Skater Boy (Patchwork House Book 1)

by Mary Catherine Gebhard

  He was about to be arrested and disqualified. Yet his smile grew, stretching his smooth cheeks tauntingly, once again acting like he knew something I didn’t.

  Romeo tripped over a fan’s legs, and police launched themselves at the opportunity, wrangling him. Now having subdued Romeo, they set their sights on Flip. He was full-on grinning, his perfectly crooked smile glinting in the sun, simultaneously making my belly flip while frustration climbed hot up my neck.

  I shoved him and he stumbled back, tripping over his heels with a musically scaled laugh that kick started my heart. The fans were a blurry oil painting between us when he tilted his head, a smile soft on his face like the hue in his eyes.

  How he could smile as cops zeroed on him? It was like the greatest thing ever just happened, but cops were about to take him down before he could make his comeback.

  “Tweetie,” he said. “You won.” My throat thickened. What was he talking about? “I’d like to see them justify not giving you the win when you’re the only one left.”

  Hot and cold, something I’d wanted my entire life finally manifest. I won. I won.

  But—was this his plan? To compete only to fail and hand me the win?

  “This was a happy accident,” Flip said like he knew what I was thinking. I searched his eyes, trying to find the truth. “There will be other competitions. Really. And I’ll win them.” His smile was gone now. He went back to the ramp, kicking up his board to certify a truth I’d thought I’d seen earlier. “Now I’ll have you with me. My good-luck charm. The only reason I’m even skating again.”

  I traced my finger along his wooden deck. “This feels wrong. I want to win the right way.”

  “When the world is stacked against you, when you’re competing on an unfair playing field, when everyone wants you fail, it isn’t wrong to accept help. You should win Tweetie. You should’ve won years ago. Stop being so goddamn stubborn.”

  I loosed a breath, kept my fingers light on his deck. I still wasn’t sure. In my dreams, I won because they finally admitted I should win. I wouldn’t have to crash through the glass ceiling; they would open it up for me.

  “You can step down, and the guy in third place can win…” Flip suggested. “The one who doesn’t know his ass from his board.”

  My eyes shot from the board back to Flip. “No!”

  He was horrible.

  I couldn’t lose to someone like that again. As police barreled toward Flip, he gripped my hands, pulling me close with his board, like the night I’d found him skating on mine.

  “You’ll have other competitions, and you’ll win them, because now they can’t say you don’t deserve it.”

  A smile I couldn’t stop spread across my face. “I won?”

  “You won.”

  The glint in his toffee eyes and the relieved, ecstatic stretch of his lips mirrored my own. It was like he’d been waiting for this moment just as long as I had.

  Flip stroked his thumbs across the back of my hand. It was just us, our eyes, and the feel of him.

  Then he was torn from me, ripped away as two police officers slammed him to the ground. Flip grinned the entire time, and I couldn’t help but return his smile.

  They announced my win as they marched the Rebel Gods to the car. All four of my gods cheered for me as they were carted away. Whistling as their heads were pushed into the car. The crowd went wild, actually went wild—for me. The little girl waved her sign so intensely I couldn’t even read the words.

  But something was still missing.

  I hopped off the stage before they could hand me a trophy, tearing through the crowd.

  I stopped between Flip and the black and white.

  “Ma’am get back,” a stout, walrus-looking officer said.

  “Tweetie?” Flip stared at me, confusion writ across his smooth features.

  “Get back ma’am, or we’ll have to arrest you too,” another, younger officer said, barely looking out of his teenage years.

  Flip was inches away from being arrested, and who knows how long he could be in jail? If I missed this chance, he might not give me another. There was no time for a pep talk. No time to think about how this could backfire.

  But maybe not thinking was a good thing. Maybe checklists and fail-safes weren’t the answer. Maybe this has always been about trust. Trusting the other person will catch me. Trusting even if we slam, it won’t break them. Or us.

  “Tweetie,” Flip started again. “What are you—”

  I kissed him.

  Hard.

  Needing him to feel everything I’d been holding back.

  I love you. I need you. I’m sorry. With his hands handcuffed, and the police officers shouting at me, we kissed. Their warnings faded into nothing. The world around us melted away.

  Only us.

  My heartbeat and his smooth, sure lips.

  Even handcuffed, Flip took control, furious and ruthless, giving me no space to breathe or think. As if he wanted to punish me for making him wait. Warn me never to do it again. His growl vibrated against my lips. My sigh floated along his.

  Until a police officer tore me from him, hand at my collar, and slammed me against the side of the car.

  “Do you have a fucking death wish?” Flip glared at the officer, ready to kill. “I’ll gladly grant it.”

  “Flip,” I said, bringing him back to me with a smile. He wasn’t convinced, eyes darting to the man at my back. “I love you,” I said softly.

  This probably wasn’t the best time to make my grand gesture. In the movies there were boom boxes and rose petals, but if I kept waiting for the right time, maybe it would never come.

  Flip froze, mid-threat to the officer.

  Then his eyes popped, slowly finding mine. “What?”

  “I love you.”

  “Say it again,” he said instantly, eyes still wide, face taut and stony, like he hadn’t heard me properly.

  “I love you,” I laughed. An eyebrow twitched, a dimple quirked—a smile so close to breaking the surface. Still, Flip wasn’t sure if he could be certain.

  “One more time.” His voice was low, slipping inside me warm and heady like whiskey.

  “I love you,” I whispered. “I loved you in the past, I love you in the present. I loved you when I didn’t know it was you. I loved you when you were competing against yourself. I love you and I can’t stop loving you. Flip or Nate, Nate or Flip—it doesn’t matter. It’s always been you.”

  Flip grinned, a smile of pure satisfaction, and I knew I’d reached him. It stretched his cheeks and pushed his dimple out and nearly made my legs buckle.

  “You love me, huh?” he said, still sporting that smile. “I am pretty irresistible.” I rolled my eyes, but inside I was all butterflies, especially as Flip continued to watch me, eyes soft and heated, tongue pushing out his cheek. It was insane how he had this ability to make me feel like we were utterly alone, even surrounded by police officers.

  But King, Romeo, and Daniel whistled and whooped from inside the police car, and it brought me back to the present. Then the officer slammed handcuffs on my wrists.

  Oh, ouch.

  Flip and I were shoved into a second car, about to be carted off to jail. He never once took his eyes off me and all I could think was, totally worth it.

  Thirty-Three

  Land: To perform a trick successfully.

  TWEETIE

  Flip murmured sweet and dirty things against my neck, trailing his middle and pointer finger up and down my arm. His words stoked the fire inside me from hot to blazing and it didn’t feel like we were in jail. Plus it was oddly nice, like I was finally one of them.

  He wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me tighter against his chest.

  “You’re a jailbird now.” He laughed against my hair, the smooth, confident sound so heady and so intoxicating. “Dirty, dirty jailbird.” His hand slid beneath my shirt, settling on my warm skin. I bit my lip to keep from sighing.

  “Get a room,” everyone groa
ned.

  “Sure, hold the fuck up while we ask for an adjoining suite. Maybe something with a view.” He bit my ear softly, just enough to tug the lobe down, and lowered his voice so only I heard him. “When we get out of here I’m getting this hair messy and sprawled over my pillow.” Then his free hand tangled in my hair and he tugged my head back, not painfully, just enough to emphasize his point, before his lips found my neck again. I released a jagged breath.

  Flip went back to shooting the shit with everyone, still massaging my scalp, his other hand tracing lines just beneath my belly button. I didn’t even know what they were talking about. I couldn’t think straight. Vision blurry.

  An officer arrived at the iron gate, looking down at us with a curled lip and glare. I think he said something, but I was lost in a world of Flip.

  His hot hands.

  His hotter words.

  “Tweetie,” Flip said. I found his warm dark gaze, and he grinned slow and lazy and satisfied. He grasped my chin, gently. “When you look at me like that I have half a mind to stay in jail.”

  “Jesus, fuck,” Romeo said, popping our steamy bubble. “Just keep it in your pants for five minutes, yeah? Normally I’d be all about this, really encouraging you to just stick it in her—” I hid my embarrassment in Flip’s shoulder, just before Romeo was abruptly cut off.

  The sound of rattling iron let me know Romeo had once again been shoved, into the bars this time. That’s when I pulled my head from Flip’s shoulder to see the iron gate was open and all the gods stood on the outside. When had the gate opened?

  I don’t know how we got released so quickly. We were barely in jail before bail was posted and as far as I knew, none of us had enough money for one, let alone all five. The officer couldn’t have looked less pleased to pull us out.

  “Someone has friends in high places,” he muttered bitterly. Romeo shimmied against his chest and tipped an imaginary hat at him. We all shoved him out before we got rearrested.

  Just outside the building, we stopped short. A man in a well-fitted suit and a woman in a pale blue dress blocked the steps. The woman argued with the man, but when they spotted us, they stopped. She grabbed the man’s arm as he came to us, and he shook her off.

  “Dad,” King said and my breath pulled. The similarities were impossible to miss now—his dad’s silvery blue eyes, his mother’s creamy, mocha skin. “Here to get us rearrested?”

  I wondered if his parents had been the ones to post bail. If they were the high places the officer had been referring to. Maybe they felt bad. Then his mother spoke, and I knew I couldn’t be more wrong.

  “If I have to set that place on fire I will, Kingston. I will light the match—” She broke off, pain strangling her vocal cords, and turned to her husband. “He was barely in there for an hour.” The words were muffled against his shoulder.

  Awkwardly, we kept walking past his crying mother.

  “Come home.” His father’s eyes were pleading, piercing, pained. We stopped, then one by one we all fell back, leaving only King.

  “Nate,” King’s dad yelled. “Stop. Please.” Flip froze and instinctively I gripped his hand harder. I didn’t want him to go back, not after we’d finally gotten together.

  But how selfish was that?

  I loosened my hold.

  “It’s okay to want to go home,” I whispered. “It’s okay.” A moment passed like forever. I knew he missed them. I saw it in his eyes, even now.

  But then he squeezed my hand. “I am home.”

  No one went with King’s parents. King spoke with them for over an hour, and by the end, they looked slightly mollified, but I could tell by the look in their eyes it wasn’t over. Maybe some of what drove them was because they didn’t understand us, but mostly it was pain. Loss. They’d never give up. Not until they had King again. Maybe not even until they got Flip too. Whatever King had said to them, whatever he’d done to save Patchwork, was just a Band-Aid on a bullet wound.

  When we arrived at Patchwork, at first it looked the same. Same graffiti quilt, same ornate shingles and lacy molding, but as we got closer, it became visible: so many threads they created a feathery, silky curtain from the strings hanging off the porch.

  Jewel-toned and strung at different heights, one thousand origami cranes. Well, not one thousand but as many as could be hung in the short time. Pants, Bacon, and Sparky were still in the middle of hanging them, and when Pants saw us, he fell off a ladder.

  I’d actually forgotten I’d asked them to do me this favor. There was so much craziness after the competition, what with being arrested.

  Flip froze, and suddenly I was unbearably nervous. Nerves hummed electric beneath my skin. I looked from the cranes to him, back and forth. Our audience waited. The longer Flip went without a word, the worse my nerves tangled.

  This was silly.

  I shouldn’t have done this. He was going to think I was such a fool.

  The silence stretched.

  “I just…” I spoke softly. “I wanted to help your wish come true.” I wanted to show him I would do anything.

  Flip was so, so quiet, his face an unreadable mask.

  “This was stupid. I’m sorry.” I headed to the porch to, I don’t know, tear them down so we could forget this ever happened, but Flip gripped my wrist, spun me to him. I landed against his chest, breath leaving me in a rush.

  “I couldn’t get a thousand—” Before I could finish, his lips were on mine, palms anchoring my cheeks.

  A searing kiss.

  My hands around his neck, then sliding down the thick, corded muscle, over his Adam’s apple. Gripping his shirt. On my tiptoes, biting, sucking, swallowing. Another throat clear, but this time I didn’t care we had an audience.

  Intent rushed through me with every swipe of the tongue.

  When Flip pulled back, he was fuzzy and hazy, his taste still on my lips, my hands still grasping the collar of his shirt. He searched me, thumb gently brushing my jaw, waiting until everything came back into focus.

  When he spoke, his voice was low. “It’s time to put the awe back in your eyes.”

  FLIP

  The guys followed us to my bedroom, whooping and hollering like it was some medieval bedding ceremony. I slammed the door and heard their muffled laughter disappear down the stairs.

  “Assholes,” I said under breath. When I turned around, Tweetie was watching me. In a baggy graphic tee, too-big jeans, and a beanie covering her curls, this was how I wanted her, how I always wanted her. Small, pouty lips and a button nose. Her wild, intense curls like the look in her eyes. Pocket-sized body that fit me perfectly, hidden under layers and layers of clothes, only for me to see. Unwrapping her would be like opening a present.

  Tweetie watched me with an inscrutable look in her bright eyes. I only had a second to wonder over it, then she was sprinting at me. She jumped and I caught her, back slamming against the door.

  “Hi,” I said on a laugh. Then her mouth was on mine, hot and hurried, small hands in my hair, messing up my hat, tearing it sideways.

  Fuck.

  Whatever got into Tweetie, let it never leave, please.

  I took charge of the kiss, slowing down the tempo, exploring her mouth with deliberate strokes. She broke on a sharp, musical sigh that went straight to me. I tightened my grip beneath her thighs, hoisting her up so I could go for her throat, her collarbone, beneath her jaw.

  “I…” Nerves caught her voice, a swallow bobbing. I sucked that too. “I missed you. I love you so much, Flip. You were always my dream. My god. I never want to be apart again.” The confession wrapped around my heart like silk, all at once tightening and comforting.

  “I don’t know,” I said, pushing her shirt aside some to kiss her shoulder. “Maybe we should screw up our lives more often if it means you’ll attack me like this.”

  “Shut up,” she said, but smiled, a grin that showed the small, almost unnoticeable chip in her incisor from the accident. I pressed my lips to hers again, swiping m
y tongue across the fracture.

  When I pulled back, her hands tightened around my neck, smile soft on her face.

  “I’m not stopping this time,” I warned. “Even if the entire fucking house is outside, or if the police station kicks down our door, I’m not stopping.” Her breathing quickened, chest pressing against my own. “I’ve waited long enough for you. So tell me now, Tweetie. Tell me now if you want to stop.”

  A breath passed like an eternity.

  “Promise?” Her blue eyes gleamed. Fuck. I’m done for. I carried her to my bed. Her grip loosened on my neck as I lowered her. I caught it with one hand.

  “Keep your hands on me.”

  Her mouth parted, eyelids dropping. Holding my weight above her, I took a minute to look at her, a minute to realize this was happening, it was real. Tweetie was in my bed, her wild curls were on my pillow, and in a moment I would tangle them.

  “Do you want to go to the floor?” Nerves fluttered her voice. “I’m fine with the floor. Or couch. Or really anything—”

  “Shh.” I pressed a kiss to her lips. “As long as you’re here, I’m fine.” Lips still connected, her eyes grew, then narrowed.

  “You were there last night,” she said through our kiss.

  I lifted up, giving her a lopsided grin and room to breathe. “Busted.”

  I pushed back her hair, needing to touch her as I waited for her reaction. I’d snuck into her room without permission, while she was upset with me, no less.

  After the knocks were replaced with pained whimpers, I’d gone insane listening. I’d had to do something.

  “Thank you,” she whispered. My chest clenched, hand frozen in her curly tangles. Our eyes locked, the air stilled.

  I slid my hand deeper into her curls, grip strong and sure.

  “Give me everything,” I said, voice hoarse. “All of it. The blushes and wide eyes, your whimpers and cries. You've been fighting the world since you were a child, but now trust me enough to stop fighting.” I slid a hand up her thigh, pushing her legs apart. “Give in to me.”