I finished my lunch, told Nathan I’d see him later, and headed back to Sports 2 Go. A bunch of us were going to Lindsay’s Halloween party later that night and Nathan had agreed to play chauffeur. His dad was all right about letting him use the car as long as he approved of who Nathan was with and where he was going and let me tell you, there wasn’t a parent on earth who could object to a party thrown by Lindsay. The event was bound to be composed of board games, finger foods, and a prize for best costume.
Anybody will tell you that I don’t do costumes. Even the coolest costume, in my opinion, is too lame for words. Bobbing for apples, which had a high likelihood of occurring at the party by virtue of Lindsay being Lindsay and not knowing any better, was worse. My only hope for the party was that Sasha and I could relax a little.
Sasha, of course, was really into the costume idea and that was part of what I liked about her. She’d tolerate bobbing for apples for Lindsay’s sake, but she was genuinely excited about dressing up like someone else for the night. She was so cute about it; she wouldn’t even tell me who or what she was going as. I had to wait until she climbed into Nathan’s car, black streaks in her hair and her body cloaked in a ridiculously long trench coat that covered her ankles.
“I thought you said you were going to wear a costume,” she said, eyeing my clothes.
“No, you said I should wear a costume.” I was wearing a gray crewneck sweater over a white T-shirt and the same jeans I’d worn the day before.
Nathan shot a look over his shoulder and said, “Come on, Sasha. Don’t you know Nick is too cool for costumes?”
“You too?” Sasha asked. It was a fair question considering the fact that Nathan was wearing a red hoodie and old jeans.
“In there.” Nathan motioned to the plastic bag next to Sasha in the backseat. She reached in and pulled out a bald wig. “Instant Moby,” he explained.
“Smart,” I told him. “Wish I thought of it.” I peered at Sasha in the backseat. “So who are you? Or do we have to wait until we get there?” She smiled, unbuttoned her jacket, and wriggled out of the trench coat, revealing this sexy as hell Gothic top, tied all down the front. Her breasts were nearly popping out of it and her belly button peeked out from the bottom. A long cross dangled from the black velvet choker around her neck. I couldn’t quit fixating on her matching black skirt, slit all the way up to her thigh to reveal a gorgeous bare leg.
“Maiden of darkness,” she announced. “What do you think?”
“Man.” I held my breath as I grinned at her. “You look incredible.” Did I say costumes are lame? I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about.
We picked up Yasmin next and she insisted on showing off her cat costume, tail and everything. The lumpy Lycra bodysuit and thick purple eye shadow gave me scary visions of what the party was going to be like, but there were no apples in Lindsay’s basement after all. A girl dressed as a Hershey’s Kiss and some guy in a mask were playing with a Ouija board, though, and Lindsay was walking around with a deck of tarot cards. She dragged me over to the leather couch and made me shuffle. I watched her deal and then listened to her feed me some bullshit about unexpected financial gains and an approaching betrayal. I had to pretend to be interested in what she was saying because I knew she was still trying to get over hating me.
“Sasha said you wouldn’t wear a costume,” she said, wrinkling her nose.
“I don’t look good in them,” I said apologetically. Lindsay was a nice person; it wasn’t her fault she couldn’t throw a decent party.
Yasmin bounced over and asked to have her cards read and I went to check out Lindsay’s CDs. Four of them were stacked on top of the stereo with Halloween Mix printed on the labels. “SOS” was playing. According to Lindsay’s bubbly handwriting, the Pussycat Dolls were next and then Pink’s “Get the Party Started.” In fact, it didn’t look like the music would improve anytime soon.
Nathan had already slipped his bald Moby head on and was making the best of it, dancing around with his hands in the air. I grabbed a can of soda and hung out in the corner, scanning the room for Sasha.
Jeremy Eastman, in gray dress pants and wearing a humungous class ring, cocked his head and pulled a bottle out of his burgundy blazer. “Party booster?”
I nodded, gulped down more soda to make room for the gin, and then poured a shot’s worth into my can. Sasha bounded over to us and grabbed me around the waist. “Dance with me,” she said. I followed her across the room and danced to Lindsay’s crappy Halloween Mix until I was dehydrated. Jeremy seemed to have the only supply of alcohol and everyone kept sidling up to him for party boosters, even Lindsay.
Sasha and I sat on the couch with our doctored sodas. I had my arm around her and she was cuddling up to me, looking content. I wished we could sit there all night—even though my eyes were starting to water and my arms were beginning to itch. I rubbed my eyes with my other hand, determined not to disturb Sasha. “Are you having a good time?” she asked.
“With you,” I said honestly. “Yeah.”
She lifted her head and kissed me on the mouth. It started off very sweetly. Like a first kiss when you don’t plan on anything else happening. But we’d been alone so rarely lately that even kissing had been limited and soon that kiss began to remind our bodies of something else. Before I knew it, we were making out on the couch, Sasha’s hand flat against my back under my T-shirt, barely aware that we were in the middle of a Halloween party.
Then someone nudged my shoulder, reminding me. I looked up and saw Lindsay’s mom staring back at me from halfway down the stairs. Sasha saw her too. She stood there long enough for us to get the message and then turned and went back upstairs.
“God.” Sasha groaned. “A kiss, big deal.”
My eyes were worse by then and I went at them with both hands, although everyone knows the last thing you’re supposed to do with an itch is scratch. “I’m allergic to Yasmin,” I complained. “I’ll have to go.”
“Uh-oh.” Sasha examined my eyes and pressed her lips together. “Lindsay’s cat. He’s upstairs, though.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I said, pulling up my sleeve to inspect the growing collection of hives creeping up my arm. “Its fur is probably all over the place.”
“I didn’t think about that.” Sasha ran her fingers over my exposed arm. “Do you have any medication for it?” I shook my head. “We should go outside for a while,” she said decisively, pulling down my sleeve. She rushed over to confer with Lindsay, who went upstairs to get our coats.
Sasha and I sat on the porch swing, watching our own breath. It was so cold that it wouldn’t have surprised me if it started to snow. “It’s freezing,” she said, her teeth chattering away. “It feels like January.”
“Well, get closer.” I folded her into my arms and kissed her cheek.
“You know this is the most alone we’ve been in weeks,” she said, hugging me back.
“I know.”
“So is it safe?” She pulled away and looked into my eyes. “Can we be alone together without anything happening?”
“Of course it’s safe.” I laced my fingers through hers. “I know things have been weird and I hate it. I just want to go back to the way things were before. Do you think we can do that?”
“I don’t know.” She rocked the swing. “It’s different, isn’t it?”
“Only if we let it be.”
“Maybe, but…” The wind blew between us, tossing Sasha’s hair forward so that I couldn’t see her face. “I think…” The sentence hung there ominously in the breeze. I was terrified that she was going to break up with me.
“What?” I asked.
She pushed the hair out of her eyes and kissed me again. Her tongue was colder than mine. I curved my hand around her neck and kissed her back. I wasn’t gentle this time. I could tell that wasn’t the way she wanted it.
“What?” I repeated when we came up for air. The curiosity was warming me from the inside. I needed to know what she was going
to say.
“My parents aren’t home,” she began. “They’re in Pickering for my aunt’s Halloween thing and they won’t be home for ages. Peter’s there too. Everyone’s there. All my uncles and aunts. They do it every year.” Her words were spilling out fast and that made me nervous again. “The only reason my parents didn’t make me go was because I was coming here and you know how they trust Lindsay.” I nodded quickly. “And I didn’t tell you before because I thought maybe we’d end up over there alone and I wasn’t sure I wanted that to happen.” Sasha pressed her hair back behind her ears and touched my knee.
“It’s okay,” I told her. “I get why you didn’t say anything, but I don’t want you to worry about that stuff. It’s like what you said before about being on opposite sides and I don’t want that. I just want us to be us.”
“Okay, I’m glad.”
“But,” I prompted. That unfinished sentence from before was still twisting in the wind. I could feel it the way I’d felt her disappointment that day in English class.
“But,” she repeated, sitting up straighter, “I want you to come back to my house with me.”
I leaned forward, sitting on my hands. “Now?”
“Yeah.”
“Like as a test or something?”
“No.” Her voice sounded small but clear. “Not really.”
“So.” She was really freaking me out. “What exactly do you want?” The hair on the back of my neck was standing up. I hadn’t noticed that before.
“Just to see what happens.” She clasped her hands together, rested them on my knees, and added, “We don’t have to. It was just an idea.”
“Okay,” I said slowly. My mind had isolated the idea and was scrutinizing it from every possible angle. It didn’t realize that I’d already agreed. “If that’s what you want.”
We made a production of reappearing in the basement and Sasha and Lindsay did some more intense deliberating in the corner. Lindsay kept looking over at me, pursing her lips just like her mother had on the stairs. I wanted to go over, spread the tarot cards out in front of her, and say: “A good friend will dismiss your advice and you won’t be able to do anything about it.”
There were enough people at the party to disguise the fact that we’d left, but Lindsay had instructions to call us if her mother happened to notice our absence. Then I’d race back, using the allergies as an excuse for being outside, and Nathan would swear he’d driven Sasha home earlier. When we left, Nathan was talking to Jeremy Eastman and I had to interrupt them to tell him the plan. I hated to do it because they were probably discussing GSA business, but I didn’t have much choice. We couldn’t afford to leave any loose ends.
Sasha’s house was only a fifteen-minute walk away and neither of us said much. I held her hand and tried to talk myself out of the anxiety rushing through my veins. Some nerves are good. Like before a game when they get the adrenaline pumping. Other nerves refuse to work with you. They demand to be in control. They ruin everything and think it’s funny. Ha Ha Ha. Look what happened to Nick. I couldn’t afford those kind of nerves.
Sasha hung our coats in the front closet and said, “They won’t be back for hours. Come upstairs.” I followed her up to her room; of course I followed her. Who can resist a maiden of darkness? I did what I’d been wanting to do all night, I snaked my hand inside her skirt and touched her bare leg. The only thing she had on under that skirt was silky underwear and I touched that too. She stepped out of the skirt and looked at me. Ha Ha Ha. Instant hard-on.
Sasha noticed it right away. She unzipped my jeans and started touching me. She knew what she was doing. I tried to clear my head to make it last awhile, but I knew it wouldn’t work so I put my hand down her underwear and touched her too. I hoped that’s where we were going. Only there. I could do that.
Then Sasha said, “Do you want to try again?”
I stopped what I was doing and stared into her serious brown eyes. Yeah, of course I did. I was programmed for it, right? But my throat was vibrating and I couldn’t breathe.
“Nick, do you want to?” Sasha repeated, and then I realized I hadn’t answered, that I was standing in the middle of her bedroom, debating it in my head.
“I’m not sure it’s a good idea,” I said honestly. “I don’t want it to turn out like last time.”
“I know,” she said. “And it’s not going to be perfect, so if that’s what you’re thinking, then we shouldn’t.” What I was thinking was like an equation that I didn’t understand. Also that I wanted to take off Sasha’s underwear, lay her back on the bed, and kiss her somewhere new. My stomach flipped into my throat just thinking about it. “But it’s like I have last time stuck in my head,” she went on. “And now it seems like we’re spending all our time avoiding this one thing and if we could just get it over with…”
“Imperfectly?” It was an effort to say that. Standing in front of her was an effort. I had no idea she’d been feeling like that.
“Imperfectly.” She fiddled with her top. “But only if you want to.” She sat down on the bed, pulled her knees up to her chin, and smiled nervously up at me.
“But I don’t have anything on me.” I grabbed my pockets as though that explained everything.
“Lindsay swiped some condoms from her brother’s room for me,” she said, smiling into her knee. “You know, you’re making me really nervous standing there like that.”
The hair on the back of my neck was standing at attention again. Either I was about to get hit by lightning or we were going to do it. I sat on the bed next to her and ran my hand up her bare leg. We kissed fast and hard. I pulled her top off over her head and touched her everywhere. I wasn’t thinking anymore. I wasn’t going to stop and say we shouldn’t.
Sasha tugged off my clothes. She reached into her purse, pulled out a condom, and held it in the space between us like she was holding her breath. I reached out and took it.
“Hey,” she cried, flipping my arm over. “You’re cured.”
And sure enough, no more hives. I rolled the condom on and kissed her. She grabbed my hair and wrapped her legs around me and I didn’t feel sick. I didn’t feel anything except what we were doing.
“It might hurt less if you’re in control,” I said. “Why don’t you get on top?” I didn’t want to hurt her. That’s what had ruined things the first time.
“I don’t know what to do up there,” Sasha protested.
“Right,” I said, smiling. “Like I do.”
“Okay, but help me,” she said, climbing on top of me.
So I did. We did it together. And it wasn’t perfect, but it was good. Her bed started squeaking and it made us laugh. Afterwards we wrapped our arms around each other and Sasha said, “That was nice. Can we consider that our first time?”
We could do anything. She was perfect, that girl. “Absolutely,” I whispered into her hair. Her nipples were hard against my chest. I couldn’t remember the last time I felt so happy.
Toby was lying face-first on the floor. I pointed him out to Sasha and she said, “He must’ve fallen off was when the bed was shaking.” I grinned when she said that. It killed me that we’d made the bed shake.
We dove under the covers and lay there making out and talking. Sasha made me admit that I thought Lindsay’s party was boring. “I knew it,” she cried. “I knew you’d think that.”
“Her parents were home, Sasha. And Yasmin was dressed as a cat.”
Sasha snorted and licked the bit of skin between my nostrils. It was gross and funny at the same time. “You’re such a snob sometimes,” she said. “You complain about everybody at school being cliquey, but you want everybody to live up to your idea of cool.”
“I can’t help it if people look up to me as a model of coolness,” I cracked.
She took a swipe at my nose again and I groaned and fought back. Nude wrestling in Sasha Jasinski’s bed. Man, life is weird. I grabbed for her right hand and pressed it between my palms. I loved how her tiny hand made mine loo
k freakishly enormous.
“Hey, I can’t believe Lindsay stole condoms for you,” I said suddenly. “I love her for it, but Lindsay! I thought I was on her hit list.”
“She’s a good friend—even when she doesn’t agree with what I’m doing.” Sasha poked my stomach, threatening to start the battle over again.
Okay, so I owed her brother one. And Nathan and Lindsay for covering for us. I owed Sasha’s parents big time. Maybe I could send them a thank-you card with a big bouquet on the front. Thank you, Mr. & Mrs. Jasinski, for giving Sasha the opportunity to get on top. You have no idea how much I appreciate it. Love and kisses, Nick.
Man, I was giddy. It was a natural high, lying in Sasha’s bed. I knew I wouldn’t come down all night, that I’d be lying in bed at home, thinking about her, and knowing that made it easier to put my clothes on when she said, “You should probably go soon. They might not be home for a while, but I don’t want to cut it too close.”
Got it. Whatever she wanted me to do. Whenever. Wherever. That stupid Shakira song from Lindsay’s Halloween Mix was playing inside my head and it didn’t sound half bad.
My cell phone was dead so Sasha lent me hers for the walk home. She was paranoid that some badasses would jump me along the way. Courtland was pretty quiet, but weird shit happened on Halloween. Last year someone’s dog got shot in its own backyard. The year before three guys threw a fourteen-year-old girl into their car and told her to take her clothes off, but the cops showed up while she was doing it. Some people are seriously fucked up, but I knew nothing bad could happen to me that night.
“I want you to keep talking to me until you get home,” Sasha insisted. “That way I’ll know you’re okay.”
Whenever. Wherever. It took me nearly half an hour to walk home and we talked the entire time. I got so used to having her there in my ear that I didn’t want to tell her I was home yet and when I said that, she laughed into the phone. “You’re so sweet,” she said. And you know, at that moment it was the truth. I felt like the newest person on the planet, more innocent than Lindsay, more innocent than anyone. I almost felt like bobbing for apples and singing along to Rihanna.
I Know It's Over Page 10
