“Bros for life, man,” Lydia said, then held up her plastic cup for Letty to knock hers against.
It was a pleasure to do it—and especially when she considered that word choice. Lydia was making fun of Tate. She actually had someone to make fun of him with.
“I think this might be the best party I’ve ever been to.”
“You know, broseph, I was just thinking the same thing.”
“Even though we are just standing in this corner drinking lemonade?”
“Especially because we are just standing in the corner drinking lemonade. I never met anyone who hates beer and just wants to loiter at parties as much as I do. Typically, by this point I’ve been shamed into dancing and throwing up the five Jell-O shots I didn’t want.”
“I didn’t even get as far as the shaming. Usually I’ve escaped by now—and that goes double for anything Tate turned up at. Even seeing him now is giving me the urge to just go.”
“We can if you want, you know.”
“No. No it’s okay. I mean he’s not even paying attention,” she said, though some part of her already knew that wasn’t true. There was something about the way he was behaving that set her nerves on edge. As though his awareness of her was a ghostly presence around him, invisible to everyone else but clear as day to her. He knew she was here. She knew he knew she was here.
Though it still stabbed her in the gut when he glanced her way.
He did it so stealthily, so carefully—it looked like he was just nodding along to his buddy’s chatter, as casual as you please. And then he dipped his head and scratched a thumb over his brow, effectively shading the direction of his gaze from view. Gaze flicking up to her so quick you could almost think it hadn’t happened at all. Certainly Lydia missed it.
But Letty never could.
That light in his eyes was too familiar—shot through with the kind of teasing laughter she had grown to loathe. And then there was the way he narrowed them, as though planning on doing some mischief. He was with his boys now. Mischief was the thing to do. There was no room for brittle brand-new friendships and banter about headlocks here.
She knew there wasn’t, before he even started pushing through the crowd.
“Is he coming over here?”
Lydia sounded as terrified as she felt.
Comforting, in one way.
Awful in another.
“I think he might be coming over, yes.”
“Is he going to pull some shit?”
“Also possible.” She paused, trying to swallow the rising bitterness in her voice. “Goddamn I knew I shouldn’t have worn a dress.”
“Are you kidding? That dress is fucking amazing.”
Lydia was right, too. It was the sort of thing she’d always wanted to wear: the skirt was so full it rolled like a wave when she walked, and the bodice gave her both a waist and a hint of spectacular cleavage. In certain lights she could have passed for a 1950s pinup—though she knew that didn’t matter. What mattered was that the dress ended just above her fat shins. What mattered was that it wasn’t black, or loose, or designed to hide every single body part she had.
“I know. But he won’t think so.”
“Okay, we’ll get ready to defend me in court,” Lydia said.
But the best part was the way she took her hand and squeezed, just as he strolled up.
If she lived to be a thousand, she would never know how to thank Lydia for that.
“Hey, ladies. You enjoying the party?”
“We are. Hoping to continue that trend…Trent, is it?”
Letty wondered if living to a million would be enough time to think up an adequate thank-you. The tone Lydia used alone was enough to send a bolt of glee through her. But then there was the way she purposefully said the wrong name. God, it was beautiful. It was wondrous. She wanted to clap her hands.
Until Tate started talking, and all of her hate Tate instincts started to crumble.
“Oh, my bad. Let me properly introduce myself and my friends—I’m Tate, and this tall fucker with the insane eyebrows is Chad, and the even taller dude with the crew cut is Derek. Guys, this is Lydia, I believe…and of course the babe in blue is Letty.”
One of them—Chad, she thought absently, because his eyebrows seemed to consume almost all of his forehead—stuck out his hand.
Only she couldn’t shake it. She couldn’t move at all. Most of her was still waiting for the punch line to a joke that hadn’t been told, and the rest was too shocked to do anything at all. For a full thirty seconds she just stared at the outstretched hand, unable to believe this was for real.
No insults. No bros being bros. No mean commentary on her dress.
Just an introduction. An introduction she still couldn’t respond to.
Lydia had to shake the hand for her. “Nice to meet you,” she said, while Letty watched and waited for Tate to make his move. He was still looking at her steadily. Surely something was coming?
There had to be something coming.
“You want to dance?”
Though God, she had not anticipated that. And nor had Lydia—she shot her a look almost immediately, one eye enormous and the other a scrunched up slit. It took all of Letty’s willpower not to react to it, and just plunge on into whatever insanity this conversation was turning out to be.
“I…you know I would but this music is just…”
“Not exactly The Veronicas, huh?”
“No. I guess…no. Right. Yeah.”
“But if you go around the back though you can at least make out a single song.”
“That…um actually…the thing is I don’t really know how to dance. I mean I know how to dance. But other people would probably describe it as more of a drunken spasm.”
“Other people are fools and morons.”
“That seems unlikely at best.”
“Nah, you’re just using the wrong scale.”
“Oh, and which scale should I be using?”
“The one that says you’re completely awesome always.”
She wasn’t sure what hit her harder: the words, or the sudden knowledge that everyone was watching them. Not just watching, in truth. Staring intently, as though the pair of them were a science experiment on the verge of doing something spectacular. Explode like a firework, maybe.
It certainly felt like it, inside of her.
And that went double when he held out his hand.
“Come on. I’ll show you how easy it is.”
“You’re that much of an expert. At dancing.”
“Oh, you know, I dabble,” he said.
And here was where she made a big mistake:
She took him at his word. She let him lead her to some dusk-draped secluded spot behind the house, thinking that this was going to be a ridiculous fumbling pile of nonsense. Like the self-defense class, only fueled by the couple of beers he had obviously had and her faintly giddy astonishment. They would laugh, and joke in that same way, and she would act all incredulous and withering.
Then he slipped his hand around her waist, and the whole world went still.
The breeze ceased stirring the leaves on the trees around them. All the clocks stopped; the earth forgot to turn. Even he seemed to freeze for one insane second—but that was good. It meant that she could take everything in, one bizarre piece at a time. She glanced down at that big paw on her body, and the chest that was almost touching hers, and his face tilted down toward her, her eyes as big as dinner plates. And then he took her right hand in his, and they got even bigger than that. Once this man had made her lock herself in the janitor’s closet. He had.
Now he was out here trying to dance formally with her to the strains of “Only You,” by Yazoo.
And that was really the smallest part of it.
“Okay, eyes up, we go on the three, not the two,” he said, all that mischief in his eyes and on his lips, but different, so different, because he knew she knew what those words were from. Dirty Dancing. This is Dirty fucking Dancing, h
er mind hollered, while her feet did their best to obey. He went back and she was supposed to go forward, and then he went forward and she was supposed to go back.
But she fumbled it. Of course she fumbled it.
Her heart was pounding so hard she suspected it was visible. Most of her body had turned to liquid, and the rest was trembling pretty violently. It was a given that she would fuck up whatever he was trying to do. She just didn’t expect her almost stepping on his feet would make her laugh the way it did. Or make him laugh the way he did it—with the kind of affection she never thought he was capable of. It wasn’t at her, it was with her. And best of all:
It came partly because he liked it.
He liked her amusement.
He even seemed pleased that she couldn’t dance to save her life, though she couldn’t say why until he started to give her real instructions. “No, go back, then to the side,” he said, and it hit her as hard as any insult he’d ever hurled at her. It gave him pleasure to help her do something. It was satisfying to him somehow—she could see it. His eyes lit up every time she got something right, and doubly so when she twirled beneath the bower of his arm. They were the Fourth of July for that, so bright and brilliant it stole her breath.
It made her think insane things, like he doesn’t even look that way at women he dates.
Before she shook it off. They were just having fun, that was all. He spun her back into his arms, but spinning into his arms didn’t mean anything. They were dancing; you were supposed to do that when you were dancing. And you were supposed to hold someone the way he was currently holding her, so tight to his body she could feel every curve and groove. She could feel each breath he took, as short and harsh seeming as her own. But most of all, she could see how little blue there was left in his eyes.
They were almost all pupil, as black as five past midnight.
And she knew this because she was staring up at him just as hard as he was staring down at her. She couldn’t seem to look away, as though he had somehow hypnotized her with dancing or smiling or whatever else it was that he had done here. Something, she thought. Something that made her skin feel seared and her head spin. She had to stop it before it got any worse.
Though she felt foolish after she had.
She practically ripped herself away from him, fumbling over words like Lydia is probably wondering where I got to. They sounded silly coming out, like he had done something seriously untoward. Put a hand up your skirt, her mind supplied, but that only deepened her blush. He hadn’t done anything of the sort, and to even think he might was beyond absurd. Not only was he not that sort of guy, she had all the sexual allure of a diseased snail to him.
And that would never change.
She was safe, completely safe.
Yet still, she ran.
Chapter 9
She kept her head down when he approached their table in the library. It seemed best to—that way, he couldn’t easily ask her why she had run off like that. He would have to wait until she was completely calm and ready. She might even get a chance to breathe and come up with something casual in the meantime. Something like I just remembered I left my curling iron on. It was even possible that he would buy it, considering how he took his seat. He just did it silently, effortlessly, as though none of this was a big deal.
Girls panicked and fled from him all the time.
It was fine, it was fine.
And then came the note.
Did I do something wrong the other night?
She tried to ignore it, she really did. But there was just something so vulnerable about his writing—he’d pressed own way too hard, and crossed out three lines before hitting on the right one. Plus he had underlined wrong, as though aware of how bad he could be.
She just couldn’t avoid him, or answer him meanly.
No, you didn’t do anything wrong. I really needed to go, she wrote on the back of the paper he had passed her. Followed by a hastily scribbled answer, on his side.
It was more the speed you went at that concerned me.
I didn’t go that fast. I just sort of jogged a little.
You hate jogging. It makes your boobs punch you.
How do you know that?
I overheard you tell Becky Rivero.
So you were just always listening in high school.
You make it sound like I bugged your bedroom.
Did you?
Yeah. Also there was that one time I climbed in the window when you were sleeping and watched you creepily from a corner. Don’t worry though, I’m the hero of this story so it was totally romantic.
She paused there, eyes running over those words again and again. Every bit of sense in her head saying he was fooling around. Then every other bit of sense telling her to panic now.
We should probably get back to work.
Scared you with that romantic thing huh?
I wouldn’t say scared exactly.
Good, because I didn’t mean it like that.
Of course you didn’t mean it like that.
It was just a joke, you know, because of Twilight.
He had drawn little cartoon vampires around the word, but she didn’t feel comforted. She felt unsettled, somehow, as though someone had exchanged her clothes for ones two sizes too small.
I know. Obviously I know that. You spent four years telling me how hideous and unappealing I am to all mankind. I’m not likely to think you suddenly want to date me.
Right. Exactly. It would be pretty weird.
Extremely weird. And ridiculous.
Oh totally ridiculous.
Preposterous, even, she wrote sloppily in the margins of his side—because that was what they’d started to do now. Somewhere in the middle they’d descended into rushed scribbles all around the edges of each other’s words, diagonal and upside down and scrawled in circles.
But that only made his pause more obvious.
His pen hovered, then touched the paper, then went back to hovering. He wrote a word and crossed it out, like he had at the start—only worse than that. Now he seemed pained by it, as though the words were sticking to the insides of his fingers. They wouldn’t flow down the pen, to the point where he just had to talk.
It was like hearing a gunshot, despite the fact that he was whispering.
And god, the eye contact he made. She couldn’t deal with it.
She had to glance down at her hands as they exchanged words.
“But just so you know…I don’t think you’re hideous.”
“Okay, well that doesn’t really make any difference to—”
“I mean that was all just me being a shallow asshole. Because clearly, you are not hideous at all. You have all the hair and those dark eyes and the real pouty top lip and…and you know,” he said, but she didn’t.
Not until he made a certain shape with his hands in the air.
An in-and-out shape, of the sort he was not supposed to ever, ever make.
“Did you just mime the curves of my body?” she asked, voice so thick with incredulity and confusion and horror that he jerked back. He shook his head once, hands suddenly flat on the table and eyes mildly panicked, as though he knew he had to back out of this fast.
And he tried to, too. He really tried.
“Nope. No, ma’am. No that is not what just happened,” he said, as firm as you pleased.
But it just as quickly collapsed. He crumbled over one eyebrow raise from her, face briefly scrunching in a way that would have been adorable if this wasn’t the weirdest thing of all time. He even half facepalmed, and followed it with an apology that somehow sounded like someone wincing.
“Please, can we pretend that is not what happened? I don’t know where that came from; it was super weird and I’m so sorry. I promise to never mime your body again.”
“It’s cool. It’s really fine. Let’s just go back to studying.”
“Yeah. Thank you.”
God, he sounded so relieved. Though for the next minute his face st
ayed the color of ripe tomatoes. And he didn’t write anything or read anything, either. She heard no scratch of a pen on paper. No whisper of pages being turned. Only silence.
Then finally, a far-too-mournful-sounding observation.
“I guess we can’t just expect to shift from enemies to friends without it being occasionally uncomfortable and sometimes full of inappropriate hand gestures.”
“Is that how you saw me? As your enemy?”
He didn’t look up at her when she said it.
Or when he answered, in the lowest possible tone.
“No. I was…I was just mostly talking from your perspective.”
“And what was yours? How did you think of the shit between us?”
“I don’t know. I think you want me to say a game, but that wasn’t true. It never felt like a game to me. It felt like I was trapped behind glass watching a really shitty version of myself operating my body.”
Now he looked up at her—right when she needed his eyes to stay down.
She knew she appeared too shaken by what he’d just said. She knew that he would see.
And he did. He just took it a different way from the one she’d expected.
“Though that’s not to absolve myself of responsibility. I don’t want to do that. I just…I don’t know how else to explain what it was like. I would go home and just be my ordinary self and wonder what the fuck happened. I still don’t know what the fuck happened.”
There were words she wanted to say here, but none of them came out.
Nothing came out. She felt suddenly frozen over—much to his consternation.
“Letty, are you still breathing?”
“Yeah. I just forgot how for a second.”
“Because you hate what I said?”
“Because you keep saying amazing things,” she said, part of her already wanting to take it back. It revealed too much and seemed too grateful. Her voice trembled in the middle. You could hear the tears in it.
But then he dipped his head to hide his smile, and she just couldn’t.
She had to make it a subject change instead.
“Now, can we actually do some work? I think we’ve written about three relevant words.”
“Well in fairness to us, it’s kind of hard to write relevant words about movies in a library.”
Never Sweeter (Dark Obsession #1) Page 6
