Again (16 page)

I
didn’t say anything. I didn’t move. I didn’t breathe. I couldn’t.

His
lips folded in with mine, his tongue and hands hungry, searching, exposed. His
touch quickened along with my breath. I forgot who he was, who I was. He eased
his hands behind my head and pulled out my hair band, running his fingers
through and undoing my braid as his lips undid me.

“Your
hair is too beautiful to hide,” he said into my lips, “you’re too beautiful to
hide.”

“I
feel the same way about you,” I breathed, struck by the realization that my
second thoughts about his age didn’t matter when his kiss was so timeless.

“No
more hiding,” he said. His lips smashed into mine powerfully, more
aggressively.

My
lips burned with urgency. His kiss lived in the hot skin of my cheeks, the
tender hairs behind my neck, the goose bumps riding up and down my thighs.

He
gasped for breath and his gaze darted over me. Not like he was searching, but
like he’d found everything he was ever looking for. “Thank you.”

“What
did I do?”  

“Just
being you, being here, being…”

“Willing
to work for my dinner,” I replied.

His
lips skated against mine so softly, so tenderly, there wasn’t even a word for
it.

The
snow falling outside was a cocoon keeping us here. Forcing us to see the truth
of who we were to each other, what we could be if we trusted enough to finally
let each other in.

I
was ready.

Carter

It
was light out when I woke up. Kate was breathing next to me. We were both fully
clothed. Making out was as far as we had gone. I could tell she longed for
more, hell, I did too—my body ached for it. But we’d both stopped this time. The
invitation was there if and when we were ready to attend the party.

I’d
said
no more hiding
, but there was still the omission I hadn’t shared.
Until I told Kate my secret I didn’t have a right to go any further with her.
When and if I finally admitted everything, Kate would have to decide if she still
even wanted to know me, let alone
you know
me.

Besides,
even with opportunity pushing us together, I wanted to wait for her. She was
worth waiting for.

I
sat up and glanced out the window; the snow had stopped. Triple A would be here
soon. I’d be able to drive Kate back to the dorm, back into the life we’d been
in before last night—before we could lock everything away.

Her
eyes opened slowly. “Good morning,” she said, leaning on her arm.

“I have
breakfast in bed,” I replied, indicating the box of graham crackers on the
floor.

“Leftovers
already,” she said with an over-exaggerated frown.

“I
could make them into sandwiches, or crumbs, if you’re looking for something a
little different.”

“How
gourmet,” she said, checking the window. “Did it stop?”

I
nodded.

“Does
that mean we have to wake up?” She stretched out lazily like a cat. It was so
early, even they were still asleep, the dogs too. The only noise I could hear
was our breathing, in and out, in and out in the same rhythm, a song our bodies
made together in the half-light.

“No,”
I replied.

Luckily,
it was a weekend and no one would be in till eleven. I kissed her forehead. She
smelled like cinnamon from the graham crackers and a little like me from having
slept in the crook of my arm all night.

Axe
body spray and cinnamon were a lot sexier on a girl than you might think.

“Good,”
she said lying back and closing her eyes. Her mouth twitched. “You can keep
kissing me though.”

“I
can, can I?” I laughed.

“I
mean if you’re bored or something.”

“I
thought you wanted to go back to sleep.”

“Unless
something better wakes me,” she explained.

“Okay,
Sleeping Beauty,” I said, kissing first her top lip, then the bottom, running
my tongue against the inside of her mouth.

She
started fake-snoring, loud, her nose a buzz saw.

I
laughed. “Are you claiming my kisses don’t have the power to break a spell?”

“So
far,” she said, yawning heavily. “I’m not impressed.”

“That
wasn’t how it seemed last night,” I shifted, the bed squeaking below us.

“Last
night you plied me with water and graham crackers,” she explained. “I would
have done anything you wanted.”

“They
do say graham crackers are the new oyster. I mean, I could barely control
myself when they came out at snack time as a kid.”

“It’s
surprising starting so young didn’t help with your kissing any,” she smirked.

I
tickled her and she yelped, which was good because if her outburst didn’t make
me stop touching her around her soft, curved abdomen, I wouldn’t be able to
control myself from making her yelp about something else.

“Close
your eyes again,” I said.

She
obliged with a calculating smile.

I
tasted her temple, my lips landing quieter than a sigh. I explored along her
hairline, my kisses a crown of daisies on her forehead. My mouth grazed her
earlobe. I kissed the bridge of her nose, and her breathing quickened beneath
me. I kissed each cheek, one side of her neck and the other, my kisses more
hungry, insistent, like I was gasping air.

My
lips connected with her pulse as I slid down the length of her neck. I sucked
on the base of her throat, the skin there as soft as a peach.

I scanned
her face, her lips.

Her tongue
darted out and she pouted like a flower waiting for my kiss to sting her, to
send her reeling.

I
would make her wait.

 “Still
nothing?” I asked.

“Getting
warmer.”

“How
warm?” I glided my lips back to the nape of her neck.

“Little
higher,” she said.

I
teased the area below her right jawline.

“Little
higher and to the left,” she instructed.

“That’s
pretty specific,” I said, my words echoing against her chin.

“Warmer,”
she said.

My
cheek smoothed against her left jawline.

“Colder,
freezing,” she laughed.

I
hovered above her lips, not touching them, not touching her, waiting, flooded
in her pull, letting her bathe in mine.

She
tipped her head back. My lips grazed hers like a rain just starting and then
thundered against her with the force of a downpour.

“Hot
enough?” I whispered, continuing to inhale her one kiss at a time.

“Bull’s-eye,”
she sighed.

Kate

I woke
up on Sunday in my own bed and without a hangover. Carter and I had spent all
of Saturday together. After we got his car started, he took me to breakfast. We
saw a movie after that. Went for lunch, dinner, then ice cream and yet another
movie. His treat.

He
was a perfect gentleman even when we were in bed together, and without alcohol
in my system I allowed myself to enjoy just kissing him, just being near him.

I
didn’t get back to the dorm until eleven. He gave me a kiss and dropped me off
in front to go park his car. Maybe he didn’t want to walk in with me. Force
what had been such a great night and day into a prolonged and awkward good-bye.

And
of course the whole
he was my RA
thing.

I
headed up in the elevator alone and when I got back to the room, Dawn was out. I
went to the bathroom, took a quick shower, and crawled into bed, ready to sleep
my way into my first full week of sobriety.

Carter
had probably kept me away from campus on purpose. Temptation is only tempting
when it’s standing right in front of you.

Or
maybe he liked the space we’d created for ourselves away from school as much as
I did. Being alone with him I didn’t crave a drink once. Not only because he
was keeping me busy, but because he liked who I was sober.
I
liked who I
was when I was with him sober.

It
had been effortless to pretend it would continue to be that easy until I woke
up and had a whole new day facing me.

When
I had my acerbic roommate staring at me from her bed. “Where the hell have you
been?”  

“Did
you miss me?” I asked with an amused smile.

She
snorted.

“I
was out.”

“Lucky
for me,” she yawned.

“Where
were you last night when I got back?” I asked, staring at her. Her eyes were
blue, her dark brown contacts not in yet, completely free of her usual severe
makeup.

“Out,”
she volleyed back.

I
laughed. I guess Dawn had a life outside this room.

“At
least I know you weren’t with Steph and Alex,” she huffed, sitting up and
putting her pillow in her lap.

“Why?
Because I’m not hung over and stinking of beer?” I asked, sarcasm dripping.

“No.”
She picked at the nail polish on her thumb, chipping it away like pieces of
mica. “They came looking for you. Burst in asking me where you were, laughing
at me.” She closed her mouth.

“They
laughed at you to your face?” I asked with disbelief. It was better than
thinking that, if I had hesitated in going with Carter for just an extra moment,
they could have caught me, and I might have been too weak to say no.

“Is
that any worse than them laughing at me behind my back?” She turned her face
away and sighed. “Whatever—I should be laughing at them.”

“I’m
so sorry.”

She
shrugged.

“Were
they drunk?” I asked, trying to gauge their level of obnoxiousness.

“Does
it matter?” she asked. “They are always bitches.”

She
was right, they were. It was alcohol that had attracted me to them and alcohol
that repelled me, but they weren’t nice people. Dawn wasn’t either necessarily,
but she
was
my roommate.

I
wondered what they saw in me. Why didn’t they laugh in my face? Maybe I was
just someone new they could boss around. Or, at least, I had been. What did it
say about me that at twenty-nine I still had let them?

“Hey,
whatever, they’re your friends,” she said.

“Not
really,” I replied. In college-take-one they absolutely would have been. Even
in the city they would have been, but not now. They were the thing, not Carter,
between me and making it through college-take-two.

Their
carelessness, their lack of respect for anything besides what they craved, was
how I’d lived before. I could be more now. I could move beyond selfish want.

At
least as long as I continued to stay the hell away from them.

“How
about some coffee,” I said, trying to cheer Dawn up.

“With
you?” she squinted.

“Beats
going alone,” I said.

She
nodded. I guess for once, as far as she was concerned, it did.

We
sat in the coffee shop next to the dorm drinking steaming vanilla lattes. It
was progress for us to have come here together, to be sitting with each other
by choice.

“Oh
great,” Dawn said, lowering her eyes. She slumped, dissolved into her chair.

Steph
and Alex walked in. Steph wore a lime green yoga pant and hoodie set and Alex
wore a lavender one. For girls as hardcore as they seemed, they were always
dressed like My Little Pony.

“Crazy
Kate,” Steph said, walking to our table.

“Missed
you the other night,” Alex added, typing into her phone.

I braced
myself and glanced at them. Their hair was up in buns, their eyes were bloodshot.
There was no doubt they were hung over and pissed at me for not being the same
way. They weren’t the type of girls who were used to being ignored, to being
rejected.

Fuck
if I forgot that being nineteen also meant you had to deal with mean girls.

“She
didn’t miss you,” Dawn mumbled.

“Speak
up, Twilight,” Steph said.

Dawn
seemed to melt down under the table.

“Your
dark magic doesn’t work on us,” Alex said, wiggling her fingers.

“Your
face is even more evil without all the makeup,” Steph laughed.

“You
mean scary,” Alex continued.

Shame
swept through me. The only reason they had come to our room, the only reason
they were bothering Dawn now was because of me—because I had let them tempt me
once and been strong enough not to say yes a second time.

Okay
fine, maybe not strong, but lucky to have Carter to make me seem that way.

“Stop
it, you guys,” I said.

Why
had I let these girls get to me? I was a woman for Crissakes. It could only be
because everything they represented reduced me to a girl again.

“We
weren’t talking to you, Crazy Kate,” Steph said.

“We
were talking to the Night Mistress of Nixon Hall.”

I
rose from my chair and faced them. “Just leave her alone.”

“Maybe
we should leave both of you alone,” Steph said.

“We
don’t like being blown off,” Alex added.

“I never
said I was going with you,” I replied. How could I tell them where I’d actually
been? Who I’d been with?

“You
never said you weren’t, either,” Steph said, clicking her tongue. “I can’t imagine
what would have been more fun than hanging out with us.” Her eyes were tight on
me. Her way of saying this offense would not be shrugged off.

Their
words were like the ones I’d heard in my head a thousand times.

Standing
up and saying no to two bitchy brats was fine for now, but alcohol would still
always be there waiting. Calling me, texting me, reminding me how much fun we
had together.

“We
know you weren’t with Twilight,” Alex added.

“Who
would want to be?” Steph laughed.

“This
doesn’t concern Dawn,” I said. “If you’re pissed at me…” I exhaled. “Be pissed
at me.”

“We
are,” Alex said.

“We’re
trying to decide if we need to keep wasting our time on you,” Steph added.

I
stood straighter. “You can do whatever you want, but I’m sure as hell not going
to keep wasting my time on you,” I said finally. Dawn stifled a laugh behind
me.

Steph
stared at me for a minute and her eyes contracted. Forget about looks killing,
hers could have annihilated me like a nuclear bomb. “Fuck you, loser.”  

“We don’t
want to join your coven anyway,” Alex added as they walked away.

“Forget
about them,” Dawn whispered, taking a long drink of her coffee.

The
problem was, it wasn’t them I needed to forget about.