Chapter 6
The sound of Gary’s faint snores fills the bus as he sleeps on one of the couches in the front room. Meanwhile, even though I set up my bed, brushed my teeth, and took a very quick shower, I can’t fall asleep. Since Sam opened his stupid mouth, my mind can’t stop straying to the past.
To Seth. That name was once elation and pain wrapped in one. I rarely let myself think of him. When I do, I remind myself that everyone has growing pains and difficult passages in life. That’s what Seth was for me, and remembering that fact helps me deal with the memories. He was the first boy who ever chased me, my second kiss—my first had been a sloppy affair after a freshman homecoming dance—and my first boyfriend. Though we went to different high schools, we spent hours texting and talking on the phone. I lived for Saturdays then. Thought about nothing but being with him.
I was euphoric that he wanted me. He was the lead singer of the Bottle Rockets, the popular band that played at all the parties that summer and autumn, and so girls hit on him all the time. When he’d first declared his love, I lived in a haze of teenage hormonal love for months. It was a change to be adored. At the start of high school, I’d been chubby, and the stigma had stayed. No boy in my school had ever shown any interest in me. Seth, on the other hand, treated me like a prize. Bought me flowers. Took me to dinner twice, and serenaded me once. Showed me how sensual kissing could be while being patient with me.
Then, after three months of bliss, everything changed. He became more persistent about sex. It didn’t feel right—I was still too self-conscious about my body—and I became more resistant. Then our conversations turned difficult. He started accusing me of talking behind his back, mocking him to our friends because he couldn’t get me to sleep with him. He even insinuated I was cheating on him, his tone so angry that it set my heart trembling. Still in love, I’d beg forgiveness even though his attacks were based on nothing. Round and round the cycle went for two months. Until the night the whole thing exploded and we broke up, and my choosing Sam’s shoulder to cry on turned out to be the final nail in the coffin, and the intro to six months of rumors and hurt.
I’ve always refused to think of that night. At first it was connected to my desire to bury the Seth breakup, because thinking about it hurt too much. Then, as I started putting the painful episode in the past, it seemed stupid to dredge it up and try to process the whole thing. But now it’s almost four years later and I can’t sleep because Sam’s accusation stings so badly. Did I use him? No. We were both drunk. We both let things go too far. And that’s it.
At least, I always believed so.
Clutching the blanket wrapped around me, I roll over miserably.
Maybe it’s time to face that night, reconsider it now that I’m older, and try to truly move the fuck on. I close my eyes and, for once, don’t block the memories. Instead, I allow my mind to dredge up every painful detail.
Jill was in the farmhouse, partying, and I was outside in the cold winter night, crying. I walked to her parked car, the gravel of the driveway crunching under my feet, then leaned against the side door and sobbed. The smell of cow patties hung in the cool air. The darkness and silence of the winter night was intensified by the lights and laughter coming from inside the house. The full, shining moon created eerie shadows in the apple orchard along one side of the driveway.
Seth was making me crazy. All week, he’d been texting me, calling me, telling me how he couldn’t wait for the weekend, and couldn’t wait to see me, yet within the first hour of my arrival at the party, he’d started slinging his accusations until we were in a full-blown shouting match in the kitchen. It had started with him saying I was a bitch who was holding out on him. At first, I’d tried to reason. But he’d kept it up, heaping on more abuse, not caring that everyone at the party could hear. Finally, something snapped. Instead of taking my usual approach, denying everything and dissolving into hopeless tears, anger rose up in me.
“Seth,” I’d said, “who the hell do you think I’m cheating on you with?”
“Half of the guys at your high school, you slut!” he’d screamed, his face twisted in an ugly sneer.
Something had gone dead in me then. I’d looked him in the eye. “It’s over, Seth,” I’d said. Then I’d run outside before I burst into tears.
I silently pleaded with the universe to send Jill outside. When Seth had started his verbal attack, she’d had been in the living room. Was it possible she hadn’t heard? Then I realized that she might have gone upstairs, hooking up with the guy from college she’d been watching for months. If that was the case, I was going to be out there forever.
A car pulled up and parked at the end of the long line. I stooped down, hoping the newcomers wouldn’t spot me. One person’s footsteps came closer, crunching across the gravel. When it was clear the lone person was going to walk right past and spot me either way, I straightened up, tugged out my keys, and pretended I was finding the right key to open the door.
“Peyton?” a male voice asked.
Crap. I let go of the handle.
“Just getting some air,” I said, trying to steady my voice and hide that I’d been crying.
“It’s a bit cold to be getting air.”
In seconds, Sam stood in front of me. A fifth of something dangled from one hand, a book from the other. Parties sometimes bored Sam, so he always brought something to read. “You and Seth fighting again?”
I nodded and sighed, then looked at the ground.
He stepped closer. “You okay?”
“I’m all right,” I said tightly, still refusing to lift my head.
He stepped closer. “Hey, you want me to get Jill for you?”
“No.” Jill’s last three weekends had been ruined by Seth and me fighting. Each time, she’d left the party with me, then listened to me cry all night. If she was hooking up with college boy, whom she’d been flirting with for weeks, I wasn’t going to ruin it.
“Well, you can’t sit out here. It’s too cold. Come on, I’ll walk you in.”
“Thanks, but no,” I said. Sam was always helping me too, after these stupid fights. Seth made me cry. Sam helped me laugh. “I’m not going in there. We fought in front of everyone. Broke up in front of everyone.”
He sighed. “Okay, come on. We can hang in the barn.” Though it was dark outside, he somehow read the confusion on my face. He laughed. “No worries. We won’t be hanging with the cows. There’s a small office in the back with a space heater.”
I shook my head. “Um, aren’t you supposed to play tonight?” People flocked to every party the Bottle Rockets played at. I knew that as soon as they started the first song—and usually they played only three or four—the house would be packed wall-to-wall. All the band members got some attention, but it always seemed to me that more than half of the girls were in love with Seth.
“Midnight. Seth wants a big crowd, but everything’s set up in the basement since Wes’s kit is already there.” He nodded toward the barn. “Come on.”
I reluctantly followed him past the other cars and across the driveway to the barn.
“You’ll see,” Sam said over his shoulder, leading the way. “The office really isn’t that bad for being in a barn. Wes’s dad even sleeps back here sometimes when a cow is sick or whatever.”
We went in a side door and down a dark hallway, where the scent of cows got stronger with each step. Sam stepped inside a dark room at the end of the hall and tugged on a chain hanging from the ceiling, and the space was then encased in a soft glow. There was a desk, shelves behind it filled with books, an old couch covered with afghans, and a space heater that Sam flicked on before shutting the door and turning to me.
At the sight of my tears in the light, he shook his head. “Seth’s an asshole.”
Seeing the pity in his light blue eyes sent more tears falling down my cheeks. He set the fifth on the desk, then pulled me onto the couch and into his arms as usual. I was always crying on Sam’s shoulder. It had become so constant, just the feel of him was comforting. After letting me cry against his coat for a few minutes, he asked, “What was it this time?”
“Same old stuff,” I mumbled into his coat. “I’m a cheating, rumor-spreading bitch.”
He sighed into my hair. “I’m not sure where he gets this shit, but my blind brother needs his ass kicked.”
My fingers curled around the lapel of his jacket. “I don’t want to talk about him.”
“All right.”
I glanced around the room. “Thanks for showing me this place. I was freezing my ass off outside. But you don’t have to stay in here with me.”
“Maybe I want to stay in here with you.”
A cow’s muted moo filled the silence until Sam said, “‘She Don’t Use Jelly’ by the Flaming Lips.”
A sad giggle escaped me. I could always expect a laugh with Sam around. “‘Satan Gave Me a Taco.’ Beck.”
He smirked down at me. The first few times we met, Sam and I had tried to one-up each other on musical knowledge, but we soon became convinced neither of us knew more than the other. Then Sam started this game of trying to match songs. No one else seemed to get it but us.
I sat up a little but Sam’s arm stayed around my shoulders. “Are we supposed to be in here?”
“Wesley doesn’t give a shit, and his parents are in Florida for the winter. He turned eighteen this year, so they pay him to keep up the farm for a few months.”
“Huh, I can’t imagine my parents taking off for the winter, and I’ve been eighteen since September.” I glanced at the fifth sitting on the desk. To avoid extra calories, I normally only allowed myself two drinks at any party—and I’d already had those inside—yet something about the fight with Seth made me want to ignore my usual limits. “Can I have a drink?”
“It’s tequila.”
I shrugged.
“I brought it to pass around, but sure, let’s have our own party.” Sam leaned over me and grabbed the bottle. The sensation of his body sliding across mine made my breath hitch for a second, which seemed strange. After shucking our coats, we passed the bottle back and forth—the first couple of sips were tough to hold down—and talked music, laughing as we argued about whose taste in bands was better. Flipping pages, he read some lines from the book he’d brought with him, which was called High Fidelity and set in London. From what I was hearing, the novel sounded like a mix of music and heartache. I didn’t get all the sarcastic humor, but Sam’s lame British accent made me laugh as hard as the quotes. I felt strangely calm and free, until half the fifth was gone and the conversation led back to the Bottle Rockets and Seth.
“You guys going to keep the band going at Michigan?” I asked, my voice breaking at “guys” because it included Seth.
Sam lifted my chin with a finger. “Hey, Peyton. He’ll come around. He always does.”
I shook my head. “I can’t do it anymore,” I said in a raw whisper.
“Do you want to do it anymore?” Sam whispered back.
“No. No, I don’t,” I said, truly believing it in that buzzed moment.
The whispering somehow made the moment intimate, created a connection that wasn’t there or made me aware of one that I’d previously ignored. My breath hitched again.
Sam leaned closer, his eyes searching mine. “Seth and you are truly over?”
“Yeah, I think so,” I said softly, feeling caught in Sam’s gaze. “I told him so.”
Before I realized what was happening, his arms were around me, and his lips were on mine. More startling than his kiss was my reaction to it. The soft demanding pulse of his mouth set me on fire. His slow searching tongue was a driving burn that made me want to explore. I locked my hands behind his neck and kissed him back. The kiss was long and hot and air draining, and drew me into a cocoon of lust.
Warm and languid, I floated through sensations that I hoped would never stop. Soft lips gliding across the contours of my neck. Calloused fingers easing under my shirt and caressing my waist, gliding up to my ribs. The silky whisper of a tongue following the curve of my ear. Palms, so searing that I felt their heat through the silk of my bra, cupping my breasts. A warm, wet mouth trailing across my cheek.
Breathless, yearning for more, I felt free of the inhibition and apprehension that had so often marred my intimacy with Seth. Though I’d lost weight, I was still extremely conscious of my body. Jill had always told me that any man was lucky to be with me, no matter what my size, but I always worried about not being good or beautiful enough for him. In theory, I knew Jill was right, but I could just never relax enough to let things go further. Yet everything about being with Sam on the couch felt so fluid and natural that self-consciousness about my figure was the last thing on my mind.
Unable to stop myself, I turned my head and caught that mouth with mine, aching to lose myself in the sensations Sam was creating.
After the heated meeting of our mouths, I lay back, pulling him closer. My need turned frantic with his weight on me. I clutched his arms. He slid his hands down to my hips. We each tugged the other closer. As our tongues knotted together, his erection pressed between my spread legs, and I just about incinerated at the feel of him against me.
I whimpered into his mouth.
He pulled away slightly, propping himself up on one arm and looking down at me. He was raised above me, his harsh breath fanning and warming my skin.
Suspended in a haze of lust that I didn’t know was possible, I watched him with heavy-lidded eyes. I refused to contemplate the confusion in his gaze. Instead, I wrapped a leg around him and reached my hand to the back of his neck, then yanked him down to me.
He came down with a groan, covering my lips with his. Mouths locked together, we rocked against each other. We both panted at the delicious friction. Rocked. Panted. Rocked. Groaned. The mounting desire had us mindlessly tugging and hauling down each other’s jeans and underwear until there was nothing between us but the hard feel of him against my skin.
I felt him press into me. Just a bit.
“Peyton?” he panted, rising up on his elbows.
My body didn’t want his question. It didn’t want any distractions from the lustful cocoon we had weaved. It wanted to forge ahead with a fierceness I didn’t know was possible. Letting need take over, I lifted my hips and brought him farther into me.
We both gasped. We both trembled. We both moved closer.
There was a sharp burn, but even that didn’t deter me from wrapping my legs around him and sinking him fully in.
Sam drew his head back, the muscles of his neck straining. I quivered at the beautiful masculine sight above me as heat burned below. Then his head dropped, his mouth covered mine, and he started moving.
And the cocoon spun shut. His mouth, his hands holding my jaw, his moans, his movement inside me, left me mindless. We arched and grasped and clutched each other, senseless as the cocoon burst open, and pleasure like a newly born butterfly soaring in the bright sunshine floated through me. He fell against me, his face on my chest, his body warm and heavy on mine.
As the moments ticked past, reality slowly began to set in. What the hell did you just do, Peyton? Before I could collect my thoughts, before I could comprehend what had happened, the door flew open.
Seth stood there, tall and lean. His long hair practically hid his eyes as they traveled the length of our bodies sprawled on the couch. His expression conveyed a look of hurt as his mouth twisted into a snarl. “I knew it. I knew you were just some dumb slut holding out on me.”
“Seth . . .” Sam said in a warning tone as he tugged the afghan under us.
Every trace of lust seeped out of me, and I felt instantly, dreadfully sober. Sam’s weight on me was an anvil of regret. Tugging the blanket around me, he pulled himself up, yet regret still pressed heavily on my chest. “Leave her alone,” Sam said, his tone hostile, dragging up his pants.
“Seriously?” Seth shouted. “What the fuck? How can you defend the bitch?” He spun around and flew out the door, kicking it with a combat boot as he left.
Shame and guilt twisted inside me as the door banged shut. His look of hurt hammered regret through me. I’d been angry with Seth, but I’d never, ever wanted to hurt him.
“Seth!” I yelled, pushing Sam away. “Wait! This was a mistake! A crazy mistake!” I jerked my pants up, grabbed my coat, and ran after him. Outside, I yelled his name again, but he was already entering the house.
Tears started falling as I rushed across the wide driveway of gravel and burst into the house. I didn’t care about being embarrassed by tears. I had to talk to Seth, had to explain. More people had arrived. I was shoving my way through the crowd in the kitchen when the music was cut off and I heard vicious shouting that included the words “slut,” “bitch,” “fuck you,” and “asshole.” By the time I muscled my way into the living room, Jill and Seth were standing a few feet apart, glaring at each other.
Seth flicked his head toward me. “Ask the cunt who she just fucked five minutes ago.”
“You’re nuts!” Jill yelled, turning toward me. “Tell this asswad he’s out of his mind!”
People moved away from me, and it was as if I were standing on an island instead of at the edge of the living room. When I saw Seth’s cold, angry face, my bottom lip started to quiver.
Jill’s angry expression softened as worry lined her face. “Peyton?”
Everyone’s eyes were now on me.
“She’s been fucking my brother,” Seth snarled, crossing his arms over his black T-shirt. “And I’m betting it’s been going on behind my back the whole time. They’re always together. Constantly hiding and fucking in corners.”
I violently shook my head as more tears escaped. “No. It was never like that.”
His upper lip curled at me. “Screw off, Peyton. You’re a lying cum-sucking slut.”
“Shut your sick mouth!” Jill shouted in his face, and several people gasped. She marched over to me. Putting an arm around my shoulders, she said, “Let’s go. The shit is getting too deep in here.”
The crowd parted like we were on script in some stupid teenage movie.
Jill hauled me toward the kitchen, yet I couldn’t help glancing over my shoulder at Seth.
Standing with his arms still crossed, Seth smiled cruelly at me. “Ever heard the saying, Don’t look back? Get the fuck out of here!”
“Come on,” Jill growled near my ear. “Before I turn around and bitch-slap his face.”
Though I wanted to plead with him, I allowed Jill to lead me out of the house. Sam stood outside the door. His gaze tore from the bright full moon and narrowed as he watched us pass.
“What the hell are you looking at?” Jill snapped.
“Nothing,” he said with an air of indifference while his eyes burned into me. He then turned and walked into the house.
The sound of one of the guys going into the bus bathroom pulls me back into the present. My entire body is shivering and I pull the blankets up. What in the world made me think I’d processed that night and gotten over it? I still feel awful that I cheated on Seth, with his brother no less, but I wasn’t playing the temptress. I wasn’t using Sam. I was hardly aware of what I was doing. We both played a part. I cringe a little when I think how I dismissed him right after—I now realize that probably came across as totally bitchy—but did he actually expect something else? Why would he?
We were just friends.
At least that’s what I’ve always thought.