Solving for Ex (30 page)

“The water tower?”

He nodded, running his hands back through his hair.

“Do you think I’d climb the water tower with a storm coming in? What, do you think I’m an idiot?”

“No. No, I’ve never thought you were an idiot. I swear. I may have made a lot of mistakes, but I never made that one.” He stood there, cast in the weird yellow of the porch light against the deep gray sky, his expression pleading

“You were right about Sofia, okay?” His voice dropped and softened. “You were always right.” He stepped toward me, gingerly, like he was afraid of spooking me, then reached down and took my hand. “But if you’re always right, then I feel like shit ever being wrong. And right now, I need to tell you that I was wrong. And I need you to still like me. Or at least not to hate me.”

My chest fell, and air rushed out. I squeezed his hand. “Brendan. I could never hate you. And believe me, I wanted to a couple times in the past month or so.” His face twisted, like I’d stabbed him or kicked him or something.

Droplets of rain dripped off the tips of his hair and onto his shirt. My eyes drifted down to his chest, where his shirt clung now, sopping wet and heavy. For two solid seconds, we breathed in and out at the same time.

He licked his lips and blurted out, “Vincent is a total tool. I should have seen it, and—he’s just a tool.”

I caught a breath between my lips, and looked at him through half-narrowed eyes. “Yes…”

“It’s just that he hurt you. And I hate that. Ash, I—”

“No. He didn’t.” I pressed my lips together and shook my head. “He didn’t. I’m just happy I don’t have to deal with him anymore.”

Brendan’s eyes focused on my face in the strangest way, and his voice changed to something lower. Softer.

“When you said that, at the competition. About everything being right there in front of me and me not being able to see it, or refusing to pay attention to it, or whatever…you weren’t talking about Mathletes, were you?”

I twisted my hands together. My mouth did this weird thing where it wanted to break into a goofy smile that didn’t match my emotions. I forced it from turning upward, forced my whole head down. “I was talking about Mathletes,” I said.

Brendan’s face fell. Oh, God. Oh, Jesus. He was disappointed. If I was ever going to have a chance at telling him with certainty, without completely embarrassing myself, this was it.

“But that’s not the only thing I was talking about.” Something about that short sentence knocked the wind out of me. I struggled to fill my lungs.

He didn’t say a word. I couldn’t stand it anymore. All the anger and all the confusion would gather up in a ball in my chest and propel me toward him. I’d tackle him right there on the front porch.

That’s when a deafening crack ripped through the sky right above the house. I must have jumped a foot. And that marked the moment when we couldn’t just stand there anymore. I either had to leave, or tell him how I felt. There was nothing I needed more in the world than to be near him right then. Even if I’d wanted to turn around and stalk off across the front lawn, like I had so many other nights, I couldn’t.

Then, thank God, he said something. “Can we get out of the rain?”

I nodded dumbly and followed him.

He swung the door open to a dark house. Our steps echoed on the shining marble floor.

“Where are your parents?”

“They’re meeting some friends for dinner in the city. I’m sure they’ll get so trashed they’ll just stay there. Again.”

He tossed his bag at the bottom of the steps just like any other afternoon, and I reflexively sidestepped it. He kept going, up to his room. Just like a normal evening.

Except this wasn’t. This was so far from normal, even the tips of my hair felt electrified.

But as we moved through his house in the same path as always, a strange calm overtook me as well. We made it to his room, and the perfectly made-up bed that was always my seat invited my beaten, exhausted body to sit down. But I didn’t. Couldn’t. I was too wired, between the competition and screaming at Sofia and the rain and Brendan’s rain-soaked shirt and his weird, same-as-always but definitely-not-the-same mood right now.

Brendan crossed to his dresser and pulled out a clean T-shirt. Then he stood there, facing away from me, letting the dry shirt dangle from his fingertips.

“Listen, Brendan, I’m sorry I…”

“Would you just shut up and let me talk for once?”

“I…” My mouth clapped shut.

“Do you know I never really liked her?” He turned and looked me right in the eyes. “I never really trusted her. Whatever was going on…between us… has been over for weeks, really. Since you left. And something stopped me from…I mean, we went out, and we kissed—a lot—but we never…”

“Okay. Now you need to shut up,” I said, stepping closer to him. I was on the edge of giddiness. I could feel it starting to creep in. The one thing that could ruin it would be Brendan saying “slept with” and “Sofia” in the same sentence.

He opened his mouth to say something else, but nothing came out. I don’t know why, but I was relieved. I wanted to keep him from talking as long as possible. I guess I knew, somehow, that what he said would change everything.

“I’ve been the biggest idiot on the planet.” He took exactly four steps toward me, slow and deliberate. I could see how shallow his breaths were, how tense his shoulders were. He squeezed the hem of his shirt and water dripped from it onto the carpet. I watched each drop explode on impact in slow motion.

He murmured, “I didn’t see it. I can’t believe I couldn’t see it.”

“It was my fault,” I said. His eyebrows scrunched in, his expression confused. “I should have told you right away, as soon as I knew they were hacking the system, I wish…”

“Ashley, I swear this is the last time I will ever say this to you. But please. Just. Shut. Up.” He came two steps closer, and stopped right in front of me.

He smelled like aftershave and wet T-shirt. It was all I could do not to close my eyes and breathe him in. He looked down, blew out a breath, then looked into my eyes.

“I love you,” he said. “I’ve loved you since the first time you made me climb that damn water tower. That look on your face when you got to the top…like you’d never been so happy. I knew I should be terrified, but all I remember is how beautiful you were. Nothing pissed me off more than seeing you with Vincent, even though I threw Sofia in your face. That’s when I really knew. And now, with this whole Mathletes bullshit…you did the right thing, Ash. No one else would have stood up to her. But you did. And I love you for that.”

“Brendan, I…”

“You don’t have to say anything back.” He stepped away, and stared down at the floor again. “I just wanted you to know. And I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you sooner. Didn’t…realize it sooner.” He swallowed so hard I could hear it, then raised his eyes to mine.

Well, an electric fence couldn’t have kept me away from him then. In one smooth motion, I stepped forward, grabbed the front of his shirt with both hands, pulled his body to mine, and kissed him full on the mouth. In a split second, his hands cradled my face, his fingers threading through my hair. His lips moved against mine, desperate, hungry.

The world exploded. My heart thrummed in my chest, or maybe it was his pounding against mine. Nothing mattered but getting closer to him. I wrapped my arms around him and dug my fingers into his back. Suddenly, there was nothing I hated more in the whole world than the thick, soaking-wet fabric that separated my skin from his.

My hands moved under his shirt at the same time my tongue pushed into his mouth. He tasted like cinnamon gum and rain, and nothing was going to stop me from devouring every inch of him. He groaned and pressed in deeper, but then pushed away.

We stood there, foreheads together, gasping, before I managed, “Don’t stop.”

“What are we doing? What is this, Ash?”

“This is me, telling you I love you too. Always have.”

He closed his eyes, and smiled that goofy smile that always melted my heart, no matter how many times I wanted to kill him. He started kissing me again, and after a few seconds I pressed my palms against his chest.

“Let’s take care of this wet shirt.” I pulled it up over his head and tossed it next to the dry one he’d pulled from the dresser, now long forgotten. He grabbed my waist, pulling me into him again, and when his fingers played under the hem of my shirt, I went for the button at the front of his jeans.

“Whoa, whoa,” he said, breathless again. “Are we…”

I bit my lip and looked at him with huge puppy-dog eyes, nodding. My want for him was so intense I thought I would burst. I couldn’t imagine ever wanting anything more.

His chest heaved and he walked backwards to his bedside table, pulling me along with him while kissing me again. He reached behind him, rummaging in the drawer of his bedside table and taking out a small square packet. I giggled into his mouth. Of course, Brendan would be prepared for anything. I laughed as he slid his hands down to my legs, picked me up, hitched my thighs around his waist, and carried me to the bed.

And then, the only thing that existed in the entire world was me, and him, and his body, and mine, and this moment.

I didn’t think about his strong hands as they clutched and pulled at my waist. I didn’t think about his lips and tongue tracing patterns across my collarbones, over my ribs, down my stomach. I didn’t analyze the delicious weight of his body pressing down on mine, or the all-consuming heat of skin on skin everywhere, all at the same time. Even in that one incredible instant when we became as close as two people could possibly be, I could only gasp, then sigh, then laugh, and only one thought ran through my mind, over and over:

Brendan. Here. Mine.

Finally.

Ω

After a lot of cuddling and kissing, and a second round, and a little bit of sleeping, Brendan’s kisses up and down my jawline woke me up to see the sun beginning to rise.

“Oh, shit. I’ve gotta go.”

“No,” he whined in the most adorable way possible, pulling me in to him even closer and tucking the covers around me, trapping me there. “Don’t go.”

“Well, I’ll have to soon,” I murmured, pressing my lips to his shoulder. “Before they notice I was gone all night.”

He groaned, drawing my lips up to his and kissing me hard. “Yeah, okay. But really. I mean it. Stay with me, Ash,” he said into my neck, his breath tickling the wispy hairs at the nape. “Forgive me for being such an asshole, and be…you know…mine.”

I smiled and kissed his temple. “On one condition.”

“What?” he said as his hand ran up the back of my thigh, stopping at the top, fingers playing at the skin there. “More of this?”

I giggled and squealed, and used my legs to sandwich him and flip myself on top of him. Pulling the sheet to my chest with my right hand, I used my left to push my fingers through his hair, still amazingly, adorably floppy. “Never cut this short.”

He grabbed the hand I was using to hold the sheet up, and pulled me down toward him, and kissed me hard. “Is that all I have to do?” he whispered against my lips.

I pressed them into his cheek, then his chin, then the corner of his mouth, until he groaned and opened his lips against mine. I whimpered as his breath rushed into my mouth and his tongue played along my lower lip. At some point, he flipped me back down onto the mattress, and tangled his legs in mine. “And some of that,” I said, breathless.

“You know,” he murmured, grazing his lips against my eyebrow, “Dad knows someone who knows someone in CMU housing.”

“Of course he does.” I rolled my eyes.

Brendan knew all my voices, the sarcastic one especially. “Hey, don’t knock it. Do you have any idea what that means? He got me a single room for next year.”

My heart fluttered, then dropped into my stomach, which did the same. And then everything burned, low in my belly, and all of a sudden, I had to be close to him again. I pulled the sheet away from my body, and up over our heads. Brendan kissed me hard, his fingers playing along my collarbone and up my neck. And I didn’t think I’d ever feel sleepy again.

The End

I wouldn’t be able to publish a single word without the help of dozens of people. It never gets easier to write these thank-yous, mostly because there aren’t words enough to show appropriate thanks for the selflessness and expertise of every person who helps bring a book to publication. But I’ll try anyway.