Keep

by Rachel Van Dyken

  “Well, you are paying me.” She laughed, but it wasn’t her normal laugh, it was so fake I wanted to pull her into my arms and apologize. “So, no touching right? Isn’t that what you said?”

  Of course I’d be stuck with the smart girl who remembered every single conversation and stored it for moments like this when I wanted her to forget all of the reasons I’d given her in the car why kissing her was a bad idea.

  “So…” I cleared my throat and quickly changed the subject. “What did you think of the audio clip I sent?”

  She pushed her adorable black glasses up and scrunched her nose. “Okay don’t be mad.”

  “Ouch.” I held a hand to my chest. “That bad?”

  “You haven’t even heard what I have to say yet!”

  I stopped walking. “Okay, let me have it.”

  “The song’s about sex, right?”

  Hell, I hadn’t expected her to be so cute as if sex made her uncomfortable and everything with it—she would be different.

  She wouldn’t be using me.

  She’d genuinely be sharing herself with me because she wanted to.

  She was good.

  Not like all the others.

  And I was leaving. Funny, since I was the one with abandonment issues, yet this time I would be the one walking—I hated it.

  “I guess.” I finally answered. “Why?”

  “Well, you make it sound so…clinical.”

  My mouth dropped open. Not what I thought she was going to say. “Um, I’m sorry what?”

  “People know how to have sex, Zane.”

  Hah, if she only knew. “Do they, now?” I grinned, unable to help myself.

  “Yeah.” She backed up a few steps. “I guess what I want to say is, I mean tab A goes into slot B and um,” She covered her face with her hands and mumbled. “This really isn’t how I pictured this conversation going.”

  “Oh, so you often picture having sex talks with me?”

  “Grandma would kill me right now.”

  “I’m very disappointed in you, young lady,” I said in a gruff voice that sounded way creepier than I’d meant it to. Fallon burst out laughing and removed her hands.

  “Okay.” She took a deep breath as pieces of her hair kissed her cheeks. I wanted those cheeks, that skin, maybe just one touch, no more than three caresses right? That was allowed. I reached for her, but she leaned back. “You make it sound cold.”

  “Cold.” My hand was still midair, I jerked it back. “I make sex sound…frigid? Is that what you mean?”

  “Yeah.” Her eyes widened. “I mean, okay I know you probably have a different sexual partner every single night, which is probably why there is such a disconnect between singing about it and actually, er, um doing it, but that’s not how it should be? You know quick, fast, I touch this, you touch that, oh, look we both orgasmed and then—“

  The breath whooshed from my lungs. “Shit, did you just say orgasm?” Hell, did I just moan? Out loud?

  “Maybe.” She squinted. “No. Actually, can I have a do-over of this conversation?”

  “Absolutely not.” I barked out a laugh.

  “Why!” She looked up at the sky and clenched her fists. “Am I making sense at all?”

  “Nope.”

  “Sorry, Grandma,” she mumbled before grabbing my hands and sinking to the sand, pulling me down with her. We sat holding hands, staring at the waves. “I want you to close your eyes.”

  “Why are we apologizing to your dead grandma?”

  “She may haunt me for life after this.”

  “This day just gets better and better doesn’t it?”

  “Or worse, depending on what side of the conversation you’re on.”

  I smirked; her cheeks literally could not get any redder. I reached up with my free hand and touched. Touching was always my downfall, maybe because once she was gone—nobody had touched me again.

  Fallon shivered and scooted toward me. “Your eyes aren’t closed.”

  “Sorry,” I said, voice gruff. Then I lowered my hand and closed my eyes. “Please tell me you don’t have some sort of weapon, and this is your sick way of seeking fame by killing me on the beach. Aroused.”

  “Huh?”

  “I’m talking about sex with a cute girl. Of course I’m into that.” My eyes were still closed, but I could hear her sharp intake of breath like I’d surprised her. Hell, I’d surprised myself! I had no business telling her she was cute. What the hell was I doing?

  “So um, think about a time you’ve been with a girl.”

  “Nope.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t have any.”

  She growled. “This isn’t going to work if you refuse to participate.”

  “Four eyes…”

  “Seriously, Zane! The song has a great tempo, I really like it. It has the potential to be like the love song of the summer, only hotter, but you have to make it sensual, not sexual.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Okay, so think about a girl you’ve been with and—”

  “No,” I interrupted. “How about you tell me about a time you’ve been with a guy. There has been a time, right?” I was going to hell. Basically making her feel bad about her lack of sexual experience and—

  “Only two.”

  The hell? I tried to keep myself composed, but seriously. Did she just say two? My little four eyes and two douche bags? I had a sudden need to find both dudes and strangle them, or publically shame them, run them over with my truck, drown them in the ocean and—

  “You’re squeezing my hand a bit hard, Zane.” Fallon said in a strained voice.

  I quickly released her hand. “Sorry, I was just…thinking.”

  “About me and other guys?” She laughed.

  It wasn’t funny.

  “So, these two pricks…” I started. “High school pricks, they taught you romance?”

  “Not romance!” She huffed. “You aren’t listening. But even with guys who have no experience…”

  I flinched unintentionally.

  She didn’t seem to notice. “…they still touch you. It’s not just about parts joining—oh no, I just said parts and joining in the same sentence. This is literally worse than my sixth-grade health class when my teacher forced me to name the male reproductive system.” She hung her head.

  I wrapped my arm around her and sighed. “How about I rescue you from yourself?”

  “Finally. Now you decide to be heroic?” Her big eyes blinked up at me, and I fought an internal struggle to press my lips to her face, to comfort her, or maybe just kiss some of her embarrassment away, to see if she tasted as hot as her cheeks looked.

  I shuddered and broke eye contact. “Eh, I’m more the anti-hero, I think.”

  She leaned into me, we were touching, and then things clicked not because I was touching her, but because I wanted to touch her more, because even if all she did was let me press my skin against hers—I would be okay with it. Sure, I wanted more skin, more kissing, more exploring, but in a weird twist of fate, I just wanted whatever she’d offer, and even if it was the smallest kiss, I wanted to make it the best kiss of her existence.

  “I think,” I drew a slow circle on her arm, my finger barely grazing her skin. “What you’re trying quite horribly to explain is that you want the song to be more anticipation, less action.”

  “Y-yes.” She shivered. I hoped it was from my proximity, not the cold. “That.”

  My fingers slowly moved up her arm until I brushed the hair back from her neck. Then I leaned over and placed a kiss against her pulse. “And…the song should be about exploration, more your body is a wonderland and less I wanna lick, lick, lick you from your head to your toe and I wanna move from the bed down to the down the floor, and I wanna, ah ah, you make it so good I don’t wanna leave, but I gotta know what’s your fantasy?”

  Her mouth dropped open. I shut it with my pinkie finger.

  With a shudder, she pulled away and looked down at her
frayed jeans, torn a bit at the knee. “Yes, um, that.”

  “So, two guys huh?” I said leaning back on my hands, changing the subject out of pure necessity since I’d almost kissed her at least a dozen times in the past minute.

  Her smile was like a shot to the chest, and it was directed at me. “Two guys, hardly a harem.”

  “Naturally. Since harems are typically filled with women.”

  “Ha ha.” She shoved my chest.

  “And how were these two guys? And before you tell me, note that I’m already imagining they have really bad teen acne and braces, so spare no detail if I’m right.”

  Fallon burst out laughing. “Is that all you think I can get? Bad teen acne and braces?”

  “No.” I said softly, and I meant it. I scooted closer to her. “I’m just hoping I’m the only guy that’s ever kissed you that way, touched you, elicited those nice little pants you always give off every time I’m close.”

  She turned away her cheeks flushing again. “Well, one was on the football team. Linebacker, more muscle than brains but actually really sweet. We were friends, went to Homecoming together—”

  “Where he was crowned king?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Not that stereotypical, and no I didn’t lose my virginity on prom night.”

  I was shaking, and I had no idea why. I had this sick need to know more, to compare myself to two dicks I didn’t even know! For absolutely no reason.

  “And the other?”

  “We met at band camp.” She said with a straight face.

  “You’re shitting me.”

  She shook her head. “He was first drummer.”

  “Why the hell is it always the drummer? Is it because they have two sticks?”

  Fallon ducked her head. “He had good hands.”

  I clenched my own into fists and glared. “Good hands?”

  “For music.” She grinned. “You know, for pounding things.”

  With a groan I tore my gaze away from her face, I only had so much self-control and I’d never been good with temptation—which is why I never put myself in situations where I’d get physically attached to someone.

  Until now.

  “I have hands.” Oh good, Zane. Great, you have hands? Really man?

  “I see that.” Fallon reached for one and interlaced her fingers in mine. It felt natural, sitting with her on the beach, holding her hand. She had no way of knowing that the last person who purposefully held my hand—held me.

  Was dead.

  Or, that I’d been spending the last twelve years of my life, trying to make a ghost proud.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Fallon

  FRIENDS. I THINK I hated that word. Maybe he did too? I couldn’t read him, and I’d always thought I was good at that, reading people, observing, watching. He tensed at the strangest moments, hunched his shoulders in crowds as if he was afraid someone was going to shank him, and he was more comfortable naked than with clothes on.

  Four days in, and I wasn’t any closer to figuring out Zane Andrews, if anything, he was getting more and more complicated, like a maze that twisted every time you thought you had the way out decided.

  “I need food.” Zane said a few minutes later, we’d been sitting on the beach holding hands in silence for ten minutes.

  I had no idea what it meant.

  To me? More than it should.

  To him? I was probably just a body, a hand, a small hand that fit in his gruff hands. Calluses from playing guitar rose over his rough palm, they kissed my soft skin, causing a friction that reminded me too much about who he was compared to me.

  He was like a shark, claiming he could play nice with his fish. At some point, the fish pushes the shark too far and gets eaten. I glanced at him from the corner of my eye. Yeah, I would probably enjoy that process more than I’d care to admit.

  Zane stood, pulling me to my feet, and then reached into his pocket and glanced at his phone, letting out another string of curses that had my cheeks heating. I had to give him points for creative use of the F-word.

  It made me uncomfortable.

  I had trouble saying ass.

  Ugh, great, now I was the sheltered girl.

  Not that I’d ever pretended to be anything else.

  “Everything okay?” I chanced asking.

  “Agent. Not happy. World. Not happy. What are the chances that the apocalypse happens before my album drops?”

  “Uh, do you want it to happen?”

  “Sorry,” He shook his head, as though he was trying to snap himself out of a stupor. “I’m just stressed.”

  “That’s what you pay me for, right?” I elbowed him in the ribs, “You’re personal tour guide slash assistant slash marshmallow dealer.”

  He burst out laughing and reached for my hand again “And a chapstick supplier. Don’t forget the chapstick.”

  I should pull away.

  Already I was getting too attached, but I justified my behavior. I would regret not spending every moment with him, right? Because already, I missed him, even if he drove me insane half the time.

  We walked hand in hand to the boardwalk and made our way into Maggie’s on the Prom. It was one of my favorite spots because they always had blankets for their customers and often had an amazing array of hot drinks and happy hour appetizers. There was nothing better than hearing the ocean crash while sipping coffee snuggled in a blanket.

  Before I could sit down, Zane was already grabbing me one of their wool blankets and wrapping it around my body before tucking in the edges, so I had no use of my hands. Smirking, he grabbed his own and placed it on his lap then started reading the menu out loud.

  “What sounds good?” He winked. “Oyster shooters? Salad?” His eyes narrowed. “Let me guess you want fish?”

  I frowned. “I like fish.”

  “Because you hate meat.”

  I couldn’t hold back my smile. “You figured it out.”

  “Who doesn’t like burgers?”

  “Me.”

  “But it’s meat.”

  “I think I know where burgers come from.”

  “Is this all meat?” His wicked smile had me squirming in my seat as he leaned forward. “Hey, you like science. Should we conduct an experiment?”

  “Nope.” I shivered, but I was hot—from his look, from the way the shadow of fresh beard growth had his smile looking more wicked and dirty than it should. I wanted to feel the scruff against my fingers tips, imagined it against my cheek as we kissed, my thighs… Whoa, whoa, whoa! I mentally slapped myself.

  His face had literally been plastered against so many female parts that I would probably catch something and have to go to the free clinic.

  It was an unfair assessment, but probably true.

  He couldn’t help but scream sex with every word that came out of his mouth, the way he walked, even the way he touched me, nothing about it was friendly, but I think he had good intentions. I don’t think he could help it or knew how to pull back.

  “Oyster shooters.” I blurted. “I love them.”

  He scrunched up his nose. “Fine, and you want some shrimps on your salad.”

  “Did you just say shrimps?” I giggled.

  He tossed the menu onto the table. “That’s what they are.”

  “Shrimp is both singular and plural.”

  “And yet, shrimps still sounds bad ass.”

  “In what universe?”

  “Mine.” He chuckled. “The only one that counts.”

  “Such a true and sad statement,” I teased, finally pulling my hands free from the mummified blanket tying compliments of Zane. “Also I want a diet coke.”

  “I’m ordering you real coke.”

  “Like the drug?” I gasped.

  “Very funny.” He rolled his eyes. “I’ve never actually done coke or any other drug thank you very much.”

  “Marshmallows.” I coughed.

  He flipped me off then reached into his pocket.

  And paled.
>
  “What?” I was still grinning. “What is it?”

  He bit out a curse. “I forgot marshmallows.”

  “O…kay…” I drew out the word slowly. “And?”

  He curled his hands into two tight fists as his body began to shake.

  “Zane, that’s not funny.”

  “Do you think I’m trying to be funny right now?” He bit out, knocking his chair backwards as he stood on wobbly legs and then drunkenly stumbled down the rocky path.

  “Wait!” I ran after him, tossing the blanket back onto the chair, he was walking like he’d just taken a hit of some drug.

  “Zane!” I pleaded catching up to him and grabbing his hand, he didn’t squeeze it back—he always squeezed it back, but his hands were clammy, freezing. And when he looked at me, it was as if he lost complete focus. “Hey, hey, let’s just walk back okay? You’re fine.”

  His nostrils flared, but he managed a small nod before leaning at least half his weight on me. It took a crazy amount of effort not to zigzag while I walked; he was at least sixty pounds heavier than me, and on top of that, he was mumbling curses under his breath, which wasn’t at all helpful in our current situation. The more he talked, the more freaked out I became. He wasn’t making sense at all.

  “Tell me about…the song.” I said quickly.

  “Songs,” he whispered. “I know you’re trying to help.” He bit out another curse and stumbled. “Sorry, I’m just…it’s not. Helpful. I need marshmallows.”

  “Okay.” I gulped. “We’ll get you marshmallows.”

  “Like a child.” He sounded disgusted with himself.

  As we rounded the corner, I could see the house up on the cliff, we needed to do a bit of a climb once we reached the stairs.

  “HOLY SHIT!” a girl yelled. “IT’S ZANE ANDREWS!”

  Zane froze; the look he gave me was beyond pathetic.

  I didn’t know what to do.

  I quickly looked around us. The girls were in the parking lot near one of the hotels, we couldn’t hide in the bushes by the beach. We could make it as far as the stairs but….

  “Give me your phone.” I pleaded while still trying to lead him, this time faster to the stairs.

  Zane didn’t answer, if anything he paled more.