In This Moment (19 page)

   
“Thinks we’re with Eric’s side,” I finish his sentence. “I’ve got it, I just…” I run my hands over the smooth deck rail and leave my spread fingers there. “I’m new to the whole crashing scene and I’m slightly nervous.”

   
“But you’ve seen
Wedding Crashers
before, right?” I open my mouth but Cole puts his hands over my lips and shakes his head. “Never mind. Don’t answer that because I already know what you’re going to say.” He squints one eye and pushes my braid over my shoulder so that it falls down the center of my back. “We’ll put it on our to-watch list, but for now I think that I can talk you through the basics.”

   
“Which are?”

    “Most importantly, w
e’re going to need fake names. I’ll be Axel.”

    I almost choke.
“Axel?”

    “Yeah.” He laughs. “
It’s metal as fuck and I think I can pull it off. You can be…” He looks at me like he’s thinking hard.

    “I can’t just be
Aimee?”

   
“Nah, that’s no fun. How about Poppy?”

    “Poppy?”

    Cole nods.

    “Okay,” I say, rolling my eyes. “Poppy
it is. What else do I need to know?”

   
Cole takes my hand and leads me over to the bar area. The boat engine rumbles somewhere beneath our feet, but overhead the violet-edged sky beckons smoothly. A light, salty wind dances in from the water and lifts the skirt of my dress.

    “Well, Poppy
… You should have fun, act like you belong and no one will think twice about why they don’t know you because half of the people here are unfamiliar.” He grabs two water bottles from a tub full of ice and holds one out to me. “And, if possible, avoid Eric and Bailey as much as possible. Just to, you know, be on the safe side.”

   
I take the water bottle from him and scan the upper deck of the boat. The music has picked up a notch and people are starting to dance under the fanning white lights strung up on the deck. Through the crowd, I can make out the soon-to-be-newlyweds through the tinted windows to the interior cabin. Near the appetizer table there’s a little girl—maybe five years old—swaying her torso back and forth, cycling her arms like a windmill. “And what’s the rule on dancing?”

   
“Dancing?” Cole takes a sip of water and considers this for a second. “If I’m remembering the rules correctly, dancing is highly encouraged.”

   
“It is?”

   
Cole nods and looks down the deck. “It helps you blend in.”

   
“Well,” I say wistfully, not really believing that I’m about to do this. “Maybe we should.”

   
Cole rubs the back of his neck and smiles crookedly. “Dance?”

   
“Yeah.” I shrug. “Just to blend.”

  
“It would probably be a good idea,” he says, seeking out my eyes.

   
And then we do. Dance. Right there in the middle of a party that we weren’t invited to and it’s great. It’s better than great. It’s like the rest of the world falls away and it’s just Cole’s hands on the small of my back, my cheek pressed into his shoulder and the evening wind kicking up my hair and the bottom of my dress.

Cole

“
Stop it,” I tell her. “They’re going to love you.”

   
Aimee looks over at me. “It’s not about that,” she says, stuffing a tube of reddish lip gloss into the bag on her lap and flipping the lighted mirror back to the roof of the truck. “I don’t care what people think.”

   
She shrugs to emphasize this but I know that she’s lying. It’s obvious. She cares what my friends think of her and it’s stupid and ridiculous and goddamn adorable.

   
I get it. I’ve been feeding myself the same pile of lies. I said it out loud even. That it didn’t matter what her sister and anyone else in her life thought about me because I’m with her, not them. Then I found myself searching the grocery store for organic roasted garlic hummus because she mentioned her sister liked it, and I wound up at a fucking punk show in the backroom of some sketchy club last Saturday because her friend’s sorta-boyfriend wanted to go.

   
“I’m calling bullshit.”

   
She laughs. “Whatever. You know that you like my bullshit.”

   
“I do.”

   
Silence.

   
“Hmmm… then why don’t you ever stay the night?” Occasionally Aimee does this—surprises me by doing or saying something really forward. It’s just another contradiction. She’s shy but she’s not shy. She’s sad but she laughs at my jokes. She’s quiet and reserved, but sometimes she starts talking and she doesn’t stop. Maybe one of these days I’ll figure her out.

   
“Aimee…” I stress her name slowly like a warning. “I told you—”

   
“I know what you told me, but—” She bites off her own words and turns to face the window.

   
“But what?” I wish that I could see her face right now.

   
“It just feels like… I don’t know. For you, there have been all these girls… but with me… maybe you don’t want—”

   
“I do want,” I correct.

   
Aimee sighs. “Never mind. I’m being stupid and insecure, right?”

   
I grip the steering wheel tight. I want to tell her that I would trade every single touch for one single taste of her… that she’s
everything
I didn’t know I wanted, but I don’t want to freak her out. “Reputations are usually greatly exaggerated but, yeah, I know that there have been ‘all these girls.’ Shit, Aimee… I hate that you know it too. And those girls? They don’t matter to me. I—” I suck in a long breath. “I probably don’t deserve it but I’m begging you for the chance to show you that you’re different—that I want you for more than… that.”

    I
hear the breath catch. “Okay...” She turns and smiles at me and right on cue, my dick twitches.

   
“And it hasn’t been easy,” I admit sheepishly.

   
“Good, because it’s not easy for me either,” Aimee says and laughs when my eyebrows go up. “Can we agree that you’re staying over tonight?”

   
“Fuck,” I growl, glancing in the rearview mirror. I need to maneuver my truck into a street spot between two cars, but I’m not going to be able to manage this shit if I can’t get my head straight. “Let’s just talk about it later.”

   
Her mouth goes sideways. “Fine. Right now is about me going with you to a party and meeting your friends.”

   
“Yes. And you have nothing to worry about. I honestly don’t give a rat’s ass what they think because they’re bastards for the most part. But I do like that you care. It’s the same for me. Why do you think I let you drag me to that bar on Saturday? You know, the place with the black and red lacquered walls where dreams go to die.”

  
“Are you saying that death-punk or whatever that was called isn’t your scene and you went just for Jodi and Kyle?” She teases.

   
I kill the ignition and turn so that I can look at her. My right hand automatically goes the side of her face. Fuck. Her skin is so soft and warm. Now that I know that I’m allowed, I’m always touching her. I can’t seem to stop myself.

   
She closes her eyes, bends her cheek into my palm, and my greedy dick starts to harden even more. I lean forward—close enough that her breath tickles my mouth and nose. “No,” I say quietly. “I did it for you.”

Aimee

The party feels like a test.
How well can you pull off this whole normal thing, Aimee?

   
Cole says that it doesn’t matter how tonight goes and maybe he’s telling the truth. Maybe it really doesn’t matter to him.

   
The truth is that it matters to me.

   
As soon as we walk in, we’re assaulted with the loud, brassy thump of music and voices that are even louder. The house is full to the brim with people pressing into the high-ceilinged living room from all sides. The furniture has been pushed to one wall to form a makeshift dance floor in the center of the room and there’s a group—mostly girls—grinding and sweating with their bright red plastic cups held high in the air. The bitter smell of weed filters out of a narrow hallway to my nose.

   
Everything about the scene reeks of familiarity. House parties used to be the norm for me.
This
used to be the norm. Smiling, laughing, flirting, dancing, drinking, getting stoned.

   
The last party I went to was on the night that Jillian died. Standing here just inside the front door, I can’t help but think of her with her hair down around her shoulders and that blue shirt on. She was laughing. She was
always
laughing.

   
“
Give them to me,” she said as she took my keys out of my hand and stuffed them in the front pocket of her shorts. “You’re toasted my dear.”

   
I pursed my lips and cocked one eyebrow. “And you’re not?”

   
She smiled cockily, pushed her bangs out of her face. “I’m fine.”

   
But I knew better.

   
I knew it.
Didn’t I?

   
“You okay?” Cole shouts above the noise.

   
I nod stiffly and swallow.

   
“Let’s go outside. “He links his fingers with mine and pulls me closer to his body. “I’m guessing that’s where the guys are.”

   
I follow him, squeezing through the bodies and trying to ignore some of the looks that I’m getting. A blonde girl with impossibly long legs and in-your-face breasts is openly scowling at me from the other side of the room. She has one of those faces that you remember and I place her as the girl that Cole was with on the day that I met him.
Kate,
he’d said her name was
.
Kate and her friends are whispering about something and I can’t help but think that the
something
is me.

   
Cole looks back once and smiles reassuringly but a nasty sensation has already slithered down my throat.

   
I wish Jilly were here,
I think suddenly
.
She’d push a finger into my side and say something generically reassuring like
just go with it,
or
show ‘em what you’re made of,
and I’d roll my eyes and tell her that she was being silly and clichéd, but secretly I’d feel better.

  
Still holding my hand, Cole leads me down a set of wide wooden steps to an exterior porch spanning the length of the house. Floodlights angle down from opposite corners, spilling circles of yellowish light over the space. A badly made tiki bar surrounded by mismatched stools is leaning against one wall. Just beyond the porch railing, there’s a long rectangular table where some guys are playing beer pong.

   
We’re met with a chorus of greetings. “Everly!”

   
Everyone here seems to know Cole and the attention brings him to life. He makes an effort to introduce me to a few of the guys from the track team but I think it’s clear that I’m not part of this world—
his
world. There’s a lot of backslapping, talk of races, and inside jokes that I don’t understand.

   
Cole gets roped into a game of beer pong and I hang back, preferring to be where thoughts can needle around my head without anyone noticing. After each throw he looks over his shoulder and winks at me, sending a rush of chills to my toes. A couple of nearby girls make a partial attempt to include me in their conversation, but I’m distracted and eventually they give up and leave me to myself.

   
Right after Cole sinks his last shot, his phone beeps with an incoming text. I glance down to where he left it on the top of the tiki bar. The sender is someone named Christine.

Are you coming back to Gainesville soon? My bed is lonely.

    Instantly, I know that he must have seen this girl when he went to Gainesville to race in the triathlon a couple weeks ago and my heart seizes frantically. I can hardly breathe over the sensation of betrayal swimming in my belly. That was the same weekend that I was thinking about him obsessively.

   
“Hey.” Cole is at my shoulder. He slips one arm around my waist and slides his palm across my lower back to my hip. When I feel his lips against my ear, a surge of heat burns its way down my spine.

   
“Hey.” I jerk my head away, pretending to be distracted by my phone.

   
Cole steps around me so that he can see my face. He pulls on the ends of his blond hair and frowns. “Is everything okay?”

   
The lump in my throat expands, threatening to suffocate me. I attempt to smile but I’m pretty sure that it comes off closer to a grimace. “Yeah, of course. Why wouldn’t it be okay?”

   
“You seem…” He twists his fingers farther into his hair. “I don’t know… You seem like you’re irritated or something.”

   
“Maybe you just don’t know me very well,” I spit out a lot harder than I intend.

    His head moves
back in surprise. He clenches his jaw and narrows his eyes like he’s wondering what the hell my problem is. Well, good for him because I’m wondering the same thing.

    I take a shallow breath and turn to watch the progress
of the current beer pong matchup. After a few minutes of silence I hear Cole reach around me for his phone.

    “Aimee?” His tone is
cautious.

   
I release a breath that I didn’t realize that I’d been holding, but I keep my eyes on the game.

   
“Aimee.” This time his voice is stronger, demanding my attention.

   
I keep my face relaxed and neutral despite the torrent of emotions swirling inside of me. “What?”

    “Something is obviously bothering you.
” Cole holds up his phone, his gaze direct under the straight line of his eyebrows. “Is this text the problem?”

   
“No.” I lie stubbornly.

   
A flash of green tells me that he’s not buying it. “It’s not?”

   
“No.” I close my eyes and sigh. My heart is throbbing with nervous energy, sending blood to my cheeks. “I mean, yes, it’s bothering me. But…but… you don’t have to explain.” Maybe I’m overreacting. Cole has made no secret of his history with other girls. I knew the score the day that I met him. It’s old news. “She was from before, right? It’s in the past and none of my business and even if…” I quickly amend my words. “And even now, it’s not like—well, we don’t owe each other anything yet. What’s happening between us doesn’t have to be official or… whatever.”

   
“Or whatever?” Cole pauses, scrapes his hands over his mouth. When he speaks again, his words come out slow and I feel every crack in his voice like a prick against my skin. “I don’t even know what to say to you right now. If I claim that when I was with that girl, I was pissed and hurting over you, I sound like even more of a jerk. If I could just…” He squeezes his eyes closed. “You have every right to be mad and I wouldn’t blame you if you hate me right now, but… I…”

    “
God. I don’t hate you. I-I don’t know what I’m feeling but it’s not hate.” I look up at the night sky to keep tears from rolling down my face. “We weren’t together then and I-I think more than anything I want us to start from now. From
this
moment. I don’t want my past to drag us down and I don’t want yours to either.”

    Cole cups my face and wipes his thumb over a tear.
“Do you mean that? Because I swear that you’re it for me. I’m all in this thing if you are.”