Wilson Mooney, Almost Eighteen (10 page)

I paced back and forth. I didn’t know
how to start. How was I going to tell him something that could
potentially screw up the rest of my senior year with him at Wesley?
The back of my head tingled with pins and needles and my hands were
damp with perspiration. I could feel the blood drain from my face
as I looked him in the eyes. Damn, this was going to be harder than
I thought. What a disaster! Alone with him in a locked room, I
could think of so many other things I wanted to do. Instead, I was
stuck with being the killjoy.

“
Mr. Mmm—Max,”

“
Yeah? You okay? Something
you wanna tell me?” he asked as he grabbed at my elbows and looked
into my eyes. I couldn’t breathe. He didn’t look at me like a
teacher checking on the well being of his student. There was
something more dynamic between us than that. He looked at me like
he was waiting for me to say something he already knew. Urges
swelled in my abdomen. Maybe I shouldn’t tell him. Maybe I should
see where this moment was going before I busted out with a total
deal breaker. But of course, being who I was I just blurted it
out.

“
Cindy’s going to blackmail
you for an A in your class.”

“
Wait. What? Blackmail me,
for what?” His stare prodded past my menial thoughts.

“
She’s going to use
tonight. She’s going to say that you were drinking with some of
your students.” His hands dropped heavy from my elbows. He looked
down.

“
I’m sorry,” I whispered to
him.

“
Me too.” I watched his
hair cascade down towards the front of his expression. He seemed
disappointed more than scared.

“
I’m just glad she doesn’t
know.” The words forced their way through my lips. I could have
sworn I thought them in my head. But of course that wouldn’t have
been normal for me. The person who can’t seem to keep her mouth
shut. No, I said it out loud and he heard it.

“
She doesn’t know what?”
His eyes narrowed when he looked at me. My heart fell into the pit
of my stomach. What was I going to say? If I tell him that I have a
massive crush on him teetering on the edge of obsession, he could
totally break my heart and laugh in my face. But If I didn’t say
anything, and later found out he felt the same way, I couldn’t live
with those consequences. I had to face the fact I was like a deer
caught in the headlights of a speeding car ready to make me into
road kill. So I figured if I went down the middle of the road
following the solid yellow lines, there would be a chance he would
swerve and I could see what his intentions were. Just so long as I
didn’t trip over one of those damn yellow reflectors.

“
Who—knows what?” I played
completely confused even went so far as to flip my hair back off my
shoulders. It didn’t work.

Or maybe it did…

He caught my chin between
his thumb and index finger and guided my head to look up into his
eyes.
Frickin hit me with the speeding car
now. Take away my intense craving to force myself against him and
taste his lips.
I was shuddering inside.
This was it, he was touching my face and he smelled so delicious. I
felt the gravitational pull between us and I could swear his face
was moving closer to mine. Alright, the fact that our first kiss
was going to happen in a bathroom wasn’t too glamorous. That was a
given, but I had to admit it wouldn’t matter to me if we were in a
horse’s stable surrounded by the stench of horse sweat. He was
coming in to lay claim and I couldn’t wait. I wet my lips,
anticipating in a matter of seconds we would be full-on making out.
I closed my eyes, knowing that I was going to feel his
kiss.

His hair brushed the edge of my lip
and across my cheek. His nose pushed delicate against my hair as he
exhaled; his breath tickled, heating the curves on my
ear.

“
Wilson,” he whispered; I
melted, “What is it that Cindy doesn’t know?”

My eyes snapped open.

What the hell was this?
This couldn’t be happening. Here I was jonesin to kiss him and he
was still concerned with who said what. Why couldn’t I have kept my
big mouth shut?
My whole life, I’ve never
possessed the ability to keep my inner monologue internal. Nothing
new, but now the fallibility of keeping my private thoughts,
private, screwed up my immediate future. Motivated by six little
words that escaped my mouth, he teased me into playing a game. I
was forced to call his bluff. I had to know if he was all
in.

“
Wouldn’t you like to
know?” I breathed soft pushing my lips to his ear. Chills rampaged
through my body as I felt him take a breath and exhale across my
neck.

“
I would.”

As long as I didn’t see his eyes, I
could still play. Nerves wrapped around my insecurities and crushed
them to dust.

“
What are you willing to do
to find out?” I heard the words float around his ear. It was like
someone else said them, until I realized it was my lips that were
moving.

He held his breath, I stopped moving.
My heart sank down to my gut. I think I stepped over the invisible
delicate line that was supposed to be drawn between us. His chest
rose inhaling with what he was going to say. He pressed soft
against my ear.

“
I’d better go.” He pulled
away and never looked back at me as the door slammed shut behind
him.

I flung my body down on the
leather sofa.
I frickin knew it.
That was me, couldn’t seem to say the right thing
at the perfect time. Abandoned in a bathroom and too bummed to
leave, I closed my eyes and lay there for a long moment. I couldn’t
even bring myself to have a self-induced daydream about him. Why
didn’t I just throw my arms around him and plant a huge kiss on
him? Maybe one more drink would have given me the confidence to do
that.

Then again, with one more drink I
could have done the walk of shame to the porcelain god and I
haven’t hugged him since my junior year when Joanie kept having me
suck down martinis at her father’s country club. I don’t think I
will ever drink another martini for as long as I live. Not only
were we escorted out and asked never to return but we were black
listed at ripe young age of seventeen. It was totally stupid and
yet completely epic. Especially when Joanie’s dad came home with
the bar tab, who would’ve thought eight drinks would have cost over
ninety-five dollars?

I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket
and chime with a message. It was from Joanie.

WTF? U NEVR TXT ME! DID U GET THER
SAF? MR. G THER?? CALL ME ASAP!

I texted her back, SORRY J- SAFE- WIL
CAL 2MARO RELLY TIRED. C U. I didn’t feel like going over what just
happened. I pushed the phone back into my pocket.

I felt a paper catch under my
fingernail. I didn’t remember putting anything in my pocket with my
phone. I pulled it out, it was a yellow sticky note folded in half.
There was nothing written on the outside of it. The sticky side was
matched perfectly with the other so it was hard to open. I pulled
it apart and read what it said.

Matt Gladstone 925-555-2129

CALL ME TONIGHT 11:30

Holy Shit! WTF?
My head spun so fast I thought my eyes were
actually moving in circles.
When did he
put this in my pocket? I never felt him do it. I would have felt it
if someone was trying to get into my pants.
I thought back to the bathroom at Wesley and how I flushed
the last note he gave me. I couldn’t believe I didn’t see it
sooner.
Come on pull your head out and
wake up to the world of forbidden love. He called himself Matt. I
should’ve been able to figure that one out. Wait, this means. He
liked me. He wanted me to call him. What time was it?
I looked at the wall above the sofa; there was a
huge clock above my head. Eleven twenty-eight; crazy I didn’t see
it before. I had two minutes to think about how to start a
conversation. I played with the words that danced in my
head.

Hi Mr. Goldstein. Hey Max.
Hi sexy, what’s up? Skiing tomorrow? What do you think about all
this snow? Want to kiss me? Cuz I want to kiss you. Sure I’ll meet
you. What? You want to be my boyfriend?

I looked up to the clock,
it was eleven thirty. My heart dropped into my stomach. It was time
for me to call
him
. I pulled my phone from my pocket and dialed his number. I
pressed send and sat on the sofa in the massive waiting area of the
bathroom. One ring, two then three, finally on the fourth ring he
answered it.

“
Hi this is Max, please
leave a message.” Then there was a beep. I froze. What was I going
to say? After a pretty significant pause, my phone chimed—call
waiting; it was Max.

At least I get to say hi first;
sometimes it was easier being the one to receive the call. Then the
other person has to drive the conversation.

“
Hello?”

“
Hi, Wilson?” his voice
filled my head and made a B line to my heart.

“
Yeah?”

“
I just wanted to see if
you were—okay. Are you?” His voice carried across my chest and down
to feed the hungry butterflies filling my stomach.

“
Yeah.”

“
I wanted to thank you
about Cindy,” his tone was so sexy on the phone. It caused the
butterflies in my stomach to bounce low in my body.

“
Okay.”

I was doing it again. Not making
conversation and sounding like a complete idiot.

“
Well I guess
I’ll—.”

“
What are you doing
tomorrow?” I interrupted. The butterflies were in full migration
around my body. I already knew he was going skiing. So what? I
needed to keep the butterflies busy, I liked them being around. I
heard him take a deep breath into the phone.

“
I’m going skiing with a
couple of buddies from college. Do you ski?” I could hear him
shuffling things around.

“
No. We were supposed to go
tomorrow but that was before I told Cindy she was a bitch. Where
are you?” I stood up and looked in the mirror above the
sinks.

“
I’m in my old room at my
family’s cabin. Where are you?” he asked back.

“
I’m still at
Cindy’s.”

“
I figured that. Where are
you in the cabin?” he said. His voice was low and
growly.

“
You wouldn’t believe me if
I told you,” I snapped back.

“
Well then let me guess.
You’re in Nick’s room.”

“
No.”

“
Cindy’s room?”

“
Nope,”

“
You’re not still in the
bathroom are you?” his voice went up an octave.

“
Yeah, as a matter of fact
I am. That’s where you left me.” I was totally amazed at how much
confidence I had over the phone.

“
I left you? Mmmm. So
you’re not avoiding your friend?”

“
Okay, maybe I am. But I
don’t have someone to protect me.” I played the game.

“
What about Nick? He’s
there. He looked like he wanted to protect you,” his voice became
low and I could tell he was setting a trap. He played his cards
close to his chest waiting for me to raise his bet or fold and go
home. Well that wasn’t the way I play.

“
What about him? He’s a
nice guy. But not the one I was thinking about.” My breath caught
the quickened bubble that formed in the middle of my throat and
escaped my body.

“
Who were you thinking
about? Because I could call him for you.”

“
I’m pretty sure you know
who it is.”

“
Really, what does he look
like?”

Damn it. How did I answer
that?
Too much information and he was
going to win. Not enough and he would fold and walk away. Did I go
with the ugly yet cute description to throw him off track or did I
tell him the truth? Which one wouldn’t scare him away?
God I wish Joanie was here. She was so much
better at this then me. Okay, here it goes; on my own.

“
He has these deep green
eyes that almost hypnotize you when you look into them. His shiny
black hair is off his collar but kinda long on top. He’s taller
than me and thoroughly buff. He looks really good in a t-shirt and
jeans.”

He was silent.

Maybe I should’ve gone with
the ugly yet cute description.
After a
moment he cleared his throat.

“
What do you know about
this guy?”

“
I know that he lives and
works in California. He’s not much older than me. His family has a
cabin and he’s here this weekend. He came over tonight with his
brother, but then had to leave for some reason. Left me in this
bathroom and I never found out why?”

I waited.

“
Will you forgive him? He
must have a lot to think about to leave you in that bathroom. But I
bet he regrets not staying.”

My heart sputtered and I
caved in. This was so intense.
He likes
me. Oh My God—. He likes me. Don’t give in yet.

Now it was my turn to ask questions,
“How do you know he regrets it?” I fished for answers.