“You should put them on your shelves. Unless you’re afraid the football team might come over and discover that you’re a giant nerd.”
“I haven’t read many of them,” I said, in case she thought that I had. “They were my mom’s in college.”
“You’re never going to read them if they’re under your bed.”
“I’ll put on my new leather jacket and go read one in a coffee shop tomorrow,” I promised, grinning.
“You’re so full of it,” Cassidy teased, scooting onto the bed. Her arms were goose bumped from the air-conditioning, and her tank top was askew, revealing a lacy bra strap.
“Mmm, come here,” I said, pulling her on top of me.
I’d forgotten to put on music to set the mood, but it didn’t matter. For once, we had a huge bed all to ourselves, and a lock on the door, and an echoing, empty house beyond that lock.
I kissed her neck, slipping the straps of her tank top over her shoulders, and then kissed those too. I pushed her tank top down around her waist, hoping she’d get the hint that I wanted her to take it off.
“Very subtle,” she said, sitting up and wriggling out of her top. Stripes of late-afternoon sunlight seeped though the blinds, creating golden bands across her skin.
“It’s purple,” I said stupidly, mesmerized by the appearance of her lacy bra and the soft curves of her waist.
And then Cooper let out a pitiful whine and scratched his paw against the door. Cassidy glanced over, and Cooper whined again, louder this time.
“Hush, Cooper!” she called, but if anything, the mention of his name seemed to encourage him.
“Just ignore it,” I told her.
And we tried to, for a while. But it’s pretty hard to pretend your dog isn’t sobbing his eyes out on the other side of the door.
“It’s getting worse,” Cassidy said, trying not to laugh. “Can’t you do anything?”
“He’s never like this,” I grumbled, getting up.
I stuck my head out the door. Cooper stared back at me, his brown eyes quivering. He let out an experimental whine.
“No!” I told him. “Hush, Cooper! Go away!”
Not going to happen, old sport, his eyes seemed to say. He lay down, settling his head on top of his paws, and whined softly.
“Better,” I said, shutting the door with a sigh.
Cassidy was sitting up on the bed in her bra and jeans, her hair tumbling over her shoulders.
“So where’s this drawer full of lube?” she joked.
“We won’t need it,” I promised, and my T-shirt joined hers on the floor.
We started kissing again. Cassidy was on top, straddling me. Her hair swished against my cheek, and she bit my bottom lip a bit as we kissed, and I pretty much wanted to die, it was so sexy. I reached for her bra and waged a brief but unsuccessful battle against the clasp, managing to get it thoroughly stuck in the Velcro of my wrist brace.
“Um,” I said. “We have a problem.”
“Did you, you know . . . finish?” Cassidy asked awkwardly.
“Nope, still good,” I assured her. “But, um, I’m caught on your bra.”
Caught was an understatement. My wrist was practically handcuffed to her back.
“Oh.” Cassidy bit her lip. “Maybe I should—what if I—no, hold on, I’ll pull it over my head.”
“This is so humiliating,” I muttered as Cassidy wiggled out of her bra.
“Well, it brings new meaning to the phrase ‘booby trap,’” she teased, and we both laughed, a situation made infinitely more interesting due to the fact that she was topless.
“So, do you care where I put it?” I asked.
“What?” she spluttered.
“Oh wow, no. Your bra,” I clarified, unsnagging it from my wrist brace. “Sorry.”
“You’re cute when you blush.” Cassidy grinned mischievously. “And since you asked, how about I show you exactly where to put it?”
Cassidy slid down beneath the covers, and I tossed her bra onto the floor and closed my eyes and clenched my fists and let the delicious pressure of her warm, soft mouth take me back to our fireworks, all of them bursting at once.
Later—after I’d returned the favor, and we’d gotten dressed, and Cassidy had expressed her undying appreciation for the fact that I had an en suite bathroom—after we’d let Cooper back into the room and were innocently playing Mario Cars with the door open in case my parents came home, Cassidy asked if I was a virgin.
I paused the game, since I had the A controller.
“Um,” I said, wondering if she’d guessed.
“Oh my God.” Cassidy’s lips twitched as she held back a smile. “You’re not!”
“Hey, I used to be cool!” I tried to make a joke of it.
“I know, it’s horrifying,” Cassidy said wryly, and then fiddled with the controller, realizing what she’d started.
“Well, I’m saving myself,” Cassidy announced, like it was the punch line to an untold joke, and then shrugged, embarrassed. “Why do they even call it that, ‘saving yourself’? Like we need to be rescued from sex? It’s not as though virgins spend their whole lives engaged in the sacred ceremony of ‘being saved’ from intercourse.”
“Just so long as you’re cool with outercourse, I guess I don’t mind.” I grinned.
“What the heck is outercourse?” Cassidy frowned.
I tried to make myself the picture of innocence.
“Well, I could show you again?”
21
I’M NOT CERTAIN I can pinpoint the exact moment when I became irreparably different. These days, I think it wasn’t a moment at all, but a process. A chemical reaction, if you will. I was no longer Ezra Faulkner, golden boy, and maybe I hadn’t been for a while, but the more time I spent with Cassidy, the more I was okay with it.
After Cassidy went home and my parents returned from their outing to various home décor warehouses, which we discussed at length over dinner, I put on my new leather jacket and looked at myself in the mirror. A real look, something I’d been avoiding for a long time.
Ever since the accident, I’d only seen the things that were wrong: my hair grown out from its athlete’s cut, my muscles diminished, my tan replaced by an unhealthy pallor, my formerly fitted jeans hanging off my hipbones, even with the aid of a belt.
But when I looked in the mirror this time, I didn’t see any of those things. They were still there, of course, but not as flaws, just as facts: skinny, messy-haired, pale. Me, I guessed, just a different version from the one most people remembered.
In some sort of grand gesture, I took the books out from under my bed and put them on the shelves. Not that I was planning on reading many of them, but it was a nice feeling, being able to glance at my bookshelves and contemplate the possibility of it. To think that a small piece of my bedroom finally represented something of me.
I wondered what Cassidy’s bedroom looked like, if it encapsulated her in a way that mine didn’t. I wondered if it was anything like Charlotte’s bedroom had been, with ladybug figurines lining the windowsill and an entire desk just for her makeup collection, which apparently was called a vanity.
“How come we never go over to your house?” I asked Cassidy when I picked her up for school on Monday.
“Because we have a housekeeper,” she said, sighing. “And she’d tell my parents I have boys over when they’re not around.”
“Technically, I’m singular,” I said, nodding at the security guard as we drove past.
“All the more disastrous,” Cassidy assured me. “Trust me, it’s easier if you don’t come over. You’re not missing anything.”
“I guess,” I said, sensing that Cassidy wanted to drop the subject.
Cassidy took a sip of the coffee I’d brought.
“Have you ever tried a French press?” she asked. “I think you’d like it better.”