Virginal Headlines: Love Between The Headlines

by Knoebel, Candace

  Her bottom lip found its way between her teeth as she bit down on it. With a reverent sigh, it popped free. “How would you feel if the roles were reversed? What if it was me who hurt you?”

  Point taken. Tread carefully, I thought, realizing she wasn’t immune to the things she read, even if she told herself she didn’t believe all of it.

  “Prim, of all the women in the world, you’re the last one I’d intentionally hurt. Believe it or not, I genuinely like you. You confuse me, I’ll admit, but that’s what makes me like you even more.”

  The ache in my gut twisted as a rush of panic pulsed within my tongue. If this was it, if this was where our story ended, then I had to get it out. I had to let her know how I felt about her.

  “You’re beautiful, Prim, but not in the stereotypical sense. It’s in the way you push your glasses up the slope of your nose when you’re nervous. It’s how you view the world, and how you—just by living in it—change it for the better. I’ve never met someone who goes out of their way to make sure others are comfortable the way you do. You… you think you have to apologize for who you are.” I reached for her hand and squeezed. “But you’re the most amazing person I’ve ever met.”

  Her eyes widened with shock, which quickly gave way to something softer. Melted her features with an aching sympathy I didn’t deserve. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean… I didn’t know you felt like that. I just… I should… I should go.”

  She spun, rushing toward her door when I felt this sudden need take over me. I didn’t want her to go. I never wanted her to go.

  “Wait.”

  She stilled, as if the words poured concrete around her feet. “Why, Grayson?”

  I heard it in her voice shaking with the same need. The same confusing desperation, thick like the summer heat around us, “I don’t know, damn it. Just… just wait.”

  I moved closer to her, heart slamming against my chest. Skimmed my fingers over her arm until I reached her hand. Tugging ever so slightly, I spun her around. Her gaze swam within mine, searching for something I didn’t think either of us understood. I knew then I was in trouble. My heart stepped toward hers without my permission, curious, feeling her out.

  “Take me to your favorite spot,” I said, still holding on to her hand. “Anywhere. Just… take me there. I want to know you, Prim. I want to know everything about you.”

  She glanced at the floor. “Grayson, I—”

  “You said we could be friends,” I said over her. I didn’t understand her hesitation when just the night before she’d been ready for me to kiss her.

  “I did.” She glanced up. There it was again. That shadow that passed through her eyes.

  “Solet’s start there. Just don’t… don’t give up on me.”

  With a sigh, she said, “Fine. Come on.”

  We ended up at a small bookstore downtown.

  Though I felt her unease, I continued to make small talk, hoping it would gradually slip away. I followed her up a small flight of stairs, unable to take my eyes off the stars on her backside that danced with every small sway to her hips. I imagined plotting a new universe within the fabric. A place where she and I could exist without complication.

  “Here.” She stopped in the middle of a compact aisle, a breathy smile to her lips as she scanned the rows of books. The quiet thrill of the thousands of worlds we were surrounded by sparked in the air. “This is it.”

  I glanced around for any telltale sign of why it would be her favorite spot. “Books. Of course. Why wouldn’t this be your favorite spot?”

  A sliver of a grin streaked across her mouth as the earlier tension melted from her gaze. “Not just any book. Here. Let me show you.”

  She stepped closer to me. Reached over my shoulder, her proximity hitting me straight in the dick. The floral scent of her hair brushed against the tip of my nose. I had half a mind to pin her against the shelf and kiss her. Inhale her scent until it was imprinted on my soul.

  Leaning back on her heels, she had a book in her hand, offering it to me. “Turn it to page one hundred-fifty-two. Line seventeen.”

  My eyes skimmed over the words until I stopped where she directed me.

  “Read it out loud.”

  “Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.”

  “Eleonora by Edgar Allen Poe. One of my favorite poets. One of my favorite lines.” Her smile could be felt through the air. It was sunshine and hope. Alluring and magical.

  I read the line over again, breaking each word apart. Trying to find her within each syllable.

  “This is my favorite place,” she said, her finger pressed against the page. “Inside a book. Inside another’s mind. Learning. Creating. Expanding. That was why I came to New York. All these big dreams and hopes carried in a knapsack on my back. And… now they’re becoming realized… and I can’t… I can’t let them go. Not now. Not when I’m so close.”

  Her words almost sounded like an apology. A confession. And, in them, I found pieces of myself, because I knew what it felt like to want something I could be proud of. To chase a dream I never thought I could have.

  Taking the book, she moved in front of me and placed it in its spot as her lips curved toward the floor. I couldn’t stop myself. Drawn to her like a magnetic pull, I moved closer. Skimmed my lips over the bare spot where her shoulder had emerged from the jacket hanging slightly off.

  She tasted like honey. Like perfection. Like heaven.

  Curving in my arms, her round eyes pleaded for release as our bodies trembled within the weight of this moment. My lips hovered over hers, the heat of our breath pressing against one another. I could almost taste her when she licked her lips. Locked in place. Waiting for me to fill the gap.

  “Grayson…”

  In her eyes, a warning resided, but my name left her lips as more of a soft plea. An invitation to take what we’d been craving.

  I brushed my lips over hers. Not quite a kiss. More of a tasting. Savoring her and this moment. My bottom lip molded in between the soft curves of her mouth, connecting in place. Nose grazing over silken flesh. I felt the moment she let go. The moment she gave in to whatever was she’d been fighting and surrendered herself to me.

  When I pulled away, her eyes were closed, lips stung with desire. “I’ve been aching to do that since the moment I bumped into you.”

  “Same.” The word quivered past her lips.

  She was so warm. So pliant and ready for more. I grew harder by the second, imaging all the things I wanted to do to her. Took what she offered as I pressed my lips against the corner of her mouth. Moved to the other corner with the same soft kiss. Worked my way to the middle where her lips were open and ready.

  A heady fire spread through my veins as I sealed the kiss.

  When her knees gave out, I caught her. Smiled at the cuteness of her nervous giggle.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she said, trying to right herself.

  “Don’t be sorry.” I wanted to return to a second ago, when my lips were on hers. “Because I feel it, too.”

  She tucked her hair behind her ears.

  “The way I feel when I’m with you scares me,” I admitted, my lips hovering over her forehead.

  She held tight to the edges of my jacket. “Me too.”

  “What is this?”

  “I think… I think this is what falling feels like.”

  When her eyes met mine, I knew. That was it. I was hers, and I would do anything to make her mine. Because in her gaze, I found hope. I saw who I could be. No longer the front-page joke.

  I didn’t want to screw things up with her. I wanted to take it slow. Make it last.

  Make it count.

  “Listen,” I said, pulling my phone from my pocket. “I have to go out of town for the next few days.”

  I smiled when a small pout formed on her lips.

  “Which is why I was wondering if I could call you. Because I don’t want t
o go a day without speaking to you. Does that sound crazy?”

  She was giggling. “Yes,” she said with a nod. “Absolutely, certifiably insane.” She wrapped her arms around my neck. “I guess we can be committed together.”

  On the way back to her place, we talked about everything with an openness that hadn’t been there before. With a thrill that lifted my heart high inside my chest.

  By the time we made it to her stoop, I was reeling with happiness.

  “So…”

  She was perched a step higher than me, clinging to the banister. “So.”

  “Until next time?”

  I smirked. Grabbed her hand and kissed the back of it. “Until then.”

  I didn’t wait but five minutes after she went inside to pull up her number and type out a text.

  Meeting you has been the best thing that’s ever happened to me.

  A mere second rolled by before she replied: Meeting you has been the most thrilling thing that’s ever happened to me.

  Goodnight, Ms. Amberly.

  Sweet dreams, Mr. Pierce.

  I tucked my phone into my pocket, knowing the smile that had sewn across my heart would be permanent so long as I was with her.

  Knowing that someday soon, she’d make me hers.

  Lovey Drunk

  I’d never been kissed like that before. Hell, I’d barely ever been kissed unless a short peck inside a hallway closet at the age of nine counted as something serious. There was no denying the weight of his kiss, because something shifted in me the moment Grayson put his lips against mine. I didn’t want to fight it anymore. I couldn’t. Not when he asked to call me, and not when he texted me five minutes after.

  It was crazy, the way my heart felt. Like it could soar. Like it wasn’t only mine anymore. The next few days passed by in a blur of texts between Grayson and the small assignments Quinn tasked me with. And at night, when Grayson would call, we’d talk for hours on end until one of us fell asleep. The other listening to the deep cadence of the other’s dreams.

  Sitting on the couch, I lowered the volume to the TV and picked up my phone. Normally, Grayson would have called by now. It was a routine I’d found myself looking forward to. Waiting for. Spending my day mentally noting all the things I wanted to tell him about.

  When the phone rang, I picked it up with a smile. “I was wondering when you were going to call.”

  “Sorry,” he said, a babel of voices jumbled over his in the background. “I got caught up during an interview. They asked me to come out with them. I just wanted to call and let you know I hadn’t forgotten about you.”

  “Oh.” I sat up. Noted the distance in his tone.

  “Grayson, come here,” I heard a female voice say.

  “I gotta go, Prim. Will you be up later? I can call you back once I leave here.”

  Thunder crackled in the pit of my stomach. Rain poured over my heart.

  “Sure. I’ll be up.”

  “Good. I can’t wait to see you again, Prim. Tomorrow. We on?”

  “Of course.”

  “Grayson,” the woman’s voice shouted again.

  Air hissed through his teeth before he said, “Talk soon.”

  And then, the call ended.

  True to my word, I’d stayed up, waiting for his call. I didn’t know what time I fell asleep, the phone clutched in my hands. When I woke, a large pit had formed in my stomach, waiting for me to fall into it.

  He never called.

  Never even texted.

  I rationalized he’d been busy. Whomever he was interviewing wanted to take him out. That was typical. Necessary. Grayson was a social being. The opposite of my introvert ways.

  And I trusted him. Wholeheartedly.

  I kept those thoughts glued to the forefront of my mind on the way to work. When he had a chance, he’d reach out to me. Of that, I was sure.

  By the time I’d made it to my desk, Poppy was facing me, a grave expression painted on her face.

  “What?”

  She pointed to my computer. On it, an article was pulled open.

  My stomach plummeted to the ground. It was an article on a gossip blog. Grayson was plastered on the center of the screen with his arm around a young blonde who looked like she’d just stepped off a runway. They were smiling in a way that said they had just finished laughing. Beside it was the picture taken at the aquarium of us, which was split down the middle like a broken heart. The title was: Another Heartbreak, Another Woman. The Serial Dater has Returned.

  “You sure being friends is a good idea?” Poppy said from behind me.

  Heat pressed behind my eyes as I closed the article. As my brain scraped through the details I must have missed. I thought about the night before and how long I’d stupidly waited.

  “So what? This could be wrong.” It was a stretch, but worth considering. It wasn’t the first time the press had gotten it wrong. And the press did like to embellish things to gain readership.

  I glanced down at my phone. At his name.

  Poppy leaned over me. Pulled the article back up. “That arm around her waist doesn’t look wrong to me.”

  I couldn’t ignore it as much as I wanted to. I hated the way my heart felt like it was cracking. Hated I let myself think even for the slightest minute that maybe he was different with me. Maybe, with me, he could want something real. That he actually meant all those things he said? That he actually wanted to be with me. Me.

  “If Quinn sees this…”

  “Cherry!” Quinn’s voice barked through the speaker of my phone a second later.

  Fudge.

  “When does he return?”

  “Tonight,” I said, feeling like a lump.

  “You know what this means,” Poppy continued, unaware of how her words stomped over every one of my bleeding emotions. “It’s time for a contingency plan.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Shopping.”

  Poppy pulled out all the stops.

  “This is a movie moment. You do realize that?” she said as the hairdresser spun me around to see the end result. My hair was pinned with fishtail braids in a sultry updo. My blue eyes popped against the heavy black liner smudged on my lids. I looked like a model version of myself. Like the sultry face of someone selling sexy perfume.

  “I don’t look like me.”

  Her face screwed up. “That’s the point. You look like a souped-up version of you. Prim 2.0.”

  After paying for the service, Poppy pulled me into a store I’d never think twice about entering, then picked out a silver sequined dress that clung like a second skin. She chose black heels taller than the Empire State Building and sheer black stockings with the stripe up the back.

  “When he sees you in this, he’s going to know just what he’s missing.”

  “But it isn’t me,” I said, staring at my reflection in the mirror.

  I could hear Poppy’s eyes rolling. “Who says?” She lifted my arm. “This is your arm, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And your feet and eyes and hair. It’s you, Prim. Your body inside those clothes. Your mind still inside your head.”

  I chewed the inside of my cheek. “Well, when you put it like that…”

  She grabbed my hands, then placed them on the sides of my boobs. “And here’s another piece of advice. You’ve got great hooters. Use them.” She imitated what she wanted me to do by pushing hers up for ample cleavage. “Like this. Put them on display. Lord knows there are women out there who’d kill for tatas like yours.”

  A flush tingled up the base of my neck, spreading across my cheeks.

  “Come on,” she said, pulling me out the front door. “We’ve got a man to catch.”

  It had been nearly an hour since we left her place under the veil of the city lights. Going off Poppy’s advice, I ghosted Grayson for most of the afternoon, only to accidentally text him I was going out to a certain bar. She was the one who typed it all out. I couldn’t bear to lie. She played off the text
as if it was for a friend, then tossed my phone to me.

  “Hook. Line. And sinker. He’ll be there. You just wait.”

  “Where are we headed?”

  “Risky Hearts.” She was just a stride ahead of me, walking in heels like she’d been doing it all her life. Meanwhile, I fought a blister on the back of my heel.

  “Finley’s bar?” The night was unusually warm, like the breath from an opened oven door.

  Her shoulder lifted just a fraction. “What… I can’t very well let you have all the fun.”

  “Well, look who the devil dragged out,” Fin called as we approached, a cigarette dangling off the edge of his mouth.

  I fiddled with my glasses out of habit, though I wasn’t wearing them. Tonight, it was contacts.

  I didn’t miss the tension that coiled through Poppy’s shoulders at the mention of her name, despite her efforts to hide it. “Finley.”

  She strode up to him, slipping sensually out of her jacket, an extra sway to her hips I envied. I could never walk like that. Confident and demanding.

  Grabbing the edges of his black leather jacket, she tugged. “Fancy meeting you here.”

  Finley pulled the cigarette from his lips, his eyes grazing her face with familiarity and longing. “Oh, baby, but you knew I’d be here. I own the place.”

  She pulled him close. Licked the side of his face, up to his ear, and then bit his earlobe. Her lips moved, but I couldn’t make out what she was saying. I stood awkwardly to the side, trying not to pry. All I could guess was it was something profane based on the way his eyes widened, and his lips crooked with a smirk.

  “Come on,” she said a moment later. I guessed she was speaking to me, although her eyes never left his. “Drinks on him.”

  Poppy moved through the crowd as if she’d been doing this her whole life. Faces spread smiles at the sight of her. Some calling out her name. Others watching the sway to her hips. I felt like a kitten compared to a lioness. Out of my league. Out of my element. She fished her way in between a group of men, pulling me close. I stayed pinned to her side, not wanting to bump into anyone.