Falling Under (14 page)

“Am too,” she says, with a shit-eating grin.

“Kylie—”

She takes me by the hand, and I let her lead me out of the store. The boots are really,
really
comfortable, and they look badass. When we’re on the street, she shoves me against the wall between the store and a bar, and presses into me. “Just say thank you, Oz. It’s a gift. It’s me repaying you for giving
me
the best night of my life. Performing? With you? It was magical. It’s not charity, it’s not because you can’t afford it. It’s because I want to see you in a pair of badass biker boots. It’s because I want to. Because I can. It’s a thank-you. And it’s a ‘please, please will you gig with me again?’ bribe.”

I can’t help but let my hands wrap around her back, resting just above her hips. “Kylie.” I let my forehead touch hers. “Fuck, you’re impossible.”

She smiles at me, her lips nearing mine. “I know. It’s a talent.”

“One of many.” I kiss her, and even on a crowded city street, I feel my resolve wavering.
 

I’ve refused to sleep with her thus far. I want to, and she wants to, but…I just won’t. She’s waited. She’s still a few weeks from her eighteenth birthday, and she’s a virgin. I’m…not. Decidedly not. Very much not. She thinks she wants her first time to be with me, but she deserves more. She deserves romance. Love. And I’m not sure I can give her that. I like her. I appreciate who she is. Her talents. Her beauty. Her innocence. And it’s for all those reasons that I keep pushing her away, keep telling her no, keep ripping myself away from her when all I want to do is bury myself in her, kiss her and never stop, strip her naked and leave her limp and breathless and ruined for anyone else but me.
 

But I can’t. I’m not that guy. Not for her.
 

Yet she perseveres, refuses to take no for an answer, thinks she can outwait me. Seduce me. And fuck, she just might be right.

The kiss ends, and she’s staring up at me, breathless, flushed, panting slightly. Each deep breath swells her amazing, enormous tits in her pale purple sweater, teasing me, tantalizing and tempting me. It’s a low-cut sweater, fitted to hug her figure, scooped deep in the front to offer me a mouth-watering expanse of cleavage.
 

“Oz. Take me to your apartment.
Please.
” Her voice is a whisper, a plea.

“No.”

She pouts. “Why not? What’s wrong with me?”

I groan. “Jesus fuck, Ky. We’ve been over this a thousand times.”

She slides her arms up around my neck, breathes in my ear. I can’t take it, can’t handle it. The heat of her breath and the scent of her skin are intoxicating, making me forget why I’m no good for her. “You say
I’m
impossible, but you’re the idiot who’s refusing to take what’s offered. What belongs to him.”

“It doesn’t belong—
you
don’t belong to me. It’s not—god. Why are we always talking about this?”

“Because I want you.” She nips at my earlobe. “And you’re frustrating me. Making me mad.”

“Good. Get mad. Storm off. Walk away. I’m just doing what’s best for you.”

She pushes away from me, genuinely pissed now. I follow her, and she ignores me. We near an alley, and she stops abruptly and shoves me into it, a nearly violent move. I stumble, catch my footing, and then she’s on me, attacking me, arms like soft silken serpents around my neck, her legs leaving the ground and wrapping around my legs, and I’m hard as a rock in my jeans and holding her by the ass, feeling in my hands the supple muscle barely contained by her tight jeans, feeling her lips on mine, and I’m drunk with her. I can’t help it. I’m not a saint. Not a good person. That’s my point. I’m not nice and not good, and she’s all over me, and I can’t resist such a determined assault on my resolve.
 

I hold her and press her back against the wall, kiss her back and pin her with my hips and let my palms soar over her ass and her hips and her thighs, and I’m breathing her in, sucking her breath into my lungs and devouring her tongue and sampling the wild innocence, the hunger of a virgin who has tasted sin. I’m the poison she thinks she wants, and I’m trying to summon the goodness to save her from me, from herself.
 

I break away, let her slide to the ground. She’s shaking, barely able to stand up, and I’m weak in the knees, too, but I step away from her.

“How dare you tell me what’s best for me?” She’s furious; the kiss was an angry one. She puts her fingers to her lips, as if to feel the imprint of my mouth on hers. “You make your own decisions in life, Oz. You’re your own person. No one tells you what to do. Well, what if I want that same freedom? I’ve always done what my parents want. What I know is good and safe and right. I’ve been a good girl because I love them and want them to be proud of me. And yeah, that’s still true. But you want to know something? I didn’t stay a virgin for
them
. I didn’t save my virginity for
their
sake. I waited for my
own
reasons. I’ve waited for the right guy for
me
. Because I’ve heard stories and watched my friends pair off and get laid. Some of them regret it, some don’t. Some felt pressured, some didn’t. And I knew I wanted to choose my own time, with someone I cared about. Someone who cared about me. It doesn’t have to be
love
. I’m young. I’ll be eighteen in two weeks. I have my whole life to find the kind of love Mom and Dad have, or their friends, Jason and Becca, have. I don’t expect that of you. If you feel that way about me, I would—I would be so happy. So happy. Because I think you’re amazing, and I could see us having that together. I really could, Oz. But it doesn’t have to be that. Not yet, or not ever. I know you have your own plans. I know you’re gonna leave Nashville eventually, and I won’t ever try to keep you here, no matter what. But I still want my first time to be with you. That’s what
I
want. And you know something?” She wraps her arms around her middle and stares at me from three feet away. People pass by on the sidewalk just beyond us, and cars rush by honking their horns, and from everywhere there’s the sound of music playing, a cacophony of competing bands. “I think you’re scared. Of me. I think you’re telling yourself you’re protecting me from yourself, but in reality, you’re just scared because I make you feel things you don’t understand.”

“Kylie—”

“NO! I’m not done.” She steps forward, eyes so hot and blazing that I can’t look away. She’s hypnotic when she’s mad. “You and I? It may end badly. I may get hurt. But guess what? I don’t care! I’ve never had my heart broken. Maybe I’m fine with risking it, because it’s better than being afraid and going through life bored. I have friends. I have Ben. I have my parents. But none of them have ever challenged me to feel new things. I’ve never had to risk anything. I’ve never risked being hurt. I’m going into this with you,
knowing
you’re bad for me, according to you. Yeah, Oz, I get it, you’re a bad boy. You’re a drifter. You kick ass and take names and ride a hog. You’re all those stereotypes. Got it. I’m not trying to change you. I just want a piece of you.”

I lean back against the wall behind me, wondering what the hell I’m supposed to say. I’m a stereotype? That bugs me a little.

The fact remains, though, that I don’t want to hurt her. She doesn’t know about heartbreak, or she wouldn’t be talking about it so casually.
 

“All right, you know what?” I take a step toward her. “I don’t want to talk about this here. You want to talk about this? Then let’s go. Take us to my place.”

She doesn’t speak, just whirls on her heel and storms back to the car. I follow her, watching her ass move in her jeans and watching the tense set to her shoulders, and wondering what the hell I’m going to say when we get there, because I have no idea. She’s right. So right. It should be her choice. And I am afraid.
 

The ride to my apartment is silent. The radio is off, and Kylie is chewing on the inside of her cheek, mad and tense and I don’t even know what else. I’m confused, and nervous, and trying to figure out what I think, and what I really want, and what I’m afraid of, and why she makes me feel things I’ve never felt before, and what to do about it.

I keep her close to me as we go in, and I lock my bedroom door and sit down, dig a cigarette out and light it, and wait for Kylie to clear a space on my bed, shoving dirty jeans and T-shirts aside. It’s a mess in here, but she doesn’t seem to care.

I blow a smoke ring, and then bat my hand through it. “Ky, look. You’re right about a lot of things. About me. About how I’m scared of what you make me feel. Yeah, I am. Maybe I’m being a fucking sissy about this, but…it’s more than that. Being scared of how much and how intensely I feel for you. I’ve never been as close to anyone as I am to you. And it’s more than that. You want some truth? I’ll give it to you.” This is going to be cruel. “I’m not a virgin, okay? I think you know that. My first time was in ninth grade. Biloxi, Mississippi. A Cuban girl named Nina. She was two years older than me, and she was…experienced. She wanted me, so she made sure I wanted her back. It wasn’t hard. We got blazed, and she kissed me, and started touching me, and that was that. She was my first, but she wasn’t my last. And since then sex, for me, is just….a girl who knows what’s up. We smoke a joint or two, we bang, and go our separate ways. Nothing else.”
 

Kylie blanches. “A girl who knows what’s up, huh?” She sounds bitter, hurt. “What’s that mean?”

“That it ain’t gonna be more than what it is. That I ain’t gonna stick around or talk about feelings. No complications. Just a quick fuck.”

She flinches at my words, keeps her eyes cast down. “So sex has never meant anything to you?”

“Nope.”
 

“Have you ever…been in love?”

I laugh. “Yeah, actually. Once. Senior year of high school in Atlanta. Amy Peretti. Upper-middle-class white girl, not popular, not a loner. Pretty, but not gorgeous. But she was…nice. Really nice. We were chemistry lab partners, and we ended up hanging out here and there. Never sat with her for lunch or hung out with her friends, but she’d talk to me in the hallways. We met at the mall once. Just walked around and talked. She was the first person who ever…saw me for me, I guess. Saw past the fact that I was the new guy, saw past the fact that I was always in detention and getting suspended for fighting and all that. I liked her. By the end of the year, I was convinced I was in love with her. Started making excuses to see her. Finally got up the nerve to ask her out on a date. Had fucking roses and shit.” I swallow hard, trying to tell the story without reliving it. “I got her alone in the hall after school, by my locker. Handed her the roses, and asked her if she’d go out with me. She just stared at me, surprised, panicked, even. I can hear her, remember every word. “Oh, god, Oz. I’m sorry. I thought you understood that we’re just friends. You’re nicer than most people realize, but…no, I couldn’t ever date you. Sorry.’ And then she walked away, and that was that. It was two weeks before the end of the year. I skipped the rest. Had to take summer classes, but there was no way I could go back and see her. It hurt, Kylie. The look in her eyes. The surprise. The pity. Like…how could someone like me ever even
think
I’d be good enough for someone like her? The worst part was…she wasn’t mean about it. She didn’t laugh or make fun of me, and I don’t think she ever told anyone I’d asked her out. But she just…seemed so surprised that I’d even think of it. Like it was obvious all we’d ever be was friends. She gave the roses back.” I laugh again, bitterly, angrily. “Thirty bucks, wasted. I gave ’em to the secretary in the main office.”
 

Kylie takes my cigarette from me, which I’ve held without smoking while I talked, so the ash is long and dangling. She holds it over the ashtray, taps the filter gently, and we both watch the quarter-inch of gray ash topple down and lose shape. “That’s…shitty. And sad.” She puts the filter to her lips and inhales, and I hate the fact that she doesn’t cough as she pulls the smoke into her lungs, holds it briefly, and blows it out through her nose. She doesn’t smoke without me, and never smokes a whole one, just a hit or two, but it’s enough. I haven’t touched pot when I’m around her since that one time, and I’m determined to keep to that. “Oz, I’m not her. I’m not like her.”

I shake my head and take the cigarette from her. “I know, sweetness. That’s not what it’s about.”

“Then what is it?” She pivots on her ass and crosses her legs to sit Indian-style facing me. “I really don’t understand. I mean, do you really think you’re not good enough for me?”

I sigh. “God, you make it sound like I have self-esteem issues. I don’t. I know who I am, and I’m good with it.” I gesture at my room. “This is my life, Kylie. It’s probably all I’ll ever have. Shitty apartments in the shitty, ghetto end of town. I can’t give you…anything. Not for a long time, if ever. I mean, let’s say I
am
as talented as y’all seem to think, and I manage to get a record deal or something. It would be years and years of work to get there, to get noticed. And in the meantime, my life would be beans and rice and Ramen noodles and one-room shitholes in neighborhoods that sound like war zones. Maybe I will amount to something in my life. I do want more than this, Kylie. I do. But I can’t give you more than this. And I’m not a stupid kid, okay? I know just…being hot for each other, even being in love isn’t enough to take care of someone. It won’t pay the bills. It won’t provide food and rent, much less the kind of life you’re used to, the kind of life you deserve.” I squeeze my eyes shut and feel the cherry on the cigarette nearing my fingertips. I welcome the burgeoning heat. “So, no, Ky. It’s not about me not being good enough. It’s about you. You being worth more.”

My skin is being singed by the cigarette, and I let it happen. It doesn’t count as burning, because I’m not doing it intentionally. It’s just a side benefit of not caring if I get a little burnt.
 

“Goddamn it, Oz.” I feel the cigarette being taken away. I don’t open my eyes, but I can feel her gaze on me. So blue, so hot, so conflicted and angry and needy. “My worth isn’t for you to determine. My future isn’t for you to decide. I don’t care about any of that. What if I told you I’d be willing to live in one-room shitholes? That I’d learn to live in neighborhoods that sound like war zones and eat Ramen and Kraft mac and cheese and whatever. That I’d be willing to live that way if it meant I could be with you. What if I said all that would be worth it? Does it sound fun? No. Do I
want
that? No, not really. But I
do
want you.”