She takes my hand, laces her fingers through mine and squeezed. “Why didn’t you ask?”
“Because I was a chickenshit. I was afraid you’d turn me down.” I let go of her hand so I can pull her close to me. “And I didn’t want to ruin the night with a bad ending.”
“Hmm.” She closes her eyes, as if taking my words in. After a moment she says, “I like that.”
“I like you.” My body presses flush against hers, so she has to already know. The evidence is jabbing her in the thigh.
But I have more that she doesn’t know. More that I want her to hear before I slide inside her for the second time tonight. “And I would have waited for you. I’m so glad you waited for me.”
I don’t give her much opportunity to respond with words as I roll her underneath me and tell her all the things my body can say much better than my mouth.
And, with her moans and sighs and the way her body reacts to my attention, I can feel her saying, “I’m glad I waited for you, too.”
Seven
Kira and I stayed up late into the night, talking and...other things. So it isn’t surprising that we sleep in the next morning. Activity in the kitchen wakes me up. I look over at the sleeping beauty next to me and consider curling back up in her warmth. But the need to pee gets me out of bed and heading to my private bathroom.
As I’m leaving the john, I hear the knob rattle on the bedroom door. Thank God I had locked it. Jared has no boundaries. And if I don’t address him now, he’ll never leave.
I grab a towel off the bathroom rack and wrap it around my waist. Then I open the door, but only enough for conversation.
As I guessed, it’s Jared standing on the other side.
“What’s up?” I try to be quiet without seeming like I’m being quiet. Like I’d told Kira, I’m not embarrassed to be seen with her, but I want to respect her privacy.
Jared tries to peer over my shoulder, obviously curious about why he isn’t being let in the room. “Hey, I didn’t hear you come in last night.”
“I wasn’t feeling very social so I snuck in the back and went to bed early.” Well, it’s somewhat true. I had felt social, just on a one-on-one basis. And the part about going to bed early was dead on.
“Huh. Okay.” Jared again tries to peek in. But the bed isn’t visible from his vantage point so he seems to zero in on what he can see instead. He nods at my towel. “Are you getting in the shower or do you sleep naked?”
I want to say, “None of your fucking beeswax,” but instead settle for something more roommate-friendly. “Why? Are you trying to check out my dick?”
“Shut up. I only wondered if there was a special reason for the attire. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.”
Jesus, isn’t it supposed to be girls who have the nosey reputation? I am not filling in Jared on my night with Kira. Especially when she’s still sleeping behind me. Thinking of her still in bed, I long to join her. “Did you need something, Jared?”
Jared leans against the doorframe. Dammit, he’s making himself comfortable. “Not really. Just checking in on you.”
“And I’m fine. So, maybe we can talk later. Like, when I’m dressed.” I know I sound snippy, but come on. We’re friends, but I still deserve some privacy.
“Sure. Later, then.” Except Jared makes no move to leave. “Hey, are you avoiding me?”
“No!” Just what I need—Jared to go all butt hurt.
“Then why are you being all weird and shit?”
I sigh. Better to smooth things over. “I’m being weird? I didn’t realize. I haven’t had any coffee yet or a shower so I’m still half asleep.”
“Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Got it. I’ll let you wake up.” Jared turns to go, then suddenly flips back to me. “Oh! How did you make out with that Princess Cherry Saver?”
I stiffen, and not where I want to be stiffening. Did Jared know I’d hooked up with Kira again? I don’t want her to think I’d only approached her with the intention of making it back to this room.
I lower my voice. “Uh, what do you mean?”
Jared does not follow suit, and continues at full volume. “You know. The story.”
I really must not be quite awake. Or I’m still lost in the fog of Kira because there’s some warning bell going off in the back of my head but I can’t seem to register what it is.
And without me stopping him, Jared keeps on talking. “That article you were gonna write about her not being a virgin? The exposé?”
Oh, yeah. That.
And I don’t have to wonder long if Kira is hearing this conversation.
“Exposé?” She stands behind me, wrapped in my comforter.
I turn and meet her eyes. In the span of a few seconds, her expression morphs through confusion, understanding, and finally settles on hurt.
God, seeing pain in Kira’s eyes was never what I’d intended.
And now her expression is changing again—to rage.
Panic runs through me like a wildfire. “No, Kira, it’s not what it sounds like. I mean, I was going to write about you and Cherry Savers and not having your cherry, but that was—”
“You were planning to tell everyone about what happened at the bar?” Her tone is drowning in fury.
I can’t deny it. Jared is right behind me, and had already spilled the truth. No, I’ll just have to be honest and hope for the best. “Yes, but not after—”
Honesty seems to not have been the most successful course of action. Kira is already gathering her clothes off the floor.
“Stop. Talk to me.” My pleading doesn’t halt her in the least. I step in front of her, one hand on her shoulder, the other still gripping the towel at my waist. “Come on, Kira. I can explain.”
She meets my eyes and I almost wish she hadn’t. It isn’t just rage I can see there, but pain. “Were you or were you not going to expose a very private thing about me—a thing that would hurt and embarrass me—to the entire school? Slut-shaming me in a way that could follow me for the rest of my life?”
With all my heart I want to say I wouldn’t have done it. But at one point, for at least an hour of my day, I had planned on it. Sincerely planned on doing this awful thing, that’s so much more awful when I look at it through her eyes. I lower mine. “Yes. I was.”
Kira brushes past me into the bathroom.
I follow after her. “But I changed my mind.” She slams the door in my face, nearly hitting me in the nose.
Jared chuckles behind me, reminding me that we have an audience. I turn and glare at my roommate, but that’s all the energy I have to expend on Jared for the moment. My concern is Kira.
Speaking at the door between us, I continue to beg for forgiveness. “I’m sorry, Kira. It was a stupid lack of judgment on my part. But I didn’t do it. I wouldn’t have done it.” God, I hope she believes me when I’m not so sure that’s the whole truth. If we hadn’t gone out to coffee, if she hadn’t been so charming and fun, would I have still abandoned my quest?
I can’t be sure.
The door opens and for a moment my spirits rise.
But Kira isn’t coming out to talk to me. She’s dressed and ready to leave.
Chase Matthews Fucked This All Up.
“Kira, wait.” While she looks for her keys and boots, I scramble to find a pair of jeans. “Let me explain. Or make it up to you. I’m sorry!”
Without so much as a goodbye, she brushes past Jared and is out the door.
Fuck! I don’t even bother to do up my pants as I follow after her. “Goddammit, Jared,” I say as I shove roughly past him.
“Hey. I didn’t know anyone was here. Maybe you should have told me.” Jared obviously finds the whole thing entertaining. I’m going to look for a new place to live as soon as I straighten this mess out.
“Jesus.” I curse under my breath, running out the back door after the girl I’ve become pretty attached to. “Kira, wait!”
But she’s already peeling out of the driveway.
“Damn, that girl drives fa
st.” Jared had apparently followed me outside. “In more ways than one.” He laughs.
“Shut up, Jared.”
“Sorry, man.”
Even though Jared’s apology doesn’t sound all that sincere, if I’m being honest, it’s myself I’m actually mad at. After all, everything he had said in that doorway was true.
I sit down on the chilly back step, and shake my head. “It’s not your fault. I should have come clean earlier. I shouldn’t have even planned it in the first place.” It would have been a really shitty thing to do. I see that now. Even if I hadn’t expected to get with Kira again, how could I do that to anyone, let alone a girl I’d gotten it on with?
Yeah, I’ve fucked up. Fucked up bad. “Now what do I do?” I ask, more to myself than Jared.
But Jared has an answer regardless. “Um, say farewell and bang one of the fifty other hotties that hit on you this week. I can still get you Wanna Blow’s number.”
I shoot Jared a glare that I hope reads, die now.
Instead, it must have read, lovesick, because Jared says, “Shit, you like this one.”
I run my hand through my hair. “Yeah. I really do.” God, I’m pathetic. I’ve only known the chick for about a day and I’m already this into her—major pathetic. I don’t even know how to find her again. But yet again, I failed to procure her phone number. Except for knowing that it wasn’t at home, I have no idea where she lives. I don’t know the classes she was taking and, at the rally, the next Cherry Savers meeting had been announced for a whole month in the future.
And even if I do find her, how can I ever fix this?
With no one else around, I look up at Jared, as if he’d have a solution to my problem.
“Hey, I can’t help you on this one. I’m a player, dude. I don’t do any of that romance stuff.” Jared sits on the step next to me. “But my grandma used to always say that whatever the thing was that got you into the trouble in the first place is also the thing that is often the solution.”
I start to ask what the fuck that’s supposed to mean when it hits me like a ton of bricks—an idea to reach out to Kira and apologize at the same time. “Jared, that’s brilliant.”
“It is?” Jared probably isn’t called brilliant too often. He seems to adjust to the title fast. “Of course it is. I’m great with advice.”
“I’ll be in my room the rest of the day,” I tell him, eager to start on my plan. “I have an article to write.”
Eight
I hadn’t been sure the editor of the UNC paper would accept my article. After all, I hadn’t written about campus life as requested, but I believe the piece I’ve come up with will be of interest to the student body.
The editor reads it in front of me, without so much as an eyebrow lift to indicate his approval or disapproval. When he finishes, the editor sets his copy on his desk and says, “It will run in the next issue which comes out Thursday. We rotate our editorial writers, so your next piece will be due two weeks from now.”
I breathe a sigh of relief. Getting a job on the paper had been my original goal for writing the article, but now it’s my chance to get Kira’s attention. If the editor had decided not to print it, it would be back to the drawing board.
With the first part of my plan in place, now I just have to sit back and wait.
Sure as the editor had said, my piece appears in the next issue. But Thursday comes and goes with no word from Kira. Friday brings no word from her either. By Saturday, I’m beginning to lose hope. I thought for sure I’d have heard from her by now, if I was going to at all. So maybe this is it. She doesn’t forgive me. And I’ve lost my chance forever.
Claiming too much homework, I stay behind when the rest of the guys go out to play Frisbee golf on Saturday afternoon. Truth is, I know that if by some miracle Kira is going to reach out to me, it would be at the house, and I don’t want to miss her. How pathetic am I to keep wishing?
Pretty damn pathetic. But it doesn’t change anything.
Deciding fresh air would be beneficial to my mood, I sit on the front porch trying to work on a paper for my Disabilities in Learning class. But my mind is too wrapped up in Kira to get anything done. Maybe she hasn’t seen my piece. Maybe she had seen it and it hadn’t made a difference. Maybe she hadn’t been as interested in me as I’d thought in the first place. But that couldn’t be the case—I’d felt the connection between us.
Hadn’t I?
Each time a car pulls into the busy gravel lot next door, my ears perk up. Each time I’m rewarded with disappointment. Kira isn’t coming. Better give up the dream and face the reality.
But then, after nearly an hour of unproductivity as the air grows chillier around me, the sound of a familiar engine pulls me from my moping. The guys had walked to their destination. Can it be…her? I listen to a single door slam shut and hold my breath while I wait for the driver to appear.
And then there she is—standing at the end of the front walk, a copy of the newspaper clutched in her hand.
Fuck, have I fallen asleep? Because she looks just like a dream.
But, no. She isn’t a dream. She’s real. And that’s better than any dream I could imagine.
I don’t know what to say, and my breath hasn’t really returned anyway so speaking is pretty much out of the question. Besides, I’d had the last word when I wrote that article. It’s Kira’s turn to speak.
She’s quiet, though, as she walks up to where I sit on the steps. She turns the paper to face me, the picture I’d snapped on my phone at the wishing tree prominent on the page. “You wrote this?” she asks.
Well, obviously. It says by Chase Matthews right under the headline: Greeley’s Shoe Tree.
I nod.
Kira turns the paper back to face her and begins reading out loud. “In a hard-to-find location on the back roads of Greeley exists one of the town’s little known highlights—a shoe tree where sneakers are recycled for wishes.”
Skipping past a few paragraphs, Kira continues, “While at first, the idea of wishing on shoes seemed odd to this reporter, further reflection thinks the tradition is actually apropos. The wishes we hold in our heart come out of our day-to-day routines. What other objects are more closely tied to our daily lives than the shoes that we walk in? They carry us wherever we go. Why shouldn’t they be the items that we’d expect to carry us to our dreams, as well?”
Kira pauses, glancing over at me.
Does she think she doesn’t have my attention? She does. She always has.
She skips to the end of the piece. “Even if you don’t have a pair of shoes to dispose of, I believe the tree has power simply by being in its presence. The wish I made standing at the shoe tree came true in the most beautifully fulfilling way. Most writers would take this time to caution the readers about being careful about what they wish for. My caution, however, is different: be careful what we do with our wishes when they do come true. The shoes on the tree may carry us to the place we dream of, but our own feet can carry us back away. From personal experience, I can attest that any wish can be canceled as easily as it is made, usually because our ego gets in the way. I’m hoping that even canceled wishes can be made again.”
It was as close to an apology as I could have written in an article meant for the entire student body. Of course, it had really only been meant for Kira.
She folds the paper and sets it on the step beside her. Still not looking at me directly, she says, “I should be mad that you’ve disclosed my favorite secret spot.”
Shit! I hadn’t thought of that. But I hadn’t written exactly how to get there—I don’t exactly know myself. “God, Kira, I’m sorry—”
She cuts me off, “But I’m not.” She swallows. “It was a good article. Thank you for writing it.”
It doesn’t seem like a fitting time to say, “You’re welcome,” when there are other things I need to say. “Kira, I was an ass. Completely out of line. I shouldn’t have ever considered outing you, and I understand how that could make me so
meone that wouldn’t ever deserve your time and attention.”
She shakes her head. “Whatever. Like I’m all that special.”
“You are a princess.”
She smiles. It’s encouraging that I can still joke with her.
“You are that special,” I continue. “And I regret that I even considered exploiting that.”
“I may have overreacted.” She puts her hand on the step between us.
Hoping that’s a message, I place my hand over hers. “No. You gave me what I deserved.” She doesn’t pull away—in fact, she turns her palm up to clasp mine properly.
She pivots to meet my eyes—God, those beautiful brown eyes are entrancing. Especially when they are empty of the anger and hurt that had filled them the last time I saw them. I’m not sure what emotion I see in them this time, but whatever it is, it makes me feel warm all over.
“I think you deserve a whole lot more.”
I try to hide my disappointment. I suffered greatly this whole week wondering if I’d ever get a chance to be with Kira again. I’d go through more, if I had to. She’s worth it. “Any punishment you think I should have, bring it on. I’ll endure it. Just don’t say I can’t see you again.”
She laughs. “You don’t want to know what kind of punishments I can come up with. Let’s see…” She taps her lip with her finger as she appears to think of cruel and unusual methods of torture.
For some reason, I’m not worried.
After a second, Kira shakes her head. “Actually, that’s not what I meant. I meant, you deserve a lot more good things.”
I can think of a few good things that I’d like to have, but that I’m not necessarily worthy of. “I don’t deserve you. But that won’t stop me from wishing for you over and over.”
“Stop wishing. I’m here.” She squeezes my hand.
How can such a simple gesture be felt all the way down in my balls? The electricity between us is high voltage.
She turns her body toward me so our knees are touching. Maybe she’s as eager for more contact as I am. “I saved myself for you, remember? I’m yours for the taking.”
Dirty Sweet Valentine: And Other Filthy Tales of Love Page 12
