14
Landon
The first time I drove solo wasn’t what I’d ever dreamed it would be. I’d imagined cruising with Boyce on a Saturday night. Picking up some faceless girl to see a movie or get a burger. Grandpa sending me to the store to get milk.
Instead, I drove to the dock and caught the ferry that ran twenty-four/seven, as Grandpa and I had done many times – but I’d never been the one to steer the truck on to the ramp. I drove to the cemetery, blanking on bringing flowers and realizing when I arrived that I only had a vague notion where, exactly, he was buried. Seventy-two hours ago. That day had been a blur. It didn’t feel real.
I found my grandmother’s headstone and the mound of new dirt next to it.
A week ago, I was driving on a back road not far from here, with Grandpa in the passenger seat. He was telling me how he’d learned to drive at fourteen, when he quit school to work with his father and older brother. ‘I damn near stripped the gears offa that old Dodge afore I learned to manage it,’ he’d said, chuckling at the memory.
I tried to remember the last thing we said to each other, but I couldn’t. Probably something to do with dinner, or chores, or the weather.
Now that I was standing at the foot of that mound of dirt, I didn’t know what to do. Was I supposed to talk to him? Cry? He wasn’t there. He wouldn’t hear me. So these things seemed beyond pointless, unless I wanted to hear myself talk – and I didn’t.
The cemetery was dotted with a few lone visitors, like me, and one large funeral service gathering. Under a big tent housing a load of massive floral arrangements, people huddled, paying their respects while seated on padded folding chairs. Whoever died had been money. I glanced at the cars lining the road near the gathering, recognizing the insignias – Cadillac, Mercedes, Audi, even a Jag … and Clark Richards’s shiny white Jeep.
What the hell.
Scanning the mourners, I found him easily – on the front row. His dark blond hair was slicked back and he wore a black suit, white shirt and a dark red tie. Melody sat on his left, wearing black and leaning into him. His arm was hooked round her shoulder, his face impassive. Even with the distance, Melody’s miserable, crumpled posture was obvious. Her shoulders vibrated, and though I couldn’t see her face or her tears, I felt her grief like a punch to the gut.
Her older brother Evan was on her right. I recognized their mother, next to Evan. The man next to Mrs Dover was probably her husband. Immediate family accounted for, but they were all on the front row. They’d lost someone closely related.
I considered the dirt at my feet. Dust to dust. My throat tightened. ‘Goodbye, Grandpa. Thanks for the truck.’
Later that night, lying in bed, I texted Melody: Are you okay? I was at the cemetery and saw you today.
She texted right back: My grandmother died Friday. Her funeral was today. I hate my family. All they care about is her money.
That sucks, I said.
Thirty minutes passed before she texted back: I’m in the fort. I needed to come outside and stare at the stars. You can come over if you want.
K. I pushed send and grabbed my hoodie from the hook on the back of my door.
Dad squinted up from the table where he’d spread the business ledgers and stacks of files, noting the boots on my feet and the hoodie I pulled over my head. He said nothing, but I recognized the disappointment in his tensed jaw before I turned and walked out the front door. If he’d assumed my grandfather’s death was going to turn me into a model citizen, he didn’t know me at all.
There was almost no wind – weird for March. Warmer than it was earlier, too. When I ducked into the fort, I pulled the hoodie off, climbing the ladder and losing my breath at the sight of Melody, sitting against a wall, her lower half wrapped in a blanket, her upper half in a thin-strapped tank.
‘Hey,’ I said.
‘Hey.’ Her voice was scratchy, like an old recording. She’d cried a lot, and recently.
I sat next to her, close enough to touch, but not touching. I knew from experience what not to say – I’m sorry. Not because there was anything wrong or even insincere about the phrase, but because there was no good answer for it.
‘What was your grandma like?’ I asked instead.
Her mouth turned up at the corners, just barely. She rested the side of her face on her knees and looked at me. ‘She was feisty. Opinionated. My parents hated that. They didn’t think she was circumspect – that’s what they used to say to each other. She wasn’t dainty and discreet and easily hushed. They just wanted her to shut up, but no one could dictate to her because she held the purse strings.’
That didn’t sound like a woman who would have urged Melody to let a big brother or boyfriend boss her.
‘She had a ton of grandkids, but I was her favourite,’ she said. ‘She told me so.’
I mirrored her slight smile. ‘I was my grandfather’s only grandkid, so I guess I was his favourite by default.’
‘I’m sure you would have been his favourite even if he’d had a dozen grandkids,’ she said.
My heart squeezed. ‘Why do you think that?’
We were sitting in the dark, a foot apart. Every part of me wanted to be physically closer to her, and now she was tugging on my heart. ‘Well … you’re smart, and determined, and you care about people.’
My lips fell open. ‘You think I’m smart?’
She nodded once, face still pressed against her knee. ‘I know you are. You hide it, though. Because of people like Boyce?’
I lifted a shoulder, one knee up and the other leg sprawled. The underside of my boot was halfway to the opposite wall. This fort was made for six-year-olds. ‘No. Boyce doesn’t rag me about stuff like that.’ Boyce only rags me about wanting a girl I can’t have. ‘I don’t see the point – school, grades, all that. My grandpa quit school when he was two years younger than me, and my dad has a PhD in economics – but what difference did it make? They both ended up working on a boat.’
She blinked. ‘Your dad has a PhD? Then why is he – I mean, why wouldn’t he do something more …’
Lips pressed together, I turned my head to watch her stumble over this knowledge – something I’d not shared with anyone else, even Boyce. ‘More prestigious? Or something that makes more money?’
She shrugged, embarrassed for her impolite question, but still curious.
‘He did. Then my mom … died.’ I stared at the sky. ‘And we moved here. And whatever he learned or did before was just a big f*cking waste of time.’
‘So you don’t want to go to college?’
‘I don’t know. I mean, I wouldn’t know how to pay for it if I did.’
I felt my face burn and was glad for the darkness. This was Melody Dover, for chrissake, and lack of money was a weakness to people like her. Weak was the last thing I wanted to appear to Melody.
‘You could get a scholarship, maybe.’
I didn’t want to tell her I’d well and truly blown that to hell. My GPA wouldn’t inspire admiration in institutions of higher learning. I probably wouldn’t be admitted, let alone given a free ride.
I shoved my hand into my hair to push it off my face, and she reached up to trace the tattoo over the back of my wrist with one finger. I brought my hand down, slowly, and rested it between us. ‘I like this,’ she said, moving to the lick of flame over my triceps, tracking it along the cut of my biceps and up under the sleeve of my T-shirt. ‘And this.’
‘Thanks.’ My vocal chords failed me, and the word was a whisper. Our eyes met, lit by stars and moonlight alone.
She pulled her hand back into her lap. ‘Thanks for texting me tonight, Landon. And for coming over. I didn’t want to be alone after this full-of-suck day. Pearl has a ten o’clock curfew, and I guess Clark is asleep – he never answered me.’
I knew for a fact that Clark Richards was closing a deal with Thompson tonight and was currently getting high on the other side of town. ‘No problem.’
LUCAS
She said okay.
I dropped the pad on to Jacqueline’s floor and pressed her to the mattress, carefully, but with no hesitation, the tips of my fingers tracing the pale veins at her wrists. Her heartbeat vibrated under my fingertips, ticking almost double the count of seconds in a minute. My fingers followed those blue trails until they vanished into the crook of her elbows, her skin too fragile and soft to be real.
‘You’re so beautiful.’ I may have spoken the words aloud or inside my head. I wasn’t sure which.
My lips closed over hers, more carefully than I’d ever kissed anyone. I was terrified to startle her. Afraid she would retreat and never trust me with this chance again. Afraid she would equate me with that a*shole who hurt her – who would have hurt her so much more.
I shoved him from my mind as though I’d pushed him from a cliff. He was not a part of this. I wouldn’t let him in.
I touched my tongue along the seam of her lips – a quiet enquiry and a promise to withdraw if required. But she opened her mouth, and my blood ignited, rolling below my tattoos like tiny ribbons of fire. Her tongue touched mine – a connection I hadn’t imagined would be allowed, and one that incited an ache for more. I swept my tongue across hers and she sighed and trembled beneath me.
I placed one hand over her wrists and one at her waist, as if I could ground her to this moment. Exploring her was suddenly all I was meant to do in this life. When I sucked on her plump lower lip, so unbearably sweet, her breath caught. My tongue drove into her mouth, harder, seeking more of her, and her hands turned to fists beneath my hand. I released her instantly, fearing I’d frightened her with the intensity of what I felt, praying I hadn’t – but her eyes opened, and I read nothing there but wonder.
I placed her hands round my neck and sat up, pulling her into my lap as her hands wound into my hair and God almighty she could have asked anything of me in that moment and I’d have granted it.
Her head fitted into my hand as I inclined her back, tipping her chin to kiss that freckle I’d noticed while sketching. My lips moved lower, so slowly, my entire body on alert for any sign of too far from her. Her chest rose and fell, the soft pant of each breath echoing into the room and blending with mine above the music from her laptop that had faded to the background. I knew the songs but couldn’t have said or cared what they were as my free hand wandered beneath her sweater.
I skimmed greedy fingertips over her ribs and up over the silky fabric of her bra, pushing her sweater higher. Her accelerating breaths feathered over my face and fanned my hair as I ran my tongue along the curve of her bare skin, just above the cup.
The tiny clasp was in the front. One press between my thumb and index finger followed by a half-inch slide would open it, but my brain won out. This would be too far. My conscience whispered from the other side of the door that I was kidding myself with this mental pretence of gallantry. This entire night was too far, and I damned well knew it.
I should leave, I thought.
And then she laughed. Not even a laugh, really – more like a strangled giggle, ricocheting through the room at the strangest possible moment.
‘Ticklish?’ I asked, because I couldn’t imagine another reason for her to laugh at such a point. She bit down on her lip, much too hard. I wanted to object that she was injuring a part of herself I was prepared to spend the next hour adoring. I’d dreamed about her lips, her mouth, her tongue – I didn’t want her putting any of them out of play. She shook her head, no, and I stared at her lush mouth and asked, ‘You sure? Because it’s either that … or you find my seduction techniques … humorous.’
She laughed again, belatedly covering her mouth.
I wasn’t about to let her get away with hiding those lips from me. Aloud, I mulled over the idea of tickling her, just to dismiss her hysteria, and her eyes widened.
‘Please don’t,’ she begged, as if I would. Any fingers I stroked over her body would be an entirely different sort of touch, and I’d be damned if she’d laugh again, as adorable and weird as it was.
Drawing her hand away from her lips, I placed it over my heart and captured her mouth with mine – giving her no time to become anxious, giving myself no time to deliberate. She moaned softly, driving me out of my mind.
I pulled her sweater back down, but I didn’t need to see her to feel her, and my imagination filled in every visual void. Caressing the soft skin of her abdomen, moving north, lazily – two inches up and one back, my hand finally cupped one breast, full and perfect. She gasped when my thumb grazed over her nipple and I felt it harden instantly through the thin fabric of her bra. I pinched it gently, revelling in her responsiveness, before paying equal attention to her other breast.
I could draw her from touch alone, without ever seeing her naked body. She’d have areolas the size of quarters, I’d guess – rosy pink nipples straining towards my mouth if I arched her further over my arm and licked each of them, once, blowing gently across the surface of her skin.
God. Damn.
As if she read my mind, she moaned again, opening wider, and my tongue delved deep, probing every inch of her hot little mouth, stroking her tongue rhythmically. Growling my pleasure when she sucked on mine, I tightened my arm round her, exerting every ounce of willpower I had to keep from pulling her astride my lap, tugging her sweater over her head, sliding her bra off, and sucking her into my mouth while she moulded her heated core against my rock-hard, all-too-willing erection. What exquisite torture that would be.
She hummed in my arms, giving herself over to kissing me, having no thought, I’m sure, that I was imagining so much more than these heated kisses, as powerful as they were. I stroked her throat with my fingers, like putting my hand to a train track and feeling the rumble of a train I couldn’t see yet, coming fast. Abandoning her lips momentarily, I sucked soft little kisses along the front of her neck – not forceful enough to leave marks, but hard enough to leave her dizzy. Hard enough to give her a sample of what I could make her feel.
Sliding my hand round to the base of her spine and pulling her closer, I teased my fingers into the back of her jeans while I returned my mouth to hers, kissing her slow and gentle to slow and deep, slow and deep to fast and tender, fast and tender to hard and deep – reeling her in, bit by bit.
Her hand massaged and pressed. My skin burned and my muscles leaped under her palm as if prepared to do her bidding, whatever it was. I was only in charge because she allowed me to be. My command was illusory. If she said stop, I would stop. If she leaned to my ear and said Take me, now, I would, knowing it was too soon and would be a mistake. I would do whatever she asked, however she asked it. I would be her bad boy, if that’s what she wanted. If that’s what she needed.
I wanted to make it good for her. So good. But not this time. Not yet. Stretched out on her narrow mattress, without removing a single item of her clothing, I’d driven us both to the brink of crazy. One tap and we’d go over the edge. Her languid posture and heavily lidded eyes told me she was kiss-drunk and pliant. She would follow my lead.
‘I should go,’ I whispered.
Her forehead creased. ‘You want to go?’
No, beautiful girl. I want to pin you to this mattress and please you in every goddamned way possible for the rest of the night.
‘I said I should go.’ I pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth. Her lips were swollen and wet, and if I didn’t stop looking at them I wasn’t going to make it out of here. Moving to nuzzle her ear, I said, ‘Should is different than want.’
She sighed in response. ‘Can I see the sketches, then?’
‘Mmm, sure.’ My body protested the separation as I lifted from her to sit up, taking her hand and pulling her up as well. If she’d remained lying there, her hair all round her face, her clothes askew, my shredded self-control would be thrown out the window. Forcefully.
I grabbed the sketchpad and sat next to her on the edge of the bed.
I showed her the two sketches – each undeveloped, in need of fine-tuning. Despite that, she seemed impressed. I told her I would probably redo them in charcoal and tack them to my bedroom wall. Her response was comical astonishment, especially when I added, ‘Who wouldn’t want to wake up to this?’ I bit the inside of my cheek to maintain my blank expression.
Too late, I realized I’d not washed my hands after sketching her, before touching her. If I removed that sweater, she’d undoubtedly be covered with swipes of grey, as if I’d marked her as mine. My body tightened in response to that thought. I leaned against her door and pulled her up and against me as I kissed her one last time. When she came on to her toes and pushed into me, I knew she was five seconds from being flat on her back in the middle of that bed.
‘I have to go now, or I’m not going.’ I groaned.
She said nothing – no yes, go, but also no objection to my leaving. I dismissed what I saw in her eyes – a moment of hesitation that said I could be more than the rebound her friends meant me to be. Imagined, no doubt. I kissed her forehead and the tip of her nose, but not her tempting, luscious mouth, murmured, ‘Later,’ and left her room, my thoughts disordered and my body on the verge of rioting.