Caught Up In Him (2 page)

Bryan listened intently. “No, it
doesn’t. Not at all.”

“It was really the perfect movie to
see, because I think we all just needed to not be sad every second,
you know?”

“It actually makes perfect sense,”
he said. I looked at him and the honesty in his face and his eyes.
He understood. He got it. He got me. I kept going.

“But I guess it all started with my
mom. She’s a huge romantic comedy fan, so she started showing me
all the great ones. Sleepless in Seattle. Love, Actually. Notting
Hill. You’ve Got Mail.”

“And do you still love romantic
comedies?”

“I make jewelry. I drink caramel
machiattos. I wear Hello Kitty to bed. Of course I love romantic
comedies,” I said with a smile as we neared my house. But I didn’t
just love them. I wanted to live within them. I wanted a love like
in the movies.

Bryan cleared his throat. “I think
there’s a romantic-comedy we haven’t seen at the theater. Do you
want to go again tomorrow?”

“Yes,” I said, and I’m sure it came
out all breathy sounding.

We saw the movie the next day, and
it was the kind where you long for the hero and heroine to kiss,
and when they do, near the final frame, you feel this tingling in
your body, and you want to be kissed too. I stole a glance at Bryan
only to find he was stealing a glance at me.

“Hi,” he whispered in that voice
he’d used when he talked about Paris.

“Hi.”

He reached a hand towards me,
slowly, his eyes on me the whole time, as if he were asking if it
was okay. I nodded a yes. He ran his fingers through my dark brown
hair, then his mouth met mine, and we kissed until the credits
rolled, slow and sweet kisses. His lips were the softest I’d ever
felt, and his kisses were of the epic kind, the kind that made you
believe that movie kisses weren’t just for actors or for stories,
that they could be for you, and they could go on and on, like a
slow and sexy love song that melted you from the inside
out.

When he pulled away, he leaned his
forehead against mine. “Kat, I’ve wanted to do that since I first
met you in the driveway the other day.”

“You have?”

“Yes. You were so pretty, and then
you were everything else.”

My heart skipped ten thousand beats.
He was a movie kiss, he was the name above the title. He was the
one you wanted the heroine to wind up with so badly that your heart
ached for her when they weren’t together, then soared when they
finally were.

“I think you’re pretty cool too,” I
said.

“But we probably shouldn’t tell
Nate. You know, since I’m his buddy and you’re his little sister.
Not to mention the age thing.”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

So it was our summer
secret.

Chapter
Three

Any girl who says she doesn’t keep a
list of best kisses ever is lying. She may not have a pen-and-paper
list, but she knows in her head who rocked her world and made her
more than weak in the knees. Bryan was my butterflies-in-the-belly,
my soft-and-hungry-and-neverending kisses. He was all the kisses
I’d ever want. Because he was kind, and he was witty, and he always
wanted to know more about me, and maybe that’s why he kissed like a
dream – he was my dream guy.

One summer night Bryan and I went to
the water and stretched out on a blanket as the waves rolled in. As
I ran my hands over his chest and his stomach, he made this noise,
like a low growl and a sigh all in one, and I wanted to pull his
perfect body to mine and move against him.

“We can’t do more than kiss,” he
said as my fingers explored the underside of his tee-shirt while
the midnight waves rolled along the beach, then back out to the
ocean.

“Why?”

“Because. Because I’m your brother’s
friend. Because I’m older than you.”

“You’re only five years older,” I
pointed out.

“I know. But you’re
seventeen.”

“So? I’m old enough to know what I
want.”

“I know, and I want it too. But it’s
wrong.”

“Would it be wrong then when I’m
eighteen?”

I looped my hands around his back
and wriggled my hips closer. From the feel of him against me, I
doubted it would be wrong. I was sure it would only be
right.

“Kat.”

“Would it be wrong when I’m
eighteen?” I repeated, bringing my lips to his, and running my
fingers across his smooth, strong back. He shuddered under my
touch, and I felt powerful. I felt wanted. I felt like the girl who
was becoming irresistible to the boy.

“No.”

“So then…” I let my voice trail off.
He was leaving for New York in a week to start his job. I was
starting school a month later. Nervous hope clanged inside me. “I’m
going to be in New York soon too. I’m going to NYU.”

“I know, and you’re going to love
it. But my job is going to take me out of town a lot,” he said, and
my heart sank. I wanted to be more than his summer love. Summer
romances, by definition, are bittersweet. They have an expiration
date. “Don’t be sad, Kat. I’m totally falling for you, and I don’t
want to take advantage of you. I like you that much.”

That made me smile and feel better
about the possibility of an us, even though it seemed like grasping
at the edge of a cloud.

A few days later, we were at the
movies again, and I kept thinking about what he’d said about
falling for me. I was falling for him too, and then some. Age
difference or not, brother’s best friend or not, I wanted him to
know. I wanted to put it out there, obstacles be damned. After the
credits rolled, and the lights came up, and we were the only ones
still in the theater except for an usher cleaning the front rows, I
looked in his green eyes, took a breath, and said, “I’m falling for
you too.”

He smiled, the kind that only
spelled happiness, and pressed his forehead to mine. “Kat, will you
come visit me in New York next month?”

I was a pinwheel of colors. I was
the winner at the carnival. The boy I wanted wanted me. “Of
course.”

And so we made plans. I’d take the
train in on weekends to visit him, and we’d do all those things
young couples do in New York. Walk through the Village holding
hands, kiss by the fountain at Lincoln Center, bring a picnic to
Central Park and find the most secluded spot. Then, when I turned
eighteen at the end of the summer, we’d do more. We’d do
everything. He would be my first, and there was no question I’d
waited for the right guy.

We went to a restaurant in Little
Italy the first weekend, and he touched my legs under the
red-checked tablecloth the whole time, sending me into the most
heated state. When we left, I pulled him against me and we made out
in front of a closed hardware store next door, not caring who was
walking past us.

Another time, we spent the afternoon
in the Impressionist galleries at the Metropolitan Museum, where I
showed him my favorite Monet, one of haystacks in the snow. He said
he liked the way the artist crafted shadows in the sun. Then, Bryan
pointed at the folds on a dress in a Renoir and mused that they
seemed like diamonds. I looked at him, at the way his green eyes
studied the painting, and it all seemed too good to be true – here
I was with someone who was gorgeous, and funny, and who actually
liked looking at art – but yet, it was true.

The next weekend he said he’d found
the perfect store for me, and he brought me to a cobblestoned block
in the Village and held open the door to a tiny little Japanese
manga shop. I gave him a quizzical look. I wasn’t into
manga.

“Just go in. You’ll see.”

After I passed the shelves of
comics, I saw the most fantastic display. A wall full of Hello
Kitty jewelry – bracelets and rings and hair clips and necklaces
and keychains and every adornment imaginable with the
cat.

Bryan was smiling, as if he’d
brought me to buried treasure. “I thought you might get a kick out
of it.” A nervous grin came next. “But then again, you make such
amazing stuff this might all seem silly to you.”

I placed my hand on his arm. “I love
it. No matter what I make, I will always love Hello Kitty. It’s a
life-long kind of thing we have going on.”

“Good. Pick anything you
like.”

I studied the displays, checking out
a rhinestone necklace, a white and pink pendant, a silver and black
chain. Then rings in all shapes and sizes. I showed him a cute,
sparkly ring. “I do love this ring.”

I moved over to the necklaces. Bryan
shifted closer and slipped his hand onto the small of my back,
touching me underneath my tee-shirt. I closed my eyes because it
felt so good I wanted to purr. The slightest touch from him was
intoxicating.

“One more week until your birthday,”
he whispered.

I leaned into him, savoring the feel
of his body against me. That we were in a public place barely
crossed my mind. All I could think of was him.

The girl behind the counter cleared
her throat. I opened my eyes and managed to choose a sparkly
number, with pink stones for the cat’s ears. It was kitschy and
that’s what made it so adorable.

“Wait for me outside,” Bryan
said.

I did as instructed and a minute
later, he left the store, dropped a tiny white bag into his wallet,
and then fastened the chain around my neck. “It’s just a little
necklace, but I wanted you to have something from me. Something you
liked,” he said, and he sounded so sweet and nervous
too.

“I love it, Bryan. I totally love
it.”

“You do?”

“Yes.”

Then, his hands were in my hair, and
he kissed my neck, my earlobe, my eyelids. I sighed and swayed
closer. I was floating, I was flying, I was in Manhattan with the
man I’d fallen in mad, crazy love with.

“Why aren’t we just in your
apartment right now?” I whispered.

“Because if we are, I will not be
able to resist you.”

“You’re not doing a good job
resisting me right now.”

“I know. Can you even imagine what
it’ll be like if it’s just you and me?”

“Yes,” I said softly. “I can
imagine. I think about it all the time. I’m so crazy about you. I
want to be with you in every way.”

“Me too. Let’s go walk around NYU.
You’re going to be there in just a few weeks.” He held my hand and
squeezed my fingers when he said that, his touch a visceral
reminder that we’d be together then. We wandered around the campus
for the next hour, and with each building, dorm and classroom that
we managed to find open in August, I grew more excited about
college.

“I can’t believe I’m going to be
here soon. It’s going to be amazing.” We walked along the outside
of one of the dorms. “Did you love it here?”

“Yes. I loved it. College is
everything they say it is.”

“What do you mean?”

“That it’s the time when you find
yourself. When you figure out what you want. And when you have a
ton of fun.”

“I can’t wait to start. I know I’m
going to love it.”

“You are,” Bryan said, but there was
something sad in his tone.

I looked at him. “Hey. You
okay?”

“Totally.”

“Because you sounded…”

“I’m fine.”

But he grew quieter as we checked
out the campus bookstore, and a cafe where I said I would probably
do all my homework, and the library, which was speckled with
students for the summer session. His mind was elsewhere, and he
didn’t tell me where he’d gone.

At the station on Sunday night, I
thanked him again for the necklace.

“You should always wear it,” he said
before I caught the last train to Mystic. His voice was wistful,
and when he kissed me goodbye, the moment had become melancholy. I
didn’t feel like a girl who was returning in a week for her
eighteenth birthday. I felt like a girl being sent off with only a
Hello Kitty necklace to remember him by.

When I called a few days later to
confirm our weekend plans, his voice was different. Strained and
distant.

“I don’t think you should come in,”
he said.

Something didn’t compute. We’d been
planning this weekend for more than a month. “Why? Did something
come up at work?” My shoulders started to tighten with
worry.

“No. It’s just…I don’t think we
should.”

“Should what?”

There were so many ways to answer
the question, but the scariest one was the one he said
next.

“I don’t think we should be
together.”

I looked at my phone briefly as if
it were a radio, mistakenly tuned to a channel I could no longer
understand. I brought the phone to my ear and said the only thing I
could think of. The thing I was clinging to. “But I’m totally in
love with you, Bryan. One hundred percent and then some. And I want
to be with you.”

Then I waited, and I waited, and I
waited.