“I'm sorry!” I say, though this comes out as a croak. The pain is spreading along my cheek, like water filling up a pool. My eyes are wet, I know it. But (,) Claudia just stares at me some more, her gaze impenetrable. Then the first bell rings, and she turns on her heels and skulks off down the hallway.
A few of the onlookers have formed a semi-circle around my locker, and one girl with long dreads shakes her head slowly in my direction. “Hos before bros, man,” Random Hippie Woman says. The other strangers nod in herd-like assent.
I just roll my eyes, and shove my books in among the rest of the crap in my locker. At this point, all I want is for people to stop looking at me. Correction: I want Claudia to never look at me that way again. Correction: I want Claudia to look at me again.
Trace finds me right as the last bell sounds, and the hallways really begin to empty. He puts his hands square on my shoulders and begins to knead the knots there, and as his fingers move I remember just how sore I am from this weekend. My whole body is sore.
“She'll come around, you know.”
“But you didn't see the way she looked at me, Trace.”
“I've seen the way she looks at you when you're having fucking sleepovers or study sessions, and I know she'll come around. She will.”
“That feels nice. Please don't stop.”
He kisses the back of my neck. I feel a spasm of pleasure zip down my spine, and nestle in my ass. It's thrilling, I concede, to be able to show affection out in the open like this.
“Shouldn't you two be in homeroom?” And this voice, unfortunately, is also familiar: it's the great and powerful Eric Mahoney. Because I guess there are no other counselors at Douglass who make a habit of circling the hallways in the morning.
For a second, I lose the words on my tongue. “Eric,” I start, but swallow this down as I scan between Trace's and Mahoney's eyes. Both the icy-blues and the emerald-greens are trained on me, exhausting with their twin intensity. After what could be thirty seconds, words rise up in my throat.
“It won't happen again, Mr. Mahoney.”
The counselor just sets his chin. Nods. Turns. And for once, I think I see something in his shoulders, as he walks away—some indication of deep feeling. From the hunched little way he's moving, I think I can tell that Eric is not pleased with my new man-friend.
Which I guess is also fair, given that I didn't exactly break up with him before obtaining a new man-friend.
“Be cool, Jo,” Trace mutters to me, before bending down to fetch a basketball I haven't noticed lolling around our ankles.
“I am cool. What are you talking about?”
“Nothing.” He's had his shades resting on his head this whole time, buried in the thatch of his curls—but now he extracts the Aviators and puts them back on his face. He bends down and kisses me on the cheek, and it's tender and soft and warm. I fight the urge to draw him back into me again, to have him push me up against the lockers. I fight a lot of urges.
“Hey, J Train? I just wanted to say—thank you.”
“Thank you? What's that for?” I put my hand on his cheek, keeping the distance small between us. The hallways are fully empty now, but old Krenshaw and her tedious lectures are literally the furthest thing from my mind.
“It's just really nice to spend time with someone who likes me.” Trace's eyes downcast, as he says this, and he bites his lip in this epically endearing way. When he looks up at me again it's through a curtain of his dark lashes. I'm half-expecting him to make a joke, but his eyes betray vulnerability. If I look hard, I think I can see what he's really showing me: a whole life-time's worth of hurt.
Make him feel like one of the family, Melanie had said to us. He's had a rough life. What he needs now is unconditional love. He's a really special kid. It had seemed impossible that she could say this to every one of her cases with a straight face. Yet I pull Trace Harter down toward me, I let my kiss be his answer: Yes, you are special. Yes, you are loved.
* * *
It's in third period that I really start to float back down to earth. Leslie May, Gabby Weiner, and Cora Jinkins are very clearly gossiping about me in the back of chem lab, and illustrating their pretty lewd jokes with beakers and assorted colored liquids. Every time I look their way, Gabby throws her hair back and contorts her face like she's having a porn-y orgasm, and Leslie says, “I'll have what she's having.”
I want to melt into the floor.
What's worse is how Claudia isn't there to turn the whole humiliating episode into a joke at their expense. She's not in AP Chem today. God, I hope she's not sobbing in the girl's bathroom somewhere. But then I remember: she's not the sobs-in-the-bathroom friend; that's totally me.
“Girls in the back row, please regain your composure,” calls Dr. Bronner from the front of the room. I usually like Chem—it's one of my favorite subjects. Dr. Bronner makes corny, terrible science jokes and I'm the only one who gets them. We have a little thing going.
But today he looks at me a little strangely, over his safety goggles—like he's a little surprised I'm the source of the trouble. Just think about Trace, I tell myself. In three more periods, you'll get to run back home to the garage and jam with your foster brother.
“Excuse me? Joanna?” It's a pimply sophomore boy talking—some kid I know from (the) newspaper. Yeeks, which reminds me—I've been such a shoddy editor-in-chief these past few days. Maybe that's why Claudia's not in class. Could there be some printing deadline I forgot about?
“I've got a note from the counselors’ center. Mr. Mahoney needs to see you.”
Oh, Jesus.
“Could I—actually, I'm really behind on balancing equations...is there any way I could postpone?”
Dr. Bronner sets his chalk down, just as the three harpies in the back row fail to stifle a giggle.
“Slut,” I hear one of them not-quite-whisper.
“Don't be silly, Joanna. Seniors need to prioritize the old counselors’ center,” my teacher says. “Lest you end up just a fuddy-duddy high school chem teacher.” His eyes have resumed a kindness, though he frowns in the direction of the back row. “Go see what Mahoney wants, then scurry back here and school your classmates on Punnet Squares.”
I stand, I gather my things. I follow the pimply sophomore down the hallway like he's leading me to death row. When I'm deposited outside the all-too-familiar doorway, I could swear the puny underclassman snorts under his breath. But it's not like he could have been at the party, right? There couldn’t have been that many people around to overhear my noisy union with the one guy in school who is very publicly off-limits to me.
Well. Maybe the second guy in school.
“Jo, come inside,” Eric commands, from inside his inner sanctorum. Sighing heavily, I enter the counselors’ center. Same historic carpet. Same cushy chairs. Same silver fox-y counselor, and yet—everything has changed.
“What do you want?”
“Sit down.”
“Why don't you just tell me what you want, Eric?”
“Stop acting like a child, please. Just sit down.” He gestures toward the vacant cushy chair. I hesitate on the threshold, still somewhere between mad and worried. He is my counselor, after all. Eric has always had this power over me—he could ostensibly ruin my track record if he was really mad at me. He could find some way to thwart my whole future.
But he wouldn't do that, right? No way.
“Thank you,” Eric cedes, nodding his head as I slowly take a seat. I watch the second hand on the clock above his head. Some time passes, during which we're silent. I seek out other places in the room to look besides his eyes.
“If you're doing this to get back at me –”
“No. It's nothing to do with you. I'm sorry for not being up front about this, but –”
“Yes, because in the adult world, you should know; when people don't want to see each other anymore, they have to bite the bullet and say something.”
“Please give me more lectures on the 'adult world.'
I love it so.”
“And now you're being catty. Look, I said I was sorry. I sent you roses, for God sakes.”
“Eric! I said this isn't about you!” I stand up. I'm burning. “And it's not like you handled that whole 'I'm married' part of your life in a very adult way. I don't really see a future here. Do you?”
Eric clears his throat, and tents his long, slender fingers over a few files on his desk. I see some familiar names, again: Gilmore, May...whatever. I resolve to focus, as Trace told me to. I deserve better.
“That's fair. That's fine. I expected something like this would have to happen, at some point. You need some more experience before you settle down. I can respect that.”
“I'm not coming back to you. Not this time.”
“—But Joanna, you should know: your choice in flings is a little beneath your station. I know those sad-eyed jocks have great abs and arms, they all want to be 'tutored'—but that machismo act is exactly the kind of thing that doesn't matter mere minutes after graduation. Be honest: do you really see a 'future' with your punk-y, un-serious foster brother? I can't imagine, first off, what that reveal will do to your parents—but more importantly, the guy's a wastoid. He's a dummy! I have a fat file right here on my desk in which 'Tracy Roger Harter' demonstrates time and again emotional instability, criminal tendencies—drugs, for instance!” For unclear emphasis, Eric gestures towards the folders splayed out on his desk. “He's also got average scores on almost everything important –”
“You know what? Fuck you, Eric.” I reach the door, and throw it open so my next words can echo throughout the empty hallway. “At least he's not some fucked up predator. At least he's not using the barely legal students at his HIGH-SCHOOL to validate some pathetic dream deferred, outside of his marriage.”
I don't wait to see Mahoney's face; I just slam the door so hard it rattles. And I really do feel the strength, running across my arms and gathering in my chest. Tentatively at first, I let out a roar. Let them stop me! No one can tell me what to do anymore, I'm Joanna-fucking-Prine!
But there, at the end of the hallway by the first parking-lot entrance, I notice a figure: a tall woman with dark skin, wearing a maroon suit, striding towards me. I don't recognize her as a member of the faculty, but it's my impulse to turn and bolt. I wish Claudia were here to witness this: my one brave day, flaunting hallway rules, standing up to authority.
As I'm turning to flee, the woman's tread gets faster. Her heels clack on the tile. “Wait!” she cries out. “Wait, I'm lost!”
“I'm just a student.”
“I figured. Can you please stop for a second?” A few lockers down from Eric's office, I pause. Guess the rebel gene will take a bit more time to fully seep into my system.
The woman, panting slightly, holds out a jeweled hand for me to shake. Her nails are perfectly manicured and her hair is blown out to perfection—she looks like a senator. As I take her hand, I notice a sparkle in her eyes that betrays something: yeah, she definitely heard my little hallway speech. Some of the fire in my chest begins to flag.
“I'm Loren Kiehl, and I'm looking for the guidance center. Could you just point me which way?”
Jesus.
“It's actually—I was just standing in front of it. That door.” I gesture weakly, reach back to lift the hair off the back of my neck where I've weirdly grown super-sweaty. Loren Kiehl breaks out into a grin.
“I sure hope you're in the drama department.”
“In a way. You could say that.” Her joke sets me at ease; I let my hair fall back against my shoulders. “Can I ask who you are?”
“Absolutely. I'm an admissions representative from Dartmouth College. I'm to meet with an Eric Mahoney about a few students here who might be interested in our undergraduate program.”
And I can't help it. I try to, but I can't. For one miraculous second, everything seems very funny—so I laugh a little bit in Loren Kiehl's face.
Chapter Ten
“So the Dartmouth people think you're crazy. Who cares?” Trace is tuning his kit, his head bent low over the snare drum. He's paying half-attention, at best.
“Well, I dunno. I might have to go to that school.”
“No one's going to make you go to an Ivy League school. Especially if you don't get in.”
“I'm sorry, am I bitching too much? Am I all ‘White People Problems’ right now?” I slide resin up and down my bow, until it's sticky to the touch. Through the thin window at the top of the garage, the last few rays of sunlight are falling over our part of Maryland. My parents are out, hobnobbing at some college conference, and it's just me and Trace. Alone again, finally.
“I'm half-white, Joanna. You know that's offensive, right?”
“What? I didn't mean anything! Trace, I'm sorry—I can be so frickin’ insensitive...” But when I look up, my foster brother is laughing silently. He flicks some of the hair out of his face, so I can see his white teeth. I set the bow down, and cross the room in two neat strides. Sliding my body in between the drum and his ministering fingers, I straddle him on the little stool.
“This won't support both of our weights.”
“I don't know what you're talking about. I am incredibly dainty.”
He kisses me, his mouth open and salty. His tongue probes the corner of my sore molar—the place where Claudia slapped me this morning—but I sink into the slight pain. I flex my thigh muscles, so my legs are bracing his hips. I bend my own mouth down to nibble at the patch of his chest peeking out from the V of his white under-shirt.
“Whoa, nelly!” I feel the little drummer stool giving beneath our weight. I laugh into Trace's teeth as we go tumbling to the ground, but he holds me fast. His feet find the floor again, and his strong arms wrap around my waist.
“Hold on,” he grunts, as he pulls us from the ground up into a low squat. I hold tight to the back of his neck. My thighs grip his hips, and Trace slowly extends so he's holding me up in mid-air. He kicks the seat away, then readjusts his hands around my middle so his grasp is firm.
“Oh my god! You're so strong!” He doesn't even appear to have broken a sweat, while basically doing a laden push-up from the ground to standing, holding me the whole time. Trace smiles, takes a few steps away from our instruments, then starts to buck me gently against his hips—all while still holding me aloft.
“I've got you,” Trace reassures me. “You don't have to latch on so tight.” Reassured, I bury my face into the crook his neck and begin to kiss the tensed muscles there, the pronounced edge of his largest tattoo—an obscure, vaguely Celtic-looking symbol. I slide my tongue quickly over the swoop of an arc, and Trace recoils, laughing. Then, he nuzzles me back. Below, his thrusts have grown insistent. I begin to respond, raising and lowering my hips so I'm bobbing on top of him.
“This isn't, like, extremely painful for you?” In response, Trace tilts his head down for a kiss. As I frame the sides of his head with my hands, beginning to navigate his mouth, he walks forward a few paces. My back slams into the wall. Nudging one leg beneath my ass to keep me up, Trace pushes one of my hands high overhead and pins it against the make-shift soundproofing. Then, he rakes his fingers slowly down the length of my forearm, the contours of my bicep—sending tingles straight up and down my spine.
“No,” he says. “I like it.”
I kiss him, hard, on the mouth—raising both arms above my head, so there's more space between us for him to fill. Our tongues collide, becoming frantic. He tilts his head to probe me further, and I clench my thighs tighter around his middle. It's hard to breathe, but just now, I don't mind gasping. I pull back for a moment, to look at Trace. I register the desperation in his eyes and open my mouth to his again.
His hands begin to dig into my flesh. He starts to squeeze the sides of my ass, just hard enough that the pressure hurts. I buck a little harder against his crotch, letting my head fall back against the wall with a thud. A moan escapes me, and Trace attempts to suck this out of the air by burrowing further into my m
outh, kissing me harder.
“But there's only one problem,” he murmurs into my raw mouth. “I can't suck your pussy like this.”
At these words, I feel my inner self contract and bloom against the cage of my panties. My arms return to his neck, where his tendons press against my dampening skin. I nod, and he reads my mind: I am peeled off the wall and Trace carries me over to his tousled day-bed, where I fall gently onto his jersey sheets.
He sinks to his knees in front of me, nudging my knees apart with the sides of his face. Then, he places two callused palms flat along my thighs. He presses his lips against a denim-clad spot on the inside of my knee, before slowly beginning to work his way deeper. He rises off his powerful haunches, angling for easier access to my hot center. I'm already throbbing with excitement: reach down and begin to fumble with the clasps and zipper of my jeans.
Trace grabs hold of the fabric around my ankles, and tugs gently on each of my legs until my pants have worked their way to the floor. They fall in a pile beside us: his attention is already fixed on my sex.
Trace echoes his first path along my naked flesh, kissing first the vulnerable knobs on the inside of my knees, followed by the milky expanse of my inner thighs. He takes his time. I begin to fondle my breasts, through my thin tank-top—kneading first one, then another with deep, burrowing strokes. Trace notes this, bringing one of his hands up to join mine. He tweaks one of my nipples at the exact same moment that he starts to suck on my inner thigh—and the pressure sends my eyes rolling back into my head. My whole body contorts around the spaces where his fingers reach me. I arch upwards and into his touch.
His full lips finally brush the entrance of my panty-clad pussy, and I sense at once that he's as eager as I am for what's to come. His tongue bends under the elastic of my panties, neatly scooting the fabric aside—and I feel a strange thrill, the moment I'm exposed to the air. Having sex throughout a crazy party weekend is one thing—people get drunk, they act foolish—but coming together in the afternoon, in his bed? This union already feels different, more dire somehow. To indicate how much I'm feeling, I press myself into Trace's face, grinding so hard I can feel his tongue flatten.
A Family Affair: My Bad Boy Foster Brother Page 11
