What You Left Behind

by Jessica Verdi

  I know I must taste like sweat, and I’m certain I don’t smell awesome, but Joni doesn’t seem to care. As our mouths move together, our tongues tangling, she reaches up and gently pulls the rubber band from my hair, slipping it around her wrist and threading both her hands through my damp, sweaty, knotty hair. It feels so good I actually let out an involuntary groan and pull her closer.

  “Brooks!” Coach calls out again. “Hate to interrupt, Casanova, but we’ve got to go.”

  Unlike the last time Joni and I kissed, I don’t want to stop. I want to stay here forever, to lose myself in her soft, sugary, sexy-as-all-hell Joni world.

  But I pull away. “I have to go,” I whisper.

  She nods, her hands still playing with the hair at the back of my neck. “I know.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “You better.”

  • • •

  Since I was too late getting to the locker rooms to shower, that’s the first thing I do when I get home. Tonight must be my lucky night, because Mom and Hope are asleep on the couch when I get home, a movie flickering away on the TV. I sneak past them and go straight to the bathroom.

  I think of Joni the entire time I’m in the shower.

  The taste of her mouth, the confident possessiveness of her tongue, the way she rubbed her body against mine as we kissed.

  I wonder what she looks like naked.

  I wonder what else that tongue of hers can do…

  • • •

  I barely sleep that night.

  After my, um, shower, my head is a little clearer.

  What do I do when I see her at work tomorrow? We can’t just pick up where we left off. Of course we can’t. Nothing has changed. Meg is still dead. It’s still my fault. I still miss her more than I could have thought possible. I still love her more than I could have thought possible.

  Joni doesn’t even know me. I’ve been lying to her the whole time.

  Kissing her was amazing, yes, and she’s incredibly beautiful, yes, but we’re still just friends. That’s all I want us to be. I’m not ready for anything else. Fuck. I have to tell her that.

  She’ll probably hate me when I do. She has every right to, after the way I’ve been dicking her around. So maybe we won’t end up being friends at all.

  Which is good, I guess, because damn if I don’t keep thinking about her in a very non-friend kind of way.

  Chapter 24

  I punch in at ten a.m. and take a deep breath, psyching myself up to go find Joni and put an end to whatever started last night.

  But before I can even put my hand on the break room doorknob, the door swings open, and she steps inside and closes it behind her.

  She’s wearing black jeans, huge, chunky boots, a black tank top, and a blue belt. Her lips are bright red and her hair is falling over one eye. She looks like some sort of futuristic, ass-kicking warrior.

  “Hey,” she whispers, taking a step toward me.

  “Hey back,” I hear myself say, suddenly glad there’s no one else in the break room.

  Dude. No. Wake the fuck up. I have a plan. A speech, actually. It starts with, “Joni, thank you for coming to my game last night,” and ends with, “And that’s why it’s best if we are just friends.” But I can’t for the life of me remember the middle part.

  Just friends? Force myself to be around her all the time, staring at that body, watching those lips, laughing at whatever happy-making thing she’s saying or doing, but no more kissing? No chance for anything else? Jesus Christ, man, haven’t you been through enough torture?

  “Well…” she says, blowing her hair out of her eye. Her lower lip juts out a little with the motion, and next thing I know, that lip is between my own, and I have Joni pressed up against the wall next to the break room door. She matches my intensity point-for-point, and our hands are everywhere. I know she feels my boner pressing against her hip, but I’m too lost in her to be embarrassed.

  Joni runs her hands through my hair like she did last night, and it feels so good, like her fingertips are working delicious magic and pushing all the negative energy out through the ends of my hair.

  She tastes like Skittles today.

  We break apart for air but hold each other’s gazes, breathing heavily.

  I hook a finger into her belt loop and pull her hips close to mine while one of my other fingers traces the line where the top of her pants meets the bottom of her shirt. I graze her stomach skin, but she doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t move away. Doesn’t react at all, really. She just stares into my eyes, trusting, almost challenging, as if she’s waiting to see what I’ll do next.

  I take that challenge.

  I turn my hand so my palm is flat against her stomach, my fingers pointing down, and inch them slowly, meeting the top of her jeans and plunging farther, underneath the fabric. The farther down my hand travels, the more labored Joni’s breathing becomes—her chest is rising and falling visibly now.

  But I don’t stop.

  I can’t believe this is happening. At work. At all.

  She’s so fucking sexy. How did I not see it from day one?

  Joni makes everything better.

  She makes it easy to forget.

  I close the gap between us and kiss her with everything I have. Everything the old Ryden had. Everything I had no idea was still in me. She wraps her arms around me, slipping her tongue into my mouth, hitching one leg around my ass as I loosen her belt and undo the button of her jeans for easier access. My breath catches as the tips of my fingers hit the point of no return and Joni lets out a soft, encouraging moan.

  And then the door swings open, hitting my back, making me lose my balance and stumble into her, which of course makes her lose her footing, since she was standing on one leg to begin with. I catch a glimpse of her horror and panic as she turns toward the corner to right her clothing. I can’t ask her if she’s okay because I need to deal with the fucker who just interrupted the best damn moment I’ve had in months.

  Some dude from the seafood department walks to the fridge, looking at us over his shoulder, eyebrows raised, a smart-ass, know-it-all grin on his stupid face.

  I don’t know what exactly he saw, but this isn’t good. I need this job. I can’t get fired. “Oh, hey, man,” I say as coolly as I can. I shove my hands in my pockets in an attempt to hide the evidence of what we were just doing. “We were, uh…I was checking Joni for ticks. She…went camping last night. Lyme disease is serious stuff, ya know? Can never be too careful.” God, I’m a fucking loser.

  The seafood guy grabs an iced tea from the fridge and heads back to the door, shaking his head and chuckling. “Whatever, man.” He leans in close as he passes. “Nice work.” He holds his hand out for a fist bump, which I return after a few seconds. Anything to get him out of here. “Your secret’s safe with me.” He winks and leaves.

  I turn back to Joni. She’s leaning against the wall, arms crossed, all traces of her earlier daringness gone.

  I gently put my hands on her shoulders. “Are you okay?”

  She nods, staring at the floor. “I’m fine.”

  “Are you sure? You don’t look fine. Don’t worry—he’s not going to tell anyone. I don’t think he saw much anyway.”

  “I don’t know what I was thinking, climbing all over you like that here, where anyone could walk in at any time. After everything that’s been going on at school, why the hell would I invite that same shit into the place where I work?” Her voice is hard.

  She’s right. I shouldn’t have let it go as far as it did, especially knowing what she’s been through lately. “I’m sorry, Joni.”

  Finally she looks up at me. “Don’t be sorry. It’s my fault as much as yours. We got carried away. We just can’t let it happen again.”

  I drop my hands and take a tiny step back. “Yeah. Carried away. Totally.” So she
doesn’t want it to happen again. Okay, yeah. That’s probably better. That’s what I wanted—want—anyway. Clean break. Mutual agreement. Couldn’t have worked out more perfectly.

  I take a couple more steps backward and am about to head out the door when her voice stops me.

  “We’ll have to stick to more private places from now on. Bedrooms and the like.” She smiles, and her eyes show some of that fire again.

  Oh thank God.

  Chapter 25

  I can’t stop thinking about her.

  I also can’t stop thinking about how the “her” is a different “her” than it should be. I don’t know what I think or what I feel or what’s right or wrong.

  So I take the easiest, smoothest, straightest road. Which, okay, are usually the roads that lead you straight to danger. But how much worse could it possibly get?

  Sunday afternoon, I drop Hope at Alan’s. Mom knows it’s my day off from work, and I know better than to ask her to be on grandma duty. Last thing I need right now is a “you’re her father” lecture. But Alan doesn’t know my work schedule, and what Alan doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Hope will be happier spending the day with him anyway.

  I tell Alan I’ll pick her up by six and speed toward Clinton as fast as the Sable will take me.

  If this were some stupid, teenage, romantic comedy, I would be pulled over by the cops, and they would have mustaches and mirrored sunglasses, and they’d demand to know why I was in such a rush.

  “I’m going to see a girl, officers.”

  “A girlfriend?” they would ask, giving each other a knowing we-were-young-once smirk.

  “I…I don’t know, sirs.”

  “Well, do you want her to be your girlfriend?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, do you love her?”

  “I don’t think so, sirs.”

  “Then you better keep it in your pants. No good can come of this.”

  “I know, officers. You’re right. You’re absolutely right. But I can’t seem to stop myself. Any advice?”

  “Who do you think we are? Some sort of psychiatrists? You need professional help, boy. Now turn that car around and go along home.”

  I press harder on the gas and make it to Clinton in record time.

  Joni and Elijah are in the garage. She’s sitting Indian style, elbows on her knees, chin in her palms, on an overturned garbage can. He’s painting a portrait of her. It’s all shades of black and white and gray. It’s not anywhere near done yet, but he’s already managed to capture her aura of awesome.

  I glance at Elijah. I’m pretty sure he’s what most girls would consider hot. His blond dreads are tied back from his face with some sort of leather shoelace, his arms are covered in tattoos—artsy ones he probably designed himself, not the lame generic ones you pick off a wall—and he’s built. He must lift. No one gets like that by flinging around a paintbrush.

  Joni admitted she used to have a crush on him. I know it was when she was really little and he wasn’t her brother yet, but…they’re not actually related. I wonder if there’s any part of her that still likes him that way. I hate the idea. And I hate that I hate it. I am not going to become too attached to this girl. I like her, sure, and kissing her is amazing, but I know there are levels of like. And this isn’t going to get past a simmer.

  Joni’s eyes flicker to where I’m standing off to the side of the garage, and her face lights up. She hops off the garbage can.

  “Heya,” she says, skipping over to me. She stops about a half foot away.

  “Hey.”

  “You remember Elijah, right?”

  “Yeah. What’s up, man?”

  Elijah doesn’t take his eyes off his painting. “Hi, Ryden,” he says as his brush flicks across the canvas.

  Huh. I don’t think I told him my name the last time I was here. Joni must have told him about me.

  “Joni, can you sit for me again tonight?”

  “Sure thing.” She grabs my hand and leads me into the house. It’s quiet.

  “Where is everybody?”

  “My parents took the kids to the water park. We’re all alone.” She smiles and pushes open the door to her magic room.

  God, I love this place. It immediately calms the jitters from my mad dash over here.

  I sit down in the middle of the AstroTurf floor and lie back, staring up at the sky beyond the glass ceiling. I take a few long, deep breaths, letting the magic seep into me.

  “You okay?” Joni asks quietly, lying down next to me.

  “Yeah.”

  She gently rests her hand on mine. “Anything you want to talk about?”

  I turn my head and find my face just a couple of inches from hers. “No. Definitely not. No talking.” And I make those two inches of space disappear.

  She responds, pulling me on top of her, wrapping her legs around me. Her lips feel like they were made to be on mine. I would be completely happy to kiss her forever.

  But Joni clearly has other ideas, and her hands travel slowly but determinedly down toward the fly of my jeans. The second her hands graze me down there, all reason dissipates and all romantic notions of simply kissing fade away into Washington Square Park. I want her. Right now, I actually think I might need her.

  At least I remembered to bring a condom this time.

  Chapter 26

  I bury my face in Joni’s hair, inhale deeply, and chuckle to myself.

  “What’s so funny?” she asks, lifting her head from my sweaty chest and looking at me.

  “When I first met you, I thought you were gay.”

  Joni laughs. “You did? Why?”

  “’Cause of your hair.”

  She nods, mock seriously. “Short hair on a girl means she’s a lesbian. I see. In that case, what does long hair on a boy mean?” She lifts a few strands of my hair and raises an eyebrow.

  This time I’m the one to laugh. “Shut up.” I roll on top of her again and show her exactly how not-gay I am.

  • • •

  The sun is low in the sky, and I trace the patterns the warm light shining through the blinds makes on Joni’s skin. When I get down to her hip, my hands linger on her tattoo. Now that we’ve seen every inch of each other, she can’t keep it a secret anymore. It’s a tiny unicorn next to her right hip bone.

  She sighs. “You know my secret.”

  I smile. “Yup.”

  “Are you going to tell me yours?”

  My hand halts and my heart jumps. “What do you mean?”

  She brushes her finger against my eyebrow scar. Oh. Right. That. “I told you—it was a soccer injury.”

  Joni lets out her frustration in a growl and takes my lower lip between her teeth, nipping gently.

  “Come here,” I say, pulling her to standing and leading her over to her big, white bed. “The AstroTurf is badass, but not exactly conducive to rolling around naked, you know?”

  I sit on the bed and Joni climbs into my lap. She doesn’t seem self-conscious about being naked in front of me at all. Not that she has anything to feel self-conscious about.

  “Conducive,” she says. “Nice. I love when you use words like that.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s…unexpected, coming from you.”

  “Why?” I ask again. For a conversation about my vocab, I sure am at a loss for words.

  “Um, because of the way you look?” Joni says, like, duh.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Look at yourself, Ryden. You’re sex on a stick. Even that mysterious scar across your eyebrow makes you hotter.”

  I stare at her. “I mean, yeah, I’ve been told that girls find me attractive—”

  Joni shakes her head. “It goes way beyond ‘attractive.’ I bet my dad would have sex with you.”

  “Um. Thanks?”


  “My point is, with all of this going on”—she waves a hand around my face and body—“plus the whole jock thing, people don’t expect you to be smart too. So when you bust out the million-dollar SAT words, it’s kind of a shock.”

  “I’m not nearly as smart as M—” I stop myself. Shit. I was just going to say Meg. “As some of my friends.” Jesus. That could have been bad. Even if I didn’t go into the whole story, Joni would still want to know who Meg is and why the hell I was bringing up my ex-girlfriend five minutes after we had sex for the second time. Amazing, super hot sex. During which I did not once think about Meg. Actually, now that I think about it, since things turned the corner with Joni, the gaps between my obsessing-about-Meg stints seem to have been lengthening. So why was I about to bring her up?

  Great. Now all I can think about is Meg. Is she watching me right now? Does she hate me for having sex with someone else? Why don’t I ever seem to know what the right thing is?

  I hate you, brain.

  “Well, I don’t really care about your friends,” Joni says, apparently having missed my mental moment. “I care about you. And you’re going to get into UCLA, I know it.”

  I pull her closer and brush my lips across her forehead. “I care about you too.”

  And you know what? It’s the truth.

  • • •

  The rest of the week is one of the best I’ve had in a really long time. Because of school and practice and work and Hope (though Joni doesn’t know about that last factor), we don’t get any more “bedroom” time. And we don’t really talk on the phone much at night since Hope’s always around then and Joni would probably want to know what’s up with the crying baby in the background. But we text constantly, even during school, and spend all our work hours together, sneaking off to my car during breaks to make out.

  It’s like this one thing—being with Joni—has somehow started fixing all the other shit in my life too.

  Practice has been awesome.

  Shoshanna seemed satisfied with my level of enthusiasm for the shirt she wore to school with a #1 on the back and an action shot of me blocking a goal on the front.