by Callie Hart
Alex gives me a look that says the exact same thing. “Who are you lying to right now, Silver? Because you’re not fooling anyone.”
“Anyone?” I gesture to the open forest surrounding us, laughing weakly. “There’s no one here but us birds.”
“You’re not fooling me,” he clarifies in a stony voice. “You’re not fooling yourself, either.” He rubs at the back of his neck, grimacing. “Aren’t you tired of this yet, Argento?”
“I don’t know what you mean.” Aaaaand the lies just keep on coming.
Alex huffs miserably down his nose. “Okay. Well…real talk. I don’t like girls very often. I don’t normally spend my days pissed at myself because I can’t stop myself from thinking about someone. I can safely say I have never truly, really given a shit about anyone apart from my kid brother before—”
“I don’t know if that’s a good thing to be admitting.”
“Just…stop. Quit hiding from the hard stuff. I’m not fucking hiding from it. Not anymore. If you can’t just be real for one second, then I’ll do it for the both of us. My life is a fucking mess right now. I have so much shit going on, and I’ve been trying my best to forget that you even exist, but I can’t, okay? I like you. I care about you. I care that you probably think I hooked up with one of those dumb bitches at that party, when I didn’t. When I walked away, disgusted at how pathetic they were being. And I know you don’t want to hear any of this shit. Your life is fucked up, too. But I see you, Silver. I see you looking at me, and I can feel the want in you. This playing around, tiptoeing around the truth is just fucking…it's fucking pointless. You like me, too. You care about me, too. You don't know why yet, but I can show you. I'm a risk. I'm a danger. I'm not a fucking safe bet by anyone's standards. But I can be good for you if you let me. At least I think I can. You're the first fucking person in this entire world who’s ever made me want to fucking try. And…” He runs out of steam. The muscle's ticking in his jaw again. He's trying to rein in the fire that seems to have caught in him, and he's having a tough time doing it.
Meanwhile, I’m having a hard time standing still, hearing the words that he’s saying. This is not easy for me. It’s been a long time since I’ve been spoken to like this—someone telling me the truth, on a base level, and looking to me to reciprocate.
I open my mouth and Alex stills. His eyes are slightly narrowed, his nostrils flared, hands formed into the shape of fists at his sides. He’s waiting for me to deny everything he’s just said, to sweep it all aside, and he’s ready and waiting for it. He’s not going to let me get off lightly. “I do like you,” I say softly. “I shouldn’t. I—I’m just—It doesn’t matter if I like you, Alex. I can lie in bed and think about you all I want. I can watch you, and I can imagine…” Shit. This is too hard. I can’t even find the words.
His chest is rising and falling rapidly, the tendons straining in his neck. “What do you imagine?”
“Alex, please—”
“You’re not a fucking coward, Silver. I know you’re not. You prove that every day that you show up at that school. What do you imagine?”
“I—” I take a deep breath. Everything is such a mess. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. “Kissing you,” I whisper. “Your mouth on mine. Your hands on me. Laying my head on your chest, listening to your heartbeat…”
A harsh, pained sound escapes him. “Silver…”
“I imagine us being together. I imagine having you to myself, that you were mine. It's so easy to picture walking down the hallway at Raleigh with your hand in mine because I know it would be easy. It would be so much fucking better because I wouldn't be alone anymore. I could fall in love with you, Alex. I could see myself doing that.” I nod, trying not to stumble over the terrifying words. “It wouldn’t take much. But I can’t let it happen.”
Alex is as rigid as the statue of David. He looks struck dumb by what I’ve just said. I wonder if I’ve gone too far, been too honest, said too much. Guys Alex’s age don’t talk about falling in love. They say you’re ‘seeing each other’ or ‘talking’ to avoid even calling you their girlfriend.
But he takes a slow, cautious step forward, heat radiating off him like a furnace. “Why not?” he asks. “I’m not good enough?”
“No! Of course not! God, Alex. I want you. I want all of those things! I want you to touch me. I want you to kiss me more than I’ve ever wanted anything.”
“Then just give in, Silver! Stop fucking fighting so hard.”
“I’m not fighting!”
“Yes, you are. You have been since the moment we met. Before we even met!” He huffs down his nose. “Fight the hard stuff. The wrong stuff. But stop fighting me. I’m neither of those things. Just…trust me.”
I’m so close to tears. “I don’t know how, Alex.” If I so much as breathe right now, I’m going to fall to pieces, and I desperately don’t want that.
He steps into me. A frigid breeze whips through the clearing between the cabin and the lake, and his wavy, dark hair blows across his face. It swirls around his head as the wind eddies, and I'm struck for the millionth time that he can't possibly be real. This dark, tortured soul, covered in so much ink, standing before me isn't the kind of creature to find his way into my life and somehow make it better. He was meant for other things.
A wolf and a rose—savage and wild, beautiful and tender. A dichotomy if ever I saw one. I realize for the very first time that the ink on the backs of Alex's hands really are an accurate representation of him. I stare at them as he slowly lifts his hand, and then he's carefully stroking his thumbs over my cheekbones, cradling my face so reverently that I think he's worried I might shatter against him.
His voice is filled with emotion as he sighs out his next words. “I promise. You won’t even need to try, Argento. I’ll make it as easy as breathing.” He moves with infinite patience, slowly, giving me every opportunity to bolt. Somehow, despite my heart fluttering in my chest like an injured bird, I stay rooted to the ground, my feet bare in the earth, as he bows down to meet me, lifting my face to him, and he kisses me.
I've been kissed before, but not like this. Not like it means something. Not like it really is a promise. It starts slow, tentative, gentle, but I can feel the unrest in him. I know he wants to claim me with his mouth, but he holds back. He's patient with me, and I…I begin to feel the fractured pieces inside me slowly starting to hurt a little less. His fingers thread into my hair as he slowly guides my mouth open.
The moment the wet heat of his tongue touches my lips, something is kindled in me—the beginnings of a fire I already know will burn out of control if given half a chance. I’m hot all over, eaten alive by both fear and need as he pulls me to him, firmly holding me against his chest. The taste of him fills my head, cool and fresh like mint.
I surprise myself when I reach up and place my hand at the back of his neck, pulling down so he can kiss me harder. Maybe I’m proving something to myself now, meeting him in the middle, daring to slide my tongue into his mouth, too. I can do this. I want it more than anything I've ever wanted before. I fit against him, so much smaller than him, like a piece of a puzzle falling into place, and in one blindingly quick moment, I begin to believe in this. In him. In us. That there can be an us, without the fear that’s been festering in me like a poison ruining everything in the span between heartbeats.
I didn’t know it, but I’ve been waiting for him for a long time now.
When he pulls away, breath ragged, eyes wide, his pupils are blown, turning his irises almost black. “That's it then, Argento. The decision's been made. You're mine, and I'm yours. And the whole of Raleigh High is gonna know about it by five minutes past eight, Tuesday morning.”
18
ALEX
“Wake up, Passerotto. I made you something good. Alessandro, mi amore, open your eyes.”
The smell of caramelized sugar and the sound of my mother's voice wakes me. For a drowsy, blissful moment, I am six years old, and my mother is stroking
a feather along the bridge of my nose, making me squirm as I surface from my dreams. She used to do that all the time, even though she knew it made me mad and tickled like crazy. I rub at my face, scratching my nose, eyes opening slowly, and I see the full-bloomed roses, wrapped in vines, winding up my arm, and it all comes flooding back. Eleven years, rushing in, pressing down on me, replaying the greatest hits of my life, which, up until last night haven't been all that fucking great.
I wasn’t paying much attention to the cabin last night when Silver showed me into a small bedroom on the ground floor, complete with bunk beds and Hulk sheets. Max’s room, she told me. Turns out her brother is the same age as Ben. Now, I get up, kicking my way back into my jeans and sliding my arms into my t-shirt, noticing that this morning is the first morning in a long ass time that I haven’t woken up with a stiff neck on the couch in the trailer.
There is a bedroom there. I could use the bed, but somehow climbing into it feels wrong. Three years, I slept on a two-inch thick mattress in Gary’s converted basement. He made a point of making sure I wouldn’t be comfortable, and so I made a point of getting accustomed to the cold and the ache in my bones when I woke as a fuck-you to the bastard. Now that I have no reason to mistreat my body and subject it to such uncomfortable conditions…I don’t know. It’s hard to stop saying fuck you to Gary, even though the motherfucker’s dead.
From the way the sun's pouring in through the windows, already climbed halfway up into the sky, it must be about eleven or so. Everything looks so different in the daylight. I wander down a narrow hallway, emerging into the living room, and I catch sight of Silver through the doorway, standing in the kitchen in front of the stove, stirring viciously at something. She hasn't noticed me yet, and I take a moment to watch her. Her hair's down. I have never, ever seen it down before. The light catches at it, highlighting individual strands of honey and gold, and I remember how good it had felt to bury my hands in the thickness of it last night. Too fucking good.
She’s wearing little blue shorts with ribbons tied into bows on either side of the legs, and a white t-shirt that’s so big it’s slipping off her, exposing one of her shoulders. She hums as she cooks, and I recognize the song. It’s ‘Vienna,’ by Billy Joel. So fucking weird. Weird that she even knows it. I don’t want to startle her, so I clear my throat, walking heavily across the living room, making sure she knows I’m coming.
She pauses for a second, but then carries on with her stirring, whisking at something in a pan.
God, she’s something else. I can’t bear how fucking beautiful she is. It cuts me down to the quick. I don’t even hide the fact that I’m staring at her. I’m never going to hide that she fascinates me, not ever again. “Good morning.” I can hear the amusement in my tone as I prop myself up against the kitchen’s door jamb. Stands to reason, since I’m highly entertained by the way today has started out—the two of us, together, in the middle of nowhere, alone. Feels fucking strange.
Aside from last night, we’ve never been alone like this. There have always been plenty of people within shouting distance. Other students. A teacher. Silver’s father. Here, there’s only me. Only her. She takes her sweet time turning around, and I can barely wait to see her face. God, I’m turning into such a fucking lovesick asshole puppy, I’m almost making myself sick. If Monty could hear me now, he’d drive his hand between my fucking legs, grab hard and squeeze, just to make sure my balls were still hanging there.
She's not wearing any make-up. Her eyes are bright and filled with nervousness, but the reckless grin she fires at me tells me that she's not going to kneel to her own apprehension today. “I'm making French toast and Crème Anglais,” she informs me. “Though you're probably a bacon and eggs guy. Scratch that. You probably down a quart of engine grease for breakfast, don't you?”
I smile, scrubbing a hand through my hair, trying to make it lie flat. I know it won’t, it never does, but it’s worth a shot. From the crooked smile and the hiked-up eyebrows, Silver’s not too sure about my crazy bedhead look. She prods a whisk in my direction. “You can eat, but then you need to leave. My parents will flip if they find a guy up here.”
I try not to notice the fact that she isn't wearing a bra and her nipples are peaked beneath the material of her shirt, but I am a guy, so that's basically impossible. My poker face is unrivaled, though. “Fair enough,” I tell her.
She looks deflated. “Fair enough?”
“Yeah. I plan on claiming most of your spare time, Silver. I don't want your parents ready to run me through with a pitchfork on day one.”
“I thought you might put up a bit of a fight.”
I give her a devilish smirk. It’s fucked up how easy it is to change gear on her. Stalking into the kitchen, I approach her, keeping my thoughts from my face. Still, I’m cautious as I place my hands on her hips. “You want me to put up a fight? You got it. I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying right here with you until Monday night. And when we go back to Raleigh, I’m going to kidnap you, and have you sleep at my place. I’m keeping you for myself, Silver. I’m never letting you out of my fucking sight. Don’t bother arguing. You’ll only be wasting your breath.”
She stares up at me with unfocused eyes, her lips slightly parted. Neither of us has commented on the fact that the whisk she's still holding in her hand is dripping some kind of yellow liquid onto the cracked linoleum floor.
“Uhhh. Okay,” she says on an exhale. “Fine.”
It’s my turn to repeat her. “Fine?”
A quick nod. “Sure. I mean…” She shrugs. “What my parents don’t know won’t kill them. And my dad liked you for some reason, even though you showed up at the house uninvited.”
Slowly, I lean down and kiss her. It's the lightest kind of kiss, the barest suggestion of one, our lips hardly making contact, but it seems to have a wild effect on Silver. Her eyes dance, alive and feverish. “Seems I have a bad habit of showing up uninvited,” I say.
“Are you handling me like I’m a china doll now?” she asks. “You can kiss me properly. I won’t break because of a kiss.”
I run the tip of my index finger lightly over her forehead, down the bridge of her nose, over the biteable swell of her lips, and then trail all the way underneath her chin and down the slope of her neck until I reach her collar bone. I've wanted to touch her so many fucking times in abstract, weird ways like this. She stands still, patient, maybe a little tense, as I stroke the pad of my finger into the small hollow at the base of her neck. I pull my hand away. “There are people out there who poison themselves on purpose,” I tell her. “Small doses, every day.”
She’s quick—doesn’t need me to explain how this piece of information is relevant to our situation. “You think I’m going to build up a tolerance to you? If you feed me small sips of you? You’re not poison.”
I nod, wetting my bottom lip, my eyes roving hungrily over her face. “Yes. I am poison. And yeah. I’m a staunch advocate for too much too quick. That’s always been my M.O. but I’m willing to develop an iron will in patience to make sure I don’t fuck this up.”
She crooks an eyebrow at me, and I mirror her expression, making her smile.
Fuck. Me. Dead.
I made her smile.
This is the first time I've made her anything other than angry, and the rush of emotion, seeing her turn that smile on me like I fucking deserve it or something, feels like a kick to the gut. God, how am I ever going to be worthy of this girl? I have no clue, but I'm gonna figure it out if it kills me.
“I had a dream,” she says quietly. It’s a shy admission, which looks damn cute on her. “I dreamed we were somewhere warm. Together. In the sun.”
“I’m sorry. Sun? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Hah-hah,” she says dryly. “I think it was Hawaii. We were swimming in the ocean, and all of your tattoos washed off in the water.”
There’s a weird tightness in my chest. I don’t know if it’s because she dreamed such a strange
thing, or because she dreamed of me, period. I mostly only feature in other people’s nightmares. “Is that your subtle way of telling me you want me to go through a hundred laborious, incredibly painful hours of tattoo removal, Dolcezza?”
She rolls her eyes. “I’m not finished. I dreamed they all came off in the water, but then they transferred onto me. And they were all in the wrong places.”
I tug my bottom lip through my teeth, holding my hands over Silver’s face, covering her eyes. “Hmm. I’m not sure a bunch of face tattoos would suit you.”
She bites back a coy smile as she takes hold of me by the wrists, the beater smearing yellow batter up my arm, and pulls my hands away. “I—” She starts. Seems like she can’t finish, though.
“You what?”
“I’ve wondered about the rest of them. Your tattoos. How many do you have? Do they all mean something to you? Where are they?” She trails off, twin patches of red staining her cheeks. She’s fucking ridiculously adorable when she’s embarrassed.
Leaning into her, unable to resist the chance to make that blush spread a little further, I brush my mouth lightly against hers again. “Are you asking for a guided tour of my body, Silver Parisi? Because I will happily oblige.”
The change in her body is very noticeable. Her back straightens, her hands tightening around my wrists. Great job, asshole. You’ve freaked her out. “I’m only teasing,” I say quietly, nudging the end of her nose with my own. “I’m not suggesting we get naked and run around the cabin like animals.”
Her eyes are like mirrors when she looks up at me, pale blue, almost silver. “I’m not upset. I—I would like the guided tour. So long as the rides are optional.” She seems pretty pleased with her euphemism.
“Oh. So you’re a dork? Good to know.” I grab the beater from her and toss it underhand into the sink behind her, pulling her closer to me. Our bodies are pressed up against each other, and I spend all of a heartbeat trying to figure out if I should try and angle myself in a way that might hide the fact that I have a raging hard-on, but I run out of time. Silver feels it—she has to. It’s digging into her fucking hip like a reinforced steel baton. I expect her to flip out, at least get a little weird, but she doesn’t. Instead, she gives me a slightly scandalized open mouth smile, coolly arching an eyebrow at me.