stand here, waiting on her. I know I need to leave and I know I don’t want to be involved with anyone even remotely interested in Grayson, but I can’t do it. I can’t leave because I want to see her again a whole lot more than I want to leave.
A noise comes from the side of her house, so I take a few steps to get a look. She’s climbing headfirst out of her window.
Just seeing her again, even from a distance, reminds me of why I crave to be around her so much. It’s only been a few days, but since the moment I met her, no matter where I am, I’m constantly wondering about her. My attention is constantly homed in on her like I’m a compass and she’s my North.
Once she’s outside, she pauses and looks up toward the sky, inhaling a deep breath. I take a few hesitant steps toward her. “Do you always climb out your window or were you just hoping to avoid me?”
She spins around, wide-eyed. I try not to let my eyes dip below her neck, but the things I’ve seen her run in are hard not to stare at.
Keep looking at her face, Holder. You can do it.
She glances at me, but doesn’t make eye contact. Her eyes lock on my stomach and I’m curious if it’s because she likes that I’m not wearing a shirt or if it’s because she can’t stand me to the point that it’s hard for her to look me in the eyes. “If I was trying to avoid you I would have just stayed in bed.” She walks past me and lowers herself onto the sidewalk.
I hate that her voice does things to my body that no other voice could ever do. But I also love it and want her to keep talking, even if she is rude most of the time.
I watch as she pushes her legs out in front of her and begins to stretch. She seems fairly calm today, despite the fact that I showed up. I sort of expected her to tell me to go the hell away after how we left things in the hallway yesterday.
“I wasn’t sure if you’d show up,” I say, taking a seat on the sidewalk in front of her.
She lifts her head and looks me in the eyes this time. “Why wouldn’t I? I’m not the one with the issues. Besides, neither of us owns the road.”
Issues?
She thinks I have issues?
I’m not the one feeding into the rumors like she is. I’m also not the one leaving notes on her locker, nor am I one of the many people at school who have treated her like shit. If anything, I’ve been one of the few people to be nice to her.
But she thinks I’m the one with the issues?
“Give me your hands,” I say, mirroring her position. “I need to stretch, too.”
She shoots me a curious look, but takes my hands and leans back, pulling me forward.
“For the record,” I say, “I wasn’t the one with the issue yesterday.”
I can feel her lean back farther, tightening her grip on my wrists. “Are you insinuating I’m the one with the issue?” she asks.
“Aren’t you?”
“Clarify,” she says. “I don’t like vague.”
She doesn’t like vague.
Funny, because I don’t either. I like truth and that’s exactly the point I’m trying to make to this girl. “Sky, if there’s one thing you should know about me, it’s that I don’t do vague. I told you I’ll only ever be honest with you, and to me, vague is the same thing as dishonesty.” I switch positions and pull her forward as I lean back.
“That’s a pretty vague answer you just gave me,” she says.
“I was never asked a question. I’ve told you before, if you want to know something, just ask. You seem to think you know me, yet you’ve never actually asked me anything yourself.”
“I don’t know you,” she snaps.
I laugh, because she’s absolutely right. She doesn’t know me at all, but it certainly seems like she’s a quick one to judge.
I don’t know why I’m even bothering with her. She obviously doesn’t want me to bother with her. I should just leave and let her think whatever the hell she wants to think.
I drop her hands and stand up. “Forget it,” I mutter, turning to walk away. As much as I like being around her, there’s only so much I’m willing to put up with.
“Wait,” she says, following after me.
I honestly expected her to just let me walk away. Hearing the word “wait” come out of her mouth and knowing she’s following behind me does this thing to my chest that makes it feel alive again and it pisses me off because I don’t want her to have that effect on me. “What did I say?” she asks, catching up to me. “I don’t know you. Why are you getting all pissy with me again?”
Pissy?
Her word-choice makes me want to smile, but the fact that she doesn’t recognize that she’s the one who has been pissy for two days irritates the hell out of me. I stop walking and turn to face her, taking two steps toward her.
“I guess after spending time with you over the last few days, I thought I’d get a slightly different reaction from you at school. I’ve given you plenty of opportunity to ask me whatever you want to ask me, but for some reason you want to believe everything you hear, despite the fact that you never heard any of it from me. And coming from someone with her own share of rumors, I figured you’d be a little less judgmental.”
Her eyes narrow and she puts her hands on her hips. “So that’s what this is about? You thought the slutty new girl would be sympathetic to the gay-bashing asshole?”
I groan out of frustration. I hate hearing her refer to herself like that. “Don’t do that, Sky.”
She takes a step toward me. “Don’t do what? Call you a gay-bashing asshole? Okay. Let’s practice this honesty policy of yours. Did you or did you not beat up that student last year so badly that you spent a year in juvenile detention?”
I want to grab her by the shoulders and shake her out of sheer frustration. Why can’t she see that she’s behaving just like everyone else? I know she’s not like them, so I don’t understand her attitude at all. Anyone that can brush off rumors about themselves isn’t the type of person who would spread them. So why the hell is she believing them?
I look her hard in the eyes. “When I said don’t do that, I wasn’t referring to you insulting me. I was referring to you insulting yourself.” I close the gap between us and when I do, she takes in a small rush of air and closes her mouth. I lower my voice and confirm the only part of the rumors that are true. “And yes. I beat his ass to within an inch of his life, and if the bastard was standing in front of me right now, I’d do it again.”
We stare at each other in silence. She’s looking at me with a mixture of anger and fear, and I hate that she’s feeling either of those things. She takes a slow step back, putting space between us, but doesn’t break her firm stare.
“I don’t want to run with you today,” she says flatly.
“I don’t really feel like running with you, either.”
I turn around at the same time she does and immediately feel nothing but regret. I didn’t accomplish anything by coming here today. If anything, I just made things worse with her. I shouldn’t have to come out and tell her that the majority of what she thinks she knows about me is false. I shouldn’t have to explain myself to anyone and neither should she.
But I regret that I didn’t explain myself, because I need her to know that I’m not that guy.
I just don’t know why I need her to know that.
Chapter Twelve-and-a-half
* * *
Les,
Remember when we were fourteen and I had a crush on Ava? You hardly knew her but I forced you to become friends with her so she could come to the house and spend the night with you. She was the first girl I ever kissed and we lasted all of two weeks before she started to get on my everlasting nerve. Unfortunately, by the time we broke up, you really did like her. Then I was forced to see her on a recurring basis for an entire year after that until she moved.
I know you were sad when she moved, but I was so relieved. It was way too awkward having to interact with her on a regular basis after that.
I also know it was cruel of me t
o force you to be her friend just so she would come stay the night at our house. I thought I learned my lesson and I never asked you to do it again.
Well, I didn’t learn my lesson. Today I’ve been wishing you were still here, purely for selfish reasons, because I would give anything for you to be friends with Sky. After running with her this morning, I can see clearly that she’s irritating and irrational and stubborn and gorgeous as hell and I want so bad to stop thinking about her, but I can’t. If you were here, I could ask you to be her friend so she would have a reason to come over to our house, even though we’re eighteen now and not fourteen. But I want an excuse to talk to her again. I want to give her one more chance to hear me out, but I don’t know how to go about doing that. I don’t want to do it at school and we aren’t running together anymore. Short of walking up to her house and knocking on her front door, I can’t figure out a way to get her to talk to me.
Wait. That’s actually not a bad idea.
Thanks, Les.
H
Chapter Thirteen
* * *
“We going out tonight?” I ask Daniel as we make our way toward the parking lot. We usually do something on Friday nights, but tonight I’m actually hoping he says no. I decided a few days ago that I wanted to go to Sky’s house tonight to try to talk to her. I don’t know if it’s a good idea, but I know if I don’t at least try, I’ll drive myself crazy wondering if it would have made a difference.
“Can’t,” Daniel says. “I’m taking Val out. We could do something tomorrow night, though. I’ll call you.”
I nod and he turns to head toward his car. I open my door, but pause when I see Sky’s car out of the corner of my eye. She’s leaning against it, talking to Grayson.
From the looks of it, they might be doing more than just talking.
I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that seeing his hands on her makes every muscle in my body clench tight. I prop my arm on my door and watch them for some stupid, self-torturous reason.
From here, she doesn’t look happy. She pushes him away from her and takes a step away from him. She’s watching him while he talks, then he moves in and wraps his arms around her again. I take a step away from my car, prepared to walk across the parking lot and pull his ignorant ass off her. She clearly doesn’t want him touching her, but I stop and take a step back when it looks like she relents and gives in to him. As soon as he leans in to kiss her, I have to look away.
It’s physically impossible to watch. I don’t understand her. I don’t understand what she sees in him and I really don’t understand why she can’t seem to stand me, when he’s the actual asshole.
Maybe I’m wrong about her. Maybe she really is just like everyone else. Maybe I’ve just been hoping she was different for my own sake.
Or maybe not.
I’m looking at them again, seeing her reaction to what he’s doing to her. His arms are still around her and it looks like he’s still kissing her neck or shoulder or wherever the fuck his mouth is. But I could have sworn she just rolled her eyes.
Now she’s looking at her watch, not responding to him at all. She drops her arm and rests her hands at her sides and she’s just standing there, looking more inconvenienced by him than interested.
I continue to watch them and continue to grow more and more confused by her lack of interest. Her expression is almost lifeless, until the second she locks eyes with mine. Her whole body tenses and her eyes grow wide. She immediately looks away and pushes Grayson off her. She turns her back to him and gets into her car. I’m too far away to hear what she says to him, but the fact that she’s driving away and he’s flipping her off with both hands tells me that whatever she said to him wasn’t at all what he wanted to hear.
I smile.
I’m still confused, I’m still angry, I’m still intrigued and I’m still planning on showing up on her doorstep tonight. Especially after witnessing whatever that was I just witnessed.
• • •
I ring the doorbell and wait.
I’m a ball of nerves right now, but only because I don’t have a clue how she’ll react to seeing me on her doorstep. I also don’t know what the hell I’m going to say to her once she does finally open the door.
I ring the doorbell again after waiting several moments. I’m sure I’m the last person she’ll expect to see here on a Friday night.
Shit. It’s Friday night. She’s probably not even home.
I hear footsteps making their way toward the door and it opens. She’s standing in front of me a frazzled mess. Her hair is loosely pulled back, but strands have fallen all around her face. She’s got white powder dusted across her nose and cheek and even has some in the loose strands of hair framing her face. She looks adorable. And shocked.
Several seconds pass with us just standing there and I realize that I should probably be the one speaking right now, since I’m the one who showed up at her house.
God, why does every single thing about her throw me off like this?
“Hey,” she says.
Her calm voice is like a breath of fresh air. She doesn’t seem pissed that I’m here unannounced. “Hi,” I say, returning her greeting.
Another round of awkward silence ensues and she tilts her head to the side. “Um . . .” She squints and crinkles up her nose and I can tell she’s not sure what to do or say next.
“You busy?” I ask her, knowing just by the disarray of her appearance that whatever she was doing, she was working hard at it.
She turns and glances back into her house, then faces me again. “Sort of.”
Sort of.
I take her reply for what it is. She’s obviously trying not to be rude, but I can see that this stupid idea of mine to just show up announced was just that . . . a stupid idea.
I glance at my car behind me, gauging how far the walk of shame I’m about to take will be. “Yeah,” I say, pointing over my shoulder at my car. “I guess I’ll . . . go.” I take a step down and begin to turn toward my car, wishing I was anywhere but in this awkward predicament.
“No,” she says quickly. She takes a step back and opens the door for me. “You can come in, but you might be put to work.”
Instant relief overcomes me and I nod, walking inside. A quick glance around the living room makes it appear that she might be the only one home right now. I hope she is, because it would make things a lot easier if it were just the two of us.
She walks around me and into the kitchen. She picks up a measuring cup and resumes whatever it was she was doing before I showed up on her doorstep. Her back is to me and she’s quiet. I slowly make my way into the kitchen and eye the baked goods lining her bar.
“You prepping for a bake sale?” I ask, making my way around the bar so that her back isn’t completely to me.
“My mom’s out of town for the weekend,” she says, glancing up at me. “She’s antisugar, so I kind of go crazy when she’s not here.”
Her mom’s out of town, so she bakes? I really can’t figure this girl out. I reach over to the plate of cookies between us on the bar and pick one up, looking to her for permission to try it.
“Help yourself,” she says. “But be warned, just because I like to bake doesn’t mean I’m good at it.” She refocuses her attention to the bowl in front of her.
“So you get the house to yourself and you spend Friday night baking? Typical teenager,” I tease. I take a bite of the cookie and ohmygod. She can bake. I like her even more.
“What can I say?” she says with a shrug. “I’m a rebel.”
I smile, then eye the plate of cookies again. There have to be a dozen there and I plan on eating at least half of them before she kicks me out of her house. I’m gonna need milk.
She’s still intensely focused on the bowl in front of her, so I take it upon myself to find my own glass. “Got any milk?” I ask, making my way to the refrigerator. She doesn’t answer my question, so I open the refrigerator and remove the milk, then pour myself a glass. I finish the
rest of the cookie, then take a drink. I wince, because whatever the hell this is, it’s not real milk. Or it’s rotten. I glance at the label before shutting the refrigerator and see that it’s almond milk. I don’t want to be rude, so I take another drink and turn around.
She’s looking straight at me with an arched eyebrow. I smile. “You shouldn’t offer cookies without milk, you know. You’re a pretty pathetic hostess.” I swipe another cookie and take a seat at the bar.
She grins right before she turns around to face the counter again. “I try to save my hospitality for invited guests.”
I laugh. “Ouch.”
The sarcasm in her voice is nice, though, because it helps ease my tension. She powers on the mixer and keeps her focus on the bowl in front of her. I love that she hasn’t asked why I’m here. I know she’s wondering what I’m doing here, but I also know from previous interaction with her that she’s incredibly stubborn and more than likely won’t ask what I’m doing here, no matter how much she wants to know.
She turns off the mixer and pulls the mixing blades loose, then brings one to her mouth and licks it.
Holy shit.
I gulp.