Darkly Sweet

by Juliann Whicker

  “But they would say yes. I mean, if I’m going to represent the girls who like him, I would be excited about it and less nauseous.”

  She studied me thoughtfully. “You kind of like him, but he makes you nervous.”

  I shook my head. “Terrified. He’s terrifying.” I nodded my head as I stared at my desk.

  It wasn’t like the car fear. It was something else, something even worse. I should have control over it, should be able to not want someone, but I couldn’t help it. My whole body and mind rebelled against my mandate against falling in love with some guy who was going to ruin my life when that guy was tall, lean, red-haired Drake.

  She sort of laughed, sort of snorted. “So, you don’t want to go to the dance with him?”

  I shook my head, still staring at the desk. “I can’t.”

  “You are so weird. Do you know how completely crazy you are not to jump all over this? I get that he’s completely overwhelming you, but you like him. I can tell.”

  I winced. If Viney could see that I liked him then so could Zach. “I’m not used to guys at all much less ones like Drake who made me a gingerbread house.”

  She exhaled. “I get that. He’s freaking me out and I’m not the one he’s flirting with.

  There are so few competent flirts in this world. Have you ever dated before?”

  I shook my head. “Not unless you count pets.”

  She snorted again. “Pets do not count. We are going on a date.”

  I widened my eyes at her. “Really? You want to go on a date with me?”

  She glared at me. “A double date. I will get the guys, and you will wear pants, and a bra, and have a normal date in town with people who aren’t Drake or Zach. He’s been acting weird lately, probably because of Drake. Are you sure you don’t want to go with Drake to the dance? It might make things easier for you to be ‘Drake Huntsman’s girlfriend’. People might not put gum in your hair quite as often.”

  She wrinkled her nose and picked a chunk of pink gum out of my hair with her nails.

  “I’d rather have the gum.”

  She yanked out a chunk of hair before she rolled the pink hairball up and threw it in the garbage across the classroom. She smirked at me. “I can’t wait to see what Drake does after you let him down.”

  I rubbed my head and gave her a slight smile.

  Chapter 21

  After that, Viney walked with me to the study hall, and her encounter with Oscar was just as fist slamming, ordering the tall guy around as the day before. They would make a

  cute couple. Orc was five foot three inches and wore glasses with lenses the size of golf balls.

  “Penny Lane, let’s get started.” His voice sent a shiver through me it was so low and deep and frankly delicious. I smiled at Viney as he led me away and then spent the next hour and a half on Chemistry even though I kept telling him I wanted to do languages.

  Apparently, he was really into Chemistry even if he wasn’t in the Chemistry club.

  I shook my head. “I’m actually struggling more with languages right now. I’m not exactly on the short list for the Chemistry club. I’m okay flunking it, actually.”

  He stared at me, his gray eyes getting kind of cold looking and hard. “Girls aren’t allowed in the Chemiss Club.”

  “Ooookay. Good to know. Do you not know any languages?”

  That set him off and he regaled me in Swedish for ten minutes. Swedish. Ten minutes of my life I could not get back. Bon-bons and truffles, although his voice was pretty amazing. After a few minutes, I leaned my head on my hand and just stared at him while he talked until finally, it was time to go.

  I took my time because apparently I was going to do Community Service, take a ride in a car with Drake, and somehow make it stick that I did not want to go to a dance with him however many gingerbread houses he made for me. The idea of going to a dance,

  of dancing with him like just standing and kind of moving to music without him having his hand on my thigh, holding me above his head while I tried not to flap my flamingo wings, well, it had some appeal. Of course it had appeal. The boy was absolutely delicious, his whole scent and body and voice and everything. That was the point. If he was just the voice or just the body or just the scent then maybe I could go with him and not end up killing myself or ruining my life over him.

  I shook my head furiously and noticed a guy staring at me like I was crazy. “I am kind of crazy,” I told him which made him back off. I sighed and kept walking until I got to the green Suburban where Drake wasn’t. Were we going to meet in my room?

  I took my phone out of my bag, but I didn’t actually have his number in it. I didn’t have anyone’s at school. No numbers besides Revere and Poppy’s. I hit her contact number and saw her face, a close-up of her eyes, all big and manga looking.

  “There you are. Are you ready to go?”

  I fumbled, clicking off the picture before I smiled up at Drake. “Yeah. Were we supposed to meet here? I couldn’t remember and I don’t have your number.”

  “What’s yours?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  He touched his phone to mine, there was a little beep and he grinned at me. “You do now. Or rather, I have yours, and I will call you…” He pressed a button and my phone beeped and I stared at my phone for a little while before I pushed the phone icon.

  “Hello?”

  He put his phone to his ear and I got to hear him in stereo. “Hello. This is Drake Huntsman, of the Huntsmans, what can I do for you?”

  “Do you think it’s weird that the phone icon looks nothing like phones look anymore?”

  “I had not thought about that. How long are you going to stare at me and talk on your phone?”

  I shrugged. “It’s kind of fun.”

  “I hate talking on the phone.”

  I smiled at him. “Really? So, this bothers you?”

  His eyebrow flickered and he leaned closer to me. “It’s ridiculous. Only you could make something I hate so interesting.” He hung up, tossed his phone in his bag and got in the Suburban. “Are you going to ride in the back?”

  I shook my head and went around to the passenger’s side, sliding my phone in my bag and getting in. I acted fine and calm while I adjusted my chair, pulling on my seatbelt, but when he held out his hand, I grabbed his arm, hanging onto it like we were watching a horror movie.

  He smiled shaking his head as he shifted into gear and pulled out. He drove quickly, but much more smoothly, almost like he was trying not to freak me out or something.

  “You grab onto me like you like me.”

  I pressed my lips together as he turned the steering wheel, following the curves of the road. The force sent me into the door and I clung to him tighter. “Drake, I do like you as a friend, but I’m not comfortable going to the dance with you. I don’t like you like that.” Bon-bons, truffles, peanut brittle. It would be clearer if I slammed his face against the steering wheel and leapt out of the car. That would give him the message much better than me clinging to him desperately.

  “Mmm. All right, although I already ordered the costumes.”

  “Costumes?”

  “You think I would joke about something like lederhosen? Never. Have you ever been to a dance? Have you ever kissed a guy? Held a hand because you liked someone, not because you were scared to death?”

  I shook my head and swallowed down nausea. He was driving so fast. “No. I did like this guy once. He was Italian and really ugly, but he’d call me Caramia when he asked me to sign for packages.”

  “Sign for packages? You had a crush on the delivery guy?”

  I nodded. “I used to wait on the porch roof to see the dust of his truck on the road.

  I’d give him a glass of whiskey and he’d tell me a story about goblins or ghosts. And he winked at me.”

  “How long did that last?”

  I shrugged. “A different delivery guy started coming, a woman who couldn’t get my name right. Penny Lane isn’t
exactly hard to pronounce and she wasn’t from a different country, so what was her excuse?”

  “So you like to sit around drinking whiskey and telling stories with Italian delivery guys. Good to know.”

  “And what about you? Who was your first crush?”

  He wrinkled his forehead. “Marta. She was the housekeeper’s daughter. She wasn’t supposed to come to the house. Sometimes when my dad was away on long trips, Heloise would bring her and we’d get into trouble. We colored an entire wall with

  permanent markers one day when we were old enough to know better. She didn’t come after that and neither did Heloise.”

  I gripped the seat while this weird feeling descended on my intestines. I swallowed down the double nausea. “Do you remember her last name?”

  He gave me a suspicious glance. “Why?”

  I squeezed his hand tighter. I should let him drive with both hands, but I couldn’t.

  “That’s so romantic! You can be like prince charming, only you’ll need to use a different car because this isn’t a prince charming car, and you can swoop her off her feet and carry her to a castle far, far away from her dreary life sweeping floors! Let’s find her and…”

  “No.” He pulled his hand out of my grip, holding his palm in front of my face before I recaptured it.

  “You can say, ‘Marta, it’s been too long but you still have the eyes of the girl I first loved! And she can say, ‘I never thought you noticed me, but I always loved you from afar.’”

  “She told me she hated me and kicked my shins until I agreed to color the walls with her.”

  “And then you can sweep her into your arms and gaze into her eyes. ‘Oh, Marta, you are the stars twinkling in the sky and the rose petals strewn across my bed,’ and then she’ll say…”

  “Rose petals strewn across my bed? You mean like chopping her up and spreading her around on my blankets? Like that?”

  I ignored his interruption. “She’ll say, ‘Antonio, you light my way through the darkness. Let us be one tonight!’”

  “Who is Antonio?”

  “And then you’ll clasp her to your breast. ‘Martina you are my flower, but there was an accident in Guatemala and I am only half a man. You must be gentle with me.’ And then she’ll say…”

  “What do you mean I’m only half a man? You’d better be talking about Antonio.”

  By that time we were swinging into the hospital parking lot and I managed not to bolt out of the car before he braked. I let go of his hand and shot out of the door, slamming it behind me and leaning against it while my heart pounded. I slid down until I wrapped my arms around my bare knees. I should have changed, but I didn’t have a lot of clothes. Yeah, I should think about what I was going to sew. I should order some cute

  pink and floral fabric along with more shoes and forget about the churning in my stomach.

  Drake leaned against the car beside me. “Aren’t you going to have a lollipop?”

  I took a deep trembling breath. “You put something weird in them. I should be home making lollipops. Viney wants tiramisu.”

  “Are you taking orders? I haven’t actually had anything like tiramisu or mulled cider, just the weird ones you eat for anxiety. Are you saying that you don’t like my lollipops?”

  I turned my head to look up at him. I stood slowly until I could look in his eyes. “For your first batch of lollipops, it’s incredible. It’s typical that you’re so disgustingly talented. Gingerbread houses, lollipops, laundry, even ballet, there really isn’t anything you can’t do.”

  “I can’t sew.”

  I smiled at him. “You’ll have to work on that. Are you going to stand here all night or are we going to go clean up vomit?”

  After we spent our time in the hospital, I rode in the backseat to the Chinese place, eating in separate booths again, and then going back to get a malt and drive home.

  I sat behind him, spooning cookie-dough malt into my face and staring at the back of Drake’s head and his ear.

  “We need to learn sign language.” His voice was low, kind of growly.

  “You don’t know something besides Sewing? Stop, Drake. You’re really bending my whole conception of reality.”

  “Don’t you think the waiter gave us weird looks when we went in together and sat at different booths again?”

  “Not at all. When you tried to pay, did the guy tell you that your woman paid for it?

  That was the highlight of last week’s trip, ‘your man paid’.”

  He grunted. “If I was your man I wouldn’t sit in a separate booth. At opposite ends of the restaurant. Don’t you think that you should sit in front and cling to me, you know, for the sake of exposure to fears so that you can overcome them?”

  I almost put my hand on his shoulder just for a second before I pulled back and ate another bite of malted, concentrating on the deliciousness, but unfortunately that was the flavor that Drake had licked off me. I put the spoon in the cup and put it in the cup holder in the door. I took a deep breath and took my headphones out of my bag. I put them on and listened to Chinese. Drake glanced back at me frowning while I gave him a mild smile.

  I didn’t want to think about holding onto his hand, or gingerbread houses, or knit shirts and tea parties.

  When we pulled up at school, Drake got out quickly, opening the back door and grabbing my bag so I had to move fast since I was connected via headphones.

  He pulled off my headphones put them on his head and then scowled at me before he shook his head.

  “Really? This is what you listen to?”

  I sighed. “I know, Spanish dramas are so much better, but the teacher isn’t impressed with my conversational skills if I’m not talking about something boring, so…”

  He pulled out the device and flipped through it, pushing little buttons on it until he seemed satisfied, listening until he took off the headphones and put them on my head. I smiled when a man and woman started screaming at each other in Chinese about…

  “She caught him cheating on her with her cousin. The wedding is next week and she already sent out invitations. Come on, Penny, I’ll walk you to your room while you immerse yourself in something you can appreciate.”

  The next morning, I got out of bed and felt kind of bouncy without any lollipops, without anything besides the headphones I’d fallen asleep to, racy, scenes in Chinese that I had no idea where Drake found. I wore the headphones through the halls, listening while people bumped me, knocked me, pulled my hair. In English, I took them off at the door, tucking them in my bag as I went to my seat.

  “Penny, how was the hospital?”

  I smiled at Witley and her ravishing hair. “It’s always really satisfying to serve the community. How was your evening?”

  “Well, I did shots with a few friends and watched some movies. You should come party some time when you’re not off doing good.”

  I sighed sadly. “I’m afraid I’m always off doing good.”

  She smiled widely, her perfect teeth straight beneath her lush lips. “You’re an inspiration, Penny Lane. I imagine you’re so busy doing good to Drake. Lucky boy.”

  I inhaled and licked my lips. “Some would say I’m the one who’s lucky.”

  Her lips twisted in a parody of a smile. “I always wanted a lucky Penny. Have fun with Drake, but be careful. The boy has sharp teeth.”

  I opened my mouth to say something about how I liked his teeth and instead turned and marched to my seat against the wall. Talking to that girl got me into trouble. I didn’t want bon-bons, I wanted fireballs, the kind that would leave an ashy green residue on her perfect skin. What compounds would it take to create something with the perfect balance between flame and ash?

  I hadn’t thought about that kind of hurter for a long time, not since Poppy…

  I shook my head and concentrated on my English but at the same time, I was thinking about ratios of Phosphorous to Magnesium.

  In linguistics I got to see Zach’s shock when I confronted him
in Chinese about impregnating my grandmother and demanded five hundred tulips for repayment. His answer was a little too complicated for me, something about how he’d thought it was me in the dark and he would marry me if I would raise the child as my own and start a flower business together, named after dear grandma. The girl who was pouring tea had a scandalized expression on her face through our conversation, but I thought it went well.

  “Miss Lane, your accent has improved,” was all the instructor, Miz had to say.

  The day progressed without anything out of the ordinary happening, and in Business, Drake sat beside me when he came in class and even though he spent the whole time on his computer, he looked at me and raised an eyebrow once which made my stomach do the butterfly thing and me want to kick myself for staring at him so blatantly.

  In History I sat by Viney and turned to her immediately. “Let’s go shopping on Saturday. I need help. I’ve never really worn a bra before. And jeans. Is it hard to buy jeans?”

  She rolled her eyes before she leaned her chin on her fist. “Jeans are the worst.

  Actually bras are terrible too. Fine. We’ll go because if you order something it will turn out wrong and then our date will be completely messed up. I have a few guys selected, upperclassmen that seemed vaguely interesting. We’ll go play pool and eat. Low pressure kind of thing for your first date.”

  “I don’t swim.”

  She rolled her eyes and patted my head like I was an idiot. At least she didn’t yank out some more of my hair. “Not that kind of pool. Billiards, cue, eight ball, are those familiar terms in your bizarre vocabulary?”

  “Aaaaah. We’re going to shoot some pool? I’ve never done that before. Do you think there will be a bar fight?”

  “Only if Drake is there.”

  “We should bring him, then. I’ve never been to a bar fight.”

  She snorted. “You can go bar fighting with Drake some other time. This is a date. No bar fights on dates.”

  “Page forty-seven,” Professor Vale said, her eyes shooting daggers at the two of us.