I dodged in front of her. “I’d prefer this to be a one-way street.”
“I know you would. But this isn’t about what’s best for you. This is about what’s best for us.”
She moved around me. I slid in front of her again. It was impossible to let her go. “No, Joze.”
She could throw a fit, she could slam that pie into my face, she could give me in the silent treatment for a month, but I wouldn’t let her leave in Colt’s truck and head over to Colt’s house where I knew he was already planning to take her to Colt’s bed. She took a breath and looked at me. She was as calm as I was flustered.
“Garth, this whole slow and steady thing is a trial period. I need to know that if you don’t have it, you’re willing to do what it takes to learn how to be in a supportive, loving, trusting relationship that doesn’t center around jealousy and control. I’m here to help you figure it out, but you have to want to figure it out.” Her hand formed around my waist, and she stepped against me. “Think of this as the first hurdle in a series of them.”
“What’s at the finish line?”
“I guess we’ll have to get there to find out.” When she moved around me again, I let her go. God knows I didn’t want to so badly my body almost quivered, but I did it. That was a victory on its own.
Not even two minutes later, I heard Colt’s truck fire to life. If trust felt like that every time I had to prove it to her, I didn’t doubt it would be the death of me.
JOSIE HAD GOTTEN home an hour ago. I felt like a third parent when I checked the clock as that sorry excuse for a truck rumbled up the driveway. After helping Mr. and Mrs. Gibson clean up after dinner—something both of them seemed confused by—I’d taken a shower and crawled into bed. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I was incapable of sleeping with Josie out where she was. I probably should have just run circles around the guest room. That would have been a better distraction from my thoughts than just lying quiet and motionless in bed.
I was close to throwing off the covers and starting my first lap when Colt’s truck pulled up. Speaking of clocks, it was only ninety seconds before Josie came through the front door. A minute and a half wasn’t long enough to get anywhere close to hot and heavy inside of Colt’s truck, so I exhaled my second relieved breath of the night after Josie left. Being the parents they were, Mr. and Mrs. Gibson were still waiting up. After a couple minutes, I heard a series of goodnights as footsteps headed down the hall and one set up the stairs.
I wanted to see Josie. I wanted to talk to her. I wanted to hold her like I had last night. I wanted to kiss her. I wanted so much right then. I don’t know if I’d ever “wanted” so much in my life.
Josie’s bedroom door closed long before I finally felt sleepy. All of that adrenaline took a while to wear off, but once it did, I felt more like I was drifting into a coma instead of sleep. That was when my bedroom door whispered open so noiselessly I was surprised I noticed it. When I saw who slipped inside, I wasn’t so surprised I noticed it. Welcome back, adrenaline. It’s been a while. I sat up in bed, rubbing my eyes, and watched Josie approach in a different but similar pair of “pajamas.”
“It’s not a dream,” she whispered, smiling at me. I must have looked confused. “That look on your face? It looks like you’re trying to decide if this is real or a dream.”
“The past twenty-four hours have felt like a dream. I don’t know what’s real and what isn’t anymore.” Josie sat on the edge of the bed, and the moment caught up with me. I could almost imagine a shotgun racking. “What are you doing in here?”
“I can’t sleep.” She clasped her hands and shrugged.
“Do you want me to make you a warm cup of milk or something?” I wasn’t sure how Josie went about falling asleep when she had a hard time getting there, but I was certain she didn’t use the same methods I usually did: a woman or a bottle of whiskey. Most nights, both.
“Thanks, but no. I wish a warm cup of milk would work. I’d actually be able to get more than a few hours of sleep every night.” She was trying not to look at me—probably because I was half naked and we were beside each other on the same bed. I lowered the blankets a few inches to make it that much harder for her.
“Are you an insomniac or something?” I grinned when she finally lost the battle and glanced at me. Not at my face either.
“I think I get a whole half an hour more sleep than a true insomniac, but I’m as close to being one as I want to get.”
“Have you always had that problem?” I didn’t like knowing something I couldn’t fix was bothering Josie. If a genie magically appeared and granted me one wish, I’d have insomnia made into human form so I could give it a serious ass-kicking.
“No. I used to sleep so hard I could snooze through a fire alarm.” She shifted so she was facing me more.
“So when did you and sleep decide to become long lost friends?”
She studied her hands in her lap. “A couple of years ago.”
I didn’t need her to clarify the month, day, or hour. Because I knew. I knew what event and person was responsible for Josie’s insomnia. I wanted to kick my own ass? How was that even possible? I didn’t know, but if there was a way, I would figure it out. “Ah, hell, Joze. I’m a piece of shit. I don’t know why you’re even talking to me. I’ve screwed up so many things for you.”
“Well . . . actually . . .” She bit her lip, acting almost shy. Josie did shy about as often as I did humble.
“Well actually what?” I asked eagerly. I’d do anything.
“Last night was the first night in two years I fell asleep and stayed asleep for close to six hours.”
When she looked at me again, I got it. I mean, I didn’t get it exactly, but I knew how to help. I might not have understood why Josie could sleep with me beside her, but I didn’t need to know why to fix the problem. Scooting over, I threw open the blankets and patted the mattress. “Come on over. I warmed a spot up for you already.”
She didn’t need a second invitation. Josie had wiggled and wormed her way under the covers before I realized that, for the second night in a row, I was sharing a bed with Josie Gibson. If the young boy version of me could have expected that, growing up would have been a few shades brighter. “What are your parents going to think? Or do?”
“They’re not going to think or do anything because they’re going to wake up tomorrow none the wiser.”
“You are one devious vixen, Joze.” Once she was curled up, I draped my arm over her and slid up beside her.
“Are you still in your jeans?” Her hand grabbed the waist of my jeans and gave it a tug. “Do you ever take these things off?”
I couldn’t form thoughts, let alone words, with her hand skimming my waist. When her fingers reached the button above my fly, her hand froze before dropping away. I breathed again. Clearing my throat, I worked up something that I hoped would be coherent. “When you grow up never knowing if you’re going to be jerked awake by bottles shattering around you, you keep your pants on and your boots close by. I’ve spent as many nights sleeping under the stars as I have under a roof.” Josie’s hand slipped into mine, her fingers lacing with mine. “How was Colt’s?” A better man might have kept his mouth shut, but I hadn’t gotten where I had by being a better man.
“Uneventful. He didn’t lure me into his bed like I know you were convinced he would.”
I’d already guessed that, but I still exhaled in relief. “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t try to.”
“No, it doesn’t mean that.”
Imagining Colt trying to get Josie into his bed sent me close to the explosion point. The only thing that kept me from jumping out of bed and driving to Colt’s just so I could throw his mattress out his window was Josie’s touch. It took a minute or two before I was calm enough to form words. “So? Did I pass the trust test?”
“You passed it. With flying colors. I have to admit I didn’t think you could do it. I kept looking out the Masons’ living room window expecting
to find your truck barreling up the driveway.”
“I came close. I must have stopped myself from running through that front door a hundred times. But I didn’t, and that’s what counts.” Josie’s feet bumped mine, and I practically jolted from how cold they were. She was worried about me getting frost bite? So I gritted my teeth and pressed the tops of mine—which were toasty warm—into the bottom of hers. If the girl didn’t run around in lingerie in the dead of winter, her feet might not have been mini glaciers with toes.
“You’re kind of great, you know that?” She sighed and wiggled her toes over mine.
“I don’t know if this is greatness or stupidity, but I’ll take any compliment you want to send my way.” So, yeah. My feet had been warm. Not anymore. But hers were at least. “Since I passed the trust test, mind telling me why you went over to Masons’?”
“I left my favorite sweater over there,” Josie said with a shrug. “When Colt finds out about us, I don’t want him throwing it in a bonfire.”
Yeah, that odd sensation was probably my heart growing three sizes. The next sensation wasn’t so odd. It was that flash of fire over what had transpired for her to leave her sweater at Colt’s in the first place. “If he ever did that, he’d be the next thing thrown into that bonfire.”
Josie laughed softly. “Good to know you’re protective of my favorite sweater.”
“You, Joze. I’m protective of you.” I nuzzled her neck and would have tightened my arms around her if I didn’t think it might cut off the circulation to her lower body. “Listen . . . I’ve been thinking”—a new concept for me, I know—“and I don’t want you to up and change anything in your life right now. I’ve ruined so many things for you—I don’t want you to change anything until you’re certain about me. Not until I’ve cleared your hurdles and jumped your hoops and whatever else I need to do to prove I’m capable of making this work.” That was hard as hell to say. Because it was so difficult and it twisted my insides when I’d been in bed thinking about it half the night, I knew it was the right thing to do. I wanted Josie all to myself and the whole world to know that. That was what was best for me. But . . . it wasn’t what was best for her.
“You don’t want me changing anything in my life? Colt included?” There was nothing antagonizing in her voice, but I knew she was gauging me and my level of seriousness.
I felt another flash of fire thinking of Colt and her together. “Let me put it this way—if there was an exception to that, Colt would be it.” It wasn’t the response I wanted to go with, but at least it was an honest one.
“Okay, I’ll take that into consideration. Thank you.” Her hand squeezed mine again.
“So what’s the next hurdle? Since I’m on this whole proving myself path, I’m eager to get to the finish line.”
Josie was quiet for a moment before twisting until we were face to face. “Seeing if you’re capable of taking things slow . . . physically.”
I lifted my brows. “That will be a challenge. I’m afraid my reputation indicates I’m not, but I’m eager to prove myself capable of rising to every challenge.” With Josie’s mouth so close to mine and her chest pressed to mine that way, something was definitely rising. Shit. I didn’t need that with the next hurdle I was expected to jump. I closed my eyes and imagined Mrs. Westmore, the ancient elementary school librarian, naked on a cold day. There . . . problem solved. Mostly. “When do we start?”
Josie’s eyes dropped to my mouth, and she smiled. “What do you think part of the reason I’m here is?”
“Cunning little vixen.” Since I knew the test was already in progress, I had to revisit the whole naked-old-woman-in-the-cold image for a few more seconds to make sure I wasn’t going to blow it. A big part of me wanted to kiss her and touch her and make love to her the way I should have that one time . . . and I didn’t need that to be a part of me. Not when I had to show her I was capable of a relationship that didn’t center around sex. “Good night, Joze. Sleep good.” Kissing the tip of her nose, I closed my eyes and hoped I’d be able to sleep with Josie pressed into me like that. I knew that was a long shot, so I hoped I’d be able to pretend I was asleep.
“Good night, Garth.” Before twisting around, she planted a quick kiss into my cheek.
Life had changed just like that. People were right when they said it could change in the blink of an eye. Josie had been as far off as a person could get, and now she was falling asleep in my arms, promising to give me a chance to love her the way she deserved to be loved. It was all very . . . “I know I’m going to sound like some pathetic douche, but are you sure this isn’t a dream?” If it was, could I expect a dream Josie to answer honestly?
Bringing our entwined hands to her mouth, Josie brushed her lips over my knuckles. I felt that soft touch all the way down into my freezing toes. “This is real.”
Even if it wasn’t, that was okay. I just wouldn’t wake up. When her mouth moved away from my hand, I half sighed, half groaned. “Damn, because a dream would be good right now.”
“Why’s that?” she asked in the midst of a yawn.
“Because then I could do all the things I’m holding myself back from doing to you and not have to feel guilty or reserved about any of it,” I teased. I was only partly teasing.
“I’ll take real over a dream any day.”
I thought about that for one moment. “With you, Joze, they’re the same thing.”
JESSE MIGHT HAVE been the one who took Josie to Homecoming our freshman year, but I was the first one to ask her. Well, I was the first one who’d tried to ask her. She didn’t even see my method of asking before Jesse showed up after school with his stupid smile, holding a sign at her locker that said something lame like . . . You? Me? Homecoming? Please?
I’d been pissed about two things that day. First was that Jesse had swooped in out of nowhere and asked her. I didn’t have a clue he liked Josie that way. Jess and I had been inseparable for years, so that I hadn’t known he liked the same girl I did, the one who was just as inseparable with the two of us, blindsided me. Josie wasn’t Jesse’s. She was mine. I’d met her first; she’d sat by me on the bus; I’d punched Roy Watkins in the nose when he called her names; I’d chased off Ryan Spitz when he made moves on her in fifth grade. Josie was supposed to go to Homecoming with me, not Jesse. She was supposed to fall in love with me, not him.
I was also pissed that she would never see how I’d tried to ask her. I’d taken hours to make the necklace dangling on her bedpost, and I had to rush over to her place to sneak it back out since she got a date to Homecoming. And it wasn’t me. She’d never know I wanted to ask her either. I couldn’t tell her because even if she would have gone with me, when she agreed to go with Jesse, I knew—even as a fifteen-year-old—that he was the better pick by a landslide. If Jesse liked her and she liked him, her future was a lot brighter than it could have been with me. That day sucked.
Actually, there was a third thing that had pissed me the hell off that day. Jesse didn’t even go to the same school as us. He was home schooled for crying out loud, and he still had the balls to walk through the halls, stop at her locker, and ask her to our school’s dance. Ballsy. It was the first time I’d wanted to sock Jesse in the nose. Not because he’d done anything wrong, but because I had. By waiting too long and being too big of a piece of shit.
I didn’t deserve her, but I didn’t need the reminder of what she deserved every time my best friend recapped a date with me. Jesse and Josie took a few years before they made things “official,” but I don’t know what took them so long. That freshman homecoming dance made it obvious to me and everyone else that Josie was Jesse’s and vice versa.
Those were the memories haunting my dreams the past couple of weeks I’d spent with Josie. Those were the images that flashed through my mind while I held her every night. We took turns sneaking into each other’s bedrooms, and so far, her parents were none the wiser. I’d managed to be a good boy and do nothing but hold her. Okay, once I’d barely b
rushed her chest. But it was just barely and only once. Keeping my hands, dick, and everything in between to myself was like earning sainthood. At least in my book. I had yet to learn if it had earned it in Josie’s, but I hoped she’d give me some sort of progress report. Soon. I was keeping myself together with frequent cold showers and just as frequent self-servicing sessions, but a man could only take so many showers and so much jerking off before he lost his mind.
I was maybe one or two of either away from losing mine.
Last night’s dream was that first homecoming dance. Josie had been there with Jesse, and I was there with some girl whose name or face I couldn’t even remember. Probably because I’d barely looked at her the whole night. My gaze stayed on Josie. Her smile for Jesse, the pretty blue dress she wore for him too, and the way her arms wrapped around his neck and her hips swayed softly when they slow danced. Every time her gaze shifted my way and she smiled at me, it took everything inside of me to stay where I was and not pry her out of Jesse’s arms. Not taking what I wanted when I wanted it went against everything I’d known, but I knew, even back then, that Josie deserved more. So I’d stayed with my date and felt like I was losing a little bit of myself every time Josie danced with Jesse. Every song took her that much farther out of my reach.
The dance had been almost over, the music ending and couples trickling out of the gymnasium. My date was making out in the corner with some guy—not that I cared—and Jesse had just left Josie’s side to head to the bathroom, and I saw my opportunity. I knew it wouldn’t last, but I’d realized that, from then on, I’d only have Josie in stolen, fleeting moments.
Before I’d made up my mind, I was heading her way. She was leaning into the bleachers, waiting for Jesse. I realized that I’d give everything to have her one day waiting for me like she was him. I made a quick stop at the DJ’s, begged him to play one last special request, and once he’d reluctantly agreed, I went to Josie. I didn’t say a word; I don’t think I even smiled. All I did was grab her hands and pull her back onto the gym floor as Garth Brooks’ “The Dance” started to play.