He smiles a gentle smile for me, then he helps me over a big crack in the parking lot’s asphalt. As we approach the door, he keeps my hand in his.
He picks a booth in the back, and when a lustful-looking waitress sashays over five seconds later, he orders chicken pizza.
“Chicken pizza? Are you kidding me?”
“What can I say?” He smiles. “Chicken? Pizza? It works. You agree?”
“Hell yes, it’s my very favorite thing ever.”
He smiles again (clearly he is going for a record). “Ever?” He leans across the table. “Even better than my harness?” he asks in a low voice.
My cheeks and neck burn. “That was dirty. Dirty-dealing. Unfair. Scandalous.”
“Wait until you see what I have for you today,” he says.
I’m blushing so much I’m worried tears might spill over. “Not in public,” I hiss.
He grins wickedly.
“Your teeth look nice and white. How was the dentist?”
“I got a good report. A cleaning too.”
He sits back in his seat and I notice, now that he’s not smiling, how tired his face looks.
“How about your other situation? With the... you know... the you-know-whos?”
“The you-know-whos?” He smirks. “Sounds like some Dr. Seuss there.”
“I love Dr. Seuss. Look!” I lift my shirt sleeve. “It’s YOU.”
He frowns and leans across the table. “Is that some kind of code?”
I laugh. “No, this little guy is from Oh, the Places You’ll Go by Dr. Seuss. It’s one of my favorite books ever. YOU is the star.”
The tattoo is on the inside of my bicep.
He wiggles his brows and rests his hands atop the table. “So will you succeed?”
“Yes, I will indeed.” I laugh happily. “I can see I’ve misjudged you. Not only do you read, but you seem to read a variety of things.”
A troubled look passes over his face, but it’s gone quickly. “I’m a Seuss buff,” he says.
“Really?”
“Maybe.”
I give him a curious look, but he just lifts a brow, and I know he’s not going to tell me what he meant by that.
“Do you have any tats?” I try.
“Don’t you want to know.”
“I do.”
He leans his elbows on the table. “I do.”
“Are they on your booty?” I giggle. I don’t know why, but I’m feeling a little silly now that I’ve made my escape from campus, and at the moment I just want to make him laugh.
“No.” He laughs, a low, dry sound, but still a laugh, and I feel like a champion. “My ass is ink-free.”
“Mine too.”
“Yes—I’m aware of that.”
I bite my lip and look down at the table, hoping he won’t notice my face flush. I can’t believe the sex we had last night. I had no idea that it could be that way—and with an almost-stranger.
“Is the illustrious ‘You’ your only tat?” he asks.
“I’ve got one more.”
His brows come together. “Really? It must be well-hidden.”
I blush a little, thinking he’s seen almost all my hiding spots—even in between my ass cheeks. God.
“I guess so.” I lift my wavy hair up off my neck. “It’s right back here, can you see that?” I point to the spot. “Kind of behind my ear.”
He leans forward again, and I get a silly little thrill from being the one to dictate what he does, even for such a small moment. He reaches out and traces his finger over the soft skin just behind my ear, where curving text spreads over the area where my sisters’ cochlear implants sit: ‘HEAR NO EVIL.’
The server arrives bearing bread sticks and water, and Kellan sits back in his seat. I notice that his face looks very serious. Almost angry. As the blonde girl sets the breadsticks on our table, his eyes never leave my face.
“Pizza should be out soon. Can I get you anything else?” the server asks.
I look at Kellan. He inhales.
“Beverage?” he asks me. He means in addition to the water she just brought.
“I’d also like a medium lemonade,” I tell the server. Her eyes brush over Kellan. “You?”
His gaze is still on me. He wrenches it away and lifts it to her. “Sweet tea.”
The waitress saunters off, and I grin. “Sweet tea? You like sweet tea?”
The corner of his mouth twitches, but he doesn’t smile—or even smirk. “Y’all got that one right.”
I giggle. “You don’t say it right.”
“Say what right?”
“Y’all.”
“How do you say it?” He looks sullen, like he wants to be stormy but I keep interrupting the storm with sunshine.
“It’s supposed to be y’all—so like if you were going to say ‘awww, that puppy is so cute,’ you need that ‘awww’ sound in there. Kind of like...” I clear my throat and use a low voice. “Y’awwwwllll.” I smile. “What you say is more a ‘yal.’”
Now he smirks. “You mean a y’all?”
I shake my head. “There’s a subtle difference. Not so subtle even.” I tuck my hair behind my right ear, where the tattoo is.
“Yesterday,” he says slowly. “You mentioned hospitals. And your dad and sister. I know your dad passed away.” His lips rub together, like he’s shifting his jaw thoughtfully. “What about your sister?” His voice is low. His face is hard. He knows, somehow. Of course he does.
I take a fortifying breath.
“Don’t,” he says sharply. He leans across the table, looking panicked. “You don’t need to tell me. Forget I asked.”
I shake my head, picking up a breadstick and twirling the tip of it in marinara sauce. “No—it’s okay. It’s her birthday on the twelfth and I was going to tell you anyway. I’ll be going home tomorrow... to visit her grave,” I manage in a clear voice.
Despite that feat, I can’t keep my eyes from springing leaks.
“Damn.” I bring a napkin to my face to catch the stray tears, and then I hide behind it, because no amount of stern inner monologue will stop them.
In the silence, I notice the music—some Ke$ha song—and all the chatter of the place. It makes me irrationally angry, but I can tell the anger is really just a cover for the awful loss I feel—this week in particular.
A fresh slough of tears leaks out, and I swallow. I dab my eyes with the napkin and breathe deeply, and I feel something warm and hard settle against me.
Something heavy goes around my back, and before I have a second to get my bearings, Kellan’s pulls me up against his left side. I can feel his mouth against my hair as he says, “Fuck—I’m sorry.”
I shake my head, reeling a little at his sudden appearance on my side of the booth. At how good his arm feels wrapped around me.
I force myself to pull the napkin down, despite being embarrassed. “It’s not your fault.” I take a deep, long breath, and let myself get lost in the blue of his eyes as I tell him the fact that is, for some reason, so painful.
“She would be sixteen this week.” More tears make his solemn face shimmer. I dash them off. “I’m sorry.” I dab the napkin to my eyes again and take a few deep breaths. “I didn’t really plan to talk about it. Definitely not here.”
I laugh a little, even though it isn’t funny. Then our waitress is setting our drinks on the table. I look away, toward the wall, because I know how blotchy my face gets when I cry—and I’m embarrassed that I lost it out in public.
Kellan’s hand is stroking my shoulder, and that makes me feel more embarrassed. That I took our business-sex relationship and made it awkward and heavy with this talk of Olive.
Even saying her name silently makes me need to take a few more deep breaths. Kellan just keeps rubbing my arm. Like he’s my boyfriend.
Not your boyfriend, idiot!
I straighten up a little, offering him a chance to move his arm out from around me—in case he feels as awkward as I do. But he doesn’t. When
I get the nerve to look at him again, his eyes are gentle on my face.
“She was deaf just like my other sister. I guess I told you. That’s the whole tattoo thing.”
His hand, over my shoulder, clasps lightly. “So kind of like... be positive or something?”
“Or something. You know, like don’t let negativity in, I guess. Olive was the most innocent person I’ve ever known, and not just because she died when she was five. She was just... so sweet and funny.” I shake my head and draw another deep breath. “We should talk about something else.”
“Only if you want to.”
“Thank you.” I shrink my shoulders in a little.
He pulls me closer to him, and I can feel his cheek against my hair. I feel his mouth move. “You embarrassed, Whatley?”
“Are you laughing at me?”
“Not laughing,” he says. “Smiling. Wes Anderson-style.”
I laugh. “You think my embarrassment is a racist, rich person movie about daddy issues?”
His eyes widen comically. “Touché, Cleo. Not an Anderson fan? That surprises me.”
I roll my eyes. “I am a Wes Anderson fan. I’m offended that you felt so sure about it, but I am. I think his critics can go fuck a porcupine.”
Kellan smirk-smiles.
“That’s your thing,” I say. “The patented Kellan Walsh smirk-smile. What’s up with that?”
He traces a finger over my cheek. “What’s up with this?”
“With what?” I feign surprise.
“You’ve got these little red splotches—”
“Shut the fuck up.” I shove at him, but his arm tightens around me.
“It’s cute.”
“You think I’m cute?”
He rubs his face against my hair, but doesn’t answer. And I wonder why. Does he think I’m ugly? I’m not ugly. No one thinks so. I’m not a model, but I’m cute at least.
I lean my head down, forcing his cheek off my hair, and turn to him so I can stick my tongue out. “I am cute. Everybody thinks so.”
He pulls me back against the booth and presses his lips against my hair once more. “You are cute,” he murmurs. “And your hair smells like flowers.”
“I’m a fan of this gardenia-scented hair stuff.”
And that’s how dinner goes. Kellan leaves his arm around me until our pizza arrives. We both chow down on chicken pizza while we talk about a bunch of random things, like what was Sting thinking with the rhyming on the song “Walking on the Moon,” and why killers whales have their name, and whether the animals at Sea World should be taking antidepressants anyway. And when I think we’re leaving, Kellan orders cinnamon rolls.
While we wait for them, he slides his hand into my jeans, spreads a menu out in front of me, and rubs me off in the back booth of Mama McCalister’s.
AFTER I PROVE MY INABILITY to walk straight on my way out of the restaurant, Kellan scoops me up and carries me to his Escalade. He buckles me in, surprises me by leaning down to plant a quick kiss my nose, and shuts my door without a word. I’m still feeling all tingly and warm when he gets behind the wheel and gives me a long look.
“What?” I smile self-consciously—somewhat deliriously. This pizza outing has been kind of awesome.
He leans across the console between our seats, pressing his ribs against my arm rest to get close to me, and kisses my mouth so fast and hard it almost hurts. His hand wraps around my head, holding me upright as he devours my mouth.
His lips are soft but forceful, his tongue gliding against mine like hot velvet. I feel the firm warmth of his face on mine as we taste each other. I feel the puff of his breath on my cheeks and smell his cinnamon breath. Then he’s got his arms around me; he’s clutching my shoulders. He kisses my throat like a man starving. His hand runs down my ribs and lifts my shirt.
We’re both panting when he pulls his mouth off mine.
All that warmth, and all that weight—gone in one heartbeat. And, shit, I’m lonely for him. I want more.
“Fuck,” he pants. He throws the car in reverse, pulls out of the lot, and doesn’t look at me again until we’re out of the city, getting closer to his house.
“That was nice,” he says. “The dinner.” His voice is low, a little gruff.
I laugh, because honestly, I can’t seem to stop the random laughing when I’m near him. “Yeah, it was.”
“You like pecans?” he asks. The question is accompanied by an intense look that makes me laugh again.
“I love them.” I tell him about how I used to pick them up with this handy dandy pecan-picker-upper and sell them for three dollars a gallon when I was younger and we needed money. He has a hearty laugh at the picture I paint, and then he quickly sobers. “I’m sorry that you... had to do that.”
“Pssh. Don’t be sorry. You can bet your ass I value them a lot more now.”
“I want to make you something when we get home.”
Mr. Perfect surprises me again when we get to his kitchen—by tugging my pants down, lifting me onto the granite island, and eating my pussy while I lie on my back, my fingers twined tightly in his.
After that, he binds my wrists with the ties of a black Dr. Who apron, lays me on my belly on the living room rug, and slides inside me from behind. He fucks me long and slow, wrapping a strand of my wavy hair around one of his hands and tugging gently as he pushes in and out.
Unlike other times, where there’s usually a little dirty talk, he says almost nothing, except, once: “You’re beautiful...”
When we’re finished, he unties me and goes into the kitchen for a warm, damp towel. He helps me back into my pants—I remember he wanted to do this in the library that time—and then takes my hand and leads me to the bar stool where I had my breakfast.
He pours me a glass of water, plucks an uncut lemon from the refrigerator, and slices it into half-moon-shaped pieces, one of which he perches on the rim of my glass.
“Drink this,” he tells me. “I’m going to make you cinnamon pecans.”
Prickling warmth spreads through my chest, like I’ve swallowed sunshine, and I try to shake it off because it makes me feel uneasy. Why is Kellan Drake (Walsh), moody asshole and criminal SGA president, being nicer to me than most of my past boyfriends?
Is he starting to like me?
Should I even allow myself to entertain the thought?
I manage to loosen up enough to tease him about being a Southern boy at heart—what with the cooking and the hospitality, the button-up Polos and the sweet tea addiction—and he gives me a small smile that almost looks a self-conscious.
He leans against the granite countertop while I sit on my bar stool, and somehow he starts asking me questions about myself. At first, I don’t realize there’s intent behind it. It’s easy to tell him about my pseudo-photograhic memory, about how well I do on standardized tests, about how I was good at math when I was little but fell miserably behind the year that Olive died; I never did recover. I blab about Mom and Grans’ reaction when I got accepted to this little private college on a full academic scholarship.
Kellan is a perfect listener, crunching on raw pecans and sipping on his iced tea with one elbow propped on the counter. He looks relaxed and interested, as if my history is somehow meaningful to him.
He draws stories out of me like silk from a spider, soliciting details about my high-school parties, prom, graduation (I was salutatorian), the mundane tasks I had to do while getting ‘rushed’ (AKA hazed) for Tri Gam...
I tell him crazy things I never tell anyone, like how I’ve always wanted to ride a horse at the beach because of that movie Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken, and how, if my sister gets a partial scholarship to CC, I’ll probably stick around in town for a few more years at least.
We discuss the merits of beets and the horror of goat milk in coffee, the necessity of quality in movies (we agree on a lot of the classics, like “The Godfather” and “Pulp Fiction”). I confess my desire for a slap-band watch and tell him about meeting Mark-Paul
Gosselaar at the mall in Atlanta when I was shopping for my prom dress.
I’m nearly sick from what seems like dozens of baked cinnamon pecans when I start to ramble on about how many kids I want.
“Two, at least, so they can be best friends. Four if they turn out to be easier than I think, but definitely two.”
I can tell I’m losing him as I ramble about the virtues of young children, but when I ask how many siblings he has, I realize something else is going on.
He bites his cheek between his teeth, inhales so hard his nostrils flare, and says, “My parents had three kids.”
And that is all.
It’s plain to see this is a sore subject for my mysterious Mr. Drake.
I feel a pang of sympathy as he turns around and starts scrubbing the pan he used to bake the pecans.
I try to remember if I read anything about his parents or siblings in the brief news article about Kellan being suspended from the Trojans, but I don’t think anything was mentioned.
I’m irrationally irritated at myself for saying something that has led to a rough spot in our smooth and easy night—a night in which I almost felt like we were on a fun first date.
A few minutes later, he turns back around, wipes his damp hands on his pants, and with an unreadable look aimed not quite at my face, says, “I’m going for a run.”
I bite my lip, because it’s what I do when I’m not sure what to do.
“You want to go?” he asks.
My eyebrows jut up. I can’t help it. Sometimes they get away from me.
Kellan notices and smirk-smiles. “Not a runner?”
“No—I am a runner. Sometimes runner. I’m just... surprised you asked.” And embarrassed for admitting my surprise. Way to be obvious, Cleo. “Do you run downstairs?”
He shakes his head.
“Outside?” I smile, because he looks a little spaced out. (Too many pecans?)
He nods a beat too late, then gestures toward the front hall. “Down the road.”
Before I can give him an answer on whether I’d like to go, he looks in my direction—but not at me—nods a little, and says, looking at his cell phone, “I’ll be down in ten or fifteen. Gotta go get dressed.”