Chapter 16
This time I was allowed to do my own makeup, but I had to borrow Renee’s and Taylor’s again, since I still didn’t have my own. Taylor had decided she was wearing pants, but Darah and Renee went with dresses so I didn’t feel too left out. Hannah came over to get ready, and I watched as Taylor, Darah and Renee gave her the same treatment I’d gotten last time.
“Ouch!” she said as Taylor tried to finger-comb Hannah’s hair.
“Sorry! I thought mine was bad, but this is crazy. What do you use for conditioner?” Hannah winced again.
“Coconut oil. It’s the only thing that works.” Hannah and Taylor started swapping hair tips and tricks as I lined my eyes. I was doing a toned-down version of the smoky look they’d given me for the engagement party. For a moment, I was back in my old life, doing my makeup every day. I shook my head. I had to stop thinking about that.
Once again, the guys were left waiting downstairs, and I could hear them having a loud and violent video game battle.
“I swear, it’s like they never grow up,” Darah said as we came downstairs and the guys were so wrapped up in their game they didn’t notice at first.
“Maybe we should just go naked,” Taylor said loudly.
“But then we might get cold,” Renee said, just as loud.
Every single male head snapped around at the word naked. It was like they were trained or something.
“Hopeless,” Taylor said. “You’re all completely hopeless.”
“Hey, it’s not my fault,” Hunter said. “If you didn’t look so good naked, I wouldn’t be thinking about it. All the time.”
“What he said,” Mase said as Darah glared at him.
Dusty got up slowly, as if he didn’t want to join us. Or maybe he didn’t want to join me. I’d seen his head turn along with the others, though.
“You all can just keep it in your pants, thanks,” Hannah said, putting her coat on. “I have some revenge to get to.”
We ended up taking three cars, just in case someone needed to bail and to make sure no one got stranded. I rode with Hannah and Dusty, and this time, I made her take the front seat. It meant that I saw Dusty’s eyes sparkling in the rearview mirror frequently, but at least I didn’t have to be within touching distance of him. He’d been mostly silent, and hadn’t even commented on the dress I was wearing.
Hannah chattered away to fill the silence, and I reminded myself to thank her later. I hadn’t given her complete details on the Dusty situation, but she was smart enough to read between the lines. Plus, she was a bit distracted by her upcoming plan. Dusty was still vague on the details.
“It’s like in Legally Blonde, when these girls tell Elle the party they invite her to is a costume party, but it’s not and she shows up dressed like a Playboy bunny and then she just acts like she meant to do it,” she said. As if Dusty had ever seen that movie. I would die of shock if he had.
“Didn’t they do that in Bridget Jones, too?” I said.
“Yeah, they did. Huh.”
“So shouldn’t you be in a bunny costume?” Dusty said.
“No, you are completely missing the point,” Hannah said, frustrated. “Oh, in Pretty Woman, when she gets treated like crap by those women in the clothing store, and then she goes back after she’s cleaned up and gotten new clothes and shoves it in their faces.”
“Isn’t that the one where she’s a hooker?” Dusty said.
Hannah threw her hands up in frustration. “Can you focus for two seconds? My God, I swear all you guys have a direct line from your brain to your dicks.”
“Who says we don’t?” I saw a shade of the Dusty I’d known, pre–kitchen incident.
Hannah just grumbled the rest of the way. Of course, there was literally no place to park that was within range of the house, so we ended up parking in the lot by the old steam plant that still churned out disgusting air that you always smelled when you were on campus and within wind range.
“You sure you can walk in those?” Dusty said as we got out. The heels I’d gotten weren’t that high, but I didn’t plan on having to trek from the parking lot to the house.
“I’m fine,” I said, stepping in front of him and taking Hannah’s arm. We walked in step away from the car, seeing the rest of our gang all hanging out by their cars.
Renee pulled me and Hannah aside.
“If I catch either of you drinking, or doing anything that you wouldn’t do in front of your grandmother, I will make you regret it. I have scalpels, and I know how to use them. Understood?”
We both nodded.
“Okay, let’s get this over with,” Renee said, and Paul offered her his arm.
“Your sister is hella scary sometimes,” Hannah whispered to me as we fell in line behind the rest of the group. Dusty was last, behind us. He looked like he’d rather be eating glass while simultaneously getting a colonoscopy.
“Tell me about it. She’s gotten worse now that she knows all this medical stuff.”
I was shocked the party hadn’t gotten broken up already, because it was so loud you could feel the bass beat in your chest from a half mile away. It only got worse the closer we got.
By the time we were standing in front of the house, I was second-guessing my willingness to go along with this. I’d been to plenty of wild parties, and if my past experience was any indication, this was a rager. I hadn’t been around one of these in quite a few months. In fact, I barely remembered the last one. It was a wonder I hadn’t gotten raped, or had anything else happen to me, but Kelly and Mac had always looked out for me, and if things got crazy, we usually went back to his place and just drank with his friends. I’d gotten a few texts from her, but I’d ignored them.
“You ready for this, Han?” Her arm had tightened on mine the closer we’d gotten, and I could almost hear her second thoughts.
“Right behind you, ladies. You say the word and we’re out. No one is going to mess with you. Either of you.” I looked over my shoulder and met Dusty’s eyes. Even though it was dark, they burned with an intensity that told me he meant what he said. That he was telling the truth.
“Thanks,” I said as Hannah started dragging me toward the pounding house. It was a wonder frat houses managed to stay standing after all the generations of partying and damage their inhabitants did. There had probably been more than a few repairs over the years.
“Let’s rock this.” Hannah gave me a fist bump and we both took deep breaths and walked into the house.
* * *
An hour, many turned down drinks and dances, almost getting a beer spilled on my dress, one broken heel and one lost earring later, Hannah and I were dancing right in front of the giant speakers. The other members of our group were standing just out of the way, talking and laughing. Except for Dusty, who was really taking sulking to a whole new level. Well, it wasn’t really sulking. It was more like brooding. It didn’t look good on him, the guy I was so used to seeing with a smile on his face.
We’d kept our eyes wide-open for the guys, but it was so packed and the crowd so fluid, it would have been nearly impossible to find them, even if they were here. I’d pretty much given up on looking when Hannah grabbed my arm and pulled my ear to her mouth so I could hear her.
“There they are!” she yelled. It was still hard to hear her, so I motioned and we moved away from the speaker.
“Where?” I said, doing a visual sweep. Ah, there was one of them, standing over near one of the couches that had been pushed to the side. He hadn’t seen us yet.
“Right there.” Hannah jerked her chin in his direction, and I picked out some of the other guys I’d seen in the Union. They were all laughing and talking and drinking, clearly at ease. For all I knew, they were residents of the house.
“Come on.” Hannah didn’t give me a moment longer to think about it before she pulled me to the center of the improvised dance floor and started grinding her hips like she was born to do it. She’d been dancing earlier, but this was a little more...something you’d do against a pole wearing a lot less than a dress. I had to give her credit; she was good at it. I took her lead and let myself go.
“Is that them?” Taylor said in my ear after touching me on the shoulder. I nodded and she looked over at Darah and Renee. They came over as well, and we formed a circle. Taylor gave Hannah a run for her money in the dancing department. That girl had moves. More than once I glanced over at Mase, Paul, Hunter and Dusty, but they just watched with bewildered smiles on their faces. Dusty still looked even more surly than he had earlier.
Hannah kept looking at the group of guys, but they weren’t paying attention. More than a few of the other guys at the party were, though, and a few tried to come and dance with one or more of us, but we weren’t interested.
After the third guy tried to grind on Taylor, though, Hunter had had enough and came to dance with her. Mase joined Darah and Paul grabbed Renee. The song switched to the latest dance hit that you heard fifty times every time you listened to the radio. Hannah’s hips were still going strong, and the group of guys had finally noticed. I pulled her in, pretending to give her a hip bump.
“They see you.” She pretended to toss her hair and looked at them. Oh, they had noticed. The entire group was now fully aware of Hannah and her supersonic hips.
She threw her head back and laughed, executing a twirl that would have had me on my ass. I had no idea she was such a good dancer. The guys were pointing and talking, and it was definitely about Hannah. The guy who seemed like the ringleader started walking over. I gave Hannah a signal.
He looked like the typical college “dude.” Backward Red Sox cap, jeans, Hollister shirt. He was so generic it was a wonder I’d even recognized him. Wading through the crowd, he came closer to our group.
“What are you going to do?” I yelled in Hannah’s ear.
“Depends on what he does. Maybe he feels like a douche and he’s coming to apologize.” She shrugged and kept dancing. Yeah, I wasn’t going to hold my breath. Guys like that seldom thought anything they did was wrong, so they didn’t have to apologize. But maybe that was me being judgmental? He could surprise me.
Hannah spun around and stopped right in front of him. He looked startled for a second.
“Can I help you?” she yelled, loud enough for me to hear.
“Yeah, you can get your disgusting ass out of this party. The girls with you are welcome to stay, but you gotta go.” He had one of those sort of half smiles on that dick guys used when they thought they were being charming, but really, they were just being dicks.
Hannah’s face froze for a moment and I waited for her reaction. I didn’t have to wait long.
She slapped the bottom of the cup of beer he had in his hand and her aim was true. It exploded and covered him.
“What the fuck? You psycho!”
Hannah smiled in a way that, if I were that guy, I’d be worried. But clearly, he wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer because he looked like he was going to slap her, or yell at her, but Hannah got there first. She socked him in the jaw so hard that I heard it, even with the loud music.
They both screamed in pain as I dived for Hannah.
“You fucking bitch!” His friends rushed over, but Dusty, Mase, Hunter and Paul were there in a flash.
“Walk away, dude. You’re lucky a busted jaw is the only thing she gave you,” Dusty said, getting right in the guy’s face. Hannah cradled her hand to her chest.
“I had no idea it was going to hurt that much. Holy shit,” she said, her face twisting in pain.
“Are you okay?” I said.
The pained look went away and she beamed at me.
“I’m fucking awesome. I feel like I should get drunk or scream on a rooftop or something.” Renee leaned down and started examining Hannah’s hand. Having a sister who was a nurse was always a plus because it always came in handy.
“You don’t look at her, you don’t think about her, you never even breathe near her, or else I will make you regret it. Got it?” Dusty was still tearing the guy a new one while his friends tried to puff themselves up, but were definitely intimidated by the presence of Hunter, Dusty and Mase, none of whom looked like they would back down if it came to blows.
“We need to get some ice on this,” Renee said, putting her arm around Hannah. Taylor and Darah got our coats and we left the party. Some people clapped, but most were just disappointed that the fight was over and hadn’t gotten more interesting. The guys followed us once they knew that no one was coming after us.
“Was that everything you thought it would be?” Dusty said, hurrying to catch up with us.
“And more,” Hannah said, the gleam still in her eyes. I could see it even in the dark.
“How about you wait here and I’ll bring the car over,” he said as we walked down the lawn.
“Good idea,” Renee said, her attention still on Hannah’s hand. We all sat on the sidewalk and waited for Dusty to get back with the car. The other guys had stayed with us as protection. They’d gone completely alpha. Any minute they were going to turn into werewolves or something.
Hannah’s hand had started to swell and turn colors. Renee used her cell phone as a flashlight to make sure that none of the bones of her hand were broken.
“I think you’re going to be okay, but we need to get you back to the house. Where is that boy?”
Tires squealed and the Golf appeared right in front of us.
Renee and Hannah got in the backseat and I climbed in with them.
“See you at home,” Renee called out as the rest of the group walked toward the parking lot. They waved and told us to be safe.
Dusty drove a bit too fast away from the house, and when he hit the highway he floored it.
“You’ve got quite a hook there, Hannah Gillespie. I think he’s going to be feeling that for a few days,” Dusty said. “I know not to mess with you now.”
“Would you have messed with me before? Because I have another hand and I’m totally cool with using it.”
“Whoa, easy, Rocky. I was just saying.” He laughed a little, and I saw his surly facade cracking. Must have been hard to keep it up.
We got home, and Renee went into nurse mode, getting ice and wrapping Hannah’s hand up.
“Does it feel like déjà vu?” Taylor said when the rest of the household got back ten minutes after us.
“A little bit,” Renee said. “I don’t know why you do this to yourselves. A knee to the groin is just as effective and less damaging to you.”
“I wasn’t really thinking about it at the time, but you make valid points. I shall take them under advisement for next time,” Hannah said.
“Next time?” I said. “Were you planning on punching out d-bags on a regular basis?”
“If I didn’t encounter d-bags on a regular basis, I wouldn’t have to,” she said.
“Fair point,” I said, sighing.
“Shit, I need a drink,” Renee said after she got Hannah all patched up. Paul went to the fridge and pulled out a few beers.
“Anyone else?” he said. Everyone nodded their heads.
“Can I get one of those? You know, for the pain-numbing effects?” Hannah said. Renee cracked the top off her bottle and rolled her eyes.
“One. You can have one.”
“Thanks, Mom,” Hannah said as Paul passed her one.
“Dusty?” Paul said, holding one out for him.
“No, thanks. I’m set. I’ll take a Coke if you have it.” Paul tossed him a can and handed the bottle Dusty didn’t want to me. I stole a glance at Renee, but she seemed determined to look the other way. I opened the bottle and took a swig. Damn. It had been a long time.
We all adjourned to the living room and sat down on the couch.
“Is anyone else, like, exhausted?” Taylor said, curling up in Hunter’s lap as they passed a bottle back and forth. “I feel really old right now.”
“You were working it pretty hard there, Missy girl.”
“We all were,” Darah said. “I feel like it’s been years since we went to Blue, but it’s only been a month. We need to go out more, I think.”
“Amen,” Mase said. “Especially if you shake it like that, Dare.”
“Are you saying you enjoy my booty-shaking skills?” She raised an eyebrow and it disappeared under her bangs.
“Yeah, you could say that.” He pulled her chin to his mouth and gave her a kiss. Hannah made a gagging noise.
“Jesus, are they always like this?” She held her beer in her left hand, a bag of peas draped over her right.
“Pretty much,” I said, taking another swig. “It’s almost impossible to live with them.”
“Hey!” several voices said at once.
“What? You guys are, like, disgustingly cute and in love, and sometimes I just want to tear my hair out and scream at the perfection of it all.” Wow, I did not mean to say that. I couldn’t even blame it on the alcohol because I’d only had two sips and it hadn’t even hit me yet.
The room went silent, and it was like I’d completely frozen the conversation.
Shit.
“Jesus, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just hard sometimes, you know? Now I sound like an ungrateful bitch. I’m sorry.” I held the beer with two hands and looked at it so I wouldn’t have to see everyone watching me have a meltdown.
“Do, um, do you guys mind if I crash here tonight? I don’t really feel like going back to the dorm,” Hannah said, trying to come to my rescue. Oh, I was such a lost cause at this point.
Everyone chimed in that they would be more than happy to offer her shelter for the night.
“I’ll go and make up the couch in the man cave for you,” Taylor said, the first to think of a way to extricate herself from the room.
“I’ll...help,” Hunter said, hurrying after her.
“I should clean up the kitchen,” Darah said. Mase just got up and followed her without a word.
“Well, I know how to clear a room,” I said, drinking again for something else to do with my mouth, other than putting my foot in it.
“Dude, I’m sorry I brought it up,” Hannah said.
“No, it’s not your fault,” I said.
Dusty still hadn’t said a word, but he’d been watching me. I knew he was watching me like I knew exactly how he was sitting without having to look at him. Like how I knew when he was behind me, even though he was so quiet. He was always in my mind, even when he wasn’t here. He was always with me, and that scared me like hell.
“You’re probably about my size,” Renee said to Hannah. “You can borrow some pj’s of mine.”
“Great, thanks,” Hannah said, setting her beer bottle down on a coaster and following Paul upstairs.
“Jos?” Renee got up and sat next to me.
“Yeah?” I looked up from the bottle to see that worried look on her face that I’d seen on so many faces, so many times before.
“Are you happy here?” Dusty shifted in my peripheral vision.
“Maybe I should go...be somewhere else,” he said quietly.
“No, it’s okay,” I found myself saying. I didn’t mind having him here.
“Are you sure, Jos?” He said my name so soft, like a caress, as if he was afraid to break it. I closed my eyes and tried to block out the image that had risen to the front of my mind of how close we’d been to kissing earlier.
“Yeah. You can stay.” I meant for now, but somehow it sounded like I was talking about a longer period of time.
I set the bottle down on a coaster.
“You just seem so...lost,” Renee said. “You were so happy before.” I wasn’t. I was just really good at pretending.
I shook my head.
“That girl...that girl that I was, she wasn’t happy, Renee. She was just really good at pretending. I even believed myself sometimes. Just because I looked happy and together, it didn’t mean that I was.”
“I don’t understand,” she said, shaking her head. I wasn’t sure if I could ever really explain it.
“You never met that girl,” I said, turning to Dusty. “You would have hated her, I bet. She was stuck-up and uptight, and she dressed like Hillary Clinton.”
That comment earned me a little smile. “I could never hate you, Red. Not even if you wore an ugly pantsuit.”
For some reason talking about pantsuits made me start to laugh, and then I started to cry.
“She would have avoided you like you were going to get mud on her pumps, buddy.” This only made me laugh and cry harder, and once I started, I couldn’t stop. Renee looked lost, like she had no idea what to make of me.
“I think I need to see evidence of these pumps. You wouldn’t by any chance have some still, would you?” Was he flirting with me? In front of my sister? He seemed to realize what he’d said a second later and coughed.
“No, they’re all boxed up with the rest of my former life at my mom’s house. That girl is gone, and she’s not coming back. This is who I am now.” I shrugged.
My laughter stopped, and I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand.
Dusty got up, dashed out of the room and was back in a flash, handing me a paper towel.
“Thanks,” I said, wiping my face and my nose. The towel came away with smears of makeup. I realized too late that I was wearing it. I never would have forgotten before.
“What happened, Jos? Sometimes...” Renee ran her hands through her hair. “Sometimes I just want to pin you down and get you to tell me, like when we were kids and you used to try and keep secrets from me.” She always got it out of me back then. Renee was always good at finding out about what she wanted to know.
“I’m not a kid anymore, Ne,” I said, balling up the paper towel and putting it next to my beer.
“I know. That’s what makes this so frustrating. I just want you to talk to me.”
I was about to answer when Hannah and Paul came down the stairs. Hannah had a tank top and shorts that I recognized as Renee’s. They must have been lurking up there, worrying about interrupting. Darah and Mase had also been pretty quiet in the kitchen. I also hadn’t heard a peep from downstairs.
“I feel like we should all get to bed. This has been a very exciting night,” I said. “Plus, I forgot how hard it is to breathe in a dress. So I’m going to go change.” I got up and went downstairs, finding Taylor and Hunter watching something on the giant television.
“What are you watching?” They both looked up as if they were shocked to see me. I no doubt looked like a mess anyway.
“Are you crying?” Taylor said, getting up.
“I’m fine.” Hannah opened the door and came down the stairs behind me. “I’m just really ready to go to bed.”
Exhaustion hit me like a sledgehammer, and I realized how long of a day it had been and how much I wanted it to be over.
“Yeah, sure,” Taylor said, taking Hunter’s hand and leading him up the stairs. “Night!”
“Have a good night, ladies. Take care of that hand, Killer,” Hunter said, giving Hannah a wink.
“I’m going to change and wash my face,” I said, going to my room. I stripped off the dress and let my skin breathe for a minute. I found some loose pajamas and put them on before I went and washed my face and avoided the mirror so I wouldn’t see how blotched my face was.
If I was one of the girls from the movies, I would have been able to cry and look gorgeous doing it. But this was real life, where my eyes puffed up and my face blotched and my nose ran all over the place. I took my hair out and gave it a quick brush.
When I came out to the living room, I found Dusty talking to Hannah.
“Hey,” I said. “I thought you would have gone home.”
“I was just saying good-night.” He got up and walked toward me, his eyes sweeping from my just-brushed hair that fell loose on my shoulders to my baggy Coldplay T-shirt to the shorts that had definitely seen better days, and hung from my hips because the elastic was worn out.
I hadn’t planned on wearing this outfit in front of anyone but members of the house and Hannah. I didn’t care about them seeing me dressed this way. But Dusty was another story entirely.... It didn’t matter that he’d seen more of my skin earlier when I’d been wearing the dress. I felt completely and utterly exposed.
And yes, I wasn’t wearing a bra, either.
And yes, his eyes were resting quite heavily on that particular area. I fought the urge to cross my arms and tell him to look at my damn eyes instead of my chest.
“So, um, good night. Red.” His eyes finally worked their way up to my face, and his voice had that soft quality again. I was acutely aware that Hannah was there and pretending that she wasn’t by being really quiet, but I could see her head peering over the top of the couch and watching us.
“Thanks for...thanks for coming.” Lame, Jos. Super lame. Why couldn’t I ever say goodbye to him in a cool way? Or at least a normal way?
“Thanks for...for not being mad at me for earlier.”
“Oh, I’m still a little mad.”
“Could you tell me what you’re specifically mad about so I can figure out what I can do to make up for it? Like, will bringing you Skittles and M&M’s cut it, or will I have to make the jump to flowers or chocolates or elaborate picnics with string quartets and candles?”
I gaped at him for a second. Was he for serious?
Hannah made a squeaking noise that she couldn’t suppress and jumped up from the couch.
“Before you go any further, dude, I think I’m going to excuse myself, because I feel very inappropriate being here. And also like a creeper. So, yeah. I’ll be lurking in the living room.” She skipped up the stairs and shut the door loudly.
“I...I’m lost, to be honest,” I said, going to the couch and sitting down, grabbing a blanket off the back so I could cover my boobs without making it obvious that’s what I was doing.
“Well, I was just wondering what part, specifically, made you mad. Was it because of what I said? Or what I did? Or didn’t do?”
I really wasn’t mad, exactly. Frustrated was a much better term for it. And honestly, not all of it was his fault. I could blame myself for a lot of it.
“I don’t know, Dusty.” He sat down with plenty of space between us. “I’ve never had to work this hard, at something like this.” Whatever this was.
“I’m not trying to make it hard on you, Jos. Shit,” he said, leaning back. “I’ve never worked this hard. I usually don’t have to.”
That made me snort.
“Cocky much?”
“I don’t mean to be. I only went with girls who pursued me. Made it easier that way. Plus, I didn’t get hurt when it ended, because I’d never really wanted it in the first place.” He shrugged as if it didn’t really matter.
“That’s kind of a dick thing to say about other girls, Dusty.”
He nodded and half smiled. “I was kind of a dick.”
“Kind of?”
“I told you, Red. I was a different guy. Like you were a different girl. I don’t judge you now based on that person you were that I didn’t even know.” He had a good point.
“Fine, but I still think you were a dick.”
“You have every right to think that.”
Neither of us seemed to know what to say next, so we just sat and stared at each other. Any minute now the soft music would start to play, and he would lean in and we would share our first sweet kiss. If my life had been written by John Hughes, that would have been what happened.
What actually happened was a little different.
“Fuck it,” Dusty said and lunged across the couch at me, and I was caught so off guard that it took me a second to realize he was pretty much on top of me. “I can’t take it anymore,” he said, holding my face between his hands. “I’ve wanted to taste you since that first night, and now I’m going to.”
I opened my mouth to respond and he seized his moment and kissed me.
He made a sound that was halfway between a growl and a moan, and I let myself go. Stopped thinking about if it was right or wrong, if I should or shouldn’t. This wasn’t a movie, and I didn’t know what my next lines would be. This was life. This was living.
I touched my tongue to his and he took the invitation, and we moved, our lips dancing together for the first time. It was a little rough as we tried to figure things out. It wasn’t perfect, but it was so, so, so good.
He tasted a little like beer, and his mouth was gentle, yet firm. His hands dived into my hair, using it to pull my mouth closer. At this point, he was completely on top of me, with only the blanket between us. That didn’t stop me from feeling just how much he was enjoying the kiss.
This was only a completely different planet compared to all the other kisses I’d had before. Those had been...adequate. Serviceable. Good enough. Kissing Dusty was like...quenching a thirst I’d been living with my entire life. And once I got one drop, one taste, I knew I wanted more. I kissed him like I was drinking him in, taking him and making him a part of me. This was a life-altering kiss.
I did things I could never imagine myself doing. Like trying to pull his shirt off. Or wrapping my legs around him. Or moaning when he sucked on my bottom lip. I now understood why people had sex. Got carried away. This was why.
“I want you so bad, Red,” he said into my mouth.
“I want you, too,” I said, shoving my hands under his shirt to finally get them on those abs. Yep, they were everything I thought they would be. And more.
He kissed my cheeks and under my ear and down my neck. Shit, this was happening. This was really happening.
“Oh, fuck, Joscelyn.”
“Dusty,” I said. Well, it was more of a moan. I didn’t seem to be able to say anything right now without a moan behind it. That might be a problem.
He stopped kissing me and looked down at my face. Why, why had he stopped? No stopping.
“Oh, Red. What have I done?” He kissed me on the forehead and climbed off me.
What. The. FUCK!
He stared down at me as if he’d made some terrible, irreversible mistake. His face was one of horror as he backed away from me. If I wasn’t pissed that he’d stopped kissing me, I might have laughed at the situation happening in his pants.
“I shouldn’t have done that. I’m...I’m so sorry. I have to go.” He looked at the stairs as if they were his escape route from a certain and imminent death.
I finally put some words together without the moaning.
“Like that?” I didn’t have to point, but he looked down.
“Fuck.”
Pretty much.
“Do you have a sweatshirt or something I could borrow?” His eyes were wide like he was a caged animal. Damn, he was really freaking out, and I didn’t see what the big deal was. Who cared if he kissed me? I was an adult, nearly nineteen. A few months ago, during my crazy phase, I wouldn’t have thought twice about it.
“Why don’t you just...take care of it? Bathroom’s right there.” I pointed. I wouldn’t seriously do that to him, but I was still pissed about the nonkissing.
“Shit, Jos, please. I can’t...I can’t with you here.” He put his hands over the area. I could probably take care of it for him. Not that I had much experience, but how hard could it be?
He looked at the ceiling and closed his eyes like he was concentrating on something. I could be a total bitch and drag this out if I wanted. Instead I got up and went to my room, grabbing a sweatshirt that I’d bought in the boys’ section of a store that might be big enough for him.
“Here,” I said, coming back and handing it to him. He tied it around his waist with the main part covering his issue. “Need a hand with that?”
I’d hoped he would laugh, but he just looked hopelessly embarrassed. Well, that was nice. Now I got to be on the other side of it.
“You think this is funny?” Oh, now he was the mad one.
“It is pretty funny. You know, unless you’re you.” I smiled at him.
“I can’t have this, Jos. I can’t be like this around you. I never should have been alone with you like this. It won’t happen again.” He turned to go up the steps, but I grabbed the back of his shirt.
“Why? Why can’t it happen?” He faced me slowly.
“Because...you’re off-limits.”
“Off-limits? What, you think my sister would get pissed? You’re really going to let that stand in the way of this? Whatever this is, or could be? She’ll get over it.”
He shook his head.
“No, it’s not that. It’s not just Renee.”
Now we were both frustrated.
“Will you do me a favor? Will you just be straight with me, for five seconds?”
“I have to go, Jos. I’m sorry.” He jerked away from me and took the stairs two at a time before wrenching open the door and slamming it behind him. I heard voices above and then the front door close seconds later. He’d gotten out of there like he was on fire.
The door opened again to reveal Hannah’s slack-jawed face.
“What the hell just happened?”
It was going to be a long night.
* * *
I filled Hannah in on most of the details, mostly because the whole thing was so unbelievable, I had to say it out loud to make sure it had actually happened.
“Girl, he has it for you so bad.” Everyone else had gone to bed, so Hannah had sneaked into the kitchen and gotten snacks, including a bag of M&M’s and Skittles that I’d stashed in the back of the cupboard behind the flour.
“Well, yeah, I guess he kinda does.” Understatement.
“And by ‘bad’ I mean, he wants to take you to pound town.”
I threw an M&M’s at her.
“You are disgusting.”
“He wants you on board his meat rocket. He wants to put his basilisk in your Chamber of Secrets.” I kept chucking candy at her, but she didn’t stop and we were both laughing so hard that the candy missiles were ineffective.
“I swear, you know way too many of those,” I said when she finally ran out.
“Well, I’ve put all that time not going on dates to good use.”
“Clearly.”
I found an M&M’s in the blankets and popped it into my mouth.
“Back to more important matters. How was it?” Her eyes gleamed.
“It was...” How could I describe it? “It was really good. He puts the ‘issing’ in ‘kissing.’”
“He wants to put his issing in you.”
* * *
It was much later that I finally went into my room and went to bed and Hannah went to sleep on the couch.
I was definitely too wired to sleep for a while, so I listened to some music. It was an Ingrid kind of evening, so I put “Can’t Help Falling in Love” on repeat.
The moments with Dusty replayed themselves in my mind, in slow motion, and then sped up. I relived the feel of his mouth capturing mine, his hands wrapping themselves in my hair. And I’d been...yeah, I’d never been like that. I hadn’t felt out of control. It was more the opposite. It was like I knew what I wanted and how to get it with complete and perfect clarity.
But it wasn’t going to happen again, at least according to Dusty. What was his deal? I was kind of done with him jerking me around. I’d have to find a way to get him to tell me. Maybe I could kidnap him and tie him up. That could be enjoyable. There were lots of other things I could do if he was tied up. I’d never seen the appeal before now.
My phone interrupted my visions of Dusty tied to a chair. I’d put it on vibrate, just in case he decided to text or call and tell me he was sorry. Again.
We need to talk.
Well, don’t be ominous at all, Dusty. If I didn’t know exactly what it was about, I’d be freaked out of my mind.
Go for it. I’m all ears.
My phone rang a few seconds later.
“Are you awake?” he said, his voice almost a whisper, as if he was afraid of waking me.
“Dude, if I was sleeping, I wouldn’t have answered the text.”
“I guess that’s a good point.” I thought he would laugh, but he didn’t. “Look, Jos. What I did was completely inappropriate. I took advantage of you and it won’t happen again.”
“You took advantage of me? Um, what kiss were you experiencing, because the one I was sharing with you was pretty fucking amazing. Like, earth-shattering and fireworks and all that. If there were Kissing Awards, that would have won in a landslide.”
He took a few seconds to answer. He sighed.
“It was pretty epic.”
“Pretty epic?”
“What do you want me to say, Jos? That if I were in the same room with you that I’d kiss you like that again? And again? And again? I’d kiss you until we both forgot our names. I’d want to take off that shirt and those shorts and count every freckle until I knew exactly how many you have. And then I would taste every inch of you until it was burned into my memory so I could never forget it. And then...” He stopped and I almost screamed in frustration. While he’d been talking, my hand had drifted down to my shorts so I could find some release from earlier. I burned with it.
“And then?!” I finally said.
“Jos, I’m not having phone sex with you right now. Why do you keep doing that to me?”
“Oh, do not blame this on me, buddy. I’m not the one who tackle-kissed you. That was all you. It’s not my fault you can’t keep it in your pants. Or, you can, but it did not look comfortable. How are you doing now?” I may not have had a hard-on, but I was definitely suffering from some sexual frustration.
“Great. Just great.” Ha-ha. I smelled another lie.
“So what are we going to do? If we can’t be together, according to you, and you can’t be around me without getting a bad case of hard dick, what are we going to do?”
This was all him.
“I don’t know, Jos. I just...I can’t see a good way out.”
“You know you’re the only one standing in the way of this, right? Unless there’s something I don’t know about, which, if there is, I think you should fucking tell me because I’ve had it with people not telling me things like I’m a child and I can’t handle it.”
“I don’t think you’re a child.”
“Then why do you treat me like one?”
He exhaled one long breath.
“I knew about you. Before you came here. When Hunter and I became friends he invited me over a lot and I met Renee and she was always talking about you. She was pretty much at her wit’s end. Hunter offered to let you come here and she told your mom and you know that part of the story. You know, I don’t think I can do this over the phone. Can I...can I come over?”
“You sure you’re going to be able to control yourself?”
“Jos.”
I rolled my eyes, which he couldn’t see. “Okay, okay. Everyone’s sleeping, but I think I can get upstairs without waking everyone up. I’ll come out to your car, okay?”
“I’ll text you when I’m out front.”
We hung up and I turned my music off. I cracked my door open and looked at the couch. I knew it was going to be cold as hell outside, so I put some sweatpants on over my shorts and a sweatshirt on. Additionally, it would serve to cover my body to save him from temptation. You couldn’t get much unsexier than sweatpants and a baggy UNH sweatshirt.
Ten minutes later my phone buzzed and I crept out of my room and went up the stairs. Hannah made a humming noise in her sleep, so I figured I was good.
The house was dark and still. No sounds even from upstairs. Good.
I was glad that Mase and/or any of the other residents of the house weren’t watching me anymore.
Dusty pulled right outside the house, the headlights off. I crept down the porch and ran down the walkway.
“Anyone see you?” he said as I closed the door. He had the heat blasting, and I wrapped my arms around myself. Even after only seconds outside, I was cold.
“No, I think we’re good. It was quiet upstairs and Hannah was sleeping. So, continue.” I put my back against the door and turned toward him.
“Where was I?” Oh, it was not my imagination that he was still checking me out, even with the sweats. He must really have a thing for me. Or maybe he was trying to get out of telling the truth.
“My eyes are up here,” I said, using my fingers to point to my eyes. He cleared his throat and blinked, and when he opened his eyes, he was looking at my eyes and not my chest. Like he could even see it, all covered up as it was.
“You were right about when Hunter told Renee that I could stay with them.”
“Right. Well, I’d seen pictures of you. Of how you used to be. Of course I thought you were, well, you know you’re stunning, Red. Even with your hair all pulled back and in those straitlaced clothes. But I didn’t think...” He stopped and took a breath. He was usually so confident with words. They seemed to come easily to him, but he was having a tough time finding the right ones.
“They asked me—specifically Hunter asked me—to watch out for you. To make sure you didn’t get into any trouble. He knew that I had recently gotten myself out of a lot of it, and he trusted me.”
I wished he wouldn’t have found those words, because each one of them punched me in the stomach with their meaning.
It wasn’t real. None of it was real. He’d been forced to be friends with me because Hunter asked him to. It had all been an act. He had been playing a part. Saying his lines. Only I didn’t know we were in a play. Just a few minutes before he’d had me hotter than I’d been in my life and now I was ice-cold. Frozen.
“Fuck. You.” They were the only two words I could come up with, and I hurled them at him as hard as I could before I fumbled for the door.
“Jos, wait! There’s more.” Yeah, I didn’t want to hear it. I finally got the door open and started running back toward the house.
“Will you just listen, for fuck’s sake!” He caught up to me and I struggled. I wasn’t going to yell because then I’d wake up the entire street and I didn’t need Stephen King coming out of his house and seeing me and Dusty fighting. I would probably die of embarrassment.
“Will you just stop for a second?” He held my shoulders so I couldn’t go.
“Let go of me!” He let me go immediately, as if he was appalled that he’d grabbed me. I turned my back on him, expecting him to try to physically stop me again, but he didn’t.
“Joscelyn. Please. Just give me five minutes. Then you can hate me for the rest of your life. But just give me five minutes. And please, get in the car. It’s cold out here and you don’t have a proper coat on. Please.”
Oh, if he hadn’t said please. And if his voice hadn’t had that begging tone in it. When I spun back around I found that he was desperate. His stunning eyes begged me.
“Five. Minutes.”
We got back in his car, but I kept my hand on the door so I could make my escape if I had to.
“That’s what it was. At first. It was me looking after you because Hunter asked me to. He thought you could use a friend who had been where you’d been, and I kind of owed him. He helped me out a lot, and he was there for me when I needed someone. I saw it as a chance to pay it forward. That’s all it was at first.”
He took a deep breath, and I waited for him to say something that would make everything he’d said before okay. Because it definitely wasn’t, right now.
“And then I met you and from that first second I knew that it could never just be that. Some sort of charity mission. You were...you. So beautiful and funny and smart and I just wanted to be around you all the time. You’re...addicting, Jos. I can’t seem to get enough of you. You can see how this complicates things. I’m pretty sure that wasn’t in the plan when I told your sister I wouldn’t let anything happen to you. That ‘anything’ probably included kissing you and almost doing several other things that she would probably kill me for even thinking about.”
He did have a point there. Renee would skin him alive if she knew about what we’d done, and almost done, on the couch in the man cave. And then she would have given me a very long and potentially very graphic lecture about sexually transmitted diseases, complete with a condom demonstration. I’d already been through it several times, and I didn’t want to relive the experience. When it came to “the talk,” I’d gotten more than I ever wanted to know from Renee. That was probably why I was so willing to hold on to my virginity.
“I swear, Jos, I never meant to fall for you. I tried to stop it, but I didn’t have a whole lot of choice. You’re impossible not to fall for.” I stifled a laugh.
“What’s so funny about that?”
“You, saying I’m impossible not to fall for. Have you met me? Do you not see what I’m wearing right now? I’m not exactly supermodel material. I’m also not very nice, either. I’ve been mean to you on more than one occasion. I’m not that girl. The girl all the boys fantasize about when they jack off. I might have been, before, but I’m definitely not now.”
“And that, my lovely Red, is exactly why you’re impossible not to fall for. Not caring is pretty damn sexy. You don’t care what people think of you.” Oh, how wrong he was. He had no idea how much I still cared. It was why I didn’t want anyone to know about the blog, or about my new job at the paper. In my other life, I’d spent my entire existence caring what people thought of me. You couldn’t turn that off so easily.
“I care, Dusty. I care way more than I should.” Why did I feel like I was going to cry again?
“Oh, Red.” He reached out to touch my face and I flinched back.
“No. Just because you say all those nice things, doesn’t make it right. Why didn’t you tell me?”
Sighing, he dropped his hand into his lap. “Because, at first, I wasn’t supposed to, and then, after meeting you, I didn’t want to. I thought I could just go along and carry an unrequited hard-on for you forever. I had it all planned out.”
“Sounds like it.” I wasn’t convinced.
“It drove me crazy, Jos. You drive me crazy. You’re driving me crazy right now. All I can think about is that you’re mad at me, and I should feel worse about lying to you, but all I can fucking think about is kissing you again and finding out what’s under all that material you’re wearing.” He had his hands covering... Oh.
“That bad, huh?” Not going to lie, I was having the same issues. I just didn’t show it as much as he did, but I was affected, too.
“You have no idea.”
“I think I have some idea.” My “ideas” were making themselves known. Loudly. I was going to have to finish what we’d started earlier. The question was, would we finish it together, or would I have to go it solo?
“I’ve told you, Jos, I don’t have the cleanest past.”
“I don’t care. I’m not all that pure anymore, either. Screw purity. I’m still mad at you, but can I just put that on hold and be mad at you tomorrow so you’ll kiss me?”
He leaned just a fraction closer to me. “If that’s what you want. Hell, I know it’s what I want, but we’ll only do it if you want.”
Oh, that was it.
“Dusty?”
“Yes?”
“Can you stop being a gentleman for, like, a little while?”
A sexy smile spread across his lips.
“I think I can manage.”
* * *
Kissing in the car wasn’t as nice as kissing on the couch. There were too many things in the way and pointy objects, like the shifter, that seemed out to get us.
“Backseat,” I said as I tried to climb on top of him and failed for the third time. We both got out of the car and met on the passenger side as he shoved me up against the car, pressing against me and attacking my mouth with everything he had. Maybe we wouldn’t even make it to the backseat. I was aware that it was freezing out, but my body was on fire.
Dusty reached around me and opened the back door.
“Oh, shit. Give me a second.” His backseat was a mess, littered with textbooks and clothes and other guy crap. He swept it all on the floor and tried to clean it up as much as he could while I waited.
“Good enough,” I said, pushing him aside and diving onto the seat, grabbing his sweatshirt and pulling him down with me.
“Shit! Did I hurt you?” Just a little, but I didn’t care. He straddled me and reached to close the door.
“I’m good. Come here.”
Sweatshirts were very good for yanking on, I’d discovered. His mouth returned to mine; his hands went back to roaming my body, dipping under my clothes and wiggling into new spaces they hadn’t been before. This...this was living. Pure, passionate living.
He paused and pulled back to look at my face in the dark. The streetlights cast everything in an orange glow. “You’re so beautiful. How are you so beautiful?”
“You’re not so bad yourself.” I didn’t want to make his head too big, but the more I looked at him, the more I realized how gorgeous he was. I’d been in some serious denial early on.
“Jos, I really, really want to continue this,” he said, pulling my sweatshirt aside so he could kiss where my neck met my chest, “but I don’t think the backseat of my car is the place for it. You’re not a backseat fling.”
“I should hope not,” I said as he kept kissing lower. Despite saying he wanted to hit the pause button, he was doing anything but. He was right, though. I didn’t want to have my first sexual experience in the backseat of a car with what felt like a pen, or something else sharp, poking into my ass the whole time.
“You’re right, you’re right.” I was panting a little, and he definitely had another hard-on.
“I don’t think my dick is ever going to recover from being around you,” he said, holding himself up on his elbows.
“Well, you could always get one of those things they used in the Middle Ages. It was like a harness that had these sharp metal points, so every time you’d—”
He kissed my mouth so I couldn’t finish. “I’m begging you. Please stop talking about it, Red.”
“I was only trying to help. If you want, I could help in other ways.” I reached for his pants, and he tried to leap away from me and ended up banging his head on the roof of the car.
“Shit!” I should have been more worried about his skull, but I laughed.
“You just...keep your hands to yourself. I’ll take care of it.” He rubbed his head.
“Poor baby,” I said, getting up on my elbows and feeling the top of his head gently. Yup, he was definitely going to have a bump. I kissed the tips of my fingers and touched them to his head.
“It’s late. You should get to bed.” I wished I could ask him to come with me, and then he could sneak out of the house before dawn, but the chances of that were so freaking slim, with Hannah asleep in the next room. Besides, we couldn’t really do what I would want to do with someone in the next room without making a little bit of noise. Those walls were pretty damn thin. There was always the shower, though...
“Good night, Red.” I got one more chaste kiss on the lips before he got out and pulled me up after him.
“Good night, Dusty.” Well, that was pretty normal for a goodbye. Finally, I’d gotten the hang of it. I walked back toward the house, as slow as I could.
“Jos?” I’d been waiting to hear my name.
“Yeah?” I turned and started walking backward.
“Would you like to come over tomorrow? To my place?”
“You mean your shit shack?”
“Yeah. I’ll make it as unshitty as possible for you. But I thought it was one of the only places we could be...without anyone watching us. I want to spend time with you without worrying that someone is going to walk in.” Oh. Oh.
He must have seen the realization dawn on my face.
“That is definitely not what I’m asking you over for.”
“Uh-huh.”
He gave me a look. “Jos.”
“Okay, okay. Yes, I would love to come over. Do you mind if I tell Hannah? Then she can be my alibi. I’m guessing we should keep this on the down low?”
“She seems like the kind of girl who can keep a secret. Plus, I think she wants us to have some time alone almost as much as I do.” That was definitely true.
“So, tomorrow?” he said. “I’ll text you.”
“Tomorrow.”
I’d reached the steps, so I was going to have to turn away from him.
“I’m counting the minutes,” he said quietly, his eyes never leaving my face.
“Me, too.”