I remember the first time I saw Dax Harding. He was sitting on a table in the cafeteria, carving something into the tabletop with a pocketknife. If anyone else tried that, the teachers would’ve been all over him.
But teachers, my parents included, feared Dax. They let him get away with things. I usually darted around the building like a mouse, worried about my next test or how to impress my teacher, but he lounged there, without a care in the world, surrounded by a group of loyal subjects, mostly girls. All the girls loved him, but it was clear he was as above them as he was above the rules: untouchable, immortal.
Even from that very first day, I wondered what it would be like to be in his orbit. To hear him drawl my name in his low, sexy voice, or place an arm around my shoulder the way he did with so many other girls.
And he’s mine now, I think, doing my best not to stare at him open-mouthed in wonder as we cruise down the highway, leaving Boston and heading back to our real lives and real problems.
I push the thought out of my head before it can take root. He’s fucked dozens of girls, and none of them owns him. How can I even think he’s mine? Last night was amazing, but he’s a wild thing, incapable of being tamed.
Still, thinking of the way he held me all night, the way he’d whispered my name, it’s easy to believe such a thing. And he said I would always have a home with him. Now, his hand only leaves mine in the split second it takes to shift gears. After that, it’s right back into mine.
If this doesn’t mean forever, how can he be that convincing a liar?
“Thinking about your parents again?” he asks me when we reach the Friesville town limits.
I nod. Even though it’s a lie, even though I’ve mostly been thinking about him, I have thought about my parents. “I’m going to tell them,” I say. “About us.”
He winces. “Good luck with that, Katydid. You want me to come with you?”
God, no. That’ll just stir things up. I shake my head. “It’s better if I smooth things over first.”
He snickers, as if the idea of smoothing things over is beyond absurd.
“Think they’ll invite me to dinner?” he wonders aloud. “And poison it?”
“It’s a good possibility,” I say seriously, not feeling much like laughing. We’re pulling up to my street now, and already my nerves have multiplied. But I take a few deep breaths, determined. “They may kill me. But if I am still alive, I’ll text you after it’s over.”
What would have been a protracted, racy make-out scene in the Mustang ends up being seriously G-rated because of the real possibility my parents are watching. I leave him with a short kiss and a wave, and the second he’s gone, my skin recalls the heat of his body, his rough stubble rasping its way down my abdomen. I shiver despite the hot day as I make my way up to the porch.
I didn’t have to worry about them watching. When I get inside, I find my father at the back of the house, drowning in stacks of paper he’s amassed from his twenty-five years of teaching at Friesville High. “Hi Dad,” I say, navigating around the piles and giving him a kiss to butter him up.
“Hey kiddo. Back from putting out fires in the big city, huh?” He waves his arms at the mess in front of him. “I think I murdered an entire forest during my career.”
I laugh way too much at the stupid joke. “Where’s Mom?” I ask him.
“Upstairs. She’s packing up her closet,” he says, stuffing more papers into a giant garbage bag. There was a time that they’d both tackle each room together, but now it’s rare to find them in the same room for more than thirty seconds.
“Do you think I can talk to you both?” I ask him.
He stops suddenly. This is serious. I don’t ever ask to have a “talk”. I’ve never really needed to, because I always just fell in line and did what they told me to.
Until now.
“Sure, honey,” he says, wiping his hands on the back of his jeans. He and I go up to the kitchen, and he calls up there stairs, “Gloria? Your daughter’s home, and she wants to talk to us both.”
My mother appears at the end of the hallway, eyes wide with concern. “Everything all right? You didn’t get into an accident, did you?”
I shake my head. We sit down at the table, me across from them, so I’ll so easily be able to see their faces morph into disgust at my news. I take deep breaths, trying to calm myself. I’ve never been this nervous in front of my parents before. I’ve never had a reason to be. When Dax and I were together in high school, the second they told me to end it, I did.
I’m an adult, I tell myself. I make my own decisions.
I take another breath, and the words come out in a tumble: “Dax and I are together.”