When We Met

by A. L. Jackson

  Exhaling loudly, she sent her smile over to me. “Done. Finally!” she groaned. “Now all we have left is finals next week, and then nothing for almost three weeks.”

  “You know, most people don’t get this excited until after finals are over.”

  She rolled her eyes and looked ahead. “Well, I’m not . . . most . . .” But she didn’t finish, and her body stilled against mine.

  I looked down to see her eyebrows pinched together, a curious expression on her face. As I followed her line of sight, my shoulders sagged and I swallowed roughly when I saw Dean standing not twenty feet away from us.

  Maybe I was wrong about her being ready.

  Her hand tightened against mine when he glanced over from the group of guys he was talking with, and his eyebrows rose when he saw us. And if it hadn’t been for the fact that it would look bad for her if I were to do it, I would have let go of her right then and continued walking—letting her follow if she wanted to.

  I didn’t need to test her. I told her I’d wait until she was ready, and I would. But if she was still not over her old boyfriend, then I didn’t want her using me as a crutch when she saw him. But I didn’t let go of her as I started walking again, and she kept up without any hesitation.

  “I haven’t seen him in a month,” she finally said when we got in my car.

  I turned to face her before driving away, but she wasn’t looking at me. “And?”

  She blinked a few times, her face still in that curious expression she’d had looking at him. “It was weird.”

  Indy didn’t offer anything else, and I didn’t ask. I pulled out of the parking space and drove us back to our houses, neither of us saying anything the entire time. I didn’t know if she could sense how frustrated I felt that after going so far forward, we seemed to be right back where we’d started, but she never said anything about it. She just stared out the windshield like she was trying to figure something out, and I tried to tell myself that I needed to calm down.

  It wasn’t working. My jaw felt like it was going to break by the time I pulled up in front of the houses, and my hands were gripping the steering wheel so tight that my knuckles were white.

  When we got out, she made it halfway to her house before she realized I wasn’t following her.

  “Aren’t you coming over?”

  “Yeah, just let me go drop my stuff off. I’ll be over in a minute.”

  Her brow furrowed, but she nodded as she backed up toward the girls’ house, and I turned to go into ours. As soon as I was in my room, I noticed I didn’t have any “stuff,” and I realized why Indy had looked so confused.

  Raking my hands over my face, I fell back onto my bed and groaned. I didn’t want to deal with this; I didn’t want to deal with Dean. I wanted to be sure of where we were, like I had been ten minutes before we saw him. I wanted to ask her what she’d been thinking when she was staring at him. But I knew I couldn’t ask her, I knew I had to wait for her to tell me—and it was killing me.

  She was supposed to be mine, and I’d thought she finally was until I realized she still belonged to him.

  When I’d calmed down, I got off my bed and walked over to the girls’ house, letting myself in and up the stairs toward Indy’s room. When I didn’t find her in there, I didn’t hesitate; I climbed the stairs to the attic and carefully walked across the death trap of a floor until I was next to her and wrapped another blanket around her as I sat.

  She didn’t look at me as I did, and she didn’t say anything for long minutes as she stared at the snow falling outside the window. “You didn’t have anything you needed to put down.”

  “I know.”

  Her eyes drifted away from the window and down to the pillows. Nodding a couple of times, she flickered her green eyes toward me for a second before saying, “I’d rather you not drag anything out for my benefit, Kier. If you’re done, just say it. I appreciate honesty so much more.”

  “God, Indy, seriously?” I cupped her cheek and turned her head so she was looking at me. “You really thought that was what all that was about?”

  She didn’t respond, but her eyebrows shot up and she made a face, like what else should she have expected?

  “I needed time to calm down. You just shut down the second you saw him, and I had to watch you staring at your old boyfriend who I want nothing more than to beat the shit out of. That was hard for me to watch, but I really can’t expect anything else from you. You were with him for two years, and it’s only been a few months since you guys broke up. I was afraid I’d say something, so before I could, I gave myself time to calm down.”

  “You think I still want him?” she asked, her voice cracking. “You think I’m still having a hard time dealing with what happened between Dean and me?”

  I shrugged, and my fingers slipped from her cheek. “Yeah.”

  “Do you not see how much you’ve helped me—changed me—in the last couple weeks? In the last month? Even before I knew how I knew you, you were all I thought about and I wanted you. Not Dean. Yes, it was still hard then, but talking with you, finally getting everything out . . . well, it’s not hard now. I told you when I saw him today that it was weird, and it was. Because for the first time it didn’t hurt, it was almost like I was looking at a completely different person and it threw me off. Every time I’ve seen him or Vanessa, I’ve been close to panicking. Today, I wanted to laugh, but I think I was too shocked by the whole thing to do anything other than just think about the differences.”

  “Differences?”

  Now Indy moved closer to me, her hands maneuvering out from her blankets for her fingers to wrap around the sides of my neck, her thumbs brushing my jaw. “In how you treat me, and how he treated me. In how you make me feel, how I thought I felt with him, and how I actually felt. And then it just hit me. Like, I was upset because of him? I’d gotten wasted weekend after weekend, had sex with nameless guys . . . because of him? And it just blew my mind.”

  For the first time since first buying Indy a loaf of garlic bread, I felt like shit for jumping to conclusions about her.

  “He never saw me as anything more than an inconvenience. He told Vanessa that I was a mess, not that he was wrong about that then. To him I was useless, needy, and frustrating . . . and I know just by the way you look at me that I’m none of those things to you. From what you’ve said, I had plenty of Saturdays to frustrate you, but you never backed down, and you never stopped trying to take care of me. You’ve helped me in a way no one has since Ian died. You look at me and I know I’ve found exactly who I need. Who I want.”

  There was the slightest pressure on the back of my neck, and I didn’t wait for anything else. That statement, that small pressure, was all I needed to know she was ready. I pulled her to me and captured her mouth with mine, and she met the kiss greedily. Her lips parted on a soft sigh, and I took the opportunity to deepen the kiss. Letting her hands fall from my neck, she fisted them in my jacket before she was pushing it off my shoulders and unzipping my hoodie. I only pulled away from her long enough to get them off my arms before she was grabbing the front of my shirt and tugging me back toward her as she lowered herself onto the pillows.

  Moving the blankets away from her so I could press my body against hers, she hitched her knees up around my hips, and a groan formed deep in my chest when I involuntarily rolled my hips against hers. When her hands moved down my back, and her fingers played with the bottom of my shirt, I planted my palms on the pillows around us and lifted myself off her enough that she could slowly inch my shirt up my body and over my head. One arm at a time, I untangled myself from the shirt, and the tips of her fingers grazed the muscles low on my torso, causing them to tighten.

  Indy smiled against my kiss, but when her fingers dropped lower, I knew I needed to stop this before it could go any further. I wanted her. I wanted her so fucking bad my head was spinning. But there was still so much between us that I couldn’t do this to her—not yet.

  Reaching down, I grabbed he
r hand and curled my fingers around hers as I moved her arm away. “We can’t,” I grumbled when I pulled back. I saw the heat and want in her green eyes and wanted to take that back. Yes. Yes, we fucking can.

  “Why? You already know I’m not a virgin,” she whispered, her cheeks filling with heat.

  “I know.”

  Indy rolled her eyes and shot me a look. “Let me guess, are you going to follow this up with something along the lines of you think I’m not ready and you’re going to wait until I am?”

  I smirked and kissed her quickly, biting down on her bottom lip as I pulled back again. “No, actually, I’m not.” She raised an eyebrow but waited for me to continue. Only problem was it took me a solid minute to think of a good enough reason not to go back to where we’d just been. “I’m not having sex with you in this house when I just passed Misha coming in here. And I’m not having sex with you in my house, because I’m not letting any of those guys hear what you sound like when I make you come.”

  Her mouth opened with an audible huff, and her eyes widened. Her breathing deepened, and I dropped my head to kiss a line up her throat.

  “So after finals next week, you’re packing a bag and we’re going someplace where it’ll just be us. When we get there, I’m not letting you leave the bed for days.” I listened to her breathing hitch before asking, “Now, are you okay with that?”

  She swallowed and nodded, and I smiled against her soft skin before gently biting down on it. “Good.”

  chapter six

  Indy

  I had never hated finals week as much as I hated this one. It never seemed to end, and it was only halfway done. It had been six days since the promise of what was to come. I’d finished my second day of finals, and I still had two days left. Well, technically one and then turning in a paper on Thursday morning, but Kier still had a final Thursday afternoon, and we weren’t leaving for wherever he was taking me until after that.

  Studying had been nearly impossible Wednesday and Thursday. No matter where we were, we ended up going to the pillow room, one of our rooms, or to his SUV to practically attack each other. After we realized that even being in public didn’t change anything, we started staying away from each other. I saw him once in the morning, afternoon, and right before one of us went to sleep, but only for a couple of minutes each time. Anything more than that and studying went out the window all over again.

  Not that I would have minded.

  “I need to go,” he whispered against my lips.

  “Probably.” I slid my hands inside his shirt, grazing the tips of my fingers over his muscled V in a way I was quickly learning drove him crazy.

  Kier growled and backed me up against the wall of the entryway as he deepened the kiss. “Five more minutes.”

  “Thirty. Pillow room is free,” I suggested, laughing when his golden eyes flashed open before narrowing.

  “Indy,” he said in warning.

  Hooking two fingers inside his jeans, I pulled him closer and he put one of his hands against the wall to stop me.

  Quick footsteps sounded on the stairs, and I frowned when Kier smirked. “Two more days, Indy.” Cupping my cheek with his other hand, he leaned in for a slow kiss.

  Chloe cleared her throat, her eyes wide when Kier and I pulled away from each other, and I was pretty sure I looked like a kid who got caught with her hand in a cookie jar—but then Kier’s thumb brushed against my cheek and I kind of didn’t care anymore.

  “Time to go. See you tonight,” he whispered. Kier nodded toward Chloe before giving me one more light kiss and walking out the door. I had a stupid, giddy smile on my face when I turned toward her again.

  “When did that happen?” she asked, her face full of surprise as she pointed at the door.

  I shrugged. “It’s kind of been happening since the middle of November, but Thanksgiving break is when it all changed, I guess.”

  “Where have I been?”

  I shot her a look. “Uh. Work?”

  She glared at me for a few seconds before moving her hand so she was pointing in the direction of the guys’ house. “Don’t get me wrong, because he’s—damn—but don’t you find him . . . weird? He doesn’t ever talk to anyone.”

  “He doesn’t talk to anyone else,” I said as I began walking toward the stairs, a sly grin now replacing the giddy smile. “I can’t get that boy to shut up. Have fun at work!” I called over my shoulder as I ran up the steps.

  After taking a hot shower and bundling back up in multiple layers of sweats and jackets, I hopped on my bed and tried to study. Tried being the keyword there. If it weren’t for the fact that it was snowing outside, and our heater could only do so much with the drafts that came in through our house, I would have stripped back down and taken a cold shower because of the way my imagination was getting me so worked up.

  I was lying back on my bed, books, study cards, and laptop forgotten as I thought about Kier’s muscled body. I wished I’d gotten more time to run my hands over the planes of his chest and the lean muscles in his arms before he put his shirt back on last week. Two days, Indy. Two. Days.

  “Hey.”

  I jolted at the sound of his deep voice, and looked over to find him in my doorway, a sad smirk playing on his lips.

  “Looks like you’re getting a lot of studying in.”

  Sitting upright, I glanced at everything scattered around my bed and tried to figure out an excuse before shrugging. “Yeah, not really. Are you okay? You can’t already be going to sleep, and you left just a couple hours ago.”

  Kier shut the door behind him and walked over toward my bed, dragging the chair from my desk behind him and sitting down in it.

  “I could’ve cleared off—”

  “I need to talk to you.”

  My body stilled and I straightened my spine when I saw the haunted look in his eyes, and realized that he wasn’t even sitting close enough to the bed for me to lean over and touch him. “Okay . . . ,” I said warily, drawing out the word. “Should I—should I be worried?”

  His eyes had fallen into his lap, but at my question, they snapped back up to me. Hunching over, he clasped his hands, letting them hang between his knees as he shrugged and slowly shook his head back and forth. “Honestly, Indy, I’m the one who’s worried right now . . . because I don’t know how you’re going to react to this.”

  That didn’t help relieve any type of worry at all. I scooted back so I was pressed against my wall, facing him, but didn’t say anything else as I stared at him—waiting for him to begin whatever it was he needed to talk to me about.

  “I haven’t been fair to you, Indy. The last year and a half I couldn’t help noticing you. You’re beautiful, you have this smile that makes other people around you smile, and you always seemed happy. But even then I somehow knew it was an act, knew there was something you were trying to hide that was controlling your life. I wanted to save you even back then, but you were with Dean, and our paths just weren’t meant to cross then. Then this school year began, and this whole semester all I wanted to do was take care of you, help you, save you . . . be with you. Even before you finally started noticing me during times where you weren’t drunk, I was already falling for you so hard.”

  There was a “but” coming; I knew there was. Because none of this sounded like a bad thing yet, and all of it I already knew. And by the tone of his voice and the look in his eyes, this was about to be bad.

  “And then I kept putting everything on you, letting you make the decisions, waiting until you were ready, because—well, like I’ve said, I knew there was something you were hiding behind and needed to get out before I’d push you into any form of a relationship with me. But the thing is . . .”

  There was that “but,” and now he wasn’t talking, and I had this feeling creeping through my body like ice and fire were flooding my veins at the same time. Kier swallowed roughly and sighed before looking back up at me.

  “The thing is, I’ve been kind of hiding behind my own shit.
Keeping things from you, things that have made me into the guy you know, and into the guy who wanted nothing more than to save you. And I knew I had to tell you, but after you told me everything about your life—I felt like I couldn’t. I was afraid if I did you wouldn’t be able to see me the same way.”

  My eyebrows slammed down and my mouth popped open with a huff. “And you thought I didn’t feel the same? You thought I wasn’t terrified that you wouldn’t be like, ‘Yep, she’s not worth it,’ and just leave?”

  His lips tilted up in the faintest of smiles, but he looked anything but happy. “No, I knew that was exactly how you felt. But I knew that nothing you could say would change my mind.”

  “And nothing you—”

  “Indy”—he cut me off—“you can say that, but you’ve barely known my name for a month. I’ve been waiting for you for a year and a half, knowing that whole time that you were going to have something in your past. It’s different. And as much as I want Thursday afternoon to be here, I’ve been dreading it,” he groaned. “Because I knew I couldn’t take you with you not knowing about me.”

  When he didn’t continue for a while, I scoffed. “Well, what is it? Unless you somehow caused my brother’s death, I can’t imagine anything that would make me not want to be with you anymore. And seeing how they slid off the road, I’m positive you didn’t.”

  “I didn’t kill your brother, Indy.”

  “Then just tell me, Kier!”

  “I killed someone else!” he shouted, and then grabbed at his hair, turning to look at the bedroom door before dropping his elbows to his knees—his hands still firmly gripping his thick black hair.

  I was frozen. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t blink. That—that couldn’t be right. I must have misheard him. Because the Kier I’d come to know wasn’t a—I couldn’t even think it. Not because it was too terrifying a thought, but because it didn’t fit what I knew of him at all.