Adrian Lessons (14 page)

Suddenly she rounds on me, pointing. “Aha! You
are
Taylor Swift!”

She looks so sexy with the water gluing her clothes to all the right places that I have to give her a squeeze, leaving a wet Cleo-shaped imprint on my own shirt. She melts into my stomach for a sunshiny second before leaping back.

“You! Don’t act like—” She stops.

“Like what?” I cock an eyebrow.

“Like you’re my boyfriend.” She folds her arms defiantly. “You don’t want your mom to think we’re dating, do you? And I definitely don’t want her to think I’m another one of your girls that you probably bring home all the time.”

I rub the back of my head. “Actually, don’t be surprised if she thinks we’re married. I’ve never brought a girl home before.”

“Oh.” She deflates, then draws herself back up again. “Just remember that I’m here as your friend. Strictly a friend.”

“Agreed.” I nod. “My friend that I am terrifyingly, intensely attracted to.”

“Yes. That kind of friend.” She turns red, flounces toward my door, and then halts. “Shit! I can’t meet your mom like this. I’m soaked.”

“She won’t mind. She’ll lend you a change of clothes.”

“No, I should—”

I take a deep breath. If I chicken out now, I’ll never pull this off. So I do the only natural thing for a man to do in this situation. I hoist Cleo over my shoulder and carry her inside like a sack of potatoes.

“Put my down!” she shrieks, laughing and pounding my back with both fists. “You are not Tarzan and I am not Jane—
ooh
.”

I’ve heard that gasp before. It’s the gasp of anyone who walks into our house. My mom likes art the way I like sex. Which is to say, she has it all over the place.

“Whoa.” Cleo slides off my back and prods a bronze statue of a monkey. “Is this cursed?”

“Not that I’m aware of. She got it in Bhali.”

“She being your mom?”

“That’s right,” comes the voice of my mother. I turn and raise my hand in greeting, but she’s too busy going completely crazy to notice me.

“Adrian! Who is this
vision,
” she roars, sweeping down on Cleo like the most fashionably-dressed bat in the universe. “How long have you been dating? I can’t believe you didn’t tell me. She’s flawless. I’m taking her to dinner tonight. And then we’re going dancing.”

“I’m not a vision, I’m Cleo.” Cleo struggles free of my mom’s death grip, gets a good look at my mom’s face, and her eyes get so wide I’m afraid they’ll pop out.

“Um, Adrian,” she whispers. “Arianna Cosse is in your house.”

“It’s
my
house, cherub.” Arianna—she’s always insisted I call her by her first name—pinches Cleo’s cheek. “I’m Adrian’s mommy.”

That’s what I was going to tell you earlier. My mom’s kind of a famous model.

Cleo opens her mouth, then shuts it. She holds up a finger. “Can I scream for a minute?”

“Permission granted. Get it out of your system.” I lean against the wall next to a painting of the Alps.

To her credit, she only screams for a few seconds. Then she grabs Arianna’s hands. “I love your work—”

“Tell me where you met my darling Adrian—”

“I have to get your autograph—”

“Is the wedding date set—”

“How long have you lived here—”

This could go on all day. Potentially all year. I clear my throat. “Arianna, this is Cleo, my
friend.
As in, just friends. Cleo, this is my mom. I see you’ve heard of her.”

“Everyone’s heard of Arianna Cosse. She’s in every magazine in the universe.” Cleo beams at me.

“Even the Boy Scouts Magazine?” I quip.

“Actually, I did a shoot as a Scout leader once,” Arianna cuts in.

Cleo is still in freak-out mode. “Shouldn’t you be living somewhere famous people live? Like New York City? Or Mars?”

“She does go to the city a lot,” I answer, somewhat concerned that if Arianna gets the chance to open her mouth, she’ll ask again about the wedding date. “This is sort of where we hide out from the press and the paparazzi. They don’t know about it because we keep to ourselves in this town. So if you wouldn’t mind not telling anyone about this…”

“Got it.” Cleo mimes locking her lips, building a fire on the floor, and tossing the key in it. Don’t ask me how I know so specifically what she’s miming.

“Cleo went to high school with me, Arianna,” I say as I steer the both of them toward the kitchen, where it’ll be easier to make our escape upstairs. “We ran into each other again in college.”

“Isn’t that romantic,” she purrs.

I smirk at Cleo. “Isn’t it?”

She glances back, and I find myself hesitating. Will her attitude about me change because of who my mom is? Do I want her to like me for that reason?

“We’re not dating,” Cleo says firmly.

I loop an arm around her shoulders, surprisingly relieved. “Right. I’m just helping her out with…a creative writing project.”

“Is that so?” Arianna asks.

Cleo smiles innocently. “Right. He’s helping me research.”

I laugh hard and turn it into a coughing fit. “Aha…ahem. I’m gonna take Cleo up to show her my room.”

“Don’t make out with him just now, love, I think he might be getting sick,” Arianna says in an aside to Cleo.

I take her hand. Surprisingly, she doesn’t object as I lead her up the spiral staircase to my old bedroom. It hasn’t changed much since high school, and when I open the door, I’m served a harsh reminder of how much
I’ve
changed since high school. Thank God. The room is barren, with a black quilt on a four-poster bed surrounded by empty walls. As empty as I was, back then.

“Wow. Your mom must have packed away all your high school stuff.” Cleo sits on the edge of the bed.

“Yeah. Something like that.”

Being in here is making me uneasy, but I took her in here for a reason. I wanted to be surrounded by the past when I told her about the past.

“You saved me,” I say softly.

“Huh? Did I sit on a spider that was about to bite you or something?” She checks underneath her butt.

“No…” It’s impossible to be tense with Cleo, but even so, I feel my muscles roping. “In high school. You don’t remember the night we met because you were drunk. The party at Kevin’s, remember?”

“Oh yeah! That was the first time I ever got drunk. I think I assumed beer was less alcoholic than it actually is.” She shudders, and then her face freezes. “Wait. I didn’t—sleep with you, did I? That’s not why…”

“No,” I say hastily. “I’d never take advantage of you like that. You know how Kevin’s house is on that cliff? I was standing outside, on the edge, just looking out. And you came stumbling out of the house.”

She winces. “I embarrassed myself, didn’t I?”

“No,” I say for the third time, lost in the memory. “You asked me to dance.”

She flops back onto the bed. “That falls under the category of embarrassing myself.”

“It wasn’t embarrassing.” I swallow. “It was…the best moment of my life. I’d never seen you before. It was like you sensed what I was about to do and came to rescue me from it.”

“What were you about to do? The marijuana?” she jokes.

I shake my head. “I was about to jump.”

She sits up slowly. “Jump…like…do some jumping jacks? Jumping rope? That kind of jumping?”

“Not the kind you do to be healthy. The kind you do for the opposite reason.”

Horror fills her face. She grabs my arm, like I’m standing on the edge of another cliff. But I have both feet flat on the ground. I have for a long time. “It wasn’t something I planned. I kept to myself in high school. Didn’t talk to anyone much. Didn’t want people to know about Arianne, I guess, but the way it ended up, I was just lonely. There was a lot that stayed inside.”

I pause, teetering on the edge of telling her the rest of it, but I can’t. Not yet.

“I guess I went to that party to try to prove to myself I could feel some sort of connection with somebody. Anybody. But all I found was a bunch of stupid, drunk teenagers and I realized I’d never be a part of the world like everyone else was. So I went outside and the idea of jumping suddenly seemed so…easy.”

“Adrian,” she whispers. Her eyes are full of tears. I hadn’t expected that. My heart does an odd movement in my chest.

“But then this gorgeous girl came out of nowhere, grabbed me, and demanded to dance, even though the music from the house was pretty faint out there. She was laughing and happy and she liked me for absolutely no reason at all. I could tell she was drunk, but…it was like getting woken up with a slap. I realized what I was about to do was stupid. I felt such a connection with her.”

I brush my thumb under her lower eyelid, wiping away a tear. “I felt such a connection with
you
.”

~14~

CLEO

Whoa. Whoa on a biscuit with butter and gravy. Whoa times a thousand.

I’m sitting in my own room now, surrounded by evidence of all my weird teenage obsessions—about five hundred posters of Johnny Depp, the complete set of Lego Star Wars—and feeling more confused than I ever did as a teenager.

And sadder.

I do the only thing left to a girl in a time of crisis. I call my crazy roommate.

“Hello? Cleo?”

“Marie,” I moan into the phone. “Adrian almost tried to kill himself in high school and I stopped him except I didn’t know at the time and that’s what started his crush on me. And I don’t even understand how it’s
possible
because he’s such—he’s so sure of himself, and so confident, and I guess I’m even a tiny little bit relieved because I thought he was perfect but it turns out he has darkness in him like a normal human being? Which makes me a horrible person? Mostly though I’m sad because I don’t want to picture him like that, ever? And his mom is famous and she thinks we’re getting married and—”

“Cleo,” Marie interrupts. “Stop making everything a question. It’s driving me crazy.”

“Oh, I am? I mean—oh, I am.”

“Also, is Adrian okay with you telling me all this?”

I bite my lip. “Well…he definitely said not to mention about his mom. But I didn’t tell you her name, and I’m not going to! So don’t even try to get it out of me! And he didn’t
say
not to tell anyone about the suicide thing—that was more implied—”

“You’re really bad at keeping your mouth shut when you’re stressed out, you know that?”

I zip my lips, bash the key into pieces with an imaginary hammer, and feed those pieces to a pretend crocodile.

“But I’m not going to tell anyone,” sighs Marie through the phone. “I mean, I understand. It sucks finding out that someone you care about went through something hard.”

“Who says I care about him?” I flop over on my bed, feeling more like a teenager by the second. “I care about him as a friend, is all. And as someone who’s helping me out with my writing. So ‘care’ isn’t really the right word.”

“Right. Why would you care about the insanely hot guy who’s been romancing you and turning you on since you met. That would be crazy.”

“I’m glad you understand,” I sniff. Then I chew my bottom lip as Adrian’s words float to the forefront of my mind, like they have every few minutes since I left his house, making my stomach hurt. “It’s just…I never pictured him being so vulnerable.”

“Hot people have feelings too.”

“I know that,” I hiss. “I just always assumed those feelings were happiness. And self-satisfaction. And staring at themselves naked in the mirror.”

“That last one isn’t a feeling.”

“It’s what I’d do if I were Adrian.”

“So you want to see him naked, do you?”

Just the thought floods my gut with warmth. “No. Ew.”

“You’re an adult woman. Cleo. It’s okay to want to see a guy naked.”

I shoot upright. “Who are you? This is not my conservative Catholic roommate. This is an imposter who is capable of talking about naked guys without stuttering.”

“I’ve realized that I can’t rely on your forever to prop up my career, Cleo. To be independent, I have to be more comfortable with that aspect of my novels. And besides, being around you and Adrian while you’re getting it on is making me realize it’s not even that big of a deal.”

“We’re not getting it on,” I bark.

“Fake-getting it on. Whatever. Point is, I came to that important realization. Now it’s time for you to come to one.”

“What realization? There are no realizations here. Nope. None to be had.”

“That you have a thing for Adrian.”

I splutter. “I—what—no.”

“You do,” Marie insists. “And you won’t give him a chance. Now tell me why.”

“There are one billion and three reasons why I do not and should not have a thing for Adrian.”

“Give me the top five.”

“I’m a lesbian,” I try.

“A lesbian who writes a hell of a lot of guy on girl porn.”

“I’m a conflicted lesbian?”

“Cleo.”

“He’s too hot for me,” I burst out. “He’s like the Pacific Ocean of hotness and I’m a puddle of average.”

“That is ridiculous. You are beautiful.”

I have to hold the phone away from my ear, since she’s yelling more than a little.

“Your last boyfriend destroyed your self-esteem,” she continues. “Therefore, you can’t be trusted to evaluate your own hotness. So I’ll evaluate it for you. You’re more than hot enough for Adrian. And even if you weren’t, I get the sense he wouldn’t care. He’s not a shallow guy.”

“Well, wait until you hear reason number two! It’s…um…”

“Listen,” says Marie intensely. “You have a chance at something cool here. The way Adrian looks at you…honestly, it blows my mind. You deserve another shot at love, Cleo.”

“You deserve a shot of Novocain in the mouth so I don’t have to hear any more of your dumb words.”

“Making too much sense, am I?”

I stick out my tongue.

“I know you’re sticking your tongue out at me and I hope you realize that I can’t see it.”

“As long as you know I’m doing it. That’s what counts.” There’s a pause. Then I exhale. “Thanks, Marie.”

“Anytime.”

Click. I drop the phone on my pillow and bounce my head off the wall.

“Is everything okay?” Mom, in an apron and covered with bits of herbs and sticks—she’s making patchouli again—sticks her head in. “I head yelling. And banging.”