“WHAT ARE YOU doing here?” I whisper-yell through the glass.
Joel smiles at me and points to the lock, and I quickly push it over and throw the window open.
“What are you doing here?” I whisper again. Cold night air gets sucked inside the warmth of my room, and I wrap my arms around myself to ward off the chill. I’m wearing nothing but a cami top with nothing under it and a pair of oversized pajama shorts.
“Can you lift the screen?”
I do, and Joel climbs into my bedroom, forcing me to take a step back. My brain barely has time to form another question before his arms wrap around me and his lips steal my words. Two days without him and I’d forgotten how intoxicating those kisses can be.
“I missed you,” he says against my mouth, his feet already walking me backward toward the bed, his hands already removing my clothes. My cami gets pulled over my head, his jeans fall to the floor, and we sink into the mattress. He nestles between my legs, and when I tug his shirt off, his bare chest molds against mine. With only thin layers of cotton between us where it counts, I moan against his mouth. It’s been eight hours since he texted me to tell me he missed me, and he’s making it clear he meant every single word.
Joel’s chilled lips drop to my neck, and I muster the sense to ask, “How did you get here?”
“I bought a car,” he says as he trails kisses down my stomach and pulls my pajama shorts down.
“You bought a—” my breath catches in my throat when his warm tongue envelopes me. His ice-cold lips follow, sucking my tiny bud into his molten mouth and squeezing it tight. “Joel!” I gasp, my toes curling against the mattress. He tenderly slides his lips away, and my fingernails claw at loose sheets.
“Shhh,” he whispers against me, his breath sending shivers up and down my skin, making my nipples perk and my heart race.
“My dad is home,” I warn without any conviction.
“We’ll be quiet.” His tongue strokes through my folds again, and my back arches away from the mattress. Joel rolls his tongue over me, and I moan against the lip I’m biting.
He chuckles and presses a soft, wet kiss against my thigh. He knows he’s torturing me, and he’s loving it.
“You’re a jerk,” I say, and he looks up at me from under thick black lashes. He’s on his stomach at the foot of my bed, and he shifts so that his lips are hovering above the most sensitive part of me.
“I’m a what?” Each word sends a fresh warm breath drifting over me, another wave of tingles.
“A jerk,” I maintain in a quiet, timid voice, and Joel gives me a dark smile before planting an impossibly light kiss against my tense little bud.
Another light kiss. A light nibble, a light lick, a light suck.
“Joel,” I whine.
“Is this not nice?”
“No,” I growl, but I’ve barely said the word when his eager mouth devours me and I moan far louder than I mean to.
Joel crawls over top of me a second later, shimmying out of his boxers, bracing his elbows along my sides, and then—
“Oh,” I gasp as he sinks deep inside me.
“Fuck,” he breathes with his forehead pressed against mine. His body shudders under my fingertips, and my thighs tremble around his hips. “I really, really missed you.”
I tilt my chin up and suck his bottom lip between my teeth as he sets a steady pace. I kiss him and control my breathing to keep from crying out. My fingers sink into the tight skin of his back, and my headboard knocks against the wall.
“Shit,” I hiss, breaking my lips from Joel’s so that he’ll stop moving and the wooden headboard will stop threatening to wake up my dad. It’s not the first time I’ve had a boy in my room—far from it—but that still doesn’t mean I want my dad to hear his little girl having sex under his roof while she’s home for Easter vacation.
In the moonlight filtering in through my still open window, Joel reaches one arm up to grab the top of my headboard, pulling it away from the wall. Cold air wraps itself around us, and he holds the headboard steady as he rocks back into me. The sight of him like that, with one hand braced on the mattress beside me and the other supporting his taut body above me, makes it hard to breathe, and I can’t help myself—I lift away from the warmth of my sheets to suck his cold nipple ring into my mouth, flicking my tongue inside the metal hoop and scratching my fingernails up his sides.
“Dee,” Joel pleads. His voice cracks, and I know he’s close.
I lower my head back to my pillow, and he never takes his eyes off me as he resumes his movement in slow, long thrusts. They grow slower and slower until they stop altogether.
“I wish you could see yourself right now,” he says. “You have no idea how beautiful you look.”
Maybe it’s the cold, maybe it’s something else, but I suddenly need him in my arms, and I need to feel myself in his.
“Come here,” I say, and he releases my headboard to settle over top of me, lowering his lips to mine and kissing me slowly, leisurely. “Just go slow,” I whisper.
Joel’s hips move slowly, his fingers brushing my cheek, my hair, my neck. We move together until early morning, when I whimper against his mouth and he pulses inside me. Afterward, with him still buried all the way inside me, I wrap my arms around him and hold him like I’ve never held any man ever.
After a while, he kisses the side of my jaw and gets up to close the window, but then he crawls back into bed with me and wraps me in his arms. I play the role of the little spoon, content to let him hold me.
We fall asleep together, we wake together, and the next morning, I’m lying on my stomach watching him get dressed. His back muscles ripple as he bends over to pick his worn-soft jeans off the floor, and my blood heats when I remember the way those muscles flexed under my fingertips just a few hours ago.
“I’m not going to call you,” he says as he buttons his jeans, and my brow furrows.
“Why not?”
He lifts his gaze, and I can see he’s serious. “It’s your turn. I did it first the last time.” He leans down and kisses me, softly. A fragile breath escapes me. “If you miss me,” he instructs, “then pick up the phone.”
When he pulls away, I collect myself and tease, “I think I’m set for a while.”
Joel tickles my side until I take the tease back so that I don’t end up screaming and waking my dad, and then he stands and motions for me to give him his shirt. I pull it over my head and hand it back, doing my best not to pout when he covers all of that gorgeously toned skin. He licks his fingers and tries to salvage some semblance of the spiked mohawk he arrived with last night, and then he wipes his hands on the front of his jeans while I find my own shirt bunched under the covers and pull it over my head.
“Where are you parked?” I ask.
Last night, before we fell asleep, I asked about his new car and he told me he bought a clunker from a friend. He got the name of my hometown from Adam, looked my dad up in the white pages, and crossed his fingers while guessing which window was mine. I still can’t believe he finally bought a car, or that he did it just to see me, but it makes me want to forgive him for not talking to me these past three days.
“Down the street,” he answers, his eyes traveling around my room. “You like Stephen King?” He picks a book off of a shelf on my wall, turning it over in his hand.
“No, I just like books about teenage girls who go crazy and kill everyone,” I say with a sweet smile.
Joel laughs and sets it back on the shelf, picking up a DVD in its place. “Dirty Dancing? Seriously?”
“Oh,” I croon, “Johnny Castle could wipe the floor with you.”
Joel scoffs and sets it back down; then he moves to my desk and picks up a picture frame, his mouth pulling into a wide smile. “Paintball?”
He turns the frame toward me, and I smile at the picture of Rowan and I at an eighth-grade graduation party. We’re covered in paint, each with an arm draped around the other and a paint gun propped on our hip, looking entirely badass.
“The boys had no idea what they were in for,” I say, and Joel laughs. He continues perusing my room, scanning pictures and books and knickknacks. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?” I ask, climbing out of bed and propping myself against my windowsill.
Joel sighs and opens my window. He slides one leg into the early morning cold and says, “I wish I could stay.”
When I say nothing back, he finishes sliding the rest of the way out, dropping between the bushes and turning to face me. I bend low, kiss him slowly, and confess, “I do too.”
Something sparks in his deep blue eyes, and his hand threads into my hair and practically pulls me out the window. He crushes my lips against his, and I grip the windowsill to keep from falling out. When he pulls away, he flashes me a white smile, and then he spins around and walks toward the street.
I pull back into my room in a boneless heap, sitting on the floor and touching my lips. A tiny giggle escapes me, followed by a whole fit of them that have me flopping onto my back and smiling up at the pale green stars on my ceiling. I’m still swooning when my doorbell rings and the stars explode into apocalyptic fireworks.
I rush to the doorway of my room, in full view of the front door, and helplessly watch as my dad beats me to it.
“Hi,” I hear Joel’s voice say from the doorstep, “is Dee home?”
My dad, already dressed in khaki pants and a checkered button-down, stares out the door for a second before letting out a little chuckle. “Dee!” he shouts. “The guy who snuck in your room last night is here!”
My dad turns to me and smirks at the way my jaw is hanging on the floor. Then he walks into the kitchen and I rush to the front door.
Joel looks just as stunned as I do. He’s standing on my doorstep—with his bad boy mohawk, his wrinkled day-old shirt, and his tattered jeans—and we’re just staring at each other with wide eyes and no words until my dad shouts, “Are you going to invite him in or are you just going to make him stand out there in the cold?”
I seriously contemplate closing the door and making him stand out in the cold, but instead I grab his hand and yank him inside. My dad appears around the corner a moment later, smirking around a cup of coffee. He takes a sip and asks me, “Are you going to introduce us?”
I cross my arms over my chest, realizing I’m severely underdressed. “Dad, this is Joel,” I say, flicking my fingers in Joel’s direction. My dad’s eyes light up with recognition that makes my stomach fall, and I continue, “Joel, this is my dad.”
“Keith,” my dad says, extending his hand to Joel.
They shake, and afterward, my dad scrunches his nose at his palm.
“Hair gel,” Joel rushes to explain, and I could just die and dissolve into the floor.
My dad chuckles and stares up at Joel’s mohawk. “Right . . . You kids want some breakfast?”
Together? No! Not now, not ever!
“Sure,” Joel says, and he follows my dad into hell’s kitchen.
They eat breakfast together. And lunch. Laughing and sharing stories and becoming best freaking buds. At noon, I’m sitting between them at the dining-room table furiously texting Rowan on my phone.
It’s like they’re BFFs.
Isn’t that good?
ARE YOU BEING SERIOUS RIGHT NOW?
Yes?
NO!!!
. . . I think I’m confused.
I huff and lay my phone on the table, but my dad and Joel barely seem to notice.
“I got it when I was eighteen,” my dad says, pulling his arm out of his shirt and showing Joel his Celtic armband tattoo.
“Badass,” Joel says, and my dad grins.
Joel stands and lifts up his shirt, showing my dad the script stretching up his side. It says “I am the hero of this story” in delicate, curling letters, and I never put much thought into what it means. Now, I want to know when he got it, why he got it, where he got it. I want to trace my fingertips over the letters and feel his marked skin. “I got this when I was twenty-one,” Joel says, letting my dad read the words before lowering his shirt.
“Nice,” my dad says, and I roll my eyes. “When did you get the guitar one?” he asks.
Joel studies the tattoo on his inner forearm. It’s sepia-toned, of the neck of a guitar hidden beneath torn skin. “I got that one when I was nineteen.”
“So that was your first one?”
“Nah,” Joel answers, showing my dad the tiny music note hidden where his middle finger usually rests against his index finger. “I got this one when I was fifteen. Did it myself.”
“How?” my dad asks.
“Razor and pen.”
My dad chuckles. “I bet your mom was thrilled.”
Something flashes across Joel’s expression, something I’m guessing was too quick for anyone but me to catch, but then he smiles.
I bet his mom couldn’t have cared less.
“Are you going to your parents’ for Easter tomorrow?” my dad asks, and I find myself wondering the same thing. Where does Joel go for Easter? Where does he go for Thanksgiving and Christmas? I pick at a cold breadstick left over from the pizza lunch we ordered, waiting for his answer.
He shakes his head. “We’re not close. I’ll probably go to my friend Adam’s. Last year I just ordered Chinese and played video games. It was pretty awesome.”
My dad frowns, mirroring my expression. “Would you want to stay here and have dinner with us?” he asks, not bothering to ask for my approval.
Joel turns toward me like he’s hoping I’ll have the answer, and my dad adds, “It’s usually just Dee and me, but we’d love to have you if you want to stay.”
“Yeah,” I say after it feels like I’ve been silent for too long, “you should stay.”
Joel studies me for a moment, but if he’s trying to figure out how I feel about him spending Easter with us, I’m pretty sure he’ll have to wait until I figure that out first. Ever since my mom left, it’s always been just my dad and me. My insides twist, and I’m not sure if it’s because of the possibility of Joel spending the holiday alone or because of the possibility of him spending it with me and my dad.
“I’ll think about it,” he says, and then he thanks my dad for the offer.
Later, after lunch, my dad leaves for the grocery store to get ingredients for tomorrow, and Joel finds his way into our hallway of misfit pictures. This morning, my dad told him all sorts of personal stories about me as a baby, me as a toddler, me as a mouthy child, me as a mouthy teenager. Now Joel gazes up at a picture on the wall and asks, “Is that your mom?”
He’s staring at a picture that was taken when I was around three. I have little chocolate curls everywhere, and my mom is holding me on her lap. My dad is standing behind her with his hand on her shoulder, smiling and looking as handsome as ever. But my mom is the one shining bright at the center of the photo, wearing my olive skin, my high cheekbones, and my smooth lips.
“Yeah,” I answer, because what else can I say?
“You look just like her,” he says, and I inwardly cringe.
“I know.”
“Are you ever going to tell me about her?” Joel asks, turning on me.
“Do I have to?” I ask. It’s a smartass question, but he answers anyway.
“I’d like you to . . .”
When I walk out to the living room, he follows me. I flop down on the couch, and he sits beside me.
“I told you about my mom,” he says, and I know, I know he did. I know I should open up to him like he did to me. And it’s not that I can’t. It’s just that I don’t want to. I didn’t plan for him to show up at my house, or for him to become best friends with my dad, or for him to get invited to Easter dinner. I didn’t plan or want or ask for him to be here.
“Mine isn’t worth talking about,” I say.
“So she’s alive . . .”
“Unfortunately.” Guilt hits me the minute I say it. I don’t actually wish she was dead, but I’ve gotten used to ignoring the shame I feel every time I wish it on her. It’s always been easier than missing her.
When Joel starts to speak again, I cut him off. “Joel, look. You’ve seen my house. You’ve slept in my bed. You’ve met my dad. Can’t that be enough for now?”
I know he wants to get to know me. I’m aware that what’s going on between us is more than just sex now. But I didn’t ask him to come here, and it’s not fair for him to expect that I’m going to bare my soul to him just because he showed up at my bedroom window in the middle of the night.
He searches my face for a long moment, and then he sighs and sits back against the couch, tugging me against his side. “I like your dad,” he says after a while, and I could kiss him for changing the subject.
“I can tell.”
“He loves you.”
“I know.”
“We have a lot in common.”
I tilt my chin up to search his face, to see if he just implied what I think he did, but he kisses my forehead and turns on the TV and it’s like he never said anything at all.