Velvet

by Temple West

  “We’ve been back here for a grand total of two minutes.”

  “So?” I scoffed. “I hear it doesn’t take long for some people. Pigs,” I muttered with an disgusted shake of my head. I got dizzy and planted my nose on his clavicle. “That’s not love, that’s just sex.” And then the fact that I’d never, in fact, had sex, nor had I been in love, made me consider that it was possible I had no idea what I was talking about. “Maybe,” I amended. “Maybe they’re pigs. I dunno.” I looked up at him. “Do you think you can do it in two minutes?”

  “Okay,” he said, flushing even in the faint light. “Time to go find Trish.”

  “Adrian,” I said, suddenly desperate that he know the truth. “I didn’t decide to be a vampire. I just didn’t have a costume.” I tugged at the cloak until it slid to the floor, then looked down and kicked off my heels. “I think this makes me look stupid,” I mumbled, staring at my feet. “I think this makes me look really stupid.”

  My eyes watered as I tried to burn a hole in the floor just by staring at it; one big enough for me to fall through and disappear and go home. I was miserable. I thought being drunk was supposed to make you happy, but it didn’t, it made you miserable, and sad. I hiccuped awkwardly and looked up at him. “It’s not a cloak, it’s my mom’s…” I trailed off, momentarily forgetting what I was talking about. I caught sight of it again in a puddle on the floor and bent to pick it up, latching on to Adrian’s pants to keep me upright. I stood and held it in front of me. “It’s my mom’s quilt. It’s not a cape.” I looked up at him, as though the coming information was still surprising. “She died. Eleven—” I interrupted myself with a hiccup. “Eleven days ago.”

  And I didn’t feel like standing anymore, so I let my knees buckle, but Adrian caught me. After a moment, I put my arms around his neck and hugged him because I wanted to, because he was there, because he was warm, and for once the anger was gone and I was just wholly, completely sad.

  “You’re a good guy,” I mumbled.

  Before he could reply, the door burst open and a couple staggered in, completely oblivious to Adrian and me as they tottered over to a couch and did … stuff. Using one hand to prop me up, Adrian reached into his pirate pants and pulled out his phone, checking it.

  “It’s one thirty. You want to go home?”

  I looked up at him and frowned. “I don’t have a home. The ranch is not my home.” It was very important that he understand that.

  He nodded. “Do you want to go back to your aunt and uncle’s?”

  I flopped my face back on his chest. “I can’t. I told them I was spending the night at Trish’s. I can’t go back looking like this.”

  Adrian smiled with the corner of his mouth, and it was adorable. “No,” he said. “I suppose you can’t.”

  “Trish won’t want to go. She’s having a good time. I don’t want to make her leave because of me.”

  “Do you want to stay?”

  I looked back up at him, miserable and dizzy. “No.”

  “Come on.” He handed me my shoes and led me out the door and back into the party. Despite my paranoia, nobody paid any attention to us since truth or dare was still going on and apparently some of the girls had agreed to interesting dares.

  I stopped abruptly in the middle of the crowd. “What about Trish?” In my inebriated state, it sounded more like “Trissssssh.”

  He glanced through the horde, but neither of us could spot her. “Text her that I’ll bring you over before her parents are awake.”

  I thought about it a second. I didn’t want to stay. I couldn’t go to the ranch. I couldn’t go to Trish’s. “Where are we going?”

  He smiled with the corner of his mouth again. “My home.”

  Little warning bells dinged loudly in my head. Or maybe that was the headache. “Won’t your parents wonder about you bringing me home so late? Dressed like this?” I clutched my cloak around my shoulders and shivered like a crazy old cat lady.

  “First of all, I live with my aunt and uncle,” he explained. “Second, we don’t even have to see them; there’s a balcony connected to my room and we can get in through there. But they wouldn’t mind either way.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  “Caitlin,” he said, crouching down to make eye contact. “I won’t take you anywhere you don’t want to go.”

  I searched his face. He wasn’t lying. At least he didn’t seem like he was lying. I honestly don’t think there was a way I would have known at that point, but his face looked like one of those sincere, non-lying faces.

  I nodded. “Okay.”

  We slipped out the barn doors. I grabbed his arm so I didn’t fall into the man-size potholes littering the dirt-and-gravel parking lot. He didn’t seem to mind. Once we got to his bike, it occurred to both of us that I was wearing a dress.

  “Hmm,” I said, contemplating the logistics. “This will work. Just don’t be staring at my business.”

  Holding on to him, I hiked my dress up and swung my leg over, the fabric bunched up to my thighs, the leather of the seat freezing against my skin. Adrian grabbed his coat from one of the saddlebags and put it over my shoulders.

  “Won’t you be cold?” I asked, already shivering.

  “I’ll be fine. I’m just worried about you. I forgot to factor in the whole”—he looked at my legs—“dress issue.”

  “I’m fine if you’re fine.”

  He stared at my legs again. “I’m fine.”

  I shivered, waiting for him to get on the bike.

  He cleared his throat. “Right.”

  I shoved my helmet on (did he always carry around a spare helmet?) and slid my arms around his waist.

  It felt a lot different when he wasn’t wearing a jacket.

  Adrian had very nice abs.

  I poked them just to make sure they were real, and he turned around to look at me strangely. I decided to stop poking him.

  The headlight cut through the night as the Harley revved away from the barn, the beat of the music fading quickly behind us. We picked up speed until I was sure we were breaking the limit by a good twenty or thirty miles, or maybe it just felt like that because my eyes couldn’t focus on anything.

  God, it was cold.

  My arms were fine because of the cloak and Adrian’s jacket, and my face was fine because it was completely covered by the helmet, but my legs felt like they were being whipped with lashes made of ice. Overhead, the moon shone brightly through a few clouds and cast the road ahead into odd shadows, making the whole strange night even more bizarre. The woods on either side of the road were like zippers pulling closed behind us. If we didn’t go fast enough we’d get eaten up in their teeth, crushed in cold leaves made of metal.

  Sometime later, the silence hit me, and I realized we’d stopped. Adrian pulled his gloves off and put his hands over mine, presumably to warm them up. We sat like that for a while until I could move my fingers, then Adrian stood, removing his helmet. Still numb, I shoved my helmet off, too, and let it drop to the ground.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled.

  He didn’t say anything, just lifted me off the bike like I was a child. He carried me up some stairs, through a door, and into a warm, dark room where he set me down. I immediately curled into a ball and shivered while he closed the balcony door, then rustled through some drawers.

  “Caitlin,” he murmured a moment later, placing a hand on my arm. “When you can move, put these on.” He tucked something next to my hands and then said, “I’m going to go downstairs to make some hot chocolate. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  His hand left my arm, and a moment later I heard the door close.

  I sat up. With the moonlight coming through the French doors, my eyes finally adjusted and I found a pair of drawstring sweatpants, some thick wool socks, and one of his deliciously soft sweaters. I buried my face in them and breathed deeply. They smelled like Adrian. It was a very good smell. I wobbled to the door and felt around for a lock, then switched it.
I reached for the zipper on my dress, then paused, a thought finding its way to the surface of my sluggish brain:

  I would be mostly naked, however briefly, in Adrian de la Mara’s room.

  I would be without clothing. In Adrian’s room.

  Naked.

  I think I snorted.

  Searching for any sort of sounds from the house and finding none, I shimmied out of the dress and threw it on the bed, tried three times to unhook my bra (because let’s face it, sleeping in a bra is pretty much the worst thing in the world), succeeded, threw it somewhere across the room with far more velocity than I’d intended, then reached for the sweater and pulled it over my head. I finally got around to the pants and fell trying to get them on. Then I had to sit still for a minute because my head was spinning. I was just pulling the socks on when there was a quiet knock. I made sure the tie on the sweatpants was tight so they wouldn’t fall off and then opened the door. He looked to make sure I was dressed, then slipped inside, carrying two mugs.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked, handing me a mug.

  “Warmer,” I admitted, tucking my feet underneath me on the bed. “What time is it?”

  “A little after two.” He sat in his desk chair.

  “Hmm,” I mumbled, then took a sip of hot chocolate. “This is yummy.”

  He smiled. “Secret family recipe.”

  “Did you try the punch?”

  “No.”

  I looked at him, surprised. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Why not?”

  He shrugged. “I wasn’t thirsty.”

  “I was,” I told him, as if he didn’t know. “I just wanted punch, not happy punch, but all they had was happy punch. And then the grail. And then more punch.” I looked at him. “I was really thirsty.” I took a sip of hot chocolate. “This is yummy.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Adrian.”

  “Yes?”

  “Why are you nice to me?”

  He smiled at me kind of funny. “Figured it was better than being mean.”

  I absorbed this, took a sip of hot chocolate, then stated again, “Adrian.”

  He smiled again. “Yes?”

  “I won’t tell anyone your secret.”

  He was merely a shadow sitting back in his chair. The smile slipped off his face and he didn’t respond for a long time.

  “What secret?” he asked finally.

  “That you’re…” I waved my hand around. “Y’know.”

  He raised a brow. “Pretend that I don’t.”

  I scrubbed my hand across my face, already regretting blurting this out. “That you don’t like girls. I won’t tell anyone.”

  The blank look on his face seemed, for a moment, to be frozen in place. Then, very carefully, he leaned forward. “You won’t tell anyone that I don’t like girls?”

  I nodded vigorously. I would take his secret to the grave. Especially if he kept giving me hot chocolate.

  “Why do you think I don’t like girls?”

  I made an incredibly unattractive pbbbbt sound with my lips. “’Cuz you wear sweaters. Your shoes cost more than my laptop. You’ve never gone on a date even once.”

  Adrian stared at me. “So you think I’m—”

  “Gay,” I interrupted very matter-of-factly. “My gay best friend. Except not, because I don’t have a best friend, and if I did, I think Trish would probably be it. You’re my gay study buddy. Except not really, because school is meh.”

  Adrian dropped his head in his hands, and for a half a second, I thought he was crying. But then he looked up at me and he was smiling.

  “You are a funny girl, Caitlin Holte. And you should probably get some sleep.”

  I blinked at him and shivered. He frowned. “Are you still cold?”

  “Kind of,” I said, head lolling to the side. I was too tired to un-loll it. “I can’t really feel my toes.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?” he asked, standing.

  I blinked up at him. “You gave me pajamas.”

  “Here.” He pulled me up and tossed back the sheet and blanket before setting me down again, swinging my legs onto the bed and tucking me in like I was a toddler. It felt wonderful.

  “I’m stealing your bed,” I mumbled sleepily.

  “That’s okay,” he murmured.

  “No, it’s not.” With my last bit of energy, I grabbed hold of his shirt. “It’s your bed. Come here, to sleep.”

  I expected him to say no. He probably found me repulsive.

  But he pulled back the covers and crawled in next to me. “All right.”

  I turned on my side, pressed my nose into his rib cage, and fell asleep.

  5

  IT’S MY PARTY, I CAN CRY IF I WANT TO

  I was warm. That was all that mattered.

  I was warm and comfortable and sleepy. So when the soft Caitlin floated past my ear again, I wanted to ignore it, to snuggle into whoever it was that was next to me and fall back into the delicious dream I’d been rudely awakened from. But someone whispered my name again, and the stubborn part of my brain felt obliged to respond.

  “Hmm?” I mumbled.

  “So you are alive,” the voice said. It sounded an awful lot like Adrian. Which was silly, why would Adrian be in my bedroom? Ridiculous. I was definitely still asleep.

  “What are you smiling for?” he asked as I wriggled my head under his chin.

  “You smell good,” I mumbled into his collarbone. After all, it didn’t matter what you told people in dreams. In dreams, if nowhere else, you should be honest. I pressed my cold nose against his warm neck and wrapped my dream-arm around Dream-Adrian’s waist.

  “Caitlin, you need to wake up now. It’s four thirty.”

  “Nurrr.”

  “Come on, Caitlin, up,” he murmured. His hair tickled my face and I scrunched up my nose. Burrowing closer to the source of heat, I realized that my shirt was sliding off one shoulder—which was weird, because my pajama shirt wasn’t large enough to slide off my shoulder. I reached up and felt the fabric at my neck and realized that it wasn’t the heavy cotton I was used to; it was cashmere. I sure as hell didn’t own any cashmere. In fact, I only knew one person who did.

  Slowly, I opened my eyes.

  It was dark at first, and I wasn’t completely sure where I was. Then the hazy form of Adrian’s face materialized above me. I was huddled, leechlike, along the right side of his body.

  I blinked.

  “You all right?” he asked after a moment.

  I blinked again. He was still there.

  And I still had my arm wrapped around his waist and my leg hooked around his knee.

  Oh dear God.

  “How do you feel?” Adrian tried again, starting to look concerned.

  Stupid.

  “Fine,” I mumbled, my voice hoarse and froggy as I disentangled my limbs from his until we could both sit up.

  “We need to get you back to Trish’s,” he said, scooting away, dragging his legs over the edge of the bed, walking to his desk, and …

  … taking off his clothes?

  I watched, absolutely fascinated, as he tossed the pirate shirt onto the back of his chair and pulled on a black sweater that clung to his body like Saran Wrap. He swiped a hand through his hair and scanned the floor, looking for something.

  Maybe I was still dreaming.

  I wanted to ask what time it was, why I was here, why I needed to go back to Trish’s, why, why, why, what, where, when, how? but my tongue was all sloppy and I couldn’t form any coherent thoughts.

  He looked for something in a drawer, found whatever it was, and took off his pirate pants.

  Ohmygodhetookoffhispiratepants.

  He was dressed in nothing but a sweater and tight, black boxer briefs. Even in the dim moonlight, I could see that Adrian wasn’t just in shape; he was built. Decathlete built. FIFA World Cup soccer champion built. Not bulky, really, but solid. Just muscles for days, lean and beautifully arranged.
I was staring, and I didn’t care.

  I must be dreaming. Not only had I been mostly naked in Adrian de la Mara’s room, Adrian had been mostly naked in Adrian’s room. I mean, that made sense, since it was his room, but I was there, and what the hell was happening?

  “I don’t have any boots your size,” he said, turning to face me once more, “but I stole these from my aunt. They’re probably a couple sizes too big, but it’s all I have.”

  He held up a pair of sandals, but I wasn’t really looking at them, not when the image of his mostly naked body was burned into my retinas like a film negative.

  “You’re not really awake yet, are you?” he asked.

  I blinked at him.

  He stared at me and said, “Hmm,” in a low, rumbly sort of way.

  I blinked again, pinching my eyes shut and then opening them wide. The room came in to a bit clearer focus. Slowly, I sat up; the wide neck of his sweater slipping off my shoulder again.

  “Adrian,” I said, overpronouncing his name.

  “Yes?”

  “Your house.”

  “Yes.”

  “Your room.”

  “Yes.”

  I looked down at myself. I was practically swimming in the clothes I wore.

  “Your pajamas?”

  He smiled. “Yes.”

  “Time?”

  “Four thirty.”

  “A.M.?”

  “Yes.”

  I touched a hand to my head. “Jungle Juice?”

  Adrian tried to suppress another smile. “Yes.”

  “Ah,” I said, as if that one word summed up everything that had happened over the past five hours. A moment passed as we stared at each other. “I don’t really know what to say right now.”

  “How about I go grab you something to eat while you think about it?”

  “Okay,” I agreed.

  He left and I was grateful I had a moment to pull myself together.

  How stupid did I feel? You got drunk, I told myself. You got drunk and Adrian had to drag you all the way to his house so you wouldn’t embarrass yourself. And then you cuddled with him.

  I scrambled out of bed, which was a bad idea because dizziness and gravity conspired against me, so I lay still until the world stopped spinning. I’d just managed to sit up again when Adrian opened the door.