by K. Z. Snow
I cleared my throat. “That’s only because I’m naturally pale.”
“‘Fair.’ The word is ‘fair.’” She skimmed her fingertips over my jaw, which stimulated another surge of heat. “So, yeah, what’s up with Rider?”
“What do you mean, what’s up with him?” Shit. Now my mind was veering in the wrong direction.
“Does he have a girlfriend back home or something?”
“I don’t think so. Why do you want to know?” I sucked a couple of mini marshmallows from the surface of my hot cocoa.
“’Cause he’s crazy gorgeous, yet he’s never with anybody. Except you and your buds. A few girls on my floor would love to hook up with him.”
“You mean do him,” I said, mildly irritated.
Della shrugged. “Sure, whatever. He’s hot. That makes him doable.”
I didn’t like this conversation. At all. “So why don’t they ask him out?”
“I think they’re intimidated by him. He’s got that man-of-mystery vibe going on, like he’s secretly a vamp or werewolf or something.”
She’d spoken that last phrase in a stagey way, as if she knew how idiotic it sounded, and I laughed. “You guys have seen too many Twilight movies.”
Della chuckled. “Probably. And don’t forget the crappy books.”
“I can’t forget them,” I said, “because I’ve never read them.”
“Lucky you.” She lifted and dunked her teabag. “Brody Tarlech is one of your friends too, right?”
“Uh-huh.” Okay, I thought, where are we going now?
“Emily Pon said Brody made some reference to a celibacy pledge in H and H class, something he claimed his friends were all in on.”
“I wouldn’t call it a pledge.” No shit. If there had been one, I’d be in serious danger of breaking it. I hadn’t thought too much about Rider and me taking things to the limit—to be honest, the prospect scared me as much as it excited me—but I certainly wasn’t averse to the idea. Unless “the limit” involved a girl.
Click. A light bulb went on over my head. The BRAVO door swung both ways. If Tim, Brody, and Carlton wanted to use it as an entry, I could just as easily use it as an exit.
“What would you call it?” Della asked.
Shit, I didn’t know. I wished I had crib notes. “We’re a group of guys who don’t want to make sex the be-all and end-all of our time at the academy. That’s all. We’re striving for….” Stalling, I sipped at my cocoa and shrugged.
“For what?”
She wasn’t about to let this go. I had to improvise an answer. “Like, a higher purpose. Something more meaningful. Forging friendships. Getting a solid education. Because obsessing over sexual conquests can make a guy shallow. Down the road, it can make him a shitty husband and father too.”
Della lifted her eyebrows and pulled down her mouth. “You might have a point there.”
Hurray for me! I’d bullshitted my way to a point! “Yeah. That’s why we’re not ashamed to identify as virgins.”
“So… does that mean no fooling around of any kind?” She scooted closer to me. My nerves went taut. “’Cause you’re really cute, Jake. I love your hair. And you have pretty lips.”
Oh God. Here it comes. And not just another blush. I really hadn’t prepared for this except as a hypothetical outcome. “You know you’re embarrassing me, right?” I murmured into my mug.
“Of course I know. It’s written all over your face.” Della touched one of my cheeks and then the other. “Em. Barrassed. But you shouldn’t be.”
“Sorry. I can’t help it. I don’t get too many compliments.”
“I don’t know why.” She took the mug out of my hands and set it on the end table next to her side of the loveseat. Anticipating what she would do next made me want to run. And sure enough, she did it: turned my head and lightly dropped a kiss on my mouth. I felt and smelled some kind of lip balm.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” I whispered.
“Why? You afraid you won’t be able to resist me?” Her hand, resting an inch above my knee, felt threatening, like an oversized spider ready to pounce.
“No. Just the opposite.” Oh fuck. Whenever I was frazzled, I neglected to censor myself.
Frowning, Della pulled back slightly.
“Please don’t take it personally,” I said. “I really like you, but you’re wasting your time. Any girl would be wasting her time.” Oh double fuck. “I mean, I’m committed to… upholding my oath.” What oath? I’d never taken an oath. Worse yet, I’d just told her as much!
She looked more puzzled than hurt. Della was a self-possessed girl, for which I was hugely grateful. “I’m not trying to get in your pants, Jake,” she said, as if it were self-evident. “People make out all the time without having sex.”
I nodded.
“So what’s the problem?” She regarded me through narrowed eyes. “Are you guys gay or something?”
Although she hadn’t spoken the word in a sneering, derogatory way, I stifled a cough and got up to retrieve my mug of cocoa. “Just because a guy won’t put out doesn’t mean he’s gay.” I’d tried to give my comeback a mild nip of indignation. Unfortunately, I came off sounding insecure and defensive.
“Making out is not the same as putting out, boyo.” Della faced forward, crossed her legs, and studiously sipped at her tea.
“Boyo?” I began tittering. “Boyo?”
She smiled. “Would you feel better if I called you ‘bucko’?”
“At least it’s more masculine.” I finished my drink and got up. Not because I was offended, but because I didn’t want to invite more physical attention. Kissing girls was so not my thing, even if I liked them.
“You leaving?” Della asked. She sounded disappointed.
“Yeah. I pissed away all of yesterday fishing. I’ve got to knock out some homework. And my history essay won’t proofread itself.”
Smirking in a good-natured way, Della rose too. “Bet if I looked like Ms. Anderson, you wouldn’t have a problem making out with me.”
“Bet I would.” On impulse, I put an arm around Della’s shoulders and gave her a hug. “A barracuda covered in awesome sauce is still a barracuda.”
She laughed. “Hey, want to grab some dinner first? I’m starving.”
I glanced at the wall clock. Not only was it close to five, but I could tell from the sounds and smells welling from the cafeteria that the supper trough was open. “Sure,” I said. “But, uh, be prepared to be stared at.”
“Why?” Della gave me a playful bump with her hip. “You’re not that funny-looking.”
Chapter Seven
AS IT turned out, we weren’t stared at by my friends—they’d already come and gone—but by Della’s. Some even made a beeline to our table. I, of course, got tongue-tied and was relieved when I’d swallowed my last bite of baked ham and scalloped potatoes. I was also relieved when Della declined my offer to walk her back to Hammond.
I didn’t like attention. I’d never liked it. Life teaches a red-haired kid that attention often results in humiliation. A comment I’d overheard while Della and I looked for a two-seater table had verified this lesson. “Check it out,” some guy had said. “Archie’s dating Veronica.” Much tittering had ensued.
As I trudged back to Bolger, I wondered how much misery I’d be in for if people also knew I liked boys much more than I liked girls; that I’d actually slept with my “crazy gorgeous” roommate, and touched him in ways I’d never touched anybody, and let him touch me; that all this touching had produced results that sent me “over the moon in ecstasy,” like that Golden Ticket had done for Charlie Bucket.
Shit. Some names were far more cutting than Little Orphan Annie and Raggedy Andy and Archie.
Like “faggot.”
Most of the doors on my floor stood open. Before I even got to my room, Carlton, Tim, and Brody were trailing after me. My door was closed.
“Well?” Brody said at my back.
“Chill out, man. At least
let me get my coat off before you start interrogating me.”
I opened the door. Rider sat on his bed, legs drawn up as he rested against the headboard. Our physics text rested on his thighs. He wore sweatpants and no shirt.
He looked up and lifted a hand in greeting.
My heart stitched at the sight of him. I tried to keep my eyes from tracing the low mounds of his chest, the feathering of dark hair between them. My mouth and hands had visited there last night. I wanted to wedge myself into the V between Rider’s legs and chest. I wanted to lose my fingers in his hair and start kissing him, fondling him.
Aware of the three other guys pressing in around me, I casually removed my jacket, hung it over my desk chair, and sat. Brody, Carlton, and Tim had no compunction about lining themselves up on my bed like the Three Stooges, even though there was crap scattered all over it.
“Well?” Brody repeated more emphatically.
“We had a nice time,” I said.
“And then she pushed the ejector button.” Carlton cackled.
“Actually, she kissed me in the café, but I stopped her from going any further.”
Rider’s eyes shifted in my direction. I could tell, even though his lids were lowered. That meant he was listening. With interest. No matter how indifferent or oblivious he acted, his eyes always gave him away.
“How much further could she go in the café?” Tim said.
Carlton lifted his head from the wall. All three of them were leaning against it. “Where the fuck have you been, dude? You go in there late at night or super early in the morning, and chances are you’ll see some chick sitting on a guy’s lap with her skirt spread out. And you know what they’re playing under that skirt.”
He was trying to get one of us to say “hide the bratwurst” or something equally juvenile. Nobody took the bait.
“But they weren’t there late at night or early in the morning,” Tim pointed out.
“How’d she act after you cut her off?” Brody asked me.
“I think it left her a little confused. Turned out okay, though. She didn’t get mad or mopey or anything. In fact, she asked me to the Valentine’s dance.”
Brody lifted a knee and pumped his arm.
Carlton rolled his eyes. “Okay, we’re waiting.”
“For what?” I said, because I truly didn’t have a clue.
“For you to say ‘bazinga.’”
“Honest to God, CC, she asked me to the dance while we were eating dinner together.”
“You going?” Rider asked laconically. He continued to look at his physics text instead of at me.
“I haven’t decided yet.” I walked over to his bed, sat on the edge, and pulled the book off his thighs to get his attention. “FYI, you could go too.”
Rider lifted his eyebrows, linked his hands over his belly. “Oh really. And how could I do that?”
“Della told me some girls on her floor want to score with you. If I told her you’d like to go to the dance, I bet you’d get, like, four invites within three minutes.”
“And you could toss your leavings our way,” Brody said.
“I ain’t taking Hearn’s rejects,” Carlton huffed.
Brody leaned forward. “Oh come on, man. His rejects would probably be better than your first dibs. Ichabod.”
Carlton, who was a gangly guy, threw a pencil at him.
I got up and stretched, cracking my back. “Why don’t you clowns hit the road? I could use a nap.”
Almost imperceptibly, Rider’s mouth quirked. Just thinking about being alone with him had me wound up. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he was shirtless for exactly that reason: to take my mind off Della and prove to me who it was I really wanted—which, of course, was completely unnecessary.
But did he care enough to do such a thing?
Maybe that wasn’t the right question. Was he insecure enough?
Wow, what a thought. The words Rider and insecure didn’t seem to belong in the same sentence together.
When the guys were gone, I closed and locked the door. Remaining where I was, I pulled off my boots, socks, jeans, and sweater. That left me in a T-shirt and briefs. Rider hadn’t picked up his physics text. He continued to sit on his bed in the same position, except he’d rested his arms on his upraised knees.
We looked at each other. It felt like a showdown.
“I thought about you practically the whole time,” I confessed.
“You mean I got jealous for no reason?”
Knees weak, I went to his bed and did exactly what I’d been fantasizing about doing.
WHEN I awoke from a doze, I was still in Rider’s bed. The window’s applied mullions patterned the blade of moonlight slicing into our room. But that wasn’t what captured my attention the most. I was experiencing the most incredible sensation.
Something was going on at the apex of my spread legs, something that had never happened to me before. Squirming, I groaned and let my eyes drift closed. If this was a dream, I didn’t want to lose it.
A short time later, I heard a thump, then “Ow! Shit.”
I boosted myself up. “Rider?”
“Sorry. I fell off the goddamn bed.”
No way could I keep from laughing.
Rider sat up and rubbed his shoulder. “What’s so funny? I ruined everything.”
“No you didn’t.” I leaned over the side of the bed and smoothed his hair away from his face. “Don’t you know that when you fall off a horse or bicycle, you’re supposed to get right back on?” I needed him to finish what he’d started. It hadn’t been a dream.
“Yeah,” he said, “but I didn’t think it applied to mouths and dicks.”
Heat swamped my face. Rider was more plainspoken than I was.
Smiling, he did a half turn to face me. “You’re blushing, aren’t you?”
“Never mind about that.” I flopped onto my back. “Just get up here.”
His hand closed around the base of my hard-on as if it were the pommel of a saddle. “Ah yes. My noble steed awaits.”
After a laugh break, we rode off together into the night.
I DIDN’T know what to expect in American history on Monday. Ms. Anderson had surely seen Rider’s e-mail.
“What do you think she’s going to do?” I asked him as we walked to class after lunch.
“What can she do? Nothing. She can’t even start zinging me with Ds and Fs. It’s too late in the school year. Bad grades wouldn’t look right after how well I’ve done.”
“But what about that other thing you were afraid of?”
A snowball shot past us. Kids always had snowball fights on the quad.
“What thing?” Rider asked. “Oh, you mean accusations?”
“Yeah.”
He shrugged. “I’ll have to deal with that if and when it happens. I thought about it yesterday while you were gone. If she does accuse me of groping her or some crap like that, she won’t get far. I’m the minor, and I still have all her messages.”
I gave him a spontaneous, one-armed hug. “Smart man.”
He hugged me back.
Of course, we made it look like a buddy thing, not a romantic thing. All our touches in public would have to be like that.
The closer we got to the classroom, the edgier I got over possible fallout from Rider’s e-mail. Maybe I’d seen too many movies, but I was convinced if any female at Ben Raphael could reenact Glenn Close’s role in Fatal Attraction, it was Nancee Anderson.
She strengthened my belief by sticking metaphorical stilettoes into Rider’s cranium as soon as he entered the room. I made a point of watching her, even though Rider wouldn’t give her a single glance. Yet she also exhibited the MO he’d described to me. She kept pausing at his desk while she talked, either in front of it or behind it, as if to remind him of what he was giving up and making him think twice about his decision. In my head, I heard Glenn Close saying with terrifying emphasis, “I’m not going to be ignored, Dan.”
Then again, my imagin
ation was probably running wild. Nothing in my limited experience had prepared me for this situation.
Or for many other things.
Chapter Eight
THE NEXT two weeks had moments of interest but went by more or less uneventfully. Of course, my friends and I were occasionally teased and even ridiculed—some people, regardless of age or gender, pumped themselves up by putting other people down—but we were undaunted. We maintained our new appearances, kept the mystique motor running, and overall reaped pretty favorable attention.
Some nights before I fell asleep, I found myself thinking about Ms. Anderson, who hadn’t wreaked any vengeance on Rider. What was going through her mind? What had driven her to seduce him in the first place?
I ended up feeling kind of sorry for Nancee. Even if Rider was the only student she’d tried to make—because hell, he was tantalizing—the woman clearly had problems. No sane adult, male or female and a teacher especially, became sexually obsessed with teenagers.
As I’d predicted, once Della gave her friends the go-ahead on Rider, he amassed three invites to the Valentine’s dance in the course of two days. A couple more trickled in after that. From the field of candidates, he more or less picked a date—Faith, a junior—at random. I have to confess, that pleased me. It meant nobody really interested him.
A sophomore girl named Avery asked Carlton. His Mohawk had apparently won her over, and he’d sweetened his manpot, so to speak, by going into Green Bay the following weekend and getting his ears pierced and his scalp inked between the rows of shrubbery. He’d also persuaded Avery to get one of her friends to invite Brody to the dance.
One of Tim’s coworkers at the Northern Light invited him, but he balked at accepting. The rest of us thought we knew why. Tim had lapsed into one of his antisocial moods. He was often gone in the evenings, probably to study in the newspaper office, which meant he wanted to get away from all the commotion in the dorm. The cause of this need to escape was likely an ongoing problem at home.
