Keep You (7 page)

             
Tam’s life was all about doing what he had to, what he needed to, what he was supposed to do. His mother needed him. His father needed the reminder that his son was as big as he was now to keep him from circling back around. He was reminded every second of every day that there were things he couldn’t have and shouldn’t hope for.

             
But at the Walkers’ house, he could hang his responsibility up like a coat on the hall tree. He let fresh-baked bread and the sound of laughter take the edge off the bitterness. And when he looked down into Jo’s blue-green eyes, he felt their light shoot through him, felt all the reasons why not get blasted apart, and he was filled up with want. A want that really had nothing to do with getting laid or creating a new reputation for himself. He just wanted.

             
It was that want that took him a step closer and put his hand gently against the side of her head, that traced the pad of his thumb over the blue streak of chalk on her face. Jo’s eyes became huge, searching for his hand, a thousand questions sparking in them. And then they snapped up to his face when he leaned in to her.

             
“You’re more than liked, Joey.”

And they fluttered shut, lashes dark against her cheeks, right before he touched his lips to hers.

              Footsteps pounded the stairs above them and Tam stepped back away from her, his heart thundering against his sternum, every inch of skin covered in goose bumps. Jo touched her parted lips and stared at him with a blank look on her face.

             
Jordan came thundering around the bend in the staircase and jumped the rest of the way down, three Gatorades clutched to his chest. “Okay, next game,” he said cheerfully.

**

              Tam stayed for dinner and Jo had a terrible time not staring at him.

He’d kissed her.

Kissed her
.

She’d replayed the moment over again in her mind at least a thousand times in the past two hours and she kept asking herself what it meant. Surely, he just felt bad for her and wanted to lift her spirits a little. Didn’t he? But he hadn’t told her he had to work and rushed out of the room. No, he’d
kissed
her. It had been so brief, his lips had just touched hers, so light, and then Jordan had ruined everything.

What would have happened if her brother hadn’t come back downstairs?

She knew she had to be blushing like an idiot – her whole body felt like she was stuffed head-to-toe with charcoal – and had no idea why no one had commented on how stupid she must look, stealing glances at Tam and pushing her food around on her plate.

             
After dinner, Jo took up her usual role of clearing off the table and watched, a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach, as Tam shrugged into his coat, kissed Beth on the cheek and thanked her for dinner, traded guy-hugs with Mike and Jordan, nodded to Randy, and headed for the door. She was so disappointed for a moment, sure he wasn’t going to acknowledge her, but he turned as he stepped out into the garage, hand on the knob, pulling the door to behind him, met her gaze, and
winked
at her before he disappeared.

             
Jo fumbled the plate of chicken grease she was holding and nearly dropped it. The grease and various other bits of crunchy chicken residue splattered down onto the table.

             
“Joanna!” her mother admonished. Beth pulled the plate out of her hands, shaking her head. “Here, Tam left before dessert. Run catch him and give him these.” She had a Ziploc bag of chocolate chip cookies in her other hand. “Before you make an even bigger mess.”

             
Jo knew that if she flung her arms around her mom and thanked her, she’d only be asked if she was feeling alright. Instead, she wiped her hands on her jeans legs, snatched up the bag and ran. This almost felt like a sign, like fate pushing her back toward Tam after that moment in the basement before. She struggled to keep from smiling as she jogged through the garage and out the pedestrian door into the full darkness of night.

             
The wind hit her like a slap, snatching her hair over her shoulder, pulling the breath out of her lungs. The air had a bite to it, a few stinging drops of rain, and even with only the light of the streetlamp at the end of the drive, she could still tell that the clouds ahead were a roiling dark mass. Crisp, brown leaves tumbled across the pavement with loud scraping sounds, the boughs that shaded the drive tossing together, creaking, groaning. It felt like one of those magically cool, chaotic nights that always seemed to bring people closer together in movies.

             
Tam drove an old sky-blue Chevy Malibu that he said was his mother’s – it was the only thing he’d ever said about his mother – and he was climbing into it, sitting down behind the wheel and closing his door with one of those heavy, solid metal
thunk
s old cars made. Jo clutched the bag of cookies to her chest and jogged toward him. As the engine turned over with a roar, she pulled open the passenger door and slipped inside. When she shut the door, all the noise – the wind, the blowing leaves, the tree limbs, even the rumble of the car – faded, and then all she could hear was her own breathing.

             
Tam didn’t seem surprised to see her. He turned toward her, one hand braced casually on the wheel, and in the glow of the dash lights, she saw that he wore a small, amused smile. “I feel like the poor unsuspecting shmuck at a gas station who just had a beautiful bank robber jump in my car with a bag of stolen money. You thinking Canada or Mexico?”

             
“You’re not funny,” she said, but a squeal of a giggle bubbled out of her throat anyway. She felt like such a stupid girl. “Here.” She set the Ziploc bag up on the dash. “Mom wanted me to bring you these.”

             
He nodded. “Thanks.” His fingers drummed on the big, ridged wheel. “Was that it? You chased me down for cookies?”

             
There was a teasing, almost knowing edge to his voice and she could feel herself blush furiously, glad it was too dark for him to see. “Actually, I…” she couldn’t make herself finish, embarrassed beyond belief.

             
“What?” he prodded gently. There was a silver flash – the meager light hitting his tongue ring.

             
A shiver traced down her spine. Jo couldn’t believe he was being so patient with her, that he was smiling at her in the dark car rather than ordering her out. “I…” She wet her lips and felt herself leaning toward him, her hand braced on the wide bench seat between them.  “I was just curious why…”

             
“Why I kissed you?” he finished, and her pulse leapt into double time.

             
“Yeah.” Her voice had become ridiculously breathy. She couldn’t seem to draw enough air into her lungs.

             
“Because I’ve lost my damn mind,” he said, and then she realized he must have been leaning toward her because their faces were closer together now. She could see one of his bright blue eyes clearly, glowing in the dash lights, the profile of his nose and jaw, the corner of his mouth, curled up with a smile.

             
“Joey, we…”

             
“Shouldn’t do this?” she guessed, hating it but knowing it was true.

             
His face, the half she could see, seemed to harden at her words, his lips drawing into a tight, flat line. “No.” She didn’t see his hand, but jumped when she felt it sliding into the hair above her left ear, felt his fingers burrow through her tumbled mass of dark blonde locks until he cradled the side of her head, his thumb tracing the chalk smudge on her cheek like it had before. He might as well have had electrical currents surging through his fingertips for the sensation he created on the surface of her skin. Jo closed her eyes.

             
“We shouldn’t,” he said, the words brushing across her face, and then he kissed her.

             
His lips landed lightly on hers. Brushed back and forth. Testing. Asking. Jo thought her heart might come up her throat if it beat any harder. She was stiff, rigid, shocked, and knew that, though she felt plugged into an electrical outlet, this wasn’t a real kiss, not really. Just a tease.

             
A sudden disappointment pierced her excitement. “Tam,” she whispered, breathless, as he pulled back a fraction. “Please don’t kiss me out of pity. If you don’t - ”

             
She hadn’t felt his fingers slide into her front belt loop, but he pulled her forward so quickly she fell against him with a gasp. The hand in her hair slid around to the nape of her neck, his fingers curling tightly. His other hand landed on her hip and squeezed as his arms tightened and he brought her closer to him.

             
Her heart stuttered. Her breath caught in her throat. And Tam ducked his head and pressed his mouth to hers.

             
Jo didn’t know what she was doing, was petrified it would frustrate him…but as his lips moved over hers, pushing hers apart, shaping them, the tip of his tongue pressing between them, she was slowly overtaken by a radiating heat. She might as well have been sitting inside a furnace. Her hands were shaking as she clutched the front of his t-shirt between the halves of his black leather jacket, and was kissing him back, desperate to keep up with him, to taste him, to take all that he was willing to give.

             
When he finally broke away from her, their lips came apart with a wet smack. Tam rested his forehead against hers, his chest heaving under her hands. He was grinning as he said, “this is a bad idea.”

             
“Why?” She was panting, her fingertips pressing into his pecs through his shirt. Her friend Megan’s infatuation with the opposite sex was so much clearer in her mind now. The thought of climbing out of the car was painful.

             
“Because.” He still cupped the back of her head and brought her forehead to his lips. “I like you too much.”

9

Now

             
“It’s gorgeous. That color is perfect on you,” the saleslady in her black pantsuit and sensible heels said as she tidied the hem of Jo’s bridesmaid gown again. “Really a lovely shade.” She was very motherly, mid-fifties, her graying hair done up in a messy bun, an elastic cuff loaded with keys around one wrist. Her nametag read “Mona,” and she looked like a Mona.

             
Jo wasn’t so sure. She turned on the fitting room pedestal, her reflection rotating in the three-way mirror panels set up around her. The color
was
lovely, but the dress looked wrong on her somehow. It had a low, square neckline that her breasts swelled against and little cap sleeves. It was emerald green satin – very Irish – fitted in the bodice and cinched at the waist with a wide cream ribbon. It followed the curve of her hips and then fell in shimmering layers that swirled around her bare feet like clover-colored waves, a green sea crashing around her legs. An airy banner that flowed behind her when she moved. It was the kind of dress a character might have worn in a Jane Austen novel and it just didn’t look right on a girl with a falling ponytail who smelled of canine antifungal cream.

             
“I don’t know.” She chewed at her lip.

             
Jess had already tried on and approved her own gown and was sitting in a white bamboo chair, flipping through the latest issue of
People
. “It fits like a glove,” she said matter-of-factly without looking up. “It makes your boobs look great and your waist has never been tinier.” She shut the magazine with a slap of glossy pages and turned to Mona. “She’s happy with it, thank you. We’ll take it today.”

             
“Thanks, sis.” Jo rolled her eyes.

             
“What?” Jessica stood and slipped her purse strap over her shoulder. “You have to get back to work and we still have to pick up the cake. The dress was perfect and you know it, but if I leave it up to you, you’ll never admit it.”

             
“Like I said, thanks.”

             
Jo changed back into her street clothes, which amounted to jeans and her cartoon cat scrub top, and joined her sister at the register. The dresses were expensive in a teeth-gritting sense, because Delta never did anything thrifty, and Jo was already running through the mental gymnastics it required to calculate the effects of the purchase on all her future purchases.

             
“You complained about my wedding,” Jessica said as they pushed through the door and out into the blinding afternoon, dress bags slung over their shoulders. “But I was not a brat. Delta Brooks is a Grade A brat.”

             
“I didn’t complain about your wedding.”

             
“Then why’d you look so miserable the whole time?”

             
Because as he’d always done, Tam had held the reins of her good spirits.

**

Then

              Maid of honor status wasn’t as big a deal to Jo as it would have been to most sixteen-year-old girls, but it was her sister’s big day and Jess was counting on her. Though really, considering the planner that Jess was, there wasn’t too much for Jo to do. The whole week leading up to the wedding had to have been the calmest in wedding history. The dresses were finished with alterations weeks in advance and, since they’d been made by their aunt, Beth’s sister Julia, they’d cost a fraction of what they would have at any bridal shop. The hall had been a bargain, the flowers too. Jess had declined a bachelorette party in favor of a girl’s night in watching Molly Ringwald movies. There had been no fighting, no meltdowns, no drama. The wedding had swept over their family like a gentle, warm, pleasant wave, much the same way Jess’s fiancé Dylan had come creeping into their lives; soft and gentle and perfect for Jessica.

             
Now, as the bridal march was pulsing on the organ at the head of the church, Jo passed her hand over the front of her magenta halter-top dress one more time, took a deep breath, and then proceeded up the aisle after Jess’s friend Carole, her white roses held rigidly in front of her. The ceremony would pass exactly as it had the night before at the rehearsal, so as she moved between the pews toward the altar, Jo wasn’t afraid of tripping or missing her mark or messing things up for her sister. The nerves churning in her empty stomach had everything to do with Tam Wales sitting somewhere in attendance.

             
That night two months before in his car, when he’d pulled her into his arms and kissed her, had told her he liked her too much, and then had kissed her again was replaying in her mind. They had seen each other often enough since, they’d traded glances and winks in between more typical, friendly moments, but he hadn’t offered to kiss her again.

             
That didn’t mean she didn’t want him to. And now, getting a bit swept up in wedding magic though she didn’t want to, her thoughts seemed to center around him. Around his lips against hers, his hand tangled in her hair, his lungs pumping beneath her hands. She refused to believe the night in his car had been a fluke. He stared at her too much for that. Two weeks before, he’d tucked her hair behind her ear and she’d known, if Mike hadn’t come back into the room, that he would have kissed her then too. It was a little frightening, a lot exciting, and so amazing to think she wasn’t some crazy kid anymore. To think that he might be just as infatuated with her as she was with him.

             
When she reached the altar, she gave Carole a quick smile before she turned and took up her position to the minister’s right, facing the crowd.

             
There were less than a hundred guests in attendance, a small wedding, just like Jess had wanted. Jo scanned the crowd, glancing over her own extended family, her teary-eyed mother with a handkerchief pressed to her lips. Dylan’s quiet, stoic parents, holding hands. Friends, distant relatives. Then she spotted Tam’s shock of almost-black hair and fought a smile that strained at the corners of her mouth. He met her gaze, but did not return the smile, his blue eyes sliding away from her. Confused, she searched him for some sign of discomfort, for anything that might be wrong, and realized that his arm was resting along the back of the pew.

             
Behind a girl’s shoulders.

             
Behind a pretty brunette’s shoulders.

             
Behind his
date’s
shoulders.

             
Jo wanted to be sick and disappointed. Instead, she was furious.

**

              “Who is she?”

             
“Who’s who?” Jordan asked before he tipped his beer bottle back and drained the last of it. He couldn’t drink in public, but at seventeen, he’d been deemed old enough to imbibe at a family wedding and he was taking full advantage.

             
Jo scooted her chair closer to her brother’s and aimed a finger across the reception hall to the leggy brunette who was crossing the empty dance floor, a beer in one hand, glass of wine in the other. The girl – woman; if Tam was nineteen, then this girl was at least that old, if not older – was in an airy black silk dress with spaghetti straps and a belted waist. Her stilettos were skyscrapers hooked to her heels. Her eye makeup was dark, the cat-eye wings of black liner visible even from a distance. Her hair was cut in a shaggy-chic bob that came just to her chin. She was sexy, sophisticated. Exactly the kind of girl she’d always thought Tam would go for.

             
Jo hated her instantly. She knew it was wrong, knew that she was being childish, and couldn’t help it. Tam had kissed her, had whispered against her lips, touched her face…and here he was this this dark princess of a young woman. Jo couldn’t compete with that.

             
“Tam’s date,” she growled, and watched her brother’s pale brows lift.

             
“Jealous much?” he asked with a chuckle.

             
“No.” She forced her face to smooth as she watched the brunette slide into the empty chair beside Tam. He put his hand on the back of her chair and leaned toward her, smiling at whatever she’d said. They were at a table with Mike and his date and Walt and his wife Gwen. “Why would I be?”

             
Jordan chuckled. “Maybe ‘cause you’re in
looove
with Tam.”

             
She swiveled her head in his direction, scowling, but wasn’t proof against the knowing half smile he was giving her. “And what makes you think that?” she asked carefully.

             
“Ha! I’ve been watching you eye-fuck him for years. Oh!” He snapped his fingers. “And back in the fall, one of our pool nights, remember Mike and I went upstairs?” She felt her cheeks get hot. “And I come back down and you two are jumping apart? Might as well have been going at it on the pool table.”

             
“Jordan!”

             
The room was noisy with voices and the live band was getting cranked up, blowing sharp, testing blasts on saxophones and trumpets, but Jo’s exclamation had been loud enough to pull Beth’s attention from across the table. “What’s wrong?” she asked, an uncertain expression marring her face. She looked like a mother who didn’t want anything disturbing her baby’s wedding.

             
“Nothing, Mom,” Jo assured, then kicked her brother under the table. “You can’t tell anyone,” she hissed.

             
He was still chuckling to himself. “Who would I tell? Dude, it’s doomed anyway. He’s nineteen, Jo. You’re still in high school. Just…don’t make shit complicated with Mike. Or anyone. We all like Tam. Let it go.”

             
He might as well have slapped her. For reasons she now saw as foolish, she’d believed Jordan, of all people, would be supportive of her. They were the youngest, the closest. The most open-minded. If Jordan thought her affections for Tam were doomed, then they most likely were.

             
She snuck another glance at Tam’s table just in time to see the brunette lean in close to whisper something in his ear. One red-nailed hand rested familiarly on his shoulder, her painted lips curved into a smile that could only be described as seductive. At the moment, the three year age gap between her and Tam felt more like the Grand Canyon.

             
Feeling like an idiot, Jo got to her feet and grabbed her silver clutch up off the table.

             
“Where are you going?” Beth demanded.

             
“You alright, sweetie?” Randy asked. “You look kinda pale.”

             
“I’m fine.” She forced a smile for them. “Just gonna run to the restroom.”

             
The hall was carpeted in thick, eighties-era green, but otherwise, the decorators had managed to transform it into a picture of modern elegance. White table linens and white china, silver napkins, silver candelabras and flickering white tapers, roses and lilies and dripping crystals. The tables had been set up in a semi-circle around the dance floor and Jo had to wend her way between them, careful not to get one of her sparkly high-heeled silver sandals caught on a chair leg or through a purse strap.

             
Dylan and Jessica were making the rounds and Jo paused to hug her sister.

             
“Where are you going? They’re getting ready to serve dinner,” Jess said, looking truly perplexed that Jo might have forgotten the order of events that evening.

             
“Bathroom,” she explained and slipped away with a smile for Dylan.

             
The building was a civic center and the restrooms were out through a set of elegant French doors and down a much-less-elegant green-carpeted hall to an alcove down by a gymnasium. The gym doors were open and Jo could hear sneakers scuffing over the hardwood, could smell the floor polish in all its traditional, chemical glory. The women’s restroom was on the left side of the hall, across from the men’s, beside a Coke machine and a bulletin board tacked with flyers. She let herself in and breathed a sigh of relief to find that she was alone, only to regret it when she caught a whiff of the smell of the place.

             
She did look kind of pale. She studied herself in the unforgiving glow of the fluorescent tubes, leaning toward the mirror with a grimace. Her skin was a shade lighter, her eyes overly large. Her mouth was puckered up in an unattractive frown and she tried to no avail to smooth it.

             
“You, Joanna,” she told herself, “are an idiot.” She dampened a paper towel and dabbed her neck, her brow. Tugged at the dress in the unsuccessful attempt to cover more of her chest which was doing its best to come surging out of the bodice if she didn’t regulate her breathing.

             
When she realized there was nothing to be done for her hair that was curling at the ends despite the total lack of humidity, she squared her shoulders, pushed out through the door…