Has to Be Love (7 page)

“I'm not, but we don't always agree.” We've never actually fought, because one or the other of us always shrugs off the disagreement. Elias thinks my church overdoes meetings, and I know all of our forever-family stuff bothers him. He thinks we'll love everyone the same after this life, and I can't imagine that. At some point, if we stay together, our different views are going to cause problems. “Maybe that's something we should start talking about.”

Elias lets out a slow breath. “I don't understand why you believe some of the things you do, but in the end, it's made you who you are. And I love you.”

He always says something like this, and I think part of him is putting off having this conversation for real, just like I'm putting off having the conversation when I tell him I might want to go to New York.

“My house?” I ask and he nods.

“Your shake.” Elias passes it to me with a smile. “And fries.”

I stare at Elias for a moment, trying to shove away my totally unjustified irritation. “Thanks.” I slide down in the seat relieved that the hard part of my day is over and having no idea what comes next. Not in the next hour or … for the rest of my life, really.

7

My house is blissfully silent. Dad should be at work for hours more, and neither Elias nor I have anywhere to be. This is his day off at the construction company, I barely work any hours at his dad's hardware store and lumberyard, and since he signed us out of school (our parents trust us way too much), neither of us is expected at play rehearsal.

I wrap my arms around his neck as soon as we're inside and slide my lips across his. Maybe this will make up for my moodiness today.

Elias matches my soft kiss before gently grasping my arms, taking them from around his neck, and stepping away. “I don't know, Clara.” This is how he always handles us being alone—way too carefully. Neither of us believes in sex before marriage, and both of us have watched our friends slip off that path. There are times when I definitely want to slip. I generally feel really bad about that … after Elias has gone home.

“What?” Even though I totally know.

He rests his head to the side, like he's conflicted. He probably is. I don't know that anyone could be as good, deep down, as he is. Good parents, structured life, beliefs that run deep …“This is a lot of time to be alone.”

“You mean a lot of time to get into trouble?” I'm not sure if I'm hurt or annoyed or neither, or both.

“I don't think you realize how hard it is for me. How easy it would be for me to go too far with you, and I don't … I don't want to be that guy.” The way his weight shifts and his brow wrinkles, he looks honestly tortured.

“How far is too far?” I ask, wondering how much closeness I can get.

He flushes a little and looks away, moving into my living room instead of standing by the door. I immediately follow.

“I'm serious,” I say. “Where do you draw the line? Where do you want to?” Because for me, that line is getting closer to sex every time we're together—at least lately. Maybe if we talk, I'll remember why I don't want to go too far even when we're together. And I actually feel this huge light-headed kind of relief that we're
talking
about this instead of avoiding.

He sits, folding his hands, his elbows resting on his knees. “Where do you?”

Where
do
I? “What? Do you want to know Mormon standards?” I ask.

He shrugs. “I think I know, but … um … yeah.” And then he swallows.

“This shouldn't make you so nervous. We're not talking about having sex before my dad gets home.” And it's not something we've really talked about before.
Before,
we've been polite and careful. I sorta feel like we're moving past that now, and it feels amazing—like maybe we
will
beat the odds and stay together.

“Clara.” His eyes widen and he shifts on the couch, rubbing his palms on his thighs.

“No touching shoulders to knees and everything in between
is the joke or guideline or whatever. We have youth dances at our church and we hold each other around the neck or on the waist, so the shoulders to knees thing is for under clothes, I think.” The guideline is totally for both under and over clothes, aside from where we touch to dance.

His eyes are floating between my shoulders and my knees and everything in between and there's an ache in wanting to be closer to him that pushes me forward.

He licks his lips a few times as I stand in front of him. “Probably smart.”

I kneel, resting my hands on his legs and my butt on my feet, nervous energy racing through me and tightening my insides as I rub my palms up the top of his thighs. Maybe all those energy strings will tighten further if we touch more. I'm not supposed to want him this way.

“But over clothes …” It's my turn to take a hard swallow. “There might be wiggle room.” There's totally not.

“Clara.” His voice is pleading, but I don't know if he wants me to go away or come closer. I'm guessing he's feeling whatever I'm feeling so I scoot closer, which pushes his knees apart a little, and I lean toward him. There's no careful kissing before his tongue slides in my mouth. We kiss so desperately that we can't find a rhythm. My college decisions don't matter, my appointment in Seattle doesn't matter, the weirdness around Rhodes doesn't matter.

I pull on him and he lays me down on the floor, resting his weight on top of me. This time my legs spread a little for him and he lets out a moan as we keep kissing, still frantic. As his body rocks against mine, once, gently, I realize he seriously has a hard-on, and it's pressing into me, and I arch into him as our tongues slide together. I'm wondering if I should feel as good about it as I do, but the pressure of him feels so amazing that I find myself rocking a little with him. And even though our clothes are on and his hands haven't run over anything they shouldn't, I'm pretty sure this isn't something we should be doing.

If he asked me right now if I'd let him take me upstairs to my bed, I'd maybe tell him yes.

My scars don't matter.

His hands press into my sides as they slide down to the top of my pants, and my body is screaming,
Yes! There! Unbutton! More touching!
Maybe I'll get some release from all the tension jumping around inside me lately.

His fingers slide up my shirt, just a little. And even though we've been together for a year and a half, this is easily the furthest we've gone. If not in actual touching, then in mood. Because I don't care about breathing or eating or my dad or school or that we shouldn't be alone in my house. I care about feeling more of him against more of me.

My hands run up the back of his shirt, tracing my fingers over all the muscles he gets from working so hard.

His thumbs run slightly underneath the top of my jeans, flushing every part of my body with heat.

“Clara.” His hands hit the floor as he shoves off me, holding himself in push-up position so we don't touch.

His hair is disheveled, and his eyes are wild. I arch my hips up toward him and then he's gone. He's jumped four feet away, where he's lying with his stomach on the floor and breathing hard, still watching me.

The loss of warmth trips up my brain and body, rocketing me back into the present. It takes me a second to catch my breath, and I now have an ache I'm not sure how to make go away.

His hand reaches toward mine, and I roll over to lie on my stomach, still staring.

“That was …” he starts.

My heart and breathing nearly drown out his words. “Yeah. Me too.”

“I could have …” He trails off, but I don't need him to finish.

“I could have too. All the way.”

Elias frowns, and a nagging tug in my chest says I did this to him.

“I'm sorry.” It's all I can think of to say. I have no idea what's going on with me. I was annoyed with Elias for being over nice, I had been staring at Mr. Kennedy in a very more-than-friend way, and now this, which sort of seems like the opposite of how I was feeling about Elias in the drive-through.

“No.” He shakes his head. “It's my responsibility to make sure we don't go too far.
I'm
the one who's sorry.”

I sit, letting our hands fall apart. “Why would you be more responsible than me?”

“It's just …” Elias sits up. “We get these lectures from our youth pastor all the time about being a gentleman, and right now I don't feel like … I'm the guy, you know?”

“And I'm the girl.” I'm not even sure what he's trying to say.

He licks his lips and stares at the carpet. We won't discuss this any further because it would turn into an argument, and apparently Elias's method of avoiding an argument on a subject is to avoid the subject. Though, with my unwillingness to really discuss plans after scars, maybe that's my method of not arguing too.

I wonder how long that'll last.

“We've been friends a long time,” he says.

“Yeah.”

“We both know we want to wait … until we're married.”

Unease begins sucking in my stomach because I just made Elias uncomfortable. “Yeah … we've always known that.”

“I'm …” He presses both palms into his forehead as he stares at the floor. “I never thought that I'd want different.”

“And”—I swallow hard, terrified of his answer, not matter what it is—“you do?”

He chuckles. “I did a minute ago.”

I laugh a little with him as the tension between us shifts to something easier to deal with and breathe around.

“So, I don't want to be away from you, but maybe I should go”—Elias stands and chuckles a little again—“you know … cool off.”

I find myself smiling with him, grateful again that traces of our easy friendship followed us into what we have now. “Yeah. Okay.”

“Oh.” His face lightens. “You have mutual tonight, right?”

“Every Tuesday.” All the youth at my church gather for an activity of some kind every week on Tuesday.

“What are you guys up to tonight? Maybe I'll join in.”

“The boys are in charge, so …” He'll know what this means because of our small town. We know all the same people.

“Dodgeball?” he asks.

“You got it.”

“I'll meet you there, okay?” He takes my hand and gives it a squeeze, his dark eyes searching mine. “I love you, Clara. So much.”

There's so much feeling in his voice, and it hits me like it probably should have hit me the first time he said it. Elias means it. For real. He's not just telling me he loves me because he likes me more than any other girl he's dated. Elias really does love me. And I love him too, just maybe not in quite the same way. I don't move from my spot on the floor. I don't talk about me being Mormon or him being unsure, or how we really could have had sex this afternoon and I'm not sorry.

Instead I just say, “I love you too.”

8

The church parking lot is chaotic as half the teens in town pull in for our youth night. I slide my truck into park just as Elias pulls in next to me.

I grin at him through our windows, and he smiles back. The second I slip out of my truck, Sister McEntyre gives me the one-quirked-eyebrow look that means one of two things: you're being too serious with that boy, or we need to get that boy properly baptized. “Elias came with you again?”

“Yep.” Neither of those things are something I want to discuss with Sister McEntyre. Elias is happy at his own church, and the last thing I want to do is to talk about my boyfriend with anyone who is not Cecily. Well, or Elias.

“Hey.” Elias walks around the front of my truck, and I let out a breath as Sister McEntyre walks toward the front door of the plain, brick church building. Sometimes I wonder if I come out of habit, or because I know I should be here for myself.

“Motter!” a kid named Brian yells. He's also a Knik town lifer and someone else stuck at the small, private school. “You crashing the Mormon party?”

“Yep!” Elias calls back.

“I call Motter on my team!” Brian yells. “And you know, instead of crashing our party, you should
join
our party.” Brian gives Elias two oversized winks.

“You have to know they're going to harass you.” I bump him with my hip.

“It's fine.” He gives my cheek a quick kiss. “I harass him when he comes to play ball at my church too. No biggie.”

We're starting for the building when I hear the distinct whine of a small plane flying far too low.

I feel my body slump as I squint into the sky and see the yellow and blue stripes that mark the side of my dad's plane. “Not now. Seriously.”

“What?” Elias asks just as Dad lands his Cessna in the open field next to the church. Dad loves landing his four-seater plane in fields. It's just weird.

“This is one thing I hate about summer,” I say as I start for the small fence that stands between the church parking lot and the hay field.

Elias laughs. “I'll be inside playing ball. Good luck with your dad.”

I give Elias a smile and a wave, thankful he doesn't feel the need to stick close to me when he comes here.

Dad hops out of the plane with a grin. “Great that we have enough light to fly even after dinner, isn't it, sweetie?”

He ducks under the wing as he walks my way.

“Dad!” I protest. “The Clellans' field isn't a runway.”

He waves me away with a snort. “Rhodes has never been in a small plane. Can you believe that?”

So Rhodes is with him.

I should probably tell Rhodes not to encourage my dad. He'll drag him out of New York and shove him right into small-town Alaska, just like he did with Mom. Not that she minded.

Rhodes is wearing a headset and gives me a wave from the copilot's seat in the small plane. The backseat is empty—at least it looks that way from here.