by Piper Lawson
My breath sticks in my throat when his attention lands on me and his eyes warm.
Morning, he mouths.
God, strike me down if that’s not the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.
Hey, I mouth back.
The teacher starts, and as Tyler turns toward the front of the room, I face palm. Hey? That’s the best I can do?
Wait. This is Tyler we’re talking about. I don’t need to try to impress him.
Except I want to. Fuck my stupid heart, but I want him to think I’m the coolest girl he’s ever met.
He knows you’re not cool. You walked into his pool house, yelled at him, started crying, and he still kissed you.
I bite my lip as I stare at the back of his head through the rest of class.
“You think Gatsby applies universally?” Pen gripes at the end.
“It’s about the rise and fall of the American dream,” I respond, distracted. “It’s more relevant now than it was in Fitzgerald’s time. Today, the super-rich are people like Gatsby, new money from tech and finance, but there’s more inequality than ever.”
“East or West, who the fuck cares? This place is full of eggheads.”
“Pen,” I say, unable to keep it in any longer, “Tyler kissed me last night.”
“And it was so good you didn’t call me immediately and instead lay in bed, staring out the window at the pool house, while you rubbed one out, like Gatsby looking at his damned green light?”
I cock my head at her as we head out of class. “Oddly poetic.”
“Tell me I’m wrong,” she says as we pull up next to our lockers.
I flick the lock and jerk the door open. “I didn’t stare out the window at the pool house while I got myself off, but I did leave the curtains open.”
Her laugh has me shaking my head.
After leaving Tyler with Brandon last night, I tried to rehearse, to do homework, to play with Sophie while Haley worked in the kitchen and my dad watched his favorite home reno show, but eventually I gave it up and dragged my ass upstairs.
And yes, I made myself come thinking of Tyler. It’s hard not to. The guy’s a walking orgasm.
It’s not even about sex, which a few weeks ago I couldn’t have cared less about but suddenly feels more important than final exams, world peace, and what’s for breakfast put together.
It’s the feeling that every second we’re in the same room and I can’t touch him, can’t feel the warmth of his body, can’t smell his sunshine and cedar scent is a waste.
Being closer to Tyler isn’t something I “want.” Every part of my body insists that it’s necessary if I’m going to keep breathing.
I know it’s stupid and high school, but I can’t let go of it.
But even if some part of him does want me, he’s not impulsive like I am. He holds the world at a distance, and after learning how his dad treated him, I understand why he has trouble trusting.
And there’s a more immediate problem. If my dad finds out, he’ll lose his shit, but he won’t take it out on me.
He’ll take it out on Tyler.
Which means he can’t find out.
“Well, if you want to know for sure what’s in his head…” Pen points at a sign hanging in the hall.
I laugh. “Prom is a four-letter word, Pen, and it’s this weekend, and we’re juniors.”
“Tyler’s not. Get him to take you. Just the thing to take the edge off exams looming a few weeks away, where boyfriends and boy toys alike come to frolic under guise of darkness.”
I turn to follow Pen’s gaze and see a familiar outline at his locker with Brandon. Pen slams her locker and walks toward him. I trot after her, cursing.
“Hey, Tyler!” Pen calls.
He turns, his attention landing briefly on her before flicking to me. “Hey.”
His gaze travels down my body and back up again, and I want to squeeze my thighs together. I soak in the sight of him, his messy dark hair, the strong shoulders under his jacket, the loosened tie at his neck.
Playing it cool, take two.
Except I don’t want to.
I want to tell him I shaved my legs last night.
I want to cup my hands around his ear and whisper the rumor I just heard about our history teacher, and I want to know if he’ll laugh when I do.
I want to strip the jacket off him, to unbutton that shirt and—
“So, I’m helping with tickets for prom,” Pen plows on. “How many can I put you down for? I have it on good authority you’re an excellent dancer.” Her eyes turn wicked.
Brandon swallows a laugh. “You a good dancer, Pen?”
“I’m terrible,” she says proudly.
“I can make up for it. Go with me.”
My friend blinks, taken aback. “Um… are you serious?”
I bite my cheek.
“I thought I had a date, but Tyler refused to take me.”
Tyler flips off Brandon with a smirk.
“Okay. Sure, I’d love to.” Pen regains her composure, glancing toward Tyler and me. “See, children? It’s not that hard.”
With a wink, she and Brandon set off down the hall. I’m flushed when I turn back to Tyler, tilting my chin up to meet his amused chocolate eyes.
“Wow. I’m not sure what happened,” I comment.
“Me either.”
He rummages in his locker for books. His Gatsby paperback falls out of the locker, and we both bend to grab it. My head hits his, and I groan, rubbing the spot as I straighten.
“You okay?” he asks. “Knowledge is dangerous.”
“Not the worst excuse to avoid studying but maybe not a doctrine to live your life by.”
Tyler grins as he brushes the hair back from my forehead, inspecting the spot where our heads clunked.
It stops hurting.
Suddenly I’m thinking about how we’re a foot apart and what he’d do if I stretched up onto my toes to kiss him right here. Whether he’d pull back with a warning look or exercise his right as prince of the entire damned place and press me into the lockers like he didn’t give a fuck who was watching.
“So, I know you said you don’t dance,” I say, “but you’ve already broken that rule—”
“I’m not asking you to prom, Six.”
Disappointment floods me. “This wasn’t a fishing expedition for a corsage. I just figured it could be fun to go as friends. Now that we’re friends again.”
Tyler turns away, shutting his locker with a click before rounding on me. “I don’t do dances.”
“Right.” I look past him. “Guess I’ll see you later.”
His mouth twitches. “Not so fast. Walk me to class.”
I shift my bag over my shoulder, and when I drop my hand, his fingers brush mine.
Every inch of me should not be tingling.
I match my steps to his, not wanting to miss that touch.
“So, I tried the guitar after you left,” Tyler comments.
I’m distracted when his thumb starts lightly stroking the back of my hand.
“The neck’s perfect,” he goes on. “Twenty-four frets. It’s a dream.”
“When can I see you play it? I mean, hear you play it?”
I expect him to say no, but he surprises me. “Tonight. After rehearsal.”
A shiver of anticipation buzzes through my body. “Deal.”
As we pull up near his class, I add, “You don’t think we’ll be interrupted by college girls?”
We’re not even dating, but the idea of him with anyone else has something white-hot streaking through me.
“Not my type.” Tyler turns to face me, and I miss his touch already.
It’s that sudden emptiness that has me asking, “I thought high school girls weren’t your type?” in a coy voice that isn’t mine.
Tyler glances down the hall. Before I can breathe, he drags me behind the open classroom door, his hand threading through my hair as his body pins me against a locker.
Oh.
My.
God.
Tyler.
His kiss is fire. Hard and sharp and branding.
His lips skim my jaw, making me tilt my head up to give him even more access. My mouth falls open in shock at the scrape of his teeth along my ear, my breath falling out in pants.
“You’re cute when you’re jealous,” he murmurs against my skin.
With a last hot look, he slips into class and leaves me thrilled and boneless against the lockers.
Rehearsal is fucking brilliant. I’m hitting every song, the dialogue, the choreography.
I’m invincible.
“Excellent, Annie,” Miss Norelli says after we finish the hardest number and I grab my water at the corner of the stage. “Something’s really clicking with you. Your costume will be ready for a final fitting the start of next week.”
My chest expands. “I get to keep the role?”
“You get to keep the role. I know I said I wanted the girl who auditioned, but you’re not her. You’re better.”
Hell yes.
I want to scream it to the world. I nearly dash off a text for Tyler, but I decide to savor it for a few minutes myself.
I run to the bathroom using the few minutes before we start again.
When I emerge from the stall, someone’s waiting for me.
“I have something that belongs to you.” Carly leans against the vanity, arms folded.
“More poems that happened to find their way into your possession?” I don’t bother to sound kind as I wash my hands. “Forget it, Carly. It’s over. You lost.”
Her gaze narrows, cold and cruel. “You’re not interested in a letter from someone named Fiona? A woman who says she’s your mother?”
My hands are still under the tap, the hot water stinging my skin.
It’s not possible, but from her expression, I know it’s true. “How did you…?”
“Jenna knew the poem wouldn’t be enough to keep me happy for long. That letter though? She can sit at my table through the end of exams for that. Let me tell you, this is some juicy stuff. My dad has contacts in publishing who’d be very interested in the story.”
Sweat breaks out on my neck as I reach for a paper towel to dry my hands. “It’s not true.”
She shrugs. “I’m sure a bit of grunt work can uncover the truth. It’s amazing what a detective can do.”
Panic starts deep in my gut, but I swallow it down.
She smiles, and when she lowers her voice conspiratorially, I almost think it’s genuine. “We all call our parents names, give them hell for their choices. But at the end of the day, it’s our dirty laundry. And it’s one thing to argue at the dinner table but something else for the world to tear down your walls, rip away your privacy.”
Her words make me shiver, but I force myself to focus. “What do you want?”
Her eyes brighten as she moves closer. “I love when you’re not as stupid as you look. If you want your letter back, you’ll back out of the musical.”
“No way. Opening night’s in a week. If I back down, I’ll look like an asshole to the entire cast and crew. Norelli will never cast me in anything again.”
“Not my problem.”
My entire body tingles as if my brain’s stopped sending blood to my fingers, my toes. “You’re doing this for a role. You know how fucked up that is?”
She smiles. “You’re considering letting your entire family get ripped to shreds for a role. You know how fucked up that is? I warned you,” she goes on. “Don’t take things that don’t belong to you. The role, Kellan, Tyler.” Her eyes flash, and my nails dig into my palms until I swear they draw blood.
She brushes past me but stops at the door. “I’ll give you until this weekend to decide. I’ll have a lot of rehearsing to catch up on.”
15
When I get home from school, I run to my room and yank open the drawer, then flip open my notebook.
The letter’s gone.
The numbness from earlier starts again, this time filling my chest, my arms, my legs.
I search the rest of the drawer, the one below that. The floor. My books, binders, pockets, even though I know it can’t be in there.
When I go back through the kitchen, no one’s there.
The patio’s dark when I shift through the door, closing it after me. I cross to the edge of the pool, staring into the shimmering water. The low buzz of the filter fills my ears with white noise.
Jenna didn’t just take my poem—she took my letter.
I tug off one sock, then the other.
She gave it to Carly.
I take the steps one at a time, the water lapping at my toes, then my calves. Then my thighs, soaking the edge of my plaid skirt.
If it gets out, it could ruin my family.
When the water’s up to my waist, my Oxford shirt stained dark up to my breasts, I dive, squeezing my eyes shut and pulling myself through the water. When I make it to the deep end, I sit on the bottom.
The blackness and the silence surround me.
One bubble slips past my lips, then another.
My dad taught me how to swim, back before I knew he was my dad. He rented out an entire wave pool so it could be just the two of us so I wouldn’t be embarrassed to be the only ten-year-old who needed water wings.
I haven’t thought of that in years, but now—
Something grabs my arm.
My eyes fly open, and I gulp pool water, twisting in the unrelenting grip.
I’m trying to breathe and cough at once as I’m dragged upward. My chest burns, crying out.
We break the surface, and the grip drags me out of the pool and up onto the tile, where I lie facedown and contorted while I cough water.
“What the fuck?” Tyler’s voice is a rasp in my ear as I melt into the tile.
“It’s called swimming,” I groan. “You should try it.”
“Bullshit.”
He crosses to the cabana, grabs two towels, and comes back.
I shift to sitting and take one from him, wrap it around my shoulders, and squeeze the water from my hair. “I opened the letter from my mom. She said my dad knew about me for a year and a half before he came back. She said he didn’t want me.”
Tyler stiffens.
I wait for him to defend my dad… or to say it’s all in my head.
He doesn’t.
“If your dad didn’t want you, he’s an idiot.”
My eyes are burning for the second time in two days. My tears mix with the salt water on my cheeks.
“Come on.” His voice lowers, soothing. “Don’t do that.”
“Because of your fucked-up attraction to crying girls?”
“Exactly. If I grope you within view of the kitchen, it’s gonna get bad.”
I try to smile but suck at it. “Carly has the letter.”
I explain how Jenna stole it, and every muscle in his body goes tight, his face pale in the lights from the patio.
A shiver grabs me, and Tyler wraps the second towel around my feet.
“She wants me to step down from the musical, which, apparently, I won.” I lift my hands in the air. “Yay?”
“Congrats.”
Misery lodges in my throat as I stare at his handsome face.
“You can’t quit,” he says. “You’ve earned it, and most importantly… no one rocks a garbage bag tail like you.”
My lips curve, and I taste salty tears.
The sound of the sliding door from the house drags my attention away as Haley rushes out.
“I looked out the window and saw you dressed and soaked. Did you fall in the pool?”
My dad’s hot on her heels, Sophie in his arms.
I curse under my breath. “I’m fine. It was a joke.”
Haley doesn’t look comforted, and my father looks alarmed as he stares between me and Tyler. It’s too dark to read whether the shock is tinged with suspicion.
“Take a shower, then come in for dinner,” he says at last. “Both of you.”
Dad heads back into the house, Sophie in one arm and the other wrapped around Haley.
But I can’t worry about the way my dad is looking at me and Tyler. I’m thinking of the man who taught me to swim, what the letter Carly has would do to him.
“We’ll figure this out,” Tyler murmurs as if reading my mind.
He brushes a thumb over my cheek, and my heart presses against my ribs.
And that squeeze in my chest gives me hope that I’m not in this alone.
“I have the answer,” I tell Tyler after English the next morning as we head down the hall to our lockers. “Purple satin.”
His gaze narrows. “I think we’re asking different questions.”
“Last night after dinner, I took Pen prom dress shopping. I didn’t want to kill her buzz with the Carly situation.”
“Did you try on any dresses?”
I hold out my phone, a picture Pen took. The dress is pale purple, my favorite color, and mermaid cut. We got it at a vintage boutique. It has a bit of an eighties vibe, but someone took off the taffeta from around the skirt, so now it’s more streamlined. Simple.
Tyler’s gaze locks on the screen for a long moment, then his fingers move over the keyboard.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Sending it to someone.”
“No!” I protest, reaching for the phone. “If you took me to prom, you could see it yourself, and then I’d get to see you in a tux.”
“You’ve seen me in a tux.”
“Yeah, and I’d like to see it again.”
His eyes change color. “I can’t take you to prom. It would be a statement to the entire fucking world.”
“What kind of statement?”
“That you’re mine.” The possession in his tone makes me shiver.
I want to be his.
It’s not as if I grew up dreaming of big dresses and dates.
Still, the idea of Tyler taking me to prom, of spending the night with him and dressing up and feeling special, sends waves of wanting through me.
I know I have bigger problems—Carly-shaped problems—and I’m working on solving them, but this would be one hell of a reward in the meantime.
Speak of the devil.
Carly waltzes down the hall and cuts in on us.
“Hi. Can I talk to you a sec?” she asks Tyler sweetly.
