Off-Limits Box Set

by Ella James

  “Evie…”

  “Landon.”

  We kiss out days of pent-up tension, clinging to each other as our mouths dance and our bodies ache. When our panting fills the cab, Evie pulls away, laughing. She smooths my shirt and takes a tissue from her purse to try to get the lipstick off my jaw.

  “I’m sorry,” I say as she wipes my cheek. “That was stupid.”

  “I like stupid.” Her soft voice is sultry. “Be more stupid.”

  During soccer practice, my eyes boomerang to Evie on her bench no matter where I am. I’m playing for her, practicing harder than I need to in the hopes that Ev will watch me and she’ll be impressed.

  After soccer, I rush to her car. I want to touch her, but I can’t. Not in the parking lot. On the drive home, I find a car wash, and when the water starts to pelt the car, I kiss her gently, showing Evie with my mouth that this is not just frantic need for me. I let my mouth linger on hers while I stroke her neck and back. I make Evie pant with need, and then I kiss her throat and chuckle darkly as she squirms.

  “Landon,” she groans.

  “What do you want?” I ask, loving the tease.

  “I want you to touch me.”

  “Later…”

  Later, after dinner, Evie goes upstairs, and I go down into the basement, where I take a cold shower. Then I wrestle with myself, with what I want, and what’s smart. Can I be smart? I don’t know. Fucking hell, but I don’t know.

  I pace around the room and when I hear her knock, I’m not surprised at all. I find her in soft, green shorts and a white shirt that’s cropped above her belly button. Her hair is down around her shoulders, and her eyes are twinkling.

  She gives me a little grin and reaches for me. “I just want to be with you.”

  What ignites such flames? I don’t understand, and I don’t give a fuck.

  Stupid it is.

  We kiss on my bed, fast and fearless, until my body shakes with want and need, and I push her away.

  “Why’d you do that?” she whispers.

  Fucking Evie.

  I get up and pace to the bookshelf, where the kid toys they bought for the little boy they were expecting have been replaced by books from Evie’s father’s shelves.

  “Come back to the bed. Both of my parents are asleep…”

  I kiss her like I want to, confining my hands to her upper back and shoulders. Evie rubs my pecs and down my abs until I pull her hands away. I lean my forehead against hers. She kisses my cheek.

  “It’s late. Are you sleepy?” she whispers.

  I shake my head, laughing. She kisses me again, then shifts away. “Put your head in my lap.” She pulls a pillow into her lap, and I stretch out with my head there. Evie strokes my hair.

  “My lonely boy…”

  I blink at the white walls. Do I like it that she sees that? That I’m so transparent to her? Maybe so, I decide. Maybe it feels good to…be known.

  “Not now,” I say after a minute.

  She trails a fingertip over my face, atop my ear, and then she kisses my lips. Fuck. I flip the tables, getting Evie under me and straddling her hips. So dangerous. Oh God, I’m so damn hard.

  “You have to go upstairs.” I press my cheek against her cheek. “You have to. Please.”

  She does.

  Tomorrow, we can’t even make it to school. We pull onto a dirt road off a county road, and we get further with our hands and mouths. So far, I have to change into my soccer shorts.

  It’s wrong—but it feels so damn right.

  Ten

  Evie

  I don’t realize there’s a party Friday night until Makayla tells me at the end of band class.

  “Jake’s dad is in South America.”

  “Um, what?” I’m taking my clarinet apart.

  “Yep. Gone the whole week, so he’s throwing a party.”

  Jake’s dad is a pediatric neurosurgeon who gives conferences all over the world. The Yahns’ house is big and beautiful, in the Asheville hills, not far from mine.

  “Anyway,” Makayla says, snapping her flute case closed, “you have to go. Landon is going.”

  “He is?”

  She smiles wickedly. “Jake’s forward-thinking ass invited some of the guys over for a fishing thing last week. He didn’t mention his parents’ absence, so none of the guys had to play it off to their parents. Now everyone has permission to be gone that night—so all you need is to spend the night with me and we’re golden.”

  I think this over while I spread some oil on one of my clarinet’s corks.

  “Oh, come on, you giant square. No one’s going to pour liquor down your throat. You can be my handler. And Landon’s.”

  My stomach tightens as she says that, and my best friend leans toward me. “Evie, I know you. Since we were two,” she whispers. “If nothing’s happened yet, I’d be surprised.”

  I look down at my shoes, a gray suede boot on my right foot, and the black plastic boot on my left. Makayla throws her arms around me. “Okay, Eeyore. I’m sorry that I said something. But you’re coming tonight. You are.”

  Of course I am.

  Mom and Dad have no problem letting me stay with Makayla, whose parents they trust. And Makayla’s parents have no problem letting her stay with me. Neither of us has ever given them any reason to distrust us—that they know of.

  Landon leaves with Jake and the guys shortly after school lets out, for a weekend of fishing at the Yahns’. Their property is a hundred or so acres of prime hill country—so the fishing/camping story is a good one.

  I feel a little bad for lying to my parents, but I mostly feel excited as I pack my overnight bag. I get into Makayla’s car in jean shorts and a light blue top. She takes one look at me and shakes her head. We make a pit stop at a gas station while Makayla sends me inside to change into a dress she brought me.

  “It’s going to be too short,” I tell her. (Makayla is only five feet tall; I’m five-four and a half). She shakes her head.

  “It’s too long for me.”

  I emerge feeling surprisingly confident. The dress is navy blue, with fun, flouncy sleeves and a cheer-skirt type of hemline. It’s casual and cotton, so it looks fine with my plain sandal and big black boot.

  “It’s perfect. You’re still low-key, but you look less ‘just bounced on a trampoline.’”

  “I have a cast, you dweeb. I never looked like I bounced on a trampoline.”

  Makayla sticks her tongue out, and we head to Jake’s house. Because she is my best friend, she doesn’t say a word about Landon. I’m telling her via ESP to stick a sock in it, and Makayla hears me.

  Jake’s house is…insane. Cars everywhere, the whole lawn lit up with white holiday lights. We find out once we’re inside the massive graystone that Tia had her older sister, a professional real estate stager, come do the yard up for the night, so she could take pictures of it for a magazine.

  Within thirty minutes of milling around inside the house, I’ve seen everyone from school, kids from other schools I only know from the country club and summer camps, and a whole gaggle of people I’ve never seen in my life.

  But I haven’t seen Landon. That is, until I spot him by the fireplace in the living room, chatting with some skinny, black-haired girl who’s wearing butt-short jean shorts.

  I look them over from across the room. She might notice me staring, but Landon doesn’t; his back is to me. He’s wearing a hunter green T-shirt, khaki shorts, and leather flip-flops. And a hat. I didn’t even know he had a ball cap.

  Landon talks to this hussy for forever. And ever. So long that I leave the room with a twisting feeling in my stomach and a heavy lump in my throat. What if he gets a girlfriend? What if he’s trying to?

  When I see him again, I’m in the kitchen, pouring myself lemonade from a pitcher on the table.

  I see Landon walk into the kitchen from the other side of the room, and watch him walk to the refrigerator. He’s alone—thank God. He’s opening the fridge when another guy, a shorter
dude with thick, fluffy brown hair and a popped collar, slaps him on the arm. Landon turns to him, and I can see his face go slack with…shock?

  I stop eating so I can watch as Landon looks down at the guy. He nods a few times, says something, and leaves the room without getting anything out of the refrigerator.

  Weird.

  I wonder why he hasn’t talked to me yet. Maybe he’s just being smart. We should avoid each other out in public, I guess.

  My night unfolds in normal party fashion, which is to say, I talk to all my tipsy friends, struggle to finish one gross-tasting cup of beer, and laugh at all the antics going on around me.

  Behind Jake’s house, in a space a little larger than a football field, are two ponds, with a thick, grass median between them. If I recall, each pond is stocked with different types of fish.

  On the left side of the ponds is a giant field, and if you keep on going, a trailhead that leads up to a sizable waterfall. I only know about it because Jake’s parents and mine are friends, so we grew up around here.

  It seems, from where I’m standing on the deck, as if the party is mostly confined to the pool deck and the ponds directly behind it. In the median between ponds, the boys have pitched a few tents.

  Because that’s not transparent…

  Thirty minutes later, my clan has wandered out beyond the pool, where there’s a rowdy game of water volleyball, and toward the pond to the right, where I see splashing in the water near the mucky shore.

  Makayla and Tia stop to get some water bottles from a nearby cooler, but my eyes are glued to the figures in the water.

  It’s two guy-and-girl couples, seemingly fighting; the girls are on the guys’ shoulders.

  I blink, and puzzle pieces fit together in my mind. The guy on the left, with the blonde atop him—that’s Landon!

  I can barely breathe as I watch the fight. Someone produces those thick, Styrofoam noodle-looking things that people use to float in pools, and the girls start whacking each other with them. Laughter and cheers ring through the night. One guy holds a giant lawn spotlight on the battle. Someone else starts pelting the couples with fruit I think came from hunch punch.

  The air smells like hot grass, pond water, and liquor.

  Finally, not nearly soon enough, Landon’s girl gets knocked into the water. I watch him scoop her up and carry her a few steps to the shore. He sets her gently in the sand, then rubs a hand back through his own wet hair, and pulls his soaking shirt off. All around, girls whistle. Landon’s eyes go wide, as if he didn’t realize that would happen. He runs his hand back through his hair again, looking nervous, before he grins and gives a thumbs-up.

  Perfect.

  Makayla’s eyes are on my face as Landon walks around the shoreline, up toward the tents.

  “What is this, Ancient Rome?” I mutter.

  Makayla nudges my arm. I elbow her in reply. Inside, I’m seething, and I hate myself for it.

  “He’s so drunk.”

  I blink, then turn to face her. “What?”

  “He seemed like…really drunk.” She gives me wide eyes, as if to say, C’mon, you know I’m right.

  “Was he?”

  “He was staggering,” Makayla says.

  “I think he just walks that way.”

  She shakes her head.

  “I agree,” Tia says. “I saw him with the beer funnel.”

  I frown, shaking my head. That doesn’t seem like Landon.

  After a few more minutes standing with my friends, the pull is just too great: I head into the grassy median that runs between the two ponds, scanning the crowd around the tents for someone tall and shirtless. I crest the slight hill in time to see Landon emerge from one of the tents. He’s still shirtless, wearing just his flip-flops and his dripping khakis.

  I pause underneath a small willow and watch him as he glances around, then walks behind the tent and sits down by the less-trafficked pond on the left. Then he tries to stand back up. I realize that my friends are right—he’s drunk—by how much time it takes him to get to his feet.

  He looks around again before he starts around the far side of the left pond, down a trail that runs between the pond’s beach and the dark woods.

  I watch for a few moments before following.

  It’s dark outside, but not completely dark. There’s moonlight streaming through the shifting clouds, down onto the pond—and Landon’s bare back.

  I don’t need to see the trail. I know it well. As I follow, I hang back to keep some space between us…and I watch him.

  The pond isn’t that big. We clear it before long, and Landon follows the foot-worn path into the field. It’s really more like a large grove in the middle of the forest. Two giant rocks rest at odd spots in the tall grass. I look up; the clouds have parted, showing me a blanket of stars.

  Landon reaches the first boulder and slows. Then he proceeds to the second one. I watch him sit right at its base, resting his back against the stone and stretching out his legs into the tall grass. He leans his head back slightly, and I start to close the space between us.

  My footsteps with my boot aren’t exactly discreet, though. He looks up as I approach, the moonlight showing me his face. His brows draw together in confusion. Then his face relaxes. “Evie…”

  “Yeah.” It’s whispered, even though we’re all alone. I move still closer to him, crouching down in front of him as Landon blinks at me. “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  He shrugs, a sloppy motion. “Just wanted to see…the stars.”

  Even his tone is different. His eyes look half-shut, his shoulders slouching. He tips his head back, looking at the starry sky, and I step closer, sinking slowly to sit directly in front of him.

  I look at his beautiful bare body, warmed at just the sight of it. “Are you cold without your shirt on?”

  His gaze meets mine. “It’s in the seventies.”

  That’s true, I guess. I nod. Still, he rubs his hands along his triceps.

  I can’t resist; I say, “I saw you in the water.”

  His face tightens. “Yeah?”

  I nod. “And in the kitchen, too.”

  His face darkens when I say that.

  “What?” I say. “Who was that?”

  I open my mouth to explain the guy I’m referencing, but Landon sneers. “No one.” The words sound bitter.

  “Meaning, not no one.”

  “Just some little fuck I used to live with.”

  Whoa. I blink, and wait for him to say more. When he doesn’t, just frowns at the grass in front of him, I say, “Like an old foster brother?”

  He looks up at me, then back down, extending his arm toward me. He turns it over, so his palm is up and his scar shines dully in the moonlight. “He was my ‘brother’ when this happened. Didn’t last long.”

  I swallow hard, then reach out to close my hands around his wrist. “What do you mean?”

  He shakes his head. “They didn’t get me after that.”

  “After what?” I whisper, scooting slightly closer to him.

  “I broke it, but they didn’t take me in. It didn’t look broken, I guess?” He shrugs, like we’re talking about weather. “It healed wrong, had to be re-broken with the surgery.” His eyelids are heavy, the words a little slurred. “I guess it made them…change their minds.” He flexes those fingers. His face is solemn, and his eyes look lost.

  “Did they get in trouble, for not taking you to the hospital soon enough?”

  He shrugs. “I never saw that kid again,” he says in a tone that’s almost wistful. “’Til right now. Tonight. That kid at the refrigerator?” he asks, looking at me like he’s just remembered that I’m here. “He was six. And I was seven. He didn’t remember me…just now. He asked how he knew me.”

  I stroke his arm with my fingers, and then I scoot so that I’m right beside him, our backs up against the rock. I intertwine my arm with his, and bring his hand up to my lips, so I can kiss the side of it.

  He swallows heavily, his shoul
ders rising, falling. “People forget, you know? When you’re just passing through…”

  “I bet they don’t all forget,” I whisper.

  “Trust me.” He gives me a sideways smile that’s devastating because it’s so sad. “I know the way this goes.”

  “I think the way it goes sounds like it sucks.” I lean against him, pressing his knuckles against the warmth of my cheek. His eyes hold mine for one long moment before he nuzzles my head with his chin.

  “Why are you here?” he murmurs.

  I lean closer to him. “I want to be where you are. Always.”

  “Why, though, Evie?”

  “I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “I just feel like everything is…right when we’re together. Do you feel that too?”

  He looks at me. His eyes are steel gray, solemn and perceptive in the moonlight that streams through the clouds. “Yeah.”

  My fingers tighten around his. “What are we going to do?” I whisper.

  He shakes his head. A gentle wind blows, tipping blades of grass around us. Landon’s eyes are molten now.

  “I think about not being near you like we are right now, and I…can’t take it.”

  Landon’s hand around mine squeezes.

  “I don’t know what to do,” I say, surprised to find my throat is tight. Out here in this field, with trees around us and the cauldron of clouds and stars above us, I feel like we’re in another world.

  “Maybe you should stay away from me.” His voice is hoarse. His eyes are strange.

  “I don’t think so.” I swallow, looking back down at our joined hands. “I don’t think I can. It seems impossible.”

  His fingers stroke between mine, and I feel it in my lower belly. “Why is it impossible?”

  “I don’t know why.” I feel a piercing sensation in the center of my chest, as if my heart is getting penetrated with a real, live cupid’s arrow. I look up at him, at his eyes—now soft in the cloudy light—and his familiar, trusted face. “You’re just…my favorite person,” I whisper.

  He smiles again, just slightly, and it’s a smile that makes me want to cry. “I don’t know why that is. Why is anybody anybody’s favorite person? Sometimes I feel like it’s a miracle that we can find those people.”