by Naomi Niles
She nodded.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
She eyed me warily. I stepped into her room. “That was really cool that you gave that to me. How did you know?”
Her cheeks went a little red. “I went into your room and saw the list on your desk.”
I nodded. “Really, thanks.”
“You’re welcome, Dylan. I’m really sorry about what I did.”
I leaned on the wall. “It’s okay.”
Silence, but I didn’t want to leave, so I pushed off the wall and came closer. “I had to tell my mother that I wasn’t moving back in with her.”
“That had to be hard. I’m sorry.”
She rose and approached me. She probably wasn’t sure that I had forgiven her.
“I guess all I can do is hug you and tell you that if you want to talk, I’m here,” she said.
That was enough, just that she wanted to do something for me. This was a whole new concept for me. I was still getting used to it all – this idea of family. I guess that made her my sister.
She wrapped her arms around my middle. Suddenly, I wasn’t having sisterly thoughts about her. Her tiny breasts were smashed up against my chest. Well, mostly my stomach because I was that much taller than her. And, there was my boner. Like an unwelcome old friend. I shifted my away from her slightly, but my face was pressed into her hair.
It smelled amazing.
When she finally let go, I felt the loss to my soul. Oh shit.
She didn’t move far. She still stood within my personal space. She looked up at me with her wide blue eyes. “You need to talk?”
Right now, I needed a cold shower. At the very least, I needed to adjust myself. That wouldn’t go over well. Girls didn’t like when you did that in front of them. No scratching. No adjusting. My mother had drilled into me.
“Uh, no, I’m fine.”
I started to back away. She grabbed my hand. “It’s okay, Dylan. I want to hear about it.”
Her touch sent a tingle up my arm. This wasn’t helping my hard friend in my pants. “No, really. We can do this another time.”
She tugged me over to the bed. She sat then patted a spot next to her. I spied a bean bag chair and sat in that. There was no way I was going to sit on her bed, not when I could still feel her tits against me.
Taylor gave me an odd look as she sat next to me on the floor. I could still smell her hair. Strawberries, I thought. No product in it because it had been soft on my skin.
This was bad. This was not going to end well for either of us. I really needed to get out of here.
At least her bedroom door was open so no one would suspect the thoughts in my head. If anyone walked by, they’d see us just talking – nowhere near the bed.
“How is your mother?”
“Upset that I’m not coming back. I’m afraid she’s going to do drugs again if I’m not there to stop her.”
“Then again, maybe your absence will be enough to make her not do them again. She’ll realized what she lost,” Taylor said.
It did make sense. I hadn’t looked at it that way.
Taylor put her hand on my arm. “She’ll miss you, but if she can’t give you a good home, then you have to do this for you. You have to stay here.”
I looked up into those earnest eyes and I was sunk. I leaned in to her. She didn’t back away. My lips hovered over hers as I wondered what she tasted like. When she didn’t move, I saw it as an opening and kissed her.
Her hand gripped my arm tighter, and I realize just what I was doing. I was kissing Taylor Dean.
I pulled away. “We can’t do this.”
I scrambled to my feet and left her room.
***
I leaned against my closed bedroom door, wishing that Mr. or Mrs. Dean had walked by at some point. I wouldn’t have risked it, then.
Her taste was still on my lips as my chest heaved. Damn, I had a boner. I adjusted myself and vowed that I would stay away from Taylor. She was probably mad at me.
Then, I heard soft knocking on the door. “Dylan?”
Oh, shit.
“What do you want, Taylor?”
“Let me come in.”
I sighed. “I think that would be a bad idea.”
“No, I don’t think so. I’m going to stand here until you let me in.”
Then, Mr. or Mrs. Dean would ask why I wasn’t letting Taylor in. I didn’t want to have to explain that I’d kissed their daughter. Taylor didn’t say that, but I’d bet she was thinking it.
I shoved away from the door and opened it.
She stood in the hallway, her lips a little swollen from my kiss. I had assaulted the poor girl. I was the experienced one here. I had been the aggressor.
“I’m sorry, Taylor.”
She put her hand up. “Don’t you dare.”
Huh? She wasn’t mad at me?
“It doesn’t look like dinner is anytime soon. Let’s go for a drive.”
I blinked. “Uh, okay.”
I followed her down to the garage. The rest of the Deans were not in sight. Was dinner even going to happen? I doubted they would forget. Maybe they got involved in something.
“Let’s leave a note,” I said.
No need to get into trouble, I thought. I wrote on the blackboard in the kitchen. “Taylor and I went out. Don’t wait dinner.”
Taylor’s driving skills were pretty good, so I settled back into my seat. She brought us to a deserted park where we sat on a picnic table.
“Look, Taylor. I shouldn’t have.”
“I participated in that kiss Dylan,” she said.
The implication of that hit me. She’d wanted me to kiss her. “I don’t understand.”
“I’ve developed feelings for you.”
I was speechless. She felt something for me? Taylor Dean, the most popular girl in school, liked me? “Wait.”
She took my hand in hers. Mine was calloused her soft and small hand. How could this sweet creature like me?
“No, Dylan. I want to pursue his.”
“We can’t.”
“Why not?”
I retrieved my hand from her grasp. I admired that she saw no obstacles, but one of us had to think straight. Since I was the one who would lose the most, I had to be the voice of reason.
I stepped away from her. “Taylor, your dad took me in. I can’t betray his trust.”
“How would this betray his trust?”
“Because I would be dating his daughter. That’s not what he had in mind. He wanted to help me. Save me. He didn’t want to match me up.”
“You really think they’ll have a problem with us?”
“Yes, I do. And they should. We can’t do this.”
“Maybe we can do this without them knowing.”
“How are they not going to know? Your mother watches me like a hawk and your father is not a dumb man.”
Taylor tapped her chin, which meant she was thinking. I had to get this idea out of her head. “No, Taylor. Just no.”
“But we’re adults.”
“We’re eighteen, but we aren’t that grownup. Neither of us have a job.”
“Okay. Maybe we’re aren’t adults, but we both know our own minds.”
“This isn’t some teen movie, Taylor. This is real life. And, real life has consequences. I don’t want to lie to your parents.”
She frowned. “Is it because you don’t like me that way?”
“That is not the case, but I am the one who will be living in a trailer if I do anything wrong. You might get punished, but I’ll have the best thing that has happened to me get taken away.”
“I didn’t see it that way. At least, we could be better friends.”
“I don’t feel friendly toward you, Taylor. I feel more.”
She smiled and I melted. “Don’t you want to see what can happen?”
“We can’t, Taylor.”
I rubbed a hand down my face.
“Anything is possible, Dy
lan.”
God, she was driving me nuts. I strode to her and kissed her. She clutched my shirt when I tried to pull away. I finally let her loose and rested my forehead on hers. “We can’t. Not while we’re in high school. Not while I’m living in your house.”
“We can do this, Dylan. We can keep it on the down low. Keep it from my parents.”
“Do you really want to lie to your father?”
“Yes, if he can’t see that if you are good enough to save, then you’re good enough to date his daughter.”
She had a point, but I doubted it was a valid argument to a parent. It would feel wrong. “I don’t think I want to lie.”
“Can you trust me?”
“With my life, Taylor.”
“Then trust me that we can do this.”
I sighed. I really wanted to spend time with her. “We need ground rules.”
“Okay.”
“We can’t be in public. We can’t do any PDA in the house,” I said.
She frowned. “We’ll have to sneak around.”
“Yes. Do you really want to do that? It’s hard.”
“I can do it. Can you?”
I sighed. This was a bad idea, but my body and heart wanted to be with her. I wanted to be happy because I had so little of it in my life. Taylor was light and beauty, and my life lacked that.
And, she was hot. I couldn’t deny it. I wanted her in ways that might make her blush at this point.
“We’ll try it.”
She squealed. If anyone had been in the park, they would have heard her. Thankfully, no one was. So, I kissed her to seal the deal.
Chapter Twenty
Taylor
I couldn’t sleep, so I scrolled through Twitter while I lay in bed. A text came through with a picture.
It was of me and Dylan, kissing at the park. It was from Bailey. “Call me.”
Oh shit. So much for being on the down low. I called Bailey, who hadn’t spoken to me in days. Not since the incident. They were all mad at me because Greg had been kicked out of school.
None of them could grasp that I was the victim in all of this.
“What?”
“I saw you and Dylan today at the park.”
Shit. “So?”
“I would bet Daddy would love to know what delinquent boy is doing with his daughter,” Bailey said.
Maybe this hiding thing wasn’t going to work so well. “Where were you?”
“Going for a walk and I hid behind a tree. Very Romeo and Juliet.”
We were not star-crossed lovers. Shit. Shit. Shit. “Very classy, spying on people.”
“If you we doing something you didn’t want anyone to see, you shouldn’t have been in a public park.”
“What’s the point of his conversation?” I asked.
“I have demands.”
“You have demands?”
“If you don’t do them, I’ll tell Daddy, and guess who will be back in his trailer faster than you can say drug addict.”
Bailey was right. My father would kick Dylan out if he found out. What had I been thinking? I’d hoped to ease my father into the idea. He gave me just about anything I wanted. If I wanted Dylan, couldn’t I have him?
“What are your demands?”
“I’ll send them to you in a text. Sleep tight, Taylor.”
Bailey hung up on me. I wanted to throw the phone across the room. This was the worst. Why did Bailey have to see us? I called Helena.
“Lo.”
“Did I wake you?”
“That is what people do at night,” she said.
“I have two things I have to tell you.”
“Okay, but ignore my snores. I’m really listening.”
“Helena.”
“Okay, I’m awake. Go ahead.”
“Dylan and I kissed today.”
I heard her covers rustling. “Okay. Now, I’m really awake. When did this happen?”
I guess I had to tell her everything. “Well, I gave him that present I bought him.”
“Obviously that went well.”
“Yes, it did, ultimately. I left it for him, and he came and found me. He ended up kissing me. We went for a drive and we talked about being together.”
“That’s great, but what about your parents?”
“Yeah, that’s part of the problem. We weren’t going to tell them. Just keep it to ourselves.”
“Did you really think you’d get away with that?”
“We’d hoped.”
“I’m sensing a ‘but’ here.”
“Well, apparently Bailey was at the park. She took a picture of Dylan and me kissing.”
“That bitch.”
“It’s worse, Helena. She told me she would tell my parents if I didn’t do what she asked,” I said.
“What exactly does she want you to do?”
“I don’t know yet. She’s going to text me her demands.”
“You need to tell Dylan.”
“I am not telling Dylan,” I said. “This is my problem. If my parents find out, he’ll be back at the trailer. He has a lot to lose.”
“But it is both of you going through this. And knowing Dylan, he would want to know. He wouldn’t want you to go through this alone. He certainly wouldn’t want you to capitulate to Bailey.”
“Then, I’m in a bind.”
“You need to tell him.”
“I’m going to wait until I see the demands.”
“You know they are going to be outrageous. This is Bailey we’re talking about.”
My phone dinged. “Let me look at them and I’ll call you back.”
I read the text. The first thing on the list was to retract my statement to the police about Greg. What the hell? I couldn’t do that.
I called Helena and told her.
“You know you can’t do that. You and Dylan haven’t done anything wrong. You can stop this now and never have to tell your parents.”
“But I don’t want to lose Dylan.”
“Come on, Taylor. Don’t be so dramatic. You can still be friends.”
“But I don’t want to be friends.”
“It’s better than Dylan going back to the trailer. He’ll have a future. If you really care about him, that should be more important than the short term.”
Leave it to Helena to tell me what I didn’t want to hear. She was a true friend because she was not going to enable bad behavior. She wasn’t going to let me get away with anything. “You’re right.”
“I am, Taylor. Break it off with him. You can’t do this. It’s selfish.”
I hated when she was right. And, she was very right. I couldn’t hold Dylan back with my selfishness. My head knew the right answer. My heart didn’t like the answer.
“I have no argument, Helena. This really sucks. He’s the first guy I’ve liked in a few years. And, he’s a really good guy.”
“Well, he can’t be your really good guy.”
I groaned. “I know. So, what do I tell Bailey?”
“After you break it off with Dylan, tell her what you’ve done. She will have no hold over you. If she still tells your dad, tell him it was a moment of weakness and that you’ve broken up with him. Blame yourself so it doesn’t reflect badly on Dylan.”
Helena was so much smarter than I was. “What would I do without you? You are the best friend a girl could have.”
“You don’t want someone who will yes you to death?”
“No. You save my ass. That’s better.”
Helena laughed. “I got a test in the morning. Can I go back to sleep?”
“Love you, girl. Sleep tight.”
We disconnected. I hated what she had to say, but she was right. In the morning, I’d have to talk to Dylan. He’d been right, after all. Everyone else was right. I sighed.
Story of my life.
Chapter Twenty One
Dylan
I didn’t know what to think when Taylor approached me the next morning. I was hoping for a kiss, but she was
standing in the hallway, keeping her distance. This couldn’t be good.
“Uh, we need to talk,” she said.
“Okay. Here?”
“There is no other place.”
“Fine.”
She sighed. “We can’t do this. You were right.”
My heart hurt a little, but this didn’t make sense. “What changed from last night?”
“I just had more time to think about it. We can’t risk you being kicked out, and I can’t lie to my father.”
I nodded, but I didn’t think she was telling me the whole story. We went down to breakfast. I couldn’t argue with her, at least not in the house. I’d been saying the same things yesterday, but she’d talked me out of it. What had talked her into my way of thinking?
I chose to let it lie, but when no one was on the room, I checked her phone.
Bailey. Of course. If she couldn’t have me, she didn’t want Taylor to.
When they arrived at school, I found Bailey. She always had an entourage around her, the way Taylor had before the Greg situation. What crappy friends Taylor had chosen – other than Helena.
“Bailey.”
The girl spun around, a seductive smile on her face. I wanted to tell her to save it; it wouldn’t work on me.
“Did you change your mind about loser girl? Come back to a real woman?”
I glanced at all of her followers. “Beat it.”
They scattered like cockroaches when the light turns on. I’d seen that more than once in my life. Bailey licked her lips. She wasn’t so brave now that she didn’t have an audience. “What do you want, Dylan?”
“I want you to stop threatening Taylor.”
“She told you about that? She wasn’t supposed to. It was part of my demands.”
“I don’t care what your demands are, stop it. We aren’t together, and if we were, it would be none of your business.”
“Really? I have a picture that says differently.”
She looked smug. I’ve never hit a woman and I wouldn’t, but she made me want to. “A moment of weakness. Won’t happen again. And for the record, Taylor didn’t tell me. I snooped and looked at her phone.”
Bailey was willing to destroy Taylor, someone who had been her friend. I had dodged a bullet with this one. She was bat shit crazy.
I stalked away to find Taylor. She was at her locker, staring at the contents of it.
“It’s taken care of,” I said.
