by Tay Marley
I shuffled toward him as he took a deep breath and rubbed his hands together, almost as if he was amping himself up for the conversation, mustering all of his courage and strength.
“I haven’t told anyone this before,” he stated with his eyes on the ground. “I haven’t even really said it out loud.”
“I’m here,” I offered. I didn’t want to push him, but he needed to know that he could tell me anything.
“I haven’t always been an only child,” he told me with a voice so heartbroken that it almost shattered my own. “I had a twin sister. Her name was Abigail. Abby for short. She was—she was my best friend. We did everything together, you know? Dad was always taking us on these football fields and carting us around the country, but it was awesome because we always made the most of it.”
He smiled at the floor, his memories lifting his lips.
“When we lived in Texas, we had this group of friends who lived a few houses down from us. We were twelve and our friend was turning thirteen, so he was having a big party, minus alcohol, ya know? It was games like air hockey and pool, that sort of thing. A bunch of kids were invited so we all went together.
“Anyway, I got pretty tired around eleven. We lived down the street, so we walked back and forth all the time. It took us about thirty seconds to get home. I told Abby I was heading home and that I’d come back and get her when she was ready. She just had to text me.”
His head fell, hanging low as a sob racked his body. Watching him in so much pain was beyond unbearable. I’d seen him open up to me, I’d seen him express emotion, but nothing like this.
“The next morning I woke up and realized that I’d slept through a bunch of calls and texts. The last one said that she thought someone was following her.”
He took a moment to steady his voice and wiped his face with the back of his hand. Sniffing before he exhaled, he tried to gain composure. I didn’t need him to finish the story—I knew where it was headed—but I didn’t stop him when he continued.
“They found her body two days later, in a ditch about thirty miles from home. Naked, beaten, and assaulted. They caught the guy. He was just some sick pervert who happened to stumble across her. There was no association. My dad retired from the NFL and we moved here a few months later, in hopes of a fresh start.”
“Drayton, I’m so sorry—”
“Don’t!” He sat up straighter and turned to me with a firm expression, his eyes rimmed red. “Do not tell me you’re sorry. What happened to her is my fault.”
“No, it isn’t,” I argued, picking his hand up and lacing our fingers together. “Drayton, it isn’t your fault.”
“I should have walked with her. It’s my fault.”
“Stop! You were just a child,” I told him with a firm tone. “What about your parents? They should have been picking you up and dropping you off themselves. You can’t shoulder that kind of blame.”
“My parents left a sitter with us. Stupid airhead was obsessed with her boyfriend and not much else,” he growled with disapproval. “They were in Miami for a game.”
“Dray, please, you can’t carry around guilt for something that wasn’t your fault.” I squeezed his hand and didn’t take my eyes off his face. “It’ll make you sick. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Sure feels like it.”
A thought occurred to me and I lifted the sleeve of his T-shirt to reveal his shoulder, where the little boy and girl walked into the sunset. “This is about her isn’t it?” I asked, grazing my fingertips along the surface of his skin, a field of goose bumps forming in my wake.
“Yeah,” he mumbled, his eyes focused on the hand caressing his shoulder.
“Drayton, if you don’t believe anything else I say, believe this: you are not responsible for what happened.” I tucked my hand around the length of his jaw and caressed his cheek with my thumb. “This isn’t on you. But I understand why you hate seeing me walk home at night now.”
His facial muscles quivered, and it hurt to see him in so much pain.
“That night that you walked away from me in Cripple Creek was—it was—shit. I felt like I was reliving a nightmare. Reliving that night and I couldn’t let it end the same way. Dallas, I don’t like seeing any young girl walking alone,”—he swiveled his body toward me—“but especially not you. Promise me that you’ll always call me if you need a ride. That’s what I’m here for. You mean too much to me. Promise me?”
“I promise.”
His shoulders relaxed and his features smoothed at the verbal agreement. I wished I’d known about this sooner. It brought him into a whole new light. I understood him better than I ever had. He’d been battling this demon on his own for so long, with no one to tell him that he shouldn’t feel the guilt that he did. No one to comfort him when the memories became too much. He pulled me into a hug, and I relaxed into his side, resting my head on his chest. We leaned back into the couch and remained like that for a while. It was quiet. Shadows danced on the dark walls from the faux flames. He smelled different. He smelled the same—intoxicating and alluring—but the nicotine wasn’t lingering. I hadn’t seen him touch a cigarette in a while, and after how wound up he’d been earlier, I would have expected him to turn to his vice. I kept the observation quiet, but I felt hopeful.
After some amount of time, I wasn’t sure how long, his hand began to caress my arm. “Thank you,” he murmured.
“What for?”
“For listening. For understanding and for not making me feel worse.”
“Dray, I would never. I meant what I said. You aren’t to blame, and you don’t deserve to carry around that sort of guilt.”
Our eyes locked and my heart started to race when I felt his hot breath fan my face. A current of electricity surged between us, becoming stronger as we moved closer. I’d always
been impossibly attracted to Drayton, but now that I knew him on a deeper level, a level that opened a wider understanding and a more intimate connection displayed by trust, I was certain that I loved him.
He closed the distance between us, and our mouths met, erupting so much need from within me that I couldn’t move fast enough to wrap my arms around his neck. I couldn’t get him close enough as I threw my leg over his lap. His hands slid up my thighs as we kissed with a passion so strong that I could feel my head spinning because of his touch, his mouth, his hands as they came around to the backs of my thighs.
Traveling up the length of my spine, his hands tangled in the hair on the back of my head as he pulled it back and exposed my throat. He worked his way down my jaw and neck as I ground my hips into his. He groaned, a loud, carnal groan that only added fuel to the burning fire that was flaming all around us.
“Do you want to go upstairs?” My breath was ragged and harsh.
He leaned back, staring up at me with awe and lust. Without giving a verbal answer, he cupped my ass and jumped to his feet, swinging my legs around his waist.
“Fuck yes, I do,” he growled.
Being with Drayton was different. Better. The way that he watched me was tender, but his hands were rough. His touch was driven by affection, but his grip was fueled by desire. The words that he whispered beside my ear, hot breath on my neck, were dirty and carnal but his tone was emotive. Between us existed more than just lust—we knew each other. We were vulnerable and our hearts were on our sleeves, and it was a difference that I never knew was missing. But moving with him, in perfect sync as we’d always done, naked, exposed in more than just a physical sense, I’d never felt more connected to another person before, and it was a sensation that left me undone.
Chapter 17
I was on cloud nine.
I needed a shower; my hair was probably a wreck and I wasn’t going to walk right for a day or two, but I had literally never felt more satisfied in my entire life. It had been a while since the last time I woke up in Drayton’s bedroom.
Flecks of light peeped through the trees on the other side of the window. The fireplace was on a low heat, keeping us warm.
I stared out the window and smiled at the feeling of Drayton’s naked chest pressed against my back, his arm slung over and clutching my waist. I was being spooned and it was as perfect as I’d imagined it would be. Happiness wasn’t even the right word for my current state of emotion.
“Morning,” Drayton’s raspy morning voice startled me out of my reverie. His arms tightened around my waist and he softly pressed his lips to the skin behind my ear.
“Hey.” I chewed on my lip as his toe-curling kisses traveled down the side of my throat. It took very little from him to erupt that carnal need that burst under his touch. I was mildly disappointed when his lips stopped and he turned me around to face him.
“Last night was perfect, Cheer.” He brushed his fingers along the length of my forehead, tucking my hair behind my ear as his eyes traveled my face.
“It was perfect,” I agreed, enraptured by his presence. I knew that I was in trouble when my heart felt as if it was going to come out of my chest when he watched me. “So, just for curiosity’s sake, what were you doing last night? Following me?”
“Dreamer,” he scoffed with a grin. He sat up and leaned against the headboard with one arm behind his head. The sheet draped across his hips, revealing his V-line. He was mouthwatering. “I was at Maxon’s. Got bored. I was on my way to see what you were doing.”
“Ah.” I smiled and nodded.
He mimicked me. He wrapped his arm around my middle and pulled me in so that I was on top of him. It was one swift, effortless movement, and his hand tangled in the hair on the back of my head.
“What ar—”
The door opened and we both turned our heads to the left. Standing in the doorway was his father. Drayton lifted the sheet up as I dipped lower so that my chest wasn’t exposed. Even under the cover, I was mortified.
“Dad.” Drayton sat forward and gestured with frustration. “Knock. What the hell?”
His father appeared unfazed. He was tall, like his son. Well built, young with dark hair and stubble—the spitting image of Drayton but with a much more indifferent expression and a suit clinging to his muscular frame. He rested a hand on the doorknob. “You have a phone call with the coach and the head of the sports department at Baylor this morning.”
“I haven’t forgotten.”
“Hello.” He let go of the handle and tugged on the cuff of his sleeve. “I’m Leroy.”
“It’s nice to meet you.” I nodded, horrified that I was meeting Drayton’s father for the first time with nothing on but a sheet that probably cost more than my car, but that was irrelevant. He acknowledged me with a brief tip of his head, then turned back to his son with the same no-nonsense expression that he’d regarded him with before.
“Eleven. Be organized, dressed, and alone.”
When he was gone, Drayton relaxed again. He fell back into his pillow and threw an arm across his face. I was disappointed to have met both of his parents under less than ideal circumstances.
“Do you realize that I was naked when I met your aunt and now your dad?” I clutched the sheet and frowned. “How does that happen to a person twice?”
“Lucky bastards. The most I got was the see-through shirt. Where were the naked meet and greets when I knocked on the door?”
I scoffed with amusement and peered over my shoulder. Drayton was still hiding beneath his forearm. “You okay?”
“He used to be cooler,” he mumbled. “I give him grace because losing my sister nearly killed him, but, man, he knows how to push me.”
“He’s pretty set on which college you attend?”
“Yep. He won’t stop hounding me about my letter of intent. I was offered six scholarships. Six. And I’m not even allowed to consider another school.”
Six was impressive. He had options and part of me was desperate to ask if he was offered one near CalArts. But I didn’t. Because I didn’t want him to base his decision on me. It was too big.
“Let’s not talk about it. It pisses me off.”
“Feeling wound up?” I asked, snuggling into his side. “You need an outlet?”
He rolled over me, my body pinned beneath his. “Are you offering one?”
His grin disappeared as he leaned in and trailed soft kisses under my jaw.
On Monday afternoon, in the last ten minutes of lunch, I leaned against my locker in the corridor and swiped through Instagram. Gabby had gone to the library so that she could catch up on her reading but I’d hung back, knowing that my next class was down the hall and there was no point wandering farther off. I scrolled through videos of dance teams that I followed and admired their routines, read announcement posts on new competitions, and marveled at still shots showing the sheer power that it took to move their bodies the way that they did.
I was so immersed, with my lip pinched between my fingers, that I didn’t notice someone coming up behind me.
But when a strong pair of hands went around my middle and soft lips touched the side of my neck, I smiled and almost forgot that Drayton and I were meant to be keeping our situation a secret.
“What are you doing?” I turned to face him and swept my eyes along the corridor. There were a few freshmen hanging around near the staircase, but that was it.
Drayton stood tall in front of me and rested a hand on the wall as he backed me into it. “I cannot see you and keep on walking. It’s impossible.” He dipped down and kissed me, softly and gently.
Or it was soft and gentle until his free hand moved to cup my neck and his thumb drew circles on the edge of my jaw. I melted into it and held a fistful of his shirt. My insatiable need to taste and touch him was overwhelming, and putting a hand to his chest to stop him was almost impossible.
“This is way too public,” my voice hitched as my tongue swiped across my bottom lip. I loved the taste of him. “You’ll get us caught.”
He exhaled with one hand still on the wall beside me and his gorgeous face just an inch from mine. Before I could react, he wrapped his hand around mine and dragged me into the closest classroom. With the door shut, he pressed me against the wall beside it and kissed me, hard. The posters crinkled and crunched behind me.
Desk legs scraped along the floor as Drayton lifted me under the thighs and propped me on top of the wooden tables. The sound of our mouths smacking and our ragged panting echoed around us, and when he moved his mouth to my neck and I threw my head back, legs clenching, I finally noticed that we were in the sex-ed classroom. The irony. A girl with a wide smile and her thumbs up looked down at me from the wall. The speech bubble next to her said: A condom is cheaper than a child. I almost laughed but Drayton’s hand clutched a fistful of hair and tugged as he pressed his hips into mine and I gasped.
Our mouths met again and we became so frantic, grabbing, touching, and kissing, that I thought we were about to do it right there in front of the Sensible Sarah poster. But the bell rang, and we both knew that this would not be an ideal time to take our clothes off. Drayton groaned and his head fell into the crook of my neck as he remained between my legs with his hands on the desk.
“We should get out of here,” I said. I could hear the corridor getting busier. He nodded and stepped back, which made me slap a hand over my mouth because his arousal was blatant, standing to attention in his pants.
“Yeah, I know.” He ran a hand through his hair and gave me a devious grin. “Want to help me get rid of it?”
“Nice try.” I stood up and smoothed my hair down. “Just wrap your hoodie around your waist. The arms will hide it. Maybe.”
He sighed and dropped his backpack before pulling his hoodie off. It pulled his T-shirt up and I admired the brief peek of his firm torso. After he’d sorted himself out and we were safe to leave, I opened the door and stepped into the hall to find Emily abo
ut six feet away. I panicked and pulled the door shut, smacking Drayton’s arm with it before he could follow me. We should have been leaving separately, anyway. I heard him curse, but from the unbothered scowl on Emily’s face, I assumed that she hadn’t heard it.
“What?” She stopped beside me when I remained in front of the door, smiling.
“Nothing.”
“What’s with the dipshit smile?” She rested her hand on her hip, impatience in her tone.
“I was just so happy to see you that I couldn’t help but smile.”
She narrowed her glare, her pillowed red lips curling down. “You’re being very suspicious. What do you think you know?”
Now I was just confused. I didn’t let her know that, though. If she was the one squirming, I wanted to keep it like that. “We should hang out sometime. Get a coffee. A movie. Perhaps we could torment some small children together. You do that for fun, right?”
She scoffed and barged into me with her shoulder as she passed. I watched her leave with amusement, but when I looked around and noticed how packed the corridor was, I frowned. Still, Drayton couldn’t hide in the classroom forever. I opened the door so that I could tell him to give me a five-minute start. But when I peeped through the crack, he was nowhere to be found. That was when I noticed the open window on the other side of the room.
I laughed and closed the door again. This secret thing was kind of fun sometimes.
Chapter 18
Traditionally, Nathan and I spent Thanksgiving with Camilla and Gabby. But things were a little different this year. Josh and Gabby were dating. Drayton and I were together, even if it still hadn’t become public knowledge. Nevertheless, Drayton insisted that Nathan and I join his family’s Thanksgiving celebration. Josh had invited Gabby and Camilla as well. At around eleven Thursday morning, the four of us pulled up at the Lahey mansion and Camilla couldn’t contain her enthusiasm, “I bet the kitchen is beautiful!”