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“Do you think he'll come over later?” Amy asked, turning back to them with a flushed face and lopsided grin.

“Dude, what are you talking about?” Stacy teased her, grabbing a pillow and tossing it at her head.

“Hey, it's my birthday,” she giggled, dodging the fluffy missile. “By the way, where's my present?” she asked and darted for the tiny baggie of white pills that Trish produced with a flourish.

6 p.m.

Nothing was
shitty about the cheap motel pool on X. Bryce floated in a haze of pure bliss, the threadbare blue beach towel over gritty concrete a downy cloud beneath her. Her slender body in last summer's faded green bikini was transformed luscious and perfect and designer-clad. The sun was radiant as it shimmered in topaz fire over the surface of the speckled, chlorinated water. She loved her life, and her friends were angels whose laughter from their own nearby towels sparkled through the still air in a jewel-shower of sound.

“Pass that bottle back, will you?” she thought she asked Trish, and she must have really spoken the words because her best friend's face appeared suddenly in the space above her own, grinning hugely.

“Here,” Trish said, pouring a little of the rum on her belly. Bryce curled over with laughter, each second more hilarious than the next. They were the only ones at the pool, and probably would be until later, when more of their friends would head over from Middleton on I-35 to join them at the motel.

“Clean it up,” Bryce demanded, her ribs aching from laughter, and then shrieked when Amy leaned into the pool and splashed her.

8 p.m.

“He's back,”
Trish whispered in her ear.

Bryce, who had been drinking water for the last hour in order to pace herself, felt her nipples tighten against her still-damp bikini top and gripped Trish's arm with one hand to hoist herself to an upright position. “Crap. Is the shower free yet?”

“Yeah, Stacy's out.” The girls had piled back into the room to clean up from swimming before other guests started to arrive, and Bryce was riding out the last of her buzz on one of the two queen beds, staring at the water-stained ceiling and contemplating how to ask Wade if she could move in, and what he might potentially make of that inquiry, until the funeral thing passed over.

“Okay, my turn then,” she said. No way was the hottest guy she'd seen in a long time, possibly ever, going to see her looking anything less than her best.

Yeah, keep telling yourself that's the only reason, Bryce
, she reprimanded herself as she shucked her clothes in the cramped motel bathroom. She showered in steaming water for as long as she could take it, then switched to cold to smooth out her hair. Naked before the wide mirror a few minutes later, she studied her reflection critically, cupping both hands around her breasts, holding them close together to affect some cleavage, wishing for the thousandth time since turning 12 that they were bigger. Whoever her father was, he'd been dark. Her own hair was coffee-brown, and never glistened with blond highlights like all her friends' did in the summer. Her eyes were passably attractive, she thought, with very long lashes, as dark as her hair beneath thick eyebrows she painstakingly kept plucked. She didn't think she looked much like Michelle, except for her small stature, but that suited her just fine. Michelle had never been the mother-daughter banquet type, the kind of place where similarities like that were noticed and complimented; Bryce smiled a little at her reflection as she imagined Michelle attending anything like that, as crazy as the notion of her mother leading a Girl Scout Troop or baking a birthday cake.

A knock from the outside door shattered her thoughts and she rolled her eyes at herself, unzipping her make-up bag. Bronzer, golden-brown eyeshadow…she caught sight of her birth control pills in their white plastic compact and popped the one she'd forgotten this morning. She smoothed on lip gloss and decided to let her hair air-dry so it would have a little wave. She was just touching a fingertip of expensive perfume (shoplifted for her from the department store display counter, courtesy of Trish's little sister) to the hollow of her throat when she heard him.

“Any chance I could take you up on that beer?” he asked, and she actually felt the pulse in her neck begin thumping beneath her fingers. People had been arriving for the last 20 minutes and she could hear laughter from the room and the landing outside, music and cans being cracked, but somehow his voice stood out.

“Of course, neighbor,” Amy practically cooed. “Come on in.”

Bryce's heart was pounding so hard she could again hardly draw a breath, and she stared at herself in amazement in the mirror. It had to be the last of the X that had her so riled up; she drew a determined lungful and held it…
no good, no good
…her heart was still thumping madly. She released a shaky breath and then pulled on white jean shorts and the clean shirt she'd brought with her, an emerald green one with a v-neck that dipped low.

Was it her imagination or had he been waiting for her, too? When she emerged from around the corner, into the pulse of activity, his dark eyes sought her out immediately. Within a few seconds they were less than two feet apart, though Bryce didn't recall moving.

“Hey there,” he said easily, beer in hand. “Hope you don't mind me crashing your party.”

This close to him, she had to tilt her chin way up to meet his eyes. He had shaved away the scruff on his strong jaw, changed into a different t-shirt (white this time) which emphasized his incredibly wide shoulders to an almost unfair degree. His hair was so dark it was nearly black, finger-length and gently wavy; his eyes the rich brown of pecans; twin dimples in his cheeks as he grinned blindingly at her.
Oh
, she thought inanely.
Oh, oh, wow
. She realized she was staring at him and immediately flashed her gaze away, out the door.
Jesus, Bryce! Get a grip.
Her kneecaps were trembling.

“The sunset is gorgeous,” he added, still studying her face.

She realized she hadn't yet spoken and blurted, “Let me grab a beer.” Hands shaking, as though she were about 14 with her first crush, she fished one from the cooler on Amy's bed and restrained herself from holding it to her overheated face.

He actually paused to let her pass through the door first and then followed through the crowd to the railing along the edge of the deck. The searing heat of earlier in the day had fizzled from the air, leaving in its place a pleasant warmth that stroked all along her limbs. Their rooms faced the western sky, through which a stunner of an Oklahoma sunset was spilling, tinting the cottony cumulus clouds gathered low along the horizon a sizzling magenta. The sky just above was a brilliant, artificial-looking teal, and although a native and not much for abject admiration of anything, Bryce couldn't help but sigh. The spilled jewels of sunset light almost erased the barren stretch of four-lane interstate, momentarily making the view a lovely one.

“That about says it all,” he added, leaning to brace his forearms on the railing. They had ended up slightly away from the noise and her friends seemed to have dispersed to parts unknown; she thought she could distinguish Trish's voice from among those who had wandered to the pool, where several girls were screeching about not wanting to get thrown in. But it felt right; she couldn't imagine being with anyone other than him right now. Or ever, but that was of course insane. Bryce leaned on her own arms beside him, her heart clubbing against her breastbone, feeling as though she were being pulled along much more quickly than she had intended; though, truthfully, she had woken this morning intending nothing much at all.

He was very close to her, his profile crisply defined against the darkening bowl of sky arching above the motel. Bryce locked her fingers together tightly around her beer can; his dark hair had fallen slightly over his forehead, and she had been this close to brushing it back. She was aware of him through every pore in her body, along every nerve ending to the interiors of her bones. Visions of herself straddling him kept flashing into her mind, her thighs tight around him while he clutched her hips in his big hands, grinning up at her…

She gulped a little and he moved his right elbow closer to her left, nudging her slightly without looking over at her; she was suddenly struck with the absurd notion that he had been witnessing the vision exactly like she had, as though it were projected into the air in front them, suspended about 12 feet above the blacktop of the motel parking lot. To break some of the intensity, she bent down and set her beer can on the concrete with a soft clink.

“So, what's–”

“I'm–” she laughed, a little huffing release of tension, and he took control of the situation as she stood back to her full height.

“You first,” he said politely. He had utterly hypnotic long-lashed eyes that crinkled slightly at the corners as he smiled. She tried to place him chronologically. He seemed to be about 25. Goddamn. She was quite certain he had watched many, many pairs of lips parting to speak the word, “Yes.”

“Bryce,” she managed in a whisper. The noise of the party seemed far distant, as though they were making introductions on some other planet, someplace where sparks seemed to come from her lips and touch his.

“I am very pleased to meet you,” he responded quietly, seriously, and then he kissed her. Like it was the most natural thing in the world, leaning with just his face, catching her mouth softly, sweetly, taking her bottom lip between his and sucking it lightly as she felt her knees begin to shake even harder. Her left hand came up and clutched his right arm and it was as solid as she knew it would be. Suddenly he shifted with one fluid motion and his arms came around her tightly, almost fiercely, just as hers lifted way up around his neck. She clutched him, tilting her head to take him even deeper into her embrace, into her mouth, his lips warm and wide and more inviting than anything she had ever known.

She pulled away suddenly, as though waking from a dream, to find him staring down at her in amazement. He kept his arms around her waist, both hands splayed over her back, and he could feel the way her ribs were moving as she breathed fast. She stared up at him and knew a stronger, more urgent want than she ever had in her life.

“Come with me,” she whispered to him, because it was all she wanted to say, or do, all she cared about since the second she'd seen him just a few hours ago.

9 p.m.

The door
to 214, his room, closed with a quiet, finalizing click. The shade was drawn and the streetlight from the parking lot cast a blue-white glow through it, silhouetting him as he pulled the t-shirt over his head. His shoulders were unbelievably wide and Bryce opened her arms with no words from where she knelt on the mattress of his solo queen bed.

He moved over her, catching her close, taking her mouth possessively, kissing her like tomorrow he would die, and she was his last reward on earth. She spread her hands over the muscles of his back, solid and hot beneath her fingers, carrying him with her back to the surface of the bed, where he braced himself above her on his forearms, studied her at close range in the dimness of the room, with her hair fanned out all around her head. He cupped her temples with his huge hands, brushed his thumbs over her cheeks again and again, tenderly, stirred implausibly to feel her pulse beating wildly against his palms. Her breath stroked his face, fast and sweet, and he was hard as a rock against her through his jeans and her panties, the only thing she was wearing other than her bra. He wished he had been the one to remove her clothes, but she had been a step ahead.

“I want you,” he told her, low and serious, no trace of a smile, while he nearly gritted his teeth to stop from impaling her on the spot.

“I want you, too,” she managed in a harsh whisper, and spread her thighs beneath him, no hint of a smile either. Her eyes were night-dark, huge and almost solemn in her delicate face. He moved so suddenly she gasped, feeling the heat from his hands as her panties flew from her body and his jeans came down with a ripping sound. His lips were on her neck, his mouth moving over her collarbone, her right shoulder, her left, then onto her nipples, which were small and tight in his mouth.

She moaned, threaded her fingers into the silky hair on his head, scraped her nails against his scalp, holding him hard against her breasts. He took her hips in his grasp and then moved one hand to cup her even lower, and she arched up against him, which only stirred him more. She was liquid heat inside and he moved gently down her body and breathed lightly against her sensitive skin.

“OhmyGod,” she gasped out, both hands in his hair, and he clutched her hips in both hands, bringing her up to meet his mouth, his tongue. “Don't stop, don't stop,” she was saying, deep in her throat, and he thought,
I won't, baby, I won't
.

He was too revved to last long, sliding deep minutes later with his first powerful stroke, bringing her almost to climax right there, she who hadn't felt the urge to come in so long. She dug her nails into his shoulders, hanging on as he pounded into her, surging up to meet his cock with her head thrown back. He clamped his teeth on her right shoulder as he came, so hard he almost saw double, and she cried out loud enough to wake the dead, not to mention everyone next door. But music from the party was thrumming against the wall, muffling any sound they could have made.

11 p.m.

The lamp
beside the bed was on and his tongue was moving low on her belly as he traced an invisible line along from navel to pelvis. Bryce lay again with her head arched back, eyes closed, arms wide in joy or supplication, or the median of both. Her heart was surging against her ribs and his hands were huge and strong around her parted thighs. No thoughts right now, none. He filled her senses the way the sun filled her eyes on a cloudless day, the way drugs did. The how and why didn't matter right now.