Always Something There to Remind Me (2 page)

Her mouth was dry, so she drank more beer. It tasted terrible.

She didn’t care, she drained it.

He looked at her curiously. “No. Well, with them.” He indicated Todd and their friends.

She looked, as if she didn’t know who he meant. She was getting a little light-headed. “Oh. Yeah.”

What was it about this guy that made her
so
uncool?

“Have you known Todd long?”

“Since first grade. We went to school together, played on the same baseball team … you name it. We’ve known each other forever.”

She nodded, unsure what to say to that.

He looked at her empty cup. “Do you want another beer?”

She looked at the cup too, like it was surprising to find it empty. “Sure. Thanks.”

He reached for it, lightly brushing her fingers with his hand, and took it over to the keg. She waited, standing awkwardly in the one spot, her heart pounding stupidly. He returned shortly and handed her the full cup. She noticed he had gotten one for himself too. “So who are you here with?” he asked.

“My friend Jordan. She’s—” She looked around to point her out. “Suddenly not here.”

“I think I saw her with you when I came in.”

“Probably.” He’d noticed her when he came in? That was good. Wasn’t it? It’s not like she was being loud and sloppy and calling attention to herself.

Someone turned up the music. Billy Joel’s “Only the Good Die Young.” Erin hoped to God he didn’t ask her to dance. Of the many things she was not good at, dancing was at the very top of the list.

So naturally the next thing she heard from him sounded like him asking her to dance.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head, feeling the heat rise in her face. “I’m not really into that.”

He looked at her quizzically.

She’d made a mistake. Clearly. “I’m sorry, I must have misunderstood. What did you say?”

This time it sounded like,
Are you almost done?

Done?

Done with what? Was she supposed to be doing something?

“Done with what?” She leaned in closer and felt a buzz of energy sizzle between them. She could smell the leather of his coat, which he hadn’t taken off.

“I asked if you were having fun.” Wow, he had a nice voice, now that she could actually hear him. Really husky and low. Sexy.

“Oh.” She relaxed fractionally. “Yes!” That sounded too eager. “I guess. Are you?”

“Now.” He held her gaze for a minute, then his face colored a little and he looked away.

That’s when she got it.

He was nervous talking to
her
!

Suddenly she felt a little braver. “Do you want to go outside and talk?” she asked, like she was the kind of girl who was comfortable suggesting that sort of thing. In truth, she was kind of desperate to get away from the noise and smoke and the embarrassment of repeatedly asking,
What
?

“Sure.”

“Cool.”

He signaled Todd, who looked from him to Erin and then back at Nate with a funny look she couldn’t quite read.

“He’s competitive,” Nate said, in answer to her unasked question. “You’re part of his domain.”

“But I’m not!”

Nate laughed. “Don’t worry about it. That’s just Todd.”

She could believe it. Todd was exactly the sort to only be interested in her if she was interested in his friend. God knows he hadn’t demonstrated any interest in her after their one and only “date.”

She led Nate to the front door, stopping to grab her pitifully thin jacket from the back of a chair on the way. It was going to be little protection against the elements, particularly since she was wearing a wet sweater. As soon as she stepped outside, she was cold. Really cold. Their breath came out in icy white clouds. It was frigid even for a February night.

“I’m going to die,” she announced on a quivering white puff of breath. The wind lifted and blew her hair across her face in ghostly pale strands. She pushed it back and sniffed in the frigid air.

He laughed. “Do you want my coat?”

She looked at him and smiled, though her teeth chattered. “No, then
you’ll
die. And I’m already wearing one. Sort of.”

“It’s fine.” He took it off and draped it over her shoulders. It smelled good. And it felt good—still warm from his body heat.

But now he had to be freezing to death because all he had on was a T-shirt that said
PUERTO RICO
and pictured what looked like a cartoon frog. Her Spanish wasn’t good enough to read the rest and get an idea of what the frog had to do with Puerto Rico, but she was pretty sure it didn’t represent magical warming properties.

“Maybe we should go back in,” she suggested.

“Or we could get in Todd’s car,” he suggested. It was parked right out front and he went and opened the back door of the blue Dodge.

She looked at him dubiously. Oh, God, Todd had probably told him his stupid blow job story and he’d believed it and thought she was an easy mark. “I’m not … you know…”

“It’ll just be warmer in there,” he said, like he understood. “That’s all.”

She believed him and climbed onto the icy leather seat, then turned to watch him get in and close the door to the tundra outside.

From there it got easy.

They sat in the car and talked until the windows were fogged and neither one of them was wearing the coat anymore. They talked about everything, from what they liked to do in their free time to what they thought about President Reagan (though Erin didn’t really have a strong opinion about him) and everything in between. They agreed on just about everything. Sometimes when she was about to say something, he said the exact same thing, or vice versa.

It was just like the way people talked about soul mates, people who were so much like you it was like you’d never been strangers. Not that she was going to start planning a wedding or anything, but he was so comfortable to be around that she didn’t want to stop even though it was getting later and later. She’d known him a couple of hours and already felt like she’d miss him when they went home for the night.

They’d started on opposite sides of the back bench seat, then gradually had moved closer together, but Nate hadn’t tried a thing.

She was starting to get frustrated with that.

“So,” she said, deciding it was time to figure out where he stood. “You … don’t have a girlfriend?” Ugh. That was ballsy. What if he did? Then what would she do? Make up a boyfriend from another school? Go on and on about him like Jan Brady’s “George Glass”?

“No.” He looked away for a moment and even though it was dark in the car she could tell from the gesture that he was nervous. “You don’t have a boyfriend?”

“No.” Actually, she’d never had a boyfriend. He’d probably think she was a loser if she said that, though. Other kids had started “going out,” whatever that meant, in sixth grade.

A tense moment passed between them.

Then he moved closer and reached his hand behind her back to draw her closer to him.

Finally
.

She closed her eyes and when his lips touched hers she melted against him. It wasn’t her first kiss now, they both knew that, but it was good. Really good. He moved his other hand firmly against her back, drawing her closer, making her feel warm and safe. And when his tongue touched hers, all of the muscles in her body tightened. Her pulse raced. Why hadn’t they been doing this the whole time?

How long had they wasted the dwindling night, sitting here
talking
?

He smelled like winter air, leather, and soap. He tasted like … she didn’t even know what he tasted like, he just tasted good. Almost familiar. Whatever it was, she wanted more. She drank him in, not thinking about what would happen next. It was like there wasn’t even a question.

She was with him now.

Now he would always be part of her. She just didn’t know it yet.

*   *   *

The next day, Erin slept in, partly because the beer had gone to her throbbing head and made walking around difficult, and partly because it was more fun to roll over in bed and remember kissing Nate over and over again than it was to get out of bed and actually start a day in which she didn’t have any plans.

Eventually, though, she’d had to. And, true to form, the moment she got out of bed, her mother heard her footsteps and asked her to take the trash out to the garage. So Erin hopped gingerly out in bare feet, opened the garage door, tossed the bag into the can, and closed the door, turning around just in time to see a guy walking past on the street, looking at the house.

He had on a hat and winter coat, almost completely obscuring his face, but she’d know those eyes anywhere.

Nate Lawson.

Something inside of her thrummed to life and made the blood push through her veins like it was a race.

Nate was walking past her house, either to catch a glimpse of her or at least to see where she lived.

The uncertainty, the questions, the hope he would call, and the fear he wouldn’t … all of that wasn’t necessary this time.

He felt the same way she did.

She went back inside smiling.

Chapter 2

Present

I could not figure out how the bitch had made it to her sixteenth birthday without someone killing her.

Roxanne Tacelli. Brattiest fifteen-year-old I’d ever met, and I could completely remember being a rather difficult fifteen myself, so that really was saying something.

Yet here I was, events coordinator for the Farnsworth-Collingswood—one of the top luxury resorts in the world—planning the ultimate Sweet Sixteen party for her, under the doting eyes of her parents, the watchful eyes of my employer, and the electronic eyes of multiple VTV cameras, which were filming the entire event for a reality TV show that promised to suck the soul directly out of anyone who watched it.

The Farnsworth-Collingswood Hotel Group had two locations, one in Geneva, Switzerland, and one in Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C. Both were the same sleek, modern European style with quirks and bells and whistles galore—everything from indoor water parks to landing strips for small aircraft and the ability to acquire just about any amenity a guest could want (for a price) and so both were major party destinations. And we’re talking
huge
parties.

My job as events coordinator was therefore, usually, a blast.

Usually.

“Okay, so, Erin, I want bowls and bowls of all green M&Ms,” Roxanne, age fifteen, was saying. “I heard rock stars do that. With my face on them. They can do that, right?”

They could, but I didn’t have time to answer.

“Or pink,” she went on, nodding to herself, like I’d just pointed out how much prettier her already cosmetically altered face would be on pink. “What do pink M&Ms mean?”

At first I didn’t answer, assuming she was just in the middle of her stream-of-consciousness list of
I wants
, but then I realized there was silence and all eyes were on me.

“Um. Erin?” Roxanne clicked her tongue against her teeth. “Hello?”

I looked up from where I’d just written
pink MMs, get high-res picture smaller probably better
and said, “I’m sorry?”

Roxanne sighed and rolled her eyes like little brown marbles circling my apparent ineptitude. Really, she was a cartoon. “What do pink M&Ms mean?”

They mean you’re a spoiled-rotten little snot whose parents will piss away their money on just about anything, thereby proving everything every manifesto-writing wack job has ever said about the class system in America.
I gave a wan smile and said, “They mean you’re going to have the best birthday ever.”

It was the same voice I would have used with my daughter when she turned six.

Despite the fact that Roxanne acted like a six-year-old, she was savvy enough to know when she was being talked to like one, and she didn’t like it.

“Right.” She snorted. “So green means you’re horny and
pink
means
best birthday ever
!”

Her mocking of my own fake enthusiasm was incredibly insulting. Probably in part because of its accuracy.

But I could barely react to that before her mother’s indulgent chuckle filled the air. “Roxanne, I don’t know where you come up with this stuff or where you learned such words!” She touched a hand to her too-bright red hair (clearly an attempt to match Roxanne’s copper color) and I noticed the lipstick she wore—almost the same shade as her hair—had smeared onto her whitened front tooth. Her face was smooth and lineless, forcibly so, but her hand, with its crepey texture and sun spots, showed her true age. Especially next to the artificial color of her hair.

I sighed inwardly. If
my
kid were saying that kind of thing to adult strangers, I’d take her by the ear, nun-style, to the nearest bathroom and wash her mouth out with soap. Or at least threaten to—I’d always found the threat of embarrassment was much more effective with Camilla than actually following through.

Of course, Camilla—who was also fifteen—was a thousand times more mature than Roxanne.

“All right, so pink M&Ms with your picture on them,” I said, trying to rein this conversation back in. “Do you want them to say anything on the other side?
Roxanne Amber Tacelli 16
, or maybe something more personal to you?”

Roxanne wrinkled her fake nose. “Isn’t that, like,
your
job?”

“Isn’t what my job?”

“Thinking of that kind of thing. I don’t know what they should say on them! You think of that!”

I smiled. “You might not like what I come up with.” My phone rang and I looked at it.

There was a text from Camilla:
Can I go to a concert at Verizon Center with Lela tonight?

“Excuse me a minute,” I said to Roxanne, and texted back.
No way. Last time you went out with Lela I had to pick you guys up and she puked tequila all over the car. Not an ideal influence.
I returned my attention to Roxanne. “So what were you saying?”

“Just make a list of suggestions.” She gave an airy wave toward my notepad.

I had a few already.