Making Bad Choices

by Rita Stradling

  Climbing up from my bed, I walked over through the house, listening to the sound of Culter’s voice with another voice—a girl’s voice.

  I entered the living room to find Culter standing there with a tall, pretty girl that was maybe a couple years older. She turned as she noticed me, a long blonde braid swinging behind her shoulder. My gaze darted between hers and Culter’s, and then I waved at her and said, “Hello.”

  Wow, I felt incredibly awkward. I wondered if the appropriate response was just to leave.

  She grinned a very sweet, shining smile at me. “Are you Cassie? I’m Kyra! I live next door.” For such a pretty, dainty girl she had one hell of a booming voice.

  “Cool. Yeah, I’m Cassie.” I stepped back toward the hallway. “I need to finish my homework, nice to meet you.”

  Turning, I walked back into the hall.

  Fucker. It hadn’t even been a full week, and that stupid fucker was making me regret kissing him.

  Curse Culter. Curse Jen and his dad for making such a crazy, egotistical bastard. Curse the doctors and nurses who thought it was a good idea to deliver him.

  Walking into my room, I realized that, damn it all, I didn’t have any homework to do.

  “You in here plotting my murder?” Culter said as he leaned into my doorway, a full smirk on his face.

  Murder was too small a word, fucker.

  “Nope,” I said, sitting on my bed in front of my math textbook. “Just going to do some homework.”

  “You’re so predictable, Cassie.”

  Was that dickwad laughing at me? Maybe I would kill him, like for real.

  “Kyra is here to babysit Josh while we go to the movies. She used to babysit me, too.”

  I tried to glare over at him, but it was much closer to a smile.

  He leaned back, still grabbing onto my doorframe, looking all too smug. “So you’re not going to murder me?”

  “Probably not,” I grumbled.

  “Come on, Cassie, we don’t want to miss our movie.”

  “Does Joshie know we’re going?”

  “Yep, and I texted your dad. We’re good.”

  “The movies?”

  He was all dimples now, swinging a little as he held onto my doorframe. “You wanted to go. You’re done with your homework.” His eyes widened on me. “Come on, Cassie, we’ll miss the trailers, isn’t that your favorite part?”

  “That and the popcorn,” I mumbled as I climbed out of bed.

  Josh was dying with envy that we were going to the movies, but curling up on the couch with the beautiful Kyra seemed to be a pretty decent consolation prize. As we shrugged on our coats, Culter told Kyra that we’d be back at eleven-thirty, and we headed out to his truck.

  Culter turned on the headlights, illuminating small clots of snow drifting past. Turning on his wipers, snow cascaded down past my window.

  “What movie are we going to?” I asked as I curled up on his truck seat.

  “Sharks versus Aliens,” he said as he pulled onto the road.

  “Oh. There’s nothing else playing? I mean, I loved it, but we saw it four days ago.”

  He laughed. “You think I’d put myself through that again?”

  “Well, it didn’t quite have the cinematography of Worlds of Armored Shark Armies, but the acting was definitely better.”

  One of his eyes squinted at me.

  Fully turned to him, I rested my head against the headrest. “So then, where are we really going?”

  “To my dad’s house.”

  “He’s not there?” I asked.

  “He’s on a three-year job in India.”

  Reaching across, I grabbed his hand. Just to touch him, just because I wanted to and I could. “I had no idea a crane operator lived like that. Is he always gone?”

  His fingers trailed up and down my palm. “Pretty much. He comes home for holidays and if his job is shut down for more than a few weeks. In the summer, he’ll just send me out to see him wherever he lives.”

  A nervous, hyperaware something flowed through me, again—especially at the thought of going to Culter’s dad’s house for two whole hours. It was silly, of course, as we’d spent a week together alone, but this felt different somehow. This felt stolen.

  “He doesn’t care if we go there while he’s gone?”

  Culter’s hand continued to trail slowly over my palm, which was kind of driving me insane, but in a good way. “He says it’s mine, actually.”

  Pulling onto the main road, we took it until it became a highway, all the lights of Bulvin diminishing behind us. Our headlights lit the street sign for Lakeview road as we turned off the highway and onto a one-way dirt road that cut through long stretches of snow. The only house on the road appeared almost immediately, growing as we approached. Snow clung to the highly sloped roofs that met in peaks over the two-story farmhouse.

  Culter released my hand to press something on his visor, but immediately returned his hand.

  Incongruous to the old fashioned building, a double-wide garage door opened, spilling light onto us. Culter pulled in to a wide, lit garage and shut off his truck as the door closed behind us. Smiling over at me, he jumped out of his truck door and rushed around before I could fully climb out.

  Catching me halfway down, he pressed into me, guiding my legs to hook around his waist. “Grab on,” he said, grinning.

  I did, hugging him around his shoulders with my arms and hips with my legs. “You’re so warm. And your garage is so cold,” I whispered through a shiver, as I pressed my face into his shoulder.

  “One second, I’ll get you warm, Cassie.”

  There was the clunk of the car door, and then his hands went under my butt as he carried me. We walked in through a door and Culter flipped up a light-switch.

  I made to set my legs down, but Culter gripped onto my thighs. “Uh, uh, I want you here,” he said.

  “Okay,” I whispered, because I wanted to be here.

  He fiddled with something before heading into the house and up a staircase. I saw nothing, keeping my face pressed into his shoulder, only able to concentrate on that overwhelming something that had completely usurped my entire body, making me into a thrumming mess of nerves and happiness and excitement, all stewing together.

  Cold air brushed across my neck as we moved, and I squeezed Culter tighter for warmth—and just because I wanted to.

  “This is my room,” he said as we moved into a space that smelled warm and clean and like him. “This is my bed,” he whispered as he set me down on soft covers, lying down on top of me. He lifted up just a little, smiling down.

  “Is this your bed?” I whispered as I laid my head back to look at him.

  “Uh, huh.” He kissed me. “We’re not going to have sex, Cassie.”

  I blinked at him. “What? Never?”

  He grabbed one of the arms I still held loosely around him, weaved his fingers through mine and pushed our joined hands into the bed over my head.

  “Just not yet.” He grinned, his face so close to mine that our noses almost brushed. “I just didn’t want you to get any ideas. I know how you are.”

  I leaned further into the bed to get enough distance to glare. “Oh, and how am I, Mr. Fuller?”

  He closed the distance and whispered over my lips, “Intense. Passionate. When you decide to do something, you go all in. But I’m not ready for this leading up part to end yet, I want more of this.”

  “What happens when the leading up part ends?” I whispered.

  “Nothing happens to us, but we can only have so many firsts together, and I want to stretch them out.”

  “Oh.”

  I had to admit, I kind of liked that.

  “Here, come sit up, I want to get your jacket off.”

  Tugging on my sleeve, he first pulled off my jacket, and then he grabbed the hem of my sweater. “How about this one?”

  I nodded.

  He shrugged off his own jacket before looking down at me again. His fingers moved to the h
em of my shirt. “And, this one?”

  Biting my lip, I looked into his bright gaze, and then nodded again. Lifting my arms up, I focused on my breathing as he slowly pulled it off me.

  He pressed his hands into the bed, looking over me and my lacy blue bra. “Wow,” he whispered.

  Reaching up, I whispered, “Your turn.” Then I pulled up the hem of his shirt, slowly revealing the chest I’d been fantasizing about just a little since I first glimpsed it. Okay, maybe a lot.

  He helped me by pulling it over his head and throwing it aside.

  “Wow,” I whispered, meaning it. “Kiss me, Culter?”

  “Definitely.”

  He started gentle again, his lips brushing over mine as his weight held just above me.

  My hands ran over the muscles of his back, around his sides and along the ridges of his abs. “You’re so hot,” I whispered onto his lips.

  He grinned onto mine. His weight came down onto me, and then he really started kissing me. His hands cupped around my head and his body pressed into me. He was everywhere. And, I kissed him back, gripping him more than holding him. I kissed and sucked and nipped at his lips. When I tried to move under him, he held me in place.

  “Cassie,” he whispered as he pulled away just slightly. “I can only take so much, stop moving under me.”

  My hands went to the back of his neck and I grinned up. “Sorry.”

  “No, you’re not.” Leaning in, he kissed me again, his arms and body holding me firmly, likely so I couldn’t move under him.

  Our kisses were long and deep, our breaths few and harsh. Nothing else existed but his hands, his body, his mouth, and mine.

  And then an alarm blared out through the room.

  As Culter pulled back, I looked around frantically. “What the hell? Is someone here?”

  “Nope, Cassie, it’s fine.” The alarm went off again. “Just my phone, the movie is about to get out.”

  “Oh.” I made a face.

  Culter chuckled, lying back over me, putting all his weight down. “We have to stop.”

  “Can’t breathe, Culter,” I wheezed. When he pulled away, I whispered, “Five more minutes?”

  “And you say I’m driving you crazy? You’re the one who wants to keep me your little secret.” Reaching across the bed, he grabbed my shirt and handed it to me.

  “Like there’s a choice,” I said, pulling it on.

  “Well, eventually it’ll come out.”

  So not what I wanted to hear from him.

  I whispered, “It doesn’t have to.”

  “You think we can hide this forever?” He pulled his shirt on over his head.

  “This is just starting. We have no idea where things are going to go from here.”

  “I do.” He rolled off of me.

  Sitting up, I regarded him. “Where then?”

  Pulling on his jacket, he smirked at me. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

  “Full-of-yourself Fuller,” I mumbled as I shrugged my own jacket on.

  He leaned in, stopping just short of kissing me. “Can’t-get-enough-of-you, Cassie.” Straightening up, he added, “And I’m not the one who’s ashamed of it.”

  With that, he walked out of his bedroom, leaving me staring after him.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  I squirmed a bit on my seat, and then reached behind me to find the perpetrator of my torment. I held up a stale cheese puff. “Gross, Tyler. No wonder your car smells like cheese snacks.”

  The moment I saw his wrecker of a car, I understood why Tyler was in Auto Tech. The car looked more like three vehicles melded into one, with no determinable paint scheme. The inside was worse. At least chains wrapped around the wheels and so we were probably safe . . . hopefully.

  His hands turned the wheel, pulling us into Joshie’s school parking lot. “Hand it over, I’m hungry.” He opened his mouth like he meant it.

  I flicked it at his head, and it bounced off his cheek.

  Wiping his cheek on his shoulder, he said, “Uncalled for, Cassie. Jesus, you do a girl a favor and you’re bombed with rotten cheese puffs. What is the world coming to?” He shook his head before parking at an empty stall in the crowded lot.

  Unlocking my seatbelt, I glanced over. “You want to come with me?”

  “I–I’m good in the car.”

  I leaned back into my seat. “Tyler, is everything okay?”

  For some reason, he seemed more on edge than I’d ever seen him. Actually, he’d seemed on edge since I’d asked him to drive me. Zoe was supposed to be the one to help me pick up Joshie to bring him back to the game, but something came up. When I’d asked Tyler instead to go get Joshie after school, he’d just stared at me for a second. Then he nodded, slowly, before agreeing.

  “It’s all good.” He shrugged.

  “You sure? You can tell me anything, you know?”

  His gaze came to rest on mine, umber eyes hiding a universe of thoughts. “No really, Cassie, it’s all good.”

  “Okay,” I said, climbing out. I knew I couldn’t force him to reveal what was going on, nor should I. That was something I’d have to earn from him, his trust. At the same time, I already cared about him enough that it fucking hurt to see his eyes trapping away some secret misery.

  My feet chose a careful path across the parking lot as snow drifted past to settle on the pavement, melting immediately.

  Stepping onto the sidewalk, I paused to look up at the snow falling down. Unlike a raindrop that shot straight at you, the snow drifted from side to side. Some fell onto my cheeks, some skirted away. As I looked into the slow, floating snowflakes, I hummed Your Song by Elton John, which also happened to be the song written across my playlist in my Math class today.

  Snowflakes slipped down my cheeks, and I suddenly wondered if my mom had ever watched a snowflake fall. Not in L.A., surely, and she had told me that she never left the city. But had that meant never, or had that meant rarely? I didn’t know.

  Waking from my thoughts and the song playing in my head, I realized that I stood in the freezing snow with two people waiting on me. Shaking my head and my thoughts back into reality, I continued to the steps. A low level of heat and the loud chatter of voices met me inside the schoolhouse.

  Following the path Culter and I took on Wednesday, I walked down the main hall until I found the source of the noise—the school auditorium. Inside was complete and utter chaos, kids painted, drew, danced, played games at one end, and played dodge ball at the other. My gaze scanned the crowd as a brunette girl who didn’t look that much older than me headed my way.

  She smiled with a full mouth of braces, and I felt an immediate vanity-pang of sympathy. It would suck to have a metal mouth in college—if she was as old as she looked. “Hi, you’re Josh and Culter’s sister, right? I’ll send Josh out.” She turned.

  “Just Josh’s sister,” I called after her. My eyes squeezed closed. Shut up, Cassie. I needed to get a lid on myself. Culter’s words from last night surfaced in my mind; particularly, that people are eventually going to find out. That was definitely not something I was going to ever let happen.

  “Cassie!”

  I opened my eyes as the breath was knocked out of me by a head colliding with my stomach.

  “Whoa, Josh!” Getting a better stance, I reached down and hugged him. “Stop trying to knock me over, yeah?”

  He only grinned up at me.

  “Not a challenge, you crazy kid.”

  “If you can just sign him out?” the girl from before said, pointing to a clipboard hanging by a nail on the wall. “So, how are you Josh’s sister but not Culter’s?” the girl asked, grinning.

  “We’re each half with Josh,” I said as I signed my name.

  “But I can still love them the same, because they’re both half and they’re both my siblings. They’re not brother and sister, so they love me more,” Josh said, pointing between me and him.

  She nodded slowly. “I get it now. Well, you have a great time at your brot
her’s game, Josh.” To me, she said, “He’s been talking about it the whole time. He loves his brother.”

  “I love them both,” Josh corrected. He’d been obsessed with this fact lately, which made me think that either my dad or Jen had talked it out with him.

  “You don’t know anything about basketball, huh, Cassie?” Josh asked on the way to the car, his hand firmly in mine as we walked through the lot.

  “I know there’s a ball,” I said.

  “Well, I’ll have to explain everything to you. Don’t worry I know everything about basketball.”

  “Okay, good.” I nodded.

  “We’re going to drive with my friend Tyler instead, okay? My other friend couldn’t do it. Do you know Tyler? He’s Culter’s cousin.”

  “He’s Culter’s cousin?” Josh whispered, amazed.

  “Yeah, you’ve never met him?” I asked, a little surprised by this as Tyler had seemed to know our house so well.

  “No! Is he my cousin? Do I have a real cousin?”

  I shook my head. “But he calls himself my cousin, so he’d probably do the same if you asked him to.”

  Josh looked a little shocked the rest of the way to the car. As I opened Tyler’s back seat, Tyler turned around and smiled wide at Josh.

  “I’ve seen you before!” Josh said, again sounding amazed.

  “Yeah, a couple times,” Tyler said, nodding.

  When I’d walked around to climb in my side, Josh was saying. “You’re Culter’s cousin, but you’re not my cousin, did you know that?”

  Tyler nodded slowly. “I’m not your cousin.”

  Josh pointed at me. “But Cassie says that you’ll be my cousin if I ask you to be . . . because, I’ve never had a cousin before.”

  “Sure, if you want me to be your cousin, sure.”

  “Can I decide after the game? Because, I’m still not sure if I want to have a cousin or not.”

  “Joshie, that’s mean!” I called back.

  “Nah, that’s fair. I can respect that. You tell me after the game.” Tyler nodded, starting up his car.

  For some reason, Tyler seemed even more distant and a little sad as we drove back to school, as if the funny had been sucked right out of him. Josh talked the entire car ride about an imaginary friend he had when he was younger who was also named Tyler, but who died an unfortunate and untimely death. I was wondering if my little brother was driving poor Tyler insane, when I glanced over to find Tyler again grinning. By the time we pulled back into the school lot, Tyler and Joshie were joking about imaginary Tyler’s gruesome demise, and I rethought the idea that Tyler was secretly sad about something.