I grabbed her hand and pulled her toward me again. “Maybe if you’d let me kiss you I’d snap back to reality.” She came willingly this time, her body soft and warm against mine.
I leaned in and kissed her lips, slowly, knowing that I wanted to take it slow with her. Every time I kissed Lindsay seemed like the first time, somehow. I’d never had that experience before with any other girl. I still got that same electric spark, that charge that went off throughout my entire body, every single time we touched each other.
That has to mean something, I thought. It can’t just be some random little fling that we’re having.
It’s more than that.
I held her close, kissing her lips and then slowly sliding my tongue into her mouth. She moaned ever so softly.
I could tell that she was losing her will to work on that ridiculous slide presentation. Who cared about slide shows anyway?
Nobody actually paid any attention to that crap, at least I never had when I’d been in high school and people had given those stupid lectures.
She rolled over onto her back, knocking into her computer. It slid a foot or two toward the edge of the bed, but Lindsay didn’t seem to mind, and I definitely wasn’t going to stop kissing her to rescue it.
I climbed on top of her, pressing my chest against hers as I kissed her more forcefully, and her tongue entwined with mine. She moaned again, a little bit louder this time.
I stopped kissing her for a moment and looked into her eyes.
Lindsay looked back at me, and it was just the two of us at that moment—just us—I knew that we had something special. There was something powerful between Lindsay and me, and I had to be an idiot if I were to let that go.
And then I leaned in to kiss her again, and her whole body seemed to push up to me, like a magnetic attraction pulling our two bodies together.
At that exact second, when it seemed like the whole thing between us was going to explode and finally go out of control, in the best kind of way—there was a series of knocks on the door.
Lindsay’s eyelids snapped open like window shades.
“Lindsay?” came a guy’s voice from outside the room. More knocking followed.
“You in there?”
She sat up and put her finger over my lips.
“Just a second, Carter!” she called out, and then sprang out of bed and pulled me with her.
“What the hell,” I whispered, and she shook her head violently, shushing me again. She grabbed my arm and dragged me toward the bathroom.
When we got inside the bathroom, she glared at me, her eyes fiery and intense.
“Do not even breathe in here,” she whispered. “Do not make a sound.”
I stared back at her, folding my arms. “Why are you so afraid of him knowing about me?”
“Justin, I can’t argue right now. Just be. Quiet.” Then she walked out of the bathroom, shutting the door as she went.
I felt the blood rushing to my head and my fists clenching. Why should I sit in that bathroom in fear of being discovered? What did I care if that asshole knew I was in her room?
She was the one who cared.
That’s because she’s ashamed of you. She thinks you’re a loser. If you were some med student with a bright future as a prestigious doctor, do you really think she’d worry about this Carter dude seeing you in her room?
I began pacing back and forth in the bathroom, like some kind of caged animal. A tiger, thirsty for blood, and I was ready to jump out of my skin and pounce on that Carter dude if he said the wrong thing.
When she opened the door and let him inside, I could hear everything the two of them said to each other.
“Sorry this presentation is turning into such a problem,” Lindsay said.
“It’s not your fault,” Carter said.
I put my ear to the bathroom door so I could listen to them even better.
“So, what’s up?” Lindsay asked.
“We need to put our heads together to deal with the slides on the PK curves and the TK results. They’re confusing and I’m worried that the physicians are going to start making it into a bigger deal than it is.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Lindsay said.
I listened to them, my anger building, even though I had no idea what they were even talking about. All I knew was that they were out there acting like kissing cousins and I was stuck in a goddamn bathroom like some fool.
I was the fool. I’d never been the fool before and I didn’t like it. At all.
I stopped listening to them after a couple more minutes of scientific mumbo jumbo. They were working on the slides and it didn’t sound like they were going to stop anytime soon.
Just go out there and put an end to it, then. What are you so afraid of?
But I’d promised Lindsay that I wouldn’t embarrass her, would stay out of the way, hidden from view.
If I busted out of the bathroom and told her geeky friend to take a hike, I’d be sent on my way about three seconds behind him. She wouldn’t want anything to do with me if I pulled another crazy stunt--she’d seen me do enough crazy stuff already.
So I kept my cool, just barely, and walked quietly around the bathroom, counting paces, shadow boxing, and reminding myself not to blow it with Lindsay.