She is eyeballing me from the path outside the pool as I leave through the side gate. I wave to Troy as he clicks off the office light, pulls the door shut behind him, and then turns to put his key in the lock.
Porter is sitting on top of a graffiti-carved picnic table, his beat-up work boots on the bench, elbows propped on his knees, watching me make my way across the grassy slope. Valerie’s car rattles behind me as she drives off.
As I get closer, he rises slowly, stretches, and slides his hands down his thighs before standing tall. I pause, my flip-flops flipping to a stop as he walks back over to the black SUV.
“Just how many cars do you have?” I ask, stalling against his presumption that I will just hop into the car with him and my eagerness to do just that.
“Me?” He gives the chrome handle of the driver’s door a smooth tug.
The SUV is highly polished, so clean that under the amber hum of the streetlights I can see the tree branches overhead reflecting back at me from the shiny hood.
“Zero.”
In my head I tally the cars I have seen him driving as he slides up onto the high leather seat. I can count three at least.
“You want a ride?” he asks, a tan work boot dangling casually over the edge of the silver-and-black running board.
My brain is working away. Zero cars? Wait. Does that first red car I saw him in count? Because technically, the red car was borrowed from Roger, if you don’t use the strict definition of borrowed, so my total is two. Right?
Porter flips the SUV key over and over in the palm of his hand. His leg still dangles from the open door.
“I don’t know,” I say, unsure.
“Okay.” He nods and pulls the door shut with a deliberate and expensive-sounding thump.
I take a few steps toward the car, slowly and cautiously. He puts the key in the ignition and starts it up.
Resting his arm along the edge of the open window, he looks out at the pool, then past the fence to the dark, deserted park. His green eyes are questioning and unsure when they settle on mine.
“You sure?” he asks.
I shrug and look down, twisting my toe into the thick grass, as I wait for him to ask again, expecting him to talk me into it the way Shane or any other boy would. Instead he drops the car into reverse, slides his arm along the back of the passenger seat as he twists to check behind him, and leaves me just standing there with my mouth open while he rolls away.
In that small second between reverse and drive— you know, that little lull after you stop backing up but before the car actually starts moving forward, while the machinery is working and the gears are turning or whatever—in that second he turns and looks over at me standing alone on the grassy rise, gaping. He waves, rests his hand on the wheel, and guns it.
My bag slips from my shoulder, and I wave back five seconds too late. I thought he would beg a little bit. I curl my toes tight into my flip-flops and bounce down the hill, not breathing, not thinking, gripping against the dewy grass and hoping I am not too late.
“Porter!” I yell into the spray of gravel landing at my feet as the wheels hit the edge of the road. I jog a couple of steps into the middle of the street and stop to shout at the back of the SUV again. “Porter!”
The silvery rims spin backward as he slows to a stop. He adjusts the rearview mirror and looks back at me like, what the hell? But at least he stops.
I take the few strides between me and the SUV at a clumsy tear and tap on the tinted glass of the passenger door, out of breath and full of embarrassment. Porter leans across the seat and opens the door with a wry smile.
I smooth my ponytail back with buzzing hands and a pumping pulse, because I don’t want him to think I am hard up or anything, and try to compose myself as I climb in.
Warm lake air spills in through the open windows, mixing into a sweaty storm of lips and breath, stirring the interior of the parked SUV as I curse the inventor of the one-piece swimsuit. Porter’s hands are sliding up the slippery Lycra fabric of my regulation lifeguard suit while I straddle him in the front seat.
Cottages dot the shore on the far side of the lake; the yellow glow of porch lights and the stars sprinkling the sky illuminate his quick, skillful movements.
“What the hell,” Porter says as he snaps a thick red strap. “How do I get into this thing?” He slides his hands up my back. “It’s like a chastity suit.”
I laugh as I lean forward to kiss him. “My father would be so proud.”
“Mine, too,” he says.
I lean back with the realization that other than this sudden mention of family, I know absolutely nothing about this guy. Except that he is a very fast driver, always wears boots, smells like beach and forest somehow mixed together with mint, and has the most dangerous green eyes.
I know he can drive and kiss at the same time (but we only did that for a little while), can get my shirt off in five seconds flat, yet is confounded by a tight red bathing suit.
He doesn’t talk a lot. Will leave a girl screaming in the street. Doesn’t push me farther than I want to go but takes me right to the edge and somehow makes me want more. But how does he know what I want? How does he know me at all?
“Why am I here right now?” I ask abruptly, feeling the steering wheel against my back as I lean away from him.
He returns my look directly as his thumbs circle lightly on my bare shoulders. “Hey,” he says, his eyes softening, sparkling even in the dark car, “you chased me down. Remember?”
“Oh, right,” I say, and I dive in, losing myself again in the warm pulse at the base of his neck. I did.
My parents are secreted away in our cozy family room when I finally arrive home, late and looking downright manhandled. A sneak peek in the mirror by our front door reveals that my hair is loose and wild, tumbling over my shoulders. My lips are raw and bare. I am not even wearing a shirt over my suit.
My mother is curled up in the corner of the sofa, her small feet tucked under my dad’s splayed legs. His head is back, and a light snore rumbles from his slack mouth as a movie plays on the large screen across the room, the sound turned down low and quiet.
“Shane couldn’t come in?” my mother asks without looking up. The harsh light from the TV flickers across her face, actually making her look her age for once.
“Nope,” I say from the arched doorway, bare feet on the cool tile, pausing long enough for her to turn and look at me, and wondering, when she doesn’t, what else I could have gotten up to that she wouldn’t notice.
I head for the stairs, feeling a bit robbed, as if I had put in all these years of fending off Shane for nothing since she couldn’t even be bothered to notice when I managed to stray. I never really understood why everyone, Yorke especially, was so into boys and always sneaking away in the night and making out. I get it now.
Pulling myself up the polished staircase railing toward my room, I make a vow never to wear this red suit again, at least not as underwear, even though I am certain that tonight my virtue was saved by its impenetrable skintight Lycra.
Who knows what could have happened without it? I shiver to think. I could have been seriously plundered, taken to places Shane has never even thought of. Long live the maillot, as Freddie would say, but I feel a little let down and a little bit trapped by the typical end to this rare Saturday night, so I vow, safe and sound inside my own house, never again to mistake a bathing suit for an undergarment. That, and I will always wear lip gloss. I can guarantee, the lip gloss my mother will notice.
There are voices coming from Freddie’s room. I assume it is Freddie and her French friend Gérard, rolling through some late-night French phrasing. But no, the intonation is off, and there is a lot more mumbling and whispering than you would expect from a language lesson.
Yorke is lying on Freddie’s bed. She’s wearing a tiny U of W T-shirt and striped underwear, combing through her hair with her fingers, inspecting any split end she comes across under the dim glow of the shawl-covered lamp at th
e head of the bed.
Freddie is there, too, facing the other direction, flat on her back with a thick paperback resting on her stomach.
Stopping in the dark hall, just outside the pink pall cast by Freddie’s lamp, I wonder what happened tonight to lead them here, head to toe and toe to head, all sisterly and snuggly.
At the old lake house, in the blue-wallpapered room they shared, the best games and tea parties and secret ceremonies always seemed to take place on the round braided rug. Without me. I remember them walking off hand in hand in matching ankle socks to summer camp, while I stayed at home in my ankle socks with my mother, consoled by a new doll that had a tiny backpack full of miniature camping supplies.
Or later, their golden hair long and loose, when they both moved past braids and barrettes and into high school, leaving me alone and adrift in the pimply world of eighth grade. My dad always says that girls work better in threes. I think three always leaves one left out.
Freddie looks over at me. Yorke notices Freddie and stops talking mid-sentence. Yorke gives me a cool look, as if I had stumbled onto something private and secret. I instantly feel about six years old.
Freddie rolls over onto her side and flips up on one elbow.
“Shane called,” she says.
Digging to the bottom of my bag, I find and check my phone. Two texts. That’s Dani and Len, for sure. And four missed calls. Shit.
“The house, too?” I ask.
Freddie looks over at Yorke for confirmation.
“Yep.” She nods.
She gives me another look before she rolls onto her back and crosses one long leg over the other, her foot bouncing impatiently as she picks up her book.
Yorke sighs and piles her hair on the top of her head in a sloppy twist.
“In case you are wondering,” she says, sounding very put out as she crosses her arms and snuggles the tiny T-shirt tight against her just as tiny chest, “I told Shane you were out with the girls.”
Girls? What girls? Truth be told, I don’t really have that many friends, and my sisters know it. Just Dani and Len. For the past couple of years it’s been Dani on my left and Len on my right, a descending line in order of height, in AP classes, pep practice, and at lunch. Even in the hallways. You’d think I would miss them, considering that they are gone for the summer, but I haven’t considered them much at all.
My sisters’ eyes flick over at me, presuming and slightly eager, watching my face. They are ready to hear my story, my excuse for disappearing for a couple of hours, ignoring my phone and my family and my boyfriend.
I know what they want. They want me to tell them everything, the way I always have, so they can compare and contrast my actual behavior with what it should have been, what it always has been. I take a deep breath and prepare to have my brain picked clean.
I exhale and say nothing. I am not ready to have every detail of tonight exposed and examined and faded. Or bleached like bones in the sun. I walk away, leaving them waiting, knitted together in the pink glow of Freddie’s room. I know I will pay for this escape later. But for now all I want is to keep this part of my life mine.
“You’re welcome,” Yorke yells, all peeved and huffy, as I disappear down the dark hall.
I open the window over my bed, welcoming the damp smell of summer into my over-air-conditioned room as I climb into bed. I don’t bother to listen to my messages. Or even take off my bathing suit. I pull my duvet up over my head and slip off into sleep.
Chapter Six
The park is steamy and silent, the grass along the side of the road still sleeping under a thick blanket of dew. The solid plank picnic tables and industrial green picnic shelters are slick with condensation that will dry as the sun creeps up.
An engine rumbles at my heels, the sound of loose pea gravel under heavy tires popping in my ears as my interest in my feet and their ability to take one step in front of the other becomes unprecedented.
How stupid am I to think that he would show up every day? Any day? I’m sure he’s got other stuff to do, girls to see, cars to drive. Whatever it is that he does with his life that I don’t know about. Like everything.
But how do I get my heart to stop skipping a beat whenever I hear a car coming my way? I don’t know. All I know is after almost a week I feel as if I am slowly rolling backward, like there will be no more surprises in my life, ever. I know the next move I am supposed to make, and the next and the next.
Just follow Yorke and Freddie, pass go, and collect my two hundred dollars. But what I really want to do is turn that little silver car around and squeal away, running over the shoe and the Scottie dog and knocking over the tiny plastic hotels and houses as I go.
I take a couple of slow staring-at-the-ground steps, switching my bag from one shoulder to the other with the tiniest flick of my head, catching only the polished chrome of a bumper out of the corner of my eye.
Keeping my head down, I pretend I am walking across a low balance beam just like I did in kindergarten—heel to toe, heel to toe. But God, I already know it’s him. I knew it as soon as I felt the engine rumbling down the street, vibrating through the soles of my flip-flops, thrumming right into my chest, then sparking out the tips of my fingers.
Besides, who would drive up so close and so slow? With no hello, no honk of the horn, no warning at all? Nobody but Porter, that’s who.
“Is this becoming a habit?” he asks.
You have no idea, I think as I turn, twisting toward him on my toes in the deep loose gravel.
He is about two feet behind me, parked wildly across the middle of the one-way street, manning a serious muscle car and blocking anyone’s chance to make an early-morning dash down the hill. Sparkly and midnight blue, the car’s got two thick black racing stripes on the hood and a fancy black line that streams along the sides before ending in a scripted curl by the back tires. All the chrome is polished into a dimension beyond shiny.
It’s the kind of car you never see in real life, not driving down the street anyway. You see cars like this only in calendars that hang in the auto shop where my dad takes his truck for service or in the stinky junk-filled lockers of gearheads at school. It looks as if it is just waiting for a bikini model to drape herself across the hood, arch her back, and smile for the camera.
“How about an addiction?” I blurt, and then I freeze, feeling transparent. My eagerness and interest in him are as easy to read as the well-polished hood ornament staring back at me. All silver and shiny, it says desperate, I mean Dodge.
“Either way,” he says, dropping his hand down to rest on the outside of the driver’s door as he looks at me with raised eyebrows, “you might need professional help.”
When he smiles that smile at me that lights up his whole face, I feel alert, buzzing. Crap. It appears my lust has no clock. That smile has the same effect on me at dawn as it does at dusk.
“Working today?” he asks.
A mower roars to life near the tree line as a jumpsuited boy working for the city begins the big, looping circles necessary to temporarily tame the thick shag that covers the park.
I struggle with my answer, weighing my desire not to look desperate against my desperation to see him again.
“Nope,” I reply, the mental scales obviously tipping in his favor.
He looks down questioningly at the bag resting at my feet.
“Well,” I say, smiling sheepishly, “not till later.”
I look away, feeling embarrassed, and move my hands around in the general direction of the pool. I know I have a serious Porter problem. I would like to provide evidence to the contrary, but really, here I am at the crack of dawn, lips all glossy, goodies encased in pink lace, my bathing suit packed neatly in my bag with my whistle. And I don’t even have to work this morning.
“Then what are you doing here?” he asks.
My brain thinks, Duh, waiting for you, but somehow I manage to keep my lips closed as I twist my fingers in my hair and tilt my head. My brain goes from zero
to sixty, trying to skirt the obvious. I’m like that science experiment we learned about in eighth grade with the bell and the dogs, no matter how much I loathe the comparison. The sound of a car engine now equals my head turning. I can’t even imagine what would happen if someone flashed headlights at me. I would probably run barefoot down a street paved in glass.
Avoiding his gaze, I settle for “You know, not much.”
I know I am a crappy liar. You’d think I would have learned a little from living with the master, but while Yorke can spin lies of evangelical proportion, I never really got the hang of it. I fumble, I dither, I make an ass of myself and lose track of what I’ve said or thought and then go back and botch it up again. Not good. Now I steal a page from Freddie’s book and keep quiet, letting my lame explanation soak in.
The classic leather upholstery squeaks slightly under his jeans as Porter leans over and pulls up the lock on the passenger door. He smiles at me again and gives the heavy door a big push, swinging it open.
“Let’s change that,” he says.
I raise my eyebrows, my eyes asking yes, and his eyes are saying yes back, so I throw my bag into the tiny box of a backseat before he changes his mind and leaves me standing on the side of the road, again. At the very least I like to think I am learning.
I pull the door shut with a solid whump, and Porter snaps the radio on. The car is pristine inside, the stitched leather seats are smooth, and everything is polished and cared for.
Porter looks seriously out of place behind the leather steering wheel. His messy hair, wrinkled white T-shirt, and frayed jeans make me doubt this is his car.
The interior fills with the sounds of classic rock. I sit back and watch Porter drive, his wrist resting easily along the top of the wheel.
We pass the mowing boy. He has lowered his jumpsuit, preparing for a hot day. It dangles as he swings around, the arms tied around his waist like a belt. He gives us a nod and a two-fingered wave before his loop swings him off in the opposite direction.
Kiss Crush Collide Page 7
