Crush: A YA Romance Collection

by Lavinia Leigh

  He laughed at my excited expression. “Hold your hand out,” he directed. Obliging, I held my hand out to him and he connected the bracelet around my wrist. “It’s too dark to see, but on this flat piece right here,” he lifted up a thin flat piece of the silver bracelet that was connected to the chain, “it says ‘you dig me’ in all caps.”

  I couldn’t stop the laughter that came then. It was as if a dam had been broken inside me and all of my laughter had spilled out. I couldn’t stop until his hands wrapped around mine again and calmed me down easily.

  “I thought you’d like that.”

  “I do. It’s perfect,” I replied, leaning in to kiss him gently. “I really do.”

  He kissed me again. “I’m glad you do.” Smiling, he stood up, pulling me up with him. “One more thing we have to do before we leave.”

  “What is it? A horse drawn carriage ride? A walk by the water? A late night picnic under the stars?” I said everything dreamily, earning an eye roll from Damien.

  “Let’s face it, I’m not that romantic. I wanted us to have dinner, but this was kind of spur of the moment planning. I got lucky you were even awake.”

  I leaned my body into his, placing my arms around his shoulders. “So then what are we doing?”

  “This,” Damien answered, wrapping his arms around my waist and beginning to dance.

  “Dancing?” I questioned as I tried to follow his motions so I wouldn’t screw up the dance.

  “Yep,” he answered, nodding his head. “Dancing under the stars, instead of with the stars.”

  I smiled at his joke and rested my head on his shoulder. “You are a pretty romantic man Damien Clark.”

  “I guess,” he mumbled, holding me tightly to his body as we swayed under the stars. We danced in silence, him spinning me and making me laugh, and dipping me slowly. He was a pretty good dancer. After a while I broke the silence asking about his dance skills and he had begrudgingly admitted, “My mom forced me to take cotillion when I was younger.”

  He was light on his feet and the dancing seemed to bring a smile to his face as much as it was bringing one to mine. I had never had this much fun dancing—I didn’t even know how to dance. At school dances I swayed and grinded with Brooke and called that dancing, but after dancing with Damien I wished that I knew how to dance so that I could dance with him more and more.

  I could feel the smile growing on my face as he spun me around again and brought me back into his arms. His mom had been right in one aspect, he could win a woman over with his dancing, the only problem was that you never really had the chance anymore to actually dance with someone. Now there was just grinding, no close partner dancing, and if there was it was the last song at a school dance and that was it.

  When we heard a car horn beep, we stopped dancing and followed the driver’s lead to leave. Damien told me that next time we were here he would bring music for us to dance to. I couldn’t help but smile at the promise that there was going to be a next time and that he had planned this just for us, knowing how much trouble we could get into. Let’s face it though, strict rules just make for sneaky teenagers.

  The ride home was quiet and peaceful. Honestly, I couldn’t remember most of it because I had fallen asleep on the way back and before I knew it we were already home. When we pulled up, Damien woke me and walked me back to his hidden escape route. Damien and I climbed back up into his room, our new status between us keeping a permanent smile on our faces.

  Once we were both inside his room, Damien closed his window and locked it. “Did you have fun tonight?” he asked nervously as he shoved his hands into his pockets, although I was pretty sure he knew the answer.

  “Yeah, I did,” I whispered, stepping toward him. I placed a light kiss on his lips, loving the way they felt against mine. “I should probably get to sleep now.”

  “I know,” he murmured against my lips. He pulled back a bit so I could hear him more clearly. “But say it once though.”

  “Say what?” I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion.

  Damien smiled at my question. “That I’m your boyfriend.”

  A smirk slipped onto my lips, replacing the smile. “Okay, boyfriend.”

  “I like the sound of that, girlfriend,” he responded, pulling my body to his.

  “I do too,” I stated honestly. I tucked my head into the crook of his neck, kissing the bare skin there. I felt Damien shiver gently before he titled his head to the side, allowing me easier access. He groaned quietly as I sucked on his skin, placing fleeting kisses wherever I could.

  Suddenly, Damien scooped my body up, allowing my legs to wrap loosely around his waist as he moved us backwards until we were on his bed. He laid me down easily before placing a passionate kiss onto my lips and sending my body into a frenzy. We let our bodies take over as we gave into the moment of the night. There was nothing wrong with this one night, we needed this; I needed this. Damien was my solace, and my addiction, and I needed both at this very moment.

  That moment was cut short just as his tongue met mine by the growl of an angry voice. “What do you two have to say for yourselves?” the voice asked as we both glanced to Damien’s now open door where the senator was standing in the threshold, watching us make out and maybe going a little further if we had had time to continue. “Well?” she questioned again, arms crossed over her chest. Even in a fluffy robe and pajama bottoms the woman managed to look strict and intimidating.

  “We were fooling around for old time’s sake?” Damien suggested, looking down at me with pain in his eyes knowing that we had been caught, and this wouldn’t end well.

  “Oh really? So that bracelet I found in your bag the other day isn’t the one Jade currently has on her wrist?”

  “You went through my bag?” Damien questioned as he got off of me and helped me off the bed.

  “I was told you had drugs at school, so I went through your bag. The school was mistaken, luckily, or that would have been the third one you were kicked out of, but instead I found a bracelet clearly meant for a young lady. I had hoped you moved on, and Jade I thought you had too. Matt was very convincing, but I know he’s gay, and that you two have been seeing each other.”

  “How could you possibly know that?” I asked. “Matt never would have said anything.”

  “Alyssa writes so much in her diary,” was all the senator said before she turned serious again. “I warned you when I saw the signs of this relationship earlier. If you don’t break this up right now, then you’re going to boarding school in another country, and you’re going to your grandmother,” she said as she scowled at the two of us, her lips pressed together in a tight line. “What will it be?”

  “Jade’s my girlfriend,” Damien responded easily as he took my hand in his and looked at me with a smile. “She will be even if you send me to a different school or send her away. I can just go see her, you can’t stop that.”

  “But I can out Jade’s plan to her father, who doesn’t know about it yet. He would in turn make trouble for Matt and his boyfriend. And what about Austin and Brooke? I read that you and Austin had a fling at one point. Shouldn’t you be worried about your friend Brooke finding out about that instead of dating your stepbrother?” she asked, pushing all the right buttons and bringing back the fears of my lies. This one could bring them all down, and I had promised Matt, Chase, Austin, and Brooke everything. I couldn’t do that to them.

  “You can’t do that. You don’t know what it will do to them,” I growled as tears threatened to fall over my eyelashes.

  “I do know what will happen, but do you? You have two days to figure it out and give me an answer before I start transferring schools and information across the country. Think about it, and about those friends you claim to care about,” she said starkly as she turned and walked away.

  If she told all my lies then shit would indeed hit the fan. Matt’s scholarship would be threatened, Chase would have to deal with shit at school, Damien would have to go across the globe, Brooke wou
ld hate me even more if the news of Austin’s and my relationship came from my dad, and Austin would hate me even more for letting everyone figure out about our past.

  “Damien,” I cried as the tears slid down my cheeks. Damien wrapped me in his arms and held me tightly as he tried to calm me down.

  “We’ll think of something, Jade. We can make this work,” he promised as he tried to stop the tears from falling and prevent my world from falling apart.

  Chapter 25

  “Jade,” a small voice spoke. It was accompanied by a soft knock. Thanks to the meager voice and the knocking, I knew that it was Alyssa. My dad and the senator wouldn’t knock.

  Damien yawned, his arms instinctively tightening around my body as he opened his eyes. We had fallen asleep like this, my body curled up in his arms with my head resting against his chest, and him sitting on his bed with his head resting against the headboard. I had woken up a short while ago, but I hadn’t wanted to move. I liked the feeling of being wrapped up in Damien’s arms. I felt safe and comforted. A part of me was afraid that if I moved from his hold, all of my problems would flood us instantly and I’d be reminded of the senator’s threats from last night.

  The knock on the door was only another reminder of them. Another reminder of the fact that Damien and I couldn’t just sit here like this forever and ignore the world.

  “Yeah, what’s up Alyssa?” I asked as I slipped out of Damien’s arms to sit on the bed next to him.

  The door to Damien’s room opened slowly, just enough for Alyssa to peek her head inside. Her big blue eyes found mine before she said, “I bring bad news,” in a bashful tone.

  I waved her inside as Damien grumbled, “When don’t you?” before he buried his face in my hair and gave me a soft kiss on my shoulder.

  Alyssa came inside, pushing the door shut behind her before coming over and taking a seat on the bed. “My mom sent me to give you the final warning. She says that if you two don’t stop seeing each other then she’ll tell everyone that Matt is gay and do everything in her power to get his scholarship revoked.” She tilted her head downward in dismay. I wasn’t sure if it was from what her mother had threatened to do or the fact that she was the one who had to repeat it to us. Knowing Alyssa, it was probably both.

  “How would she manage that?” Damien asked, sliding to the middle of the bed and turning a bit so that we were seated in a triangle where we were all facing each other.

  “She’s supposed to go on television tomorrow for an interview and she said that it could just slip out.” She put air quotes around slip out. Afterward she rolled her eyes and then swiped some of her dark hair behind her ear, staring between Damien and me, as if we would have an instant plan on how to solve this.

  “Can she do that?” I asked curiously. Was she really so focused on her reputation that she would ruin someone else’s just to prevent Damien and me from being together? While it may cause some bad publicity for her, she wasn’t seeing how it could also be good for her. She was causing us to act out more because she wouldn’t let us be together, but I guess no one knew what would happen if she actually allowed us to be together either. It may be worse than any of us thought.

  “She can do whatever she wants, trust me,” Damien grumbled. I could tell there was a story underneath the scowl, but I wasn’t sure if I should ask and find out.

  “He’s just mad because his dad walked out on him and hasn’t come back,” Alyssa stated. I nodded my head slightly, something in the back of my mind telling me that I had heard the story before, but I wasn’t quite sure.

  “He didn’t walk out on me! She forced him to leave, and now she doesn’t even want me around.”

  “That’s not true, Damien,” Alyssa countered with a soft smile. “She wants you around. You know, so that she can keep an eye on you, and make sure that you don’t end up in the paper and jeopardize her chance of winning this election.”

  Damien tilted his head to the side, scowling at his sister. “Thanks for that reminder, Lyss, but you’re free to leave now. Thanks for telling us the bad news,” he growled, sarcasm thick in his voice. Hearing the hurt in his words, I slid toward him, allowing him to wrap his arms around me and pull me into his side. It was as if he was trying to find comfort, but didn’t want to ask for it or seem weak, so I played along that he wanted to just hold me. He didn’t want either of us to know how badly his situation with his parents affected him, but I knew him too well now to believe his hard exterior.

  “We have to stop her,” I spoke. “I can’t let her out Matt after all he has done for me. I promised him that I would find a way for this to work out for everyone, and that certainly isn’t the senator 'accidentally' outing him on national television!”

  “What do you expect to do that I haven’t tried, Jade? You can’t bargain with the woman. She always has the upper hand and has dirt on everyone we know. She’s ruthless and I’ve spent a majority of my life trying to beat her. So far, I still haven’t won.”

  “That’s because you were missing one thing, Damien.” I smirked as he raised an eyebrow and looked at me with a quizzical expression. “You didn’t have me, and I’ve spent a majority of the years of my life getting out of trouble that I got myself into. While the senator is a worthy opponent, we now have a secret weapon.”

  “What’s that?” he asked curiously.

  “A double agent,” I stated with a smile in Alyssa’s direction.

  “Who, me?” she questioned.

  “Oh yes, you. You know everything because she trusts you and expects you to do the right thing, but even you said that this was wrong. Even you agree that she shouldn’t do this to Matt, even if you are against Damien and me seeing each other.”

  “I’m not against you guys seeing each other. I actually think it’s better like this,” Alyssa interrupted before I could continue my monologue on how to convince her to join the dark side. “You guys get into less trouble together. Why? I don’t know and I don’t care. I only care that Damien isn’t out until four in the morning, disappearing, and not returning for days at a time. Mostly, I like that for once he’s actually happy even though he won’t admit it.” She glared at her brother, who just rolled his eyes in response.

  “Why do you even care?” he asked. “You never cared before. You always told on me, got me in trouble, and even had me sent away a few times.”

  “Was that so bad? You said being sent to live with your grandparents was the best time you’ve ever had. You said that when Mom grounded you for leaving for a week, and not telling us where you were going, you were pleased to have made her so angry that she even kept you out of school so you couldn’t do it again. Each of those times, you were happier because I got you in trouble. You’re miserable here, and then Jade comes into your life and suddenly you don’t do any of that anymore, unless you’re both together. At that point, I don’t have to worry if you’ll overdose or get in trouble with the police because you’re with each other. I care, Damien, even if you never saw it,” she said. Then, with a sigh, she hopped off of the bed and started to walk out of the room.

  “Wait, Alyssa,” I called as I glanced at Damien’s stunned face. It was clear that what she had just told him was going to take some getting used to on his part.

  “Yeah?”

  “Was that the only reason you came in here?” I asked curiously.

  “Well, actually I wanted your help,” she said hesitantly, turning back around to show an unsure expression written across her face.

  “What can I help you with?”

  “I don’t like that my mom is using me to break you guys up, or as a messenger to repeat her threats, or as a tattle-tale. All I’ve ever wanted growing up was to be good in her eyes so I could help Damien, but that pushed Damien away from me and now that she’s getting married she doesn’t need me anymore,” Alyssa spoke, her voice cracking slightly and making it sound like she was about to cry because her mom no longer had time for her or cared for her like she had done all of Alyssa’s lif
e.

  “What makes you think I can help though?”

  “I want to be more like you. Not breaking the law or anything, but I want to stand up to my mom and make a life for myself, not the one she makes for me. I want to play a sport, meet a nice boy, and go on dates with him and my friends without her written permission and background checks on everyone I’m going to meet,” Alyssa cried out. About four years of teenage angst had been released in that one sentence. It wasn’t much, but it was a start and it gave me an idea.

  “Well, as I was saying earlier, even you agree that what she’s threatening to do to Matt is wrong. So I think we have a way to kill two birds with one stone.” I gave her a devious smile as I glanced toward Damien. I could see the dark smile return to his slightly tanned face as he caught onto what I was thinking.

  “How’s that?” she asked curiously.

  “We’re going to dig up dirt on the senator and you’re going to help us.”

  “Right now? I don’t know,” she sighed, clearly worried about my idea.

  “Well, what better time for you to break out from the golden girl image than helping us dig up dirt on your mother?” I jumped off of the bed and clapped my hands together. “Now Alyssa, where would your mom hide anything that would hurt her image.”

  I heard Damien let out a soft chuckle as we could see the hesitation in her eyes as she thought about whether or not she should answer. “I’ve already tried that Jade, she doesn’t have anything that can be held against her,” Damien said with a laugh.

  “You’re negative about all of my plans, even though dating a gay guy was a great one,” I stated bluntly.

  “It was until this point,” he responded.

  “And until you got jealous,” I retorted. I could see that Damien was ready for this fight, and knowing us it would end up with us in a bed fighting for dominance.

  “I wasn’t jealous.”

  “Right, so you didn’t throw a temper tantrum when Matt actually got into the idea and started to kiss me?”