Past
THERE’S A LOT to be said about evolution and the way beauty sometimes blossoms from the most unlikely ducklings. That’s how I felt about Estelle when I went home for summer break that year. I had just finished dropping off Jenson and Junior’s drunken asses and had parked in front of Vic’s house. He wasn’t in much better shape than they were. I’d given up drinking that year after learning what it did to your liver. The guys had given me shit about it all night, taking bets as to how long my drinking hiatus would last, as I nursed the same beer I’d gotten hours before. While they were busy getting wasted and hitting on a few questionable girls that would, for sure, make them cringe tomorrow morning, I’d been making mental plans with Trish as her face bobbed between my legs. She was not a questionable hook up. She was a model, and practically every man’s Playboy fantasy come to life.
I sighed and hoisted Vic up, knowing he wouldn’t make it to his room without my help. It was annoying that I had to babysit three guys who normally knew how to handle their liquor, but that night, they’d all acted like the sloppy sorority girls we made fun of at keggers. I opened the door, Vic gave me a slurred thank you, and I watched as he walked to his room.
Shaking my head, I turned back around, locked the door, and put the keys inside one of the flowerpots his mom had outside. I trotted down the steps smiling at the thought of Trish—her big tits, firm ass, and the way she sucked my dick, still fresh in my mind. As I reached the edge of the house, I stopped and realized I would have to walk home. It was fine since my mom’s house was only a few blocks down, but I still contemplated whether or not to go back into the house and stay the night. The brief sounds of crying caught my attention. For a moment, I thought nothing of it—it could have been anything. It was dark out, and way past the hours that any normal human being went to bed. But then, as I pushed my long hair back after a gust of wind tossed it into my face, I heard it again and stopped walking.
I looked around and realized it was coming from Vic’s house. I froze for a moment, hoping it wasn’t Mrs. Reuben. The last time I tried to comfort a friend’s crying mother, she came on to me, and I had to get the hell out of Dodge. Begrudgingly, I looked up and saw a small figure sitting on the roof of the house. The sight almost knocked me on my ass, partially because I was craning my head so hard to look up, but mostly because I could have sworn it was Estelle—except it couldn’t be. The girl sitting up there wasn’t a girl. But then it hit me—when was the last time I saw Elle? I squinted, trying to get a closer look, but couldn’t. I walked to the back of the house and climbed the oak tree I’d climbed a million times before for different reasons, and stepped onto the roof. She was sitting down, head bent, her long, wavy hair falling over her shoulders and blocking her face.
When I sat down beside her, she jumped and faced me with a yelp, surprise and fear on her otherwise grief-stricken face. I’d known Estelle since I was thirteen and I’d never, ever seen her look like this. Not even when she didn’t get the leading role in the Nutcracker, a performance she’d rehearsed for months before the tryouts. Immediately, I assumed a break up was the reason for her tears, and my blood began to boil at the thought of some loser doing this to her.
“What’s wrong?” I asked as she wiped her tears and shook her head. Her face was no longer wet, save for the dip over the top of her lips. I’d never noticed how full they were before then. I’d never noticed how rosy and defined her cheekbones were, or the way her eyebrows turned into a slight frown when she looked at me. I’d never paid attention to how ridiculously alluring her eyes were. The different shades made them look like the marbles I used to collect when I was a kid. My gaze drifted down to her neck, where I noticed her swallow, and then over her tits, which were now full—not like the last time I’d seen her in a bathing suit when she was still flat chested. Jesus Christ, this girl was hot.
The clearing of her throat made my eyes snap back to hers, putting an end to their voyeuristic journey down her now grown-up body.
“You’re so grown up,” I said before I could stop myself, cringing at the voice I said it in, all needy and husky and—fuck my life—desperate. I expected her to roll her eyes, the way she normally did when I said anything to her, but this girl—this freaking girl—looked at me and smiled the sexiest smile I’d ever seen. And I had just been at a party full of hot girls smiling, but Elle’s was slow and sensual when she wasn’t trying to make it be. It was just her smile, the one I’d been seeing for as long as I could remember. Putting that smile on this grown-up version of her should be downright illegal.
“Are you hitting on me?” she asked, using a sultry voice that surprised the hell out of me.
“That depends,” I said, inching to sit closer to her, somehow completely forgetting that I was at my best friend’s house, and this was his little sister. The thought of Vic finding us crossed my mind, but I pushed it down. In that moment, under a sky full of stars with a sad Estelle, all I could think about was making her smile.
“What does it depend on?” she whispered.
“Whether or not it’s working,” I whispered back, lifting my hand and running it down her back—a motion I shouldn’t have done, because now I knew Elle wasn’t wearing a bra under the oversized sweater she had on, and that knowledge woke up everything in my lower region.
She shook her head softly, her eyes flickering between my eyes and mouth like she was actually thinking about my lips on hers. I shouldn’t have liked that thought as much as I did.
“It’s not,” she said finally.
“Why were you crying?” I asked, gathering her hair and pushing it behind an ear so that I could get a better look at her. The wiggle of one of her outstretched legs caught my attention, and I realized she was wearing a knee brace.
“What the hell happened?”
“I blew out my knee in dance practice the other day for the fourth time, and when I went to the doctor today—thinking they would tell me my brace would come off in a couple of weeks like the last time—he said I have a torn ACL and can’t dance anymore,” she said in a hoarse whisper. As she looked away, I saw new tears begin to gather in her eyes. “Ever. My Julliard dreams are gone, just like that. Not that I had a real chance of getting in, but now the possibility is ruined.”
I had no words for that. The only things Estelle did with her life were dancing and painting, but dance was her passion. It was her light. You could see the way it made her feel and how much she loved it with every move she made.
“You still have a year of school, Elle. Don’t rule it out. Like you said, it’s happened before,” I said, cupping her face and wiping a stray tear with the pad of my thumb. She looked at me again and shook her head, but didn’t move away.
“Not like this, Bean,” she whispered, licking the tears off of her lips. “This time it’s over for me. I just know it.”
I pulled her face to my chest and held her there, letting her cry all over my shirt, because that was all I could do.
“I’m so sorry, Chicken,” I whispered, as I pressed a kiss to the top of her head. It would have been considered a brotherly thing to do if I hadn’t closed my eyes and smelled her hair, picturing it draped over my pillow.
She leaned away from my chest, wiped her face, and looked up at me. Her eyelashes stayed stuck together as she blinked. “Why are you here, anyway? Aren’t you supposed to be at one of those crazy parties you’re always talking about?”
“I was. I came to drop off Vic and heard you crying.”
She nodded once, averting her eyes for a beat before looking at me again. “So, I’m so grown up,” she said, repeating my words and smiling with a twinkle in her eyes that made my chest squeeze and my jeans tighten.
“You are.”
She leaned her face closer so we were breathing on each other. If either of us leaned in a centimeter, our lips would be touching, and God, how I wanted that to happen.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked in a whisper.
“Things I shouldn’t be thinking about,” I whispered back, my eyes on her mouth again, wondering how it would feel.
“Like what?” she asked, her breath falling over my lips.
I closed my eyes and leaned back just a little bit. “Like things a nineteen-year-old shouldn’t think about a sixteen-year-old.”
“You act like you’re so much older than me.” We were both still whispering, trying to keep, whatever this crazy thing was, a secret. I was sure the crackling in the air between us would alert everybody in the general vicinity of this house that something was going on.
“I’m old enough to know better,” I responded, tilting my face and leaning into hers, letting my lips brush hers lightly, then dragging them until I reached the edge of her mouth. I dropped a kiss there.
“I always wondered what that would feel like,” she said, releasing a long breath as my lips grazed over hers.
“You’ve never kissed a guy before?” I asked, rearing back. What the fuck was wrong with the guys in her school? I hadn’t even kissed her. Not really, anyway.
Elle laughed quietly. She looked at me like I’d grown two heads. “I meant what kissing you would feel like.” She smiled bashfully and looked down at the space between us where our hands touched.
“You’ve thought about it?” I asked, smiling, wishing her confession didn’t make me as happy as it did.
“Often,” she said, trying to smother a smile of her own.
I sighed heavily, ran a hand through my hair, and looked back at her open window. I needed to change the subject. I couldn’t think about her dreaming of kissing me, or the way I suddenly wanted to do so much more than that with her. “I can’t believe you got out here with that cast. Let me help you get back in.”
I offered her my hands and helped her up, looking away into the distance and paying attention to the sound of the ocean behind us—anything not to look down at her. Our hands were still connected, and I could feel her gaze on mine. I knew if I looked down, I would kiss her—full-on kiss her—and plunge my tongue in her mouth while I suck that plump bottom lip. I knew it. I wanted to so damn bad. But I couldn’t. That wouldn’t be fair to her or Vic.
“Ready?” I asked with a heavy sigh, as I pulled her hands in the direction of her window. I watched as she climbed in without turning back to me. When I said goodnight and started to walk away, she called my name. I walked back and dipped my head, holding on to the edge of the window.
“Will you come back tomorrow?” she asked, her eyes wide and hopeful.
I looked up at the sky, hoping something would tell me what a bad idea that was, then I let out a breath and looked at her again. “I can’t think of anything else I’d rather do.” And the thing is, it was true. For that month, I went back every night after the guys and I went out, and then I told Elle all about our adventures. Most of my stories were filled with warnings of what girls shouldn’t do at parties, so despite the attraction I felt, I was offering my older brother knowledge. Estelle made it difficult to stay away from her, so I kept going back nightly. I loved our easy conversations about everything and anything. I loved the way she thought my jokes were shitty and the way her eyes brightened when I finally said a good one. But some nights, she would lean into me and ask me if I would kiss her when she was eighteen and what I’d do if she was a stranger in one of my college classes. Those questions made it hard for me to think straight. I tried to dodge them by smiling and laughing. I never told her that if she was a stranger in one of those classes, I’d be on her like white on rice. I never said that if she was eighteen, I would break my rule and face the consequences. I did, however, tell her that I usually dated older women because they were less complicated and didn’t expect as much. I was way too busy focusing on school and the college experience to be tied down. She always gave me a small frown when I dropped those little hints, like she wanted to challenge me and change my aversion to a real relationship. I kind of wished she had taken up that challenge, just to see how hard she’d try, even though I knew the outcome would be the same.