NEVER GOODBYE (An Albany Boys Novel) (17 page)

“Blue, I don’t want you to be in control of your reactions to me. I don’t want you to stop thinking of me and, I definitely don’t want you to stop looking at me and wanting to touch me. I think I would like you to touch me very much.”

Sweetbabyjesus.

He continues, his mouth so welcoming. “I wish we decided to spend the day by ourselves instead. This isn’t a safe time to discuss this or do the things I want to do.”

I suck my lips in to avoid uttering my thoughts because, right now, they are ridiculous and slutty. Instead I nod and lean my forehead against his chest and watch as a few more beads run down his skin, into the never, never, which is damn near perfectly peaking. I have to close my eyes. “Go,” I manage to whisper. He kisses me on the head and I hear the splash of his retreat into the cool water and away from me, away from temptation and away from on-lookers before I open my eyes.

What the effin’ hell is wrong with me? Oh, I know what it is. I have kept my love life to such a minimum that one exposure turns me to liquid. My brain had liquefied, my belly, my whole damn body is like the puddle around my feet, all for Vaun Campbell and his perfection.

He doesn’t swim toward the boys. He swims out into the middle of the pond and lies on his back, allowing the sun to glisten like diamonds all around him and his golden skin. I want him so badly, I’m aching. Frustrated, I turn and head for the truck where I can gather myself and my sanity.

I dry myself off with a towel and hang the wet material over the side of the truck bed. Looking out to the water I search for April or Carter, finding neither. I need to ask her how I am going to keep my hands off him today because I know she would have a plan for me within seconds. She’s good like that, quick on her feet. I search the shoreline, the picnic tables and the large group around the building fire, neither of which show signs of April and Carter and I start to panic a little because I haven’t seen either since I toppled the canoe. At the time I heard her but, God, what if she went back under?

I get up on the truck bed, hoping to get a better view point. I spin around, scanning the gully for her when, to my relief, I see her. Hand in hand, her and Carter are disappearing into the wood and I smile even though I’m shaking. The two of them have turned into the surreptitious relationship. They’ve kept to themselves and not announced anything new about their association since … well I guess I can’t really comment when I’ve been much the same. The day of Luke and Vaun’s party seems to be the turning point in all our relationships. I must make an effort to find some time for April so we can have a girlie chat. I’ll even let her go banshee tone on me if it means spending a little time with my wingman before my first dose of treatment. I’m not sure what I’d do if something happened to her. She is my rock, she is my best friend. She is my back up plan ― I can’t breathe.

I can’t … but I am breathing. It hurts, but I’m breathing and I slump to the bed trying to pull myself out it. I know what’s wrong with me, I know because I’ve helped Benny through them plenty of times. Yet this is the first time I’ve experienced a panic attack of my own.

I tell Benny to lay back and stretch, think about each breath. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Again. In through the nose, out through the mouth. I don’t know how long I lie here breathing in the hot summer air, allowing the ghost noises of music and people having fun swarm around me, but it was long enough for Vaun to come looking for me.

I don’t have to open my eyes to know it’s his weight that dips the back of the truck, to know it is his shadow that is casts over my body, whose cold drips of water hit my skin. I know it’s Vaun that lies beside me without and word and takes my hand. The reason I know it’s him is that everything I feared a moment ago, the shock of momentary peace from a disease you’d think would be impossible to forget, the abyss I began to slip through, had slithered away. Just like that. Gone.

Vaun

              I don’t know what happened to her in her life, but something still continues to play havoc on her mind and heart and I hate I can’t help her. All I can do is be here, even if it’s laying on the back of my truck holding her hand and waiting for her to talk to me.

              My thumb traces her skin and it’s so smooth; as smooth as a flower petal and just as delicate. Looking at her through the slits of my eyes, I watch her relax and literally feel my spine do the same. She doesn’t want to let on what is happening to her so I’ll let it be for now, only because I can feel and hear her breathing returning to normal. Whatever demon she’s hiding from me, it scares me more than anything ever has before.

              She turns her face to me and opens her eyes. She has to quickly cup the side of her face to shield her eyes from the sun.

              “Thanks,” she says softly.

              “For?”

              “For taking me out today and allowing me to forget. I don’t know when was the last time I enjoyed myself without a thought to my life outside of the bubble you’ve created
.
Clarissa Pinkola Estes said, ‘This kind of forgetting does not erase memory, it lays the emotion surrounding the memory to rest.’”

              I don’t totally understand what she’s trying to tell me, so I wait and hope. I wait for a long time, then she takes a big breath and rolls onto her side so her whole body is facing mine and I do the same.

              “Vaun, we need to talk. Tonight. I need to tell you some things that might change how you feel about me.”

              My heart is rapping so fast. I’ve wanted her to talk to me for over two days and, now that she’s ready, I’m … scared. I don’t want to feel differently for her and truthfully, I’m not sure there would be much that has that kind of power.

              Mom always said that when the right girl came along I would know. I would know instantly and I wouldn’t let a thing get in our way. Mom’s voice in my head makes me smile and I miss her. She would have loved Harper. They would have loved one another’s company. They would have ganged up against me and watched sappy movies with that guy Mom talked about all the time, George someone. And then we would laugh and drink Mom’s famous hot chocolates, eat her hot pie, and talk about plans for our future.

              But that won’t be happening. That kind of dreamy fiction isn’t in my future and I need to remember that. I need to hold on to reality, the future, and both of those things are with Harper.

              “Blue,” I reach out and smooth her damp hair from her face and neck, pushing it so it falls behind her. “I’ll take you some place that’s special to me and we’ll talk there. It’s a place I want to share with you.” My fingers fall from her neck down her soft skin to just above her breasts.

              I want to keep descending, but I won’t. She deserves more than a quick fondle. She deserves the world. A world where she can be a teenager instead of a parent. A world where she has a mother who remembers her and a father who will come home and kick my ass out of her room like he should. I want her to be able to dance, to share her love for all the arty things that make her the person she is, the girl who has stolen my heart.

              I want these simple things for her because as I look into her eyes right now, I see a ghost. This girl lying in front of me is so much more and yet she holds it back and I don’t know why. Hopefully after I show her my place and share what I love with her, she’ll open up to me freely and I can see all the beauty she has to offer.

              She smiles and I can’t believe she can be any prettier than this, right here with her hair all wild, falling from her hair tie, the sun beaming a halo on her skin and she’s looking at me like I’m her guy. She won’t say that of course, but I know it and that’s all that really matters.

              “It’s a date.”

              I actually gasp. “A
date
, date?”

              She laughs and her eyes light up. “Yeah. Just one. Don’t go thinking it’s a green light for you to go all caveman and stake your claim.”

              Whether she is aware of it or not, I have staked my claim and everyone will know it before the end of school tomorrow. She agreed to be my girlfriend and whether she had today or not, every guy at school and in Albany is going to know she is off limits. “But I thought friends don’t date, especially best friends?”

              “I thought we were boyfriend and girlfriend now. Changed your mind?”

              “You know how to kill me.” I say, because she knows it’s true.

              “Boyfriends, girlfriends, whatever. You’ll always still be my best friend,” she explains. “And I’m making a small exception in our case. Kinda like when friends make exceptions when they can’t find a date for a family wedding or prom.”

              “Like, If we’re both not married by the time we are … let’s say thirty, we marry each other to save face?”

              Her laughter fills a void inside me with a warmth I’ve never known and I want to kiss her so badly, but I’m too scared to break what we have right now.

              “Firstly, thirty is still too young to have given up on finding the right one. Let’s say forty. At least we still have time for a full life together. Second, I’ll take you up on that wedding deal if you agree to be my emergency date for a family weddings and all high school functions regardless of title.”

              Little does she know, I’d take her anywhere anytime if she’d let me. “Firstly,” she giggles and I continue. “Forty is longer than I’d like to wait, but okay. Secondly, since we are now engaged I think it would only be right if I took you to all functions in the future
with
a title.”

              Her laughter bursts as she shoves my shoulder, but as all she manages to do is collapse on top of me, making me laugh. I can’t help myself, the opportunity to grab her small body and roll her under me with the momentum is too good to miss. It was an easy maneuver and I should be ashamed of myself for pulling it, knowing what her reaction is more than likely going to be, but I’ll be damned if I regret it.

              She’s light, lighter than I think she should be, but I’ve learned never to talk about weight with the female population. Thanks to my mother, I’ve never had to be on the ass end of that emotional backlash. Her body is already sun-kissed and warm, her hair is a long, tangled mess over my arms and chest and I can’t help but imagine us naked and her hair tickling my skin. I realize I shouldn’t imagine anything like that when she’s this close. I can feel my body reacting and I don’t want her to freak out.

              Clowns. Scary clowns. Duh, all clowns are scary.

She’s stops laughing and she’s biting her lip. Jesus, doesn’t she know I’m in trouble? I run my thumb across it so she stops. But what a dumbass move because she kisses it and my heart slams against my chest and the clowns are no match for her.

Snakes. Road kill. Mister Donaldson naked in the AG plot, raking hay. I shudder and I know I’m safe if I can actually picture him, which is so damn wrong, but I know it should work. It has to.

Her face is so close to mine and her eyes flutter closed. I mean they actually flutter, like a butterfly, for crying out loud. How can someone be so innocent and yet so seductive in one flutter of her eye lids?

She wants me to kiss her and, goddammit, I want to. I want to so bad.

Mister Donaldson save me!

“Whoa,” Luke says beside the truck and I no longer need Mister Donaldson in his birthday suit. Luke’s voice is like an ice bucket on both of us.

Blue practically jumps up and scoots to the tailgate with her legs crossed, dangling over the edge. But she keeps her eyes shielded while I go to her side, not liking the sudden distance.

“Sorry, Bro. I didn’t know you two were … I didn’t …”

“It’s fine, Luke. We weren’t doing anything but talking.” Her hands are tucked in her lap and I slide my hand between them hoping she will take it. She does and she looks at me with a tight smile. “We were just making a deal and an oath,” I say.

Her eyes bulge and I grin and squeeze her hand.

“Oh?” Luke ponders before he helps steady his new girl who, stumbles on God knows what. I hope she’s not drunk already.

I know he’s as curious as hell and I shouldn’t flaunt shit like this in front of him when I think he wanted Blue first, but I need him to understand Blue is different, that I’m different now and I want to her to be a solid in my life where there are few.

I chuckle at Blue’s tight shake of her head and look back at my step-brother. He has his arm around his gal, who quite possibly needs some water to dilute whatever she’s drank and definitely needs a bigger bikini top. I swear I’m not perving on her, but they are almost bursting out and I think she meant it to be that way. It’s actually a turn off. So I try to block her out just like I somehow blocked out her name, knowing she might not be around long enough to care anyway, and I address Luke. “Blue ― Harper and I are engaged to be married.”

I can’t help my laughter from spilling out when Blue falls back against the truck bed, sighing and shaking her head, while Luke begins ranting about being too young mixed with a load of profanities. Blue sits up and hops down, standing not far from Luke with her hands up like she is surrendering while I sit back and enjoy the show.

Juvenile and stupid, yeah, I know, but so damn worth saying it out loud to see Luke actually care about me. That last one is the kicker, actually.

We were friends during school, but when my dad and his mom started dating and then Mom got sick I think I targeted my resentment toward to the wrong person. Luke always took it and shook it off like it was no big deal. He is a better man than me and I should cut him more slack.

“Calm down, Luke,” Blue cooed soothingly, “Vaun is messing with you.”

He stops like he hit an invisible brick wall and begins the eyeball ping ponging between Blue and me to see if she is speaking the truth. “You’re not engaged?”