Presently Perfect (Perfect #3) (29 page)

I moved her toward the bed until the back of her knees hit the edge. We tumbled down on top of the pink fur almost knocking a large yellow stuffed duck to the floor.

Brooke reached for the duck. “Watch out for Mr. Puddles.”

Hovering over her, I said, “You name your stuffed animals?”

“Not all of them silly, just the special ones. And Mr. Puddles is very special.” Bringing the fake fowl up to her face, she puckered her lips, kissing its felt bill. “Aren’t you?”

As she gently sat Mr. Puddles to the side, I shook my head trying to clear it of what I had just witnessed. I began a trail of wet kisses across her jaw, and down her neck until I reached her chest. The entire time that fucking duck watched me. I ran my tongue across one stiff nipple before closing my lips around it and sucking it hard. Brooke’s nails buried deeper into my head. Her hips rocked against me accompanied by a high-pitched squeal.

“Oh god, No-No! I love you!” she yelled out.

Her body, her movements, her moans, her voice all should have urged me on. Instead, they had the opposite effect. I stilled, dropping my forehead against her chest. I couldn’t do this to her. Passing the time with Brooke waiting on Tweet to come to her senses was already bordering on using Brooke. I couldn’t be with Brooke like this until I knew for sure that she’d be the one I was having sex with and not just a stand-in.

Scrunching up my face, I inhaled a deep breath, and slid off of her. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I saw out the corner of my eye Brooke propping herself up on her elbows. I took a quick glance at her. Her eyes fluttered, growing bigger and more confused with each blink.

I hung my head and whispered, “I’m sorry.”

“What’s wrong?” There was a slight catch in her voice.

I turned toward her and our eyes locked. “I gotta go. I’m sorry.”

I bolted off the bed, snatching my shirt from the floor as I rushed out of Brooke’s bedroom.

Twisting in the passenger side of my truck, she faced me. Her eyes lit up with excitement. “This trip is going to be awesome.”

Brooke had been invited to her friend, Rachel’s, bachelorette party this weekend. Rachel lived in Columbia, South Carolina—the state capital, where the famous Five Points shopping district was located, and home of the fighting Gamecocks of USC. Travis was in his sophomore year at the university and had been begging me for months to come hang out for the weekend. Since I didn’t like the idea of Brooke traveling alone, this seemed like the perfect opportunity.

The guilt I felt after running out of Brooke’s bedroom was relentless. Because of it, I made more of an effort to be an actual boyfriend. I explained to her that I hadn’t been thinking straight that night. That the emotions of the week had me out of sorts. Our first time needed to be special and I wanted a clear head for when that time came. She said she understood and that it was okay. She never asked if Tweet had anything to do with my behavior. In fact, she hadn’t mentioned Tweet since the funeral, nor had she commented about us heading straight into Tweet territory this weekend. Brooke wasn’t an insecure girl. Confidence oozed out of each pore. She was, however, the suspicious type, but apparently, the increased attention I was giving her had helped relax her suspicions.

Placing her hand on my thigh, she said, “Are you excited?”

I glanced over with a smirk. “Yeah. It will be great to hang out with Travis.”

It was the weekend before Thanksgiving, six months since Dad had died and I had any contact with Tweet. My life was split into two time dimensions. In the first one, days and months flew by at lightning speed. Mom and I missed Dad every day and it was hard to believe months had passed since we last saw him. But we were moving forward, focusing less on the painful memories and more on all the great times we shared with him. The second dimension was the Tweet time warp.

Tweet-time dragged on so slowly that it felt like it never budged. Each day we were apart the hole in my life expanded. I
tried
to stay angry at her. I
wanted
to stay angry at her. She
deserved
for me to stay angry at her. And I
was
angry at her… for about a week. As the days leading up to our break up
replayed in my head, I understood why she did what she did.

Until Dad’s death Tweet and I had managed to stay within the boundaries she had set for our friendship. It was a struggle, but we maintained the friend zone pretty well. When Dad died, our instincts kicked in. I turned to her and she was there for me. One hug became two, two became three, and three became four, etcetera. Our gaze lingered, our hands squeezed harder, and the innocent kisses on the cheek moved closer to the corners of the mouth. And then there were the two times we almost let nature take its course. It was obvious that neither one of us had a lot of self-control when the other was involved. Before we knew it the line blurred even more than before. She tried to get us back on track, even though it was a shitty way to go about it.

Brooke unbuckled her seatbelt and scooted closer to me. Her hand slid to my inner thigh while she placed light kisses up and down my neck.

Sucking in a quick breath, I shrugged. “We’re gonna crash if you keep that up.”

Her chin rested on my shoulder. “How about we get a hotel room for the night?”

“I thought all the girls were staying at Rachel’s place.”

Brooke may not have questioned me anymore about that night in her room, but she kept dropping not so subtle hints about us having sex. I really cared for Brooke, but every time I closed my eyes I still saw Tweet.

“They are, but I don’t have to.”

“You’ll probably be out late, though,” I countered.

She moved back to her side of the truck, buckled her seatbelt, and stared straight ahead. Something was going to have to give soon. My girlfriend wanted to have sex and I was running out of plausible excuses to hold off.

I reached over, placing my hand on top of hers. “We’ll have our time. I just don’t want to fit it in during a busy weekend.”

I squeezed her hand slightly. When her head turned in my direction, I held her gaze for a brief second and gave her a smile. She flipped her hand over, pushing her fingers between mine… and held on tight.

“I know… it’s just with us both living at home and being busy with classes… we don’t have a lot of chances to be alone for any length of time. It’s frustrating, Noah. I love you and I want to show you how much.”

That was another thing I was going to have to deal with soon… those three words that Brooke liked to say… often. I found it weird that she never got upset when I didn’t return them. She always went along with my subject change, never showing one sign of being hurt. The
I love yous
continued to flow out of her mouth regularly, like she had them scheduled in two-hour increments.

“Don’t worry. You show me all the time how you feel. Those cookies you made me last week were tasty.”

“I have something else that you might enjoy tasting.” The fingertips of her free hand skimmed the length of my arm, causing a shiver to run through my body.

“Did you bring brownies?” I teased, needing to lighten the mood.

Brooke released my hand and shoved it away. When I glanced over, she had her arms folded in front of her chest, her bottom lip poking out in a pout, as her gaze froze out the windshield.

Unlike Tweet, Brooke wasn’t much on teasing, unless she was the teaser. The way this usually played out was—I’d let her act like an eight-year-old for ten to fifteen minutes, then say something that I knew would make her smile. She’d pretend for another few seconds that she was mad before giving in. Our relationship was routine, predictable, and generic.

I let the silence hang in the air for another…
three, two, one.

“So that’d be a
no-ah
on the brownies?”

Half a second later the corners of her mouth curled up.

After dropping Brooke off at her friend’s, I drove around exploring the USC campus, hoping to get a glimpse of Tweet. At first, I wondered if she went home this weekend, but with the Thanksgiving break a few days away, I doubted she’d bother.

The rest of the afternoon was spent helping Travis and his frat brothers get ready for the party they were throwing that night.

Travis and I were hanging out in his dorm room drinking a couple of beers he smuggled in before heading back out for the party.

Sitting at the standard-issue dorm desk, I tilted the bottle up to my lips and took a swig.

“If there’s gonna be free beer tonight, why did we go buy this stuff?”

“The shit they serve at the frat house tastes like piss,” he said, cracking open another beer.

Travis sat across from me, his back leaning against the wall and long legs sprawled over his bed.

“You’re quite the wordsmith.”

“Of course I am. Why do you think my major is English?” I chuckled and took another swig of beer. “So, how have things been?”

“Fine. Classes are pretty good. You know I decided not to play baseball this year. I need to focus on the books. And…”

“I don’t mean that bullshit.”

Travis was the only one who knew what happened between me and Tweet. He also knew I had ulterior motives for coming up here this weekend. He planned on keeping me busy over the next two days so I couldn’t follow through on those motives.

“I’m getting by,” I answered.

In reality, I’d been miserable, although I slapped a smile on my face and pretended like everything was good. Two of the most important people in my life had disappeared. There was nothing I could do about my Dad other than adjust and accept the fact that he was gone. But with Tweet there was no acceptance.

I knew that to Travis, I looked like some pussy-whipped idiot wasting time. He didn’t get why I wasn’t satisfied with Brooke. The thing was, Travis had no frame of reference. He’d never been in love. How could I explain Tweet and I, when his soul hadn’t connected with its mate yet? There was no way he’d be capable of understanding the completeness I felt when she was with me and the pull I experienced when I knew she was out there.

I fidgeted with the beer label, peeling off a corner, while I considered whether or not to ask him the one question I’d been dying to know the answer to since Tweet left for school.

I lifted my gaze to the ceiling, not wanting to see his expression when I said, “Have you seen her?”

“Seen who?”

I dropped my look to him. “Don’t do that. You know
who
.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen
who.
”

“How’d she look?”

“Hot as usual. Looks like she lost some weight.”

I leaned forward. “She didn’t need to lose any weight. Had she been sick?” Even I could hear the panic in my voice.

“Dude, I said she looked hot.”

I relaxed back in my chair. “Have you talked to her?”

“When are you going to stop this?”

“Stop what? She’s a friend.”

“Callin’ bullshit!” he said, shaking his head.

“I’m concerned about all my friends.”

“Call-ing bullshiot!”

We both concentrated on finishing our beers before I pushed him for more information.

“Have you talked to her?”

“Dude!” he snapped.

“What? I’m just trying to make conversation.”

“Come on.” He waved his hand toward himself. “This is your one and only shot. Get it all out now ‘cause I’m not spending the entire night talking about your girl. They’ll be a lot of lovelies vying for my attention. They gotta stock up on the Travis experience to get them through the holiday break.”

I knew it was probably just a slip of the tongue, but a small smile crossed my lips when he referred to Tweet as
my girl
.

I seized the opportunity and repeated. “Have you talked to her?”

“Yes, a few times.”

“And…” I was annoyed at his dribble of information.

“She said hey and see ya around.”

“Did she ask about me?”

Travis slid off his bed and walked to his dresser. Raking his hand through his hair, he checked out his reflection in the mirror.

“She wanted to know how you were. I told her you were great. End of story.”