Skin (44 Chapters #1)

by B. B. Easton

  I immediately slid backwards, out from under that unrelenting cascade, and flopped onto my back in the inch-deep water. Pressing my fingertips into my clit, I tried to prolong the last few contractions of my orgasm and the last fleeting images I had of Lance’s head between my breasts. When it was over I opened my eyes and stared at the popcorn ceiling above me, awash with a renewed sense of determination.

  When I was ten I wanted a trampoline. Now I wanted Lance, and I always got what I wanted.

  After my little fantasy I hadn’t been able to sleep for shit. I stayed up well past midnight watching soft core porn, masturbating, smoking cigarettes, and drawing pictures of anime-style girls with big green eyes and short, spiky hair. The last one I drew spoke to me.

  She said, “Get your scissors, BB.”

  So, I did.

  At one o’clock in the morning I crept into my bathroom, closed the door, and cut off almost all of my reddish-blonde waves. I gave myself blunt bangs bracketed by two chin-length pieces on either side of my face, then hacked the rest of it off. I left maybe an inch of length all over, but made sure to cut it at odd angles to keep it from looking too much like a helmet.

  The next morning I wet it and gelled it into spikes, colored a few pieces pink and purple with some markers I had lying around, painted on my wingtip eyeliner, took a deep breath, and walked downstairs to face my mother. When she saw me her face lit up, much to my surprise, and her hands were immediately in my hair.

  She brushed my bangs to one side and squealed, “Oh my God, BB! You look just like Twiggy! You should get some false eyelashes…Twiggy had big eyes like you, and she used to wear these long false eyelashes to make them look even bigger…” Holding me at arm’s length, my mom looked me over from top to bottom. “She was super skinny like you too. God, you’re so lucky. I would have killed to look like Twiggy!”

  Um…cool. I guess I’m not grounded.

  My mom handed me a muffin wrapped in a paper towel, which I shoved into the hand-sewn fuzzy tiger-striped purse she taught me how to make over the summer, and we walked outside into the humid, still-black morning. On the way to school my mom drove five miles under the speed limit, never once used her blinker, and sang along to the oldies station at the top of her lungs. (Okay, I’ll admit it. I sang along too.)

  But when she dropped me off at the front door everything shifted into slow motion. My hand reaching for the door handle. The air conditioning blasting me in the face as I crossed the threshold. And Lance Hightower, leaning against the wall at the end of the front hallway, watching me walk toward him as if he’d been waiting on me.

  Before I could reach him, Lance pushed off the wall—all six feet three inches of him—and stalked toward me with a dimpled smile on his beautiful face.

  When he was close enough for me to hear him, Lance said, “Holy shit, B! Your hair is fucking sick!” and once our boots were almost toe to toe Lance reached out with both hands and tugged gently on the ends of my two chin length locks.

  I beamed up at him—silently praying that he didn’t get marker on his fingers—and asked him to say it again. “Really? You like it?”

  Lance leaned down so that I could see every copper fleck in his hazel eyes and said, “Hell yeah, I like it. You look like a little badass.”

  The hot pink streaks in my bangs probably blended in with my cheeks as I blinked up at him with a kiss me now pucker on my face. The butterflies in my stomach were doing gymnastics, and all I wanted to do was…well, everything. I wanted to tear those sexy black patch-covered clothes off his big, tall body, weave my fingers into his faded green Mohawk, and let him do every single naughty thing to me that the hunky repairman had done to the bored housewife on Skinemax the night before.

  Everything would have to wait though, because just then the bell rang, turning the hallway into a riot of scattering teenagers.

  Lance gave me a quick hug and said, “See you outside,” before letting the current pull him away from me.

  I turned around and started to head to my first period class, drunk on lust, when suddenly I heard the voice of an angel yelling, “Hey girl!” from somewhere behind me.

  I beamed and spun back around. Lance was easy to spot, given that he was almost a full head taller than most of the kids struggling to get around him in the hallway. Standing up on my tiptoes, I cupped my hands around my mouth and shouted my rehearsed reply back to him.

  “What’s up?”

  Lance flashed me both dimples and shouted back, the noise and crowd swelling between us, “You must be a parking ticket because you’ve got fine written all over you!”

  I grinned and shook my head as the crowd dragged me away.

  God, I fucking loved him.

  I was smiling so big I thought my face might split open when I walked into my honors chemistry class and noticed that it was empty. The words LAB DAY were written on the dry erase board. Fuck. I’d forgotten that Tuesday was lab day, which meant that I would need my lab notebook, which was literally the only thing I didn’t have crammed inside of my backpack.

  I turned around and fought my way back through the crush of bodies toward my locker. I could see C hall approaching and prepared myself to make the jump. Exiting one of the main hallways during rush hour was a lot like trying to get out of a lazy river at a water park—only I would have to do it against the current and with fifty pounds of books strapped to my back.

  But before I could get there the tardy bell rang, causing the students pressing against me to scatter, leaving me alone and unsteady on my feet.

  So, I was late for class. Whatever. Lance Hightower had said my haircut was badass, and I was going to have all of his babies. Nothing could bring me down from that high.

  I turned onto C hall—trying to figure out a name for the little girl with strawberry blonde hair and hazel eyes that I would bear for him (Or would she be a green-eyed brunette?)—and immediately careened into something hard.

  Then something hard gripped my arms and slammed me backward into the nearest wall. Thankfully, my backpack was so large that it was the only thing that made contact with the cinderblock wall behind me, but my biceps felt like they were being crushed in matching vises.

  “What the fuck?”

  I heard his voice before I dared to open my eyes. Deep. Clear. No accent.

  Oh no. No, no, no.

  I forced myself to lift one eyelid, expecting to find a rabid skinhead looming over me, foaming at the mouth and ready to pulverize me for getting in his way. Instead I found a surprised skinhead, bent at the waist, staring at me with his blond eyebrows pulled together.

  “Punk? Shit. Are you okay?” His tone was gentle enough that I risked opening the other eye too. Just a little.

  “Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it was you. Your hair…” Knight released the death grip he had on my left arm and brought his hand up toward my face. I instinctively winced and turned my head away, then felt a tiny tug on one of my longer side pieces of hair, just like Lance had done.

  I opened one eye to peek at Knight’s face again, surprised by his suddenly tender behavior, but Knight’s face looked anything but tender. His jaw was clenched shut, his zombie eyes blazed almost white-hot, and his grip on my right bicep tightened, almost to the point of pain.

  Help! Help! Rape! Mayday, motherfuckers! Mayday!

  My eyes darted left and right hoping to find a familiar face, but we were so late to class that the halls were completely empty. I couldn’t breathe, but I’m pretty sure Knight was breathing heavily enough for the both of us. His nostrils flared as my right hand began to tingle from lack of blood flow.

  The words, “I can’t feel my hand,” tumbled from my fucking filterless mouth.

  Knight released me and stepped back, blinking as if he’d just been woken from a spell. He opened his mouth to speak, then shut it again.

  “Well, I’m late, so…” I stuck my thumb in the direction of my locker and took one exaggerated step sideways, toward it. When he didn’t c
ome after me, I took another.

  “I…like your hair,” Knight muttered. It came out sounding like a question, as if he didn’t know how compliments worked.

  I managed to squeak out the word, “Thanks,” without releasing the breath I was holding, then turned and sprinted the rest of the way down C hall.

  Once I reached my locker I flew through the combination, pulled open the door, shoved my head inside, and hyperventilated.

  Maybe Juliet was right, I thought between gasps of stale, dust-thickened air. Maybe Knight is an actual fucking cannibal.

  “No way! You never take that thing off!” My squeals echoed off the rafters of our cavernous two-story cafeteria.

  “I just did,” Lance said, flashing me his best Prince-Eric-from-The-Little Mermaid smile as he wrapped his iconic black hoodie around my shoulders.

  God, he was gorgeous. I had to bite the insides of my cheeks to keep from swooning like a fangirl. I also had to squeeze my legs together to dull the ache induced by that smile. That guy had the most kissable dimples.

  “Oh my God! Thank you, boo! I’m fucking freeeeeezing!” I pushed my arms through the sleeves and hugged the warm, soft cotton to my body. It smelled just like him. Earthy. Manly. Divine.

  I let my eyes roam over the patches and white logos, but I didn’t bother to read them. I had them all committed to memory. I’d joined every radical political group’s mailing list (which my dad was positive had put us on some kind of FBI watch list). I’d researched every band, bought all their albums, and could have recited the lyrics to Lance’s favorite songs in at least three different languages if anyone had bothered to ask. With the knowledge I’d amassed from that one piece of outerwear, I could have taught a college-level course on punk subculture.

  Too bad I didn’t particularly like most of it. I secretly preferred listening to the alternative radio station over head-banging to independently recorded vinyl punk records. If we’re being honest, it all just sounded like people screaming and breaking things to me. And politically, I was much more of a live-and-let-live hippie-type like my parents than an anarchist. But boy, did I love the fashion. And that jacket was the pièce de résistance of punk fashion.

  I glanced around our lunch table and noticed that everyone was staring at me, mouths slightly agape. I blushed and curled a little deeper into the heavenly fabric, singing, Nanny-nanny-boo-boo, I’m wearing Lance’s jaaaacket and yooooou aren’t, in my head.

  Lance nudged my hoodie-covered arm with his and said, “Hey girl.”

  I beamed up at him. “What’s up?”

  Lance furrowed his brow and tilted his head to the side as if something was really puzzling him. “If I get cold, can I use your thighs as ear muffs?”

  “Lance!” I screamed and slapped him on the chest, smiling like a lunatic.

  Colton and August were doing their best to ignore the flirt fest going on in front of them, or at least pretend to ignore it. They were sitting across from us discussing the movie The Fifth Element. Colton was talking loudly about how he wanted to fuck Milla Jovovich, probably for my benefit, while August picked at the food on his tray and mumbled something about liking the cinematography.

  When he saw me looking at him August gave me a little half-smile and said, “I like your hair.”

  I knew that August wanted to be a filmmaker when he grew up. When we were kids he and I used to stomp around in the woods behind his trailer making little movies with a camcorder he stole from the thrift store. His story lines always seemed to end in everyone being eaten by zombies or ravaged by a flesh-eating plague though.

  August was really in touch with his own mortality. His mother told me once that he was born a full trimester early and spent his first two years of life in and out of the hospital. Maybe that’s why he turned out so little and morbid.

  I wished Juliet could have seen me with my new pixie cut, wearing the jacket—it was basically the best day of my entire life up to that point—but she was MIA, as usual. She’d been skipping lunch almost every day to make out with Tony in the parking lot, and sometimes she skipped school altogether. Last year she had been in all honors classes with me—that’s when we became such good friends—but now she was taking regular old college prep classes and half the time she didn’t even go.

  Fucking Tony.

  A slam reverberated down the length of the table announcing that Knight had just arrived. He always set his tray down with an unnecessary amount of force. The sound completely burst my hoodie-induced bubble of bliss.

  “Take that fucking thing off.”

  Knight’s deep voice carried over the white noise of the cafeteria like a record scratch. In my typical fashion, I responded like a woodland creature who’d just heard a twig snap and stared straight ahead, frozen in fear.

  Oh, shit. Is he talking to me? Maybe he isn’t talking to me. Maybe he’s talking to someone else. Maybe if I stay very, very still he won’t be able to see me...

  August was all I could see, since my panic had temporarily deactivated my peripheral vision, and the one dark eye that wasn’t hiding behind his hair was full of pity.

  “Is your nose fucking broken? That thing smells like shit, Punk.”

  Fuck. He is definitely talking to me.

  I heard Lance’s breathing quicken next to me and saw him begin to curl his fingers into his palm, one by one, pushing on each knuckle with his thumb until it cracked.

  Knight continued, pressing for a reaction. “You know that motherfucker never washes it. He’s too afraid all his little jewels will fall off.”

  Everyone had stopped talking to watch the spectacle, so there was nothing to drown out the deep timber of Knight’s voice. It echoed through the cavernous cafeteria like a hunter’s steps through the forest. And I was Bambi. And Lance was Bambi. And everyone was looking at us.

  Lance shifted suddenly in his seat so that his body was facing Knight and puffed up his chest. Unfortunately, he was sitting on the side of me opposite from Knight, so I had inadvertently become his human shield.

  “What the fuck did you just say?” Lance snapped.

  Knight snorted. “I said your jacket smells worse than the cum leaking out of your asshole.”

  Lance moved like he was going to try to get up. I turned and pushed down on his shoulders with both hands, trying to keep him seated, as he shouted over my shoulder, “You should know. You put it there!”

  As if that wasn’t bad enough Lance had to go and punctuate his little retort with a wink and an air kiss.

  Jesus, Lance! Do you want to die??

  Nervous laughter percolated around us. I clamped a hand over Lance’s mouth and chanced a peek over my shoulder at Knight. His eerily calm eyes were trained directly on me. He wasn’t even looking at Lance—the six-foot-three-inch-tall Mohawked punk rocker whom he was goading into a fight—he was simply waiting for me to turn around.

  Motherfucker.

  If it was my attention he wanted, fine. I’d give it to him. But I was going to do it away from my boys. Lance may have been acting cool, but the way he was working those jaw muscles told me he was more than ready to throw down.

  Grabbing Lance’s face, I looked into his warm hazel eyes and whisper-yelled, “Stop it, okay? I got this. Don’t do anything stupid.”

  Lance glanced over my shoulder again before returning his hard gaze to mine. Forcing a smile, he said, “Who, me? Never.”

  I leaned closer to his ear and whispered, “Just stay here, okay?”

  Lance’s hand found my hip under his hoodie as he whispered back, “You sure, B?”

  “Sure as shit,” I lied.

  Then I did the only thing I could think of to diffuse the situation.

  I jumped on the grenade.

  Still wrapped in Lance’s massive patchwork sweatshirt, I stood up, becoming immediately aware that there were at least a thousand people staring at me as I walked for what felt like days over to the empty seat beside Knight.

  I wanted to make eye contact. I wanted to
appear strong and self-confident and annoyed as shit with him, but instead I picked at Lance’s sleeve, cleared my throat and whispered, “What are you doing, Knight?”

  “Saving your life. You know that fucker probably has AIDS.” His tone was harsh, but he had at least lowered his voice enough that I don’t think Lance was able to hear him.

  Before I could think better of it, I quipped, “I’d rather get AIDS than freeze to death. At least with AIDS I’d have a few more good years.”

  And that’s when I heard it: a chuckle. A chuckle that was quickly masked by a fake cough, but I knew better. I heard that shit. I had made Skeletor the Skinhead laugh.

  A warm feeling began to bubble inside me. I felt… special. Proud. I had faced my fear and now, thanks to me, no one was going to get their kidneys kicked in. Nope, not on my watch.

  Swiftly recovering his signature scowl, Knight’s zombie eyes found mine. He cocked his head to one side, studying me. I felt a molten heat rush into my cheeks and looked back down at my hands, trying not to think about how red my face must be turning under his scrutiny.

  “If you need a jacket, I’ll get you a fucking jacket, Punk.”

  What? Is Skeletor trying to be nice?

  Looking up through my lashes I could see that his features had softened, just a bit. His mouth was still set in a hard line, but his ghost eyes looked more crystalline than Crypt Keeper. Clear and pale and blue, like shallow water falling into an endless black hole.

  “I have a jacket,” I lied.

  “Then where is it?”

  “Um…” I couldn’t tell him that it got stolen by Veronica Beazly last spring, lest she be found in a shallow grave, so instead I answered his question with one of my own. “Where’s yours?”

  Oh my God. I’m such an idiot.

  “I don’t need one because I’m not a skinny little bitch who gets cold in the middle of August.”