Chapter 20
I thought Renee was going to tackle me when I walked in the house.
“Don’t ever do that to me again,” she said, nearly squeezing the life out of me. Christ, it was like I’d gone off to war or something. I’d done way more dangerous things than this, things she knew about, but that didn’t stop her from giving me a nice and thorough tongue-lashing about keeping my phone charged and not doing things in snowstorms. We did live in Maine, so that pretty much meant I wasn’t allowed to do anything for at least half the year. I just listened and hoped she didn’t pop a blood vessel and waited for it to be over.
“So, how did you do with your project?” she said, switching gears so fast I got whiplash. Shit. I’d taken my backpack, along with the socks, into Dusty’s apartment and forgotten to grab it when I ran out.
“Shoot, I forgot my backpack,” I said.
“Well, I can take you to Hannah’s tomorrow morning and you can grab it. Hey, maybe this will get so bad that they cancel classes.” She sounded kind of bummed that they would cancel classes. I remembered feeling that way.
“No, that’s okay. I’ll just...get it from her when I can.” I couldn’t let Renee drive me to Hannah’s because my backpack definitely wasn’t there. Oh, what a twisted web I’d gotten myself stuck in.
“You sure?”
“Yeah.” I walked into the living room just so I wouldn’t have to look at her and lie to her face anymore.
Everyone else was watching the weather.
“It’s not looking good for tomorrow, kids,” Taylor said. The weather guy was gesturing wildly and using words like nor’easter and school closings and power outages and whiteout conditions. The crawler on the bottom of the screen was already flashing with school closings and bingo games being canceled and offices being closed.
“They’re not going to close. Remember that time last year when we had nearly a foot and they had all those accidents because they refused to cancel?” Hunter said.
“I vote we take bets,” Taylor said. “Who thinks they will close tomorrow?” She raised her hand, and Darah, Paul and I also raised our hands. “So the rest of you think they won’t?” They all nodded.
“Okay, loser has to take the winner out for dinner and drinks and foot the bill. Deal?”
“Deal,” we all said.
“We got this,” Taylor said, holding her hand up for a high five. I gave her one and sat down on the end of the couch to watch the weatherman ramble on and on and hope that class would get canceled. Then I would have more time to figure out what to do with the backpack situation.
It would also give me some time to hang out downstairs, away from everyone else, and think about what the hell I was going to do to Dusty to get him to stop pursuing me without actually telling him why he should stop pursuing me. This was beginning to feel more and more like the plot of a really bad teen movie, except mine wouldn’t end with an epic slow-motion kiss and a killer song playing in the background.
* * *
For only the second time that winter, classes were canceled as Maine was hammered with one of the worst storms it had seen in years. It was even worse than they predicted, and the state pretty much ground to a halt as everyone hunkered down and stayed close to home. Mase was the only one who went out, offering to plow some of the driveways of the neighbors who hadn’t had their plow guys show up yet.
The rest of the house slept in, except for me. I was up bright and early as a result of barely getting any sleep the night before. That nap with Dusty had also screwed with my sleep schedule.
He’d texted me a few times asking if I’d gotten home safe. I’d messaged back that I had, and he’d tried to start a conversation and even called me, but I’d ignored him. Why did he have to make this so hard on me? It would be a hell of a lot easier to let him go if he’d actually done something awful, like cheat on me.
If he wasn’t so...him, things would be so much easier. When I’d decided to break up with Matt, things had been so clear, so simple. We had a rational conversation, few tears and only a little regret. Dusty was something else altogether.
The other thing I did was search back in my memory to pull forward any mention Nathan had made of his brother. I knew he had a half brother who lived in Maine that he’d talked about more than once, but I’d never seen a picture of the guy, and Nathan had always called him Buzz. I felt almost stupid for not making the connection, but they didn’t have the same last names, even though they had the same Dad. Dusty must have been named for his mother.
Nathan had always talked fondly of his little brother, wishing they lived closer so he could see him all the time. He also said his brother was wild, and thinking back, I remembered some of the stories he’d told me about him.
At the time, I hadn’t known how important they were, so I didn’t file them away as that important. If I hadn’t been such an idiot, maybe I would have seen it sooner and stopped this whole thing in its tracks. But no. I had to wait until after I’d decided that I liked Dusty and wanted to see him naked and “bump our bits together” as Hannah so inelegantly put it. Life had to screw me, but I deserved it.
That was the thing that made the most sense in all of this. That I deserved to have this thing that I wanted, so much, dangled in front of my face. This thing I could never have. It was karma at her best. What I should do is accept my punishment in stoic silence and move on. To what, I didn’t know, but I couldn’t stay where I was. Something had to change, for me and for Dusty. He couldn’t stay attached to a girl who he could never have, either. That wasn’t fair to him.
I stuffed my face into my pillow and screamed a few times, but that did little to help, so I went upstairs to get another cup of tea. I was chugging the stuff like it was a drug and I was a junkie. I was on my way to the kitchen when someone called my name from the living room.
“Jos?” Of course he was here. Dusty Sharp was like the postal service. Neither rain nor snow nor me ignoring him would stop him from coming to this house.
Be cool, be cool, be cool.
“Oh, hey, Dusty. Crazy weather we’re having, isn’t it?”
That was the opposite of cool, Jos.
He gave me a weird look for a second and then got up from the couch and picked up my backpack where it had been sitting on the floor.
“I had a friend take me back to campus to get my car, and I stopped in to see Hannah and she gave me your bag. I thought you might need it, so I brought it over.” I was torn between thinking that was really nice to being livid that he’d been out driving in this weather just for my stupid backpack.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” I said, very aware that everyone was watching me and I had to keep it on the down low.
“I know, but I was already out, so I figured why not? The roads really aren’t that bad now.” The snow was still coming down, but not nearly as heavy as before, and the plow and sand trucks were probably out in force, so it was less dangerous than it was last night, but still. I was torn between wanting to pull him aside so I could yell at him, and not wanting him to know how much I cared. Because if he did, there would be no getting rid of him.
Why couldn’t I just punch him and run away like we were five and on the playground? Would make things so much easier.
I walked over and took the backpack from him.
“Thank you, Dusty. You really, really didn’t have to do that.”
“I know,” he said softly, and his eyes were even softer. Damn those eyes. Hypnotic. “But I did it for you.” He said it so quiet that no one could hear.
“Don’t,” I said, even more quiet as I shook my head just a fraction.
“Well, I think afternoon calls for a snowball fight, snowman building and then hot cocoa. Who’s in?” Taylor said, springing to her feet.
“I’m in,” Hunter said, getting up, too. Two seconds later everyone else was on their feet and running to put on their boots and mittens and hats and everything else.
“You game?” Dusty said, his face lighting up, probably seeing an opportunity to flirt with me and so forth.
Well, I couldn’t really say no. Everyone else was all for it as if we’d all reverted to childhood status. Mase popped a hat on Darah’s head and pulled it down so she couldn’t see, and she fought with him to try to pull it back up before he kissed her and she gave up.
I sighed and joined everyone by the door to get my winter things.
Dusty leaned down and held my boots for me to put my feet in them. He already had his on. The rest of the house was too busy to notice, so I seized my chance to talk to him.
“I don’t need your help.”
“Don’t be mad at me. I knew that you’d need your backpack, and you obviously couldn’t come get it, so I brought it to you. I wish we could talk. Do you think, maybe, that I can come by late tonight?” He spoke low and fast, as if we were plotting how to rob a bank or something.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Let’s just have fun now and we can deal with it later, okay?” I put on a smile and chased everyone else out the door. Hunter and Taylor were already making snow angels, and everyone else was choosing sides for a snowball fight.
“Boys against girls,” Mase said.
“Uh, I don’t think so, buddy,” Renee said. “You have, like, twice the arm power as me and Taylor. Unfair advantage.”
“Isn’t that...unfeminist?” Mase said.
“I am perfectly fine with the fact that you, my friend, have muscles that are larger than mine, and can thus lift heavier objects,” Taylor said. “So if we do boys against girls, we get Mase to even it out.”
There was mutual agreement to this plan, and Dusty gave me a wink.
“No mercy, Red. Bring it on.”
Of course, in order to have this fight properly, we had to dig trenches and make walls, and it was a huge production that Mase took charge of and Renee tried to take charge of.
I didn’t want to be out here playing in the snow. I wanted to be in the basement where I belonged, hating myself.
Wow, that sounded really emo. It was a good thing no one could read my mind, or else they’d be really worried.
“Okay! Ready, set, GO!” Mase screamed like he was a Viking charging into battle and the girls and I followed behind him as we charged the rest of the boys. White balls of doom flew and smashed as people screamed and tried to duck and recover from being hit and make new ammo all at the same time. I stayed toward the back, but Dusty wouldn’t stand for that.
“Come on, Red. Let’s see what you got.” He started lobbing balls with alarming accuracy that shattered on my legs and then my stomach. I threw one ball for three of his, and he kept coming closer and closer and egging me on.
“Show me what you got!” Oh, that was it. My hair was red, and yes, I did have a temper, and yes, he was pushing my buttons. I scooped up some snow and packed it in a ball and chucked it with as much force and accuracy as I could gather.
Yes. Direct hit. Right over his heart. He looked down, surprised, and nodded.
“All right, okay. Now we’re talking.” Mase was busy trying to take Hunter down as Darah and Taylor ganged up on Paul. It was a bit of an unfair fight because Taylor was taking him out at the knees and then Darah was going nuts on his torso. We’d made the “no face” rule, but she was getting pretty close to violating that.
I hucked another ball at Dusty, and he dodged it. He tossed one at me, and I did the same thing. We danced around each other, trying to fake the other one out and put them off balance.
“Where you gonna go? Where you gonna go, Red?” He was trying to get in my head, but it was my experience that silence was more unnerving than throwing useless words around.
The two of us circled each other and I could almost hear the Wild West music in the background. Dusty kept lunging at me and I kept shadowing him. The battle had devolved around us into people trying to shove other people into the snow, and tickling without mercy.
“I’m gonna get you, Red. You are going down.”
I finally decided to speak.
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah,” he said, and I made my move, lunging forward and taking out his knees. He fell backward, and if there wouldn’t have been at least a foot of snow on the ground, he might have hurt something, but he had a cushion as I landed on top of him, pinning his shoulders.
“I win,” I said, grinning down at him. I’d stuffed my hair under my hat, but it had started making its escape and hung down between us. I realized, far too late, that I was straddling Dusty, and if we were naked, we were in quite a compromising position. Good thing we both had quite a few layers on. Of course, those layers didn’t stop me from feeling him getting hard underneath me, so I rolled off him, onto my back.
We both panted a little as everyone else gave up and sat or lay in the snow.
“We win,” Mase said, punching his fist into the air.
“Whatever,” Hunter said, shoving snow in his face. Boys.
Dusty turned onto his side.
“Did you enjoy that as much as I did?”
“I don’t think so.” I shifted away from him.
“I know what you’re doing, and it’s not going to work.”
“What am I doing?”
He inched closer and I inched backward. If we continued, we’d wiggle our way across the yard.
“Pushing me away. It’s pretty obvious. I knew you had some baggage when I met you, but I’m not going to let it come between us. You are not your baggage, Joscelyn.” Why? Why did he have to say my name that way? You know, if he didn’t have such a luscious voice, I would probably have a much easier time saying no to him.
Oh, Dusty. You have no idea about my baggage. In a weird way, my baggage was his. I understood now why he’d been so closed off. He’d lost his brother, and that had probably hit him really hard. That was easy baggage. Simple. One suitcase that you could fit in any overhead compartment. Mine was a trunk. A huge, heavy trunk with about forty different locks on it. With chains wrapped around it. Like pirate’s treasure.
He interrupted my baggage-picturing.
“So let me help you. Let me help you carry it. We can do this together, Jos. I want to be with you.”
I looked into his green eyes that were so bright next to the whiteness of the snow, and said the words that cut me like a knife.
“I don’t want to be with you. I’m sorry. I don’t see you that way.” I’d told him once that I thought his pants were smoking, but this time mine were definitely on fire.
I waited for his reaction. For him to be shocked and to get mad and storm off.
He didn’t. Instead, he made one swift move and threw himself forward and kissed me. I realized a second too late what was happening, and by then it was much, much too late.
My lips betrayed me.
They knew Dusty’s lips, and they were happy they were meeting again. It was a glorious reunion, at least for my lips. They were rejoicing and attacking Dusty’s lips with a desperation that I didn’t know I was capable of. My brain fought for supremacy over my lips, but really, the lips had the upper...hand?
I stopped thinking as Dusty held my face and I tasted the melted snow on his mouth, and even though snow was creeping down my neck and under my jacket, I didn’t give a shit.
A sound made us jump apart as if someone had fired a gun into the air.
“What the hell!” Renee’s voice was right above us. Dusty and I both looked up, our faces still close enough to kiss. Or continue to kiss. Or make out, which is what we were really doing.
“Are you fucking serious, right now?” Dusty recovered first, getting to his feet, and I scrambled up behind him.
“It’s not what you think—” Dusty said at the same time I said, “It’s not his fault.”
“Get inside, Joscelyn. I will talk with you later.” She jabbed her finger to the house like I was a kid who had ruined the flower bed. Yeah, I wasn’t, and I’d had enough of her lecturing me and telling me what to do and treating me like I wasn’t in control of my own life anymore.
“No. I will not get inside. I am not five, and you are not my mother. I am nearly nineteen years old and I am in control of my own life. If I want to make out with Dusty on the front lawn, I can. I’m not getting drunk or high or cutting class or breaking curfew. Yes, I did those things, but I’m not doing them anymore. I respect you and I respect your house and your rules. So stop judging me on my past mistakes.”
I wasn’t really talking about Dusty. In fact, Renee being pissed at catching me kissing him gave me the perfect reason to push him away, but I would be damned if she was going to talk to me like that in front of everyone.
“Joscelyn, just get in the house and we can discuss this.” She wasn’t backing down. We were going to have this out, but I’d take doing it with just her rather than in front of everyone. So I stomped as much as you can while wading through the snow, up the porch steps and into the house. I heard Dusty trying to say something to me and then to Renee, but I didn’t hear what her answer was. I didn’t really need to. I could imagine.
I pulled off my boots and my jacket and left them to dry near the door so I wouldn’t track water all over the house. I was rushing to get back down to my cave when the door opened and I was met with Renee’s seriously pissed face. This was one threat level above her normal pissed face. In fact, it was close to the face she’d given me when I accidentally told Paul she thought she was pregnant that one time. She wasn’t, but I never forgot the look she gave me when she found out I’d told him.
“You are not running away from me, Joscelyn Meridith Archer. We are going to sit and talk, and I’m not letting you do anything until we have this out and get everything out in the open. Sit. NOW.”
She pointed at the couch and I had no option but to park my butt on it. Renee wasn’t messing around.
“Okay, how about we start with the obvious. What are you doing kissing Dusty?”
“Is there some rule against me kissing him? Because I never agreed to that when I moved in.”
“Don’t you dare get sassy with me. I’m so not in the mood for it.”
She sat down in the recliner and waited.
“Fine. I was kissing him because he kissed me. Have you ever tried to avoid a kiss once it’s started? Not that easy.”
“Did you want to kiss him?”
The answer was both yes and no. More yes than no, but I really needed Renee to believe in the no. If she thought he’d forced me, in any way, he would be gone for good. But could I really do that to him? Let her think that he’d somehow taken advantage of me? The outcome would be better in the long run, but for who? Dusty would never be allowed in a ten-mile radius of the house. If he and Hunter wanted to hang out, they’d have to hide it better than an illicit affair. And if Renee found out?
No, I could definitely not do that. I didn’t hate Dusty. I didn’t want him to suffer, which was why I needed to get him out of my life.
“Yes,” I said quietly.
“How long has this been going on?” The real answer? Since he helped me with that damn vending machine. If I could go back in time, I would have stayed down the hallway and not given in to my candy craving. But that might cause a nuclear war or something, according to the butterfly effect, so maybe that wouldn’t be such a good idea. My life had been altered by a damn vending machine.
What I told her was “not that long.”
“What were you thinking, Jos?” My intention had been to play ignorant about the whole Dusty-babysitting-me thing, but my resolve crumbled pretty damn quick.
“What did you expect to happen when you told him to ‘watch over’ me like some creepy stalker slash protector? What were you thinking?” My words had the desired effect of making Renee blanch.
“How did you know?”
I threw my hands up in frustration. “Because he told me. If anyone has the right to be pissed and yell and scream here, it’s me. Why in the hell would you do that, Renee?” I didn’t mean to, but I stood up and the volume of my voice rose until I was yelling. I was just so mad at her.
Renee got to her feet, as well.
“Because I didn’t know what else to do! You didn’t give me a whole lot of choices. It was either come here or send you to live with Mom, and I knew that wouldn’t be good for anyone, so I said you could come here, and Dusty had started coming over and he’d told me all about his shady past and how he’d gotten his shit together. I thought that maybe he could help you, that you would see that you could go back, you could be my sister again—”
I cut her off.
“So you’re saying I’m not your sister anymore? Are you fucking serious? So I can’t be your sister because I’ve changed? That’s not how family works, Renee. You love each other no matter what. No matter how much you change. So are you saying that you don’t love me anymore?” I was right in front of her and I watched the effect my words had. Her face was so shocked I might as well have slapped her.
“I will always love you, but I don’t know you anymore. I don’t know how to talk to you. I don’t know what to say or do...” Her chin wobbled and tears started streaming down her face. “I will always, always love you. That was never even a question. How could you think that I don’t love you, Jos?”
She threw herself on me and I was forced to catch her and hug her as she started sobbing. This was new territory for me. Renee never got emotional like this. She was much more likely to yell and scream to display her emotions. I could only remember a few times when she’d cried. One was when she broke up with Paul. She was a bit of a wreck after that, but she’d tried to hide it by crying only in the shower. But I was her sister, so I knew what was going on.
“I’m just so lost, Jos. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to help you anymore, and I feel like I’m just screwing it up.” She rested her head on my shoulder and I held her.
“You’re not screwing it up. What happened has nothing to do with you. It’s not your fault.” I rubbed her back as she shook in my arms.
“But I’m your older sister. I’m supposed to know what to do. I’m supposed to have words of wisdom and bake cookies and...other shit like that.” I laughed a little and she did, too.
“You do have words of wisdom. It’s not your fault that I choose to ignore them. It’s not your job to save me, Renee.”
She pulled back, and I used my sleeve to wipe her eyes.
“I’m not broken beyond repair, Nene. Just a little worse for wear, but who isn’t?” She nodded and I gave her another hug.
“You’re not supposed to be the one with the good advice,” she said.
“It won’t happen again—I guarantee it.”
Somehow I’d deflected her attention from the kiss with Dusty. I hadn’t been intending to do that, but I was going to take advantage of it while it lasted. It would probably be over as soon as he walked into the house.
We sat back down on the couch, my head on Renee’s shoulder this time as she played with my hair. When we were kids she’d been jealous of it. None of our other brothers or sisters had gotten the freaky redhead gene. Except me. The terms redheaded stepchild and ginger kid were used often in my house, and those were some of the nicer names I’d been called. I couldn’t count how many times I’d heard guys musing, out loud, if “the carpet matched the drapes.”
“Don’t be mad at him, Ne,” I said, trying to head her off from ripping him a new one. He didn’t deserve that. “It was just one of those things, but I’m going to end it.”
“I will be mad at him. He was supposed to watch you and keep you out of trouble, not get you into it.”
“Well, you don’t have to worry, because I’m not going to let it happen.”
“That’s probably wise. Can I ask why, though?”
Now it was time for a performance. I was going to have to work to sell this.
“I just don’t see him that way. He’s more of a friend, you know? I don’t think I should be with anybody right now. I want to focus on school and try and figure things out.” I deserved an Oscar for this. Even I thought I sounded sincere.
“Now that sounds like the sister I knew.”
“Do you miss her?”
“I don’t know. I miss her...consistency. You were always so uptight I knew what to expect. Now you’re a little wilder. A little more unpredictable.”
“Well, I do have red hair.”
“Yes, you do. Bitch.”
We both laughed, and I snuggled closer to her.
“Love you, big sister.”
“Love you more, little sister.”
Our sister love sharing was interrupted by the doorbell ringing.
“Oh, my God, I forgot they were all still outside,” Renee said, getting up and rushing to get the door.
“So did I,” I said, following her. Instead of finding a bunch of shivering people on the porch, we just found one, and he wasn’t shivering.
“Dusty,” Renee said. “Where’s everyone else?”
“They took the truck to go get Dunkin’,” he said, his eyes riveted on my face. “Can we talk?” I wasn’t sure who he was addressing, but Renee decided it was her and crossed her arms.
“Okay. Talk,” she said.
“We should at least let him inside,” I said. He might not look cold, but I wasn’t cruel enough to make him stand outside while Renee said whatever she was going to say to him.
“Maybe the cold would do him some good. Chill him and his penis out a little.”
“That’s enough,” I said, reaching around her, grabbing Dusty and dragging him inside. He didn’t deserve a frozen penis. He shut the door behind him.
“Renee, I swear to you. I never meant for this to happen, and I’m sorry, but I can’t really do anything about it now. You have to know how special she is. It was kind of...inevitable. I was sort of halfway in before I knew that’s what was happening.”
I swallowed and realized saying no to Dusty had just gotten so much harder. Why did he have to say things like that? If he would just shut his mouth and stop kissing me, I might have a shot.
“Very nice,” Renee said. “But I’ve talked with Jos, and I don’t think she feels the same way. So, I am going to go and fold some laundry and try not to eavesdrop while you two talk. But, if it comes to blows, I’m on her side. You lose.” With that, she pivoted on her heel and went to the laundry room in the back and shut the door.
“You might want to take off your boots. Darah will skin you alive if she finds out that you tracked water all over her clean floors.” This wasn’t actually true. I couldn’t imagine Darah even threatening to do such a thing, but Dusty shucked his boots off and put them next to mine. Seeing him in his socks reminded me of sliding around in his apartment and how much fun we’d had. No, bad thoughts, Jos. Gotta shut those suckers down.
We went back into the living room and sat on the couch. This talk was going to be very different from the one I’d had with Renee, that was for sure.
“So let me get this straight,” he said, holding his hands up, as if he was asking me to slow down. “You told your sister that you don’t feel the same as me.”
Time for Oscar-worthy acting performance number two.
“I did because it’s true.” My lines sounded like something out of a bad play. A really bad one. Like, not even community-theater caliber. More like a crappy high school production that the kids had been forced to participate in for an English grade.
“Joscelyn.” I shivered as he said it.
“What? It’s true. I am putting you firmly in the friend zone, where you belong. I got carried away, and when I sat down and thought about it, I decided that it wasn’t something I wanted. With you. I have a lot going on right now, and I don’t think this is the wisest choice. You know, even if I wanted it.” I could see the reviews now. Joscelyn Archer is the worst thing to happen to theater since Cats!...I got up and walked out and demanded a refund...This girl has no talent and will never act in this town again.
I peered at Dusty out of the corner of my eye. I couldn’t make eye contact with him directly, because I would have blinked too much, or given some other sign that I was lying.
He was silent for a second, watching me.
“You have got to be shitting me. Do you honestly think I would believe that? If so, then you must think I’m pretty fucking stupid.”
No, I didn’t think he was stupid. He was too smart for his own good.
The smile on his face this time was one of confused bewilderment. It was too adorable.
I went with the truth.
“I don’t think you’re stupid.”
“So why are you doing this to me? You kissed me not that long ago, and that kiss is sort of the opposite of what you’re telling me right now, and I’m thinking if I kissed you again right now I’d get the same reaction as before. Your voice is saying one thing and your lips and your body are saying another. Do I have that right?”
Well, yeah. He did.
“Dusty.”
“No, Red. I wanna hear this. Tell me why we can’t be together.” He sat back as if he was waiting for me to put on an encore performance. I was kind of at the end of my rope.
“Why do you have to make this so hard on me? If you were just...a jerk or you smelled bad or you didn’t say nice things it would be so much easier.” I got up from the couch and went to the recliner so I could have some distance from him. Also to get away from his smell.
“Maybe it’s hard because you’re attracted to me. And you don’t put people you’re attracted to in the friend zone.”
“Some people do.” I was certain that, at some point in history, someone, somewhere, had put someone they were attracted to in the friend zone for one reason or another. There had to be a precedent.
“Okay, I’m going to talk now, and you can listen to what I’m going to say and tell me if I’m on the right track or not. Okay?” he said.
“Do I have a choice?”
“No.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Proceed,” I said, waving my hand.
“We were going along just fine a few days ago. If you remember, you were the one who wanted to take this to the next level, correct?”
I nodded.
“I kissed you, you kissed me back, things got a little intense. We both wanted it. Correct?”
I nodded again.
“And then, for reasons unknown to me, you freaked out and left my house, and now you are trying to come up with anything you can possibly come up with to get me to go away, even though you still want to be with me, based on the kiss. Correct?”
“That’s not exactly—” He cut me off.
“Yes or no?”
I glared at him.
“Yes.”
“So what I need to do is find out what occurred to make you change your mind. If my memory serves, you went into my bedroom to get Napoleon and decided to snoop around—”
I tried again to interrupt him, but he held his hand up.
“Just let me finish and then you can comment. So, you were in my room and picked up a picture of me and my brother and dropped it. I came in to find you looking like you were scared for your life, and then you shoved my cat at me and ran out the door without your shoes on. Correct?”
I had to swallow a few times before my voice would work.
“C-correct.”
“So it seems, from my view of the events, that the moment when you decided was when you saw and then dropped the picture. So. What was it about that picture that caused you to drop it in the first place? What could a picture of me and my brother do to freak you out that much? Let’s look at this in depth, shall we? You have seen me. You have kissed me. You know what I look like.” At this point, I felt like I was on the witness stand in one of those cop dramas, and he was the hard-ass lawyer cross-examining me about what happened the night of June 14. He would make a great lawyer.
“So it couldn’t have been me that led you to freak out, and the only other one in the picture is my brother.”
I was beyond stupid to think that he wouldn’t figure this out after my freak-out from seeing the picture. I shouldn’t have left. I should have pretended that I’d gotten an emergency phone call. Hell, I should have told him I was a virgin. That might have done it. In fact...
“I’m a virgin,” I blurted out. It was better him knowing that than finding out the truth. Embarrassment would trump the hatred he would have for me if he really knew. Why hadn’t I thought of this before? It was perfect!
“I’m a virgin and I was in your room, and looking at your bed made me think of sex, and I realized that I wasn’t ready and I was scared and that’s why I left. It had nothing to do with the picture.” For the love of GOD, please buy it, Dusty.
He looked at me really hard, and I, for the first time ever, was glad that my face and ears were turning red. It was more from fear that he wouldn’t buy it than from embarrassment about revealing I still had my V card. But he didn’t have to know that.
“Seriously? That’s what you were freaking about?” Sweet Jesus H. Christ, he bought it. I heaved an internal sigh of relief.
“Well, yeah. I know I was, like, all over you, but I got thinking about it and I guess I lost it. I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you, but you can see why I wouldn’t.”
Now he looked confused again.
“Why?”
“Because I know, for a fact, that you’ve been with plenty of girls before, so you’re probably used to...girls with more experience. And I barely have any.” Okay, I was actually embarrassed now. That wasn’t part of the plan.
“Oh, my God. I cannot believe I just told you that.” I put my head in my hands.
“Hey, hey,” he said, coming over and pulling them away. “You have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. I kind of guessed, but I was waiting for you to say something. If you’re worried about me, don’t be. It doesn’t matter that you haven’t been with anyone else. It wouldn’t matter to me if you’d been with a hundred guys. Just the fact that you wanted to share that moment with me means...everything. You mean everything to me, Jos, and I don’t want to lose you. Even when you try to lose me.”
He gripped my hands tight and moved his face close to mine. I knew he was going to kiss me, and this time, I was going to stop it.
“Dusty, I can’t. I’m sorry. There are just...things that are standing in the way. Too many things. I don’t want to ruin what I’ve got here, and I’m afraid to screw things up and you’re too important to me. So if I can avoid fucking up what we have already, which is great, then I’d like to do that. Because what if we do this, and it doesn’t work out? Then what? You wouldn’t be able to come here anymore. Hunter would be put in a horrible position and I just... I don’t want to not see your face anymore. I couldn’t handle that.” Wow, I didn’t even know I felt that way until I said it out loud. Why hadn’t I just said that in the first place?
He opened his mouth to argue, but shut it quick and made that frustrated sound that was a bit like an explosion.
“I get it. I get that, and I understand it. Doesn’t mean I have to like it, but if that’s what you want, that’s what I’ll do. However and whenever I get to be in your life...I’ll take what I can get. I want you, any way I can get you. I guess you’re my new addiction.” He smiled, but it wasn’t a happy smile.
“I’m sorry you’re hooked on me. I’d suggest a support group, but I don’t think they have Joscelyn Addicts Anonymous.”
“That’s more than okay. You’re the one addiction I can live with.” I felt like I should reach out and touch his face, but that would probably lead to more kissing and that would undo all of the things I’d just said.
He let go of my hands and went and sat on the other end of the couch.
“So what do you think? Can we put Renee out of her misery and tell her that she can come in now?”
I heard rustling in the back room and I knew she was pretending not to listen, but we all knew that’s exactly what she was doing, if only to make sure I was okay. I nodded and turned my head.
“Renee! You can come out now.”
She dashed out as soon as she heard her name.
“You okay?” Her eyes went from me to Dusty and back.
“I’m fine. We’ve talked and everything is okay. No need for threats or pitchforks or mobs of angry villagers,” I said.
Renee gave me a look and Dusty shrugged.
“I don’t know where she gets it from,” Renee said.
“I don’t really care where it comes from. I just want to be with it wherever it’s going,” Dusty said. I shot him a look. He wasn’t supposed to say things like that anymore. He wasn’t supposed to say heart-melty things in front of my sister when I’d placed him very firmly into the friend zone. Was he screwing with me?
“Sorry,” he mouthed, but he didn’t look the least bit sorry. The doorbell rang again and Renee went to answer it.
“Honestly,” she said as she let the rest of the household back in.
I got up and smacked him in the chest.
“You’re not supposed to say stuff like that, you idiot,” I said as everyone piled in carrying bags and trays of foam coffee cups and several boxes of Munchkins.
“We got you a chai, Little Ne,” Mase said, handing me one of the cups.
“Thanks, Mase.” I sipped the chai and it was sweet and warm. Dusty grabbed a cup of black coffee and searched for all the jelly-filled Munchkins before someone else stole them. Two seconds ago he’d been flirting with me, but now he was acting like I didn’t exist. What the crap.
“You okay?” Taylor said, sidling up to me. “That was pretty...heated earlier.”
“I’m fine. Dusty and I had a chat and decided we’re better as friends.”
She laughed a little and grabbed a croissant from one of the bags. “You mean, you decided. I find it impossible to believe that he would go for that.”
“He said it was my decision,” I said. Still laughing a little and shaking her head, she went to the cupboard and got down a jar of Nutella. If there was one thing we always had at Yellowfield House, it was Nutella. We might be out of toilet paper, or laundry detergent, but we would never, ever be out of Nutella.
Tearing the croissant up, she unscrewed the jar of Nutella and dipped a knife in and slathered the chocolate goodness on the croissant pieces.
“Trust me. Hunter didn’t back down when I pushed him away, and Dusty is the same way.” I looked around, but no one was listening or watching us.
“What are you talking about, baby?” Hunter said, coming up behind Taylor and putting his head on her shoulder.
“Yeast infections,” she said with a wink at me.
“Yum. You gonna share some of that?” he said, pointing to her Nutella-covered croissant bits.
She sighed and held one up for him and he ate it from her fingers and she laughed as he licked the chocolate off. Taylor gave me a look, and at first I didn’t understand it, but then she reached out and pulled me close so she could whisper in my ear.
“Let him in. You’ll regret it if you don’t. Trust me.”
She let me go and went back to feeding Hunter parts of her croissant. I went back into the living room and found Dusty messing around with Hunter’s guitar. I didn’t know he could play.
Everyone else was still in the kitchen and I had the feeling that they were trying to give us some privacy.
“Have any requests, Red?” he said, strumming the instrument as if he was born with one in his hand.
“You can play?”
“Yeah, Hunter’s been teaching me. I feel like you kind of have to play if you’re a music teacher. You know, for sing-alongs and stuff.” Well, those must have been some damn good lessons, because it was obvious that he was a natural.
“What was that song you sang to me last night at Hannah’s?” I said quietly so no one would overhear.
“Oh, ‘Live and Die’ by the Avett Brothers. I’m surprised you didn’t know that one.” I’d gotten a few of their CDs, but not all of them. He started the upbeat song, which had a sweet melody that somehow worked with the lyrics, which might have been taken from a much-less-jaunty-sounding song.
Dusty’s singing voice was deeper than I would have thought, and I could tell he’d had to take the song down a few keys to make it work for him, but he’d done it flawlessly.
I couldn’t help but tap my feet to the addicting chorus, and I felt the eyes and ears of everyone in the kitchen on me and Dusty. He kept his eyes on me the whole time, barely even blinking. A smile of pure joy was stuck on his face, and I couldn’t help but smile, too. He strummed the last note of the song and I laughed.
“What next, Red?”
“You don’t have to do this.”
“I want to. I like playing. It’s one of the only things that makes me truly and completely happy.” He leaned over the guitar and lowered his voice. “Besides you, of course.”
I shot a look behind me, but everyone scrambled to pretend they hadn’t been eavesdropping. “Dusty.”
“What? I can’t say that you make me happy? Damn, Red. Harsh.”
“Play whatever you want. It doesn’t matter to me,” I said, crossing my arms.
“Okay. I will.”
And then he started a song that made me want to beg him to stop and pick another song. After seeing that picture of Nathan, my memories of him were fresh and raw and this song was just going to make it worse.
Dusty somehow did justice to the Ingrid Michaelson version of “Creep,” although I had no idea how. Their voices were galaxies apart, but Dusty took her soft version and added a little bit of the edge back in, making it a little harder, a little more heart-wrenching, and I couldn’t take it.
I got up from the couch and Dusty stopped, slamming his hand on the guitar to stop the strings from vibrating.
“I can’t.” And then I dramatically dashed from the room, ran downstairs and slammed my door before he, and everyone else, could see me crying.
* * *
Of course, given the fact that I lived with a crap ton of people, someone was bound to come after me. A soft knock at my door made me look up from my pillow. I’d thrown myself on my bed, hoping to get myself together so I could explain it to whoever came to ask me what the hell was going on.
“Joscelyn.” Of course it was Dusty. They couldn’t have sent Taylor, or Mase, or even Renee. I wondered how hard he had to fight to be the one to come and check on me.
“Go away, Dusty. Seriously. Just leave me the fuck alone. Go back to your apartment. I’m sure Napoleon is missing you.”
“I’m not going away. I thought I made that pretty damn clear.” I heard him slide to the floor outside the door. “So you can stay in there all you want, but eventually you will need food, or the bathroom, or to get some more Skittles and M&M’s, and I’m going to be here.”
“Why can’t you find someone else?” I said, throwing my pillow at the door. It was a pointless thing to do and didn’t make me feel any better.
“I don’t want anyone else, Red. I want you.”
“Well, I don’t want you.”
He laughed, and I wished I could reach through the door and strangle him.
“I think I can smell your pants burning from here.”
“You think you’re so fucking funny, don’t you?” I got up and spoke through the door so he could hear me loud and clear.
“Sometimes.”
“Dusty. Please. Just leave. Me. Alone.”
He was silent for a moment. I thought he was going to finally go away, but I didn’t hear him get up.
Then I heard him singing softly. “This” by Ed Sheeran. I adored that song, under normal circumstances.
“You’re not going to get me to come out by singing, so just stop it.” He didn’t. The song continued, and Dusty’s voice got louder and stronger.
“Shut the fuck up!” I screamed, pounding on the door. It was just too much. I tried to drown him out, but I couldn’t. I kicked the door repeatedly, trying whatever I could, short of opening the door and punching his lights out, to get him to stop and go away.
“SHUT UP!” His voice was calm and smooth as he sang. I kicked the door one more time and screamed in frustration. He ignored me.
I panted from my freak-out and sat on the floor. My nose was running, so I wiped it on my sleeve.
“Why won’t you stop?” I said, not loud enough for him to hear. “I’m the reason your brother is dead. Why can’t you understand that and leave me alone?” The song cut off.
“What did you say?” There was no way he could have heard me.
“Nothing.” I moved closer to the door. “Dusty?”
“Yes, Jos.”
“Do you think you could ever hate me?”
He shifted on the other side of the door, and his voice got closer, as if he was talking through the crack between the door and the frame.
“Listen to me, Joscelyn. I want you to really hear what I’m saying. If you don’t believe any other thing I say, believe this. There is nothing, nothing, you could, or would ever do, that would make me hate you. You’re not capable of doing something to cause anyone to hate you. I know that. And I also know that...that I love you.”
I started to cry again, putting my head against the door. It was solid and reassuring, and that was what I needed.
“You wouldn’t if you knew, Dusty. You wouldn’t.” I put my hand on the door, and somehow I knew he was doing the same on the other side.
“Oh, Jos. I just... I want to touch you and hold you so bad right now. Can you please let me in? Please.” I reached my hand up and unlocked the door.
“It’s open,” I said, scooting back from the door as he turned the knob and opened the door slowly.
I looked up and there he was.
“Oh, sweet girl.” He crouched down next to me and picked me up and set me down on my bed, stretching out beside me and brushing the tears from my face. He kissed the tip of my nose and I couldn’t stop him.
“Dusty, don’t.”
“Stop telling me what to do, Jos. For this once, I’m not going to be a gentleman and listen to you.” He pulled me tight against him, and I struggled a little to get free, but his arms were like steel cables and I didn’t really try that hard.
“Let me. Just let me for a little while.” He locked his arms around me and I turned my head so it was against his chest. His heart pounded like the rough beat of a drum, and I listened to it, trying to let everything else go.
Once he was sure I wasn’t going to try to get away from him, his hands loosened on my back and started moving up and down in soothing waves.
The tears continued, but they weren’t as bad as before.
He didn’t sing. He didn’t speak. He just held me and breathed with me and let me cry my tears into his shirt until I was wrung out and didn’t have any left. At least for now.
My arm was falling asleep, so I shifted and he tensed up.
“Sorry. I just need to move.” He loosened his grip, and I turned so I was in a better position. One of his hands went under my chin, tipping my face up so he could look at it.
“I’m a mess. I know,” I said as he brushed some of my hair out of my eyes.
“A beautiful mess I don’t know how I got myself roped into.”
“I didn’t rope you.”
“Yes, you did. It just isn’t your fault.”
That wasn’t, maybe.
“Joscelyn?”
“Mmm?”
“You’re not this upset about the virginity thing, are you?”
I couldn’t lie anymore. “No.”
“It’s something else. Something bigger.”
I nodded with his hand still under my chin.
“Then I have to tell you that you’re not the only one who has something so big and so bad that they can’t tell anyone. You’re not the only one. Do you understand?”
“What?” I’d known there were lots of secrets about Dusty’s past that he would rather leave buried, but I just assumed he had a bad home life, or he’d been abused, or something like that. What was it with people and secrets? I seemed to attract them. First Hannah and now Dusty.
“But you know what? Compared with the thought of losing you, my secret doesn’t seem so big anymore. You’re the first person I’ve told about this.”
I tried to put my hand on his mouth, but he moved it.
“No, I’m going to tell you, not because I want to, but I need you to hear it.” I held on to his shirt. “You saw that picture of me and my brother, right?” Oh, no. Oh, nonononono. I stiffened in his arms, but he didn’t stop talking.
“Well, he died. Nine months ago. And it’s my fault.”
At the exact moment my brain took the things he said and translated them, I was sure my heart stopped.