The silence builds. I’m trying to be cool, but inside I’m all tingles and anticipation.
Clay laughs quietly. “Are you kidding? I didn’t even have the willpower to keep from kissing you.”
That seems like permission. He even shifts onto his back, settling onto the pillows. Moonlight shines through the window, and now that my eyes have adjusted to the dark, I can make out the muted hunger in his expression. But Clay doesn’t do anything. Instead he leaves it all up to me. And that’s really hot. I’ve never had a guy give himself to me as a present before.
“Shirt,” I say, tugging at the bottom of it.
His fingers tighten on my hand, stilling it for a moment, and he puts his face close enough for me to see his eyes. “I don’t know if I can make any promises. Maybe tonight, that’s all there is. No matter what, he’s still my brother. So I understand if you’d rather not. I still want you in my arms tonight.”
“That’s fine.” I can’t seem to stop smiling. Even though he’s viciously turned on, I’m calling the shots.
If anything, that makes me more eager to be with him. After all, a good memory is better than nothing, and I’ll never regret a choice made freely. Even I’m not sure how far I’ll go. Morgan’s not a virgin; Liv is. Which puts body and mind at odds.
In answer Clay shrugs out of his shirt. His chest is smooth and defined; I can’t resist touching him. He moves and moans, telling me without words what feels best. Soon he raises his hips, silently asking for my hands.
Breathless, I go for it. It doesn’t take long before he’s panting, whispering that it’s so good, and he finishes clutching my head to his shoulder, like he doesn’t want me to see. Afterward, he cleans up and comes back to bed to hold me.
“Sleepy now?” I tease.
“Shut up.” But he truly does sound blissfully content.
We fall asleep tangled together, and it’s late by the time I wake up. Blinking at his clock, I think, Shit. I missed two classes already. Clay rouses slower and he doesn’t want to let go of me, which is bad since I need to pee. His arms tighten as I try to squirm away.
“Don’t go,” he mumbles.
My heart turns over. “I’ll be back.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
Finally he lets go and he’s asleep again when I pass through Nathan’s room to go to the bathroom. Since I’m skipping, I’m especially glad that asshole went to school. The morning after, it would be awkward as hell to have breakfast with him. While I’m at it, I also wash up a little and brush my teeth with my finger. I do look like I got some last night, though. Before, I always thought it was an exaggeration, but my cheeks seem a little pinker today.
Clay is in the kitchen when I come out, scrambling eggs. This scene is so domestic that it makes my toes curl. Since he doesn’t turn around, I hug him from behind.
“I could burn myself with distractions like that.” But he’s smiling when he turns to kiss me. “Morning.”
It’s almost ten, but yeah. “Sleep well?”
“God, yes. Do you want to go somewhere with me today?”
“Don’t you have to work?”
“Not today,” he says. “I always have October third off, no matter what day it falls on.”
Now I’m intrigued. “Sure. I’ll ditch. I’m sure Mrs. Rhodes will write me a note.”
“People will say I’m a bad influence.”
“I can live with that.”
We eat breakfast quickly, and I leave the house wearing his clothes. It’s not worse than what I’ve seen other girls wearing, but for Morgan Frost, it’s a fashion faux pas of astronomical proportions. Smiling, I shrug it away as I climb in Clay’s beater. To my surprise, he stops at the convenience store for pork rinds and beer.
“Well, that took a surprising turn,” I murmur.
He smiles so the sun catches the gold in his eyes, and honest to God, he’s so handsome I can’t breathe. Some of the scruff is gone, and he’s in jeans with a white T-shirt that accentuates both his awesome arms and the warmth of his summer tan. I could stare at him forever, but after a while, looking isn’t enough so I run my fingers through the shaggy softness of his hair.
“Trying to drive here.”
“Don’t let me stop you.”
“It’s your fault if I put us in the ditch.”
“I’m that distracting? Really?” My tone is skeptical.
“Not sure if I’ve mentioned this, but I’m pretty crazy about you.” The gentle tone takes my breath away.
And I just can’t believe it—this is the same boy that people whispered about. He steals cars. He sells drugs. Older women give him presents for services rendered. Now if I heard someone talking shit about Clay, I might punch them in the face.
“Likewise,” I manage to say. “So where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise.”
He’s not kidding. When he takes me to the cemetery outside town, I’m half afraid he thinks it’ll be funny to make out on my grave. But his steps angle away from where Olivia Burnham was laid to rest. Taking my hand, he leads me up a small hill to where a crab apple tree spreads its branches. The headstones aren’t large up here, just small markers.
He stops before a very unimpressive one and says, “This is my dad.”
Kneeling so I can read, I see there’s only the name and date, no space for sentiment. It registers then—this is the anniversary of his father’s death. Clay joins me, taking the beer and pork rinds out of the plastic bag. He’s also got some wipes, which he uses to clean off the stone and then he plucks the weeds that have sprung up over the summer.
“You come every year?” I guess.
“It’s kind of a tradition. At least my dad’s always where I can find him.” The joke falls flat because I can see how much Clay still misses his father.
“Do you talk to him?”
“Sometimes. Mostly I drink a beer and eat some of these pork rinds because those were two of my dad’s favorite things. I remember him saying, ‘Here’s the key to happiness, son. Well, that and baseball,’ and he’d turn on the game. God, he loved the Braves.”
“He would be so proud of you.”
“You think?” The shy, hopeful light in Clay’s eyes just scoops my heart out of my chest.
“Definitely. Let’s drink to him.”
While I drink a soda, he downs part of a beer and munches the pork rinds. Then Clay crumbles some up and empties the rest of his beer like he’s making an offering. I’ve never known anyone to do that, but it feels right. Sometimes I think I feel Morgan nearby but this time it’s definitely his dad. The sunlight on our shoulders might be his hands and the breeze could well be him ruffling our hair in passing. You’d think this would be a depressing way to spend the day, but I feel oddly peaceful when we finally prepare to leave. It’s been hours, and that half beer is long gone.
“I’ve never brought anyone with me before,” Clay says, offering his hand.
Afraid to hope, I wonder what this means. I take it, letting him pull me to my feet. “Not even Nathan?”
“Nah. He thinks this is macabre, at best.”
That makes me bristle. “The human body is sustained by energy, right? And energy can never be destroyed, only transferred. So maybe death is more of a transition, so our loved ones never really leave us. They’ve just taken on a different form.”
“Are you trying to science death?” he asks, amused.
“Maybe,” I mumble.
“You’re definitely Liv.” But it doesn’t sound like he minds anymore. In fact, after saying so, he takes my hand.
“I was. But I’m not all her anymore.”
Since he brought it up, I explain my theory about the dual components that comprise human identity and then end by postulating that I’m now a hybrid individual. Brow cocked, he listens with evident interest to all my pseudoscientific rambling.
“Is this supposed to make me feel only half as guilty?”
“You could interpret it that way.”
By this time, we’ve reached his car. He opens the passenger door for me, then says, “I can’t quiet my conscience with a theory, but … it’s cool that you’re logical about this. If I woke up in Nathan’s body, I’d just go insane.”
I’m happy that he’s thinking about us again—really thinking—instead of the knee-jerk You’re the one girl in the world I can’t touch I heard before. And if he decides it can’t work, I’ll accept it without being sorry about last night. Clay vaults the hood, which is kind of his thing, and I find it ridiculously hot. Then he climbs into the driver’s side.
“Your car’s still at my place. I guess you need to pick it up?”
Checking the time, I mumble a cuss word. “Could you drop me off at school instead? I have an exam scheduled … in twenty minutes.”
God only knows how that’ll play out—ditching regular classes and only showing up for my Chem test. But Mr. Finney won’t give me another shot if I blow this one. Clay’s already driving, thank God, as he seems to sense my urgency.
“Don’t worry,” he assures me. “Everything will be fine.”
And in this moment with the sky so blue and the sun so bright, with Clay’s hand on mine, I choose to believe that.