The Girl I Was Before (23 page)

“I used to steal your order tickets, and then I’d wait for you to show up. And when I knew you were coming, I’d get nervous,” I confess, thinking back to the beginning of the year, to the time when she was just the pretty girl who came into the store. I shut my eyes when I catch her smiling. “I’m super lame. Ahhhh, I can’t believe I told you that.”

“I used to order sandwiches, then throw them away, because I don’t eat sandwiches,” she says. I crack open one eyelid to see the right side of her lip raise while her eyelashes flutter as she looks down at our feet. “Every time I did it, I told myself that I wouldn’t do it again. But then I’d miss you…”

My hands cup her face, and I let my thumbs caress her cheeks, my eyes loving the way she looks when she’s honest, when she’s humbled.

“That’s terribly wasteful,” I joke. She lets out a breathy laugh as her palm slaps against my chest. I catch it and hold it there; I like how it feels, and I want her to feel my heart pick up with every second we stand here together. “Casey would be so mad at you. Don’t ever let him know you did that; he lives for my sandwiches,” I keep joking. She rolls her eyes, but pauses when they meet mine.

Beautiful.

I let my lungs fill, and she does the same. We just stand there and look at each other, two paths that missed their mark and somehow ended up connected. We both turn when we hear the sound of a train’s whistle in the distance, I think both worried that someone was coming into our sanctuary. We’re not ready to give up being alone. I watch her for a few long seconds before she turns back to look at me, and I can tell she knows I’m watching. It’s like I can see her think.

“Last one down buys lunch at Nate’s game tomorrow,” she says urgently, then in a flash, she pulls herself down into the darkness of the tunneled slide. I follow quickly, my ears filled with her laughter and the hissing sound of our bodies rubbing along the hard plastic of the winding slide. We’re both pushing with our hands, and I laugh because there’s literally no way for me to pass her. I don’t even know why she’s rushing. I’m rushing, because all I want in the world is to touch her again. I’m racing to it.

Her body slows near the end, and as I exit the tunnel, I push one final time, bringing my legs to a straddle around her body at the end of the slide, my arms quickly enveloping her and bringing her into me. She’s still laughing, but when my hands find the bare tops of her thighs, she silences immediately, a sharp breath escaping her as her head falls back into my chest. In her race down the slide, her dress has risen up completely, the material pooled around her waist, and my hands couldn’t help but find home on her skin.

“I’m…I’m sorry,” I say, my touch frozen against her while we both sit, our bodies tangled on the flat landing of the slide, my mouth at her ear. I should probably move and let her get up. I’m not sure why I can’t, but I. Just. Can’t. Please, Paige—you’re going to have to lead on this one.

Her chest rises and falls. My chest rises and falls. And soon we’re in sync, a ragged rhythm that is making my hands feel tingling sensations, urges to claw their way up her body, to touch more than this. But I don’t dare until she says so.

“Houston,” she breathes. I shut my eyes and beg for her not to ask to go home. We’ll just have a picnic. I’ll leap out from my spot and give her my hand, help her with her dress. I’ll find her damn boots in the dark, sift through wood chips for an hour, until the sun comes up if I have to, just please don’t ask to go home, Paige.

She doesn’t say anything more as the seconds keep ticking by. I keep mentally begging, until I feel her hair tickle my chin as it slips to the side, along her back, along the bareness of her neck. It’s moving. She’s moving. She’s leaning her head to the side, her change in position long and subtle as her hand comes up to sweep the rest of her hair out of the way, her body leaning more into mine, her neck exposed.

I’m about to kiss her neck, and yeah, I’ve kissed her mouth, so this shouldn’t be a big deal. But this feels like a
very
big deal. I’m Dracula, and she is letting me have her, giving me a taste, knowing I won’t be able to stop. This is definitely submission. She’s submitting, right? My lips barely brush that part of her neck that dips into her shoulder, even this slight touch makes me want to bite and taste her more. But I’m careful; I’m slow.

“Paige,” I whisper, a mimic of how she said my name a minute before. She sighs when I speak, and I smile. I kiss more, letting the full weight of my mouth caress her skin. This time, she moans.

My hands act on their own, palms sliding up the tops of her legs until I reach the gathered material around the bend of her waist and grip it tightly, my mind consumed with the vision of what it would look like if I just ripped this damn dress off. I flex my fingers against her and feel the brush of her panties along the tips. The sensation makes my breath falter, so I return my focus to her neck, letting my tongue have its wish as I taste my way up her shoulder to her ear, tucking the delicate lobe between my teeth, letting my tongue run over the harsh metal and rock of her earring.

I’m content to stay here, to do this, for as long as she’ll let me. Then I feel her hands slide down my arms and reach into my fingers, squeezing before the sharpness of her nails drags slowly back up my arms. She makes it to my biceps before she can’t reach any farther; she lets her hands drift from my skin, bringing her arms over her head, reaching for me, my hair, my neck. The motion causes her body to arch, her legs shifting up and down, almost like she’s trying to rid herself of her dress.

My hands obey—pulling up the gathered material while my mouth continues to memorize every contour of her neck. My knuckles brush along the lace top of her panties, against the smoothness of her waist, the length of her belly to her ribs until I feel the material of her bra against the tips of my fingers. I pause, waiting for those two voices to show up on either shoulder, for good and evil to battle it out and let me know what I’m supposed to do next. But Paige isn’t waiting for either of them.

“Touch me,” she whispers, her head falling to the side against my arm, her own arms linked around my neck, her body splayed in my lap, waiting for me. I let my hands continue their path, moving over the roundness of her breasts, dragging the material slowly, feeling every breath she takes while my hands are traveling over her.

Her dress is pulled to the top of her chest, the white lace of her bra drawing a perfect line against her milky skin. My thumbs run along the edge, tracing the line between good and the best kind of evil—from one side of each breast to the other. Paige arches into me again, silently begging my hands to move, and for the first time with this girl, I feel like I might hold a sliver of power.

“Touch you…here?” I ask, letting my thumbs run just inside the lace, not close enough to her nipples, which I know is where she wants my hands to go. If she arches any more, she will literally be doing a beck bend.

I feel her swallow, hear her breath falter as her lips part, but barely, and I let my thumbs trace the same path again, only this time moving closer to the peaks, touching more of her breast, my other fingers caressing the sides, teasing her more. Her body squirms against me and she leans her head even more to the side until her teeth find the fabric of my sweater and grab hold.

“Please,” she whimpers.

I wouldn’t be able to handle teasing her again either, so this time my thumbs sink completely into her lace bra, pulling the cups down and finding the hard peaks of her nipples desperate and waiting for me. The roughness of the pads of my thumbs run over each slowly, and Paige shifts her lower body, which makes me wish like hell I could shift mine too. I distract myself with my tongue against her neck, letting my teeth drag against her collar bone, but my eyes catch the sight of her naked breasts, her nipples hard and bare in the night air, out here where anyone could find us. Not that anyone would, but even the subtle threat makes all of this that much hotter.

My lips suck against her skin while my hands move around her breasts, finding the hard pebbles of her nipples again, and bringing them between my thumb and finger for a gentle pull, which only makes Paige writhe against me more.

Feeling brave, I let my right hand slide lower against her ribs, down her abdomen and against the wet lace of her panties, my fingers cupping her center and wishing they were inside. I run my hand over her again, and she lets her legs fall open to me, a nonverbal permission to dip my fingers beneath the material and touch her sensitive skin directly. Everything about her is warm and wet, and as I let my fingers run through her center, teasing and dipping inside her, I pull her into me so I can feel the weight of her body against my hardness.

“Please say you brought something,” she says, her eyes peering up at me now, her head tilted and wanting, everything about her wanting.

“I did,” I say, my voice coming out relieved and excited. Shit, I don’t want her to think that’s what my motive was all along. “I wasn’t planning on…on
this.
Really, I swear to god there is food in the cooler. This was supposed to be a picnic.” I’m babbling, but stop abruptly as she sits back on her knees in front of me, now facing me, her hands working to unbutton my jeans. I help her. Or I help until her hands find my hardness, then I fall back against the slide, the wind almost knocked out of me just from her touch.

“Houston…” she says, her hand stroking me once as she leans forward, her blond hair feathering against my chest as her other hand moves my sweater up so she can feel my bare skin. “The fact that you didn’t plan this is precisely why I want it so bad. Like…now,” she says, biting her lip. Her hand moves against me a few more times before she tugs my jeans lower. I feel her reach into the pocket of my jeans, and I lift my head to make eye contact with her, nodding that she’s looking in the right place.

She finds the condom quickly, tearing it open with her teeth. As she reaches for me, my hands automatically go to hers to take over. I’m kind of paranoid about making sure I do this right, given my history, and thank god she doesn’t make me explain it. She just lets me finish putting it on, then grabs my wrists when I’m done and guides my arms back over my head, holding me hostage.

I surrender.

The time it takes for her to crawl forward until she’s straddling me is short yet torturous, but once she’s there, she positions herself quickly, moving her panties out of the way just enough for me to find her entry—to slide into her and for her body to fall onto me.

“Holy fucking Christ,” I say in one breath, my eyelids closing from being overcome with exactly how amazing this feels. I hear her breathe as she moves, and I’m able to will my eyes open just in time to see her close hers. I watch her move against me, lifting and falling as her hands leave my wrists and move to her dress, pulling it up and over her breasts—seeing them from this angle, they may in fact be the most perfect breasts I’ve ever seen.

I slide my hands up her thighs deliberately, stopping at her hips and letting my hands caress her ass, wanting to dig my fingers into her supple skin. I continue my path to her breasts and run my palms over her nipples again, watching her body convulse when I do. As much as her movement paralyzes me, mine seems to electrify her, each pass of my thumb over the hardness of her nipples coaxing her to let me sink even deeper into her.

She’s lost in us, and it’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. Each movement against me forces her lips to part even more, until finally she relents and lets out a tiny cry with every rock of her hips. I know I won’t last more than a few more thrusts, so I focus on her—on making her feel satisfied, on giving her a moment of absolute abandon and bliss. My hands on her hips, I slide them inward and let my thumbs move to her center, until I’m touching her where our bodies are already falling hard into pleasure. I stroke against her, pressing lightly against her and teasing until I feel her begin to clench. Her rocking becomes erratic, and when she’s completely lost her rhythm I take over, letting my hands return to her hips, thrusting up into her two more times before following her over the edge.

“Jesus, Paige,” I breathe, letting my body collapse into exhaustion under her, under the stars, in the middle of the outdoors. I wish for just a moment I were a teenager again so I could spend the next week bragging to Casey about what I just did. Instead, I’ll keep this all to myself. I’m pretty good with that, too.

“Oh my god,” she says, letting her body fall forward on top of mine. I bring my arms around her and hold her to me, stroking her hair down her back, loving the weight of her on me, loving…her.

“I fear the picnic is going to be a pretty big let down now. This night…it’s kind of peaked,” I say, leaning forward and kissing the top of her head. Her body shakes as she laughs against me.

“I don’t know, I looked in there and saw some of that spray cheese and Ritz crackers,” she says. I close my eyes and laugh again. I’m pretty sure she’s right. I had that out on the counter, and I’m sure my mom threw it in.

“I fucking love spray cheese,” I joke. Paige laughs against me again, her body relaxing into me. I let her lie there; let myself have this time—this pause in my life. I let myself touch her while she breathes against me. I made a joke because what I really fucking love is her. Not just because of this, or because of what we did, but because of the girl I get to see, the one who’s strong, but scared.

And she is scared. She’s scared of me. So I made a joke because if she runs now, it will absolutely break me.

P
aige

“
S
o
…Cee Cee…or…Chandra?” I ask, my stomach satisfied, surprisingly, with my combo of apple slices, crackers, and spray cheese. Mostly surprised about the spray cheese. Houston lies down, moving until his head is in my lap. I love looking at him like this. He looks like he’s mine.

“She’s loaded,” he says, popping a full cracker in his mouth. He shouldn’t eat lying down. If he chokes, I’m going to have to save him.

“Yeah, everyone knows that. Name…building…oil trucks…gas stations,” I say, half distracted by the way his hair feels in between my fingers. I think about the times I’ve seen my sister do this with Ty, Rowe do this to Nate. I used to think it was so stupid—that they were so obsessed with a guy’s hair. I never want to leave his hair alone.

“Right, yeah…but Leah’s his granddaughter, so…” His eyes flit to mine for a second. He isn’t proud of this, of wanting her to inherit money.

“I’d want my daughter to have everything she could, too,” I say, feeling his chest relax as he exhales. I won’t judge you, Houston. How could I?

“It’s not really written, but it’s sort of understood that Cee Cee gets to visit Leah whenever she wants if we don’t want that trust to disappear before she’s twenty-one,” he says.

“No, that isn’t right. Trusts don’t work that way,” I say, shaking my head. I have a trust, as does Cass. It’s ours, and it’s been funded ever since our grandmother set it up for us when we were in grade school. Granted, when I turn twenty-one, I get about ten grand. Something tells me Leah’s number carries a few more zeroes.

“It’s revocable,” he says, pulling an apple from his chest and biting the end off of it, holding the other half up for me. I bite it and let my lips touch his fingers. I am breaking down all of the corny rules tonight.

“Who makes a trust revocable?” I ask.

“Someone who doesn’t want to commit to a relationship, and who gets off on the idea of dangling carrots,” he says. Chandra’s father sounds a lot like Chandra.

“Bethany was okay with this arrangement?” I ask, and I can tell by the slight shift in his eyes—the wince that’s barely there, but there—she wasn’t all right with it. I can also tell that it’s something that tortures him.

“Not really,” he says, looking down at the few apples left on his chest. He picks them up and sets them to the side, brushing his sweater off before lifting himself so he’s sitting in front of me, our knees touching.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to bring her up,” I say as he looks down at his hands in his lap. He’s playing with a blade of grass, one of those kinds that flower and blow in the wind, probably to go make more grass somewhere else.

“Don’t be sorry. I don’t regret a single thing, not even convincing Beth to go ahead with the trust,” he says. I stare at his long dark lashes while he looks down. Even those are better than everyone else’s.

“Do you miss her?” I ask. I’ve thought that question often over the last few days, and I’m not really brave enough to ask it now, my heart beating erratically, pounding as it tries to escape my body, ridding itself of the squeezing sensation that is bound to follow when he answers
yes.

“Sometimes I ask myself what good missing her would do,” he answers, not really the words I was expecting. His eyes come to mine for short meetings while he explains, gauging my reaction, making sure I don’t think less of him for anything he says. “At first, yeah…I missed her. But I also think I mostly grieved her, and then I was scared to death wondering how I would be able to raise Leah on my own.”

“Your mom is amazing,” I say, acknowledging how much help she gives her son.

“My mom is a saint. I mean literally…a saint. Someone is carving a statue in her honor somewhere, I swear,” he smiles, but it drifts back to a flat line when he continues. “Leah…she looks just like her. I think more than missing her, now I just sort of hate the things she missed—like seeing her daughter grow up to become the woman she was.”

Houston leans back on his hands and tilts his head up to look at the stars. I follow his lead. A few wispy clouds have found the sky. It’s incredible how dark it gets out here. In California, sometimes the sky is so bright, you can’t really tell if there are clouds at night or not. Out here, though, there’s no room for error—everything is clear.

“That’s how I know it was really love, I guess,” he says, his words bringing my head back to level, my eyes right to him. He’s still lost in the stars. “When you want something for someone else more than you want them to be here for you—when you just wish they had more time, rather than more time with you. I’m pretty sure that’s love.”

My chest feels empty. I look back up before he looks to me; I don’t want him to see the tears forming in my eyes. I can feel his eyes on me, but I won’t give in. I’m not strong enough for this. I know his question is coming before he speaks.

“You ever feel that, Paige? Love?”

My eyes zero in on this one tiny star—it’s smaller than most of the others surrounding it, but its light is wavering in and out. My dad once told me that’s how you know when a star is dying.

“What you just described?” I question. “I’m pretty sure no, Houston. I don’t think I’ve ever felt that.”

I breathe in deeply, preparing to say more, but then I change my mind, because anything else I said would just be sad. I’ve never been in love. I’ve never had a boy say he loved me. All I’ve done is chase and be chased. I’ve had lust. I’ve been infatuated. But that feeling he described? This is the closest I’ve come to that.

“The sun will be up soon,” he says, his voice a welcomed interruption to the silence and my connection with the star above—the one that’s dying. I lift my head to look at the horizon, but all I see are his eyes. I wonder how long they’ve been on me; I wonder what they saw.

“We should go,” I say, drawing my legs in to stand. I’ve been covered in the jackets for the last two hours, my legs wrapped in the edges of the blanket we were lying on. When I stand and expose my skin to the air, the coolness makes me shiver.

“Here,” Houston says, shaking the blanket off, losing the speckles of grass from the back side and wrapping me in it, his arm still around me. Maybe this feeling is close enough to the real thing. I slide my arms around his waist, keeping him close as we walk to the car.

Houston keeps our hands linked during the drive home, his fingers never resting, always weaving in and out, stroking the skin of the top of my hand, making the most out of every second we have to touch. I don’t think Carson ever held my hand—not once. Unless he was dragging me somewhere. He doesn’t let go until we pull in the driveway and he gets out of the car.

He’s doing his best to be quiet, the sun just now peaking over the horizon. It’s been that strange kind of twilight for an hour. I kind of like the way the light painted everything purple—it felt like we were in one of those stories where time stops. We’re nearly to the door when the handle on his cooler breaks off, sending the plastic container bouncing down the walkway and into the grass.

“You are really bad at being sneaky,” I whisper, laughing at him. He shrugs, then we both look up when his mom is standing at the back door, propping it open for us.

“We…uh…lost track of time?” he says, his lips working hard not to let out the laugh he’s holding inside from getting caught.

“Yeah, yeah. Get inside,” she says, waving us in. I can’t make eye contact with her. As much as I’m eighteen, and Houston and I are adults—I’m embarrassed knowing that she probably knows why we’re late.

“Leah up yet?” he asks, looking up the stairs.

“No, not yet. You caught a break. That early-riser of yours slept in for once on a Saturday,” Joyce says, her hand on her hip, her coffee mug in the other. “What time is this baseball game you’re going to?”

“It’s not until two I think,” Houston says, glancing at me, his lips curling, making that small dimple. We were less shy in the twilight.

“Okay, good. I’m working the church rummage sale until noon, then I’ll be back. You can handle making breakfast,” she says. Houston opens his mouth to talk behind her, his brow pinched, but he shuts it quickly.

“Sounds good,” is all he says instead.

Joyce retreats upstairs to change, and Houston and I both collapse on the dining room chairs, our lack of sleep catching up with us.

“I was kind of thinking I’d take a nap. I forgot about her rummage-sale thing,” he says, rubbing his tired eyes and yawning. It makes me yawn, too, but I know I’m not as tired as he is.

“How about I handle breakfast, and you shower and take a nap?” I suggest. His eyes lock on mine for a few seconds, his head falling to the side while he looks at me. His attention starts to make me uncomfortable. “What?” I finally ask, standing and moving to the kitchen to get out from his stare. I sort through a few cabinets until I find the pancake mix. I used to make pancakes for Cass and me all the time; I’m sure I can remember.

Before I turn around, I feel Houston’s hands slide through my arms and around me, bringing me into him, his mouth hot on my neck, my knees instantly weak. “You’re pretty phenomenal, you know,” he says. My brow pinches as I look at my hands.

“I don’t know about that,” I say. He spins me to face him, his hands on my hips, his face close. He needs to shave. I also hope he doesn’t. He leans in and kisses the tip of my nose then rests his head on mine, rolling from side to side.

“You used to know you were phenomenal. I could tell by the way you walked. I don’t know who made you forget, but let me remind you,” he says, tipping my chin up, his lips brushing against mine with his final words. “You are quite phenomenal.” His kiss is the perfect punctuation mark, an exclamation point—the deepness of it as his mouth slowly works mine, his tongue invading my mouth, his fingers soft against my cheeks. I love that I have to look up to kiss him. And I love that he thinks I’m…I’m…phenomenal?

He pulls away, leaving me breathless, then steps back slowly, his grin growing with every inch he moves away. “Now get in there and make me breakfast, woman!” he says, winking. Without hesitation, I dip the spoon in the powder mix and fling it at Houston, dusting his black sweater with a stripe of white.

“No, no,” I say. “We don’t even make jokes like that.”

He bites his lip through his smile and looks down at his soiled sweater, then shakes his head before looking back up to me. My lips are still pursed, though I’m mostly kidding. “See?” he says, his eyes starting at mine, then drawing a slow, affectionate line down the center of my body to the hand holding the spoon. “Phenomenal,” he says, meeting my eyes one more time before turning to the stairs.

“What happened here?” his mom asks, meeting him at the bottom step as they pass. She’s pulling at the center of his sweater. I turn around and begin pouring ingredients in my bowl.

“Houston said something sexist,” I say, adding water and stirring.

“Oh, well then lucky she didn’t hit you,” she says, and I smile, hearing him chuckle. It’s a stupid little thing, but I like that his mom is proud of me for it.

I feel Joyce’s presence at the table behind me, and I can hear her sorting through some things in her purse. I know she needs to leave soon, so I’m hoping she will. As much as it felt good to have her be proud, it also feels uncomfortable having her watch me make pancakes. There’s always this look in her eye, something unsure.

“Paige,” she says. I stop stirring and shut my eyes for a moment. Uncertainty is about to be voiced, I think. I wipe my arm over my forehead as I turn, pretending to have splashed something on my face. I don’t even know why I do that, other than I just need to be busy, to do something with my hands. I should have kept the bowl in them.

“Yeah?” I ask, just as I would if she were about to ask me to reach something on a shelf or pick up milk at the store. That’s not what this is, though. I know it.

“I need to ask you to do something for me,” she says. Milk? Shelf? Please? Anything, but…

“Sure, Joyce,” I smile.

She takes a deep breath while she pulls her things back into her purse, her words paused, sitting right on the cusp while she straightens for her day. It only takes a few seconds, but the torture of the wait feels like forever. When her eyes meet mine, they level me a little, and I turn around to grab the bowl, then face her again, holding it in front of me, like it’s a shield. I stir, my ears focusing on the rhythmic sound of my spoon. I wonder if she can tell how nervous I am right now? Her soft smile at me tells me she can.

“Paige, Houston has a really big heart, and his capacity to love is maybe one of the things I’m most proud of,” she says. I keep stirring, my eyes on her, my focus on the tense muscle of my forearm. Stirring. I’m stirring.

“He’s an amazing guy,” I say. I had to say something. I don’t know why that’s what I chose, but there was nothing else ready to come out.
He’s an amazing guy.
I sound so stupid. She smiles anyway; I’m pretty sure because she knows I’m still nervous around her. I’ve never really cared about winning someone over, but Joyce—I want her to like me.

“He is,” she agrees, her expression warm. Thank you, Joyce, for taking pity on my nerves. “My son cares for you. He cares…a lot,” she says. My forearm is cramping, so I switch hands. Stirring. “Paige, he will love you, and it will be…” she pauses, looking for the right word.

Amazing.

Beautiful.

A dream.

What I want.

“It will be devastating,” she says. Devastating—such a destructive word. So wounded. There’s nothing happy about devastating. I don’t respond; I’m still caught up in trying to understand how her interpretation of her son’s love for me could be so out of line with my own. “I need you to be sure, Paige. If you think there’s a chance that you’re not…that you’re not ready…for
this,”
she says, looking up the stairs, up to where Houston and Leah are both existing. Both breathing. Both—they are a
both.
“You need to let him go. And you need to let him go before it becomes…”

“Devastating,” I whisper, my eyes on the smooth paste in my bowl. I’m no longer hungry.