Leading Lines

by Chantel Guertin

  Dylan pulls his shirt over his head and then sits down on the bed beside me and runs a hand over my leg, which sends chills up it. I put a hand on his leg too and then we’re lying on the bed and we’re kissing each other all over and he’s running his hands over me, through my hair, down my arms, touching my breasts, skimming his hands lightly over my stomach, until he’s touching the top of my underwear.

  He kisses me harder and then pulls me on top of him, but I can feel he’s not into it. I run my hands over his arms and try to kiss him more passionately, but the more I try to think about being the World’s Sexiest Kisser to get him into it, the less into it I feel. And he’s still not responding down there. Finally he pulls away and sits up.

  “Don’t be embarrassed,” I say, putting my hand on his forearm, not knowing what else to say. But I’m embarrassed. This isn’t supposed to happen, is it? Is it me? Or is it something else? What if the cancer’s back and this is a side effect? “Did you get the results of your MRI?”

  He stiffens. “Jesus, Pippa.” He shakes his head like he’s genuinely confused why I would bring up the Big C the middle of our Capital S sexy times. “The results were fine. I would’ve told you if they weren’t.” He pushes himself up and off the bed and goes into the bathroom. I sit there, in my bra and underwear on the bed, kind of cold, and kind of weirded out, and mad at myself for ruining the moment. I hear water running in the bathroom and I’m not sure what to do. Should I stand up? Should I get under the covers? Just keep lying here, half naked? I swing my legs over the end of the bed and grab his plaid button-down, slipping my arms through it and buttoning it up. This is cute. And I’m less freezing. He comes back in, and the long hair that usually sweeps across his face is wet, like he’s splashed water on his face. He grabs his jeans off the floor and pulls them on, then looks at me. “Oh. I, uh, I was going to wear that shirt,” he says.

  I feel the heat rising up, out the neck of his shirt and I yank it off and hand it to him, mortified.

  He pulls it on and begins buttoning it.

  “We should get to the party, right?”

  • • •

  “So?” Dace practically jumps on me when we get to Luis’s house. He lives in Spalding Heights, the posher side of Spalding, and only went to Spalding High because he used to live on the normal side of the city until his dad’s sandwich chain became the hottest thing since sliced bread, which, incidentally they use to make their sandwiches. The house is sprawling and set back from the road, with gates that open to let you into the winding driveway, which was already packed with cars when Dylan and I pulled in. Inside, there’s got to be at least a hundred people, maybe more. Within seconds though, Dace spots me, and Dylan gets cornered by some seniors who probably thought he was a big deal last year.

  “Dylan, where the hell have you been, man?” some­one yells from halfway up the circular staircase.

  He shoots me a look that says, This is why I didn’t want to come. As though I forced him. Technically, he’s the one who put his pants on and ended the pre-party. I really don’t get what the big deal is if people know that he had cancer, especially now that he doesn’t. Sometimes it’s too much pressure that I know and no one else does, except Dace of course, which is only more stress to make sure she doesn’t blab to anyone.

  “Someone’s not in a very good mood,” Dace says, cocking her head Dylan’s way. She grabs my hand and drags me off to the kitchen.

  When we get there, she hands me a red plastic cup and tells me to drink. I take a sip, make a face and then put the cup down.

  “Tell me everything.”

  “It was, um, OK.” I look around. Ben’s in the corner, by a large aquarium, talking to Gemma. He catches my eye and raises his glass. I give a quick wave and turn back to Dace.

  “OK? Are you kidding me? You had sex for the first time and it was OK?” She hisses. “Actually isn’t that what people say? It’s not that great? But still, I want details.”

  “Shhhhh!”

  She shakes her head. “No one is paying any attention to us,” but she pulls me out of the kitchen with its blaring music and through the dining room where a bunch of seniors are playing poker at the table, and then upstairs into one of—judging by the number of doors off the hallway—a dozen bedrooms. The first one is occupied and someone throws a shoe at Dace’s head. She ducks, laughs and pulls me into the gleaming bathroom, closing the door behind us and locking it. “OK, deets.”

  I sit down on the marble floor, my back against the door. “Well. We didn’t really do it.”

  There’s silence. Dace perches on the edge of the Jacuzzi tub. “You didn’t really do it? What does that even mean?”

  “Fine, we didn’t do it. It just didn’t work … out.” I inspect my coral nail polish, which matches my new underwear.

  “What didn’t work out? You’re being incredibly cryptic. What are you talking about?”

  “I don’t know. It was super awkward and he wasn’t into it—” I make a little fluttering hand gesture down there, and Dace’s eyes widen. “And then I got all freaked out and then I asked him about his MRI results and he went into the bathroom and I wasn’t sure what he was doing in there and then he came out and then we came to the party.”

  Dace is frozen. Then she blinks a bunch of times. “Holy rigatoni.” She gets up and comes over to sit on the ground across from me and touches my arm gently. “OK.” She pauses. “Definitely mortifying, but not insurmountable. It sounds like it was a whole bunch of factors. He was probably nervous, plus he knew you wanted to get to the party because you promised me, and then, OK, asking about the cancer thing was probably ill-timed. But maybe he was just thinking you’ll do it after the party. When you’re both loosened up a bit.” She winks.

  Someone bangs on the door.

  “Hold your pants!” Dace calls then squeezes my shoulders. “You know what? The night’s not over. It’s only just beginning. We’re gonna have some fun, we’re gonna have a few drinks. We have to celebrate anyway—I got the Nordstrom job!”

  “You did? That’s great!” I say, feeling bad I didn’t even ask her about it.

  She waves a hand like it’s nothing. “Things are going to work out. You’re still sleeping at Dylan’s tonight, right?”

  I shrug. I don’t even want to anymore.

  “OK, let’s go.” She pops up and pulls me up, then produces a lipgloss from her back pocket and swipes it across my lips before I can protest. “There. A fresh stroke of lipgloss is like a reset. Now let’s go have fun.” She slides the tube in her back pocket and opens the door.

  “Finally,” some guy with a scruffy hipster beard says, exasperated. He pushes past us into the bathroom.

  “We’re playing Chug, Rush, Tell Your Crush,” Gemma is announcing at the bottom of the stairs as we descend. She’s holding two bottles of vodka like pompoms.

  “We’re in,” Dace says, looking around.

  Gemma heads toward the living room, telling everyone to follow her. She doesn’t need to do much convincing. I pass Dylan, standing in the hall, his back against the wall and I stop and kiss him, then grab his hand. “Come on, this’ll be fun.” I’ll tell Dylan he’s my crush. It’ll be cute and romantic. A moment.

  “I’m gonna sit this one out,” he says. “Or stand, actually.” He pecks me on the cheek. He looks away.

  “Why?”

  He shrugs, and I can tell I’ve annoyed him, but I don’t really know why.

  “Hey, McCutter,” some guy calls from the hallway, “we’re watching the game in the basement. You in?”

  “Yeah sure.” He walks off and I turn and try not to be offended as I head into the living room and slide in between Dace and Emma, who are sitting cross-legged on the floor. Luis is cradling a stack of cups between his cast and chest and passing them out while Gemma explains the rules to everyone.

  We go around a circle and when it�
��s your turn you get a choice—chug from the bottle, do a rush dare (fraternity hazing style) or tell your secret crush that you’re crushing on him or her.

  “OK, me first!” Reggie Stevenson, the only other boyfriend I’ve ever had, says and Ben holds out the bottle to him.

  “Chug, Rush, Tell Your Crush?”

  “Chug, easiest.” Reggie laughs and Ben pours the clear liquid into his cup. “Chug chug chug,” someone chants and we all join in. Reggie throws back his Solo cup then slams it on the carpet, which is actually kind of ineffective since it’s plastic. I can’t believe I was ever into him. “OK, you’re next,” he says to Emma. “Chug, Rush, Tell Your Crush?”

  “Rush.” She has to have three pizzas delivered to her parents, cash on delivery.

  We keep going around the circle. There are a bunch of other stupid rushes, including one where Alfred puts one of the tetra fish out of the aquarium in his mouth and then spits it back in the tank. “If Fishy Wishy dies I’m sending you the bill for the funeral,” Luis’s younger brother, Juan, jokes, and then it’s Gemma’s turn.

  “Crush,” she says, and Dace and I ooh, and then she pauses dramatically, takes a sip of whatever’s in her cup and looks around the circle.

  “Go on,” someone teases.

  “She’s figuring out where he is,” Dace defends Gemma. “Give her a second.”

  “I know where he is,” she says, and then focuses in on someone across the circle. I follow her gaze.

  “Ben.” She cocks her head, holds up her cup and then takes another sip. I stare in shock. Dace nudges me, but I barely move. Ben lifts his cup in an across-the-circle cheers, then takes a sip.

  Lisa, the editor of Hall Pass, who normally wouldn’t even bother with one of these parties but started dating one of Luis’s friends over the break, goes next. She chugs her Diet Coke and someone calls her on it, which I think is kind of a jerk thing to do, so I slap Dace on the knee and she knows instantly what I mean and we cheer for her, which I think makes her feel a bit better. And then it’s my turn. I’m considering Chug because it’s the safest, but you also get booed the most, but since everyone’s gone easy on the girls who choose Rush, I go for it.

  “Rush,” I say.

  “Kiss two guys in one night,” Reggie says, raising his eyebrows.

  “Um, I have a boyfriend, and he’s here, so that would be weird,” I say. Not to mention I don’t want to kiss anyone else.

  “How about a guy and a girl?” Dace says, leaning over and kissing me square on the lips. Reggie whoops. “I’m basically your forever boyfriend anyway,” Dace says. Then she whispers in my ear. “Looks like someone’s jealous.” She raises her eyebrows and tilts her head and I look over at Ben. He’s watching me, but he looks away, and then I look around the circle and notice Gemma’s watching him.

  Juan goes next, and asks Dace if she wants to go in the hot tub. Juan is a sophomore, and I don’t know much about him, except that he’s a cuter, more intense version of his brother, with dark smoldering eyes.

  “Well, it’s a Rush. I can’t say no, right?” Dace says, and I’m surprised.

  “Actually, it’s a Crush,” he says. Something happens between them, this instant, as Dace watches Juan, like she’s waiting for him to break the tension. He just looks at her, unwavering, and she swallows.

  Instead of brushing him off, she flips her hair over her shoulder and tells him she’ll go put on her bikini.

  “Hot tub!” Reggie calls out and the game is unofficially over as everyone jumps up. I’m relieved.

  “You can use my bedroom,” Juan says to Dace. “Last door on the left.”

  “You’ll come right?” she says to me and I nod, but I’m wide-eyed.

  “What just happened over there?” I say. “That was intense.”

  “Which part?” she says, laughing as we head up the stairs.

  The walls in Juan’s room are navy, the carpet is too, and the furniture is all dark wood. There’s a pile of clothes in the corner and a photo of some basketball player on his closet door. His desk has a bunch of textbooks piled high.

  Someone knocks at the door, then opens it, and Dace holds her shirt over her naked chest.

  “It’s just me,” Gemma says, poking her head around the door.

  She looks at me, a bit like a frightened deer, and I roll my eyes. “Get in here.”

  She closes the door, and Dace resumes changing. “So um … about Ben,” Gemma says. “I should’ve told you before. I just … well, I just couldn’t really find the right time, and I didn’t think anything would happen tonight or anything, but then … is this gonna be weird?” She sits on the edge of the bed. I search my bag for my bikini.

  “No, it’s fine, it’s just … I didn’t realize … I thought I was the only one who’d forgiven him for the whole iPod thievery thing.”

  “I know, right? But then you were talking about how he’d changed and it did seem like it, and we have English together and the alumni project and he’s just so cute …” I pull my bikini bottoms on, then slip my top over my head and tie the strings.

  “It’s totally cool. Really. Awesome.” I shove my clothes in my bag.

  “Well,” Dace says, clearing her throat loudly. “This has been sufficiently awkward. Are we ready?” Dace slings her towel over her blue and white striped bikini and I wrap mine around me, under my armpits, the way I do when I get out of the shower.

  “Yes. Gemma, you coming too?” I ask.

  “Sure, I’ll just find my suit and change.”

  “OK, I’m just going to see if Dylan wants to come out,” I say, heading down to the basement. “Meet you guys out back.”

  Dylan’s sitting with a bunch of guys in the den. I hear enough to know he’s talking about the Cherry Blasters tour. They’re impressed, asking him question after question.

  “Hey,” I say, sidling up to him and kissing him on the cheek. “Wanna come in the hot tub?”

  “Nah. Have fun.”

  I glance at the table, to the red cup that has just a bit of amber liquid left in it.

  “Are you drinking?” I ask him.

  “No.”

  I don’t push him, but his breath smells like beer.

  “You know, I actually think I’m gonna head pretty soon.”

  “Oh,” I say, looking down at my towel. I hug it closer under my armpits. “I just put my bikini on.”

  He stands and slaps a few hands. “You want to stay?” he asks, as he heads up the stairs and I follow, securing the stupid towel that keeps loosening with each step.

  The truth is, I do want to stay. But Dylan’s parents are away. I should want to be with Dylan. This is our chance.

  Dylan finds his coat from a ginormous pile of coats in the foyer. “Listen, I’m pretty tired,” he says. “I’ll probably just go to sleep.”

  “OK,” I say. So does that mean I don’t come over later? But I don’t ask.

  He kisses me on the nose. “Have fun,” he says and then turns and he’s out the door.

  Out at the hot tub, Dace points to a spot beside her. I slide into the tub.

  “Dylan just left.”

  “What the French fries is up with him?”

  I bite my lip.

  Two more girls get in the hot tub and I move closer to Dace and she shimmies closer to Juan, who puts his arm around her, and I don’t want to bring Dace down with my Dylan drama when clearly something is happening with her and Juan.

  Just then someone starts a snowball fight, and the party gets nuts. Everyone races out of the hot tub to join in, and within minutes, I’m laughing and screaming and freezing my feet off in the snow. And then we’re piling back into the hot tub. Later we’re huddled in our clothes around a fireplace in the den and drinking hot chocolate spiked with rum, and someone suggests strip poker but then a massive game of Twister happens before I
lose anything other than my socks, and then we’re watching retro videos and people start to either fall asleep or leave, so I stand at the door, gathering my stuff while Dace has a moment with Juan before Luis puts him in a headlock and pulls him away. Dace sighs as we fall into step down the dark snowy street.

  “Wait—was Juan the real reason you wanted to come to the party? Juan, not Luis?”

  Dace sighs dramatically. “Yeah. Crazy, right? A year younger and he goes to our school. I’m breaking all my rules.”

  I laugh. “I think it’s good to break your own rules once in a while.”

  “Want me to walk you to Dylan’s?” Dace asks, but I realize it’s the first time I’ve thought of Dylan since before the snowball fight. What does that mean?

  I shake my head. “Can I sleep at your place?”

  Dace hugs me. “Oh, honey bunches of oats,” she says. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Mom’s standing at the kitchen table folding the laundry I left in the dryer when I get home from Dace’s. Dace was still snoring when I snuck out; even though it was barely 7, I couldn’t sleep and was going crazy lying there. Dace and I made the mistake of scrolling through Instagram last night. Muse’s latest post? A photo of a cookie smashed to bits with the caption: My heart. And now all I can do is let my imagination run rampant. Does Dylan have anything to do with why she’s not with Patrick anymore?

  I pour myself some orange juice and sit down at my usual seat.

  “Well, how was the party?” Mom folds one of my sweaters and places it in the hamper.

  “OK,” I say, yawning.

  “And Dylan’s?”

  I shrug. “I slept at Dace’s.”

  She studies my face while I figure out how to play it. Then I notice something strange. “Are you wearing my jeans?”