Blue is the Warmest Color

 

There are no Hallmark cards that define the next chapter, or the value of a history together.

- Brad Pitt

 

 

KAT

 

We were out.  We were finally out.

My hands gripped the steering wheel hard. Drops of sweat dripped from my neck to my bare shoulders and I could feel every single sliver of perspiration running a path across my body, could sense every bead. I was sure I could taste the salt on my skin, and I was breathing so hard in the confines of the now mud-stained car that I thought I might pass out from the exhaustion, but we did it.

We made it out.

I was alive in every sense of the word, and if it wasn’t for the tight grip of my fingers around the leather, the aching feeling of anxiety pulsating in my knuckles, I’d think I was dreaming. I knew I wasn’t because of that pain… and I knew I wasn’t because of the boy who caused it—the madman sitting a mere two feet from my face, smiling from ear-to-ear, whooping in the black and tan passenger seat. I could see his grin in the dim moonlight, could feel his excited breaths on my face as he slammed an open hand on the dashboard, sending the rest of my crazed senses soaring.

He beamed at me.

“You were fucking phenomenal.”

I shrugged, looking at the road. “I did all right.”

“No, I really mean it. I mean… I thought I was a crazy son-of-a-bitch, but you, Kat. You might be more fucked in the head than even me…”

My hands tightened around the steering wheel even more. “Gee, thanks.”

He laughed, long and hard. “No, I mean it as a compliment. Fuck…” He rubbed a hand down the side of his face. “I don’t think I’ve seen anything as bold as what you just did. And I’ve seen my best friend, Griff, do lots of crazy dumb shit…” He got silent suddenly. “It’s nice… to meet a girl who’s not afraid to get down and dirty.”

“Well,” I commented, concentrating on the dirt street in the distance, “I’m not like any other girls.”

He nodded. “You sure the hell aren’t.”

The conversation in the car fell into a lull. Basking in the glow of our excited escape, Ethan and I chose to let the quiet stretch all the way back into town. It wasn’t until we hit our first street light that I remembered I was still sitting in his seat, in his car, strapped in place next to the sexiest guy I’d ever met. I felt fine when we were fucking up things, getting into some much-needed trouble, but now I felt acutely aware of his profile in the dark, his smell.

The entire dusty Corvette convertible of his was subtly saturated, and though his scent was faint, it rocked something deep within my core. I had never laughed so hard, felt as free and been as naughty as I had been tonight. I was stepping into unchartered territory… and I liked it.

I tapped my fingers on the wheel. “I guess I’d better take myself back to camp.”

“Camp Okafee?” he questioned, glancing my way.

“Yeah.” I crossed my arms, suddenly feeling cold. “My parents…” I shook my head, clearing it. “I need the tuition cash, if I ever want to go to school. My mom found this place on the internet. Said I should see it as a mini-vacation… and a way to make some money.” I shook my head. “Besides, the kids at my school just don’t fucking get it… The guys don’t know what to say to me because I’d rather play flag football than cheer for it on the sidelines. I’d rather write stories than read them, and when my guidance counselor asked what I wanted to do with my life, I responded, ‘Not sit behind my desk and evaluate others’ lives when my own is a mess.’ They think I’m being impertinent when really…” I gazed over at Ethan. “I’m just being honest.”

I bit my lip. “I mean, my older sister, Elena, is totally worse than me. She’s rebellious, rambunctious. She once slapped a guy in her Econ class for implying that blondes were hotter than brunettes… and she’s a blonde.” I expelled a breath. “Elena’s tough… but people have her figured out. She’s the ballsy blonde ballerina… and I’m the girl with the messy brown hair who likes to hang with the boys. For a while, most people at my school thought I was gay…”

Ethan shifted in his seat. “Are you?”

“No,” I snapped. “Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but why do I have to vie for the attention of every guy that walks by to be considered a proper girl? I wear mascara. Hell, I even like the color pink… But because I’d rather own my own business than be a secretary in one doesn’t mean I’m looking to trade sexualities. It’s the twenty-first century, and most of the neighbors I have still live by the same old southern rules. And my mom and dad…” I grit my teeth. “I get it. We have to help the family, but honestly? I’m sick of it. Sometimes, it’s too much. What they need, what others want. Seriously. Why do I have to live up to anybody’s expectations but my own?”

“You don’t.” It was an answer that came faster than I expected. “But some children don’t have the luxury of being free from other people’s choices. Some children are stuck before they are even born. Especially when it comes to their parents. It’s not like they can choose them. I should know…”

“Yeah, well, some children should just say ‘Fuck what my parents say.’ That’s just my opinion…”

He chuckled, a low sound that rumbled like the car engine. “An opinion I happen to share. Along with others of yours…”

I squeezed the steering wheel again. Lost in my own thoughts, I found myself not paying much attention as Ethan directed me past downtown, to a neighborhood just outside the city limits. I was nowhere near Camp Okafee, and as I cruised down the quiet street, I noticed the streets get brighter and the houses get bigger. I squinted at the street signs as Ethan pointed to an elegant two-story brick house that would have put regular shacks in Dayton to shame.

I held my breath.

“Where are we?” I pulled up to the curb outside the tiny brick abode.

“Home.” Ethan threw over his shoulder at me. “At least the home I’m in for the summer. My mom lives here. My dad remarried, and I… Well, I couldn’t stay with him for another second, let alone the summer. My mom’s always gone. Bingo or something or other… At least she stocks the place up with food.”

He expelled a breath, brushing his own explanation off. He brought me into the kitchen and while he fixed me a snack, he told me about his love for animals, and I happened to mention my allergy to anything with fur. We debated sweet versus salty snacks, raided his mother’s pantry and talked everything nineties, from Ferris Bueller to Friends, until we nearly came to blows when the subject of the movie, Die Hard, was finally broached—a film I’d loved since I was a kid and could barely even pronounce the name “Bruce Willis.”

I snagged another potato chip from one of the many bags we placed on the counter. I munched loudly, arguing between bites.

“It isn’t!” I screamed.

“Totally is.” Ethan grabbed a soda from the fridge, handing it to me. “Die Hard is a Christmas movie.”

“What ‘Christmas movie’ has guns blazing and men dying left and right?”

He snatched his own can of soda, slouching against the kitchen counter. He grinned. “The best kind.”

“But that’s not what Christmas is about…” I popped my can open, listening to it fizz. “It’s about gingerbread man cookies and gifts. It’s about little kids getting their tongues stuck to frozen poles like in a ‘A Christmas Story’ and learning lessons about sharing and giving that they’ll totally forget the second they hit high school. That’s what Christmas is about.”

“Really?” Ethan’s brown eyes darkened. “My Christmases were a little different than that as a kid…”

I didn’t catch the change in his tone. I stared up at the ceiling. “Clearly… You must have been that kid that runs up to the others to tell them that Santa isn’t real. A dream-dasher. Next, you’ll be telling me that Jean Claude Van Damme was a better actor than Arnold Schwarzenegger.”

He shrugged, one muscular shoulder going chin-high. “Well…”

“That’s it.” I finished my last potato chip, dusting off my hands. “We’re fighting.” I reached into another bag of snacks. Hurling a Barbecued pork rind at his head, I laughed as he deftly ducked it, reaching into his own box of goodies to toss a chocolate-covered raisin in my direction. I laughed as I tried to catch it in my mouth and got slammed in the nose. I winced as another one came.

“That’s not fair. Your snacks are less aerodynamic than mine. They have less hang-time in the air.”

Ethan chuckled. “That’s what you get for choosing salty over sweet snacks. Next time you’ll rethink your choices.”

“If you really knew me, you’d know that I’d rather chew off my left arm than waste a piece of candy.”

“I see.” Ethan pointed. “And you’re going to crack a tooth with all the sugar you’re stuffing in your mouth tonight.”

I mumbled around a chocolate-covered pretzel. “At least I’ll die happy.”

“Yeah,” Ethan snorted, staring. “And with cavities the size of my fist. Only God knows how you stay so goddamned thin…”

I winked, barely stopping to swallow. “Been watching my figure, have you?”

He smiled, glancing over at me. “I’ve taken a peek or two…”

I rolled my eyes, moaning between chews. “I guess you could say I get it from my mom—this metabolism. My sisters and I all do. We inherited her sweet tooth along with her iron stomach. She’s slowed down on the baking a bit, but her cookies are the best thing you’ll ever taste.”

Ethan stood straighter. “Oh yeah…? And what about your cookies?”

I scowled. “I suck at cooking. My cookies aren’t for tasting…”

I watched as he pushed off the counter. “Maybe… or maybe you just haven’t found the right sampler. Hate to get all Hunger Games on you, but if you’re looking for one, then I volunteer as tribute…”

I reached over, slapping him with a hand towel. “Shut up.”

But the look he was giving me was dead serious. He sauntered away from his side of the kitchen and started to come closer. My heart was beating a million reps per minute and when Ethan came within arms’ reach, I decided to let him have it.

My cookie. Every inch of it… All the creamy goodness inside… smeared right into his face. I ran as he recovered, scooping slobs of icing and cream off his own handsome face. He spoke—or more like spit—through the frosting.

“That’s it… I was going to share my extended version of ‘Pulp Fiction.’ But now? No classic nineties films for you. You only get the straight-to-TV joints.”

“I’d rather die. Hard,” I shot back at him, pelting him with a piece of beef jerky.

He ducked when the second one came his way. “You really do want to be Bruce, don’t you?”

“Maybe…”

“With much less penis, too, I hope.” He grinned. “And a lot more hair.”

I scoffed out loud, rounding a stool as I scrambled to get out of reach.  “Don’t diss Bruce. He’s hot.”

“Yeah, to a woman, maybe.” Ethan reached for me again. Missed. “We’re comparing apples to balding actor here. And not for nothing… but have you looked in a mirror lately? Big difference between you and Bruce.”

“Ahhh,” I mused into the open air. “It’s the stubble, isn’t it? I never did quite get that five o’clock shadow I always wanted.” I rubbed my jaw.

“That might be the biggest difference between you two…” Ethan made his way past the fridge. “Well, that… and the fact that I’ve never wondered what Bruce tasted like.”

He froze, the second the words came out. I got the feeling he hadn’t intended to say them—a mere slip of the tongue, but within the span of those several tense moments, he brushed it off as if he’d just said the most natural thing in the world. As if he didn’t just high-kick the breath out of my body with his bold admission, nearly knocking me on my ass with the knowledge that the boy with the sexiest smile I’d ever seen, and the biggest stubborn streak, wanted to…

Taste me.

He grabbed another soda, raising it to his lips, and the sight of him swallowing made everything on me that was below the waist quiver. I tried to ignore it. I picked up a third piece of beef jerky.

“Just so you know… Bruce also doesn’t have my aim.”

I turned towards my available bags of goodies, throwing everything I had. Ethan reached for his own, and while the oatmeal creme pies, roasted almonds and mint peppermint patties flew, I tried to forget about the falling sensation that had hit the pit of my stomach just a minute before, making the air unbreathable. In the midst of our food fight, I found some sense of release. I laughed so hard I nearly doubled over the nearby stools, trying to catch my breath as Ethan and I debated the acting ability of Steven Seagal out loud.

We were just getting around to attacking Steven’s prized ponytail when wham! A cache of white cream went slinging into my eye, burning the living shit out of my right retina. I cried aloud, ducking quickly as my fingers flew to my eye, rubbing the thickened stuff from my face. I rotated towards the sinks only to find a body there instead, solid and unmoving as it wrapped itself around mine.

It was Ethan, one hand on my shoulder, the other wiping something wet and gentle across my eyelid. He tilted my chin with his fingers.

“C’mere, c’mere…” He said, breathing the smell of black cherries into my face. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.” I squeezed my eyes shut. Tears started to escape as I continued to keep my eye closed as he worked around all the wincing and grimacing. His thumb trailed along my jaw.

“You have to let me see,” he said to me. “I can’t help it if I can’t see.”

He seemed to mean more than he was saying… But I relented. I let him, opening up my eyelid slowly and painfully to a vision I wouldn’t mind seeing as much as possible. Ethan, with his golden strands of hair falling across his forehead, gazing deeply into my eyes with his cocoa brown ones, making the world fall away and disappear with each drag of the dampened cloth across my eyelid and brow. He squeezed some of the water into my eye. Leaning in, he blew the rest of the creme away, inspecting his work, swiping his fingers at the corners of my eyelashes to check for the rest.

He wiped the tears away… and any anxiety I had left being next to him.

We’d committed a crime tonight…

And in many ways, it had connected us in a way most people wouldn’t understand. Too misunderstood teens, begging to be heard in the small summer world they’d been thrown away into. I “got” Ethan better than most. I knew what it felt like to be different than everyone around you.

I closed my eyes again, not from the pain, but from the sheer sensation of having Ethan’s hands on me—touching, exploring. Soothing the searing sensation that had just temporarily blinded me. I almost felt grateful for the accident.

Until I opened my eyes… and saw the regret that lay in Ethan’s. He withdrew, dropping the wet cloth on the counter slowly.

“Sorry about that,” he muttered.

I blinked. Once. Twice. “It’s fine. Nothing to worry about.”

“Sometimes I don’t know my own strength…”

“It happens.”

“I get carried away.”

I nodded. “Understandable.”

“Like what I’m about to do right now.”

And then he kissed me. And it was no normal kiss. He pulled all of me into him—from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. It was a skillful move, a slick one. The hands that had just caressed my face were now grabbing it, holding tight. His hardened body was pushed into mine and as he captured my lips, he used it to his full advantage, hovering over me, inclining my lips to reach his own where he prodded and pushed and applied pressure with all the passion we’d barely kept-bottled tonight.

This was like nothing I had ever experienced.

Ethan’s kiss was like the first time you listened to a song you knew you would never get enough of. It was a serenade, full of thoughts unsaid, a melody meant to be mesmerized. We fell into a sudden sync as if it were music, and I kissed him back, rubbing my hands over his shoulder blades as I tightened my fingers around him, squeezing him just as tightly as he was clutching me. Nothing had ever been more natural.

I met him there, at the meeting of our mouths, matching him lick for lick, tug for tug, nip for nip. He groaned when I moaned, and when I began to whimper from the pleasure, he surprised me, picking me up and placing me right on the tiled kitchen counter where he settled between my legs, finding a place between my thighs as he stood in the “V” of my sitting stance. I fought the urge to squeeze my thighs around him as his fingertips trailed along my nape, massaging the soft, sparse hair there.

His taste was strong—sweet and almost smoky. I should have known he would be. Because Ethan was a walking wildfire, and everything about him set a blaze on my skin. Abruptly, his lips abandoned ship, taking a detour towards my brow, my forehead, my earlobe. He sucked the edge of the lobe between his teeth, and when he pulled back, I shuddered, my nipples hardening to sensitive peaks that stretched against my sports bra and shirt.

In nothing but a tank and shorts, I suddenly felt as if I were too covered by clothes, my body hot and flushed. And when Ethan made his way to my neck to tease his tongue there, the blaze across my extremities only grew. In that moment, I tried to think of anything to stop him—stop me.

I considered what he’d been doing with Christy “Cocks-A-Lot” behind the bleachers, what they’d been up to. My mind meandered in a million different directions about what could have happened to put that look of guilt on the stupid girl’s face, but when Ethan stepped back, stared into my eyes and spoke, I could barely remember my own name, let alone what I’d been thinking about.

He glared at me in wonder. His voice was a whisper. “Christ. What the fuck is this…?”

I shook my head. I knew what he was trying—unsuccessfully—to say… but what that “it” was, that feeling that was sucker-punching me in the pit of my stomach, I also didn’t know. All I knew was that I didn’t want it to stop. And from the firm, hard length of him rubbing along the insides of my thighs, it was clear that Ethan didn’t want it to, either. Wrapping my fingers around his shirtfront, bolder than I’d ever been at the thought of how much he wanted me, I brought him back into the triangle of my thighs, turning my mouth to touch his until a door slammed shut less than fifty feet away.

The word “Ethan” made its way across the hall and into the kitchen and before the person behind it could make it inside as well, I jumped down from the counter, brushing past him. I made a beeline for the door before he could grab me, brandishing the key to the Corvette. I didn’t even care that the car wasn’t mine. Hopping into the front seat, I turned the ignition, leaving the house in the dusk to the tune of my own name being shouted in the taillights. I didn’t care. I was out of there, adding yet another list of crimes to my now lengthening rap sheet.

Grand Theft Auto… and falling for the wrong fucking boy.