chapter eight

I walk to McKinley in a weak effort to buy myself enough time to come to my senses. It doesn’t happen. I’m slightly colder when I get there, but I still get there. At nearly midnight on a Saturday there are plenty of people coming and going, and with my hood pulled up I’m able to get inside without being recognized and without ringing the buzzer. I’m pretty sure I would not get buzzed in if Andi were the one deciding.

I take the stairs to the second floor and pace on the small landing, flexing my cold fingers. For two years I’ve wondered what happened at that baseball game, and now I’m ridiculously afraid of the answer. At least, I tell myself that’s all I’m here for. Answers.

I listen for sounds in the hallway outside and when I don’t hear anything I ease open the door and peer out. I’m acting so shady that if anyone saw me they’d probably call the police, but the hall is deserted and I’m halfway between Jackie’s door and Andi’s. If I go left to Jackie’s room, I’m slightly less of an asshole than if I turn right.

I turn right.

There’s light coming from the small gap at the bottom of Andi’s door, so I knock twice and cover the peephole with my hand. I study my sneakers. There’s still time to run.

I don’t.

After a second the lock turns and the door opens to reveal a wary Andi. Her hair is still down but she’s swapped the gauzy tank top for a T-shirt and her feet are bare. I notice all this in the first second, because in the next second I’m wedging my foot in the door so she can’t close it in my face.

“Wrong room,” she says flatly. Her lipstick is gone and her brows are drawn together in annoyance, and this is the Andi I know. The one I don’t really know, not anymore.

“Where’s Crick?” That’s the wrong question. I’m supposed to be asking about the baseball game, but I can smell toothpaste and suddenly I can’t think about baseball or basketball or any games at all.

She shrugs, the gesture too tense to be casual. “Where’s your date?”

I copy her shrug, then step forward, my shoulder pushing open the door. She doesn’t fight to close it. I take another step, then another, and then I’m inside and she lets go of the door and I hear it click shut behind me. I try to remember my excuse for coming here, but I can’t. The small room has the same mismatched wooden furniture as all the others, but it’s sparsely decorated and strictly functional. The desk is neatly organized, the bed made with a gray comforter and a single white pillow. The curtains are drawn and music plays very quietly.

I take one more step and Andi backs into the cinderblock wall. She holds my stare defiantly, but that’s her only show of resistance. I lift one hand to push her hair behind her ear, then maintain the eye contact as I lower my head until our mouths are a millimeter apart. There’s something in her gaze now, something I can’t identify, and though it’s her, though we’ve done this before, this feels nothing like the other times. Not new and uncertain and hopeful. It feels raw.

More than two years after our last kiss, I kiss Andi again. For ten long seconds I just press my lips to hers, her mouth soft and stubborn all at once. I can’t remember the last time I did this when I wasn’t drunk and horny and willing to get off with anyone who was equally willing.

Finally Andi exhales, a ragged breath I hear and feel, and she fists her hands in the hem of my T-shirt and tugs. I know what that means. Andi wasn’t a girl who said things like “Do me” or “Fuck me” or “Yeah, baby.” Her actions spoke for her and this one says all of the above. Relief courses through me, then adrenaline, then hormones. Arousal as sharp and heady as I’ve ever felt it.

I kiss her better now. I kiss her like I’m showing her what I’ve learned over the past two years, like it justifies something. But Andi’s never been one to let someone else take the lead, and she kisses me back like she’s gotten in some practice too. I kiss her harder. She rises onto her toes and my cock notches in between her legs and sensation rockets up my spine. There’s no way that should feel as surprising and right as it did the very first time, but it does. I grab a fistful of her hair and tug her head back, dragging my teeth over her jaw and her throat, trying to regain some of the control I’m supposed to have.

Andi shoves my jacket off my shoulders and my sweats over my hips so they pool at my feet, leaving me in boxer briefs and a T-shirt. I pull off her top to reveal a lacy white sports bra, the shadows of her nipples visible through the flimsy fabric. I fumble around in the back for some sort of fastening, but there isn’t one.

“It just comes off,” Andi mutters, hooking her fingers under the elastic band and tugging it over her head. I catch her arms when they’re stretched up, pinning them to the wall and lowering my mouth to her chest. She doesn’t have much to speak of, but her nipples are pink and small and I missed them. She moans and writhes and I suck harder, switching sides and repeating until she manages to get her hands free and shove me back.

I yank off my T-shirt and then we’re both standing in our underwear, breathing hard, facing off. She looks fierce and gorgeous, lean and strong, her hair tousled. I think about Crick touching her, kissing her, whispering to her, and I grip her around the waist and toss her onto the bed, in full caveman mode. I shuck my underwear and climb on top, scooping one hand behind her neck to hold her in place as I kiss her, our tongues at war. I feel her stubby nails digging into my shoulder blades and slide my free hand over her stomach and into her panties, cupping the damp heat waiting there. Andi twists her face away and cries out, her legs going slack. I use the advantage to knee them even farther apart and slowly ease a finger inside.

This.

I missed this.

Not fingering Andi, not kissing her, not fighting her.

This.

This moment when her gaze goes glassy and her muscles relax and the bravest, most terrifying girl I’ve ever known gives me a glimpse of her soft side, something very few people have ever seen. Ever deserved to see.

“Open your eyes,” I murmur, nipping her earlobe. I move my finger, feeling for something I didn’t know existed that first summer, and she squeaks when I find it, eyes flying open to lock on mine. “Let me see.”

She bites her lip and does as asked, even as I work in a second finger alongside the first. Her lashes flutter but she holds my stare and I stretch her and stroke her until her back arches and she grinds her head into the pillow. “Condoms,” she gasps, straining to point at the desk drawer, just out of reach.

“In a minute,” I say, working her harder with my fingers. I search for her clit and find it with my thumb, moving in slow circles and watching the flush on her chest spread into her neck and cheeks.

She lets out a sound that’s half-sigh, half-moan, and everything I hoped to hear. My erection bumps her leg and her eyes come back into focus. “Kell,” she says. “You—”

“You first.”

I kiss her to end the argument, but she has both hands free and she uses one to reach down and find me, wrapping her devious fingers around my cock and stroking expertly. Far better than she used to, and she used to be pretty good at it. I’m slick with her juices and some of my own, and the wet, sure jerk of her hand is going to kill me.

“Andi,” I say through gritted teeth. “I can’t—”

“Condom,” she repeats. I don’t know why she’s so leery about coming first—most girls seem pretty happy with the arrangement. But she was always reluctant to come before me, to let me have some perceived advantage, so I drop the argument and reach for the drawer she indicates, finding a box of condoms.

“Get a ribbed one,” she orders, continuing to stroke me.

I fumble through the assortment until I come across an orange package and Andi tells me it’s the one she likes. I rip it open with my teeth and flip onto my back, dislodging her wily hand so I can roll it on. We had a lot of practice that summer, fumbling around, figuring out how to be fast, be quiet, be good, and like riding a bicycle, it’s all coming back to us, just like we never stopped. But if Andi keeps touching me like that, the only thing this is going to be is over.

I kneel up to see her white lace panties covering all the good parts, complaining even as I pull them down. “Why are you still wearing these?” The question comes out more irritated than I intended.

“Because you didn’t take them off,” she replies.

I toss them over my shoulder and then for a long moment I can’t move. The last time we did this I didn’t know it was the last time, and I mourned that loss for far longer than I want to admit. I don’t know what’s going to happen after this and I want to remember it. I want to laser this image into my brain so I can pull it out for personal use as needed.

I take in the miles of leg, the flat stomach, the muscles of her shoulders, the spill of golden hair on the pillow. I memorize the slope of her throat and the precise shade of pink of her nipples, the baby-fine dusting of hair that leads down to the darker blond patch between her legs. Then I let my gaze zero in right there, slick folds peeking out and luring me in. I slide my hands over her inner thighs, slip my thumbs between that soft flesh and open her up for my eyes, my mouth, my everything.

She slaps a hand over her pussy and scares the crap out of me. “Kellan!” she snaps.

I jolt backwards and just barely manage not to topple off the bed. “Fuck! What?”

“Don’t stare at it!”

“Why not? I’ve seen it sixty-four times.”

Her mouth falls open. “You counted?”

“You were the first one! Of course I counted.” I crawl forward and brace an elbow in the pillow next to her, positioning myself between her legs. “The first four times were in your bed...” I circle her clit with my cock, a trick I’ve learned since we last did this. “Times five, six and seven were in mine...”

“Did you keep track of this in your diary?”

“Eight was in your basement when we were supposed to be looking for the Fourth of July decorations... Oh, nine was down there, too, with the washer on the spin cycle...”

“Overrated,” she gasps, nudging me with her hips, telling me to hurry up.

“Ten was on the couch in my living room when my parents went to Vegas, and we all got lucky because that was the first time you let me do it from behind... Times eleven through fifteen were that same awesome weekend...”

She groans. “Just make it sixty-five already.”

I push in slowly, feeling her body cede to mine. I’m vaguely aware of the sweat at my temples and the trembling in my weak muscles, but I nudge my hips forward until there’s nowhere left to go, Andi’s legs bent and splayed wide to accommodate me.

I hear her soft sigh as I bottom out and for a long time I don’t do anything. I can’t do anything. This is what I’ve looked for in far too many places and failed to find. It’s what I’m terrified I’ll never find again.

The scrape of her short nails over my scalp spurs me to move. She urges me on with moans and gasps and sloppy kisses and I lift onto my knees and thrust into her again and again and again. It changes from sex to fucking and back, the transition effortless, until it’s everything and nothing, until all I can see and feel and hear is Andi, her whimpers as she comes, the clench of her body trapping me inside, letting her use me until she can’t anymore.

I come right after, smothering my cries in the skin of her throat, feeling the orgasm pulse through every inch of my body. I want to stay right here forever, sweaty and messy and exhausted, but something propels me to sit up, dispose of the condom, and stay like that, elbows braced on my knees, staring at the door.

“What are you doing?” Andi mumbles. “Lie down.”

I glance over my shoulder. She’s on her back, one arm slung up over her eyes. Her cheeks are pink and her lips are swollen and she’s not asking me for anything. How many times have I been in this situation, enduring awkward post-sex conversation before making my escape? But before I can think of anything to say, Andi lets out a soft snore.

I look at the empty mattress beside her, then look at the door again. I look at my pants and my shoes and the pillow and Andi, deceptively harmless as she dreams. I fell so hard for her that summer. I would have given up everything and stayed in Avilla if she’d asked me to. I feel the tendrils of those feelings threatening to sneak up on me now, slipping their evil fingers around my heart and starting to squeeze.

I think about the foolish hopes I’d harbored, the things I hadn’t had the courage to say, the words I’d been so pathetically grateful I’d kept to myself when she broke my heart. I can’t do that again.

I reach for my pants.