Authors: Juliana Stone
“Kiss?”
“Yeah. The one you promised. I’m gonna collect tonight.”
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I could have watched Nathan play his guitar and sing all night.
He was that good. No. He was better than good. He was
charismatic and hot and sexy and talented and…
I shivered just thinking of how he’d bent low over the mike,
guitar cradled in his hands when he sang, and of how his eyes
had never left me for the entire time he’d been on stage.
Not once.
He was riveting, and I was still buzzing from the high I’d
gotten watching him perform. Still buzzing from what he’d said
to me.
It was just after eleven by the time we pulled up to Nate’s
place. There was no moon and no stars, so it was pretty dark.
I stopped the car behind his father’s truck and tried to swallow
the lump in my throat.
Have you ever tried to swallow something that was as big as
a freaking golf ball? It’s not fun. Especially when you’re trying to act like everything is cool, when clearly, everything isn’t.
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It was the total opposite of cool. It was hot. And scary. And
exciting. And did I say hot?
My hair stuck to the back of my neck and I pushed at it
impatiently, exhaling as I tried to wipe my damp palms along
my dress without him noticing.
Nate hadn’t made a move to collect his
payment
yet, and I was pretty sure now was it.
I rotated my shoulders and glanced up at his house. It was as
dark as everything else. His parents had either gone out them-
selves or they were in bed already. Either way, it felt like there was no one around for miles.
“Are you gonna shut this thing off?”
“What?” I jumped at the sound of his voice. The little bit of
light from the dashboard illuminated his face— his strong chin,
high cheekbones, and a mouth that made me think of things.
It made me think about the kiss we’d shared the week before.
And what his body had felt like pressed up against mine. With
his longish hair and that little bit of stubble on his chin, he
looked dangerous. He looked
hot
.
And though he looked perfect, I knew that he was as
un- perfect as I was. We were damaged, the two of us, in ways
not a lot of people could understand. And for the first time since all the bad stuff had happened to me, I didn’t feel so alone. I
didn’t feel like the freak with too much shit inside her. The one who couldn’t talk. The one who fell into herself and hid.
I felt almost…normal.
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I felt like a girl, sitting in a car with a boy. A boy who she liked.
I turned the key and settled back in my seat, not sure what to
do or say, and for the first time, the monumental inexperience
of my life hit me in the face.
I
bet
Rachel
would
have
no
problem
knowing
what
to
do.
I’d seen her grab Nate at the Coffee House. I didn’t have to
be introduced to know she was his ex- girlfriend. She’d looked at Nate as if he was a yummy piece of chocolate. One that she’d
tasted. And when she looked my way, I could tell that she still
wanted him.
She was exactly as I’d imagined. Tanned. Blond. And
gorgeous. Every guy’s fantasy, and yet, he was here with me.
“Thanks,” Nate said suddenly.
“For what?”
“I was a total dick tonight. Thanks for not leaving.”
The radio was on low, an old song by The Fray, and for a few
seconds, we listened to it, Nate’s fingers tapping along the tops of his knees while he hummed the melody.
“Trevor was such a pussy when it came to music, ya know?”
My head rested against the back of the seat and I turned
slightly so that I could see him.
“What do you mean?”
“The Fray. Good band. Solid songwriting skills with a lot of
melody, but not a whole lot of guitar and drums. I like heavy
guitar and loud aggressive drums. Five Finger Death Punch is
more my speed.” Nate shook his head, his eyes ahead and his
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mind elsewhere. “But Trevor loved The Fray. He was real big
on melody, and it’s why we worked together so well. It’s why we
clicked. I was all about technique and arpeggio scales and fast
riffs, but he kept things in perspective, he smoothed things out, and together, man, we wrote some good songs.”
That surprised me and I sat up a little straighter.
“You wrote your own stuff?”
Earlier, at the Coffee House, Nate had played a bunch of
songs with Brent, showing off some impressive guitar skills
while singing all of the girls into a frenzy. He had something
real special, and though it had taken a few songs for him to open up, once he did, I was mesmerized.
He’d made me feel as if I was the only girl in the room, and
I’m pretty sure every other girl had felt the same way. How could they not? When he looked at me, I felt as if he was touching
something inside of me and that something was alive. It was hot
and aching and a little scared.
I wanted to be touched. I wanted to feel. And maybe to forget.
“Yeah,” he answered softly, bringing me back. “We wrote a
lot. Some of it was crap, but some of it was pretty good. We were gonna record them this summer, maybe put them up on iTunes
or something…”
Nate sighed and I felt his pain. I felt it cross my chest and hit me hard like an old friend saying hello.
“We were gonna go for it. Even talked about moving to LA
or New York when we graduated. And now…”
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He shuddered and ran his hands along the tops of his legs.
Back and forth. And then again.
“Shit,” he muttered. “How did I end up here?”
For a moment, I panicked. “Here with me?”
“No,” he answered. “Just here…here looking down a road
that I don’t recognize anymore. A road that I never thought I’d
be on, you know? Trevor was supposed to be with me. It was
always us against everyone else. Us and our music.”
“Nate, you can’t give up on your dreams. You don’t know
what’s going to happen. None of us do. Trevor could wake up
tomorrow.” But I knew the likelihood wasn’t great. I’d heard
Gram talking to one of her friends the day before. I’d heard
words like sepsis, brain damage, possible infection.
“It doesn’t matter what I say or think, Monroe. There is only
the truth. And the simple truth is that Trevor is laid up in a
hospital because of me. He might never wake up
because
of
me
.
Or if he does, he might be screwed up so badly he might wish
he’d just died. It sucks, and I can’t change a fucking thing, no
matter how bad I want to.”
He scrubbed at his eyes angrily, pushing his hair off his
face. “It’s not fair. It’s not fair because I’m sitting in a car
on a hot summer night with a beautiful girl. I’m smelling
her shampoo and imagining what it would feel like to hold
her. I’m feeling things I shouldn’t be feeling, because I don’t
deserve them.”
He swore again. “But what makes it worse is that I
want
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be here with you and that makes me feel even worse. It makes
me feel guilty. I feel…”
He looked at me, and my heart melted a little more when I
saw moisture in the corners of his eyes. I undid my seatbelt and
moved closer, my eyes not leaving his. My heart felt like it was
gonna beat right out of my chest, it roared in my ears, heavy and strong and…
Alive.
I reached for him, my palm on his cheek, and my heart
turned over when he leaned into me. He closed his eyes, and I
gently wiped away the single tear that fell.
“What do you feel?” I asked so softly I barely heard myself,
and at first, I thought that maybe the words had only echoed
inside my head.
His hands moved into my hair and I couldn’t move if I wanted
to. When my eyes focused, I gazed into his. I saw the pain that
lay there. The anguish and the sorrow. But I saw something else.
“Do you have to ask?” he said hoarsely.
I stared into his eyes for so long that my vision blurred.
His fingers wrapped around my skull, tangling in my hair and
pulling me even closer. I smelled mint gum and something
subtle, but nice.
It was hot in the car, but his body heat made it ten times
more so, and my dress clung to my skin, my hair to the back of
my neck.
He rested his forehead on mine and drew in a ragged breath
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that I felt deep in my own lungs. Every single inch of me felt as if it was on fire. Hot. Achy. Tremulous.
I swear my limbs had melted into rubber the moment he
touched me, and I was afraid that if he let go, I’d pitch forward.
My hands crept up his chest. I felt his beating heart and the heat from his body through his shirt, and he groaned a little when I
continued upward until I wrapped them around his neck. I couldn’t think about anything other than getting closer to him. I shifted
my hips and he moved so that I was practically sitting in his lap.
“God, Monroe. This is so wrong.”
No way was it wrong. It was so right.
I had to swallow that damn lump again, and when I did, I
managed to croak. “Why?”
“It’s so wrong to
feel
, to be with you when Trevor is— ”
“Stop it,” I said loudly, pushing at him once and then again
until he was forced to look into my eyes. “What happened is
done. You can’t change anything, Nate. At some point, you’re
going to have to forgive yourself and just…live again.”
Holy hell. If my therapist could hear me now, he’d be fist-
pumping his way to the freaking moon.
“Is that what you’re doing, Monroe? Have you forgiven
yourself?”
For a few moments, there was no sound other than the breeze
buffeting the hood of the car and our breaths falling in short,
hard spurts. Images I didn’t ever want to see flashed before my
eyes, and I shook my head violently.
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“I don’t want to talk about Malcolm.”
For a second, he said nothing and then he exhaled and I
could feel him pulling away, but I needed something more.
He
needed something more.
“I haven’t forgiven myself. I don’t think I ever will but…” I
paused as the enormity of the words in my head washed over
me. They pressed into my chest and made it hard to breathe
or speak.
When I spoke again, it was barely a whisper. “I’m learning to
live again and that’s a start.”
“It’s hard,” he said, his dark eyes hooded, his gaze on my mouth.
My hands encircled his neck and I felt his fist in my hair
as I bent forward. “I know,” I breathed into him, my mouth
hovering above his.
Our noses touched and my breath caught at the back of my
throat. I think I whimpered or maybe I sobbed. I don’t know. I
couldn’t hear. I could barely function.
Because when he moved enough so that his lips were on
mine, everything stopped except us.
There was nothing but Nathan and this hot Louisiana night.
There was nothing but the need to connect to someone so badly
I felt it ache in every part of my body.
His mouth was warm, his lips firm as he slid them over
mine. Bombs could have been going off for all I knew, because
it sure as heck felt like it. My world was rocking and I was
letting it.
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Nate’s scent, the feel of his hair between my fingers, his hard
chest and legs beneath my body— all of it rushed through me.
And oh God, could he kiss.
I opened my mouth beneath his and he groaned into me,
shifting yet again so that now I straddled him. I let him kiss me with all the ferocious need and anguish inside him, and I have
no idea how long we were like that— connected on every level,
touching each other, tasting each other— and when he broke
away, I whimpered again.
“Don’t stop,” I said throatily, running my hand across his jaw.
“Monroe, if I don’t stop,” he said huskily. “If we don’t…”
Something like pain crossed his face, and suddenly I was aware
of a few things.
My skirt had ridden up to my hips, and the bright pink boy
undies I had on were there for him to see. In fact, one of his
hands was on the small of my back, holding me in place.
Holding me against him.
Against
him.
“Shit,” I said, wriggling like mad to move away. By the look
on his face, I think I made things worse. “I’m sorry.”
I kneeled on the seat beside him, biting my lip and not sure what to do. His arm slipped around me, pulling me into his warmth.