Ties (14 page)

I clear my throat. “I know my church can be pretty big on judgment and guilt, but you have to keep in mind that at its core, it’s all about forgiveness. Or, you know, it’s supposed to be.”

He leans closer to me, and I catch the salty smell of his skin in my nostrils.

“That’s my problem: I don’t
want
forgiveness. What I did? A ton of it was stupid. But it moved me to right where I am today. And I wouldn’t trade that for anything.”

My mouth goes so dry, my tongue feels wooden. He moves his knees in my direction, and the rough hair on his leg brushes against my smooth calf. That one movement feels so erotic, so like legs tangled on a bed under twisted sheets, that I gulp down the rest of my wine and draw my leg back.

“I think it’s a cop-out,” I hear myself say. I hear it, but I’m not sure why my voice is so loud in my own ears. “I think you should just make decisions. Real ones. Not do whatever you want, and, when whatever happens, happens, just throw your hands up and say, ‘I wouldn’t change it, because now I’m here.’”

I stand on wobbly legs and Ryan shadows my every move, his hand on my elbow.

“Whoa. I think you need something in your stomach to absorb that wine.”

He leads me to a table set up with so much food, I wouldn’t be surprised if the legs buckled. He picks up a plate, points at different dishes, and waits for me to nod or shake my head. I feel too buzzy to really know what I’m choosing.

He leads me back to our chairs, and all I can think as I trip over my heels is that I’m glad no one has noticed me talking to him yet, because I don’t want to stop.

He didn’t grab a fork. I hate eating without one, but I know I need sustenance, so I use my fingers to pick up bites of things that fill my mouth with sweet, cheesy, fluffy, crackling tastes, each somehow more amazing than the last.

“Better?” he asks, his eyes scanning me like he’s conducting some kind of exam.

My brain puts the pieces together too slowly, and I assume he’s asking about the little blintz I’m nibbling.

Before I can process, I hold it out to him and gush, “The
best
.”

We both look at my fingers, shiny with butter, covered with flecks of pastry, holding out this bite of perfection, and I’m not sure which one of us is more shocked. Ryan leans forward, locks eyes with me, opens his mouth, and slides it over my fingers.

His tongue is smooth and slow, licking the butter away like his one job on this earth is to suck my fingers clean. My heart jumps in time with the quick motions of his tongue, and he drags his mouth back slowly. I don’t breath until the second his mouth pulls back from my fingertips.

“Delicious,” he murmurs in a voice that’s more invitation than assessment. “The
best
.”

“You’d know, wouldn’t you?” I stutter, something cold and barbed bursting through this moment of hot and exquisite. “You’ve tasted so much.”

It’s a clumsy metaphor, and very uncalled for. He opened up to me about his apprehensions concerning judgment, and here I am with my scales and scowl.

“Experience isn’t a bad thing. Do you really think anyone can have a master plan without a substantial amount of real life experience?” he asks, and I stare at his mouth, flattened and serious. I want it pressing against my lips. Badly. “You think you can just draw up schematics for your life and follow them through without any hiccups?”

If his voice was an invitation before, he’s upped the ante.

Now it’s a bet.

A dare.

“I absolutely do. I’m not a moron, Ryan. I know no one can account for every variable, but do I believe you can have a vision, a solid set of goals, even for things you don’t have much experience with? Yes. Do I do that in my life? Yes. Has it worked for me?
Yes.
”

I lean forward without realizing it and almost tip the plate.

Ryan catches it and holds the warm, honeyed food between us like a tiny bridge while I try my hardest to blow any connection between the two of us sky high.

“You’ve never been out on the ocean before, have you?” he asks, and I bristle.

“No. But the ocean isn’t life, Ryan,” I point out.

He jerks back like I pulled out a dagger and stabbed him with it.

“The ocean? Isn’t life?”

The words twist out of his mouth so slowly, I want to put my lips on his and draw them out faster.

Or maybe I just want to put my lips on his.

“Don’t get all Greenpeace, Gaia, hippie-crazy on me,” I threaten, pointing at him. “You can’t have sex, drugs, and rock n’roll on one hand and then flip to argue about the freaking unpredictable cosmic beauty of the ocean on the other.”

I’m breathing so hard, I can feel my chest rise and fall under the lace of my dress.

“That’s
exactly
what you can do.” He yanks the food from my hands and puts it aside, grabbing my fingers and knotting his through, like he’s trying to prove his point kinetically. “Sex? Drugs? Rock n’roll? They’re all primal. Urge based. Unpredictable, unfettered. It’s exactly the way you feel when you’re out there, in the middle of this huge, swelling, life-filled ocean that might let you float and dream for hours, but could just as easily whip up a storm and sink you without leaving a single trace.”

I tug my hands back, but, instead of freeing me from his embrace, it’s like I’ve tightened the knots our interlocked fingers make. “So the ocean can be unpredictable. Sure. But it’s also so completely rule-based. Tides come in and out in a way that can be measured and plotted. Storms muster and can be tracked. Life fluctuates according to
rules
. Just because you don’t know the rules or don’t pay attention doesn’t mean there aren’t any.”

“We can argue with words for hours, but you need to experience it. You need to
feel
it. I want to take you on my boat so badly,” Ryan says, his pupils liquid black.

“I don’t know if I like sailing,” I return.

“Do you like sex?” He must see the blood drain from my face, because he laughs. “I’m not asking you to have sex on my boat. Yet. I’m saying it’s
like
sex: wild, but rhythmic. Huge and gorgeous, but easy to get lost in.”

“Are you really saying this? Are you pulling out all your best lines?” I ask, and I don’t attempt to keep my eye roll to myself. “Just say what you want to say and stop hiding behind all these cheesy metaphors.”

“Fine.” He leans close, his voice tangles in my ears and prickles down my shoulders, tickling goosebumps on my arms. I can hear his breath and feel it on the tiny hairs at my neck. “I want to have sex with you. Out on the ocean. I want to take your clothes off and lick you and suck on you until you scream as loud as you want, out where we can just be together, without worrying about anyone else. I want to see what happens when you throw your damn plans out the window and just do what feels right.”

I whimper, so low I know there’s no way he could have heard, and it takes longer than usual for me to harden and push away. But I manage.

“And you reprimanded me for saying ‘hell’ in a synagogue, seriously?” I
tsk
my tongue and try to stare at him coolly, but there’s no chance of that, so I unwind my fingers from his and examine my fingernails. Hoping he won’t notice how violently my hand shakes. “That invitation sounds
so nice
, and I’m sure it worked for many...many...
many
other girls. But I’ll have to turn you down.”

“It’s not like that,” he says, his voice crackling like it’s edged in ice. “I haven’t been with anyone in over a year, and I’ve never taken anyone on my boat. Never. That’s not something I ever wanted to share before.”

“How sweet,” I say, my voice syrupy. “You want to
share
with me? I’m so honored.” The sarcasm is heavy in my mouth.

For a few seconds the cacophony of chatter and music floods back and reminds me just how out in the open we are right now. Finally his voice sucks me back into the private place where only the two of us exist.

“No matter what I do, it’s wrong, isn’t it?” He tilts his head and studies me. “I don’t know what else to do, Hattie. I tried being honest. I tried being romantic. I know you feel it with me, but I feel like you’re not going to admit it, no matter how I ask.”

Like a coward, I take more precise inventory of my cuticles. “It’s fun when we’re together, Ryan. It is. But fun never lasts, and I don’t want...I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

“The wrong idea?” He moves closer and I back up. His hands reach up, then fall to his sides, balled into fists. “Is this because I don’t fit some plan you have tacked on some vision board?”

The weepy wail of a fiddle dances around the excited clap of the audience, and I wonder why I love the idea that he can’t be pinned into my life plan so much it makes my heart hammer hard. And I wonder why, at the same time, it scares me that I love it so much.

Over his head, I see a group of people at the food table who seem familiar...and realize with a cold shock of panic it’s Deo, Whit, Marigold, Rocko, and Grandpa. I barely process before I have Ryan by his calloused hand and am dragging him into a deserted hall that leads to a series of classrooms. I peek around the corner and breathe a sigh of relief when I realize no one spotted us.

Then I focus on the fact that my body is pressed hard against Ryan’s. He’s leaned on a wall, between paintings of Judith slicing off the head of Holofernes and Ruth gathering shocks of wheat. I press his shoulders back with my hands, flexing my fingers against the resistance of his muscles.

I want to look into his eyes, but my gaze only makes it halfway up his face. He has this sharp jaw and thin, strong lips. You’d never expect his tongue to be so soft and manipulative based on that jaw and mouth.

But I know.

I know, and I want it.

After
I just mocked him and told him ‘no’ when he offered.

What the hell is this guy doing to me?

I run my fingers through the soft, short hair behind his ears, letting my palms rest on his neck, where I can feel his jugular hammering like a kick-drum up my wrists, into my chest, around my heart.

My lips are on his, and it shocks me again how right this feels. No matter how complicated our arguments and intentions are, when our bodies meet, everything else melts away, and it’s just me and him.

He moans, and I feel the vibration under my palms. His moan unleashes something wet and sweet in me, and I press hard against him, trying to harness what I feel, but not sure how. His hands move down to my ass. He squeezes, softly at first, but much harder when I wiggle against him. He kneads and presses, stopping to move his hands lower, all the way down to my upper thighs, and higher, up to my shoulders.

I drag my hands down his neck and along the front of his shirt, pressing my mouth insistently against his. My fingers flick one button open, then two, then I slide my hand over his thudding heart.

“Hattie,” he breathes. “I want you.”

I don’t answer, even though being stuck where I am with him isn’t satisfying me. But I haven’t figured out what I want from him--from us. So I keep licking and sucking, running my fingers over him and pressing my hips close to his.

After a few minutes of mutual frustration, he stops again. “Let me take you out. Later. We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, but I need more than this. I need
you
.”

“Maybe.” I press my fingers to his lips, wanting him truly alone, but wondering if I can duck out of the Rodriguez dinner without everyone worrying and asking questions.

I’m still not used to having a big extended family monitoring my every move. Part of me loves all the attention, but the independent part of my personality feels incredibly stifled.

“Maybe?” He moves his hands down to my hips and squeezes, his mouth nuzzling along my neck. “Hattie, you’re killing me, you know that? I’m starting to think that’s the point for you. Do you get off on torturing me?”

I grab onto the sides of his shirt and wrestle my very strong desire to see him undressed. Totally undressed. Then I hear the click of heels. Ryan stands up straight, smoothes his clothes down and tries to look innocent, but even innocently talking in a hallway isn’t good enough if my family catches us together. I yank him into one of the classrooms, my hand over his mouth as I listen to some woman, clearly very confused, tottering down the hall and muttering about the bathrooms.

I relax, pull Ryan away from the old chalkboard, and brush chalk dust off his pants. “The coast is clear. I thought it was Whit.”

At her name, Ryan goes stiff, and I bite back the jealous words that threaten to spill out. I try to go for neutral, but I don’t think my tone quite nails it.

“She meant a lot to you, didn’t she?” I ask. He opens his mouth and I cut in, “I get it. I mean, my brother seems like a goof, but he’s not stupid. She’s amazing. Please don’t think I’ll turn into some psycho bitch if you bring her up. We’re adults.” I focus on buttoning his shirt and breathing through my nose.

“Whit is amazing,” Ryan says very slowly. “I told you, she met Deo and there was no one else. And what we had was purely physical.”