“What about you?” she asked. “Everyone has expectations about you, too.”
“What, like band geek?”
She frowned a little. “No. I’ve never thought that about you.”
“Okay, I’ll play. What did you think of me?”
“In high school, I guess I kind of thought of you as a poet, maybe. Like you were a little bit of an old, tortured soul.”
My throat went dry. It was a little too on the mark and I didn’t have enough alcohol for this conversation. But she continued on.
“I never saw you as a geek. I guess I saw you more like a bad boy.” She laughed and covered her face. “That sounds so stupid. But I mean, like in an uncontrolled, I’m not afraid of you kind of way.”
“I was a little bit of a shit in high school, to be fair. I didn’t try to pick fights, but I did insist on ending them.”
“Exactly. You weren’t afraid of those assholes in high school.”
I held up three fingers. “Wow. Swear word number three. In one night. What a rare pleasure.”
She laughed again. “I know. I’m so out of control.” She chewed another bite and after blotting her mouth with the napkin, she continued. “And then you went off to Colorado, joined a band and got all these tattoos.” Her gaze traced my arms, all the way up to my face. “I guess that sort of solidified my Adam Oliver is a bad boy image.”
I couldn’t help it, I laughed. “I think you’re the first person to accuse me of being a bad boy.”
“I don’t mean it in a bad way. And not even in a, I want him to throw me on the back of his motorcycle and ride out of town kind of way.”
“That’s good,” I said. “Because I don’t have a motorcycle.” But I would, I knew. I had barely left her parents’ house with any rubber still on the tires. If she’d asked me, I’d have thrown her on the back of my imaginary bike and ridden off to wherever she wanted. That realization was a weight in my gut, but it wasn’t all too unwelcome. Strangely, it was if Hollis had only anchored me to her.
“You asked.” She shrugged and finished her slice of pizza.
“I did. And I’m glad to hear what you thought of me.” I set my discarded plate on top of hers and settled back onto the couch. “I’m not a bad boy,” I said, a smirk playing the side of my mouth.
“I know.”
“And now I know that you’ve listened to my music.”
She squirmed a little on the couch. “Yes. I have.”
“I never would’ve guessed.”
She let out a sigh. “I told you I had a crush on you. How else should I prove it?”
“I don’t think you need to anymore. I believe you.” And even if it didn’t make sense, I knew that as expressive as she was, she still held some things buried beneath the surface. I couldn’t deny I wasn’t nurturing my own little crush on her. When I caught her eyeing my beer, I held it out. “Want a sip?”
Her cheeks were that pretty pink. I loved that she didn’t duck her head to hide it, that she didn’t lie about her own attraction to me. She was realer than I gave her credit for; she was only boxed in by circumstance. “Sure,” she said. She dabbed her mouth with her napkin again and gave me a soft little smile as her hand reached for my beer.
I had the urge to kiss her, stronger than I had felt before. But she was still shy, and maybe felt a little run over from what had happened earlier. When her hand clasped the bottle, I did the next best thing, I grazed my finger over the back of her hand.
“I love it when you do that,” I said just as she took the first sip.
She immediately pulled the beer back, putting her hand over her mouth as she swallowed. “What?” She reached the beer toward me.
“When I do this,” I said, taking the bottle from her with one hand and capturing hers with my other. Our hands came to a rest between us, my thumb playing over her knuckles. “That,” I said, and my voice sounded hoarse to my own ears. “There.” Her lips shuddered open a hair, her eyes went soft and heavy-lidded. Like she’d been put under some kind of spell—which was exactly the way she made me feel when I spent any length of time with her. “You’re so fucking expressive.” Why did my voice sound so raw, like the words were tangled together as they left my throat? My attraction to Hollis wasn’t just a physical reaction, it was deep, something so intrinsic to my DNA that I couldn’t decipher it for myself.
I couldn’t wait any longer. I leaned in and claimed her mouth with mine.
27
Hollis
He was doing that thing again, that thing that left me dumb and slow to speak. His hand slid through my hair and his fingers pressed into my scalp. It was as if he sparked something in me, something that lay dormant. As if he was unlocking a secret door by pressing in just the right places. Because, before I knew what came over me—before I could analyze it too deeply—I had slid from my spot on the couch to straddle his lap, the sides of my dress blanketing us as I balanced on my knees.
He made a noise in his throat that echoed into mine, a sound that spoke of hunger, of desire. It did something to me, that sound, sent my hands running up the back of his head and into his hair. I wanted to press the same buttons in him that he pressed for me, to ignite him in a way that he did for me.
He pulled away and tipped me back a hair, and I almost stopped him—so greedy I was for the connection I had only ever felt with him. But his mouth was on a journey, and its destination—after a long scenic route along my jaw and down the side of my neck—was the hollow of my collarbones, from one shoulder to the other. He nipped, he caressed, and he even licked the edge of my collarbone. I wasn’t usually so controlled by lust. In fact, I had eschewed lust for so long, knowing it’d be hard to control.
I was wrong.
It was impossible to control.
“I love this necklace.” His whisper fluttered across my skin, blowing air across the areas his mouth had sampled. “The rose.”
“They’re my favorite,” I said, without thought. I couldn’t think. Words spilled out of me like they’d been pushed to the top by others, like I was merely a container filling up too fast to contain.
“Mine too.” An echo of a memory whispered through my head, but I couldn’t pay attention to it, not when his hands were sliding up my waist to my back. His fingers curled in at where the zipper met my spine, so that his fingers replaced the fabric along my skin. “You make me think of clichés,” he said.
“Like what?” His hand swept my hair over my shoulder and his mouth moved back up the way it had come, leaving a trail of kisses along my sensitive skin in his wake.
With his fingers still looped around the back of the dress, he pressed me forward, closer and closer, until our lips touched—but we weren’t kissing. “Like how you look like some kind of wild rose right now, with your red dress and your pretty pink skin, and the shadows of your hair.” He nipped my bottom lip. “I told you I wasn’t the bad boy you’d envisioned me as.” His tongue darted out, teasing the seam of my lips. “But you make me want to do bad things.”
I nearly lost my balance then, almost fell right onto his lap. “Oh.”
He laughed, and his head fell back onto the couch. “Shit, Hollis.” His hands left my dress to drag down his face. “You and your ‘oh’ get me every time.”
My body was rapidly cooling from the heat that he’d caused my skin. “You stopped.”
He tipped his head back. “I had to. I’d have embarrassed myself right here if I didn’t.”
But I didn’t mind, and something in my face must have told him so.
“Trust me,” he said, pressing his forehead to mine and his hands on either side of my face so I couldn’t move away. “I want to. Badly. But Casey is just down the hall. And…”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh.” He laughed again, the motion echoing in his thighs that I was straddled around. “So. Not today.”
It wasn’t a no. It wasn’t a never. I’d just have to remember that. I climbed off his lap and stood, desperately needin
g to fan my face. I was warm all over, especially between my legs, and the fact that I couldn’t immediately soothe it was a unique kind of torture I had yet to experience.
“Are you okay?”
“I think so…” I pressed a hand to my face, hoping to accelerate my cooling. “I’m just warm.”
“Yeah. Me too.” He dropped a pillow on his lap and looked up at me sheepishly. “I just wanted to make sure I didn’t rush you. Or hurt you.”
“Hurt me?” I laughed, but it sounded choked. “I’m not a piece of tissue paper. I’m not fragile.”
“No,” he said, agreeing. “You’re a rose. Hardy.”
I couldn’t stand hearing him compare me to a rose. It did something to me, made me want to leap with joy and cry simultaneously. Because I knew something was different, that my attraction to him was not one-sided, that something else was blooming between us. Even though I hadn’t had enough experience to see where this could go, I knew enough to be afraid.
“Hollis.”
“Hmm?” I turned, looking at him.
“You look sad.”
I shook my head. “I’m not. It’s just…” I waved a hand vaguely in front of me. I didn’t really have the words to articulate the mess of emotions I was feeling.
“I know what you mean.”
“You do?”
“I do.”
I took a deep breath in. “Did something just change between us?”
He waited a long beat before reeling. “Not something. Everything.”
28
Hollis
“What do I even pack?” I asked nobody as I faced my still-empty duffel bag. If Tori was here, she’d rifle through my closet before concluding it was as hopeless as my dating life.
Well, she might not say it in those words, but it would be implied nonetheless.
“Hey!” Navy knocked on my open door and moseyed in before plopping onto my bed. “Not packed yet?”
“No.” I stared glumly at the duffel bag I had taken to Bolivia. There were buttons on one end of it, from all the airports I’d stopped in on my way there and back. The handles were worn from the times it’d fallen off the back of a truck and had been dragged for several feet. It was so completely opposite from the rest of my luggage, but it was my favorite.
Navy fingered one button in particular—the Peruvian flag button I had picked up. “It’s going to be really casual, if that helps? Jeans. Sweaters. It gets cold at night.”
That made me feel better. This wouldn’t be a repeat of the party where I had been doused in beer while wearing a flimsy tank. Sweaters and jeans I could do. I opened my closet and grabbed two pairs of jeans—one dark, one light.
“Hiking boots, if you’ve got ‘em. And it’s probably a good idea to dress in layers. If we go hiking, you’ll want to take your sweater off.”
I studied my closet, taking in the basic tees and dress slacks. My wardrobe was boring but functional. It didn’t require much thought to put things together. I didn’t have a ton of free time as it was, spending what little I did thinking about what to wear or how to clothe my body didn’t serve me.
“What are you worried about?” Navy asked, reading my mind.
“I don’t know what to pack.” It was such a waste of time, to even worry about this. I’d rescheduled my tutoring clients for the weekend, though there were few since school had just begun. But spending the few minutes I had free studying the LSAT book my dad had sent, angered me.
“It’s just Adam and Keane. And some other guys.”
I envied Navy’s ability to be blasé about this. Just Adam wasn’t something I could say, or believe.
The difference between this time and the last time I’d dressed with Adam in mind was significant. Before, I wasn’t sure if he even knew who I was. Now, not only did he know—or at least had some semblance of an idea of who I was—but he was my boyfriend. The basis of our relationship may be fake, but it didn’t feel fake anymore. And I felt compelled to dress somewhat nice, like a real girlfriend might. I tried not to think about the last time we’d been together, and how much I still tingled in all the places he’d touched. On occasion, I’d catch my hand drifting to my neck, to run my fingers along my collarbone. And then I’d snap right out of it.
“You don’t need to sweat this, babe.” Navy placed her hands on my shoulders. “It’s a casual weekend. I’ve packed tees, jeans, and sweaters. That’s about it.”
I took her in, the outfit she’d picked to wear to the cabin. Cut-off shorts, a black tee that said Hello Sunshine across the front in loud letters, and a long gray cardigan.
“Aren’t you going to be cold?” I asked her, eyeing the shorts.
“I’ve got leggings to change into when we get there. It’s just too hot to wear them now. What you’re wearing right now looks good.”
I looked down. Black jeans with a white v-neck that fit snug. I wore my little gold rose necklace, but otherwise I wore no other jewelry or accessories.
“Grab that cozy-looking thing,” she said, pointing to the closet. I slid the chunky knit maroon cardigan over my shoulders and pulled my hair out from under it. “Perfect.” She beamed. “Get your chucks and pack some boots and you’ll be all set.” She grabbed fuzzy socks from the top drawer of my dresser and tossed them in. When a sleep tank fell out of the drawer, realization hit me.
“What are the sleeping arrangements?”
“Oh.” Navy wrung her hands for a moment, considering. “You and Adam will probably want to bunk together.”
“Uh…“
“Any normal boyfriend and girlfriend would room together,” Navy gently reminded me, scooping the tank up and holding it out. “You don’t have to have sex, Hollis.”
I wasn’t entirely sure I didn’t want to have sex. But I knew, for certain, that I didn’t want anyone else talking about us having sex. “The implication is there, if we share a bedroom.”
“The implication will be there, since you’ve been dating for as long as you have.”
She was right. I rubbed a hand over my temple. “I’m not bringing sexy lingerie.” Not like I had any, but if I had—they were most certainly not invited. Maybe my sexy pajamas could come, though.
“Then don’t. I’ll probably room with Keane. He’s warm.”
It was sometimes hard for me to believe there were no romantic feelings between Navy and Keane. Maybe that was just because I couldn’t even reasonably talk about sharing a room with my supposed boyfriend—much less a friend. But Navy was a cuddler by nature. So what was perfectly normal for her was foreign to me. “You don’t have your eyes on any of his coworkers?”
Navy shook her head and grabbed my trusty pajamas, the ones with the faded school logo, and tossed them into the bag. “I’ll let you grab your underwear,” she said with a smile and took the shirts I’d pulled from the closet and began folding them. “And, no. I’m just not interested.” She shrugged and took my hiking boots and placed them in the handy shoe compartment section of the duffel bag. “I just like to cuddle, you know that. And Keane really is the best cuddler. No offense.”
I held up my hands. “None taken. I’m not much for cuddling myself.”
“Maybe Adam can break you from that.” She waggled an eyebrow but when I didn’t return her smile she frowned. “Are you okay with this? It’s a lot of pressure. We don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”
“I do want to go.” I pushed my hair away from my face. “We’ve already put on the performance for my parents, but I’m not sure they bought it.” But did it really matter if they had? My phone had remained silent since shit had hit the fan, which was unusual for all of us. Maybe they thought they were calling my bluff with Adam. I didn’t exactly want to prove them wrong, but I also wasn’t ashamed to spend time with him—like he was someone to be embarrassed about. I shook my head, re-folding my jeans and placing them into the bag. “But lying like this makes me feel icky. I’ve never told a lie this big. And for such a dishonorable reason.”
&n
bsp; “Oh, come here.” Navy tugged me to the bed, so I sat beside her. She took my hand in hers and squeezed it reassuringly. “On the surface, it might look dishonorable. Because it’s about money. But that money is more than just padding for your bank account. It’s freedom. It’s choice. It’s going to be used in honorable ways. You’re going to help people with it.”
But no amount of encouragement made up for the lie that was growing bigger and bigger. If I could go back, way back to when I first lied to my parents, I would. I’d change my story. I’d be brave and tell them I simply wasn’t interested in any of the guys they’d found suitable. But it was too late for all of that. “I just don’t know how I’m ever going to be able to act like a girlfriend around Adam.” My feelings felt bigger, louder than that. I couldn’t look at him the same as I had even a week earlier. So much had happened between us. Our relationship had meant to appear much further along than we normally would’ve been. But the problem was that my feelings seemed to eclipse what they were even supposed to be. He was so much better than I’d ever even imagined him to be, and it made me a little sick to think about it.
“You’re so worried about acting that you should take the acting out of the equation. How would you treat Adam if he was your real boyfriend?”
I couldn’t answer that definitively. I didn’t know what that was like. “I guess I’d hold his hand.”
“Yes, and?” She said with a nod.
“I’d kiss him from time to time.”
“Probably a lot of the time.”
I closed my eyes and slapped a hand over my face. Groaning, I said, “I don’t know why I thought I could do this. I most certainly cannot do this.” I was chickening out, when my body was telling me to shut up. This right here was why I never had any boyfriends. I couldn’t deal with the indecision, the way my body and my mind fought against one another.
One Little Lie: a hate to love rom-com Page 25
