I rolled my eyes. Morons.
Scott started rummaging through his backpack while I surveyed the room. Poor Brian. He was the neat and organized type, while Scott and Jorge were … not. Brian’s suitcase was zipped up and tucked away in the corner, while the contents of Scott’s and Jorge’s suitcases appeared to have been the victims of a minor in-room tornado. Shirts, jeans, and boxers were strewn all over one of the beds, the night table and the chair in the corner. A lone black sock dangled from the lamp. Crumpled receipts and gum wrappers littered the carpet, no doubt pulled from pockets and mindlessly released as if the floor was some sort of trash-eating void. (I’d witnessed them do this many times.)
The other bed, the one closest to me, was covered in sticks, mallets, and triangle beaters, all neatly organized by type and size. Behind me, a wad of hand towels sat on top of the wardrobe that held the TV. They seemed to be wrapped around something. I did not want to know what that something was.
I heard a yell of despair through the wall, followed by triumphant laughter. I wondered if Christina was hanging out with them.
“Here, hold out your hands.”
I turned to find Scott right behind me. Eyeing him suspiciously, I held my hands out, palms up. “Not really in the mood for the hand-slap game, just so you know.”
He smiled, peeling off the bandage on my right hand, then my left. It was that same weird little smile from earlier. I watched as he squeezed gel from a little tube into both my palms. “This stuff is amazing,” he informed me. “My mom orders it online.”
Scott tossed the tube and bandages onto the floor—I mean, into the magic trash void—then cupped his hands under mine and started very, very gently rubbing the gel into my palms with his thumbs. All thoughts of Brian and Christina flew out of my mind.
What was happening right now.
I stared at Scott, completely caught off guard. The gel was minty and cool on my aching cuts, and his hands were warm and his fingers were just as callousy as mine, and what even was happening right now.
“Um.” I struggled to keep my tone even. “Thanks?”
Scott shrugged again, keeping his eyes on my hands. “Sure.” His thumbs stopped moving for a second. I held my breath. “Sorry about your solo,” he said. “I know you’d’ve done better if it wasn’t for this.” He resumed the thumb massage, and I exhaled.
“So are you finally going to apologize for making me play with scalpels?”
“I didn’t make you.”
“You took my mallets.”
“Which is not the same as putting scalpels in your hands.”
“What else was I going to use?”
“How about anything but knives?” He was laughing, and I tried not to smile because I could tell he was messing with me. And sure enough, a few seconds later: “Fine. I’m sorry. Okay?”
“Thank you.” I injected as much weariness into those two words as possible. It wasn’t very effective, though. Because now that I’d finally gotten my apology, my full attention was back on the thumb massage, which was making me feel many things that weren’t remotely weary. I wondered briefly if he’d used this move on that senior from Bishop last year. Then I decided I didn’t care.
“I’m going to be useless at Halo,” I heard myself say. “It’s not like I can really hold the controller.”
Scott was quiet for a few seconds. “Hmm. So … wanna hang out in here for a while?”
“Guess so.”
I moved closer, just a little, ignoring the voice in my head saying, No, seriously, Phoebe, what the actual hell are you doing? Then the voice shut right up, because kissing. Kissing was happening now.
Very soft, tentative kissing, which was amazing for about two seconds until it freaked me right out because soft and tentative were two words I’d never associated with Scott. Or myself, for that matter.
Screw that.
I grabbed his shirt and yanked him closer with probably more force than necessary. He seemed briefly taken aback, then responded so eagerly I bumped into the wardrobe. He kissed me harder, and his hands slid up my waist just as the giant mystery wad of damp towels fell and hit my head. I gasped at the shock of cool liquid running down my neck.
“What the—” Then the scent of spice and pine trees hit me so hard I nearly gagged. Scott stepped back, and we both looked down at the now-empty bottle of Jorge’s cologne by our feet, surrounded by the hand towels. I grimaced, running my hands through my sticky hair. “Why the hell was that up there?”
“It broke in his suitcase,” Scott said, as if that were a perfectly logical reason to wrap it in towels and set it precariously on top of a wardrobe.
“Whatever.” I paused for a second. I’d fooled around with precisely two guys before but never in a hotel room. Never in a situation where it could really escalate. Not that it had to escalate.
Maybe I wanted it to escalate, though.
Maybe I needed to stop thinking and start kissing again.
So I moved in, but after a moment Scott pulled away. “What?” I asked, trying not to sound freaked out. Was he reconsidering now? Was he backing out?
“Nothing, just …” He squinted at me. “It’s kind of weird doing this when you smell like Jorge.”
“Oh. Well … get over it?”
Scott blinked a few times. “Okay.”
Easy.
Nothing tentative about his mouth this time. My hands were still too tender to be useful, but my fingers danced lightly along the back of his neck and pulled at his hair a little. Which was apparently appreciated, judging from various audible reactions. And one increasingly prominent physical reaction, which, hello, this was new territory for me. He pulled me back a few steps—or maybe I pushed him forward?—and before I could decide whether or not I really wanted to, we’d toppled onto the bed.
I had this panicky moment of Oh my god, you’re on top of a guy, watch your knees, Phoebe, CAREFUL WITH YOUR KNEES! as he wriggled back toward the headboard. Then his hands squeezed my elbows, and he gasped. “Stop!”
“What?!” I thought for sure I’d accidentally kneed him in the groin anyway. Then I sat up and realized we were on the wrong bed. The one covered with sticks and mallets. Scott’s eyes were bugged out in … not pain, exactly. More like Extreme Surprise. “What’s wrong?”
“Triangle beater! It’s … ah …”
Arching his back, he pushed away a bunch of sticks and a gong mallet from under his butt, then shoved his hand down the back of his jeans.
Horrified, I scrambled off the bed, slipping on several sets of timpani mallets. I backed into the shelf and my elbow knocked over the coffeepot. “Sharks!” I whirled around and barely caught the pot before it hit the floor. But not before the lid flipped open, sloshing the entire pot’s worth of Mountain Dew coffee all down my front.
I straightened up slowly, shaken, and turned to face Scott. We stared at each other. Him, sitting awkwardly on a pile of sticks, the freed triangle beater in one hand while his other held the gong mallet over his lap in a pretty ridiculous position, given the circumstances. Me, my hair sticky with cologne, empty pot in my hands, my shirt and jeans soaking wet and stained a color Crayola would probably call Toxic Sludge.
His lips were twitching like he wanted to laugh but was waiting to see if I did, too. And I did, because this was beyond ridiculous and I could feel coffee seeping into my underwear and oh my god what would Brian say if he knew where that triangle beater had been, and before I knew it I was slumped against the wall, laughing so hard my sides hurt.
Scott cracked up, too, and when he clumsily scooted off the bed and knocked a bunch of sticks to the floor in a clatter, it only made us laugh harder. Then he knelt down next to me and took the coffeepot from my hands, and I had the sudden, horrifying realization that I was about to cry. And not tears-from-laughter crying. Tears-from-confusion-and-regret-and-humiliation, what-the-hell-am-I-even-doing crying. Girl crying.
No way could I let Scott see this.
I shot to my
feet so fast I got a head rush. “Okay. Yeah. I’m gonna go back to my room.”
“Wait, Phoebe …” Scott stood, too, still holding the coffeepot. “Are you okay?”
“Of course!” I faced him, lips pressed together, trying to keep the tears back through sheer force of will. “I mean, I could use a shower. But otherwise, fanfreakingtastic.” Definitely not about to bawl my eyes out. I’m not one of those girls.
“Right.” Scott smiled a little. “But are you— Will you come back?”
I exhaled slowly. “I don’t know. I mean, this wasn’t … It didn’t mean anything, right? Why’d you even ask me up here?”
His smile faltered, and I felt a twinge of guilt. “I don’t know. Because you looked really upset when the solo results went up, and I … I felt bad.”
“Yeah, I was upset.” I shrugged and attempted a good-natured grin. “So we fooled around because we both felt sorry for me. Ha.”
“Phoebe, hang on—”
“It’s fine!” I called, already halfway to the door. “Seriously, no worries. See you later, okay?” The door clicked closed before he could respond. I hurried down the hall, reeking of cologne and stale, too-sweet coffee. A tear rolled down my cheek, and I barely made it back to my thankfully empty room before losing it completely.
I didn’t go to the costume contest. Not because I didn’t want to see Merry win—and obviously they’d win—but because my brain was full to overflowing with what Callie had said about me and Soleil in the ice room, and there was no space left for anything else. Not costumes, not Merry, and definitely not crowds. So after Callie left, I went straight back to the hotel room. I called my mom, because I’d promised to do that at least once a day so she’d know I hadn’t been murdered by an internet creeper. Then I changed into my bathing suit and headed for the pool. And, joy of joys, there was a hot tub! I climbed in. And I asked myself a very serious question:
Did I have the guts to make the first move on Soleil?
The answer, terrifyingly, was yes.
Yes because it had to be yes; I was willing to bet that she and Dave had done plenty of kissing, and even though I totally-definitely-one-hundred-percent wasn’t jealous of him, I couldn’t let him keep all that Soleil-kissing for himself. Yes because being together with someone meant stepping out of your shy-little-wallflower comfort zone; years and years of reading first-kiss fanfic had already taught me that much. And yes because, as Callie had said, we were already a couple, so what did I have to lose?
Problem was, I had no idea how in the world you were actually supposed to go about making that kind of move. My characters were always so good at it, but actual real-life me …?
When my hands started turning pruney in the hot tub, I went back to the hotel room, pulled up FicForAll on my laptop, and started reading through my own stories. And Soleil’s stories. And the one we’d written together. I skipped right to the kissing scenes in each one, and I studied all the descriptions we’d written of the characters’ body language. It was all pretty vague stuff, like moving closer and leaning in and drawn together like magnets. Not helpful at all.
Except maybe it was. All those descriptions implied characters who were just so into each other that they couldn’t help getting up in each other’s faces, so hey, maybe that was the answer. Maybe I had to stop overthinking it and just follow my instincts.
When Soleil got back that night, I was lying on my stomach, reading the FicForAll message boards on my laptop—specifically, looking at all Soleil’s old posts, filling my head with everything I liked about her in anticipation of the First Real-Life Kiss that was about to happen. I’d spent the past hour or so, ever since the pool had closed, scrolling back through every message StraightFlush had ever left. The initial incident was exactly as Merry had described it: some guy being all homophobic about her fanfic, and Soleil generally being a rock-star badass as she put the guy in his place.
“Oh, Nessie.” Soleil sat beside me and put her hand on my back, right below my neck. Eeee. “I really wish you could’ve come had drinkies with me. Those girls are so cool, and Danielle and I had such a great conversation about ‘Carry Me Home.’ You would’ve loved it. Hey, whatcha reading?”
Kiss kiss kiss, I thought, twisting around to stare at her lips. This was supposed to be easy. It was always so easy in our stories. Okay. Relax. Stop overthinking. Just do it.
“Nessie?” She leaned over me to read my screen, and her hand was still on my back, and I wanted her to leave it there forever.
Then I remembered she’d asked me a question.
“Oh!” I said. “I’m, ah, catching up on FicForAll. Hey, did you see that StraightFlush douchebag is back? He’s harassing a different Five/Seven shipper now.”
I pulled up the page in question, and Soleil frowned down at it. “Yeah, of course I saw. I wrote a post about it last week. It got, like, a million hits.”
“Oh, I guess I didn’t see it yet.”
“That’s fine,” she said. “It’s the same stupid stuff as last time. You don’t have to read it. You’ve heard all my rants already.”
“Sure, but I’ll definitely read it anyway. Just not right now.” I shut my laptop and sat up to face her, all beautiful and confident and way more relaxed than me. She smelled like perfume and alcohol.
Kiss her, I told myself, because it needed to happen, and it needed to happen now.
Kiss her, I thought, and didn’t move.
“Uh, Nessie?” said Soleil, frowning at me. “Something up? You look like you’re about to puke.”
And, okay, that was almost exactly what Seven had said to Five in “Carry Me Home,” when Five had decided to tell Seven how he felt but couldn’t figure out the right way to do it. If that wasn’t a sign, I didn’t know what was.
I leaned forward, and I put my hand on her cheek to keep her right where she was, and … I kissed her. We were kissing. Oh my god oh my god oh my god.
And then—then we weren’t kissing anymore. And Soleil was giggling. It was almost identical to how my mom giggled after she’d had a couple glasses of wine.
“Aw, Nessie!” she said, patting my cheek as she leaned back. “Guess I’m not the only one who had a few drinkies tonight, huh?”
“Whuh?” I said dully, all kiss-dazed and stupid and, just, Soleil, Soleil, Soleil. I’d kissed Soleil. I’d broken the seal, and now we’d move on to the real kissing, with tongue and teeth and hands in each other’s hair, which was totally terrifying in the best possible way, and I was ready. I was so infinitely ready.
Except—that drinkies comment. What was that supposed to mean?
She leaned in again, just for a second, and gave me another peck on the lips. Not a real kiss, like the one I’d just given her. More like the kind my weird aunt Rosa gave me whenever she came over. It even ended with a “Mwah!” sound. And then she stood up and stretched her arms over her head, yawning broadly. “God, I’m beat.”
Okay, I was definitely missing something.
“Um,” I said slowly, hesitantly. “Um, sorry, but—”
“Oh my god, don’t apologize,” Soleil said with another giggle, as she pulled her hair back and wrapped an elastic band around it. “I get super cuddly when I’m drunk, too. Just ask Dave. God, just ask Dave’s roommates. Just ask my roommates. The things you learn about yourself in college, right?”
“But—but I’m not—”
“Ooh, right, right, you’re not in college yet,” she said, pulling her shirt off over her head. “Whatever. You’ll see when you get there.”
“Not that.” I took a deep breath. “I was gonna say I’m not drunk.”
Soleil paused, T-shirt crumpled awkwardly in her hands. She was wearing the cutest polka-dot bra underneath, and I tried not to stare at it. Or at, you know, her boobs. She stared at me plenty, though. But not sexy staring. Staring like she was trying to figure out what I meant.
“I’m completely sober,” I said, even though, duh. “I’m not … what you said … I’m not getting c
uddly because I’m drunk. I’m … I mean we’re …” I gestured from her to me and back again. “Aren’t we?”
As soon as I asked the question, I immediately wished that I hadn’t. Because I could see the answer in the confusion on her face. Followed by the surprise. And then the … whatever that was. The little smile and the softening in her eyes as she sat back down on the bed with me.
“Aren’t we what?” she asked in this really soft, really serious voice.
Oh god, did she actually want me to say it, now that I knew I was wrong? Except—wait—how could I have been wrong? All those emails, all those texts, all those message board posts, out there in the open for anyone with a FicForAll account to see. Over and over again, the same two words.
I made myself say them again now: “Internet girlfriends.”
Soleil’s smile brightened, and she looked almost relieved. “Well, obviously we are! But that doesn’t mean— Oh. Ohhhhh.” Her eyes widened, and she actually pressed a hand to her mouth for a second. “Oh, Nessie, no. I never meant—like not—not in real life …”
Not in real life.
My throat was made of concrete. I was about to suffocate and die and, let’s face it, that would probably be for the best.
“I’m so sorry if I made you think that,” she went on, “but I say that all the time! The girlfriend thing. Julie’s my concert girlfriend. Yvette’s my French class girlfriend. Anna’s my gym girlfriend.” She bumped my shoulder with hers. “And Nessie’s my internet girlfriend. You get me?”
Oh my god. Oh my god.
“But … you were all flirty and … and I know you have that boyfriend, but you keep talking about how monogamy is stupid, and …”
“That’s just so Dave and I can make out with whoever we want at parties,” said Soleil. “We don’t, like, actually date other people.”
She didn’t date other people. She wasn’t dating me. And here I was, thinking I’d been in a long-distance relationship for the past four months.
I was the stupidest person alive.
“Hey, Nessie. Sweetie. You okay?” She tried to slip an arm around my shoulders, but I shied away and, thankfully, she took the hint. “Okay, well, listen, we don’t have to talk about it, if you don’t want. We can just pretend it never happened. Okay?”
The Pros of Cons Page 10
