by McKayla Box
“Every other girl in Playa,” he says simply.
“Well, that’s stupid.”
He laughs. “I agree. She’s a mean, vindictive, two-faced bitch.”
“Wow. Tell me how you really feel about her.”
“I’d rather not,” he says, his voice dropping to a whisper. “I’d rather tell you how I feel about you.”
A fire ignites in my belly. “Oh? How is that?”
He nuzzles my neck. “Mmmm. Maybe I shouldn’t tell you.” His breath is like fire against my skin. “Maybe I should show you…”
His hands plunge into my hair and his mouth devours mine. I kiss him back, arching into him, and his hands travel to my back, then to my sides, roving over every inch of me.
“God, I want you,” he breathes. His fingers are under my shirt. “I’ve never wanted anyone as much as I want you.”
I lose myself in him. Minutes could be hours. Space and time cease to exist. All that matters is him. Us.
He shifts me onto my back and his mouth moves to my neck. His hands cup my breasts and I can feel him pressing into me. “I want you,” he whispers. “All of you.”
I’m breathing heavy and I can’t think straight but I manage a one-word response. “Hayden.”
He moves his mouth back to mine. “You feel me?” he murmurs. He presses his hips into me. “Tell me you want me.”
He slips a hand inside my shorts. He’s touching me. Stroking me. “Tell me to stop if you don’t want this.”
I struggle to find the words I know I need to speak. “I’m…I’m not—”
His hand stills. I open my eyes and the stars seem so bright, they almost blind me.
He waits a second before rolling off of me and onto his back.
I struggle back to a sitting position. I run my hand over my head, feeling the tangles Hayden created when he was fisting my hair. “I’m sorry.”
His hand finds mine. “Don’t apologize.”
“Are…are you mad?”
He turns to look at me. His eyes are heavy, his expression dark. “No.”
I swallow. “Are you sure? You seem mad.”
“Not mad.” He takes a deep breath and slowly exhales. “Just needed to take it down a notch. And that wasn’t gonna happen if I stayed on top of you.”
“It’s not you,” I tell him. “It’s just…”
“You don’t owe me an explanation, Sydney.”
“Will you let me finish?” My voice is harsher than I intend for it to be and his eyes snap open.
“I want to have sex with you,” I tell him. “Just not yet.”
“Okay.”
“I’m serious. I’m not ready.” I bite my lip. “But when I am…well, you’ll know.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
His dimples carve up his cheeks when he smiles. “Alright then. I’ll be ready and waiting.”
Chapter 24
I get home a couple minutes before ten o’clock.
My mom isn’t there.
I practically float to the bathroom and turn on the shower. I almost don’t want to take one because that will wash away Hayden’s touch, his scent, and I want to savor every second of memories from our night for as long as I can.
But I have sand in between my toes and salt in my hair from our trip to the beach that morning, and my calf is still sticky from where my ice cream dripped.
Ten minutes later, I’m wrapped in a towel and combing out my hair when I hear the front door open.
I step out of the bathroom and see my mom slip off her shoes in the darkened entrance.
I turn the hall light on.
Her head whips in my direction. “Sydney. I didn’t know you were still up.”
She’s wearing a black dress and matching heels. Her hair is styled, long, waves of curls, and she’s wearing a full face of makeup.
“Why are you so dressed up?” I ask. “Where were you?”
“Out with some old friends,” she says. She drops her purse on the small table at the end of the hallway. “I ran into them on Friday and we decided to go get drinks.”
“On a Sunday night?”
She smiles. “Everyone is so busy these days. It was the only night that worked.” She takes out one earring, then the other, and drops them next to her purse. “How was your day? What did you do?”
Images of almost having sex with Hayden flood my memory.
“Just hung out with friends.”
“Yeah?” Mom pads into the kitchen, her feet soundless on the worn linoleum. “Do anything fun?”
I’m grateful she’s talking from another room and isn’t looking at me because I’m sure my face is as red as it feels.
“We went to the beach and grabbed lunch and then just hung out.”
She returns with a glass of water. “What time did you get home?”
“A little while ago.” It’s the truth. “I was just getting ready to go to bed.”
She nods and covers her mouth to hide a yawn. “That’s where I’m headed, too.”
I turn to step back into the bathroom so I can throw my sleep shorts and a t-shirt on, but then I stop. “How’s the job search going?”
“It’s going alright.”
“Have you found anything?” I hesitate. “I can start looking, too, you know. Find an after-school job.”
She shakes her head. “No. You have other things to focus on, remember?”
“I can manage a part-time job, Mom.”
“I know you can.” She frowns. “But I don’t want you to. You have the rest of your life to work. Right now, you need to focus on grades and college applications. Maybe after Christmas, once first semester is done and you’ve submitted all your apps.”
She is adamant.
But so am I. “I know money is tight…”
“Thanks to your dad,” she mutters.
I wince. My resentment and anger toward him and what he’s doing to me and Mom runs high, but he’s still my dad. I still love him. He was wrecked when Mom told him we were moving back to Playa. Not because he wanted to stay married, but because it meant taking me half a world away. But Mom was upset over losing her dad—and not being there when he died—and she was also angry and hurt that Dad filed for divorce. I didn’t blame her. I heard the fights from their bedroom, the tears. Hearing the man you sacrificed your life for over the last seventeen years say he wasn’t sure he ever really loved you was a shitty thing to hear. Mom knew that coming back to the States meant she’d have a place to live, a fresh start. She could bring me home, which she thought was important, and something I wanted.
She was wrong.
I had no desire to come back to Playa.
But I knew I couldn’t stay in New Zealand. My dad spent more time in China than he did at home, and even he said I’d be better off living with Mom.
That was before she announced we were moving back to California.
“You don’t have to worry,” she says, breaking the silence. She’s smiling but I can tell it’s forced. “I have a couple of temp jobs lined up already. Maybe one of them will turn into something permanent.”
I don’t say it, but in my head I’m thinking, And maybe it won’t. What then?
“Don’t worry,” she repeats. “Everything will work out.”
I wish I had her confidence.
Because I’m not sure it will.
Chapter 25
“You’re pretty good at pulling disappearing acts.”
It’s Monday morning and Emily, Willow and Belle catch up to me as I walk toward my locker. The sky is pocked with clouds and the forecast is calling for rain and everyone is bundled up in hoodies and jeans, even though it’s still close to 70 degrees.
“Sorry,” I tell them. “I wasn’t feeling great so I went home.” It’s the exact same excuse I gave them in our text chat when they asked why I left Liam’s party on Friday night.
“You didn’t even ask about what we found.” Belle pouts. I notice that her ice blue sweatshirt
is the same color as her eyes.
I feel a pang of guilt. She’s right. I didn’t ask. Because I didn’t care.
I pull my government text from my locker. “What did you find?”
“Fucking nothing,” Willow says with a laugh.
“Not nothing,” Emily counters. She’s dressed all in black – black jeans, black sweatshirt, black Converse. With her dark hair and dark eyes, she looks like a ninja. “We found Fiona Meeks and Brandon Page fucking on Liam’s bed.”
I don’t know the names but I still raise my eyebrows. “Seriously?”
Willow nods. “Uh huh. He was grunting and panting on top of her.” She wrinkles her nose. “So gross. And now I can’t unsee it.”
“Never pegged him for having a hairy ass,” Emily says.
Belle gapes at her. “Do you actually think about shit like that?”
Emily swats her arm. “Oh, please. Don’t tell me you haven’t imagined every single guy in our class naked at some point.” She smirks. “Oh, that’s right. You don’t have to imagine. You’ve slept with most of them.”
Belle swats her back. “Oh my god. That is you, not me.”
They all erupt into giggles and I try to chuckle along with them, but it’s fake and forced and I wonder if they can tell. They are talking about people I don’t know, sharing memories and details of their friendship that don’t belong to me.
“Shit, I gotta go,” Belle says, looking at he phone. “I promised Henderson I’d come to class a couple of minutes early to go over some problems I got wrong on the test.”
“Since when do you go in for help?” Willow asks.
“Since the teacher tells me he’ll give me back some points if I do…”
Willow laughs, and she and Belle head toward the math hall.
I fish my notebook out of my backpack.
“Oh!” Emily says. “I saw Ben out in the parking lot. He’s back!”
“He told me he was feeling better,” I say, thinking about the sporadic texts we exchanged over the weekend. I feel a little guilty that I wasn’t as available as I would have been if I hadn’t spent so much time with Hayden. “Finally.”
“You must be thrilled,” she tells me, smiling.
It seems like an odd thing to say. I mean, Ben’s my friend and yeah, I’m glad he’s feeling better and will be another friendly face at school, but the second week in, I’m actually feeling okay. I have Emily and Willow and Belle, and I have Hayden. And, yeah, Charity will probably still be a bitch and I still haven’t figured out what I want to do about Lucas and what he did to me Friday night, but still…I feel way better this morning than I did walking onto campus for the first time last Wednesday.
“Sure,” I say with a shrug.
She gives me a curious look, but then smiles. “I gotta jet. I’ll see you at lunch?”
I hesitate before nodding. I honestly don’t know what I’ll be doing, and I sort of hope that Hayden will want to hang out.
She waves and heads off to her first class. I close my locker door and start toward my math class.
“Hey.”
Beckett is behind me, hustling to catch up with me.
I slow my pace but keep walking. I don’t want to be late to Blumenthal’s class, especially since I’m starting to feel like the pace of this calculus class might seriously kick my ass.
“Can I talk to you for a sec?” he asks.
“Sure,” I tell him. “As long as you can talk while walking.”
He grins. His long hair is pulled back in a ponytail and he’s wearing this poncho thing that looks an awful lot like the Mexican blanket Hayden and I sat on at the park.
“It’s about the other day,” he says. “What I said at lunch.”
I glance at him. “Which thing?”
“The shitty thing.”
“You said a bunch of shitty things.”
“Fair enough.” His smile turns a little sheepish. “The stuff I said about Hayden and new girls.”
“Did he put you up to this? Ask you to come talk to me?”
Beckett frowns. “No. Why?”
I don’t say anything. I wonder how much he knows about what happened with Hayden and me this weekend.
“Look, he’s a good guy,” he says.
I turn toward the math hallway, sidestepping a group of guys who are tossing someone’s phone back and forth. “Sounds like something his friend would say.”
“It’s true, though.” Beckett turns sideways to squeeze past a crowd of girls. “I shouldn’t have said it.”
“But you did.” I’m not about to let him off easy. “So there must be some truth to it, right?”
He doesn’t answer. Instead, he says, “He really likes you.”
My stomach jumps but I keep my cool. “He barely knows me.”
“He knows you well enough,” he says, and my neck grows hot when I think about yesterday at the park.
I’m at Blumenthal’s door and I can see the clock mounted on the wall. Less than two minutes until the bell rings.
“Okay,” I say. “Uh, thanks?”
“I just wanted you to know.” Beckett’s expression turns serious. “I…I don’t know if you know everything that’s gone down with him. He’s gone through some serious shit and I just…I just don’t want to be the one who messes this up for him. “
“Messes what up?”
“You.” He waves his hand. “The two of you. Your relationship.”
My stomach feels like a yo-yo and my throat suddenly goes dry.
Our relationship?
Is that what this is with Hayden?
Is Beckett telling me that Hayden wants a relationship with me?
He glances at the clock. “I gotta get to class,” he says. He smiles, but his expression somehow seems serious. “I know you don’t know me very well, and I don’t know you at all. But Hayden does. And he likes you. So that’s why I’m here.”
“Okay.”
“Be good to him.” His smile disappears. “He needs that. He deserves it.”
He walks away and I watch him leave, his words spinning in my mind.
I’m still standing in the doorway when the bell rings.
Chapter 26
Emily flags me down at lunch the minute I get to the quad.
“Belle ordered a pizza,” she tells me.
“What?”
She giggles. “Yeah, a massive pepperoni one. She’s grabbing it from the delivery guy now.”
I see Belle walking toward us, holding an enormous cardboard box. A couple of people yell at her, begging for a slice. She ignores them and marches toward us.
Willow pulls out her lunch. “Wow, glad you got something I can eat, too.”
Belle sits on the bench and puts the pizza box on her lap. “You eat vegetables and nuts. What the hell am I going to order? Damn, this is hot.” She lifts the box off her legs. To me, she says, “Open it and grab a slice.”
I open the box and steam escapes, scenting the air with the smell of pepperoni.
“It won’t be as good as a Donatelli pizza,” Emily gripes as she rips off a slice. The cheese slides off her piece and she catches it with a finger and drops it in her mouth.
“Well, if your stupid pizza place would deliver, we’d be eating that instead,” Bella says.
“It’s not my shop,” Emily says, licking the grease from her fingers. “I just work there.”
Belle pulls a slice and then looks at me. “Why aren’t you eating?”
“I will in a minute.” I scan the crowds of people on the quad and over by the cafeteria, and the groups of kids heading to their cars to grab lunch off-campus. No sign of Hayden. I try to quell my disappointment.
“Hey!” Emily’s voice is bright and cheery, and I turn to look at her.
She’s not looking at me. She’s waving to Ben, who looks like he’s trying to hide behind a trio of girls.
“Ben!” She waves both hands now, the crust of her pizza still clutched in one of them. “Over here!”
> He looks almost defeated, and I wonder if he’s still sick. He looks a little pale, and he’s moving slow, like it’s physically hard to walk.
He stops a few feet from where we’re standing.
“Oh my god, he lives,” Emily says.
His smile is nervous and he gives a small nod. His gaze darts to me and then shifts so he’s staring at the ground.
I frown. Something is wrong but I have no idea what.
“Have lunch with us,” Emily says.
“Yeah.” Belle holds up the box. “I got pizza.”
Ben shakes his head. “No, thanks.” He pats his stomach. “I’m still recovering from food poisoning. Not sure pizza would be the best thing for me to eat.”
I think back to the box I saw on his coffee table when I stopped by on Thursday, the box that had just a single slice left. Maybe the dairy in it didn’t sit as well with him as he thought it might.
Willow holds out a glass bowl full of veggies. “Broccoli?” she asks. “Carrots?”
He shakes his head again. “No, thanks.” He glances behind him. “I actually need to go talk to some teachers. See what I missed and get my assignments from last week.”
Belle laughs. “Assignments? You know the first week is a total fucking joke. I’ll never understand why we start on a Wednesday. We did nothing last week.”
She’s mostly right. The majority of my teachers spent time handing out textbooks, going over syllabi, and doing some in-class assignments that seemed designed to get us back in the routine of going to class rather than actually teach us anything.
“I told them I would check in,” Ben mumbles. He glances at me again and then says quickly, “I’ll catch you guys later.”
He’s gone before we even say goodbye.
“Well, that was weird,” Willow says. “What’s up with him?”
Belle shrugs. “No idea.” She holds out the box to Emily. “Want another slice?”
“Damn right I do.”
Belle yanks it away playfully. “Too bad. Come fight me for it.”
Emily lunges toward her and grabs the box. Belle pulls it back. And sends it sailing, facedown into Willow’s lap. The pizza lands with a wet thud on her jeans.
Willow jumps to her feet and watches as the remaining slices of pizza slide off her jeans and onto the grass.
