I’ll Meet You There (27 page)

What the fuck?
There was no way I’d imagined this thing that had been growing between us all summer.
Slowly, especially for Josh, but growing.

Just when I’d decided to make some lame excuse and go home, Josh’s eyes met mine.
I raised my eyebrows, like,
Well, I’m here
. For a minute, it was just the two of us and the smoke from the bonfire and all those
little moments at the Paradise, swimming across the distance between us: the way he’d
tease me for using so much ketchup with my fries or how he’d call me ma’am, half joking.
And how he’d started hugging me when he went home, each hug lasting a little longer
than the last until hugging became holding.

“C’mon,” Blake said, walking toward Josh’s truck.

I looked back to where Dylan and Jesse had gone. I was stuck for a while, unless I
wanted to walk back to the Paradise. Three miles wasn’t that bad, was it?

“I’ll give you a ride home if they ditch you,” Blake said. I frowned, thinking about
how he’d said that over spring break. “No strings attached, honest.” He tipped his
bottle against my cup.

“Fine.”

To Skylar Evans—because she’s finally joining the party.

chapter twenty-four

“I’m a fuckin’ U.S. Marine, that’s why!” Josh shouted, red-faced but smiling. “First
to fight, the President’s Own, you punk.”

He kicked at one of the guys nearby. “Whoa, now,” the dude said, blocking his crotch.
“Watch the junk.”

I wasn’t sure what we’d missed, but apparently Josh had won some sort of argument
and suddenly everyone was doing the hitting-bottles, talking-too-loudly-then-chugging
thing. What was I doing here?

“Hey, you,” Brady said. He hopped down off his perch next to Josh and wrapped his
arms around me.

“Hey … Brady.”

I gave him an awkward pat on the back and tried to disentangle myself from his too-friendly
hug. This was why I never borrowed clothes from Dylan. It was like every guy in the
circle was seeing me for the first time. Except Josh. He just said, “Hey,” and went
back to talking to other people. I couldn’t read him. It was like all those afternoons
at the Paradise were nothing.

A Swenson girl—I couldn’t tell which was which—looked at me with barely disguised
hostility.

Brady leaned against the truck. “So, Skylar, we were thinking of heading into Bakersfield
for some late-night Denny’s. You up for it?”

I shrugged. No. No. And no. “I have to get up early for work tomorrow.”

“Yeah, but all you have to do is walk five steps from your room to the desk,” Blake
said.

For the next half hour, there was talk of a bunch of random crap I couldn’t bother
to concentrate on. Video games, some football team. For the most part, I stared down
at the pink liquid in my cup, swirling it around. Someone started passing a joint.
I shook my head when Brady handed it to me.

“Still straightedge, huh?” he said.

“Yep.”

Josh was a few inches away, but instead of talking to me, he let that Swenson girl
put her hands all over him, and I knew, I just knew, he was going home with her. This
wasn’t the same Josh who joked with me about Dairy Queen Blizzards or talked about
Afghani sunsets. Maybe I’d imagined him. I had probably just felt so sorry for him
or for myself that I’d built those moments into something they had never been.

I tried to nod and laugh in all the right places, but pretending had never been my
style, so I stood there, waiting for Dylan to show up so I could have her take me
home. The bonfire gave the air a cozy smell, and all I wanted to do was find a thick
quilt and lie down by the fire and feel good and sorry for myself. My mind collaged
one by my feet. My head was starting to pound, and it was hot and cold and loud and
silent, and this wasn’t me. Not at all. I handed Blake my cup.

“I’ll be back in a sec,” I said.

“You want me to—”

“No. I just need to grab my sweater out of Dylan’s car.”

Blake looked like he was going to follow me, but then Brady started talking shit about
the Dallas Cowboys and he got distracted.

I didn’t look back to see if Josh had noticed me leave, just walked away, in the opposite
direction from where Dylan’s car was. My feet started taking me to my dad’s favorite
part of the creek, where the sand was softest and the beach was shaded by tall, leafy
trees. It was the place I went to when I felt lost because he’d said that no matter
what happened, it would always be ours.

Soon, the party was a distant murmur, the music and laughter already memories. I walked
more slowly, feeling close to my dad as I looked up at the familiar bend in the creek
and the trees that leaned over it. His spot. I wished he were there right then, to
tell me why boys were such jerks. I wanted to ask him if it would always be this hard.

If I were a real Creek View girl, the kind Josh liked, I’d be hammered right now,
not thinking about my dead father. Maybe I’d barf in the bushes, then down another
beer before going to Denny’s and ordering a Moons Over My Hammy and drinking coffee
until the sun came up. Maybe I wouldn’t even show up for work. I’d just go home and
give Mom and Asshat a surly look before passing out on my bed. Then I’d wake up and
do the same thing all over again for the rest of the summer so that I never had to
think, not once, of how Mom was ruining her life and by extension mine or about Josh
or school or anything. I’d just drown myself in booze and boys, like a good little
Creek View girl.

“No.” I whispered into the night, just to hear myself say it.

I thought about Josh sitting there in the bed of his truck, ignoring me after all
those days full of stolen glances and secret smiles. I didn’t know how I could have
misread all of that. God, I was such a moron, why did I think—

“Skylar!”

Josh.

I stopped, my eyes on the creek. The water was black, threaded with silver moonlight.
Away from the party, I could hear the gentle slapping of the water against the bank
and the anxious string quartet of crickets in the clumps of bushes that pushed through
the earth. A breeze danced around me, and I shivered, clutching at my arms.

I was half naked and just about the stupidest person I’d ever known.

“Sky—what are you doing?”

I wondered how fast he’d had to limp-walk to catch up with me, and for a second I
felt bad. Then I remembered how, a few minutes ago, I’d hardly existed.

“Leave me alone, Josh. Just go back to the party.” I couldn’t look at him, just spoke
to the empty space in front of me.

“Look, I … I don’t want you to be out here alone, okay? People have been drinking,
and it’s not a good idea for you to—”

I turned, hurling words into the space between us. “Don’t you have a Swenson to fuck?”

It was out of my mouth before I even knew I was thinking it, and for a second, we
just stared at each other.

“No” was all he said. The word hung in the air, heavy with a million other, longer
words.

My fingers clutched at my dress, all my shaking hidden within the folds of the thin
fabric. I could feel this thing in me building—anger at myself, him, Dylan, everybody.
I was volcanic. And the fire burned up my throat until it filled my eyes. It wanted
to burst, burn, destroy. I turned away and focused on the creek, the way it swept
by, not caring about our trivial human drama at its bank. I heard Josh step closer,
felt the warmth of his body, even though he wasn’t touching me. I wanted to lean into
him, to jump off this cliff I kept finding myself on whenever I was around him.

But he obviously didn’t want that. Had changed his mind, or something.

“Skylar, I—”

I whirled around, practically falling against him. “You
what
, Josh? You’re the one who told me to come to this dumbass party!”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. His eyes were shuttered, hiding away so that I couldn’t
get a read on him.

I didn’t want remorse—I wanted a fight.

“What does that even mean,
I’m sorry
?” I snarled. “Are you apologizing for ignoring me or for inviting me in the first
place?”

He shrugged, pushing at the loose sand underfoot with the toe of his flip-flop. “I’m
sorry for being a dick.”

“I think I need a little more specificity, Josh.” I was classic pissed-off, hands
on my hips, nostrils flared. “I mean, what
I
think is being a dick and what
you
think is being a dick are probably two totally different things.”

He looked down at me, those eyes pressing against mine even though we were a good
four feet apart.

I couldn’t breathe when he looked at me like that. Couldn’t think. God, it was so
unfair that the first time I really cared about someone it was some screwed-up, womanizing
soldier who was probably only being whatever he was with me because he spent all that
time in Afghanistan not getting any.

“What did you want me to do?” he said, his voice low. “After what happened at the
Paradise and—”

“Josh, that was nothing to be ashamed—”

“My brother was all over you. You’re his ex, which makes me an asshole for going after
you because he’s obviously still into the great, unattainable Skylar Evans and—”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“C’mon. Ever since you were in junior high you’ve been on this pedestal, looking down
on all of us—”

“You know, I thought you were different, but you’re not, are you? You’re still a total
player, still crazy full of yourself—”

“Right, Skylar. You’re right. In fact, why don’t we just do it right here? Yeah, I
mean, you’ll have to be on top because of my
fucking metal leg
, but whatever, let’s just—”

“Am I supposed to feel
sorry
for you right now?”

“Sure, why not? You can be like all the other girls around here, wanting to hand out
mercy screws like it’s their patriotic duty.”

“Go to hell.”

“Been there.”

“That’s great, Josh. Play the wounded-soldier card. Bet it works every time.”

He shook his head and looked up at the sky, his lips pursed. The night was wearing
thin, and I was already dreading the after—going back to the motel, alone and knowing
how badly the whole thing had gone. Wanting his goddamn face out of my head, but it
would be the last thing I’d think of before I fell asleep.

“I just don’t get you,” I whispered. I bit my lip and let my eyes fall to the water
trickling by our feet. “I mean, at the Paradise or my mom’s house, it seems like you’re
this whole other … and I wore this stupid dress because I thought … I thought that
you…”

My eyes blurred again and I turned my back on him, trying to find some tiny reserve
of control. Josh reached out and pulled me toward him, my back against his chest,
his forearm resting on my collarbone.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered again, his lips touching my hair.

I shivered and pressed closer when I should have been pulling away. It felt like the
world was holding its breath.

“I don’t know how to do this,” he said. “You’re so different from the rest. Every
time I try, I just keep screwing it up.”

He leaned his forehead against the back of my head, and everything in me that was
wound up so tight suddenly unraveled.

“I don’t know how to do this either.”

He sighed, relief and frustration and wanting all mixed up. We stayed like that for
a few minutes, his breath against my neck, his heartbeat in my shoulder blade. It
was the same creek I’d been going to all my life, but in his arms it took on a magical
quality, everything tinged in iridescent silver, the velvety black night encircling
us.

He still had his arm around me, and I leaned down and kissed his wrist, letting my
lips linger against his salty skin. His fingers tightened around my shoulder, and
I smiled as my lips traveled to his thumb, his index finger.

“Sky,” he whispered.

My name in his mouth sounded like a warning, but he wasn’t letting go, was gripping
me harder, and after all these weeks of anxious hope, it was suddenly so easy to just
turn my body a few degrees and press my lips against his.

His hands in my hair.

His tongue in my mouth.

My hips against his.

My fingers clutching his shoulders.

Josh saying over and over:

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

chapter twenty-five

And then: Josh’s arm around my waist as he led me away from the creek, everyone staring
as we got into the truck, me sitting close to him as he drove to the Paradise, the
truck swerving every time he kissed me. Then us laughing between kisses as we tried
to open my door, shushing each other, touching and holding and smiling.

I’d finally gotten the key into the lock, but Josh was kissing my neck, and I turned
around and let him press me up against the door because I just wanted more more more.
He tasted like cinnamon gum, and I loved the way he’d bite my lower lip, like he wanted
to eat me up.

“I”—kiss—“have the key”—kiss—“in the”—kiss—“lock.”

He just said, “
Mmmm
,” and grabbed me around the waist, then turned the key behind my back. The door swung
open, and I could smell the incense I’d burned that afternoon, its smoky vanilla scent
clinging to the air. I’d imagined this moment so many times. And now it was happening,
but it was so much
more.

His eyes were heavy with want, the lines around them gentle, and when he kissed me
again, there was nothing,
nothing
except his lips and hands and the feel of his heart beating underneath my palm. I
grabbed his hand to pull him inside, but he stayed in the doorway, watching me.

“How’s the Sky today?” he asked, his voice soft. His eyes were focused, like he really
needed to know it was okay to do this, here and now.