My Favorite Mistake (19 page)

“I thought you didn’t like me.”

“I don’t,” he mouthed, and then closed his eyes for a moment. Before opening them and meeting my eyes. 

“Dance with me. Just dance with me.”

So I did.

We danced for what seemed like hours. Hunter left for a moment and returned with another drink that I somehow balanced while we danced. My body felt liquid, heavy and smooth. Hunter had another drink  and he seemed to be lost. Like that moment in his room when we’d been the only two people on a planet that was standing still. 

His hands were on me, mine were on him, we were both sweating and breathing heavily, and the music hurt my head and pounded in my skull and it was all too much and not enough.

Eventually I got too hot and I started to walk away to take a break. Hunter followed me, and it was like the dance bubble we’d been in had burst.

“Do you want another drink?”

“Some water would be good,” I said, fanning myself.

Dev and Sean had come to find us earlier to say that they were headed to a house party with the two lovely ladies whose names I couldn’t remember at the moment. Abandoned in my time of need, I was.

Hunter came back with a glass of water for me, complete with a lime wedge and another beer for himself.

“How you feeling?”

“Fine,” I said. 

“You gonna be ready to go soon?” It was still relatively early.

“Why, do you want to go?”

He shrugged. Yup, the dance moment was broken. We each sipped our drinks in silence.

“I still don’t like you,” he said suddenly. “Despite, all of that.” He  waved his hand. I supposed he was indicating the vertical expression of the horizontal desire we’d been doing only minutes before. We were back to walking that fine line between roommates and… whatever else.

Hunter drank his beer, and I sipped my water. We were sitting at the same bar, but it was like we were sitting across from each other with the Grand Canyon between us.

Hunter finished his beer and got another. He was on his fifth or sixth, I couldn’t remember. I’d never seen him drink so freely. I sat and fiddled with my phone, and sipped my water and watched the other dancers. Hunter wouldn’t talk to me, even though I tried a few times.

After he finished his most recent drink, I said I was ready to go. It hadn’t turned out to be the fun night I’d expected. The memories of Hunter and I dancing sizzled in my mind, setting me on fire.

We walked back to our place slowly, trying to avoid tripping on unsteady feet. He was just as bad as I was. 

When we got back to our room, Hunter crashed onto the couch. I sat down in the recliner, pulling my feet up and resting my chin on my knees.

“Are you mad at me?”

“What?” It was like he’d just remembered I was there. Like he’d been in a trance.

“Are you mad at me? You’ve barely talked to me all night.”

“Not everything is about you, Taylor,” he snapped.

“I know that, you jerk. Why won’t you just talk to me? Something is obviously bothering you. I have some idea that it has to do with your secret meeting with the mysterious Joe. Am I getting warmer?”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said, his eyes cold as steel.

“Then enlighten me. You don’t have to keep everything to yourself.”

“Maybe I do. I’ve told you that you don’t want to know the truth, so I’m not going to tell you.”

“Don’t tell me what I will and will not do, Hunter Zaccadelli. You don’t know anything about me.”

He closed his eyes, as if he was trying to compose himself or praying for patience. 

“You only play Pistol Annies when you’re pissed, usually at me. I know your fake laugh from your real one. You have a great laugh, by the way. I know which shirts are your favorites, because they’re the first ones you wear after you’ve done your laundry. You lick your bottom lip when you’re trying to concentrate on your textbook reading. You cry during those commercials with the abused animals when you think no one is looking. No, I don’t know you at all.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” I whispered.

“It means something.”

“I thought you didn’t like me.”

“I don’t want to.” He got up and crouched in front of my chair so fast I almost jumped. “What is it about you? Is it the eyes? Your smile? That sexy laugh? The way you call me out on my shit? I don’t know. All I know is that I don’t like it. I don’t like it.” 

He moved his face close to mine. His breath smelled faintly of beer, but more like him. That spicy smell that clung to him. 

“I don’t like it,” he whispered against my lips. They were almost touching. Almost… 

He pulled back.

I’d had enough. If I didn’t kiss this boy right here, right now, I was going to die. 

I slammed my hand on the back of his head and pulled his head toward mine. Enough talking. Time for kissing.

Our lips met and that was it. All our resistance crumbled and suddenly, I was being thrown backward as Hunter tried to devour me none too gently. We landed on the floor as the recliner flipped up.

“Ow,” I said into his mouth.

“Hm,” he said, ignoring the fact that the recliner was bottom-up and we were on the floor. He grabbed me and rolled me, so we were free of the chair that had sabotaged our kiss.

“I don’t like that chair,” he said as he kissed up and down my face and down to my neck. I rubbed my hands up and down his head, feeling his short hair prickle against my palms. He had just a little bit of stubble on his face, and I could just feel it scraping my hypersensitive skin.

He bit my earlobe, and I laughed because it tickled.

“What are you laughing about?”

“Tickles,” was the only word I could form before his lips were back on mine again and then his tongue was in my mouth. Kissing Hunter was like nothing I’d ever experienced. It was both awful and wonderful at the same time. He was too much, too close, his mouth was too demanding. I’d never been kissed like that before, with pure unadulterated need. 

No guy had ever kissed me as if his salvation depended on it. Hunter kissed like he was going to hell, and he had this one kiss left and he was going to make the most of it. 

“You’re so beautiful,” he said when he pulled back to breathe for a second. I was having trouble with it myself.

 Instead of answering, I reached up for his lips again. I wanted them more than I wanted oxygen.

The sound of the door closing sounded like it was miles away, but then a voice said, 

“Well, hello there.”

Hunter and I both looked up to meet Renee’s irritated face.

“It’s about time.”

So apparently Renee had had a fight with her mother and had decided to come back to the apartment on Saturday rather than stay home. She’d texted both of us to let us know so we didn’t freak out if she was there, but neither of us had been paying attention to our phones. We hadn’t been paying attention to much of anything other than the other one’s lips.

Hunter and I had rolled away from one another, breathless and still buzzing with the energy of the kiss. I wasn’t sure if I was ever going to recover from such an explosive kiss.

“What happened to the recliner?” Renee asked.

For some reason, I looked over at Hunter, who was on his back on the floor, looking up at the ceiling. He met my eyes and grinned. We both started laughing and once we started, we couldn’t stop.

“Okay then. I’m going to bed. You can, um… Yeah. Just don’t be too loud. I really don’t want to hear anything. You know what? I’ll put in earplugs. Carry on.” She scurried to her room and slammed the door.

Hunter and I both lay on our backs, wondering what the hell had just happened.

“Just because I kissed you doesn’t mean I like you. I still don’t.”

“Yeah, because I make out with guys I don’t like all the time.”

“I told you that I didn’t make out with girls I liked. So there you go. I don’t like you.”

“You have a weird way of showing it, Mr. Zaccadelli.”

“You have delicious lips, Miss Caldwell.”

So did he. So delicious I couldn’t remember why we had stopped kissing. Oh, right. Renee had walked in on us. Oops.

Somehow I was able to peel myself off the floor and right the recliner. Hunter was still on the floor, his eyes closed and his hand rubbing circles on his tattoo.

“I’m going to bed,” I blurted out. It was late, and I was tired. Granted, if he wanted to keep making out, I’d find the energy somewhere. 

Oh my God. I’d kissed Hunter.

The reality crashed down on me, and I ran to the bathroom. I wasn’t going to get sick, but I felt like it. 

I wasn’t supposed to be kissing Hunter. I wasn’t supposed to be kissing anyone. 

I braced my hands on the sink and looked at my face in the mirror, surprised to find that my lips weren’t bruised. They felt like they’d been ravaged by him. My hair had somehow gotten all over the place. It looked like I’d had a rough night.

I had.

I ran the cold water and washed my face. I wanted to take a shower, but I didn’t know if I’d have the energy. Suddenly I was very, very tired.

I went back across the hall to our bedroom. Hunter was in the living room, the Xbox going. Once I was alone in our room, I put my pjs on and crawled into bed. The cool sheets weren’t enough to soothe my fevered skin. I was burning up, but not with sickness. I was burning with something else. I shoved my retainer in my mouth and grabbed a book. 

My brain wouldn’t focus on the words. My brain wouldn’t focus on anything but remembering how Hunter had kissed me like we were the last two people on earth and it was time for our last kiss. My brain wouldn’t focus on how he said my lips were delicious and how he’d said I was beautiful. It wouldn’t focus on anything but the feel of his hands on my body, as if he wanted to touch every single inch of me.

I shook my head, but that didn’t help. I shut off the light and put my iPod on, turning up the music loud so maybe my brain would be distracted. It sort of helped, and the pain in my eardrums was at least a little distracting.

I heard Hunter come to bed an hour later. He stumbled around, removing his clothes with less grace than normal. I had the feeling he was still slightly intoxicated. He sighed loudly as he got into bed.

“What have you done to me, Missy?” he whispered, thinking I was asleep.

What had he done to me? That was the question.

Shattered. He broke me apart in a million pieces. I hoped I’d be able to put them back together.

*****

“No! No!”

 A yell woke me up later that night. Hunter was having another nightmare, this time a violent one. He was thrashing, and I was afraid he was going to fall out of bed and hurt himself.

“Hunter, Hunter!” I slapped his shoulder. He wasn’t an easy one to wake when he was having a nightmare. It took three more slaps before his eyes opened and he blinked at me, his chest heaving.

“You were having another nightmare,” I said as he struggled to bring himself back under control. “Are you okay? Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“No, you’re not okay, or no, you don’t want to talk about it?”

“No to both.” He took several slow breaths. I felt stupid standing there.

“Okay then. I’m going back to bed.” I turned, but he grabbed onto my arm to stop me.

“Don’t. Will you stay with me? I just… please.”

“You want me to sleep with you? Hell, no.”

“I’m not talking about that, Missy. I just want you to lie with me. Just shut up and hand me my boxers.” I did so and averted my eyes as he slid them over his hips. “Forget it. Just go to bed.”

“No, no. It’s fine.” The thought of having Hunter’s arms around me was both something I wanted and something I was scared of. His eyes found mine in the dark.

“Will you stay with me? I think I’ll sleep better. I swear I won’t hurt you.” He lifted the covers up, and I climbed in. The bed was small, but Hunter moved so his back was against the wall, so I had enough room to turn on my side, my back to his front. He pulled the covers back up.

“Goodnight.”

“Night,” I whispered.

He was trying to touch me as little as possible, which was nearly impossible in the small bed. I took a deep breath and moved closer to him. I heard a sharp intake of breath before my back met his skin. His arm came around and cradled me. We were in the bubble again. The world could end and we would still be here, like this.

“Goodnight, Missy,” he whispered into my hair.

Goodnight, Hunter.

*****

I woke in the morning with my face pressed into Hunter’s chest. Somehow in the night I’d turned so we were face to face. His chin was on top of my head and his arm was around my back, holding me close. One of us had kicked off the blanket, and our legs were wrapped around one another, like we’d somehow twined and become one person during the night. 

I knew I should move. I knew my legs shouldn’t be wrapped around his. That his arms shouldn’t be around me and that it shouldn’t feel like I was exactly where I was supposed to be for the first time in my life.

Hunter shifted just a little so I knew he was waking up.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hey.” 

“How did that happen?”

I gathered he was referring to our present position. 

“I don’t know.”

 Neither of us made a move. His hand started making lazy circles on my back. 

“I like waking up with you in my arms,” he whispered, inhaling the scent of my hair. He looked so vulnerable. So sweet. He smiled, and it felt like my heart was going to explode. This couldn’t be.

I moved away from him.

“Well, this is the first and last time. My bed is more comfortable.” I rolled as far as I could while still being in the bed. He held on for a moment, but then let me go. Bubble burst.

“But it doesn’t have me in it.” 

“Exactly. Which means I sleep much better.” I hadn’t gotten the best night of sleep with Hunter, but waking up wrapped up with him had been more than worth it. If only we’d had a bigger bed.

No. I was not letting myself go there. This was not going to continue. I couldn’t let it. Kissing and such led to other things.