Second Thoughts (16 page)

“That's good. I think.” His fingers twitched and I had to hold his hand tighter to keep him from messing up his hair before we made it to the city. “Like that
future's
getting further away. Becoming less likely. That's good,” he repeated, convincing himself.

I couldn't be sure enough to agree, so I just kissed his hand and left it at that. In truth, the uncertainty made me
more
nervous, and I tried not to think about it. I preferred to distract myself with something else. Before he could talk any more about the future I couldn't fully see, I asked a very important question.

“What do you want for your birthday?”

I was hoping he'd say me.

No such luck. The grim face he made was answer enough. “To change your vision,” he said. He kept his eyes fully on the road.

I sighed. “Besides that.”

Finally, he glanced over at me, and a tiny, sexy grin appeared on his handsome face. “How about some time alone with you
not
in the car?”

Now
that's
what I was hoping to hear. I thought about it more and more, since the disastrous night a few weeks ago when we'd been so close, to every single day when he asked about the vision and I felt like time was running out.

Our year anniversary was right around the corner and I was ready now.

Y
ou'll be there on Tuesday, right?” Amy asked for at least the tenth time on the Friday afternoon before her mother arrived to pick her up for our week of Thanksgiving break.

I was lying on my bed, reading one of her magazines. I flipped down the glossy pages to look at her. “Yes. For the thousandth time.”

“Sorry,” she muttered. She zipped and unzipped her weekend bag over and over again without taking out or putting anything in. On Tuesday, my aunt and I were driving out to spend the day with Amy and have dinner with the Morettis and the Sullivans.

I was beginning not to recognize my roommate. Bubbly and carefree had always been the words I used to describe her, but more and more she'd become irritable and distracted. I was worried about her. Her pants were looser, but she wasn't dieting. Just not eating. Her side of the room was more cluttered than usual, and it seemed like she was up later with her homework or sneaking back from Caleb's a little later each night.

Not for the first time, I wanted to talk with her,
really
talk with her about what was going on, but we never seemed to get the chance. Either
I was too busy or Amy joked it off. I felt horrible that she wouldn't open up to me and even more horrible that I'd basically ignored my roommate's problems for weeks because I was caught up in my own. Looming death or not, I hadn't been a very good friend lately.

It wasn't how I wanted to go into my afterlife, as a crappy friend. Amy seemed to be getting into desperate territory and I didn't understand why and especially didn't know what to do. I was hoping our first real school break would help, putting our problems—and Mandi Worthington—miles away for a while. I remembered wishing about a year ago that my life could just be simple for a while and now I double wished it.

So tonight, I was letting it all go.

Before I had the chance to say anything at all, Amy, as always, beat me to the punch. Even if I hadn't been paying attention, she had. She didn't stop playing with the zipper on her bag, but sly eyes peeked over at me. “So are you going to show me what you got to wear tonight now or after?”

I dropped the magazine again. “What do you mean?”

She abandoned the bag and came over to my bed, nudging herself next to me after pulling open my nightstand drawer and taking out the contraband candles I'd been hiding and the package of condoms she'd gift-wrapped for my last birthday. She arrayed the candles in front of us and left the condoms next to the bed.

“Lane, please. You think I don't know what you're planning tonight or that you kind of can't wait for me to leave so you can get ready? No matter how nonchalant you're pretending to be, I know you've been ‘reading' the same article in my magazine for the last hour, and I pick up our mail, so I've seen the packages from that expensive lingerie place I know you don't usually shop at. Also, you put away the pictures of your family so they won't ‘see' anything and there's that
sexy-as-hell new dress hanging in your closet. It's a year. Tonight, it's a year, and you're going to do it.
Finally.
So, can you just show me now, please please?”

Busted. She threw her arm around my shoulders and batted her eyelashes in my face until I relented.

When I got up to get out my special lingerie set, she shouted, “Yay!” And when I showed it to her, even
her
eyes got wide. “Daaamn. Oh, Heartbreaker, I hope that get-up doesn't kill him before you even get the deed done. Also, does it come in my size?”

I blushed my best blush and stuffed the set back into my drawer. Pretending I wasn't nervous wasn't working and Amy wasn't helping.

Yes, I had planned this. A few almost-nights didn't change the fact that I'd imagined this one for months. I'd spent weeks perfecting the minor details, from my dress to my underwear, to testing where I'd put the candles.

As soon as Amy left,
finally,
I went into hyper mode, picking up the room, smoothing my sheets, putting out the candles where I'd planned them. I spent a long time straightening my hair until it was like glass, and making sure my dress fit just so. Maybe it was all silly, and not very spontaneous, but I'd waited long enough for this. I wanted it to be perfect.

O
UR ANNIVERSARY DINNER
was amazing—romantic, relaxed, everything I hoped it would be—and totally worth “sneaking out” for. I hadn't asked permission to go off campus, but on the first night of break, pretty much no one was around to care. We were on our way back in time for curfew though, just in case. Not that I wasn't planning on breaking a few more rules.

Carter held my hand, as usual, and gave it a brief squeeze as he made the turn onto Main Street. He'd worn a suit tonight that might have been new and unexpectedly even a tie. I really wished we had
more opportunity for fancy dinners. I knew my dress was a hit too, from the impressed look on his face when I'd finally slipped off my long coat at the restaurant. I felt sexy, the way he looked at me, and desired in exactly the way I wanted to be.

“Didn't you have a good time?” he asked, swinging my hand up to his lips for a quick kiss.

“What? I had a
great
time. The best. Didn't you?”

He kissed my hand again. “Of course. You're just quiet. You seem a little tense.”

Okay, I was both of those things. I just didn't think it was that obvious. “No!” I said, a little too tensely, and cleared my throat. “It's just…almost curfew.”

“Well, we're home now, with minutes to spare.” He turned down the narrow road that led behind the bookstore and pulled into his spot. Tonight I actually waited for him to come open my door. When I stepped out, he added, “We even have time to walk the long way back.”

Exactly like we had a year ago.

We took the same route, with the same quiet around us, and the same entwined fingers. Unlike a year ago, they were comfortable that way, natural. My fingers didn't tingle anymore when he held them; they just felt
right.

When the curfew bell started to ring, we stopped under the oak tree,
our
oak tree, for a kiss.
That
still made me tingle, in all the right ways. When I pulled away, to lead us to my door, Carter hugged me even more tightly, whispering in my ear, “Not yet.” He kissed me one more time before taking something from his coat pocket and holding it out. Whoa. I'd thought the fancy dinner date and sneaking out were his gift to me. I expected this less than the tie.

It was a small box in an unmistakable shade of blue and tied with a white ribbon. I sucked in a breath and couldn't seem to make my hand close around it. If not for Carter's help, I'd have dropped it.

“I love you, Lainey,” he said. “I have since the first time you kissed me right here, and even before. Happy year.” When my fingers shook as I tried to untie the bow, he laughed. “It's safe. I promise.” He pulled the ribbon himself and eased off the cover.

Inside
was
a diamond, but not the kind I was way
—way
—too young for. Nestled in the white interior was a single bezel-set diamond solitaire on a slender platinum chain. It was too much, but I loved it anyway. In fact, I thought I might cry.

In the bright moonlight, it threw sparkles across my fingers and glittered like the frost that covered the ground. It also matched perfectly the ring I always wore on my right hand, the one my aunt had made for me from my mom's engagement ring for my thirteenth birthday.

“I love it,” I told Carter as he clasped it around my neck. “I love
you.
And I have a present for you, too,” I told him, and started toward my dorm building.

I kissed Carter on the porch steps, like we always did when he dropped me off, but this time it wasn't the kind of kiss that said good bye. I stepped backwards, pulling him with me, shushing anything he might say with another kiss. Quietly, I opened the door behind us and, for the first time ever, tugged him inside. His eyes were a little wide, but knowing, and he followed me up the stairs without a word or a sound.

Once we were in my dorm room, I locked the door behind us and let the moonlight guide me to the candles arranged on our wide windowsill. The green walls looked romantic and warm in the soft light, like my roommate had chosen the colors just for this. Maybe she had.

Carter waited patiently just inside the door. He hadn't moved except to take his coat off and fold it next to my dresser. Much like the night a year ago when I'd first kissed him—really kissed him—when we'd first started dating, I knew Carter was entirely aware of what was about to happen, but he didn't rush anything, didn't make any moves at all until I was ready.

His gaze took in my room in the flickering candlelight, and I knew they saw the package of condoms still on my nightstand, before returning to linger on me. That look, full of equal parts love and desire, was all I needed to solidify my decision. I was nervous but excited and, for all my planning, not entirely sure what I meant to do next.

Carter made it easy for me. He smiled and cleared his throat before saying, “No more waiting?” They were the first words we'd spoken since we'd entered my dorm, and the last we'd say for what I'd remember was a very long time. He never took his eyes from mine and I smiled back, shaking my head. No more waiting.

To punctuate my answer, I unzipped my dress, letting it fall to the floor at my feet, and waited for
him.
After an intake of breath, he crossed the room and stood before me. His hands traced down my arms, so lightly and slowly it made me shiver, and he kissed me once before scooping me up and placing me gently on my bed.

It took him almost no time at all to take off his suit, shoes, and watch, the last thing he'd do quickly for the rest of the night. He stood before me, achingly beautiful in only a pair of boxer briefs that left nothing to the imagination, and I was nervous again. And excited and curious and a million different emotions that made my heart beat rapidly in my chest. I'd made the decision but now I needed him to make a move.

Like most times though, he understood this instinctively, without any prompting on my part. Carter joined me on the bed, where he
proceeded to ease my nerves and make my pulse race in a different, much more pleasant way.

LATER
, I
RESTED
my head on his bare chest, luxuriating in the sensation of his fingers running through my hair and the pleasant warmth of his body next to mine. I let my fingers play with the necklace he'd given me, the cool of the metal a contrast to the heat in my skin and my memories.

When I thought back on this night, our first night, I'd always remember how Carter had been patient, gentle, and tender. Pretty much everything I wanted for my first time. After all my talking and thinking and hearing about sex, I was prepared for every possibility—pleasure, pain, something in between—but it was a little bit of each of them. All the talking and thinking in the world couldn't compare to experiencing it. Sex was something new, and foreign, and full of possibilities. I wanted to do it again.

As the candles burned out, one by one, Carter said, “I love you, Lainey,” into the growing darkness. It was a simple sentence, one I'd heard many times before, but this time it settled over me with gravity, like a soft, heavy blanket. I'd never felt so safe or loved or
right
.

“I love you too,” I told him, before I fell asleep for the first time in the warmth and comfort of his arms.

C
ARTER KNEW THE
unspoken Northbrook rules as well as anyone, so it was shortly before dawn that he slipped out of bed, kissing me in my half-sleep before he quietly closed my door and left for home. My bed felt cold and empty in a way I'd never thought it was before, but I drifted back to sleep before long.

My phone woke me. I grappled for it with an odd feeling of déjà vu, wondering what time it was and if it was my aunt, or Carter, calling like a year ago. But it was neither. It was Amy.

“So?” Her voice was excited, and far more awake than it usually was at whatever time of morning it had to be. It sounded like she was bouncing on her bed.

“So I was asleep?” I said vaguely. I rubbed my eyes and looked at the clock. God, it was earlier than she usually got up but it wasn't
that
early. Not for me.

She giggled. “It must have been a
really
late night then. So, spill. How was it? No, scratch that, I can guess how it was. How many
times?”

“Amy! Jesus!” The heat from my face could probably melt the phone.