“So, so bad,” Theo agreed. “I think I might have to go into hiding.”
I grinned up at him and wasn’t sure what to say next. All I wanted in the world was to kiss him. The world felt chaotic and wild around us, and I wanted the air to fall still and for us to simmer in one another’s arms and find new ways to tease.
Somebody rushed into the room, breaking my thoughts. They wrapped their hand around Theo’s elbow and said, “Somebody broke one of your records, Theo, I wanted to come tell you as soon as I saw it.”
Theo’s face turned stone cold. He lurched away and left Clinton and I at the counter. Clinton shoved his werewolf head higher up on his forehead, so his handsome and rugged face was in full view. His eyes swept over my neck and down every curve of my body until I felt the heat in my cheeks.
“I heard you passed your exam,” he said, finally locking eyes with me.
I rolled my eyes. “Oh. Is it because you’re in my class and heard Mr. Collins announce it? Do you think that’s maybe why you heard?”
Clinton didn’t change his face. “I don’t know. Can’t say. All I can say is, I’m proud of you. You’re not such an airhead after all, like everyone says. Maybe I’m even half proud to know you. The only real rags to riches situation I know of, personally.”
“No riches here, Clinton,” I argued. I gestured down at my clothes. “These are only a few months away from becoming rags, to be honest.”
Clinton chuckled and added another bit of vodka to both of our drinks. “Come on. I want to show you something,” he said and reached around to grab my hand. He led me out of the party and down the hallway, away from the muffled chaos of some hundred voices. When we reached the far end of the corridor, he searched around for a spare key in his pocket, drew it out, and clanked it into the lock. Seconds later, we burst onto a side staircase, one that seemed like it hadn’t been updated in maybe fifty years.
“What is this?” I asked.
“Come on. Just go up,” he said.
“Those feel like the last words you might hear when somebody murders you,” I returned.
“Just go. I thought you weren’t afraid of anything.”
He was right—this was all you had to say to get me to do something. I stomped forward and then raced up the steps, with Clinton on a wild rush behind me. We burst out onto the roof of the dorm, beneath the full-flung chaos of a zillion bright stars that dotted a black and beautiful sky. I exhaled and cried, “Oh my god! It’s so stunning!”
Clinton’s hand wrapped around my waist and he tugged me into him. I lifted my chin and he dropped his lips over mine and suddenly we kissed, just as we had beneath the surface of the pool. My heart pounded with adrenaline at the fact of being on the roof with this boy, drinking vodka and the fear that I shouldn’t be doing this. And then, he brought my lips to mine. His tongue traced over my tongue and a soft moan escaped. I felt the butterflies roll in my stomach but also felt free and wild, up on the roof without anyone there to watch. My fingers flickered across his bare chest and I felt the smooth plains of his chest. When I held my head back for a moment, I fell in love with the way the moon glinted off his face.
“You’re so handsome,” I told him.
“What a fucking line,” he returned. He reached down and wrapped his hand around my ass and squeezed. “Don’t get me wrong. I like it. I like an act.”
“What if it’s not an act? Is that even scarier?” I asked.
“Maybe,” he returned. “Didn’t know you were such a philosopher.”
His other hand dropped to my other ass cheek and he lifted me up against him. He took several staggering steps back as we kissed and then wound up against a gargoyle statue, his head tapped against the feet of the monster. I stopped my kiss for a second to gaze up at the beast, his eyes enormous and his teeth just as sharp as Clinton’s werewolf mask, yet made of stone.
“I can’t tell you how freaking terrifying this thing is from up here,” I murmured.
Clinton laughed. He dropped me a bit against him so that the juncture between my legs landed just there at the bulge of his crotch. Everything between my legs felt wet and warm and his eyes were wide with desire. Seconds later, he stretched me gently on the stone ground, with one of his hands beneath my head. He drew his hand over my legs, across my pussy and rubbed it slowly. Again, that animal drive filled the back of my head. I arched my back and my heart pounded somewhere deep in my belly.
Since he didn’t have a shirt, my job felt easier. I drew a line down his six-pack, then dipped across his belt. Seconds later, I tugged his belt open and ripped open the zipper and his huge, pulsing cock tore out from beneath his boxers, thicker and stockier than the others, the veins and the dark skin red.
“Mmmm,” I murmured. Apparently, I was getting the hang of this. And it had so much power over me. I needed it. I had no other thoughts except living in these moments, with these boys—letting them take me, falling into the incredible passion, the strength of their desires.
“Let me fuck you,” his voice a deep growl.
Just like Chloe had said, when she’d nearly had sex with Max, there was this strange flicker in the back of my head. It was a flicker of both want and doubt. I blinked at him and set my jaw and then thrust myself up so that I sat up and faced him. I felt totally vulnerable, his hand still across my pants at my crotch and my breasts spilled from my shirt. I felt real, raw air across my nipples, and I rolled with a near-constant desire to do exactly what he asked.
“I’m only sixteen,” I murmured.
“I know,” he said.
“I’m just not ready. Not yet. Everything else. Really…”
Clinton took the information and seemed to turn it around in his head. After a long moment, he brought his head forward and kissed me again, this time, more tenderly. It was the only answer I could have hoped for. He didn’t mind; it didn’t matter. He didn’t want to belittle me for my choice but instead respected it. My heart surged with both appreciation and lust. I fell into him and his hands dipped between my legs and felt at the wet darkness between. God, I ached for the day when I could do it for real when I would feel all the erotic feelings of sex. But not yet.
Chapter Ten
I came with Clinton on the rooftop, beneath the stars and I actually felt like a normal teenager for the first time in my life—one that was free, one that fooled around with one of the cutest guys at school. Making out on the roof beneath the dark blanket above was magical and he made me feel things I had never felt before. He made me feel as though he saw me, not some foster kid that was just another charity case. I wasn’t just the abandoned daughter of one of the most famous athletic icons to exist. I was just a girl that the popular Clinton Reynolds had kissed beneath the moonlight. I was going to enjoy every single moment of it without regret.
Afterward, we dressed again and scuttled back down to the party. I felt dizzy with lust and excitement. I was so grateful that I had found a way to prove to the students of Denver Athletics that they were damn fools—that I wasn’t someone to be avoided. When I spotted her, I grabbed Chloe and the two of us took to the dance floor. We leaped around and drew our bodies against each other and ground our hips together while bursting into laughter again. We were having a blast. Ashley danced with us for a while, and she and Chloe went off after talking over another drink. This seemed fruitful, actually, since I knew there was a ton of bad blood between them.
I glanced around for a sign of what to do next. At this point, I’d had maybe three drinks, which was meant to be nothing, but I was a lightweight and I stumbled a bit as I clunked toward the balcony. When I reached it, I blinked outside to spot Poppy out there by herself. She stared out into the darkness, leaned heavily forward on her elbows. She almost looked like she wanted to jump, although I knew this was all my own projection. Poppy Binford wasn’t suicidal. She had her entire gymnastics career in front of her. She had so much to prove.
I eased outside feeling vibrant, like I could say and do anything and n
ot receive any kind of backlash. I cut the door closed behind me. Poppy blinked over at me and her face turned, making her look like she had just eaten something super sour.
“Oh. It’s you,” she muttered. She turned swiftly to march back to the door.
“Don’t go,” I said. I brought out my nearly-fresh vodka tonic and pressed it into her hand. “Come on. Have some. It’s delicious. Clinton made it.”
“Clinton made it,” she said, mimicking me in a sing-song voice. “Fucking pathetic.” But she took the drink and shot it back. Maybe it was too far in the night for her to bully me to her own standards.
“Poppy, I wanted to ask you something,” I said. I kept my voice low and even, as I didn’t want to frighten her.
Her face fell even flatter. Up close like this, she didn’t look intimidating. She almost looked sad and that something was weighing heavy on her shoulders. Tonight she looked like any other teen at a party—any other teen that was dealing with something stressful.
“It’s just, I think I might have seen something yesterday,” I continued. I spoke quickly in an attempt to charge to the end of the sentence without interruption. “And probably I’m wrong. I just. I hope, despite everything between us, you won’t feel weird telling me if there’s… If there’s anything going on with—if Jeremy ever hurt you or something like that.”
Poppy’s expression didn’t flinch at my words at all. She leaned a little toward me so that her nose was about an inch from mine. I could inhale her alcohol-laced breath.
“What the fuck did you say to me?” she demanded. Her eyes glittered.
Why did I always have to save everyone? Why couldn’t I just let everything go? Fuck. Now Poppy was going to use this as another reason to destroy me—just my stupid attempt to make sure she wasn’t molested or whatever.
“I know what it’s like to have to be strong all the time,” I said. I set my jaw and tried to translate how serious I was.
But she just yanked herself back and cackled. She shook her head and her ponytail did its flapping around motion. Then, she pointed straight ahead, at the enormous oak, probably just as old as the building we stood in, that drew itself toward the black sky. One of its branches had snaked itself toward the balcony, very nearly making it. It looked like a hungry hand, its fingers extended.
“I dare you to go out there and use that branch as an uneven bar,” she said then.
I swam with sudden adrenaline. I still felt wired from my orgasm on the roof, from Clinton’s black eyes and this sudden rejuvenation and light. But instead, I said—
“You know I still have a concussion right.” My voice was low. “Because of you.”
Poppy shot me a wicked look and then laughed in the most haunting tone I had ever heard. It sent a chill down my spine. She grabbed the edge of the balcony and with a surge of violent energy, she burst up from the balcony, whipped herself through the air and then grabbed the branch. She yelped and clung onto that thing as it tossed her back and forth. Then, she drew herself up with a perfect pull up and thrust one of her legs over. She sat on the branch like a little kid might sit on a teeter-totter. She blinked at me across the chilly night in her costume, with the glitter on her breasts shining in the moonlight.
“Are you too much of a pussy to come out here?” she asked.
You’re taught, as a gymnast, never to look down. Instinctively, I knew we were four floors above the grass, that a tumble from this far up wasn’t just a tumble. It was the kind of thing that would break bones and potentially knocked you out for good. I had been lucky during the balance beam incident. I didn’t want to push that luck.
“Fuck, Poppy—I was just in the hospital. I don’t want to end up there again,” I shot out.
She stuck out her bottom lip. “Oh come on, Rooney. I thought you could do anything? Hmmm? I guess you just don’t have the balls.”
I didn’t let her finish. I sprung over the edge of the balcony and whipped toward the branch. These incredible reflexes—maybe I’d been born with them. Maybe I had cultivated them after years and years of practice. But it was nothing to grab the branch and lift myself up to face Poppy. We stared at each other, there beneath the black inky sky. I swear it gave off a weird intimate vibe like we were two best friends doing something wild at a party, rather than two enemies, one on the verge of killing the other.
She gave me a half-smirk, but I could tell that I had freaked her out, and maybe she had even freaked herself out. The branch shifted beneath us.
“What now?” I asked her. I laughed and glanced back at the party.
Poppy let out the first genuine chuckle I had ever heard. She reached back and yanked her hair tie out of her hair, and her blonde hair shimmied over her shoulders. We were a contrast in nearly every way, except we were both toned, muscular and much stronger than the average sixteen-year-old girl.
“I don’t know. I didn’t think this far ahead,” she answered honestly and then shrugged. She made eye contact with me for a moment and I thought maybe she might lurch up and push me from the branch, but she didn’t.
“You know, you really can tell me if something’s up with Jeremy,” I said then. My heart bumped like a drum.
Poppy rolled her eyes and turned her chin up toward the moon. Her eyes glittered. “Fuck, Rooney, you don’t have to be so damn good all the time.”
I wanted to tell her that I had spent much of my life in complete misery; that the only release I had ever found was, actually, in finding good in others, in giving as good as I could. But before I could, Poppy sprung up so that she stood balanced on the branch. She brought her arms out on either side of her and walked slowly, like a tightrope walker, toward the trunk of the tree. I heard Ellison screech from the balcony and spun to see that she, Zed, Theo, Clinton, Chloe, and Max had all appeared in the windows and balconies.
“What the fuck, Rooney!” Zed cried out. There was panic in his voice. “You want to fucking kill yourself?”
Poppy let out a laugh and reached the trunk. Her movements were careful, like a cat’s, as she slowly inched down the tree, linking herself from branch to branch. I knew I had to go the same route. It wasn’t possible to leap back onto the balcony, and I didn’t feel even a glimmer of fear. I felt completely clear like I hadn’t had a drop of alcohol, as I eased up to stand atop the branch. Everyone behind me was hushed. I imagined this to be exactly the way Nationals would be—all these eyes upon you, conscious that any misstep you made could make all the work you’d ever done meaningless. If you twitched or landed wrong or got it into your head that you couldn’t do something, then you were fucked.
In the middle of all these swirling thoughts, I realized I reached the trunk. The crowd behind me roared, and I turned back and bowed to them. I locked eyes with Theo, whose claps seemed to be the loudest. Chloe stuck two fingers in her mouth and whistled.
“Bad luck, my ass!” somebody called.
I wrapped my legs around the trunk and started to ease down the way Poppy had gone. I swam with adrenaline and excitement. The wood felt rough beneath my fingers, and each branch seemed precisely suited to my hands like the tree had grown for this moment in time. When I reached the final branch, I glanced down at Poppy, who had just landed on the grass. She shivered, with her hands cupped at her elbows.
“You’re close,” she said. “But it’s a pretty far jump from where you are. Here. Take my hand.”
She extended it and I blinked down at the flat, smooth white skin of her palm. There wasn’t an ounce of malice in her face, and the way to the grass was about six feet, a little too much to jump. I swept my hand toward hers and shifted my weight. I touched the ground, but a second later, Poppy had me pinned against the tree trunk. She locked eyes with me and her voice was laced with malice.
“Fucking bitch. You think we’re friends now?” Poppy muttered as she turned to leave and then pointed a warning finger back at me. “Don’t ever bring up Jeremy’s name again, you fucking hear me?”
Up above, the party rage
d on. Due to the last of the autumn leaves, they hadn’t seen what had just happened, which was my only saving grace. I blinked at her as I watched her walk back to the party and my eyes grew heavy with tears. I had been so close. I had felt powerful, wild and free—and even oddly close with Poppy. I had only wanted to protect her, to say something about what I had thought I’d seen.
Women were supposed to protect each other. If there was anything I thought I had learned from years of sporting events, that was it. But Poppy was in a league all her own. I had never met someone so self-centered and full of hatred.
I decided to call it a night. I had had enough eventful drama for one night and headed off to my dorm room. Once there, I stripped off my black leggings and black tank top and tugged on a large t-shirt and shorts and lurched up into my bed. I laid back, thinking about the events of the night and let the tears fall.
I had only a few words in my head, and they were all a prayer.
The Accident Page 8
