by Jamie Howard
I dropped my gaze to his hand, then back to his face with a raised eyebrow.
He had the grace to blush. “I meant this morning. I wouldn’t have bailed for the shower if I thought you were still here.”
“You bailing for the shower is hardly the worst thing you’ve done in the past twenty-four hours,” I said into my coffee, not possessing the nerve to utter the retort directly to his face.
“Fair enough,” he said, wrapping his hand around the back of his neck. The motion caused his chest to ripple and his biceps to bunch, and my traitorous body had the nerve to get all hot and bothered by it. I crossed my legs.
“Could you put on a shirt or something?” I scrunched up my face at him and waved a hand at his bare upper half.
He looked surprised by my request, but with the slight twinkle I caught in his eyes, I was sure he knew the reason. Kill me now. He was back a minute later, sporting a simple white T-shirt.
“Better?” He asked, his lips curving into a smile.
I ignored him. “So, I’ve been wracking my brain and hoping you can give me some insight, because I’m not really sure of the answer here. What happened last night? If you really didn’t want to go that bad you could’ve just texted me or not agreed in the first place.”
“I wanted to go.” He shifted his shoulders underneath the T-shirt like it was suddenly uncomfortable. “I went for a drink because I was nervous, and one drink turned into two turned into three. I only meant to take off the edge.”
“I see,” I said, but I really didn’t. What did he have to be nervous about? “I think I’m just going to go now.” Slipping my purse over my shoulder, I headed for the door.
“Wait.” He hesitated. “Do you think, maybe, we could . . . try this again sometime?”
My mouth dropped open, and his gaze followed its descent. Seriously? He wanted to hang out with me again? I was going to tell him no thanks, but as I went to say it, I caught the hesitance written all over his face and noticed the way his knuckles bleached white from how hard he gripped the counter.
Something was up, though I couldn’t quite lay my finger on it. Maybe he had just as hard a time making friends as I did, or perhaps I wasn’t the only lonely one in the room.
“Sure,” I shrugged. “You’ve got my number.”
Chapter 10: Ian
8 Years Earlier
“Alright, Rach.” I slammed my locker shut and leaned a shoulder up against it. “What’s your deal this morning? You grab your mom’s espresso again by mistake?”
She shuffled her sneaker against the floor and rubbed a hand up and down her sweater-clad arm. “Do you like this sweater? I mean”—for the thousandth time in the past three minutes, she grabbed the edge of it and tugged it away from her body—“does it make me look fat?”
I shook my head at her. “The only thing that would make you look fat is about another fifty pounds or so. These things that you’re all self-conscious about,” I waved a hand in the general area of her boobs, “had John Simms drooling over you. Literally, there was a puddle on his desk.”
Her cheeks flushed red, nearly matching the color of her sweater. When she managed to pry her eyes off of the scuffed linoleum floor and tip her head back so she could look at me, a small smile tugged at the corner of her lips. “John Simms, really?”
I spread my hands out in front of me. “Would I lie to you?”
She gave in and let the smile take over her face. “Maybe. If you thought it would make me feel better.”
“I think you know me too well.”
“No one knows you better, Ian Mathis, and don’t you ever forget it.”
I hitched my backpack up higher on my shoulder and grinned down at her. Rachel had practically grown up at my house and knew every single one of my dirty little secrets. She was my family, my best friend. If the occasion called for it, I’d do much more than lie for her.
Her backpack strained at the seams as she tried to zip it, the fabric nearly exploding from the press of three enormous textbooks and her slim silver laptop. “Packing light this morning, I see.”
“Ha-ha.” With a grunt, she finally got it closed and hauled it up and onto her back. She swayed to one side, and I put out a hand to steady her before she toppled right the hell over.
I fell into step beside her. Students milled around us as we passed through the hallway, some lounging on the floor hurrying to finish last night’s homework, others too busy sucking face to notice the world continued on around them. Personally, I preferred a little less PDA.
As we turned a corner, Shanna peeked around the edge of her locker and fluttered her fingers at me. With her teeth sunk in her lower lip, her eyes took a leisurely stroll up my body. I cocked an eyebrow at her and gave her my signature smirk.
Rachel dug the sharp edge of her elbow in my ribs.
“What? You jealous, Rach?” I dropped an arm around her shoulders and tugged her into my body.
She gagged. “Gross.” With a firm hand, she pushed me off and wrinkled her nose like she’d just smelled month-old garbage. “You’re like my brother. I will never think of you that way.”
I clapped a hand to my heart and grimaced. “Ouch. A direct hit to my heart.”
She chuckled, and I was glad to see that whatever cloud had been hovering over her this morning seemed to have vanished for now. I stuttered and stopped when she made an unexpected right turn, checking around me to make sure I had my bearings.
“Um, Rach?” I called after her. “You know homeroom is that way, right?” I hitched a thumb over my shoulder in the opposite direction.
She kept right on going, throwing her words over her shoulder, back at me. “I need to swing by the library first.”
My long strides ate up the distance as I caught up to her. “Why?”
“To drop off some books?” She made a face at me and then pulled back her sleeve to peek at her watch. She sighed. “You haven’t seen Ben this morning, have you?”
Ah, speaking of brothers. I shook my head. Weren’t first-born children supposed to be the accomplished ones? The ones who had their heads on straight? It seemed my older brother, Ben, had missed that memo, leaving the full weight to fall on my shoulders. “Nah, he wasn’t home when I got up this morning. Why?”
She tucked a strand of dark brown hair behind her ear and gave me a sad look. “It’s nothing. He was just supposed to meet up with me this morning. I should’ve guessed he’d stand me up.”
“I’m sorry, Rach.” I thought about giving her another hug but knew it wouldn’t help. It wasn’t me that she wanted to hold her. Ben rarely managed to get his pants to match his shirt, and when it came to Rachel, he was completely blind to how she felt about him. Dumbass.
I was pretty good about coming up with things to make her smile, but at the moment, my brain seemed to be malfunctioning. There wasn’t anything I was going to be able to say that would make her feel better. She clenched her arms tighter around her stomach, one hand fidgeting with the dangling strap of her bag.
We passed in silence under the yellowed lighting, our reflections rippling across the trophy case of football teams past. Wrapping my fingers around the gold doorknob, I pulled open the door, holding it open so that Rachel could duck underneath my arm.
She went straight for the counter, leaning her elbows on the faded wooden surface. If she wasn’t careful, she’d end up with splinters in her hands. A movement off to my right caught my attention, and I turned toward it.
The table to my right was occupied by a girl I’d never seen before. She was focused on a sheet of paper that she held pinched between her fingers. A mass of chaotic toffee-colored curls shielded most of her face from my view, hanging about her shoulders in a soft cloud. My fingers fluttered against my jeans, imagining what it might be like to run my hand over them.
I let my eyes glide down her petite frame, over the purple long-sleeved shirt that hugged tight to her body, and down her lean legs that were encased in a pair of jeans. My gaze snagge
d on the white sole of her Converse sneakers, and it took a few seconds of squinting to make out the doodle of a hummingbird that was sketched there.
I’d been checking her out for a good two minutes now, so it was no surprise that I drew her attention. She glanced up from her paper, her bright green eyes twinkling with awareness, and smiled one of the brightest smiles I’d ever seen.
When this girl looked at me, it was like staring at the damn sun.
Chapter 11: Bianca
I rounded the corner with a bounce in my step, ready to run down the hall, through my front door, and throw myself into bed in a flurry of pillows. Maybe after some rest I’d be able to figure out what the hell happened last night.
I paused when I saw a pair of jean-clad legs jutting out into the middle of the hall. A pair of canary-yellow stilettos waved back and forth like windshield wipers. Harper turned her head in my direction at the sound of my footsteps, shifting the neon pink box in her lap as she stood.
“There you are. You never called last night, so I was starting to worry about you.” She let her eyes travel over my day-old clothes and grinned. “Please tell me you’re doing the walk of shame.”
“Definitely not in the way you mean.” I shouldered past her and unlocked my door.
She grimaced and dropped what I now identified as a box of donuts on my kitchen table. “Couldn’t get it up?”
“You realize we weren’t out on a date, right?” I scowled at her and dumped my purse on the table next to the box. “Either way, he was too drunk to do much of anything last night.”
“He showed up last night wasted?” Harper rummaged through my cabinets like she owned the place until she found a glass, pouring out a drink of milk for herself.
“Yup.” I glanced at the box of donuts, but all I could see were the nutrition facts—sugar, carbs, calories! Regrettably, I passed on them and grabbed a yogurt from the fridge. “Made a scene at the yoga studio, shoved me into a wall, and get this”—I sucked the yogurt remnants off the edge of the spoon—“forgot his wallet so I had to pay for the ride back to his apartment.”
She joined me at the table, dropping down into a chair. The chair legs squeaked in protest. “Explain to me why you went back to his apartment at all.”
“I didn’t just want to leave him there. I wanted to make sure he got home alright.”
“Aw.” Harper pinched my cheek. “Aren’t you just the sweetest?”
I swatted her hand away. “I know. I have a big, fat, bleeding heart.”
“So, you just slept there and hoped he’d be so grateful this morning that he’d do you?”
“Again, not a date.”
She quirked her head to the side. “So, you’re not attracted to him?”
“Do you want to hear the end of this story or not?”
She grinned around a mouthful of donut. “Nice avoidance tactic, I like it.”
“As I was saying, he fell asleep with his hand around my wrist and wouldn’t let me go. I ended up sleeping on the floor. It was awful.” I spooned another glob of strawberry yogurt into my mouth before continuing. “Not that this morning was notably better.”
Harper waved for me to go on.
“It probably would have been prudent for me to have left when he woke up, but I just had to know what his deal was. Like, who does that?” I shrugged. “So, I asked.”
Harper swallowed and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Don’t leave me hanging, what did El Douché have to say?”
I shook my head and screwed up my face. “He said that he ‘was nervous,’” I mimicked with sarcastic air quotes.
“Weird.”
“I know, right?” I nibbled on my lip. “Who knows what his issue is.”
Harper dove back into the box for donut number two, and I wondered whether she worked out like a fiend or had a seriously amazing metabolism that she could eat like that and still look the way she did. “Well, it doesn’t really matter, does it? It’s not like you’re ever going to see him again.”
“Well . . .” I drew the word out and avoided Harper’s piercing stare by studying the ceiling.
“Bianca, come on.” She dropped her head to the table with a thud. Lifting it up, she gave me an exasperated sigh. “The guy shows up late and shit-faced. So shit-faced in fact that you felt it necessary to make sure he got home alright. He then trapped you in his bedroom in his drunken stupor and forced you to spend the night on his floor. And you agreed to see him again?”
“There was just something about him, Harper.”
“Well, it better be that he has a dick the size of a small submarine.”
I tossed my empty yogurt container in the garbage and rolled my eyes at her. “He asked if we could hang out again, and he just seemed so . . . unsure, maybe? It was strange, but now I’m just wondering if he doesn’t have a lot of friends or something.” I leaned back against the kitchen counter. “As for his . . .”
“Weiner,” Harper supplied with a smug grin.
I made a face.
“What? Don’t like that one? Stop me when I get to your preferred wording: man salami, cock, meat whistle, dumb stick, schlong, pork sword—”
I cut her off with a laugh. “Please, stop. Penis is perfectly adequate.”
Her eyes narrowed at me as she gave me a thorough stare. “You’re not a virgin, are you?”
“Ah, no.” I cleared my throat, thoroughly uncomfortable with this line of questioning. Harper was one of the nosiest people I’d ever met. She reminded me of Renée in that aspect. Maybe it was because she reminded me of Renée that it was so easy to be open with her. I cut off that train of thought before I really let myself consider the fact that I was trying to fill the Renée-sized hole in my life with Harper. “I took care of that in college.”
“That’s a very interesting way to word it.” If anything, her eyes squinted at me even harder. You’d think the sun was out in full force and she’d forgotten her sunglasses.
I sighed and shifted from foot to foot. “I decided it’d been long enough, so I took the situation into my own hands. I was working late one night at the tutoring center with another tutor, and given the opportunity, I, um, propositioned him.”
She stared at me for a good thirty seconds before bursting out laughing. “I’m sorry. The image in my mind.” She snorted. “You seriously propositioned him? Like a hooker? You didn’t pay him, did you?” Her questions burst through her lips in rapid succession, like she was firing off a machine gun.
“No.” I crossed my arms across my chest. “Then we had very mediocre sex on top of a table that was less than memorable and thoroughly uncomfortable. We had a thing for a while, just sex. Nothing serious.”
“Science major?”
“Math.”
Her eyes widened with glee. “How about I help you out here? Let me set you up with someone.”
“Oh, no.” I pushed away from the counter and paced around the kitchen. My hands itched for something to do, but of course all my dishes had already been washed and put away. Ah, but there was the dirty spoon from my yogurt. I hustled over to the sink to rinse off the singular piece of dirty cutlery. “Besides, it’s probably better that I’m not seeing anyone.”
“Right, the whole your-happiness-isn’t-as-important-as-your-father’s-career-aspirations thing. I forgot.”
I stiffened, leaning against the edge of the counter with my back toward Harper. The faucet was still running, the cold clear water swirling wastefully down the drain. I slapped the handle, cutting it off. “I really appreciate you stopping by to check on me, but as you see I’m perfectly fine, just a little tired.”
When I turned around, she had both eyebrows raised at me. She ignored my blatant attempt to end the conversation and swiftly changed the topic.
“So, this list you told me about. Can I see it?”
I gestured to where it hung on the refrigerator. “Help yourself.”
The chair legs scraped against the floor as she shoved it back. Lifting t
he magnet off, she nibbled on her lower lip, reading the list. “Hm. I was expecting things like: travel to New Zealand, see the Eiffel Tower.”
A tiny smile flit across my lips, there and gone in a flash. I dried my hands on the towel draped across the oven handle. “That’s almost exactly what I said to Renée at the time. And she said to me”—I closed my eyes, remembering, hearing her voice echo in my mind—“‘Big dreams are all fine and good, Bianca, but I want something I can sink my teeth into. I don’t want to make a list of things that I have no possibility of accomplishing right now, this second, because what’s the point? I’ll just end up waiting for that elusive someday.’”
I didn’t even notice I was crying until I felt Harper’s fingertip graze my cheek. Her arms wrapped snugly around my shoulders, pulling me close. I sank against her, curling into her like I would a treasured blanket. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. I sobbed into her T-shirt, dampening it with my tears.
I finally drew back, taking a deep, shuddering breath. “Sorry about that. The sadness just sneaks up on me sometimes.”
She squeezed my shoulder. “No worries, my friend. You’re good? I kinda have to run if I’m not gonna be late to work, but if you still need me here—”
I waved her off. “No, I’m good. Don’t be late because of me. Mick will throw a fit.”
“Eh, he’d deal. He’s resourceful like that.” Plucking one last donut from the box, she headed for the door. “Oh, I almost forgot. That whole crash-a-wedding thing on your list. I’ve got a friend who works for an absurdly expensive catering company, I forget the name, but I’ll have him keep an eye out for a wedding worthwhile of crashing, ’kay?”
I nodded. “I’ll see you a little later. I’m on at four.”
“See you then.”
The door was halfway closed when she looked back one more time, smiling at me. “Math major.” She shook her head, and I could hear her laughter even through the closed door.
Chapter 12: Bianca
I groaned. “Oh my God, I think my blisters have blisters.”
