fictional characters. Although it might not seem like it, I love you more than I love them—not much more, but a little more. ☺ You calm me when I worry about what people are going to think of the crazy path that my imagination has taken me down, and that is the only reason I move on to the next story. Your encouragement is what makes me brave enough to publish these books. I love you.
Chadd, Alexis, Brandon, Keely, Avery, Zack, Ella, and Keisha—Thank you for always encouraging me. You certainly have more faith in me than I have in myself. I love you all more than you will ever know.
A special thanks to Alexis, Keely, and Keisha for beta-reading and loving Reese and Brady as much as I do.
To my family and friends who have been so supportive and excited for me—Your support keeps me going. I love you all so very much.
Jovana, thank you for not only editing my story, but for also coaching me all the way. You polished her until she was a beauty. I am so blessed to be able to work with you.
I must have nearly driven you to drink with these covers, Kellie. Sorry—not sorry! They are perfect and true to my story. Thank you.
Trish Springer, the beautiful hand-forged necklace that you gifted me belongs in this story. I love to wear it, and I love seeing it on this cover! Thank you! You are a very talented woman and a wonderful friend.
https://www.facebook.com/FromTheFlames.MetalArt
http://www.forgedfromtheflames.com
A huge thank you to the amazing photographer Forest Worstell for picking a beautiful morning to shoot a picture of the sun just for this cover. It could not have been more perfect. I’m so blessed to have you as a friend.
Thank you, BL Berry, for mentoring me through this insane journey. I would have been lost without you!
Rachael Duncan, you have been so kind and patient with my questions. I’m so glad to have you as a friend. Thank you!
Valerie Douglas of the Indie Author Group, you might have given me the best advice ever. Thank you a million times over.
Jen Beebe, Christina Edwards, Sarah Piechuta, and Gina Grima—You ladies were the first to love these characters. You beta-read, edited, and critiqued the story, making it into what it is today. Thank you so much. You are dear friends, and I love you ladies so much.
Linda Russell, Melissa Oudemans, and Jennifer Gauthier—I’ve saved you three for last because…well, you know! Along with beta and proofreading, you three kept me on task when I would drift off to other stories. You remind me that I can do this and why I do this. And you’ve grounded me throughout this crazy journey. Thank you seems inadequate, but thank you. I’m blessed to have you girls not only helping me, but to also have you in my life every single day. I love you…more!
Love Nouveau
By B.L. Berry
Four Months Earlier
I’m blindsided when the musty throw pillow from the loveseat smacks me in the face. Popping the buds out from my ears, I give my flatmate Robyn a cross look.
“What?”
“Your phone. It’s been ringing nonstop. Answer the damn thing already.”
Oh.
I snatch it off my nightstand and look at the screen, cringing when I see three missed calls from home flashing across the window. It’s just after one in the morning and I’m in the zone writing a term paper on the influence of ancient Greek Architecture in modern America, a requirement for my Art History track. When the call comes through a fourth time, I click the accept button, mildly annoyed at the lack of consideration for the seven hour time difference since technically I should be in bed.
With any luck, someone is dead.
“Ivy! He proposed! I’m getting married!” a voice shrieks into the phone before I can even extend a greeting.
“Who is that?” Robyn asks curtly as I pull the phone away from my ear.
“My sister,” I whisper back.
“You have a sister?”
I roll my eyes and return my focus
to Genevieve on the other end of the line. Yes, I have a sister. No, I don’t talk about her, let alone to her … or anyone else in my family on a regular basis for that matter.
“CJ proposed tonight! I am so excited! I’m getting married!” she squeals again before pausing. “Hello? Ivy? Are you there?”
“Sorry. Yes, I’m here. Congratulations, Gen,” I reply with a heavy sigh and try to hide the annoyance in my voice. “That’s really great. I’m happy for you.” There are no sincere words I can offer her. The purpose of her call wasn’t really to tell me that she’s engaged. She and I both know that this call is to remind me of how superficially amazing and perfect life can be when you fall into line in the Cotter household. Something that I’m simply not willing to do.
“Oh my God! I cannot wait for you to meet him, Ivy! He is absolutely amazing. And last night was so romantic. He took me on a horse-drawn carriage ride through downtown and he slipped the ring into my glass of champagne. It had just started snowing and we were all bundled up under fleece blankets and it was just so, so beautiful! I wish you could have seen it since it will never happen to you …”
I tune her out. I’m not sure when clichés became romantic, but this guy sounds like a winner. My eyes return back to my computer screen and I continue to edit my paper as I toss in an obligatory overzealous “yay” and “mm-hmm” to appease the princess while she motors on with mundane details.
How she can be this far along with wedding plans baffles me. The poor sap just proposed. Oh, who am I kidding? She’s had her wedding planned since she was six years old.
“Anyway, Daddy said we could have the wedding anywhere we wanted, but there is, like, a wait list everywhere for at least two years. Then it turned out that The Drake had a cancellation for this June, so we snatched it up and we’re getting married in six months. Six months! Can you believe it? There is so much to do! You’ll need to find a seamstress in Italy to take your measurements so I can have your maid of honor gown designed, and when you get back you’ll have to plan a bachelorette party for me, but don’t worry, I’ll tell you exactly what I want and can even make a few calls for you, and—”