Wake (70 page)

Willa smiles at Elise’s hair woes and says it probably doesn’t help that her hair never lies flat.

“Ugh, I know.”

“Mine doesn’t either,” I remind her. She’s not alone with her wild hair.

Willa pauses with her hand on the blender and smiles at me. “Doesn’t? Present tense?”

“Never mind.”

“Can I see?”

“No.” She lets it go, but Elise can’t resist making a crack at my expense.

“He’s prone to wicked hat head, you know.”

Saturday I head over to the Kirk house late in the morning. I have no plans for today, except to spend it in Willa’s company.

She’s gonna get sick of you, the way you’re always showing up.

Never.

I let myself in and all I can hear is “I’m Gonna Be” by The Proclaimers blasting in the living room. Willa is in the kitchen, mopping the floor and singing along with such enthusiasm that I know she doesn’t think she has an audience. No one sings with that much gusto in public unless they’re drunk. I stand in the hal and observe her, enjoying the show even though I know she’s going to give me hell when she finds out I was watching the whole time.

It’s when she starts playing air guitar with the mop that I can’t help but laugh, and she catches me. She looks absolutely horrified, which only makes the situation funnier.

“Encore!”

Willa marches up to me. For a second I worry that she’s going to break the mop handle over my head and beat me to death with the pieces, but she just hands it to me with narrowed eyes and tells me to pitch in.

“Do I have to sing along?” I tease her.

Willa pretends to punch me in slow motion. I lean into it for the sake of the joke and she opens her hand to touch my face at the last second. She strokes my jaw in a subtle, welcoming way.

“You mop. I’ll clean windows.”

I want to touch her through that baggy flannel shirt.

“Sure.”

“I made myself a chore list for before we go out,” she says as she heads to the kitchen. She reaches under the sink for the bottle of Windex and oh that ass…

“Brian is driving. Is that cool with you?”

“Of course.” Going out tonight wouldn’t be my first choice of activity, but I can fake enthusiasm if she really wants to go. If it were just a double date with Hannah and Brian, and Willa and I had some clear label on whatever it is we’re doing, I’d enjoy it more.

“We don’t have to go.” I give her a (hopefull y) persuasive smile. “We could stay in and rent something to watch.”

Willa hums noncommittal y. “I owe Chris some friend time.”

She owes that douche nozzle what?

“Don’t give me that look.”

“What look?”

“It’s that look that dogs give their owners before they leave the house. You don’t have to come tonight if you don’t want to.”

“I do want to,” I assure her. I push the mop across the kitchen tiles as she wipes the windows. “So…are you wearing that?”

Willa looks down at her torn black jeans and hand-me-down flannel. “Are you serious?”

“You look comfy.”

“I look homeless.”

I set the mop against the counter and show her how huggable flannel is. Willa doesn’t pull away, either.

She wraps her arms loosely around my neck and rests her head on my shoulder while I trace the shape of her ribcage.

“Where’s your brother?” I murmur.

Willa sighs. “No, I will not screw you while he’s out.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.” I rub her back through the flannel, trying to console her. How could she have such a cheap thought? Would she expect that kind of behavior from me?

“So he’s not home?”

“Why?”

“Because I’d rather not get the living shit beaten out of me for kissing you.”

“You haven’t kissed me.”

“I want to.” I press her weight against the counter and cup the back of her head where it rests on my shoulder. I use it to guide her face up to an angle where I can touch her lips. Willa kisses with her eyes open. It’s weird, but I try not to mind it. It’s like she doesn’t want to stop looking at me. And watching the way her face changes, the way she responds to each kiss with more than just her lips, I wonder what I missed with other girls while my eyes were closed. Did their eyes turn dark like Willa’s? Did their cheeks turn pink and warm? Did they negotiate with their eyes as well as their lips, demanding, teasing, asking for a different pace, goading and hinting at ideas?

It takes forever for her to let me get away with a little bit of tongue. She opens up to it slowly, parting to all ow just enough exploration to drive me insane. And then she draws my tongue past her teeth and sucks gently. The sensation makes my face warm and my chest tight with the added effort it takes to breathe. I draw my tongue back, taking her lip with it, and return the favor. Her fingers tighten around my shoulders.

“Be with me.”

“still thinking about it.”

“Willa—”

The damn phone rings. I expect her to let it ring through to voicemail, but she slips away from me to answer it. I’m left hanging with my hands on the counter, listening to the conversation that is more important than making out with me.

“Hello?”

Please let it be a telemarketer.

It’s not, because Willa doesn’t immediately hang up. She’s silent, but I can hear the faint sounds of the cal er speaking.

“Haven’t you learned not to piss me off, Luke?” I look over my shoulder at her. She looks calm enough, but her voice is hard and her tongue is sharp. I wouldn’t piss her off right now.

I take the handset from her. “Don’t call here again.” I slam the phone down and pull Willa into a hug.

“You should have let it ring.”

“You should let go.” She shrugs my arms off and goes back to her paper towels and Windex.

“Are you really thinking about it? Or are you just saying that to put off rejecting me?”

“The floor isn’t going to mop itself.”

“Willa.”

“I am thinking,” she insists. “Be patient. This pros and cons list could take awhile.”

“Don’t rationalize it. Just do what you want to do.”

“I want to think it over. Get mopping.”

“In a second.” I take her shoulder and turn her away from the window. “Let me try convincing you again.”

For an undecided person, Willa sure kisses with enthusiasm. The bottle of Windex hits the counter with a thud and her arms wrap around my neck. She’s quick to let my tongue in this time. I generally prefer gentle kisses, but I’m really starting to like the way she sucks and nibbles at my lips and tongue. It’s like passion without force, and I try to return the favor. Willa snickers suddenly.

“What?” It’s probably not the wisest decision on my part to keep kissing her when I expect an answer, but I can’t leave her mouth alone.

“I was just imagining,” she says between kisses, “what my brother would say”—I cut her off as my teeth close gently around her lower lip—“if he found a hickey on me.” She chuckles.

“You want one?”

“No, I’d rather live to see nineteen.” She lets go of my shoulders and hops up on the counter. Sitting like that, we’re nearly equal height. Willa grabs the sides of my neck and pulls me in for another kiss. My hands trail up her denim-covered thighs, around the back of her hips. I just barely refrain from squeezing her ass—I don’t want to push my luck. She scoots so far forward that she could easily wrap her legs around me…

“Why the hell are you still thinking?” I murmur against her lips. Willa ignores my question. Her thumbs trace the curve of my collarbone, like she just knows where I most like to be touched. My fingers grasp at her soft back—no bra, again—pull ing her closer.

Then I feel the tips of her fingers slide under the back of my hat, and I tweak. I pull away and take a big step back, tugging the edge of my toque back down. Willa remains on the counter for a second, breathless and hands outstretched. Then she closes her reddened lips and lowers her hands with a sigh.

“That’s why, Jem. Because you’re dead. You think of yourself as the Jem who moved here from Ottawa, and you can’t stand it when that il usion is broken.”

What do I say to that?

Willa slips down from the counter and reaches for the mop. “Sooner or later you have to start living with yourself. It sucks, but it’s the only way to live.”

I feel sick all of a sudden. Willa gives me a look of concern and offers me her bed to lie down in. As I trudge up the stairs, still breathless and a little shaken, I consider that she might be right about our potential as a couple.

That doesn’t stop me from wanting her, though.

*

Willa keeps the music down while I rest. I wish she wouldn’t. It might help me relax. At the moment all I have are the distant sounds of her cleaning house, and it makes me feel far away. Her sheets smell nice though. Not as nice as Willa, but still pretty awesome.

Willa’s room is the only part of the house that looks lived in, but not much can be inferred from the objects she leaves out in the open. It’s generic stuff that everyone has—unsorted laundry, a hairbrush, some books and a pair of shoes. I open the drawer of her nightstand to see what she’s
really
like in private.

You can learn a lot about a person by what they keep in their nightstand drawers. What objects and sentimental things can they not stand to be far from in their most vulnerable hours of sleep? Are they practical or cluttered? In Willa’s nightstand I find a second-generation iPod with no headphones, a blister pack of what I’m assuming is birth control with none of the pills missing, and a roll of receipts held together with an elastic band. What a suspicious lack of crap. She must hide her meaningfull things elsewhere, if she has any.

Willa comes in just in time to catch me with my hand in the drawer. She stands there and stares while I quietly push it closed.

“Sorry. I was looking for a mint.” That’s believable, right?

Willa shakes her head. “I hate it that your bad habits are also mine.”

“What?”

“I snooped through your drawers while you were napping.”

Suddenly drawer-poking is offensive when someone else does it. I wonder what she saw in there. Why can’t I remember what I keep in my nightstand? I had the thing open just this morning.

“Find anything good?”

Willa just shrugs. Damn it.

*

The carpool to the theater is crowded, but I don’t mind. I get to have Willa’s thigh and shoulder pressed up against me the whole way, and hold her hand on my knee. Up front, Brian and Hannah hold hands on the center console. Chris, slouched in his seat, looks thoroughly put out.

I don’t let go of Willa’s hand during the walk across the parking lot, or while we wait in the theater lobby. The other three go to the concession stand for popcorn and drinks, but Willa and I hang back. She insists she doesn’t want a snack.

“You’re not abstaining from popcorn just because I can’t have any, are you?”

“My, my, you think highly of yourself.” She swats my arm. “I don’t like popcorn when it’s cheap, never mind five bucks a bag.”

“What do you mean you don’t like popcorn?”

“I just don’t.”

“Mutant.”

Chris comes back from the concession stand with a drink and Twizzlers. He asks Willa again if she doesn’t want anything.

“I’m good.”

I like the way Chris keeps looking at our joined hands, so obviously bothered by it. It feels good to finally pay him back for being a complete dick to me. Revenge on Elwood is an ongoing process—as being a dick always is with him.

Willa notices Chris’s preoccupation too, and she lets go of my hand. She actually apologizes for making him feel like a fifth wheel.

“I heard you guys were a thing,” he says.

Willa is embarrassingly quick to correct him. “We’re not.” Excuse me while I go hang myself…

Chris turns his attention to me with badly feigned concern. “I heard you were sick again.”

“I’m not.”

“Really? You look a little fevered.” My face is red from anger and embarrassment; trust Chris to capitalize on that for a joke.

“Are you?” Willa presses the back of her fingers to my neck. I slap her hand away and instantly feel like a jerk for snapping on her. She looks at me like she wants to tell me off. I’ve proven her right again, being oversensitive about my appearance. But in my defense, Elwood has been a dick to me before. It’s hard not to rise to his bait.

Hannah and Brian return from the concession stand.

“Are we seeing this movie or not?” I turn to go, ignoring the perplexed looks from Hannah and Brian. I want to backhand the smirk right off Elwood’s face.

*

I hate Chris Elwood. He offers Willa a Twizzler during the previews and watches all too closely as her mouth moves along its length, slipping inch by inch into her moist mouth. I want to reach out and take her hand, or lean over and give her a kiss—anything to throw Chris off his agenda—but she doesn’t think too highly of me right now. She thinks I’m dead inside and delusional to boot. And to her credit, she’s right.

Maybe we’re better off as friends now. Later, a few months from now when I look human again, it might work; when I have something more to offer her than this washed up carcass.

The lights go down for the start of the film. Willa has the worst taste in movies. It’s a goofbal comedy, full of obvious jokes and juvenile pop culture references. A couple is making out in the back row—loudly, I might add. I miss that.

Willa laughs at a ridiculously overdramatic golf cart stunt. Her hand finds mine in the dark and holds on securely, without hesitation.

Take that, Elwood.

Sunday Waking up at seven on a weekend sucks ball s. It sucks even more after a lousy night of sleep—Ava woke me up with six drunken apology texts. I try my best to sleepwalk through showering and dressing, and drag my tired ass downstairs to find food. Everyone else is still asleep—even Mom. I suck back some juice and yogurt to tide me over, and as I brush my teeth I conclude that I am going to sleep all the way to church.

It’s just Willa and I today. Frank has already given up on going to church, and his sister doesn’t need to be escorted to and from therapy like a kindergartener. Willa looks just as tired as I feel when she picks me up. She’s got a tall thermos of coffee with her and says, “If I fall asleep at the wheel, punch me.”