Love Blind (14 page)

One of Hailey's shoulders hitched. Like she was about to lose it.

“I think she's earned her cross-off now,” I said.

Tess tapped her chin.

“Ted,” I read off the pimply guy's name tag. “Take Chewbacca back before he gets tossed across the room, huh?”

He leapt forward and scooped up the spider. My fear of spiders was the same kind of fear most people had—I got grossed out when one crawled over my arm or something, but it wasn't like I was plagued by them. Still. To come here and watch this? Worth adding it to the list.

Hailey threw her arms in the air. “I did it! I held a motherfucking tarantula!”

“Ooh. That's a major swear, not even one of the minor ones.” The kid Tess had brought with her stood at the door. “And my tablet's almost out of batteries. I need to recharge while we take Chewbacca home.”

Hailey snorted, grabbed my hand, and dragged me from the small room. “I need a pen.”

“What?”

She turned, her eyes wide, practically glowing with happiness. Over a spider. “A pen. To cross this off my list.”

She was still holding my hand. And like a Pavlovian reaction, my palms started to sweat. I jerked my hand from hers and balled my fists in my pockets.

I borrowed a pen from the checkout girl and handed it to Hailey. “Here.”

Hailey paused, her gaze ping-ponging from side to side. “Don't like holding hands, huh?”

“I sweat,” I blurted out.

“We all do. It's a human thing. When I go blind, you're going to have to get over the sweating hang-up. I'll need hands.”

It probably shouldn't have sounded as dirty to me as it did. But yeah . . . hands.

Her list was out of her pocket already. She uncapped the pen and sat down on the floor.

“See, Kyle? I'm in control. The things I'm afraid of, they're nothing. I can do this. Best feeling ever.” She crossed it out a few times. “Aren't you gonna sit?”

I glanced around and thought about pointing out we were in a pet store, but of course she knew, and of course she didn't care.

As soon as my ass hit the ground next to her, Hailey held the pen toward me. “Your turn. Add it, Kyle. Cross it off. Feel the rush. Feel the control.”

“You sound like a Sprite commercial.” I pulled my list from my back pocket.

Her hands clapped together, and I smiled. A real, actual smile.

“You're so cute when you're smiling.” She pinched my cheek.

My smile disappeared. “I'm not a toddler.”

Her hand dropped and I felt like a dick, but this was not exactly the kind of territory I wanted to be in with Hailey. If I couldn't date her, at least I could be on the same level with her, not some project or little boy to be praised.

I flattened my list on the floor, feeling selfishly safe from Hailey being able to see it. Crossing off something on my list
should feel . . . big. Instead it was a line on a piece of paper over an item I'd just written.

Being here with Hailey? Outside of school? With a friend of hers? That was bigger. Better. Should've probably written that.

The second I crossed out my newly added item, Hailey asked, “You mark it off?”

God, her eyes were shit. I nodded, and her arms wrapped around me. Not like I was a kid. Like I was more. My hands took too long to react, and she was gone and standing before I thought to tell my body to hug her back.

“I gotta get the spawn home,” Tess said, waving the tablet around.

I stood, cock-blocked by my own stupid self and some kid who needed his tablet recharged.

“Stop calling me that,” the kid said, clutching a box, which I could only assume held the beast we'd touched. “I wanna get Chewbacca home so I can play with him.”

I waited for something in Hailey to shift when the kid said he
wanted
to touch the spider she'd been afraid of, but it never came. Maybe it was just me who thought my fears might be shit.

“Kyle. I can't believe you did this.” Hailey bumped her shoulder against mine. “I love that you did this.”

I loved that I'd done it too. With her. But I didn't have words. Words for her smile. Her broken eyes. Her excitement
over a piece of paper. I wanted more of it. Of her. But it wasn't my place. Not yet. But maybe when I got farther down the list. Maybe when I started doing real stuff.

“Offer's still open,” Hailey whispered, and raised her eyebrows. The sex thing again. “You know. Cross off something else? It's kind of a rush, yeah?”

And then what? She'd go and do it with her bouncer too? “I'm . . . I'm not the guy for that, Hailey.”

I hated that I'd said the words. Hated even more that I'd only half meant them. Hated that I should have had better words to explain. Of course I did have better words, but getting them out was completely different.

“Fair enough.” She shook her list a few times between us. “But another thing done! Nothing can bring me down today.”

“Hailey! For real,” Tess said. “You're worse than the spawn when he levels up on Candy Crush.”

“Take it back, bitch!” Hailey yelled back.

“Um . . .” That Ted guy stopped next to Hailey. “Can you please not curse in the store?”

“Oh.” Hailey slapped her hands over her mouth. But she was definitely smirking. “Fuck. I'm so sorry.”

This time I made myself reach out and grab her arm. “Okay. Before Tess kicks both our asses or we're banned from this store for life.”

Hailey laughed again as I pulled her toward the door.

“That's right, Kyle! It takes two of us to manage a Hailey,” Tess said. And then she and the spawn were out the door with Hailey and me right behind her.

I dropped Hailey's arm as soon as we exited and she shook her head. “You're gonna need to figure out that touching thing, Kyle.”

Then she gave me a wave and hopped into Tess's car, and kept waving as they backed out.

I had purposefully added and crossed out an item on my list of fears. Not a real fear, but something that got me closer to Hailey. Got me closer to actually being worth something to her. My shoulder, my hand, my cheek. Three points where Hailey touched me. And that damn hug. Probably I needed to go home and jerk off. Probably I needed to be less sleazy with Hailey and be a real friend. Probably neither of those things would happen and I'd be stuck with a lecture from Mom about not having texted her that I was going out.

I wanted . . . I wanted so much, but taking what I wanted, getting what I wanted, going after what I wanted, was going to be so much harder than adding something to a piece of paper only to cross it out seconds later.

◊ ◊ ◊

A week after, school was finally out and I'd heard nothing from Hailey—though I guess I didn't reach out to her either. I was given a bunch of bullshit things to do every day for my mom. Couldn't she put all the groceries on one single list and send me in her car once a week, instead of this daily bike ride to the
store to get a few things? I wanted to ask if she was trying to keep me busy. If my long summer with no job—I
was
applying to places every day because there was no way I could survive in my house alone for ten weeks—was going to be filled with stupid chores.

I didn't complain to her, though. Didn't say anything to anyone. For hours and hours at a time. I went into the radio station twice a week to engineer for our shortened summer hours. But I barely saw or spoke to anyone. Sometimes in the house alone, I'd read my journal out loud to hear my own voice. And every day I waited, checking email and hoping someone gave enough of a shit to see if I was alive.

Then, finally, a text from Pavel.

Pavel: Come over today, okay?

Kyle: On my way.

I'd been giving him space. I'd apologized and left the ball in his court. The wait had felt interminable, but maybe what I deserved.

When I got to his house, his mom hugged me hard, smashing me into her big arms and petting my hair like I was a puppy.

“He's in the back.”

I passed through the kitchen with its delicious smells—Pavel's mom was always cooking Russian pastries—and his sisters hugged me too. I got more touch from Pavel's family than anywhere else. They used to seem stone-faced and unemotional, but once I was invited in, I was family.

When I stepped into the backyard, Pavel nodded at me. “Kyle. Perfect time. Play goalie.”

I sighed. “I suck at goalie.”

“Nonsense. Zig Ziglar says, ‘You were born to win, but to be a winner, you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win.' ”

Since I wasn't quite sure how to respond, I moved to the front of the goal. “I sent you an email. A while ago.”

Pavel lined up the ball and kicked it fast and hard. It whooshed past my ear before I could even move. “Yes. I received it. But not today, okay? Today, you maybe should tell me about your girl.”

I sighed. Not forgiven, then.

“Don't look sad, friend. This is not for you to be sad over. Just not today, okay?”

I nodded. “ 'Kay.”

“You still have the girlfriend?”

“Not a girlfriend. A friend who's a girl.”

“Big boobs?”

I snorted. “Pavel.”

“We're friends. Family. This isn't a question to ask?”

“It's maybe a question to ask. But maybe not the first question.”

I tossed the ball back to him. He stopped it with his chest and let it roll down his body, smooth, like the ball was part of him. “Okay. Tell me something about her that's not boobs.”

“Hailey. Her name is Hailey. She has a list of fears. She asked me to do a list too. That's why I sent you that letter.”

“Because you're afraid?” He lined up the ball again and it whooshed past my other side, though this time at least I got a hand on it.

“Yeah. But not how you think.”

“I should do a list maybe? Will this help me with the ladies? To show my soft side?”

I laughed hard. “Maybe. I don't know. I'm not the best person to ask about girls.”

“But you see more of them than I do. I've been practicing, though.
Cosmopolitan
has great tips on oral pleasure. Also, they now say the G-spot is a myth. Do you believe it?”

“Uh, maybe. I don't have that much experience.”

His eyes went wide, more excitement than Pavel's face usually expressed. “Do you have
any
experience?”

I almost told him about the sex offer. Almost. But Pavel would never let me live that down. He probably wouldn't speak to me for another month if I told him I'd passed on Hailey's suggestion. So instead, I tossed the ball back to him and said, “Nope.”

◊ ◊ ◊

I got home to a note from my mom: “You got the wrong kind of dishwashing soap. Cascade leaves streaks on the glasses. You'll need to get the streak-free kind today.”
Great.

I logged on to my computer—Jesus, why wouldn't Mom
let me have a smartphone?—and finally an email from Hailey. It was one line.

I've worked through every song you put on that playlist, and I love them all.

That was the moment I should have called her. Told her that Chaz was a stupid idea. Told her that I was in for crossing the sex thing off her list. That I needed time to prepare. Time to spend with her. That I wanted to hang out with her all the time. But I choked. I closed the email and did nothing. I couldn't.

I'd screwed up with Pavel. Screwed up with my mom. Of course I'd screw up with Hailey.

C
haz was still hot, and a perfect distraction from all the juvenile crap that went along with the rest of my life, even though I barely saw him. I finally texted him a picture of me in my bra, but not my face. Faceless boobs felt pretty safe.

He came over that night and I had to sneak out to meet him in his car. He had my shirt off within forty-five seconds.

“You have no idea how hot that picture made me. Your tits are perfect, baby.”

Okay, gross. This shouldn't have been gross, but it totally was. “Baby” and “tits.” I stopped him with a hand. “Do you want to . . . talk . . . for a little?”

He blinked. “Why? Do you? I never see you, and you sent me that picture. I thought you were into this. Into me.”

“I am. . . . I don't know.”

I shouldn't have been thinking of Kyle. Or the morning last week when he biked by and mumbled he'd seen Pavel but didn't have
the talk
because Pavel put him off. He asked if I was still trying to decide which song to use for the competition, so I guess he got my email, but he never said anything else about my multiple offers to cross sex off the list.

It shouldn't have affected me at all. Seriously, it was an offer of convenience, nothing else. But he barely acknowledged it. He didn't say,
Hey, Hailey, you're hot, but getting it over with that way just isn't my thing
. Only, he did look at me in this funny way, straddling his bike like it was the one thing keeping him from saying,
Hailey. I'm in.
I shook my head. No. That was wishful thinking. Because he didn't say it. I hated that it hurt. It shouldn't have. We were friends. But I wanted an explanation aside from “I'm not the guy for that.”

“So do you not want this? Because, Hailey, a lot of girls . . . ,” Chaz started, pulling back and adjusting his dick in case it wasn't totally clear what a lot of girls would be willing to do with him.

“No. I mean, I don't want to do it in your car in the middle of the night with my moms a hundred feet away.”

Kyle would get this. Chaz looked baffled, like car sex with parental units close by was super normal. Kyle would be thoughtful about sex. God, why was I focusing on him? He'd said no. More than once.

The thing was, he could tell me about Pavel, and the most traumatic experience of his life, and cry all over my shirt,
or stand next to me when I held a disgusting spider, but he couldn't man up and go for a sure thing. He knew it was still on the table. I'd told him it would be. I'd brought it up an embarrassing number of times. God, what was wrong with me?