Everything Between Us (10 page)

We read for hours, until we’re hoarse and ravenous. We eat crackers and roast marshmallows for dinner, then head down to her room with flashlights, because at this point it’s pitch black outside. I sit on her bed and try not to think about what she looks like naked while she changes into pajamas and brushes her teeth in her bathroom. She comes out in a different pair of yoga pants and a t-shirt, and
what the hell she’s not wearing a bra
… I try not to notice when her nipples poke at the fabric of her shirt, though my eyes keep sliding over to them like they’re magnetized. She seems to have no idea what that does to me.  She’s smiling and joking as she finds me my own toothbrush in one of the guest suites. We also creep down to her dad’s room, and she goes in and gets me a white undershirt and a pair of flannel pajama pants.

We’re having a slumber party. Nothing more innocent than that.

If I get hard in these pants, there’s no way I’ll be able to hide it.

I almost stay in my jeans, but that would probably be weird. So I change, and when I join Stella in the hall I’m thinking of marshmallows and trees and all the work I’m going to have to do to finish my show pieces before Sunday. The gallery owner will understand why I didn’t get them to her today, but if I push it past the weekend, she’s going to know I’m not ready.

We settle into the nest, and with a shy smile, Stella curls up at the edge nearest the fire like she’s trying to give me space. As much as I want to pull her over to me, tuck her head into the crook of my neck, and wrap my arm over her waist, I don’t. Because if I do, it’ll start all over again, this stupid craving that I can’t shake, and it’ll confuse both of us. So I settle in on my half of the nest and close my eyes. I don’t fall asleep until Stella’s muscles go slack and her breaths become long and slow and deep.

My eyes pop open. The fire’s embers give off a dull orange glow. My hand shoots out in the almost-dark, but I already know she’s gone. I sit up. She might have crept off to the bathroom. I wait for a few minutes, but she doesn’t return. I scramble my way out of our nest. Something feels … wrong. My sock feet are noiseless in the hall as I feel my way toward the one place I think she might be.

I hear her before I see her. Short, sharp breaths. I peek around the corner and into the enclosed porch room, and she’s there. The snow has stopped and the sky has cleared. A nearly full moon hangs high over the deep drifts, lighting Stella up as she stands in front of the wall of windows. Her hands are pressed to the glass again. Her cheek, too. Her eyes are closed. And she’s crying.

I feel her sobs in the pit of my stomach. “Stella,” I whisper.

She gasps, snatching her hands off the windows and swiping them across her face. As I walk forward, she says, “I couldn’t sleep.”

“I gathered that.” I join her by the windows and touch her cheek. “Did you have a nightmare or something?”

She shakes her head. “I … don’t sleep well.” She grimaces, like she’s trying not to cry again, and I can’t hold back. I pull her to me, tucking her against my chest. I don’t know what she’s scared of, what’s upsetting her, but I want to fix it. I wish I knew how. But when her arms cautiously slide around my waist, I feel a little less helpless. I guide her over to her favorite chaise. There’s room for the two of us, even if it is a tight fit. She seems like she needs to be contained at the moment. I run my hand over her hair and skim my knuckles over her cheek to wipe away the tears.

“If you wanted to talk about it—”

“I don’t.”

“Okay.” I settle her against me, putting my leg over hers, my arms tight around her. “I just wanted you to know.”

Her fist bunches in my shirt. “Thanks.” Her breath puffs against my throat. “Do me a favor?”

Anything
. “Sure.”

“Talk about something? Whatever you want. Only … outside of these walls.”

My fingers burrow in her hair. She’s been inside this house for nearly two months. Trapped. “Last summer, I went up to the U. P. Have you ever been up there?”

She shakes her head. “Did you go by yourself?”

“Yeah, me and a tent. I filled a cooler with some hotdogs and beer and drove. Only for a few days. I camped in a park near one of the beaches. The sunsets were incredible, like if I was a landscape painter, I’d want to move up there and live right on the edge of Lake Superior. Water was fucking cold, though. Much colder than Lake Michigan.”

She snorts. It’s such a cute noise, and it always makes her laugh right after, like she finds it funny, too. “I wish I could do something like that. Just get in a car and go.”

Suddenly, I want to show it to her. I open my mouth to say it, then clamp my lips shut. “Maybe you will someday.”

Stella’s quiet, but she’s speaking loud.
It’s not that easy.
And there’s no way I’m pushing, because I remember what Romy said, about how Stella’s parents are probably telling her to just get up and go. I won’t do that to her. Not again. “There are these rocks you can find up there,” I say, figuring it’s better to give her what she asked instead of trying to forge my own path. “Agates? You know what those are?”

“Only that they’re rocks. Tell me?”

It’s working. I can feel her muscles going loose. “There are all different kinds, but they’ve got these striations, stripes of color and crystal, curves and swirls, all these layers. They look … I don’t know. Like you could eat them. Delicious and rich, I guess. The beaches themselves are rock, not sand. Miles of these smooth pebbles, and some of them are agates. It’s never crowded, so when you’re up there, it feels like you’re the only person in the world.”

She shivers. I think Liza was wrong. Stella doesn’t want to be alone. In fact, I think it scares her. I hold her a little tighter.

“What do you like about that?” she asks.

“When I’m alone, it’s just me.”

“And you don’t have to put on a show or try to control what people see,” she says quietly. “That must get tiring.”

My heart jolts. How the fuck does she know? I thought she was bullshitting when she said she’d figured out my secret. It was a strange enough thing to say, but now I know that’s exactly what she did. I’ve never been afraid of a girl, but the one in my arms is the scariest creature I’ve ever met.

“I’m sorry,” she says like she’s reading my fucking mind. “I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s fine.”

“Daniel …” She sounds nervous.

I kiss her forehead. “No. You’re right.”

“Is this a show?” she whispers.

I tilt her face up to mine. It’s lit up by the moonlight, the planes of her cheeks luminous and lovely. “No, Stella.” Now who’s surrendering?

Her fingers stroke my forehead and jaw, like she’s mapping out what the real me looks like, as though she can actually see the difference. Part of me wants to get up and get out of here, or make some stupid double-edged joke to make her blush, or do anything to raise the curtain again, to distract her, to make her not see. But the rest of me is paralyzed by her, like an insect under glass, pinned and helpless while she examines me. Her touch is silky and soft, rubbing the roughness on my cheeks before moving to the smoother skin beneath my eyes. This is the difference—when other women touch me, it’s foreplay. It’s the run-up to the big show, meant to get me hard and her wet. It’s focused on my chest, on my stomach, on my dick, and it’s delivered with the expectation of a return on the investment. It makes it easy to hide, because they don’t really look.

Stella is taking me apart with her simple, innocent exploration of
me
.

I catch her hand, because I have to stop her. I can’t let her strip me down. My thumb caresses the back of her hand as I lay her palm flat on my shoulder. Her big, dark eyes remain on my face, though, and slowly, she stretches up and kisses my jaw, her warm lips lingering, claiming her victory. “Thank you,” she murmurs before sinking back into the crook of my neck. Her arm tightens around my waist, and she snuggles in.

I am so acutely aware of her that I know the moment sleep drags her under. I sit there in the dark, the white moon gleaming off Stella’s hair, which is spread over the arm of the chaise. Her body is stretched loose along mine, and like we’re one creature, I breathe with her; I feel her heart beat against my chest. It makes me sleepy, too, but my fear keeps me awake. I’ve just offered Stella the cannon to blow through my walls. Hell, I’ve lowered the drawbridge and invited her in.

What happens if she doesn’t like what she finds?

Chapter Eight: Stella

I wake from a dream of walking through the snow with Daniel to discover his fingers are twined with mine. We’re in the nest. He must have carried me back here after I fell asleep, but I’m not sure how he managed it, because I’m such a light sleeper. I arch my back and stretch, noticing how warm it is in here. The heat is on. We have power again.

Which means he’ll leave soon, and this will be over.

His grip is firm, even though he seems to be deeply asleep. Does that mean something, or is it just an impersonal, reflexive thing? He’s on his back with his arm slung over his face, blocking out the light. Without pulling my hand from his, I prop myself on an elbow and watch him. Yesterday, he kissed me. He touched me in a way that lit a fire deep inside my body, and I haven’t yet been able to extinguish it. I’ve kissed guys, but those experiences were nothing like this. Daniel’s body, hard-muscled and powerful, held me to the floor and weighed me down in the most delicious way. His mouth was gentle but commanding, and his hands … I felt terrified and safe all at once, like it was all new, but at least one of us knew what he was doing, and I was ready to trust him completely. When he said
you can tell me, if I do something you like, if you want me to do it again
… all I could think was
yes
. Yes. Yes. Yes. I wanted him to teach me everything. I didn’t want it to stop.

But then it did.
He
did. And that was it. Too good to last.

My gaze slips over his cheeks, burnished gold stubble along his jaw, his lips soft and inviting. In some ways, he reminds me of the character Estella from the book we were reading yesterday. He can make people look at him. Want him. Love him. But whether he can or will return those feelings is a different matter. He inspires desire, but what
he
actually desires is not so clear. Money, I suppose. Success. Sex, maybe. He knows how to get all three. I don’t even want to know how many women he’s been with. What I do want to know: what he’s hiding behind that charming, easy-breezy wall.

I caught a glimpse last night, I think, after he found me in the enclosed porch. I’d gotten up, a fluttery feeling in my chest, and went to my glass-walled room to break down in private. Beneath the moon, caged within this house and chained by my own pathetic fear, I couldn’t stop the tears. This is how it is, how it has to be. And that means I can’t be with Daniel or anyone else. No prince is going to show up and break this spell. No normal guy is going to magically sense me here and come to meet me, to get to know me. And even if he did—why would he want to stay holed up with me?

It’s not going to happen.

Ever.

I swallow the lump in my throat, the one making it hard to draw breath. Daniel’s chest rises and falls as he slumbers. He covered us with blankets, and we’re safe within our nest, and I’m warm and comfortable … and all I want to do is cry. Only a few inches from me is this guy who I’m starting to fall for, and he’s so far out of my reach that it’s a joke that he’s even here with me at all. It’s only happening because my mom paid him. Maybe she did other things, too. I bet she’s good in bed. Ugh. I shift a little and move my hand, but Daniel’s grasp tightens instantly.

I wonder who he’s dreaming of. My mom? Some other beautiful woman who knows how to turn him on? Because one thing’s for sure: I don’t. He could tell, too. That’s why he said what he did, because he’d figured me out. He knows I’m as clueless and clumsy about sex as I am about art. I don’t know how to please him; I barely know how to please myself. In those few glorious seconds, I thought it didn’t matter, that he was there because … because he liked me, I guess. I know he thinks I’m funny, and now that I’m not acting like a raging psycho-brat, I think he enjoys our lessons. But that’s quite a bit different than wanting to … ha.
Wanting to go out with me.
As if
going out
were even possible.

Carefully, I untangle my hand from Daniel’s grip. He sighs and turns over, releasing me at last. I’m glad … but not really. I slowly climb out of our nest, not wanting to wake him. I can’t help but stand there watching him for a few moments, though. He’s moved his arm away from his face now, and I can see his closed eyes and slightly crooked nose. I wish …
I wish
. And that’s all it will ever be.

I pad down the hallway to my room, where I take a shower and brush my wet hair. The circles under my eyes seem a little fainter, maybe because I got more sleep last night than I usually do. Being next to Daniel, pressed against him on the chaise, listening to him tell me about the places he’s been that I can never go … it was such a dream. His body was so substantial, so safe and strong and right and perfect. I could hear his voice rumbling through his chest as he spoke. I could feel his heart beating. I wanted him to kiss me again, but it was clear that was the last thing he wanted to do. He probably thinks I’m absolutely crazy, and I can’t blame him at all.

I get dressed, and as I walk by my bedside table, I see two things. The first is Daniel’s drawing of me from a few days ago. That girl is too pretty to be me, too bold. I’ve stared at her the last few nights before I fell asleep, wishing I could be more like her, wondering if Daniel could want me if I was. Next to the drawing is a folded stack of hundreds. My “pizza money” from Dad. Money meant to make up for the fact that he was leaving. Giving up on me. I sit on the edge of my bed and count it. A thousand dollars. In my family, this is how we do things. If we want something, we buy it. If my dad wants to screw his secretary, he slaps down his cash for two first class tickets to Germany and a little chalet in the mountains or whatever. If my mom wants a mister, she pays for his paintings and his body and, apparently, art lessons for her crazy daughter.