Hearts and Thorns

by Ella Fields

  “Hey, Willa.”

  I wanted to spit at her. I swallowed, then smiled instead. “Hi.” I peered around her, noticing she was thankfully alone. “Having fun?”

  She grinned. “Yeah, I can’t believe how nice your house is.” She half rolled her eyes. “He’s never once let me inside before.”

  I pursed my lips. “Our parents are kind of strict.” Why the hell I was lying for him—well, kind of lying—I didn’t know.

  She sipped from a white straw, her pink-stained lips large and bee-stung looking. “Right? I heard. Such a buzzkill. I want to meet them and hopefully win them over.” Another grin, and then she stepped closer. “But hey, at least I get to hang with you.”

  She’d never once tried to hang out with me at school. I didn’t fool myself into thinking it was because she spent most of her time chasing after Jackson’s whereabouts. No, she hung out with Kayla, Annabeth, Annika, Daphne, and the rest of the squad.

  Daphne seemed okay from the brief encounters I’d had with her, if not kind of cold and closed off, but the rest were mean and didn’t hesitate in displaying as much.

  Ainsley was hard to peg. Though I knew if it weren’t for Jackson, she’d likely not be standing here, trying to rope me into conversation.

  I needed more of that chardonnay. “Yeah, so cool,” I said, wanting to cringe at my forced words.

  She didn’t seem to notice and swayed forward, her hand reaching for my hair. “I’d kill for curls like this. The way your hair just falls into them, like a damn waterfall or something.”

  I wanted to cry. To slap her hands off me and run away.

  I did neither as Jackson halted in the kitchen, his eyes narrowing on what I was positive was my panicked expression. “Ains,” he said, still staring at me. “Wanna help me start to clear everyone out?”

  She bounded over to him, slinking her arm through his. “Not yet,” she whined, batting her lashes.

  Removing his unreadable eyes from me, he directed them to her and grinned, saying something too quiet for me to hear above the music.

  But I didn’t have to hear. The way Ainsley bit her lip suggestively and pressed herself into him told me all I needed to know.

  Inside the small downstairs bathroom, I locked the door and leaned over the sink, blinking over and over to keep the sorrow and breaking pieces from rattling loose.

  Sniffing it back, I closed my eyes.

  He wanted everyone gone so they didn’t wreck the place while he was downstairs, doing whatever he’d planned to do with Ainsley.

  All this time, I’d kidded myself into thinking that he wasn’t that serious about her. Yeah, they’d kissed, but I thought that was it. I hadn’t dared to even contemplate the idea of anything else.

  Then the memory of his expert fingers, his purpose-filled touch, seared.

  They couldn’t do anything else.

  They just couldn’t.

  I had minutes, maybe ten, to fix myself up, as the noise in the house began to fade, and cars came and went out front.

  I used them to freshen up, wiping the few smears of mascara from beneath my eyes and righting my hair. I was wearing an ice blue dress with capped sleeves and a short, frilled hem and no shoes.

  I didn’t need shoes for where I was going.

  Peering into the hall, Dash and Raven shoving each other on the way to the door, I waited, then I took the stairs near the garage. The stairs that led down to the basement where Jackson’s room was.

  Curled on the foot of his navy blue and brown bed, I waited again.

  Posters of bands were stuck to the brick walls, and he’d taken the old furniture Mom and Dad stored down here and used it for his own.

  A little sitting area was tucked into the far-right corner, an antique coffee table covered in dirt bike magazines and textbooks. An old refrigerator was plugged into the outlet near the sitting area, and inside it, I knew there were bottles of water, juice, and milk for the box of cereal that he kept above the fridge.

  His desk was organized with pens tucked neatly in jars and books stacked to the right and in the center. His lamp was off, and I reached over to turn it on just as I heard the door above creak open.

  My pulse screamed and almost drowned out the sound of Jackson’s and Ainsley’s laughter and their descending footsteps.

  I scrambled for the book on his nightstand, a Stephen King novel that would scare the hair right off my head, and opened it to appear as if it was normal for me to be hanging out in my brother’s room.

  I suppose it could have been, but we rarely hung out alone anymore, especially not at nighttime.

  At what I assumed was the glow of his lamp, Jackson’s steps slowed near the base of the stairs before he rounded the corner.

  When he did, his face was blanker than a sheet of white paper. “Willa?”

  I lifted both brows. “Great party.”

  Ainsley wrapped her arms around his midsection, smiling at me. “It was awesome.” She frowned then, as if sensing I shouldn’t be in here.

  “Willa,” Jackson said, then mouthed the words, “don’t do this.”

  Ainsley shifted. “So, whatcha doing in here, Willa?”

  Jackson smirked. “Good question.”

  Betrayal came in many forms. I felt it then, a new version. The type that came with feeling replaced, and like I’d become some type of burden—a pest.

  It only spiked my determination higher. I wouldn’t be cowed or told to go away. All this time, I’d let him make every decision that concerned the two of us, but I wouldn’t let him do this. “I feel sick.” I tossed the book aside. “And we’re out of Tylenol.”

  Ainsley pursed her lips. “I might have some in my car.”

  Jackson said nothing, only stared for sweltering seconds with an intensity that raised every hair on my body.

  My trapped breath flew out of me when his stiff shoulders slumped, and he took Ainsley upstairs, murmuring words I could no longer hear.

  I watched the clock above his desk, counting the ticks, hating that they crawled into a full four minutes before he returned.

  His footsteps thundered down the steps. He raked a hand through his hair, pacing the floor beside his bed.

  I didn’t wait. I didn’t bother with any more false pretenses. It was pointless. “I know what you were going to do.”

  “That’s none of your fucking business. How much have you had to drink?”

  “Not enough to lose my mind because it is,” I breathed, emphatic. I might not have been drunk, but there was enough liquid courage still with me to see this through. “Isn’t it? It is my business.”

  He stopped, staring straight ahead to the flat screen mounted on the wall. “You should’ve let me.”

  “No.”

  “Why, Willa?” He leveled me with a cold smile as he swung his feet forward, slow and calculated, nearing where I sat. “Why fucking not?”

  Uncaring that it would ruin what we’d tried to rebuild, I said, “You know why.” Because the alternative, having him be with someone who wasn’t me, wasn’t something I was okay with. I could never be okay with that, and I was sick of trying to be.

  “I don’t know if I do.” His tone was too aloof, eyes too hard, for me to read.

  That didn’t matter. “Because if I can’t, then you can’t either.”

  His entire body stiffened, his face scrunching with annoyance and something else. “You mean to tell me you’ve tried?”

  I swallowed. “Well, not exactly, but I… I don’t want to.”

  He groaned. “For fuck’s sake, this is so vague we’re practically speaking in code. Which is exactly why you should’ve stayed out of my room.”

  I nodded, knowing he was right. What were we even thinking all those months ago? How could one kiss change things so much? The answer was complicatedly simple. We hadn’t been thinking then, we hadn’t been thinking last month at the beach, but all we did now—all I did now—was fucking think.

  I watched him take a step back, and the
moisture in my eyes misted further as I wondered if maybe I’d read this all wrong. If maybe, he’d never wanted more than to see how my lips felt moving over his.

  If maybe, I could call his bluff by leaving.

  “You’re right.” Climbing off the bed, I tugged at the hem of my dress, and went to pass him. “I won’t interrupt next time.”

  Jackson’s laughter was abrasive and dark as he grabbed my arm. “Next time? No. I don’t think so.”

  Scowling, I pulled my arm away but not hard enough to do much of anything. “Let go.”

  Through gritted teeth, he rasped, “I’ve been trying to let go for years, and you don’t seem to care. You’re happy to let me do all the work, all the hard things, while you continue to dream.”

  I frowned, and then it all crystalized.

  He’d been pushing me away, I’d known that, but he was still doing it.

  “There they are.” Soft and decadent, his tone changed. “Bug eyes.” His finger drifted beneath one. “Beautiful fucking eyes.”

  “Jack, I—”

  “No, you brought this upon yourself when you came down here.” A gleam brightened his eyes. “You don’t want me to see other girls? To touch another girl?”

  I shook my head because the thought alone made my stomach protest.

  His head dropped. “Then this time, there’s no pussyfooting, no running away from this.” He paused, waited. “This is your last chance before we probably ruin everything. Five.”

  He was right.

  “Four.”

  We would ruin everything.

  “Three.”

  But only if we weren’t careful.

  “Two.”

  “I never ran away from anything,” I whispered, rising to my toes to skim my lips over his. “That was all you.” His hands were bands of steel clamping around my waist as my lips closed over his, and we fell into the wall behind me, exploring each other’s mouths.

  Monday morning, with my books tucked to my chest, I watched Ainsley fly past me down the hall and disappear around the corner, her head lowered to hide her tears.

  I blinked, then dragged my gaze to Jackson, who was looking straight at me.

  Raven thumped him on the back, laughter in his eyes, and then they walked on to class.

  My heart was singing, stretching and pounding and humming as I bit back my smile and did the same.

  “You dumped her,” my first words to Jackson at lunch when he met me at my locker.

  He grabbed my food and closed the door. “I’ve continuously told her she wasn’t my girlfriend.”

  I tried to match my steps with his as we walked down the hall. “She thinks different.”

  “That’s not my fault.” He peered around, then opened the door to an empty room and pulled me inside. “And it’s definitely not yours, so don’t worry about it.”

  Taking my hand from his, I shuffled a few steps back, nodding.

  “Seriously, Wil?” He laughed, dry and disbelieving. “You backed me into this corner, and now you’re just leaving me there?”

  I hit the lock on the door, dropped my food to the closest desk, then pulled down the blinds before turning to him with a brow raised.

  His lips shaped around the word, “Oh.”

  Our smiles grew at the same time, and then I was against his chest, his hands traveling up and down my back in deliciously slow sweeps. “I’m fucking dying to kiss you again.”

  “You kissed me last night,” I reminded him yet felt my mouth floating closer to his, my head tilting back when his hand threaded into my hair and gently tugged.

  He had kissed me last night. It wasn’t the make-out fest we’d fallen into in his bedroom on the night of his party, thanks to our parents arriving home, but he’d come to me after they’d fallen asleep and spent a solid ten minutes devouring my mouth.

  It ended when our sighs and heated whispers turned to groans and tiny pleas, our hands getting too excited.

  But the promise of it never having to end if we played our cards right had my kiss-bruised lips tilting as I’d watched him leave.

  His thumb ghosted over my chin, skimming beneath my bottom lip. “I want you to feel how hard I am, and that should make me sick.”

  I licked at his finger and his pupils dilated, then I reached between us and, tentatively, felt how much he wanted me, how thick and long he was, and my stomach jumped into my chest.

  His deep groan rumbled, and I wanted to hear it again, to rub my nose against the column of his throat and feel it leave him.

  So I did, then licked his skin as I moved my fingers over him.

  “We’re going straight to hell,” he wheezed, but when I pulled back, I saw his lips were curling.

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  “No?”

  “No. This”—I pressed my mouth to his thumb, then brushed my nose against the stubble on his chin—“whatever it is, could never be considered anything but good.”

  “You’re too sweet for this world, Wil.”

  Grabbing his hand, I laid it over my chest. “Feel it beating?” I didn’t wait for him to answer. “Now feel it beat harder when I move it a little…” He swallowed, his hand covering the swell of my breast. I grinned. “Maybe I’m not so sweet after all.”

  “You’ll never be anything but even though you are a temptress.” Delicious and wicked, his words hit my cheek, his fingers squeezing, his length pushing into my hand. “We shouldn’t be doing this.”

  Hurt threatened to storm in, but I refused to let it and smirked against his cheek. “But you won’t let go.”

  “And neither will you.”

  “Never,” I said, then stole his lips in a kiss that damned and awakened.

  He pulled back after a moment, breathing hard. “I didn’t mean this.” His frown tugged at my heart, and I released him to wrap my arms around his waist. He did the same. “I meant we should be dating, having fun, all that kind of shit before we step straight into the flames.”

  “That’s the beauty of this,” I said. “We don’t need to because we’ve already done all that. And really,” I said, smiling up into his curious face, “we’ve been dodging the flames for long enough, don’t you think?”

  He gazed at the closed door behind me, then dropped his forehead to mine. “I think you deserve better, something normal. That’s what I think.”

  I began to pull away, sinking. “If I wanted something normal, I would’ve—”

  “I wouldn’t have let you have it,” he said, tone hard but his eyes playful. “Let me finish.” He kissed my forehead, sighing against my skin as he held me tighter. “I don’t want normal, Bug, and I know I’ll never find another you.” He tipped my chin up when I failed to respond, then chuckled. “Fucking hell, don’t cry.” His hands cupped my face, thumbs swiping beneath my eyes.

  “Shut up,” I said, sniffing.

  He did, forcing my mouth to his, where it stayed until the bell rang.

  Jackson

  Seventeen

  Dirt sprayed, pelting the bikes beside me as we raced toward the midday sun.

  Raven flipped us off from where he stood by a jump he was trying to fix, and it almost collapsed beneath the weight of our bikes.

  While I enjoyed tearing up the track we’d built at Dash’s place, I missed racing. If he wasn’t working, Dad would make sure I made every race, but lately, I scarcely made time for it myself. It’d been months since I’d last felt my adrenaline spike like this. Since I’d felt my body heat beneath the gear I had on. Since I’d smiled over something that wasn’t Willa.

  Her dimpled smile flashed before me.

  I eased off, heading into a tree-strewn corner, then smacked it when it cleared into a long run of pocketed dirt. Dash’s two stroke screamed ahead, Lars standing atop it as he neared what we’d marked as the finish line.

  Dash kept neck in neck with me until we’d reached him. I rolled over the small boulders and crests in the ground, my breath clouding my helmet, then turned to a sto
p where they were standing by the trees, yanking off helmets and goggles.

  I did the same, then guzzled water from my hydration pack.

  “Scale of one to ten, how pissed is Rave going to be?” Dash said through his shit-eating smile.

  “Four,” I said, dropping the mouthpiece and climbing off my bike.

  I leaned it against the tree, then took a seat against the trunk, running my hands through my sweat-soaked hair.

  “Four?” Dash scoffed.

  Lars chuckled. “It’s Raven. He couldn’t stay pissed at anyone for longer than five minutes.”

  Dash lit a cigarette, scowling.

  I shook my head, sweat droplets splashing to the dirt.

  Lars was right.

  “Ainsley’s still pissed about your sudden breakup,” Raven said an hour later as I was loading my bike into the back of my truck.

  I tightened the tie-downs, then slid the ramp in before taking a seat on the tailgate. “Is she?” I knew she was. I’d received numerous texts and DMs in the weeks after, begging for a reason, and even one saying she thought she was in love with me.

  After apologizing once, I didn’t respond to any more. Not because I felt like being a dick, but because there was little point. It wouldn’t help, and although she deserved some type of explanation, I couldn’t give her one.

  “You know damn well she is,” Raven said, kicking at a cluster of weeds with the toe of his boot. “You haven’t been with anyone else since, though.”

  “Your point?” I said, growing impatient.

  He smirked. “There is none. I just find it bizarre. You seemed into her enough, but you’re not with anyone else after dumping her.”

  “She was never my girlfriend.” Yeah, I liked her, but like wasn’t enough to smother what I felt for Willa. Ainsley was cool, but she wasn’t Willa.

  “Don’t think she got that memo.” Raven lit a blunt, taking a deep drag.

  “Why do you care?” Dash said, coming around the side of my truck. “Got a hard-on for Jack-Jack now?”

  Raven narrowed his eyes, grinning as he exhaled smoke. “Nah, baby. I wouldn’t betray you like that.”