That was it. Forget this 'brave Reed' act. I couldn't take it anymore.
"How much longer are we going to be out here?" I asked.
"What?" Upton replied.
"I don't think I can do this!" I shouted, my knuckles smarting from the force of my grip.
Upton's face paled. He seemed to really see me for the first time on our sail. He dropped down onto the gleaming wood deck and teetered his way over to me, hanging on to whatever ropes were in reach.
"Are you all right?" he asked, crouching in front of me.
"If this is your idea of lying low..."
Upton covered his eyes with his hand, then slid it down to cover his mouth. He looked stricken. "I'm so sorry," he said. "I should have realized. To me this is relaxing, but obviously to you . . . I'm such an idiot."
I didn't say anything to refute this conclusion.
"I was going to anchor the boat out here for a little while," he said. "But if you want to go back--"
"Anchor?" I said, my voice a squeak. "As in stop moving?"
"That's generally what an anchor does, yeah," he joked.
"I think I could maybe handle that."
"All right, then. We'll try it," he said. "But if you want to go back, just say the word."
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"Thanks," I said, already feeling more secure. "I will."
Fifteen minutes later, the boat was at rest. Aside from the gentle lolling as it dipped up and down with the waves, there was no movement. Upton helped me up from my perch at the center of the boat and gripped me tightly as I walked on quaking legs to the stern. The area was lined with benches covered with colorful striped cushions. There was a picnic basket, filled with gourmet breakfast foods no doubt, in the center of the wood-paneled floor. I had yet to tell Upton about my early breakfast with Sawyer, figuring that if Sawyer had such negative feelings about Upton, then Upton might feel the same way about Sawyer.
"Is this okay?" Upton asked as I sank onto the soft bench.
"This'll work," I replied, my voice steady.
Upton sat down next to me and put his arm around my shoulders. I curled against him, my bulky life vest shifting awkwardly toward my opposite shoulder. His chest rose and fell steadily beneath my cheek, and I could just make out the beating of his heart. He ran his fingers back and forth over my upper arm and I sighed.
"Yeah. This will definitely work."
Upton shifted and I tilted my head back so I could see him. He moved his fingers to my face and looked into my eyes intently, like he was trying to make out each and every fleck of color there. I smiled slightly and he leaned in to kiss me. The waves lapped at the underside of the boat. Off in the distance, a motor revved, and seagulls cawed overhead. I was no longer scared. We were alone out here, yes, but it didn't matter. Because Upton was with me.
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The kiss grew deeper and I gripped Upton's shirt in my hand, pulling him closer to me. The stupid life vest was like a wall between our chests, and when I felt him fumbling for the buckles, I didn't stop him. Forget safety. All I wanted was to feel Upton's body as close to mine as it could get.
The buckles loosened. I flung one arm out of the vest, then sat up, pushing him back momentarily, to free myself from the other. The second the vest hit the floor, Upton nudged me back onto the cushions. Back, back, back until I was lying flat beneath him. He pulled away from our kiss for a moment to look me in the eye again. Make sure I wasn't ready to stop. I so wasn't. He smiled and kissed me again, resting his full weight over my body.
I wrapped my arms around him, pushed my hand up under the back of his shirt so I could feel his skin, which was insanely warm. Upton trailed kisses across my cheek and down my neck. His lips tickled my skin and I turned my head to the side so he could keep going. He brushed my hair away from my shoulder and traced a little circle on my skin with the tip of his tongue. It sent shivers right through me and I laughed.
Upton lifted his head and looked at me quizzically. "Miss Brennan, this is not a laughing matter," he said with mock seriousness.
"Sorry," I said, sliding away from him and sitting up a bit. I crooked one leg over the side of the bench and bent the other on the cushion. "I'll try to be more discreet."
"Good. Because laughter can really mess with a guy's confidence, you know?" he said, still joking.
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He picked up my ankle and rested my leg over his lap. Then he started running his fingertips up and down my shin. I bit my lip.
"No laughing," he admonished.
I pressed my lips together. His fingers moved higher, tickling my knee. This was torture.
"No laughing," he warned again.
He moved his fingers higher, caressing my bare thigh. Every inch of my skin grew hot. He looked at me. I wasn't about to laugh. His fingers climbed higher. And higher. I felt them graze the hem of my shorts, but I didn't take my eyes off his. He shifted his position and slipped his hand under the fabric. Higher. Higher. Laughter was no longer an issue.
I wanted to do this. Wanted to let him touch me. But at the last second, something snapped.
"Upton."
He drew his hand away instantly. "I'm starting to sense a pattern here." He wasn't angry. Just disappointed.
"I'm sorry, I just. .."
Ever since my conversation with Sawyer that morning, I couldn't stop thinking about Jen Hathaway. When, exactly, had she been with Upton? How did she fit into the ever-expanding tangled mess of his love life? And if I looked like her, if I reminded Sawyer so much of her, did Upton see the resemblance as well?
I didn't really want to ask him any of these things. Wasn't sure if I wanted to know the answers. But they just joined the growing list of unknown facts about Upton's past. His very, very colorful past.
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Upton studied my face. I didn't know what to say, so I just looked back at him.
"Can I ask you something?" he said finally.
"Okay."
"Would this be ... I mean, it's not your... Would this be your first time?" he asked.
"No," I told him. My face burned and I looked down at my lap. I tugged down on the hems of my shorts. "But it would be my second."
"Oh." He sat back against the cushions. My leg was still across his lap. I was glad he didn't feel the need to move it.
"And it's not that I don't want to, because I do," I said. "It just feels like a big decision, and there's a lot involved. I mean, you've been with so many girls and I--"
"Is that what this is about?" Upton said. "You're still jealous."
"No! Not jealous," I said, sitting forward. "I swear it's not that. I'm just ... curious. About what you've done. And maybe a little worried. I mean, you have a lot of experience and I have no idea what I'm doing."
Upton let out a short laugh. A knowing laugh. "We've all been there."
Not exactly the response I was expecting. Or hoping for. I wanted him to say that it didn't matter. That he knew it would be great with me. That every other girl he'd ever been with actually sucked at it, and he was sure I would be amazing. Is it wrong for a girl to want to hear a little white lie at a moment like this?
"What do you mean?" I asked.
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"Let me tell you a little story," Upton said, turning sideways on the bench to better face me. Intrigued, I curled my legs up story style. "About my first time."
Interesting. I wasn't sure if I wanted to hear this. But then, he had offered so little detail of his romantic past, and all I'd done was imply that I wanted to know. If I stopped him, I'd look even more immature and squeamish than I already did. So I bit my tongue and said nothing. Bring on the awkwardness!
"It was with an older woman," he said, an amused smile playing on his lips.
"Older like older?" I asked. Already I didn't like this.
"Yeah. As in I was a teenager and she was an adult."
Ew. "Okay."
"Talk about being worried about being good," Upton said, shaking his head. "I was terrified. It took me ages
just to get up the guts to come out of the bathroom."
I got a mental image of Upton, scrawny and half naked, cowering in a bathroom somewhere while this voluptuous older woman in red lingerie smoked a cigarette in bed, waiting for him. It all seemed so predatory and weird.
"But I finally did and there she was, totally naked, except for this big necklace made out of these sharp, gold leaves, which, for some reason, she neglected to take off," he said with a laugh. "Now I'm both too scared and too polite to say anything, so I just go with it. And the whole time, I'm trying to concentrate and not do anything stupid and make sure I'm respectful, and the whole time, this sod-
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ding heavy necklace keeps whacking me in the face. It was a nightmare."
He was laughing full out now, so I forced myself to smile.
You wanted to know this stuff, Reed. You wanted to know where he s been.
"But of course by the time it was all over I didn't mind it anymore. I thought I was so cool and mature when it was done, you know? I was such a little twit." Upton said, shaking his head. "So I go striding back into the bathroom like I'm some kind of experienced playboy now, and I take one look in the mirror and I have dozens of these tiny little cuts all over my face. I had to tell my parents I was attacked by a cat."
"Did they believe you?" I asked, incredulous.
"Who knows? If they didn't, they never told me." Upton settled back in his seat and rested his arm on the back of the cushions. He tickled my shoulder with his fingertips. "So what about you? "
"Me?" I asked, trying to eradicate all the disturbing visuals from my mind.
"What was your first time like? " he asked.
I thought of Thomas and my heart flipped over and died, just like it did every time I got a vivid picture of his face. Those teasing blue eyes. The tiny scar on his jaw. His private just-for-me smile.
"It was nothing as interesting as the story you just told," I said, looking down at my hands.
"Come on. I told you mine, now you tell me yours," Upton chided.
I took a deep breath. "It was sweet. It was perfect, really." I smiled
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slightly, remembering how cautious Thomas had been with me. How slow and almost reverent. My heart suddenly ached at the thought of him. "It wasn't something I was expecting to do that night, but for once I let go and just did what I wanted to do in the moment. And then a couple weeks later... he died."
Upton's eyes clouded over. "Oh, God, Reed, I'm sorry. I'm such an idiot. I'd forgotten."
He looped his arm around my shoulder and pulled me to him, kissing my forehead. "We don't have to talk about this."
"Okay."
He held me there for a long while. I breathed in and out, in and out, until the images went away. Until the aching subsided. I didn't want to be this person. This dark and gloomy person who ruined a perfectly gorgeous day out on the Caribbean Sea talking about her doomed first love with the guy she was currently dating. I wanted to move on. I wanted to be free of the whole thing already. I just wanted to be able to let myself go with Upton. Be completely and truly with him and no one else. Why couldn't I just do that?
"Forget this crap," Upton said suddenly, leaning back to look into my face. "Who wants to talk about awkward, meaningless, stupid first times? All that really matters is our first time. Which, by the way, does not have to happen anytime soon. I'm just letting you know that that is the only time I care about."
I laughed at his rambling as a stiff wind blew my hair back from my face. I rested my palm on his chest and toyed with the button near his collar. He was right. The ishy encounter with this older woman...
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whatever I had with Thomas ... it didn't matter. Those moments had nothing to do with us. And neither did any of the other girls Upton had been with. They couldn't touch us.
I took a deep breath and decided to live in the moment. To not think about the past. To concentrate on how I felt about Upton right now. And how I felt, lying there in his arms, was perfectly happy. I knew that he cared about me. He had done so much for me--telling off Poppy, putting together that insane Christmas gift, spending all this time with me over the last week when he could have been hanging out with his friends, not to mention saving my life that day Misty had been spooked. He wanted to be with me. His actions showed that. And I wanted to be with him. More than anything I just wanted to go on feeling this safe, this loved, this blissful.
I felt words bubble up inside of me. I thought about holding them back. But I was letting go.
"What about tomorrow night?" I asked, my voice thick. I looked up at him and wondered if he could feel my heart pounding through both our shirts.
"Tomorrow night?" He was, unsurprisingly, shocked.
"After Kiran's party," I said, sounding completely certain even to my own doubting ears.
"Areyou sure?" he asked.
"I figure if you're goingto be my long-distance boyfriend, we should probably seal the deal before we go home," I said faux-casually.
Upton's grin lit his entire face. The entire boat. The entire ocean. "I'm going to be your boyfriend, then?"
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"If the offer is still on the table," I replied with a smile.
"Oh, it's still on. It's definitely still on," he said. He leaned in and gave me a brief, joyous kiss. "But if we're goingto do this, we're going to do it proper-like."
"What do you mean?" I asked, giggling.
"Don't worry about it. I'll take care of everything," he said, leaning back again.
I cuddled into him, resting my cheek against his chest. He ran his hand over my hair and I sighed, feeling content in my decision. Feeling secure. And more than a little bit excited.
Upton kissed the top of my head and I could hear the smile in his voice as he said, "I'm going to make sure that tomorrow is a night neither one of us ever forgets."
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DISINVITATION
"What' re you going to wear to the party tomorrow? " Kiran asked, taking a sip of her mango guava smoothie.
The two of us were sitting side by side on the stone patio at the Ryans' palatial estate along with Noelle and Taylor, our legs dangling in the crystal-clear infinity pool. Dash, Gage, Graham, and "West were all messing around in the water, splashing us occasionally, while Sawyer sat under a teal umbrella, his nose buried in Jean-Paul Sartre's No Exit. Amberly and Tiffany were inside, having gone in search of more drinks a few minutes earlier. Paige, Poppy, and Sienna reposed on lounge chairs behind us, pretending to read magazines, even though I could feel them glaring at me over the tops of the pages. They'd invited us over after Upton and I had gotten back from our boat trip, pretending it was a sort of peace offering. But if they were going to launch some kind of attack, I wished they would just get it over with already. Constantly paranoid was not a state I liked to be in.
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"I haven't really thought about it," I lied, lifting a shoulder.
My New Year's Eve wardrobe had been one of the many things I'd been obsessing about ever since I'd decided that I was going to have my first time with Upton. I wanted to look sexy, but not trashy. Sophis -ticated, but not trying too hard. Part of me wanted to go shopping for something brand-new, but unlike my friends, I was completely broke. I'd probably just fall back on the dress Kiran had bought me that I hadn't worn yet--a red minidress with spaghetti straps and a straight neckline. It seemed like a solid choice.
"Bigmistake," Kiran said, lifting a hand near her shoulder. "Don't you know that whatever you're wearing when you ring in the New Year sets the tone for the entire year?"
"What is that, some kind of supermodel Zen? " Noelle asked, lifting her thick hair over her shoulder and leaning back on her elbows. She tipped her face toward the sun and let her hair dangle to the ground.
"No! It's a proven fact," Kiran replied, dead serious. "When I was twelve I wore Marchesa on New Year's Eve, and that's the year I signed my first modeling contract. But remember what I was wearing junior year?"
/>
Taylor narrowed her eyes behind her frameless Michael Kors sunglasses. "Wasn't that the year you were in the hospital getting your tonsils out?"
"Yes! Exactly! Poly-blend hospital nightgown and paper slippers. And, as we all know, that year sucked like no year has ever sucked before," Kiran said, taking a long, cheek-hollowing sip from her straw. Then she set her glass down and sat up, her posture model]
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perfect. "Make sure you dress appropriately, Reed. If anyone needs a good year, it's you."
"Thanks," I replied, looking down at my feet as I circled them in the water. "I'll keep that in mind."
"Who had the banana mango?" Amberly asked as she and Tiffany returned from the house.
"That would be me," I said, lookingup at them. From the corner of my eye, I saw Poppy and Paige whispering again and my heart dropped like a stone. "You guys . . . can I ask you something? It's about Casino Night."
An uncomfortable silence descended. Guess they thought that was a night I wouldn't want to talk about anytime soon.
"What's up?" Tiffany asked finally, settling in next to Kiran.
"It's just ... I heard that Paige and Daniel mysteriously disappeared from the casino right around the time I was . . . you know." I paused, letting the wave of dread and fear crash over me and pass. "Do you guys remember that at all?"
"Why? I thought they already arrested Marquis," Amberly said. "I thought he confessed and everything."
"He did," Noelle replied. "You've gotta let this go, Reed."
"I know, I know. It's just, those three have been talking about me behind my back and it's starting to drive me crazy," I said, glancing over my shoulder at the evil triad. They saw me and quickly turned away from each other. "I was just wondering. . ."
"Actually, they did leave," Taylor said, putting her glass down.