Skin (44 Chapters #1)

by B. B. Easton

  He was slender and stylish and beautiful and edgy and I wanted to be him and bang him all at once.

  “Holy shit! I’m so sorry!” the green-eyed boy said, bending over to pick up my sopping wet paperback. Standing back up he handed it to me, touching my outstretched hand as he asked, “Are you okay? I didn’t even see you back there.”

  I didn’t know if it was the jolt of being touched by a stranger or the embarrassment of almost being crushed by a door, but my face heated and my words faltered. I just stared into those big, pretty, green and black eyes and felt as if I were looking into a mirror. They were warm and familiar. Not icy. Not undead. They were very much alive, and they were blinking at me in concern.

  Fucking speak, BB!

  “I’m fine,” I sputtered as I accepted the wet rag that used to be my book. “Thanks.”

  He smiled at my words, and my knees went a little weak. “Why are you thanking me? I almost killed you.”

  “I don’t know,” I laughed. “For this?” I held up the mushy book, which dripped down my hand and into the sleeve of my thermal under shirt.

  The green-eyed boy raised one eyebrow in amusement. “You’re thanking me for ruining your book?”

  “No,” I smirked. “I’m thanking you for picking up the book you ruined.”

  “How about you thank me after I replace it for you?” he said with a playful smile. “I think I have that book at home.”

  “Are you inviting me over?” I asked, batting eyelashes that, for the first time in a long time, hadn’t had all the mascara cried off of them yet.

  “I was going to say I could bring it to you tomorrow, but I like your idea better.”

  Oh my God!

  My cheeks were on fire. I was making such an ass of myself.

  “You can just bring it tomorrow,” I backpedaled. “That’s fine. I’m waiting on my ride, anyway.”

  “When is your ride coming?” he asked.

  “Four thirty,” I said.

  He laughed and the sound made my insides squirm. “That’s over an hour from now! Come on. Let’s go.”

  “I don’t even know your name,” I teased. “You know, stranger danger?”

  The hottie extended his hand in an exaggerated show of formality and said, “I’m Trevor. Trevor Walcott.”

  I straightened my back and choked down my giggles as I accepted his smooth, perfect hand. “Pleased to meet you, Trevor. I’m BB.”

  “I know who you are,” Trevor said, not letting go.

  I chased Trevor through the rain to a little black two-door Honda Civic in the student parking lot. He opened the door for me and knocked a bunch of empty drink cups and cigarette packs onto the floor so that I could sit down.

  Such a boy.

  On the way to his house Trevor told me that he’d just moved to Georgia from Detroit a few weeks ago. He said our school was really different from his old one. It was about three times bigger, and he’d had to stay for detention that afternoon for being late, which nobody gave a shit about at his old school.

  As we pulled up to his house, a cute little blue-gray colored ranch in a neighborhood full of modest little ranches, Trevor explained that the house belonged to his mom’s friend and they were just staying with her until they got settled. The way he shifted in his seat and cleared his throat when he said the word “friend” made me think that maybe his mom and her “friend” might be more than just friends.

  What Trevor didn’t tell me was where his dad was and why he and his mom moved across the country at the end of the school year. I got the feeling that Trevor had secrets. And I wanted him to tell me all of them. I could have propped my chin on my hands and listened to him talk for days. He was so pretty—almost feminine, especially with those eyes—but he carried himself with the masculine confidence of a star quarterback.

  Trevor let us into the house and was greeted by a woman’s voice coming from a back bedroom.

  “My mom, um, hurt her foot, so…she has to stay in bed,” he explained as he led me down a short hallway.

  Okaaaay.

  Trevor’s room was a little messy, like his car, and had been decorated with a few Nine Inch Nails, Tool, and The Crow posters. He walked in and dropped his backpack on the floor, then made his way over to a bookshelf in the far corner of the room, next to his unmade bed. When he turned around Trevor was holding a much drier copy of A Clockwork Orange.

  My face lit up. “Oh my God! You do have it!”

  Trevor smiled back, all warm green and smoky black. “You know what’s weird? I don’t even know why I have it. I just noticed it when we moved.”

  “Must be destiny,” I teased, moving a pile of dirty black clothes from his bed to his dresser so that I could have a seat. They smelled like boy. Not cologne. Not vegan deodorant. Not dryer sheets. Just maleness. I liked it.

  “Must be,” Trevor said, sitting down next to me and handing me the book. Our eyes locked, and I felt something very different than I was used to. Relief. When Knight looked at me it was like staring into the sun glinting off of an iceberg. Too bright. Too cold. Too clear and hard. These eyes were as easy to look at as my own. They were warm and friendly, rimmed in thick black lashes that I was close enough to tell were not accentuated by eyeliner—they were just that thick.

  And they held secrets, just like mine.

  Despite my interest in this mystery boy, I was still acutely aware that I was sitting on a bed with a guy I’d just met that hour, and there wasn’t even a TV in the room. Just us, a book, and a bed.

  Time to go.

  I asked Trevor to drop me off at my mom’s school, and we smoked and talked about music and movies on the way there. It was just like hanging out with Lance or Colton or August, only I actually liked Trevor’s taste in music. It was a little dark, a little industrial, but it was way better than the sounds of people just screaming and breaking shit.

  When Trevor pulled up in front of Peach State Elementary School I leaned over the gear shift and hugged him goodbye. I couldn’t help it. He’d been the only bright spot in what would go down in history as the worst month of my life. I didn’t even know if I’d ever see him again.

  “Now you can thank me,” Trevor said into my ear, competing with the sound of the rain pelting the car.

  I smiled as I squeezed his neck. “Thanks for the book…and the ride.”

  I gathered my stuff up slowly, hoping he’d ask me for my number, something, anything, before I disappeared into the downpour.

  “Hey, BB?”

  My head snapped up way too fast. “Yeah?”

  Trevor draped his arm over the back of his seat as he turned toward me. “You think you’re gonna need a ride again tomorrow?”

  The next day I didn’t think about Knight that much. I rolled my eyes and held up my middle finger when Angel’s friend, Tina, called me a whore. I dragged Juliet’s pregnant ass out to the church parking lot so that I could talk to her about Trevor while I smoked and paced. And I even made August laugh at lunch by doing an impersonation of Edward Furlong doing an impersonation of Eddie Vedder.

  I kind of, almost, felt like myself again.

  When the dismissal bell rang I didn’t sprint out to the parking lot to torture myself by watching Knight and Angel leave together. I sprinted to the bathroom to check my makeup before dashing down B hall and out the double doors where destiny had dumped a cute green-eyed boy in my lap the day before. Even though I got there in record time, Trevor was already waiting for me.

  And he was wearing a “Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me” T-shirt.

  Fuck me.

  I walked up and said, “I’m gonna need that shirt, like right now. Give it.”

  Trevor smiled. “You’re a Cure fan, too?”

  “Oh honey, I’m the Cure fan. Hand it over.” I flicked my fingertips at him, demanding the shirt off his back.

  “You first,” he said, calling my bluff.

  I looked down at my shirt. I couldn’t ever find band T-shirts in my size, so I’d bought a
bunch of children’s size large T-shirts and ironed band logos onto them. The one I was wearing had the Anthrax symbol on it, and the edges were starting to peel from my mom putting it in the dryer.

  “Uh, I’m pretty sure you couldn’t get one arm into this thing.”

  “Suit yourself,” Trevor said with a shrug. He held out his arm for me to take, and I instantly became aware of our surroundings. If Knight saw me holding another guy’s arm he would flip the fuck out.

  Or would he? I mean, he didn’t seem to give a shit about being seen with Angel. Or about how I felt about it.

  You know what? Fuck it.

  I linked arms with Trevor and walked toward his little black car, not a care in the goddamn world.

  Trevor drove me to my mom’s school, but instead of having him drop me off in front, I had him pull around to the parking lot by the playground. He sat on a bench with me while I waited for my mom to get off work.

  “When do you get your license?” Trevor asked. I couldn’t help but pick up on a twinge of uneasiness in his voice, like he was hoping I’d say never.

  “My birthday is June second, so…like five or six weeks? I can’t fucking wait.”

  “Do you know how to drive?”

  I blinked at him.

  “Um…well…I have my learner’s permit…and my mom lets me drive us home whenever she’s has too many margaritas at El Burro…and I haven’t killed us yet.”

  “Oh shit,” Trevor laughed. “Do me a favor and warn me whenever you’re gonna be on the road, okay?”

  I covered my face with my hands. “How did this happen?! Trevor! I don’t know how to driiiive!”

  “Come on.” He stood up and held out his hand. “Let’s go ruin my clutch.”

  I peeked at him from between my fingers and asked, “What’s a clutch?”

  Trevor was so sweet and patient while I spent the next hour and a half barking his tires and stalling out in the Peach State Elementary School parking lot. I’d never driven a stick shift before. That shit was harder than it looked. I’d finally gotten the hang of accelerating out of a rolling stop by the time my mom was ready to go, but dead stops were an entirely different story.

  “I think we better practice some more tomorrow, for the sake of mankind,” Trevor teased as I hugged him goodbye.

  The next few days went the same way. Trevor let me practice driving his car while I waited for my mom to get off work. Evidently, driving around aimlessly with someone is a great way to get to know them. Trevor told me that his dad was the one who bought him the car and taught him how to drive a stick shift. His dad had said that it was important because once you know how a manual transmission works you can drive anything. His parents had recently gotten divorced—that’s why his mom moved down here and his dad and older sister had stayed behind in Detroit. I could tell that Trevor missed them, even though he admitted that his dad had “anger issues.”

  I could relate. I knew all about loving a man with “anger issues.”

  By the end of the week I had gotten to where I could drive from Peach State High to Peach State Elementary all by myself without stalling out once. And I had gotten closer to the boy who, without even knowing it, was helping me find my way back to myself.

  April melted into May, and the sunny days began to outnumber the rainy ones. Trevor and I didn’t hang out at his house much. I got the sense that he liked being at his house about as much as I liked being at mine, so we mostly spent our afternoons sitting on the swings in the back of the wooded elementary school playground, smoking and talking.

  One day Trevor sat in his usual swing, but as I walked past to take my spot next to him he grabbed my hips and pulled me into his lap. His arms around my waist made everything inside of me come back to life. I had missed being held so much. I leaned my head back on his shoulder and walked my toes back and forth across the ground beneath us as we swung gently. Trevor rubbed his cheek against my fuzzy shaved head and squeezed me tighter.

  I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to thank him for being there, for bringing me back from the abyss. I stood up and turned around. Holding onto the chains of the swing for support, I placed my shins on either side of Trevor’s hips and straddled him. He wrapped his arms around my back, smiled at me with those warm green eyes, and kissed me first. It was a lingering peck, no tongue, and it was the sweetest thing I’d ever experienced.

  When I opened my eyes, I noticed that Trevor seemed on edge. He glanced to the left and right of us quickly before sliding his self-confident smile back into place and meeting my gaze.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked. “Are you afraid a teacher is going to see us?”

  “Sorry, I just…” Trevor took a deep breath before continuing. “I met Knight, today.”

  All the blood drained out of my face. Knight. The Knight. My Knight.

  “Oh shit. Are you okay? Trevor, what did he do to you?” My eyes searched his face for any signs of injury. “I should have warned you about him—I’m so sorry—I honestly didn’t think he’d care. He’s seeing somebody else now.”

  That was the first time I had said those words out loud, and they reopened all the cracks in my heart that Trevor had just begun to glue back together.

  He’s seeing somebody else now. Somebody with tits. He doesn’t love you anymore.

  Trevor met my stare and said, “Oh, he cares.”

  “What did he do? Trevor, tell me.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said, plastering his charming smile back on. It did little to hide the fear in his earthy eyes though.

  “Did he hurt you?”

  “Nah. He just wanted to flex his muscles. Make sure I knew whose girl you were.”

  “I’m nobody’s fucking girl,” I spat.

  How dare he? How motherfucking dare he! He’s sticking his dick in Angel Alvarez and he has the balls to tell Trevor that I’m his girl??

  Trevor swallowed and said, “BB, are you guys still…’cause if so, I’ll back off. Just say the word.”

  “No! We’re not anything! He’s fucking psychotic, Trevor. Stay away from him, okay? I’m serious.”

  He’ll kill you. I’ve seen him do it.

  “So you guys aren’t together?”

  “No! Fuck no!”

  “So I can do this again?” Trevor said, pressing his perfect lips to mine in another incredibly sweet closed-mouth kiss.

  “Mmm hmm,” I hummed against his lips, letting their warmth melt away some of my fear. Pulling away slightly, I added, “But maybe not at school, okay?”

  “Okay,” he repeated, kissing me again. “Only at school.”

  I smacked him on the chest, but Trevor only tightened his arms around my waist and kissed me deeper. His tongue slid across and twirled around mine as if we had all the time in the world. As if there wasn’t a motherfucking target on his back. Knight only had three weeks left until graduation, so he probably wouldn’t pick a fight at school, but if he saw Trevor off campus…I shuddered and opened my eyes mid-kiss, just to make sure there weren’t cross hairs on his forehead.

  When Trevor’s hands moved to my hips and his teeth tugged at my bottom lip, my worries scattered like dandelion petals in the warm spring breeze. I lost myself in the moment, allowing this beautiful, mysterious boy to temporarily distract me from my pain. It was selfish, putting him at risk like that. Trevor didn’t know what he was getting himself into, but I did. I knew what Knight was capable of. I knew how easily he snapped. But in that moment, I needed Trevor’s mouth on my mouth more than I needed all my tomorrows.

  Or his.

  It doesn’t even look like a knight anymore, I thought to myself, rubbing my tattoo in the middle of Language Arts class. The black silhouette had faded to a medium gray color, and the edges were beginning to disappear. I’d done some research and found out that tattoos on the palms of your hands and insides of your fingers aren’t permanent. In fact, some only last a few months. That must have been why Knight put it there instead of the outside of my finger, like I�
�d wanted. That motherfucker knew it wouldn’t last.

  Just like he knew we wouldn’t last.

  The varsity football player who sat next me and shamelessly cheated off all my tests leaned over and said, “You got some ink, Punk?”

  Knight took weight training class with most of the football team, so my nickname had spread throughout the jock community. I think it was just easier for them to remember. The chick with the shaved head = Punk. Got it.

  I held out my hand for him to see and whispered, “I used to.”

  The jock, I think his name was Jason, furrowed his thick brow trying to decipher the image. “What was it? A butterfly?”

  I recoiled in horror and whispered back, “Fuck no! It was a knight.”

  “Oh. Oh! Like Knight! I get it.”

  Ding-ding-ding. Congratulations, dumbass.

  I turned my hand back over and faced the front of the classroom, pretending to give a shit about Boston commas, when the meathead leaned over again and asked, this time at least attempting to whisper, “Lemme ask you a question. Can he still…get it up?”

  What?

  I snapped my head around and narrowed my eyes at him. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  Jason the Jock held up his hands and said, “No offense. I was just curious. With the amount of ‘roids in that dude’s system, I just figured his nuts would be shriveled up like raisins by now.”

  “‘Roids? You mean, like steroids?”

  The meathead chuckled and said, “Hell yeah. Don’t tell me you didn’t know. Your boyfriend is on the same shit as the pros. Hell, half the football team is. I thought about taking ‘em too, but my sack is just too pretty to risk.”

  He may have said more, but I don’t remember. I was too busy trying to see through my blinding anger. Steroids. Knight was taking motherfucking steroids. It made perfect sense—the violence, the rages, the hair-trigger temper, the muscles on top of muscles—but after the way he’d freaked out about me doing drugs? After confiding in me about his mom’s drug abuse, his history of violence, he goes and starts taking drugs that make him more violent?