Love on the Ledge (12 page)

“That’s why you’re the maid of honor.”

I laugh softly. “And because I’m the first one he came out to.”

I’ve never told anyone that, not even Leti. Everyone just assumed that Pepe came out to us all on the same night, at the same dinner. He brought Tony over and said, “This is my boyfriend.”

No one batted an eye; they just welcomed Tony and made him eat three helpings of food. When I look at Hayden, I want to tell him everything that I’m thinking. I want to tell him that his blue eyes remind me of stars. That his hair is the softest hair I’ve ever touched, and I’m equally as jealous as I am in awe of it. I want to tell him that I like his shirt, even if it’s just about the first time since we met that he hasn’t been topless.

I want to tell him that it’s not the wine, it’s something else that makes me lie back and feel at total ease with someone I’ve only known for a handful of days.

But I don’t say any of those things.

For a little while, we’re quiet. It’s a similar silence from our phone call. Except now, my body is alive with his nearness.

I can smell his detergent and soap, and beneath that the scent I’ve come to identify as
him
. I can’t keep pretending that I don’t know what this feeling means. It means that I like Hayden, despite any reason I can give myself, with him this near, I can’t stop.

“Where’d you go, Sky?” he asks me, refilling his cup. He starts to reach for my face, to tuck my hair back but stops himself.

“I was thinking that this isn’t what friends do.”

“You don’t drink wine and cheese with your friends?” He’s coy, as if he doesn’t already know that this dance we’re doing is for one reason only—to figure out where we go from here.

“Yes, but—”

“But?” He eases back onto the blanket with a hand behind his head. “Sky, there’s a huge but in our way.”

“It’s a necessary but.”

“Are you sure?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

“Alright, you explain your but, and I’ll explain mine.” He smiles, and that smile is so fucking gorgeous, I want to pounce on his face and make it mine.

He’s letting me drive this car, and that is terrifying and freeing in new ways.

“But,” I’ve lost all the reasons. “Friends shouldn’t be attracted to each other.”

“Friends shouldn’t have moonlit picnics on rooftops.”

“Friends shouldn’t look at each other the way you look at me.”

“In my defense, I have to look at you that way. It’s the way people are supposed to look at beautiful women.”

Beautiful. It seems cheesy, but it warms my insides. It’s the most obvious thing to say, but some guys never say it. Bradley never called me beautiful. Hot. Sexy. Smoking. On the days he felt that dating a brown girl gave him swagger he called me “fine.” I reach for a memory in which my boyfriend of so many years called me beautiful, and I can’t find it.

Suddenly, the roof feels too high, my feet too close to dangling off the ledge. I jump up and my cup slips from my hand. The plastic clatters all the way down and lands with a crack.

Hayden puts a secure hand around my waist and holds on tight.

I ease back into him, right against his chest. I can feel his heart thump through my body. Or maybe mine through his.

“If you’re going to jump into the ocean and off roofs when I give you a compliment, I’m going to have to stop.”

I look up and over my shoulder. His face is so close.

“It’s not that. I’m in my head a lot.”

“I’m not. Perhaps I should be. I’d probably get into a lot less trouble.”

“Hayden, I’m just scared. My last relationship was for three years, and it didn’t end well. I don’t want you to be the rebound guy. I don’t want a summer fling. I also don’t think I’m ready to even think about something long-term.”

“Whoa, whoa,” he jokes. “What’s with all the pressure?”

“Come on, Hayden.”

“I get it. I don’t want any of those things either. I’m careless with my body, but I’m pretty protective of my insides. I’ve been the rebound and I’ve been the doormat boyfriend. I’ve been the friend. And believe me, I would be glad to be your friend. Friendship isn’t a consolation prize for not being able to get in your pants.”

I shake my head, unable to keep a smile from my face. “Hayden.”

“See? That. I blame this on you. When you say my name—it’s like you’re calling for me from far away and only I can reach you. I hear everything you’re saying. I’m the Nice Guy, Sky. I’m used to the territory that comes with it.”

“The Nice Guy?”

“Yeah. Every girl that’s ever broken my heart has told me that I’m
just so nice
. It sucks when girls prefer the guys that act like they don’t give a shit, or treat them like crap, or are the opposite of nice. My dad was one of those guys. My friends have married those guys. That’s just not who I want to be.”

I look down at my hands holding his, and his hands holding me. Bradley was a bad guy. Sometimes he’d turn mean, and it always felt like he did it so I knew where our places stood. But when he smiled at me, it was like a spell. I’d just forget, and chalk it up to a bad day.

“So where do we go from here?” Hayden asks. “We’ve established that we are more than friends. But it’s too soon for the long-term thing. Plus you’re moving—”

“Maybe.”

“Plus the unknown status of location. That leaves us with friends with benefits. Only that sounds smarmy. I can’t do that.”

He gives me a little squeeze.

“You could never be smarmy.”

“In my experience, some girls want that.”

“I don’t.”

“Then let’s just agree that we’re going to put a hold on defining or labeling anything.”

“That’s a shame. I’ve got a really great label maker for the wedding invitations.”

His strong fingers dig playfully into my stomach. With my cup long gone, he gives me his.

“I just know that I want to spend time with you and possibly know what it feels like to kiss your perfect mouth again.”

I have the urge to jump out of my skin. But he holds me tighter. The top of my head rests under his chin, in the nook between his neck and shoulder. I never fit in Bradley’s nook. He was too tall and despite all the sports he did, he had a hard time building muscles on his shoulders. Not Hayden. Hayden is all muscle, and when I lean back, it’s like his body was made to contour mine.

“I don’t think I’m ready to get involved.”

“We’re not getting involved, Sky. That sounds too much like a label. We’re exploring. When people explore it’s about the journey, the need to travel.”

His hands travel along my arms, brushing the chill on my skin.

“The need to discover the possibility of something life-changing.”

He presses a kiss on my temple. I shut my eyes and listen to the drum of my heart.

“You’re saying a lot of nonsense right now,” I say, sitting up from his hold. The breeze picks up and pushes my hair over my face. He leans on his elbow, and I take a mental picture of how he looks right here and now. Voices try to overpower my thoughts.

Don’t be an idiot.

Make yourself happy.

It was just one time…

I know all of these things, but it’s a lot to ask of yourself to take a chance on something new, when your past still has a grip on your present.

“All I ask is that if for some reason I’m not making you happy,” he tells me, “or if you decide you aren’t staying, be honest with me. People undervalue honesty these days.”

I nod, leaning myself closer to him.

“Friends,” I say.

“Friends,” he says.

You don’t kiss friends. You don’t dream of them caressing the inside of your thighs. You don’t imagine what your life would be like if they were
it
.

Hayden and I can’t be friends. Friendship is not a consolation prize if a relationship doesn’t work out.

But for now…I’m okay without the label, the definition. For now I want to sit under the starry night with a boy too good to be real.

“Sky.”

I respond with a kiss. His lips are a whisper against mine. He doesn’t move. He lets me kiss him, lets me set the pace of my mouth on his.

Kissing Hayden a second time is different than I thought it’d be. It’s surprising. It’s soft, softer still. Everything about him—his callouses, his pecs, the sharp jawline—is in direct contrast to his soft, beautiful lips.

He pulls me against his chest, a hand on my lower back. His skin against mine sets off a series of landmines in my mind. I’m aware of the underwear I put on this morning, the wine on my breath, I’m aware that I don’t know where I should put my hands because I want to put them everywhere. All over him. I’m aware of the moan that escapes my lips when he kisses me back.

He turns me seamlessly so that I’m resting on the blanket, pressed against the roof. It’s a good thing we’re over my bedroom. My foot kicks the remnants of our feast to the ground.

“You’re a mess,” he says.

“You have no idea.”

I pull him by his t-shirt back on top of me. I love the weight of him, how solid he feels. He tickles my lips with his tongue and I open up for him. He tastes like sweet, red wine.

I lift my hips to meet his and grin when I feel his dick harden against my thigh. With quick raspy breaths, he says my name, like a prayer, a wish.

The heat of his body answers mine. I move my leg to allow him to press into me, my hands lift his shirt at the waist, tracing the ripple of his taut muscles. I want to get lost in the feeling of him.

He moans against my mouth.

“Sorry,” I whisper.

“Don’t be.” He licks his lip where I bit him. In the golden light of our lamp, they’re red and swollen.

Hayden gets up on his knees, and I wish he wouldn’t. The cold night fills the empty space he just left. I pull at the belt loops on his jeans, but he doesn’t budge. He smiles, a wicked and beautiful thing. He lifts his shirt over his head, and my breath hitches. It’s like he fills the entire sky, haloed by a dreamy light. He returns to me. I press my hands on his shoulders, but he takes my hands and secures them against the roof, over my head.

I kiss his jaw, every inch of it, the way I’ve wanted to from the beginning. I wrap my legs around his trim waist. My dress is all the way at my hips, giving him complete access to my soaking wet panties.

He presses a hand between my legs. He presses his forehead against mine, and I can see the struggle that flits across his face.

My senses are on edge. I want him to move his hand. I want him to tear off my thong. I want him to bury himself inside of me and never come out.

He growls against the skin of my neck, our pulses racing to a finish line that we cannot see.

“Oh, God, Sky.”

He lets go of my wetness. He takes my face up with both hands and looks at me. I feel so naked under his bright blue eyes. He kisses my cheeks, my nose, my jaw. He’s about to kiss my lips again, but a car revs close by.

Doors slam and drunk singing makes its way up the driveway.

“Let’s swim!” Juliet says.

Someone shushes her, and they do a terrible job of being quiet. Hayden and I stay perfectly still. He chuckles into my shoulder. From here, we can see my cousins make their way into the backyard. All they have to do is look up and they would see me with my legs wrapped around Hayden’s waist, his shirtless body pressed against me.

I wish they would all just go away. I push my hips up to grind against him once.

Hayden sighs into my neck, pressing tiny kisses along the way. His voice is a whisper. “
You’re bad news.”

“Come on,” Yunior says. “We’re going to wake everyone up.”

“Sky is so lame that she didn’t come.”

Yes, Sky didn’t come. And it’s going to be all their fault.

“I don’t know what Xandro sees in her,” Maria says, stumbling around, getting closer to the pool.

I freeze and so does Hayden.

“Shut up,” Elena says. “You’re just jealous.”

“Scuse me!” Maria loud whispers. “I am
engaged
. I don’t need to be jealous. She’s not doing something right if her man was stepping out on her like that. Now she’s got Xandro strung along like a puppy dog.”

“You’re being a bitch,” Elena says, and turns around and leaves them.

Hayden looks at me. I don’t know what is more embarrassing. The fact that my cousin is airing out my dirty laundry behind my back, or the fact that Hayden is here to listen to it.

I can’t stand the sadness, the questions in his stare so I turn my face. I’m about to throw the empty bottle of wine in the direction of the pool, but I don’t have to.

“Guys!” Yunior says, fumbling over a potted plant. “Help me get Andrea upstairs. She’s puking all over my car.”

“You deal with it,” Maria says. “That’s what she gets for doing so many shots.”

Part of me wants to go and help them, but the other part of me wants to go to my room and lick my wounds.

“Come on,” Yunior hisses.

Juliet is the first to go help. Maria stands at the poolside and watches the blue water ripple. She picks up a ball bouncing on the surface, turns it in her hands, and throws it as hard as she can.

When they’re gone, Hayden kisses my cheek. I want to ask him to come in, but I don’t want to talk about what he just heard. That was for me to tell him when I felt ready.

Hayden folds the blanket and throws it over the roof onto the balcony. He puts the trash and lamp in the bag and heads down first. I concentrate on my feet on each step of the ladder until I get to my balcony. I decide to keep the bag of provisions for next time. I really want there to be a next time.

My heart hammers in my throat. I don’t want him to go just yet. I lean over the side and kiss him.

“I had a nice time,” I tell him, nuzzling my nose into his shoulder.

He traces his finger up and down my arm. “Sky.”

I smile and collect myself. My lips feel swollen, my panties are most certainly uncomfortable, and I’m sure my mascara makes me look like a raccoon.

Hayden takes my hand and kisses it. “See you tomorrow.”

I watch him go down the ladder with the ease of a cat. He props the weight of it on his shoulder, like he’s picking up a stack of pillows. He has to get it back to the other side of the house where the construction is happening. The metal rattles, but after my family’s racket, I’m sure no one will notice.