The Girl Who Fell (7 page)

Empathy exchanges between us like a pact.

When we're finished eating, Alec extends his arm and offers me an escort to the swing set. He effortlessly guides my body into a slung rubber seat and I am a wave carried on his current, surprised by the warmth his breeze of a touch sends through my body. He steadies the chains with his outstretched arms while straddling my legs. Our knees are only inches apart. If I moved the tiniest bit they'd be touching, connected. Just thinking about it sends a fear-filled bolt of electricity through me. I draw in a deep breath to steady my nerves but my senses fill with the sharp mixture of his sweat and cologne. Somewhere in the distance a toddler screeches. And then sound gets pulled into a tunnel and all I can hear are the words falling across Alec's lips.

“Can I tell you something?” He holds the chains, his chest and arms closed around me. “Promise you won't laugh?”

“Promise.” My nerves cause laughter to tickle across my lips.

“You promise you won't laugh, but you laugh while you're promising?” He shakes his head in mock disappointment but then catches my gaze, holds it. He is looking in me. Through me. He doesn't even blink. It's all I can do not to look away.

“I couldn't stop thinking about you after seeing you here yesterday. Wait, no, that's a lie.” He rubs at one of the metal links with his thumb. “I couldn't stop thinking about you after you didn't know the answer to
nombre dix
.” His jaw bites back a laugh, but one bubbles right over my lips.

“Ah, so
that's
why you wanted to meet up today. You need French pointers.”

He squats in front of the swing, rests his forearms across his thighs. “Please tell me you don't have a boyfriend.”

“I don't.”

“Okay, wait. Are you telling me that because I told you to tell me that, or do you really not have a boyfriend?”

“No boyfriend.”

“Girlfriend?”

“Not like that.”

He considers. “See, now that's strange. I would've thought you'd have a million guys falling over you, based on your French prowess alone. It's a highly effective mating technique, you know.”

I smile. “I wasn't aware.”

“Check out Discovery Channel sometime. Butchered French is a primal mating call.”

“Very funny.”

“Seriously though. How can you not have a boyfriend?” The air falls still around us.

“I haven't met the right person.”

Alec smiles. “Until now. You're supposed to say . . .
until now
.”

“Oh, is that what I'm supposed to say?” I push the toe of my shoe into his and he presses back.

We are touching shoes.

The tips of our shoes.

I can see this. Know this.

So why does it feel like bees buzz under my skin, whirring a demand to touch more of him? I pull my foot away. It leaves me empty in a way that is new. The craving to touch more of Alec is beyond intense. And I want to push it away. Tame it.

Alec plucks a square of bark mulch from the ground and turns it between his fingers. “This has never happened to me before, you know. It's like they say, about attractions being chemical and all. Okay, maybe that does sound Discovery Channel primal. Forget it.”

But I can't. It's as if he's in my head. Humming under my skin.

A soft breeze guides a curl across my cheek and Alec moves to catch it. He tucks it behind my ear, brushing my lobe with his fingers. Something inside my chest skips, like there's a heart racing inside my heart.

“Would you go out with me?”

He can't even know how his words paralyze. They tie and bind with a commitment I can't give after living in the aftermath of my father bailing. Or the mess that is my relationship with Gregg since his kiss. I can't do complication.

“Alec, I . . .”

Alec's face waits on my words, patient and forgiving even though he appears to sense what I'm going to say. A small boy scrambles into the swing near us, reprimanding his mother's offer of help. “I do it!” he shouts at her.

Alec smiles at the boy's independence, his fierceness, and that is when the word slips out of me. “Yes.”

“Huh.” Alec lets out an enormous sigh, threaded with laughter. “I wasn't exactly expecting a yes after that enormously elongated hesitation, Zephyr actually.”

“Me either.” My cheeks redden. His blush reveals understanding.

Alec moves behind me and gives me a gentle push. My feet leave the ground. My legs extend.

When I return to Alec, he catches my hips and holds me, suspended for the briefest second. His fingers lock onto each hip. A spiral of heat climbs inside me, pours into my blood, coats my skin. My whole body alights. Then, he whispers furtive words in my ear: “I used to space out in Latin all the time.”

He lets go. My insides curl.

I return to him with a gentle swoop. He grabs hold. “I'm not so bummed about being the new kid at Sudbury anymore.”

I swing.

“Not since I found a girl who digs muscle cars.”

Swing. And I smile.

“A girl I'm with and might already miss.”

Swoon.

I am lost on the cloud of his words until the little boy screeches. He's figured out he can't swing without his mother's help so he gets down, scrambles toward the sandbox at the opposite side of the park. I watch him angrily hurl a red pail onto the grass when his mother lifts his wriggling body and starts toward their car. Then we are alone—the approaching dusk our only company. I curse the day for not being longer. Stretching out for miles like a summer afternoon.

When I see the wafer moon begin its rise over the ball field, Alec halts my swinging and twists my seat. He rubs the length of my fingers, follows each to the tips where they are wrapped around the cross of the chains. His touch lights my flesh, fire coaxing more heat.

“I have to go,” he says.

My body jolts. Go?

He slips his phone out of the front pocket of his jeans, checks the time. “I have a preseason game tonight.”

Tonight. Dinner. Mom. Oh shit . . . Lizzie. A visit to Gregg's. All the things I spaced on today.

“I wish I could stay.” Alec takes a tentative step closer, whisper close. I smell his familiar cologne, that faint waft of mint. He brings his hand to my face and brushes the gentle rise of his knuckles along my jaw. My breath catches as he spirals a long strand of my hair around his finger. His touch drops to my neckline and I pull back. The heat of him too intense. His face flushes red and he spins me so that he's standing behind me. I wait for him to push me one last time, but his hands slide along my shoulders until he gathers my ponytail, moves it to the side. Heat tightens my stomach into a fist.

The autumn air licks my neckline with a crisp draft. Every inch of me wants to feel his lips on the curves of my neck—soft and unhurried. And every inch of me thinks I should leave. Now.

But my flesh tingles. And begs.

I lean into him. He lifts my hands high on the chains and closes my fingers around the spot where he wants me to hold on.

“You smell like vanilla,” he tells me.

You feel like a dream.
I don't even know the me who thinks these words.

His hands trace along my outstretched arms, his broad palms smoothing over my coat but feeling closer, like warmed lotion against my skin. I allow my back to press into him, this stranger, this boy. My breath seizes as he cups the warmth of my neck. There is a spiraling ache between my legs, foreign and demanding. It is the same ache that tells me to run.

But I don't.

I turn my head. I let my lips meet his. Alec's mouth tastes of spearmint and flight, without a hint of complication.

Driving home from the park, laughter bursts from me so free and light—a laugh I can't remember laughing since Dad left. Somehow, Alec's made me feel like me and someone wholly new at the same time. Like I've stepped out of my own shadow.

Parts of me think it's absurd. Meeting Alec, having a picnic, making out. But other parts want to do it again.

And again.

I turn onto Ashland Drive with my phone in my hand, ready to text Lizzie for an emergency meeting. But when I pull up to the house Gregg's truck is parked out front. My hands squeeze tight around the steering wheel and my breath goes shallow. Even though this is what I've wanted—Gregg and me going back to normal—I can't help my stomach from knotting.

I park, slip my phone into my pocket, and enter the kitchen where Gregg's sitting at the island, thumbing through one of Mom's fall bulb catalogs. His posture rests easy, like it's the most natural place for him to be. There's a small stack of dog treats on the counter, and Finn is alert at Gregg's feet, gazing up expectantly. Gregg was with me when I got Finn from the pound and Finn adores Gregg. Then again, who doesn't love Gregg?

He looks up. “I let myself in with the spare key. Hope that's okay.”

“Yeah, of course. Any time. You know you're always welcome.”

“Am I?” He closes the magazine, slides it toward the middle of the island.

“Look, Gregg—”

“Don't. I shouldn't have kissed you. I get that. You're not into me.”

I lean against the island, bracing myself. “I don't want what happened to change anything.”

“It has. It sucked, Zephyr. Not the kiss . . . your reaction to the kiss. And then being blown off.”

“But I texted you. I wanted to talk the next day.”

“That was a pity text and you know it.”

I fix my posture straight. “How am I the enemy here?”

He lets out a long breath and softens his voice. “You're not. Look, I'm trying to admit I made a mistake.”

“O-kay.”

“I screwed up. I got the timing wrong.”

But it's more than timing; it's chemistry. I know that after kissing Alec.

“I know you have your plan for next year and I hope that still includes me.”

“Of course, Gr—”

He holds up his hand. “No need to go all fangirl over me.” Gregg winks. “Look, it's done. I just need to hear we're cool.”

“We're cool. That's all I ever want us to be.”

He raps his knuckles on the butcher block counter. “Good. So you'll come to my game tonight? Preseason opener.” He smiles that perfect smile. “You can't break tradition now.”

My heart leaps at the chance to restore balance. “What time?”

“Seven. We're playing Hampton.”

I nod approvingly. “Rivals. Nice.”

“Those wannabes? They wish they were good enough to be called our rivals.” He stands, starts toward the door. “So you'll be in my cheering section?”

“You bet.”

“That's my girl,” he says, and I bristle. Gregg pets Finn and sneaks him a parting treat before heading out the door.

The whir of his engine fades as he drives off and I text Lizzie that I'm kidnapping her for the rink.

•  •  •

We find seats on a midlevel bleacher. “So Slice was cool?” Lizzie says.

“Totally cool. It was so nothing, just a drunk kiss.” I neglect to tell her that I never got my sorry ass over to his house, or how I spent my afternoon instead.

Music pumps from the speakers around the rink as the two teams pour onto the ice, gliding into position. My eyes go directly to Sudbury's goal. Even though I can't see Alec's face behind his goalie mask, I keep my eyes fixed on his alert body, made wide with protective hockey gear. The ref drops the puck and bodies scramble. Alec wards off attempted goals with his blocker and his leg pads, his movements as slick as the ice under his skates. The crowd roars each time he deflects a shot. I bite down on a secret smile. Just thinking about being at the park with him warms my body from the inside, like a furnace, even though it's about two degrees inside this tin stadium.

Lizzie buries her cheeks into her mittens to ward off the cold. “So how long were you at Slice's today?”

“Where?”

“Earth to Zee. You said you'd visit me at work. I had to endure a six-hour shift with Shorty. Alone. Without chocolate of any kind. It was cruel and unusual. I texted you a million times.”

“I totally spaced. I left my phone in my car.”

Sudbury scores and everyone in the bleachers stands and hollers. Me and Lizzie do the obligatory stand, but we're not the hooting types.

“I went for a run,” I lie. “Cleaned my room.” As much as I want to tell her about Alec, it can't be here.

A whistle reprimands. Lizzie's shoulder prods mine. She points her multicolored mitten toward the penalty box. I see the large white letters on the player's back:
SLICE
. “I bet he's trying to impress you. You know, by being the bad boy.”

“Stop.”

“What? It's scientific fact that girls are attracted to the bad boy.”

I roll my eyes, which gets a laugh. The only person I want to look at is the boy guarding the net. I watch Alec's broad shoulders defend the goal and can feel the ghost tickle of his touch.

When the final buzzer echoes throughout the stadium, I startle out of my trance. Sudbury players raise their sticks in victory as they skate toward one another and an odd flicker of pride flutters within me. I glance at the scoreboard over the net. Visitors 2, Home 8. In hockey terms, it was a slaughter. The whole crowd cheers and stomps their feet against the metal bleachers like it's a rock concert. I pull my scarf tighter and stand.

Lizzie yanks me down by the hem of my coat. “We can't go now. We have to congratulate Slice.”

“Right . . . yeah.” Nerves mount. Alec didn't exactly invite me and I don't want to look like a creeper for coming. Lizzie hops down the four rows of bleacher seats, me in tow. The players remove their helmets, almost in unison. Each head drips with sweat, their cheeks apple red. I can see Gregg's bright smile from where I'm standing, nearly twenty feet away.