“Thanks for asking, Kell,” he says. “It’s good of you to take notice. Don’t know if you remember about Chrystina…”
“Of course, yeah.”
“Today’s her birthday,” he says. “Would have been her birthday. My ex and I, we always visit her grave, say a few prayers. Makes for a rough day.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I wouldn’t have asked if—”
“I don’t mind talking about it,” he says. “Just rough. She’d be twenty-one today.”
I think about that, how many years of her life Russell has missed out on. Also, I wonder what she’d be like if she were here. I could use someone who’s twenty-one, who’d been through things with high school and guys from local colleges. Maybe Chrystina would know how to handle the Oliver situation.
Okay, wait. Have I really somehow found a way to make the subject of Russell’s dead daughter all about me?
My cell phone rings as we walk back, loaded down with bags of Vietnamese food, and we juggle until Russell has all the bags, and my hands are free to retrieve my phone from my bag. Dad. Crap. “Hello?”
“Kellie, where are you?”
“Working,” I say, like I’ve had a job for a million years already and he’s well aware of my schedule.
“Working? We haven’t discussed you getting a job.”
“It’s just with Mom and Russell at the shop.”
“I don’t feel great about you working in that part of town in that kind of environment,” he says. “All those roughnecks coming in and—”
I laugh so hard my eyes tear up, and Russell joins in without even knowing what I’m laughing at. “‘Roughnecks’? Dad, what are you talking about? Russell’s last client was this forty-four-year-old lady. Mom’s working on some frat boy right now.”
“Your mother and I will have to discuss this,” he says. “Will I see you tonight?”
“I have plans, so, probably not. Some night next week, okay?”
Dad agrees, and even though he snubbed me from my own frigging family breakfast this morning, I still feel bad I’m not there. He just makes it really easy for me not to be.
Chapter Nine
Sara’s at the house when I get there after work. She’s wearing jeans and a blue sweater I’ve never seen before. Since she’s in her school uniform so much, I always notice what she’s wearing when she isn’t.
“Did you guys go shopping today?” I ask.
“Just for a few things, yeah,” she says. “I’m so sorry for how he was earlier.”
“I know. It’s not your fault anyway. And I’m fine.”
“Dad wanted to buy you pants because he said yours were ‘ragged,’ but I talked him out of it.”
“Thanks,” I say, even though I probably could use some new pants. It’s super nice of Sara to keep Dad from acting like everything about me needs to be upgraded. “You know I don’t blame you for how he is. You shouldn’t have to feel bad for being so perfect.”
“One, I’m not perfect, two, I don’t feel bad about myself, and three, I do still feel bad. I just don’t know how to fix it.”
“No one can fix Dad.” Standing in front of Sara, I feel stupid that I’ve been so secretive about Oliver. There’s nothing to really even be secretive about. True, Sara and I don’t really talk generally about guys, and I guess there are lots of specific reasons I don’t want to talk about Oliver. Again, he’s Dexter’s brother, so is that weird? Again, he’s smart and at a good college, and I’m sure everyone expected if I started going out with anyone he’d be a goof-off like me. And…okay, actually, I guess I still feel better being secretive.
“Anyway, I should go get ready.” I’m glad Sara isn’t the kind of person who’ll make me say what I’m getting ready for. “Talk to you later? Are you going out?”
“Well, I’m hanging out with Dexter while he and his friends play something on his PS3. Does that count?”
“Hmmm, maybe not. Is that like a thing you have to do as a girlfriend?”
“Generally speaking, who knows? Specifically speaking, yes, for me it is. See you later, Kell.”
I’m in front of my closet before it hits me I don’t know what I should wear for this. Luckily, Adelaide answers as soon as I call her. “Go.”
“What? Oh, hi. It’s Kellie. What am I supposed to wear tonight?”
“Brooks, what have we been discussing?”
“Guys are just people and stressing too much about clothes and other superficial items is pointless?”
“Exactly.” She pauses. “But jeans and your purple shirt, if I had to pick. Have fun. Report back tomorrow.”
Oliver is already at the coffee shop when I get there. In my opinion, he’s much cuter than Dexter, though I guess having the same red hair and brown eyes and being approximately the same height means it’s probably a pretty close race. Still, there is something in Dexter’s eyes that gives away that he is trying so hard all the time. Oliver’s eyes just are.
I guess I like a lot of things about Oliver: how his hands are big but smooth, how even when he isn’t smiling, his eyes look like he is, and how his top lip is a little fuller than his bottom one. When we talk, and it’s me who’s saying something—even something stupid—he listens like at that very moment my dumb jokes are more important than anything else. I mean, I tell a lot of dumb jokes all the time; no one else really leaves the rest of the world behind to hear them.
He hugs me as soon as he spots me, which is nice, and kisses me as soon as we’re outside, which is even nicer.
“I got a little worried about the haunted house thing when I got your text,” he says. “What do you think?”
“I can’t believe I’ll be told two years in a row my soul will end up in hell, right?”
“Seems doubtful.” He grabs my hand as we walk to his car, which is also nice. “That’s a yes?”
“That’s a yes.” In his car we kiss again, this time with his hands on my face. And it should have reminded me of that day in his room—and, okay, honestly it does—but it isn’t like it’s replaying itself out now. That was a long time ago. This is now.
We get to the haunted house in only a few minutes, and I’m thrilled we’re greeted by zombies and not ministers. “You picked a good one.”
“That’s a relief.” Oliver grins, this way of looking at me like I’m someone more. I guess to him I am. “Hate to sentence you to hell tonight.”
I lead him toward the entrance and pay for my admission. Listen, I’m not the kind of person who wants to blog about the whole world being sexist—I’ll let Adelaide keep that job—but I don’t want to kick off, well, whatever we’re doing, with Oliver paying for everything just because he happened to be born a guy.
I climb up the creaky, dark stairs first, pulling Oliver behind me, and he yells out the very second we pass a large and very fake spider hanging over us. “Are you okay?”
“I just hate spiders, sorry,” he says, getting a little closer to me. “I know it’s not manly. Everything else about me is manly, I promise.”
“Yeah, I remember,” I say, even though what am I doing? Why can I talk like this when I’m not at all ready for any of that? Not all of that at least.
I poke at the spider, hoping to change the subject with arachnophobia. “Seriously, though, even rubber ones?”
“It doesn’t look rubber from here.”
I laugh and pretend to take aim at the spider. “Taken care of.”
He gives me that grin again, and it hits me even more that Oliver likes me. Despite May. Despite that I’m kind of a weirdo. It is just this real, genuine, true thing. All for me.
I walk along right in front of him while getting growled at by surprisingly realistic werewolves, threatened with bites from vampires (I dare one guy to do it, and he laughs and breaks character—a minor victory), and held up at gunpoint by totally normal dudes with also surprisingly realistic fake guns. Oliver’s not scared of anything except the fake spiders, but being brave for him just becomes a thing I’m
doing, and the harder he laughs, the more I just keep wanting to do it.
After we’re out of the haunted house, we go to dinner, a vegetarian place I’ve gone to a million times with my family, of course, but Oliver gets so excited when we drive past, I act like we weren’t there just a couple weeks earlier.
“Sorry that was kind of lame,” he says, while we look over our menus.
“I didn’t think it was lame. And I like it when you scream.” Oh my God, way to take fake spiders and make it sound like I’m one of those people on HBO skilled at double entendres. I wonder how my subconscious got so much more experienced than me.
“Yeah, do you?”
Oh, Oliver, seriously, you should know from that day how not skilled I am at even single entendres; please don’t give me that look. Now I’m definitely back in May in my head, back in Oliver’s room without my clothes or any sense of what I want.
Luckily, a waiter shows up right then, and by the time Oliver orders a veggie burger and I order plantain tacos, I can pretend that moment has passed. I’m thinking a lot about what Adelaide said, though, and if this feels weird because of the almost-sex, then maybe I should just say something.
“I didn’t mean that how it sounded.”
He laughs. “Yeah, Kellie, I know. I wasn’t passing it up, though.”
I have to agree with that, but still. I’m ready for a new topic. “Are you a vegetarian or something?”
“No way, I love meat too much. I thought you were, though.”
“Why would you think that?” I ask. “Meat’s delicious.”
“Back on Memorial Day, your stepdad brought all those veggie burgers and hot dogs. Not to sound like a stalker, but I noticed you were eating them.”
“I just felt bad for Russell,” I say. “I didn’t want him to take home this huge plate of crap no one else wanted.”
He smiles and shakes his head. “Good thing I like this place anyway. My ex was a vegetarian, so we went here a lot.”
I guess it’s dumb to think I’m the first girl Oliver has messed around with, has taken on a date, has kissed like it’s the sweetest moment occurring in the entire universe. I guess it’s even dumber to care, so I set a goal to stop.
After we eat—with no more mentions of the ex but at least four of fake spiders—we walk around a little outside. There’s an alcove behind the building, a space where the bricks sort of cut away, and it smells like the Dumpsters lurking nearby. Still, Oliver pushes me back there and starts kissing me like we’re in complete privacy.
“I’m glad I ran into you,” he says sort of breathlessly, raising his head just far enough from mine to speak not directly into my mouth. His voice is extra husky. “I kept thinking of texting you before but—”
“I’m glad, too,” I say, hands on his face, pulling him back to me.
I hear a door open, and some cook from the restaurant yells out at us, so we laugh and make a run for Oliver’s car, where we get back to business. Well, kissing. Obviously, I know there’s more to it than this, and not just because we’d already gotten there. Almost there, at least.
“You want to get coffee?” he asks finally, while I fish some lip balm out of my purse. People don’t say things like “making out is a killer on your lip health,” but they should. That’s the kind of sex advice I actually need.
“I don’t know.” Instead, we could be somewhere alone that isn’t a car, where we could do almost as much as we had in May. I hope it’s allowable to put up limitations like that. According to Adelaide and all the websites she endorses, it is. “This is pretty good, right?”
“Oh,” he says, and I can tell he’s running options through his head. Hopefully, they aren’t ways to nicely tell me he’s done making out with me for the night. “I think my roommate’s out.”
Success.
Actually Oliver is totally wrong. When we get to his dorm room, there is some nerdy kid doing homework and listening to crappy jam rock, but he volunteers to go to the library before we have to ask.
“I’m not going to have sex tonight,” I tell Oliver as he pulls me down with him on his mattress. I hadn’t known him last time, but this time I can recognize that the sheets and pillows smell like him. “Just so you know.”
“You’re weird,” he says with a smile. “And that’s fine.”
“Oh, you have no idea.” I kiss him a few times, trying out a few things with my lips I’d read about (props to Adelaide and some helpful links she’d sent me). He’s letting out little sounds of what I take as approval, so the research has clearly been worth the effort. “I just didn’t want you getting the wrong idea about—”
“I didn’t,” he says, really quickly. “Stuff happens, Kellie. I didn’t think just because we got ahead of ourselves that we were going to pick up right there again.”
It’s exactly what he should have said, but it isn’t what I wanted to hear. The person I want to be would have had sex with him last time, or at least been more honest about why she hadn’t. And that’s who I want Oliver to see me as right now.
So I lie. “I meant that I freaked. It’s not like that’s my reaction to sex.”
He kisses my cheek, then my neck. “Listen, I didn’t think it was.”
Right then I’m in two places at once, because while I’m doing dumb things like lying to Oliver, I’m also sort of floating above myself screaming, Shut up, shut up, shut up, just frigging do him already if this is the alternative.
Also, I hate both of those parts of me, so I guess I’m in a third place, too, harshly judging both of them.
“I believe you, okay?” Oliver covers my lips with his, probably kissing me to shut me up more than anything else. And the me that is floating above, cheering me on, wins out, at least a little. I mean, I don’t frigging do him, but I get back to making out with him sans conversation at least.
“I should probably go,” I say, finally, catching sight of his clock out of the corner of my eye. “I don’t really have a curfew, but Mom knows I’m out with you so—”
He follows my line of sight and nods. “Yeah, it’s late, and I don’t want to piss off your family. Eventually, I’m gonna want a tattoo, and I’m sure your mom could exact revenge with ink if she wanted.”
“For sure.” I feel really good with this night ending in jokes and not tears. “Sorry you have to drive me back.”
“I don’t mind.” He smooths my hair, leans in, and kisses me a little more. “I wish you could stay longer. That’s my only complaint right now.”
“Mine, too.” I put my shoes back on and stand in front of his mirror for a moment to adjust my shirt, even though Mom isn’t dumb and doesn’t think I go on chaste 1950s dates or whatever.
Of course, Oliver and I kiss for a while when we get back to his car, and then when we get back to mine, and it’s definitely later than planned when I finally arrive home. Mom is in the living room, reading some novel probably about a hardheaded, down-and-out woman who somehow beat the odds.
“Hey, sorry I’m late,” I say.
“You’re not too late.” She marks her place. “Have fun?”
“I did.”
Mom stands up, gives me a hug, and kisses my cheek. “I should get to bed. What are you doing tomorrow? After brunch I thought Finn and Russell could hang out, and you and Sara and I could do a little shopping. What do you say?”
“Sounds great.” I curl up in the spot she just vacated on the sofa. Even though I’m exhausted—and even though I’d lied to Oliver a little—the night was too sweet to say good-bye to yet.
Chapter Ten
Something is definitely up the next morning, because Mom’s concerned voice is making all sorts of noise in the hallway and my alarm clock reads only 6:12. We’re morning people, sure, but we’re not crazy.
I get out of bed and open my door just enough to suddenly be eye-to-eye with Mom. We both yell out in surprise before she waves me back into my room. She walks in as I’m crawling back to bed. “Baby, do you know if Sara went out wi
th Dexter last night?”
“I’m not some sudden Dexter expert because of Oliver,” I say. “But, yes. She went over to his house to watch him and his friends play video games. Why?”
Mom sighs loudly. “She didn’t come home last night, and she’s not at your dad’s.”
“Why don’t you just call her cell?” It’s way too early to deal with Sara’s sudden descent into wild child or whatever this is. Later, I’ll marvel over that. (And maybe get up the nerve to ask for details.)
“Of course I tried that. It went straight to voice mail.”
“Did you call Dexter?”
“I guess I have to, huh?”
I think I’ve won out and will get to go back to sleep, but Mom dials him right then and there. Who knows why she has Dexter’s number saved on her phone? Is that a mom thing? Will Oliver’s get programmed in next?
“Hi, Dexter, I’m sorry to wake you. It’s Melanie Stone, Sara’s—Right, of course you know that. I’m not trying to get anyone in trouble, but Sara didn’t come home last night and—Oh? Thanks, I appreciate it.”
Mom clicks off her phone and walks out of the room. By now, I am A) wide awake and B) whatever the extreme version of curious is. So I follow. “Is she there?”
“No, you’re right that they had plans, but she canceled at the last minute so—”
“Maybe she’s at Camille’s,” I say without even really thinking about it. But, you know, maybe she is.
“Hmmmm,” is all Mom says before walking into her and Russell’s bedroom. I take a shower, get dressed, and settle in the living room with a bowl of cereal.
“Why are you eating?” Mom walks into the room, also showered and dressed now, like me in jeans and one of Russell’s shirts (I swiped a bowling shirt and Mom has on the skull and crossbones sweater again). “Sundays are brunch days.”
“Just like in the Bible. But with Sara—”
“Sara spent the night at Camille’s and will be back later. There’s no reason that has to throw off our whole day.”
Once Russell and Finn are up, we drive into the city and sit outside at Mokabe’s, where the brunch is both meat- and vegan-friendly. I feel sort of loopy and giggly when I think about the fact that only several hours ago, I’d stood just a few feet away and kissed Oliver. It’s a funny sensation, thoughts like this running through me like they know the pathways already even though it is all brand new.
Ink is Thicker Than Water (Entangled Teen) Page 9
