Waiting for You (7 page)

As soon as we got back
from the restaurant, he had stripped his beer stained t-shirt off and threw it
away, confirming my OCD theory yet again. I wanted to ask him about it but I
didn’t want to offend him. My little brother was the same way about cleanliness
and organization and I found it somewhat cute how methodical he was about
everything―both Dylan and Jeb.

Part of me missed Jeb
and hoped that he was doing all right. He was a good kid and I hated to see him
take any crap for my decisions. My dad was always hard on him and I think Jeb
was perfect because he felt he
had
to be not because he
wanted
to
be. What thirteen-year-old wanted to do everything their parents told them to
do?
None that I know.

Once we were in bed, we
both seemed to lay there watching the ceiling not looking at each other, as if
it were a movie. Breaking the silence, the air conditioner kicked on again
drowning out the buzzing neon open sign that lit the room with a green tint.

When it kicked off,
Dylan rolled facing me propping himself up on his elbow. “I didn’t get to
finish my questions.”

I chuckled a little
because I knew how this is going to end. One of us was going to be offended by
a question, throw a fit and once again, we wouldn’t finish this silly game.

“Okay but I get to ask
mine first.” I said, smiling. Facing him now, our bodies were less than a foot
away when I noticed a strange pulse humming between us. I felt an attraction to
Dylan, there was that, but something else was present too.

Without shame, Dylan
eyed my body. My cheeks flushed grateful for the poor lighting.

“Same rules apply.” He
added returning his boyish grin.

“Fine.
Who was your last girlfriend?”

Part of me, the
schoolgirl inside of me felt ridiculous for even asking that question like we
were playing spin the bottle. I also hated that I had resorted to this silly
game to get to know a boy I should have never stopped talking to in the first
place.  

Shadows danced across his
cheeks when he blinked, his eyes remained closed. “I’ve had girls that are
friends,” his eyes opened, “but never signified any status with them.”

“Never?”
I asked surprised thinking that he had dated Sarah Thomas last summer.

He shook his head but
didn’t answer.

“What about Sarah?” I
asked, still confused. I saw her at his house a few times and at school on more
than one occasion. Mercedes even mentioned seeing them kissing in the hall.

Dylan looked up from
the blanket he’d been fidgeting with for the last few minutes but didn’t focus
on anything in particular. “She wasn’t my girlfriend, just a friend.”

“Did you sleep with
her?” I blurted out before I could stop myself.

It wasn’t like I didn’t
want to know because I had been dying to know. It seemed the two beers I had
convinced me to speak my mind. Even though we had lost contact with each other
for so long, it didn’t stop me from being curious about his life. If Dylan’s
name was mentioned in conversation, I paid attention.

Dylan rolled over so he
was on his back gazing at the ceiling again. He brought his hands up to his
face, ran them through his hair, and then settled them over his face where they
stayed for a moment. He sighed harshly. His eyes burned into mine like they did
on graduation day, his voice not much more than a whisper. “Yeah,”

I smiled. “So the
rumors are true? What about Haven, and then there was the Jenna and you in the
boy’s locker room. Oh, and the one about you and the police chief’s daughter,
Lindsey. What about that chick in detention? What was her name? Oh right,
Lexi
.”

Dylan groaned rolling
onto his back pulling the blanket over his head. “Stop already.”

When I couldn’t stop
laughing at his sudden mood change, he rolled his eyes dramatically. “I should
probably clear some things up, huh?”

“Yes, by all means
clear some things up.”

“Sarah, she was just a
friend. Her mom had cancer and she was going through a hard time so we hung out
a few times. When her mom went into remission, I never saw her again. Then
Haven…never touched that.
Although I did find her in my room
one afternoon.”
He shuddered at the memory. “So Jenna, we—” Dylan
chuckled lightly at a memory I was sure I didn’t want to know and then
continued. “She…uh…tried to give me head but that just ended in me running from
her car.”

“How does that happen?”
I asked imagining in my head what could have made him run from her.

“She had braces.” He
clarified, wincing at the memory. “Worst experience ever.”

“I see, and Lindsey?”

“Yeah.”

“And
Lexi
?”

He seemed to
contemplate this one for a minute and then grinned softly. “Let’s just say I
did things to her but she never touched me.”

I nodded, taking in
everything he just said. Part of me wondered what he would expect from me, if
he thought I would sleep with him. I’ll admit the idea had already crossed my
mind.

“How
many?”
I wasn’t surprised that Dylan had slept with a few different
girls by now. He had the image that girls swarmed to. They wanted the bad boy.

Dylan’s eyes shifted
away. “I don’t know. Four or five I guess.”

“My turn,” he said
suddenly. “Did you and Eric do anything besides kiss?”

“No, I’m a virgin. We
never got past making out. Apparently not so much with Mercedes,” I took a
deep, shaky breath. “I can’t blame him. She’s beautiful but I never expected
him to go for her.”

Dylan burst out
laughing his eyes squinted in amusement. “You’re kidding right?” he choked
sarcastically.

“No, I’m not joking.
Mercedes is stuck up, yes…but you can’t deny that she’s pretty and has an
amazing body.”

“No, she’s a bitch.” He
placed his hand on my cheek. His thumb traced over my lower lip, I gasped at
the contact and his eyebrows pulled together. “You’re beautiful and Eric’s a
fucking idiot.”

My eyes searched his
for an answer in the ice I found. If I looked, close enough they reminded me of
a glacier with their beauty. “You don’t have to say that.”

Briefly, with the way,
his eyes darted from mine to my lips and then back again, I thought he might
kiss me. A good part of me was hoping he would.

He blinked slowly annoyed
he had to clarify himself. “It’s true, brown eyes.”

“Regardless,” my stare
went to his lips wanting to feel them against mine, “we barely know each other
anymore.”

It was the truth and he
knew it. The people that we knew when we were younger were gone and had been
for a while. I wasn’t that perfect straight-laced ten-year-old that ran around
in flower dresses and complained about the politics of our state. Somewhere
along the lines I became myself even though shrouded by affiliation, I was
still that little girl who thought she would be president someday. Though I
didn’t want to be the president, I had that type of determination inside me.
 

Dylan, he hadn’t
changed. So I guess, in a sense, I should still know him, but I didn’t. With
that shrouded affiliation, I lost touch with reality and those around me.

His face was composed
at first, maybe a practiced indifference that I had seen often over the years.
He kept his hand on my cheek and leaned into me. His facial expression nothing
I had ever seen before, conflicted and emotional, but there was also a desire
burning beneath it that I recognized because I felt it too. He leaned in
further, and before I could react, his lips pressed to my forehead. Lingering
longer than I expected, he pulled away and found my stare. “You are beautiful.”

Remember when I said
that when I was nervous that my talking had an evil twin?

After that kiss, she
made an appearance.

“I had the biggest
crush on you when we were little.” I blurted out and then covered my mouth,
eyes wide. Dylan had been my first kiss when we were seven and I don’t think I
ever got over him entirely. “I also stalked you a little in middle school and
high school. It was like I was the paparazzi or something. I also had this
vision of you manhandling me on the hood of your car.”

What has gotten into
me?

That’s when I slapped
my hand over my mouth again trying to prevent anymore nonsense. It was the only
way to stop myself.

Dylan’s eyes appeared
serious for a moment and then he rolled over on his back, groaned and slowly
brought the blanket up over his face. “You’re killing me.”

Laughing, I rolled over
too and stared at the ceiling.

We ended up talking
most of the night but with Dylan there were some topic’s that were off limits.
It was hard to have conversations with him. You could literally watch him shut
down in a conversation when the subject shifted. It was like a switch for him.

Eventually, my first
night on my own, I found sleep next to a boy I never expected to talk to again
let alone sleep next to him. If I wanted the unknown and spontaneous, I had it
now for sure.

4.
     
Bucket List – Bailey Gray

I woke up to the
morning as the sun peeked into the room through the thin brown curtains. It
took me a moment to remember where I was and what I was doing here. Growing up,
I was never allowed to sleep in and when I saw the time, I panicked thinking my
mother would be pushing through my door any minute with her annoyingly chipper
façade.

Only I wasn’t in my
room. I wasn’t even in my house.

The memories of
yesterday and last night came to mind. I couldn’t believe that I confessed in a
moment of sheer stupidity that I had a crush on him when we were kids and
secretly had a thing for bad boys.

Stupid
of me.

I stretched a little.
The bed wasn’t comfortable so my back was aching and stiff.

I noticed I was on the
edge of the bed, barely hanging on so I went to shimmy over but was pushed more
off the bed as Dylan groaned beside me.

Trying to move away from
him and keep my place on the bed, it didn’t work. I landed on the floor, arms
flailing, legs kicking as I try to catch myself.

Dylan heard the thump
and leaned over the side of the bed. “Why are you on the floor?”

“Jackass,” I replied
with a sour edge to my voice as I picked myself off the floor, rubbing my ass.

Dylan swung his legs
around the side of the bed and sat there for a moment looking out the window.
His head hung and he removed himself from the bed reaching for his cigarettes
in his jeans neatly folded on the chair next to the bed and then walked outside
on the balcony, chuckling. I watched him closely, admiring the way his back
muscles flexed as he walked and the tattoos that I never knew were there on his
back. I wasn’t sure what they all were but they were beautiful. None seemed to
be overly colorful but instead darker shades of black, gray, red and some with
a navy blue. He must have noticed me staring because before he opened the door
he turned and smirked.

Embarrassed, I looked
down at my feet dangling off the side of the bed, noticing I need to paint my
toenails. My mom would have been horrified if she would have seen them. Every
Saturday morning my mom, Mercedes and her mother Teresa got together for what
they called Spa Saturday at Tuscan Spa Sanctuary in Olympia.

Though they specialized
in a Zen-bliss as they called it, it was torture for me and today, being
Saturday, I was relieved not to have to attend.

After I regained some
composure, I made my way out to the balcony where Dylan was leaning against the
railing. Smoke billowing around him as he took a deep drag from his cigarette,
his attention captivated by the street below.

His tattooed back and
muscles distracted me. His back was to me, so I tried to decipher what the
shapes and the writing that surrounded them were. There was one down his spine
that appeared to be some sort of scripture in a foreign language.

The moment I opened the
slider door, the heat of the morning hit me. It was a nice change from the
crisp mornings of the Puget Sound. Though we hadn’t gone far, the climate in
southern Oregon was noticeably different.

Dylan looked over his
shoulder at me when the slider clicked against the metal frame. His smirk was
present when his eyes raked down my body, taking in my black cotton shorts and
small tank top.

Since he was examining
me, I did the same noticing he wasn’t wearing much other than a pair of navy
blue Nike workout shorts with the elastic band of his white boxer briefs
peeking through the top.

Sitting in the plastic chair
near the door, I drew my legs up to my chest.
“Where to
today?”

Dylan raised an eyebrow
and then put his cigarette out against the railing, tossing it over the edge.
“I told you,” he grinned but it wasn’t a grin that held, “city by city,”

“Okay…what city today?”

“San Jose?” He
suggested, raising his eyebrows again.

“Okay.” I stood up.
“Can I shower first?”

His eyes shined
playfully but there was more to the smile than he was leading on. “Can I join
you?” He asked, looking completely serious.

“Nope,”

“Such a tease,” he
mumbled chuckling when I shook my ass a little at him as I closed the slider.

The flirting and
teasing was even more apparent this morning after our confessions but it was
also nice. There’s something about flirting with someone you’re comfortable
around. It was playfully refreshing. I wasn’t sure where any of this was going
to lead between us but it was nice not to know for once. When everything was
planned for you, spontaneity and the unknown is something worth living.

I thought about Eric a
little and then shook those thoughts aside. Having wasted four years with him,
I wasn’t about to waste another moment on him.
Even if it was
just thinking.
I couldn’t stop myself from thinking of him and Mercedes
together. The thought was revolting.