Mom would back-flip if I even asked. No way she’d ever let me.
But that doesn’t make the thought go away. I can’t help imagining something small and sparkly in my own little button.
“You okay over there, L?” Thomas asks without looking over.
“Mhmm.” I nod, feeling caught and sort of silly. I move my fingers up to the next little bit of pearl. “Buttons are precious,” I say.
The left side of his mouth curves up. “You’re precious.”
I silently swoon a little at his sweet ease and familiarity. While he sets the joint down next to where there’s still grass on his textbook, I go back to my buttons. Thomas pulls another paper from the pack and folds it to fill it.
“Tell me what you’re thinking, girl.”
The only things on my mind are tiny diamonds and sapphires, and the beautiful way he rolls a joint.
“What if I get my belly button pierced?” I pose, lifting the very bottom of my shirt up to look at said button.
Thomas smirks. I look over and he’s not looking, but he’s shaking his head. “Don’t do that.”
“What?” I ask, the tingle all over my skin digging somewhere deeper as his fingers press and roll white and green. “Just a dainty little thing. Nothing crazy. A tiny little diamond.”
“Don’t you fucking dare,” he says. His lips curve up again after sealing the second joint. His tone is undemanding, but it doesn’t change what he’s saying.
“Why not?” I don’t understand why he’s against the idea. Or why he cares. I’m pretty sure Valarie has hers pierced. Isn’t that what he likes?
Thomas’ reply is unedited. “I love your belly button the way it is.”
He twists the end of the joint, caught up in prudent, prohibited work. I don’t think he realizes what he said.
My heart beats pure, unbending sunshine. I glow bright. I tremble with invincible joy, and I can’t believe what came out of his mouth. I sit up a little straighter and dig my toes under his leg for warmth. I set my eyes on his too gorgeous for his own good profile and wait for him to catch up.
When he looks at me, Thomas’ smirk grows into a wholehearted smile. He sets the joint down and rubs my right ankle. His touch makes my pulse rush.
“What?” he asks, faded, dark blue, and curious.
No way am I going to let this slide.
“You love my belly button?”
Dusty’s drunk-blushed cheeks turn a little darker. He glances down at my pulled up shirt, my exposed belly button, and then back up to my eyes.
“Rule number … whatever. That’s my belly button, Bliss.”
“You can’t have my belly button,” I almost squeak.
“I can. It’s a rule. You can’t say no.”
With a totally smitten heartbeat, I shake my head and sit up on my knees. Eye to eye, smile to smile, my pajama covered kneecaps touch the denim of his left leg, but I don’t feel like his little sister’s friend in this moment. I feel closer to his equal than I ever have.
“You said you loved my belly button,” I remind him. “You said ‘love,’ Thomas. Love,” I drag the word out. “Does that mean you love me?”
He moves his geometry book to his nightstand and sits up onto his knees, too. I look up, and his eyes are steady on mine.
And then he says, “Of course I love you.”
I feel my lips and my eyelids, my heart, and the deeper place my tingles reside all open a little bit wider.
Thomas’ voice is soft and kind when he asks, “Don’t you love me?”
Pressing my lips together to contain all my joy, I nod. I can’t deny it. I feel like I’ve loved this boy for forever. It explains everything. It feels like everything.
“Of course I love you,” I tell him.
Thomas leans down a little, bringing us closer together. I feel surrounded with his vanilla and trouble and love, and when he breathes, I want to lick his lips
“You love me, too?” he teases back, drawing the word out like I did in his light and air-soft voice.
I nod again and feel his left hand on the small of my back, right before I feel his other on my stomach. It’s easy and barely a touch at all. He’s gentle, but he’s not kidding.
“Tell me it’s mine,” he whispers.
I giggle at the thought of giving in, of him wanting my belly button, and I shake my head. It’s silly. He can’t own a part of me.
But then he nudges me back.
And I’m not surrounded, I’m bound, twisting and laughing and giving love all I’ve got.
The longer we laugh and shush, and tickle and tangle, the more positive I am that Thomas already has part of me. Like I have part of him. It’s bigger than my bellybutton—it’s underneath my skin. It’s limitless. I don’t have a word for it. It’s his.
It already was.
I rollick and roll under him, cracking up as quietly as I can into his pillows as he tickles under my ribs. “Okay!” I giggle-whisper, helpless. “Okay! Okay!”
Thomas eases up, grinning all the way to his lit up blues. He has me pinned and is pressing his hand over my belly button once more, this time under my shirt.
“Tell me it’s mine,” he says again, laughing softly.
I wonder if it’s because he feels it, too, this—this thing that’s ours that I don’t have a name for but feels like everything.
Turning my head to the side and pushing my ridiculously tangled hair out of my face, I reach around his hand. I press mine to his stomach, over his hoodie, so he knows how I feel.
“Tell me yours is mine,” I say, still catching my breath.
Dusty laughs, the head back, full body laugh that I can never get enough of. He brushes his thumb back and forth over my skin when he looks back down to my eyes. “Okay, Bliss. Deal.”
It’s strongest right under his hand, but my heart beats everywhere.
“Deal.” I agree. “My belly button is all yours.”
“What are you doing?”
“Eating candy corn.”
“Why?”
“Because I love it.”
Thomas laughs through the phone. “It’s March. Where did you get candy corn, princess?”
“It was a gift from a friend.”
There’s a distinct order when consuming candy corn: white, yellow, orange. Any other way is simply unacceptable.
“Becka?”
“Nope.” White.
“Laura?”
I chew off the yellow. “Guess again.”
“Who?”
“Oliver,” I say, popping the orange in my mouth. Waxy sugar breaks apart between bites and dissolves on my tongue, satisfying my sweet tooth, but not my sweetheart.
“Oliver gave you candy corn?” There’s a smile in his tone.
I sit up in bed, slipping under the cold covers. “I mentioned they’re my favorite.”
“I thought Twinkies were your favorite, Bliss.”
I smile into my blankets. “Twinkies are my favorite spongy-sweets, but candy corn is my favorite classic candy.”
“Good to know,” he says. “But tell Oliver that I said if he buys you candy corn again, I’ll break his fucking hands.”
“I told him I like Coke slushies, too, but he didn’t buy me one of those. He said it was too cold out. Not that I care. I’d freeze for Coke slushies.”
“You’re going to get a cavity, baby, with all of the sugar you eat.” Thomas sounds absent-minded. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s rolling up.
I switch my cell phone to my other ear, sinking further into bed. “I was deprived as a child.”
“You’re still a child, Bliss.”
The flick and spark from his lighter sucks me right into his room. I can see what Thomas looks like with white smoke seeping from between his lips. I close my eyes and picture his, red and heavy lidded.
“I wish you were here,” he says quietly, taking a hit. I know exactly what the curve of his smirk probably looks like right now: a little bit crooked, a lot of troubles
ome.
“Me too.” He’s clear to me. I can practically smell him.
He’s coughing now, and I’m rubbing my lips against the cotton collar of his hoodie. “Where the fuck is my water?”
“Look under the bed,” I say, pressing my cheek against the inside of the hood.
“Baby, I’m going to…” Thomas coughs “…put the phone down for a second.” The phone drops.
I listen while he searches around his room, struggling to take a breath. But when there’s a knock on my door, I drop the phone and hide it under my pillow. I quickly pull my hood off and jerk the blankets over my chest before calling out that it’s okay to come in.
Mom’s a silhouette in my doorway. “You’re not asleep yet? It’s after ten, baby.”
“Almost,” I lie. Adrenaline pours through my veins, sending a rush that’s near impossible to contain exploding through my body. My hands shake with excitement, and I hope she can’t see the hint of a smile on my face.
“You can come sleep with me and Dad.” Her tone is expectant. My mom likes to cuddle, but I haven’t slept with her since I started spending my nights on the phone with Dusty.
“I’ll stay here,” I say, drawing a yawn from my lungs.
She nods and goes, shutting my door with a quiet click.
Buried beneath blankets, I press the phone to my ear. Thomas doesn’t realize I’m back on, so I listen to him smoke: light, inhale, exhale, sigh, laugh. Hearing it is almost as good as actually seeing his lips around the end of a joint.
“I’m back,” I whisper.
“Beautiful, beautiful, baby Bliss. Baby, baby Bliss.” He’s laughing, taking a hit.
My dad’s a juvenile court judge. Our dinner table talk usually consists of him complaining about the kids he sees coming in and out of his courtroom. “It’s an epidemic,” he says. “Children Leighlee’s age using drugs.” And it always ends with, “Bliss, never give into peer pressure. It always starts with a little grass.”
Maybe it is some kind of sweeping epidemic, but weed doesn’t sway Thomas the way my dad claims it does other people. It soothes Dusty. It makes him funny and honest and tolerable.
Judge McCloy doesn’t know everything.
“I thought about you all day,” Thomas says lazily. “I miss your face. I miss your candy wrappers all over my room. I miss your cold toes on my legs under the covers.”
“Oh, yeah?” I grip the phone tighter, pressing my knees together. The sound of his low voice sends chills up and down my arms. I bite my bottom lip and curl my toes.
“Come over,” he exhales.
I roll onto my side and turn my face into the hoodie’s hood, inhaling the faint scent of vanilla. I’m lit up, full of crazy butterflies and overriding happiness. This boy makes me smile bright.
“I’ll take my mom’s car. I’ll come get you.” He’s only half kidding. “Say yes.”
“You’ll drive high?”
“I’m not high.” There’s a moment of silence before he chokes on his laughter. “I’m so fucking high.”
I revel in his tone, and his voice, and his silly, half-slurred words while I lie in the dark pretending he’s close.
“I’m hungry, Leigh baby. If you were here, I’d probably eat your elbow. I’d eat your—”
“Thomas,” I cut him off. “Tell me a secret.”
“I love you.”
THE NEXT weekend I’m at the Castors’, waving my hand in front of Becka’s slumbering face, but she’s truly dead to the world. Long blonde bangs are over her eyes, and she fell asleep with a piece of cinnamon gum in her mouth. Instead of waking her up so she can spit it out, I tiptoe away.
When I creep to Thomas’ room, he’s sitting at his computer desk smoking a cigarette, flicking ash into an empty soda can, talking on the phone. He speaks in hushed tones and quick one word answers. I can’t hear everything, but going by the tension in his shoulders and the worry on his face, something isn’t right.
I sit down on his bed but end up getting under covers because an hour passes before he hangs up. He scratches his forehead and explains before I have a chance to ask.
“Pete’s mom’s a drunk.” He clears his throat, rubbing his eyes. “He doesn’t know where she is, and she didn’t pay the heating bill.”
I glance over his shoulder toward the open window where outside the ground is covered in ice. Bare tree branches are windblown and frozen, and the stars are hidden behind clouds because snow’s in the forecast.
My heart sinks for the cold boy.
“Is he coming over?” I ask.
“He’s staying with Ben. I’ll ask my dad for the money in the morning, or I’ll give it to Pete out of my account.”
On top of a weekly allowance from Luke, Thomas and Becka were given large inheritances when their Nana Castor died a few years ago. Old oil money or something. They technically can’t touch the funds until their eighteenth birthdays, but an exception has to be made when your brother-like-friend is without heat.
“Where is she?” I ask in a small, hopeless voice.
Thomas stands and stretches his arms over his head, lifting the hem of his white shirt above the waistband of his jeans. He falls into bed next to me and leans against the headboard. I give him my hand and he plays with my fingers.
“It’s Friday,” he answers. “Pay day. She’s probably blowing it at the bar.”
“The one she works at?” I ask, taken aback. The thought of going without a basic necessity is outrageous to me. I feel both sorry and angry for Petey.
“Yeah. She won’t be home until it’s gone.”
Everyone knows Pete’s dad took off when he was six. I don’t see much of his mom, Rachel, but I’ve met her a couple of times. She’s nice. Edgy with long, curly blonde hair and big brown eyes. Her son by no means talks bad about her, but it makes sense why he’s over here often.
Lucas and Tommy are natural providers. They’d never let Petey go without easy things like warmth and love.
In quiet whispers, with our legs tangled and our bodies close, I keep Thomas talking. Our conversation shifts from one friend to the other—Ben.
Loyal Italiana, his parents are straight-off-the-boat and older than other parents for our age. Not only is Ben the youngest, but he’s also the only boy out of four kids. He’s treated like a king under his roof. His parents are completely oblivious to what Ben does and doesn’t do.
“He gets away with murder,” I whisper, slowly fading under the tone of Thomas’ voice.
“We all do,” he says, hiding his face in the crook of my neck. I feel his lips on my skin—not kissing me, just there.
“I HATE that bitch,” Becka throws a half-bitten celery stick at Kelly as she walks by.
I roll my eyes, pulling my knit beanie down my head a bit further. My nose is red, fingers frozen, and my toes plead for mercy inside my wonder-boots. It’s an unnaturally cold March evening in Newport, but the frosty-fringed air couldn’t keep me away.
Petey’s on the pitcher’s mound while Thomas is on first base, and Ben stands out in center field, spitting sunflower seeds onto the grass. Tommy gave up twenty minutes ago and is watching the game from the car. But there are a few diehards out here, like me and Rebecka. And Kelly, Katie, Mixie, and Valarie.
The Sluts.
Becka hands me a celery stick from her baggie. I take it, snap the end off, and consider throwing the other end at the back of Valarie’s head. She wouldn’t say anything if I did. She knows better.
“Want to go to the car with Mom?” my best friend asks.
I shake my head. We have to be here for the boys, especially Pete.
Looking at him now, arrogant and perfectly posed to pitch the next ball, I would never imagine he’s living a nightmare.
He strikes the batter out.
“The boys are up.” Becka nods toward the nine players running in. My eyes sting from blink-less daydreaming.
Thomas takes a seat in the blue plastic chair set in front of the dugout. Eating sunf
lower seeds from the palm of his hand, his hood is up and the heels of his cleats dig into orange dusty clay-dirt. He calls out batting tips to his teammate swinging at home plate.
He doesn’t look my way, and I don’t call his name.
We can’t.
But we know.
However, a couple of rows below us, Valarie whistles and calls out Thomas’ number. She leans into Mixie, saying loud enough for everyone to hear, “He looks good in those baseball pants, but better with them off.”
The disgust I feel burns my frigid cheeks and blisters my swift-beating heart. The thought of her touching him blackens me from the inside out—I’m on fire.
Becka scoffs. “Gross.”
Uneasy, I shift in my seat but give no other sign to how I really feel as Valarie goes on and on about the boy I love. I act sympathetic for my friend, who has to sit through a play-by-play on what an awesome kisser her brother is, but inside I’m dying. I want to scream bloody murder, not pat Becka’s hand and tell her not to listen.
“Slut.” My girl chucks a celery stick in Val’s direction, hitting her in the back.
As the green vegetable falls between the bleachers onto the cement floor below, Thomas finally approaches the gate between the stands and the field and beckons Valarie over. Beaming and overconfident, she shoots to her feet like she’s won some sort of prize. The closer she gets to him, the more pep she has in her step, and the more I want to fall between the benches.
I absently rub the top of Rebecka’s hand when she turns hers over and captures my fingers, stilling my movement and my heart.
“Ben’s up,” she says, nodding toward our dark-haired friend.
I tell myself to ignore what’s going on in front of me and pay attention to the batter, but it’s impossible; I’m drawn to Dusty.
Valarie nearly has her nose pressed to the chain-link fence with her arms crossed defensively across her chest. Thomas spits out the last of his sunflower seeds and wipes his hands down the front of his pants. He speaks lowly so only Val hears him, but I can tell by the way he points his finger and the stiff posture of his shoulders and hers that their conversation is not pleasant.
Innocents Page 13
