Echols, Jennifer (17 page)

"No. Drawing nothing but the bridge over and over. There are no judgmental creatures in your drawing of the railroad bridge."

We walked on in our silence underneath the roar of the ocean. I waited for him to get revenge.

Here it came. "Something's been bothering me since I found out you had leukemia. Your parents stuck with you through it. Doesn't that make you feel like you owe them?"

"They're my parents. What else could they do? Let me die in the street?"

Strangely, we were still holding hands as we threw sharp darts at each other. But he stopped playfully swinging my hand.

"Of course I owe them." I said. "Insurance didn't cover everything. That's why they make me work at the diner for free. My dad says I'm still paying off the methotrexate and daunomycin."

I could feel John shaking his head above me, like I was missing the point. "You needed them, and they helped you. Now they need you. Don't you want to stay and help them? Don't you feel grateful?"

"I feel grateful. Grateful, like, send them a card. Grateful, like, build myself a career and make them proud of me. Grateful, like, have children someday and bring them back to town for Christmas. Not grateful, like, spend the rest of my life with them, running their shitty little diner in the middle of nowhere."

I wished he hadn't brought it up. Or I hadn't. We had to get off this subject and stay off it for the rest of the night, or we'd never get laid.

He must have had the same idea, because he dropped my hand, pinched my ass, and dashed away as best he could through the knee-deep water.

I slogged after him. We played grab-ass in the fading light. Which morphed into a hundred-yard dash up and down the gray beach. He won every time. So I craftily morphed it into a touch football game with a balled-up towel. What we played didn't matter so long as his big hands grazed my waist every few minutes, fueling the fire. I felt like I'd never been terminally ill.

At some point we got hungry and walked toward the road to a stand that sold fried seafood. This place made Eggstra! Eggstra! look like fine dining. But when we took the boxes back down to the moonlit beach and set out our picnic on our towels, I made a startling discovery. The shrimp were fresh. Someone had caught them off the coast that very afternoon. The shrimp we served at Eggstra! Eggstra! had been frozen for God knew how many decades. In fact, I probably had never eaten fresh shrimp before in my life. But I recognized them when I tasted them.

I began to have the sneaking suspicion this night was too good to be true.

I
knew
it was too good to be true when it got even better. John pulled out his cell phone and called Will. "I'm down for just a few hours, and I want to show the lady a good time while we're here," he shouted over the roar of the tide. "Where's the party?"

He had me pegged. I loved parties.

He laughed into the phone. "No, the lady would not happen to have blue hair. Her hair is indigo. Cyan."

"Violet," I mouthed.

He reached behind my head and ran his fingers down the purple strands in back. He stroked absently while he finished talking on the phone, as if setting my blood on fire were the most natural thing in the world.

Chapter 16

We drove the truck a few miles down the beach highway to an enormous nightclub on stilts. The music from inside pulsed so loudly that the sand strewn across the road vibrated with every beat. We paid cover at the door and walked all the way through the building to get where we were going.

John held my hand like a vise so we didn't get separated among the writhing bodies. I watched the looks on girls' faces as we passed. They checked John out for long seconds. Then they saw we were holding hands. Then they checked me out: hair, face, boobs, belly button, boobs, face, ending with a long and pointed look at my hair. Then another glance at John, like,
When you get tired
of this, call me.
All the mascara, cleave, and midriff in the world didn't make up for the fact that I had blue hair and blue hair was weird. I definitely didn't want to get in a fight with a girl in my six hours at the beach, but I did try to step on their toes in their high-heeled sandals as I passed.

In back of the club, we had the best of both worlds: our white beach and black ocean and white moon, plus a throbbing party. Hundreds of college kids danced inside a square of tiki torches. We kicked off our shoes and crossed the sand.

Alone at the edge of the crowd, in a bank of plastic chairs that the rising tide threatened to sweep away, Will nursed a beer. We recognized the silhouette of his curly hair against the sky. Now that John wasn't in uniform, he and Will gave each other a big boy-hug, swatting each other hard on the back. Will turned to me and moved to hug me. Then he saw John's look and folded his arms around his beer cup.

John leaned in. "I'm going to get her a drink. Don't steal her while I'm gone."

"Are you crazy?" Will asked. "I wouldn't dare steal from the
police academy."

John turned to me. "Frozen daiquiri?" "Pina colada, please."

"Virgin?" He wasn't asking my permission. He was just making sure I knew he wasn't going to try to swipe me any alcohol.

"That's optimistic," I said.

He frowned at me and glared at Will before heading across the beach toward one of the bars in thatched huts. Apparently I was not allowed to make sex jokes in front of Will. Surely John wasn't still jealous.

"Speaking of virgins," I said to Will.

He eyed me warily. "Pardon?" He sipped his beer.

"Spring break's almost over. You're here alone. Time's a-wastin'."

"Wha—" he spluttered into his cup. "Am I giving out
virgin vibes?"
"Kind of."

He gaped at me, then closed his mouth and shook his head in disgust. "I wanted to come here. At least, I thought I did. I really like to look. But when it comes right down to it…I want it to mean something, you know?"

I nodded. "Actually, no, but I can imagine."

A cell phone rang. "And don't you dare tell John I said that," Will went on. "Some things guys just don't say to each other." He pulled his phone from his back pocket and looked at the screen. "Speak of the Devil." He clicked the phone on. "Yes, Governor?" Then he whirled around, glancing in every direction around the beach. "You're
watching us?
Where are you?"

"He's sneaky," I said.

Will clicked the phone off and pocketed it. "John told me to move six inches to the left." He picked up his plastic chair and edged away from me in the wet sand. "He really likes you."

"He does stuff that makes me think so," T admitted. "Bringing me to the beach." "That's serious," Will agreed.

"And then he does stuff that makes me think he doesn't like me at all. For instance, Tuesday night, he made sure I saw a dead body in a car wreck. That's not my idea of date night."

Will cringed, and shook his shoulders like he had the shivers. "He takes that cop stuff very seriously. But I know he likes you, Meg. The night I saw y'all at McDonald's, he called me from Martini's and told me to back off.
You
didn't think I was coming on to you, did you?"

"No."

"Neither did I." Will was a little drunk, I saw.

"Wait a minute," I said. It was my turn to gape at Will. "He called you from Martini's? He was supposed to be breaking up a bar fight! I feared for his safety! Bastard."

"Yeah, I think the fight was over. He just talked to the manager for a second. Then he probably stood in the corner and glowered at people like he does, and called me, pretending it was Official Police Business." He imitated John in a low, serious voice. "Tin in charge of her while I'm at work, and I can't have my best friend hitting on her.'"

"Will, that sounds like he
doesn't
like me."

"He likes you, trust me. He doesn't
want
to like you."

"Why not?"

"Because you're leaving. And he's staying. That's exactly the problem he got into with Angie." He traced a heart in the condensation on his cup. "Personally, I didn't see why they couldn't stay together. Birmingham is only a twenty-minute drive from town. It would have been hard for them to see each other because of John's weird working and sleeping schedule, but they could have done it. It hardly even qualifies as a long-distance relationship. I think John just wasn't that into her." He rolled his eyes. "There's not a whole lot there, anyway."

"She
broke up with
him,
though."

"Right," Will said, pointing at me. "But now she's interested in him again."

"It makes perfect sense to me that she'd be conflicted, if she
has
any sense. He's this awesomely handsome, really cool guy who's chained himself to a bridge. He's hot, he's cold." I moved toward Will, and I didn't care whether John was watching or not. This was important. "When you were a kid, did you ever watch
The X-Files?
Mulder is this smart, cute, funny guy who's obsessed with catching the aliens who stole his sister. He's totally oblivious to the red-haired Scully standing right in front of him—"

"I don't think John is totally oblivious to you. I don't think that's possible. You talk really loudly."

"—and if he happens to throw her a kiss, she'll take it. If he happens to think to screw her, she'll
realty take
it. And she says things to him like, 'Logically, Mulder, this doesn't make sense, please let go,' and she pats him on the shoulder and hopes he'll screw her again."

Will was staring at me with big eyes. I'd forgotten he was a virgin. Talking to him about sex was like talking to Tiffany.

"Well, I'm not Scully,'' I went on. "I can't pat John and comfort him. I want to put my hands around his neck and shake him and scream, 'What are you doing?'" I demonstrated in the empty air and I hoped John saw me choking his ghost. "He frustrates me. He makes me angry. And I don't think that's a good relationship, one built on frustration and anger. Do you?"

Will shook his head somberly.

"He's good for a lay, though," I mused.

"Oh, please don't say that."

I waited for Will to explain what he meant. He just stared at me.

Then he whacked himself in the forehead with the palm of his hand. "I can't believe"—he gestured all around us —"that I'm sitting here at a spring break party on the Redneck Riviera, warning a girl not to have casual sex with my best friend. I think we've entered a parallel universe. I keep expecting people to come out of the porta-toilets with their heads on backward."

"Exactly," I said. "Stop trying. K doesn't make sense for John and me to date. It makes sense for us to do it."

"But I'm telling you. that's not how John works. He's going to want more than that from you."

"I don't have anything else to give him," I said. "Not while he's chained to the bridge."

Will took a deep breath and let out a long sigh. "I wish there were some way to unchain him from the bridge, so he could go do his art. I've been trying to figure that out for years."

"I gave it a shot."

Will eyed me, then drained his beer. "What'd you do?"

"To get out of trouble, I had to write a proposal to the DA for a project to keep other teenagers out of trouble. I suggested that they put a camera at the bridge, with a feed to the police dispatcher. That way, they'll always know when someone tries to go on the bridge. John will have no reason to check for trespassers every five minutes. And the DA said the city is actually going to do it."

Will produced another beer from beside him in his chair and took a big gulp, then glanced at me. "Sorry. I need this worse than you do, because I'm a virgin."

He was still thinking about that? "No prob." I felt bad about my virgin comment, especially when we were talking about his friend hooking up. Boys were so sensitive about odd things. And sometimes I couldn't keep my mouth shut.

"What did John say about the camera?" Will asked.

"I haven't told him. They were supposed to install it today. But I doubt it will do any good. John has a short-circuit. Logic doesn't touch that part of his brain. It's going to take more than a camera to unchain him."

I wanted to hear what Will had to say about this, because he looked worried, and he was drinking fast. But John came back then with virgin (ha ha) drinks for us, frozen coconut and pineapple juice in plastic hurricane glasses with straws and paper umbrellas and monkey figurines stuck into the ground ice. Very spring break.

We sat with the cool tide scooting past our bare feet, sipping our drinks, watching the crush of dancers inside the tiki torches. Will chatted with us about the girl trouble Rashad and Skip had gotten into during the past four days, and the escapades of some of their other high school friends—now college friends, at least to Will. Then he made a
Star Wars
reference to John that was clearly boy-code for sex, and stood up unsteadily. "See you on Saturday at Rashad's party?" We both said yes and watched Will wander away into the crowd.

I settled closer to the John side of my chair. "You're not worried about him?"

John shook his head. "He'll go up to his room and watch movies, fall asleep. Rashad and Skip will come in with girls at about four a.m. and kick him out. He'll go run fifteen miles. That's what Will does on road trips."

"That's so sad!" Immediately I wished I could take it back. I didn't want John to think again that I was interested in Will.

I scanned his dark eyes in the moonlight. I thought I saw anger there, but no—it was lust. Oooh.

The throbbing dance beat inside the tiki torches transformed into a slow groove. John stood. "Don't be sad on spring break. Let's dance."

He led me across the sand and into the crowd of couples. This time, no mean girls gave my blue hair the evil eye. These girls were very intent on the boys they were with. More feeling up was going on than dancing.

I hoped John and I would fit right in for once. He put his arms around me, bent over with his chin resting on my shoulder, and swayed with me. As the song progressed, he slipped his hands to my waist and moved them slowly up my sides. So far so good. If his hands made it another inch, he'd be touching my boobs.

The next slow song started. Surely this would prove to be the boob song. But wait a minute. He skipped
over
my boobs to stroke the sensitive skin on the undersides of my arms. It certainly was titillating, but it wasn't the good old-fashioned feeling-up I wanted.

I wondered why he didn't touch my boobs. Maybe he was afraid I had Stockholm Syndrome after all, the kind where your captor makes your arms tingle. Maybe he was afraid of taking advantage of me. Or maybe I had read him completely wrong all this time. He liked me as a friend and didn't
want to
touch my boobs.

"Why don't you touch my boobs?"

He took his chin off my shoulder and looked at me. "Here?" He glanced around at the other couples. "Because we're not drunk."

"Right." I tried not to sound disappointed. But the air was charged with sex, positively sparkling with it. It didn't seem fair for us to be the sober ones
and
the pristine ones.

"And it's not very original." He hooked his thumbs on either side of the waistband of my jeans, and slowly, slowly dragged his thumbs across my skin until they touched in front, just below my belly button.

Oh, God. He didn't put his hands any farther down my pants, but there was no question now of what he wanted. And he kissed me exactly as I had kissed him in the car: along my jaw, then back toward my ear.

I should have been more careful what I wished for. The claustrophobic feeling crept up on me at the same time I opened and grew hotter for John. It was the best and the worst at once, and it was going to tear me apart. I couldn't stand it much longer. God, I wished I didn't feel this way. I wished I was a different person. But I would not get trapped in our town for the rest of my life. Not even for John. We needed to get this over with.

"Are you ready to go?" I whispered.

"You're not enjoying your spring break?" he murmured before he gently bit my earlobe.

"I am, very much. But if we left now, when we got back I'd still have a couple of hours alone with you before work."

He pulled me through the crowd so fast that I got the giggles. Yes, everything would work out perfectly. We would have a one-night stand. And then, as long as I skipped Rashad's party, wore my helmet when I rode my motorcycle, and managed to stay away from the bridge until I moved to Birmingham in June, I would never see John again.

*

I did get some sleep in the truck on the way back, despite his hand softly stroking my shoulder. I think he meant it to be soothing, but of course any part of me he touched leapt to life.

I was so beat that I slept
anyway.
And had wild dreams about him on the dark beach.

The truck lurched over a bump. I sat up. We'd reached Chilton County, still about twenty minutes from home. Looming over the interstate was the water tower shaped like a giant peach. Or a giant ass, depending on how sleepy you were.

I lay back down on the seat with my head on his thigh, like before. But this time, I couldn't help myself. My hand slid up the inside of his hard thigh. I didn't quite dare, because I didn't want him to tell me no. But I got very close to touching The Place Prisoners Should Not Touch Policemen.

His breath caught. I thought he was going to pick up my hand and move it back to my side of the car, where it belonged.

He didn't.

I never really went back to sleep after that. I was so alive with thoughts of what I was going to do to him, and what he was going to do to me.

At least I
thought I
didn't go back to sleep. But his door slammed, and I started up. We'd already stopped at his apartment complex. He walked around to my door and opened it, bracing his big body inside the frame. "You're too tired for this," he said gently. "Come inside and sleep."

Drat, he was trying to get out of it. At least he wasn't offering to take me home.

I shook my head. There was no way I was going to miss this. Scooting to the edge of the seat, I wrapped my legs around his hips and pulled him into a full-body embrace. I ran my fingers through his short hair, pressed his head down to mine, and kissed him.

And then he took charge.

Oh. My. God. He kissed exactly like I thought he would. Slowly. Thoroughly. Styled for her pleasure.

And I'd been dead wrong when I thought he might not like me after all. I could tell from the way his hands grasped my hair and trembled on the back of my neck that he wanted this as much as I did.

When we pulled back to breathe, he guided me out of the car and up the stairs. Our footsteps echoed against the other apartment buildings. It was about four in the morning. Even the hum of traffic on the interstate had quieted.

He unlocked the door and held it open for me as I walked into the dark living room. Then he closed the door behind us with an official-sounding
thunk
and locked the dead bolt. And turned to me.

This was it. Almost a week of crushing on him—more like two weeks if I admitted to myself how interested I'd been in him the first night at the bridge. And today, fourteen hours of slow, grinding, up-close-and-personal pining for him. Finally, this was it.