In Too Deep

by Amanda Grace

  When we reach the entry, Nick holds the door open and I slip past him.

  “Hey guys,” the receptionist calls. She’s wearing scrubs with bright blue and red cats and dogs all over them, her graying hair pulled back in a low pony tail. She doesn’t even look up as she scribbles some notes onto a clipboard.

  We hang up our jackets on a hook near the door and I roll up my sleeves as I walk past the glass windows that allow visitors to view the cat enclosures. Two adorable calico kittens paw at the window, and I pause to put my hand up against their paws. They’ll be adopted. The kittens always are.

  Nick holds open the swinging door and I follow him into the kennel areas. The dogs start barking again and it rings in my ears as we pass each of the kennels.

  It’s always sad to know that the dogs I see today will be gone by the time I return next week. Adopted or put down, whichever is their fate. I stopped asking what happened to them after the first two weeks. All that matters is that we’re giving them a nice spa treatment to better their chances of finding homes.

  The last door on the left leads into a big wash room with two low sinks. I take a deep breath and swing open the door, the steamy warmth greeting me. We each grab an apron, and I end up with the one with goofy poodles all over it. I slip it over my head, pulling my hair out of the way, then turn around. Nick’s fingers graze the bare skin above the waistband of my jeans as he ties the strings in a bow. I blink. It’s nothing out of the ordinary, so why am I so aware of it?

  “Come on, I think I saw a big drooling mastiff out there with your name on it,” I say. Nick gives me a little shove on the shoulder, and I grin and bump my hip into his.

  We end up with the mastiff and a mangy looking labradoodle, which has matted, tangled fir. Nick easily lifts the labradoodle into the sink and ties her leash onto a cleat, and then we stare at the gigantic mastiff. Its head reaches my hip.

  “Uh, I call the front end.” I maneuver around to the front, but one look at the long strings of drool changes my mind. “On second thought … ”

  I look up at Nick and we both burst out laughing. “It looks like it swallowed a whole bowl of spaghetti and the noodles are still hanging out,” I say.

  “I can probably get him.”

  Nick loops his arms around the body of the dog and grunts as he picks it up; the mastiff must weigh at least

  a hundred and twenty pounds. The dog flails around a little as Nick dumps it into the big washbasin. I step forward to cinch its leash down just as it shakes it head again, big jowls flapping around. A chunk of saliva dislodges and lands on the chest of my apron. I blink. Ugh, this is disgusting.

  Nick grabs a towel and reaches over to wipe it off, but just as the towel touches my chest, he freezes and a blush spreads across his cheeks. “Uh, here,” he says, thrusting it at me.

  I blink, brushing past him as I go to my sink and wet the labradoodle down with the hose, staring at the wall instead of Nick. “How’d you do on your senior project?”

  Silence greets me. He must have nodded or shrugged or something. I twist around and look back at him.

  “Aced it.”

  Yes, of course. “Nice. I got a B-, because I dropped my cards halfway through and mixed them up and jumped around in the speech.”

  “That sucks.”

  I glance back at him. His back is to me as he leans over the basin, vigorously scrubbing the mastiff. Apron strings are tied loosely around his waist, and as he leans further over, his T-shirt stretches over the muscles in his back. Nick’s not the same scrawny guy I befriended so many years ago. Maybe he’s still on the awkward side—the total opposite of that casual confidence in Carter—but he’s filled out, so he’s not so gangly any more.

  Not that I could ever find the courage to tell him that.

  A small stereo mounted under one of the supply cabinets streams out a quiet hum of classic rock. I turn back to the labradoodle and reach for the bottle of soap, squirting a long line of the pinky goop down the dog’s back. Just as I cap the shampoo, setting it on the ledge beside the basin, warm water blasts me on the back of the neck. I twist around, put my hands up to shield myself, but it makes it worse. The water hits my hand and ricochets upward, getting me on the face.

  “Argh!” I storm toward him and Nick steps back, but the wall is behind him. He uses the nozzle as a deterrent, a heavy stream aimed right at my chest, but I yank the nozzle out of his hands and stand inches from him, the hose pointed right at his face.

  “Give me one reason I shouldn’t nail you with this,” I say, one side of my mouth turned up in a smug smile.

  “Uh, because we’re best friends?”

  “Try harder,” I say, inching the nozzle closer.

  “Because there’s no honor in a close-range assassination?”

  I just grin wider and pull the trigger. Water splays everywhere as he grabs the nozzle and my wrists and wrestles the hose from my hands. We twist around and soon I’m pinned against the wall, the hose between us. Nick steps closer, leans in, a wicked smile on his face.

  “Let’s try this again,” he says.

  I cringe and close my eyes, waiting for the cold shock of the water, but it doesn’t come.

  Instead, it’s the soft warmth of Nick’s lips on mine. The air leaves my lungs all at once, the world tilting.

  This can’t be real.

  My chest burns, but I keep my eyes closed as I hear the hose clatter to the floor, feel Nick’s hands on my face, pulling me closer.

  When he retreats I take in a ragged breath of air, but I leave my eyes closed.

  I just kissed Nick.

  Nick just kissed me.

  I shut my eyes tighter, afraid when I open them that I’ll be in my bed at home, that this was all in my imagination.

  I hear the water spray again, and I blink my eyes open. Nick has his back to me and is at his washbasin again. I stand there until he looks back at me, meets my eyes for a long, lingering moment filled with such intensity it’s hard not to look away. I feel like he’s reading me.

  “What was that?”

  He blushes and looks back at the washbasin. He’s not getting off that easy. I walk up beside him and put a hand on the nozzle so he has to stop perpetually rinsing the dog. “Nick?”

  He meets my eyes, shrugging as a shy smile pulls at his lips. “Sorry. I just … wanted to know.”

  “Know what?”

  “If kissing you would be as good as I thought it would be.”

  The air leaves my lungs. “And?”

  His smile grows, his blue eyes turning warm as he stares down at me from his towering six-foot-three height. “It was.”

  I blink. I want to ask him a thousand things but I can’t articulate any of them. Nick kissed me. Nick.

  He turns back to the washbasin. “I lied to you. I didn’t sleep with Reyna. We broke up for good a month ago.”

  “Why?”

  He squeezes the nozzle again for a minute. “Because she didn’t like how much I talked about you.”

  “Oh.”

  I’m not entirely sure I heard him correctly over my thundering heart. This is the sort of conversation I’ve heard inside my head. About 9,532 times.

  He stares at the dog for a long moment before looking at me again, those deep blue eyes sincere. He’s not screwing with me. “I won’t kiss you again if you don’t want me to.”

  I furrow my brows. “I don’t—” I gulp. I want him to kiss me. I want him to want to kiss me. I want this to be something, so desperately that it hurts.

  “Okay,” he says, nodding.

  “That wasn’t the whole sentence,” I say.

  He twists around and rests his hip against the washbasin, staring me dead in the eye and waiting.

  “I mean, I don’t want you to … not kiss me.”

  Jeez, I’m screwing this up.

  “Kiss me again,” I say.

  “What?”

  “Kiss me again.” I wring my hands together. I don’t have to ask a third time. Ni
ck takes my face in his hands and pulls me closer, his eyes open this time, boring into mine. He stops just a fraction of an inch from my lips, tantalizingly close, and the moment stretches on for what seems like eternity, sparks jumping between us.

  But he doesn’t kiss me. He just stays like that, our lips a breath apart, but so far away.

  And then I throw my arms around his shoulders and yank him against me, closing my eyes as I kiss him.

  As his tongue grazes my lower lip, I feel weak. I tighten my arms around his shoulders to keep my knees from buckling.

  He’s right. It’s just as good as I thought it would be.

  Four

  When we turn the corner, I see that Dad’s home. His dark blue Dodge Charger, complete with blue-and-red lights and POLICE paint job, is parked in our drive.

  There are only two cops in all of Mossyrock. My dad, and a thirty-seven-year-old guy named Russ. That’s it. The whole police force. My dad has worked for the department since he was twenty-four, which gives him seniority and the practically automatic title of Police Chief.

  He grew up in this town. At one time, he wanted out. He wanted to see the world, be somebody outside of this stupid place that seems to trap people. So he joined the army and did a couple of tours, and eventually found himself in sunny San Diego.

  And that’s where he met my mom, Julianna. She was pretty, all long blond hair and tanned skin. Not that I remember, but I’ve seen the pictures.

  They fell in love, and, from what little I can gather, Dad thought it would be happily ever after. Dad got transferred to Europe, and they got married so she could go with him.

  But a year later she was over it. Over him. They broke up and she went back home.

  And then she found out she was pregnant with me. About the same time, Dad’s contract with the army was up and Mossyrock was hiring a cop. He convinced her this small town was the best place to raise a kid. Dad bought a little house, and the two of them settled in his old hometown, but it was never enough for my mom. She hung around for a while, had a baby, got restless, and left him again. Except this time, she left me too.

  It’s been the two of us ever since. Dad kept the house, kept the job, and kept me, and nothing has changed in seventeen years. And if I don’t go away for college, nothing will change in the next seventeen either.

  Nick pulls his Mustang into the driveway of his house, switches it off, and we fall silent. Silence is normally comfortable with us, but I’m not sure either of us know how to act right now. “See you tomorrow?” he asks.

  I twist away from staring at the window and meet his eyes. “Yeah. Sounds good.”

  He smiles, and before I can take a breath, he leans over, brushes his lips against mine, and then sits back and unbuckles his seat belt. “Cool. See you then.”

  I nod and unclick my seat belt, my heart in my throat. Three. Three kisses in one day.

  I have to force my limbs to move so that I can get out of his car. “Uh, later,” I say, starting to walk away.

  “Sam?”

  I twist around.

  “You forgot your purse.”

  “Oh. Uh, right.” I feel my cheeks flush with heat as I lean down and grab my purse from the floorboards. I wave goodbye, striding across the lawn as I hear Nick’s front door click shut.

  “Dad, I’m home,” I call out, once inside. I hang my purse up on the hook by the door and put my shoes into the basket. A place for everything and everything in its place.

  “In here,” he calls back.

  I make my way to the kitchen, my socks silent on the hardwood floors, and find my dad at a stool reading the newspaper, an iced tea sweating on a coaster beside him.

  “Having a good day?” he asks, not looking up from

  the paper.

  “Uh-huh. You?” I walk to the fridge and pull out a Diet Coke, cracking the top as I walk to the cupboard and grab a bag of chips. I set the coke down and pop a Dorito in my mouth.

  “That stuff’s not healthy,” he says, finally looking up at me. As if iced tea is any better.

  “Then why do you buy it?”

  He seems to barely suppress the urge to roll his eyes. “I picked up the catalog from CCC today.”

  The chips suddenly taste like chalk. “But I told you I don’t want to go to Centralia Community College.”

  “It’s a perfectly reasonable choice. If you don’t register soon, the good classes will be filled.”

  “But you know I got into UW … ” And I already picked my classes, I mentally add.

  “And you can go in a year or two, when your core classes are done and you have the maturity it takes to go to school in a big city.”

  “Seattle isn’t that big, Dad. Mossyrock is just—”

  “End of discussion.” He closes his newspaper and stands. “Keep arguing and you’re grounded.”

  I can only stare as he saunters down the hall. Then I toss the whole bag of chips into the garbage.

  Five

  At seven forty on a normal Monday morning, I’m sluggish. But today, as I walk past the junior high building, heading for the high school front doors, I feel strangely bouncy.

  Nick kissed me yesterday. I kissed him. What was that? Will it happen again? That second kiss, when he came so tantalizingly close but made me close the gap, was the sexiest thing I could have imagined. He wanted me to make the choice.

  A thousand thoughts rolled through my head all night long, keeping me up so late I should feel tired and

  dragging, but I can’t help the adrenaline that flows through me as I bounce through the doors.

  When I’m only a few steps into the bustling halls of MHS, something shifts. The back of my neck prickles. I grip my can of Diet Coke harder, walk a little slower, and try to look around without bobbing my head left and right. My Mary Janes seem ridiculously loud in the carpeted hall.

  The energy I had moments before turns to sludge in my veins. It’s like those movies where everyone is talking in hushed whispers, and then someone walks into the room and everything goes silent.

  I am that someone. Groups of students huddle around their lockers, some using the doors to obscure their lips as they lean in, whispering, their eyes never leaving my face. My cheeks burn as I hustle past them, feeling the warmth of a thousand sets of eyes. The hall suddenly seems longer than ever, my locker impossibly far away.

  I get this weird feeling, like everyone knows about Nick and me and thinks it’s just as newsworthy as I do, but I dismiss it. Half this school thinks Nick and I have been a couple for the last two years, no matter what we say to dispel the rumor. No one would care if we got together. No one would stare.

  I keep walking, staring straight ahead, acting as if I don’t notice the way everyone seems to swivel toward me as I pass. But the further I walk, the more hushed the hall becomes, like a veil of silence is falling over everyone all at once. There’s a group of seniors leaning back against the big windows that line the walls, and they all pause and watch me as I pass. I suddenly wonder if I covered my bruise well enough. It’s got a bluish look to it now, and it was harder to hide. Do I look like I fell down and my face broke my fall?

  But then something else—something worse—occurs to me.

  Carter told.

  Carter told everyone that I threw myself at him, and they all had a good laugh at my expense.

  I hope he didn’t include the two-bagger part.

  I dig into my purse, grab my sunglasses, and shove them on, even though it’s a little too dark in here to wear them. I bought them at a street fair almost a year ago and they’re vying for least-fashionable thing I own, which is a pretty big feat considering the clothes in my closet.

  But it makes it easier to pretend I don’t see the way time slows down, don’t see the way every set of eyes in the room swivels in my direction, only to dart away in the worst possible way, as if afraid to be caught looking at me.

  The sudden attention is unnerving. I’m hyper-aware of every joint and muscle in my body, an
d suddenly it’s like I have to tell my feet to move properly.

  Why did I have to go to that stupid party? Why did I have to go into Carter’s room? Nick knew it was a bad idea. Tried to talk me out of it. I should have listened. But it must be a light day for gossip if people thinking Carter’s rejection of me is this big of a deal. I wonder if he embellished the insults, made them especially comical.

  I navigate the wide, crowded halls and get to my ugly, gray-painted locker. My hand is shaking so badly I can barely unlock it. It takes me three tries. Three torturous tries. All I want to do is flee to first period, where no one will be because it doesn’t start for another ten minutes.

  I manage to open the door and grab my English and math books, the only ones I’ll need before first break.

  When I slam the door shut, I nearly jump out of my skin.

  Veronica Michaels is standing in front of me, barely ten inches away. We used to be friends, back in freshman year, but she’s managed to climb the social ladder while I’m still down here with the little people. In class, we have this unspoken agreement not to partner up on anything, not to sit too near each other.

  Which is practically impossible in a school this small. Every year, we have at least two out of seven classes together.

  “Are you okay?” she asks.

  I scrunch my eyebrows. “Um … yes?”

  Why is she talking to me? Is she relishing my fall from grace? Is Carter laughing at me really that big of a deal? Is it the two-bagger part everyone finds so amusing? Or is it just because people think a loser like me actually tried to hook up with him?

  She gets this little frowny face that reminds me of the expression you’d give someone if you found out their puppy died. Lips turned down, eyebrows furrowed, eyes all crinkled-up. “You swear?”

  “Uhh … yeah.”

  She gets this really weird, intense look on her face. Considering she’s got massive glittery eye shadow, it looks a little funny. It’s weird to think I was friends with her once, because this girl? I barely recognize her.