SWAY (Part 1) (23 page)

“Because of graduation night.”

“But nothing happened.”

“I know. She was resentful of our relationship. And she would not shut up about you wearing my shirts and seeing your underwear.” Justin grinned. “I must have really missed something there, because she was truly traumatized by seeing those tiny black panties,” he snickered. I rolled my eyes. “I apologized to her for that night a thousand times and I understood her fear, but I couldn’t stay with someone who didn’t trust me.”

“I wish you would have told me.” I was so taken aback at hearing this. “If you really wanted to be with Eve I could have tried to convince her she was wrong or something. I mean, you hadn’t seen me since you left for school
with her
.” I was aggravated with Eve for trying to take Justin completely away from me. “I don’t know how much further away I could have been from you. Four hours seemed like enough,” I complained.

“She didn’t believe me, so I don’t think you trying to co
nvince her would’ve helped. She probably would have thought I was putting you up to it.”

Justin exhaled hard. “I just wanted you to know. I’m sorry I lied to you. I felt like if I told you the truth while you were visi
ting that you wouldn’t have had nearly as much fun as you did,” he laughed, getting this amused look on his face.

I held my hands up. “I still don’t wanna know the rest,” I threa
tened.

“I’ll keep it in the vault.” Justin pointed toward his head, still smiling wickedly.

“What is it with the girls you date? They’re all suspicious of me, which is completely unfair. We’ve never even kissed for crying out loud, and I still get categorized as a relationship ruiner. All the questions and accusations and then Eve giving you an ultimatum, forcing you to choose between the two of us,” I ranted. It was absurd.

“I gave her fair warning not to. Besides, as soon as you walked in the door that weekend I knew I’d made the right choice.”

I lost my composure for a moment, because for an instant, Justin’s confession felt intimate, like there was an underlying reason he’d chosen me that had nothing to do with friendship.

“You did?” I bashfully asked.

Justin shook his head “Yeah, of course.” He looked at me as if I was an idiot. “I gotta pee,” he announced, climbing over me to get out of the tent. I laughed at myself. I felt stupid. I’d completely misjudged that one. I blamed it on lack of sleep and decided to forget about it.

31

I squealed, scrambling backward as soon as my eyes broke open, scaring Justin, who sat straight up.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

There was a squished up, distorted face pressed against the net window on my side of the tent. “There’s somebody out there,” I screamed. Then I heard riotous laughter.

“Ugh, Larry!”
I moaned, realizing it was Justin’s dad. Justin immediately started laughing and he hadn’t even seen what he’d done.

I threw myself out of the tent, heart still pounding from fear. “What was that?” I questioned Larry as he stood there, still laughing at me.

“I’m sorry, hun. It was just too good to pass up.” He pulled me to him and hugged me hard. “Merry Christmas,” he chuckled.

“Merry Christmas,” I grumbled.

“So what’s up?” Justin asked his dad, covering his eyes with both hands, deflecting the sun. Larry looked at me. “Your mom called, said she wants you to come on home. Some of your family is already there.”

I knew it was my aunt Phoebe. She was my mother’s half sister and she always showed up early, claiming it was to “make
herself useful,” but she never helped with anything. And her children, whom I only saw at Christmas, liked to rifle through my things and talk about how everything they had was so much better.

“Dinner’s at seven,” Pam called as I was leaving. “Be sure and remind your parent’s that they’re always welcome, too.”

“I will.”

Pam had a huge dinner party every Christmas, catered of course. I’d been to every one since I was eleven and was looking fo
rward to it.

Christmas day was the only day my parents didn’t go to their o
ffice, but they were still on call in case of an emergency. It was also the one day of the year that we had dinner together, or any other meal for that matter.

Although I was sort of dreading it, dinner at my house turned out to be better than I expected, even though my father had missed most of it. He was on the phone with a patient. Pho
ebe’s children weren’t so little anymore and they texted most of the day on their iPhones, ignoring everyone.

About five o’clock I went upstairs to get ready to go to
Justin’s. I took my hair down—out of the knotted bun it was in and showered. I felt like I smelled like ham and scalloped potatoes.

I rolled my hair, put on fresh makeup and the blue, silk blouse with rhinestone buttons my mother had given me. I slid on a pair of dark rinsed jeans and high-heeled boots that I’d bought on a whim a few weeks earlier.

When I left, my dad was still on the phone, my mother was halfway listening to Phoebe gripe about her ex-husband, and her children were still thoughtlessly texting. I almost felt bad for not wanting to be there, but I imagined the rest of them felt the same way, so I left.

At Pam’s, there was a man in uniform holding the door open, o
ffering to take guests’ belongings.

Once inside, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I had just been here seven hours ago. It didn’t look like the same place at all. Pam’s Chris
tmas dinners were always a big event, but this year took the cake. All the furniture had been moved out and there were eight, large, round tables in their great room beautifully decorated and set. There were servers, also in uniform, carrying trays of tinted champagne; red, green and gold.

Pam skated over and handed me a flute of green cha
mpagne. “You look beautiful,” she said, before kissing my cheek. 

“Thanks, so do you.” Pam looked like a sparkly tree orn
ament. “Wow,” I gasped, looking around the room.

“I know,” she smiled. “I used a different company this year.”

“They did an amazing job.”

“I agree.” She winked at me. “You should go see the p
atio—two words,” she paused arching an eyebrow, “love beds.”

I giggled. There was no telling what she had going on out there.

I made my way to the back door and went out. There were white twinkle lights draped throughout the pergola and mistletoe hanging everywhere. The faint sound of Kenny G flowed through the outdoor speakers. I stifled a laugh. It would have been romantic overkill if he hadn’t been playing Christmas music.

There was a wood fire crackling in the stone fireplace, disper
sing the scent of hickory in the air, my favorite scent. Then, I spotted them—the love beds. They were huge, tightly woven black wicker and looked like a tilt a whirl car from behind. The arched top covered a quarter of the bed for privacy. The cushions were thick, fluffy, and bright red with white faux fur pillows and blankets lying across the ends, ready for snuggling couples. She definitely meant business out here. Pam’s makeout headquarters. I giggled again and went back inside to find Justin. He was in his room.

“What are you doing in here?”

He held up his phone. “It was too loud out there to hear.”

“You okay?” I got the feeling he wasn’t.

“Yeah, fine. I just got an unexpected call.”

“Like a girl unexpected call, or something’s wrong une
xpected call?”

Justin mashed his lips together. “It was Eve.”

That surprised me. “Oh,” I muttered. “You need to talk about it?” I asked, feeling awkward about getting in the middle of
that
.

“No, doc.
I think I’ll make it,” he snickered.

“I was only trying to be nice,” I snapped.

He smiled. “I know. She’s called me a few times since we broke up, actually.”

“
You thinking about getting back together with her?” I wondered if that was why he’d come clean about the reason for their breakup last night, because he wanted her back. “If that’s what you want, I would be nice to her and I wouldn’t wear your shirts anymore and I promise I would—” He cut me off. “No, I’m not getting back with her. It’s not what I want. I don’t love her anymore,” he said quietly.

“Oh.” I was relieved, but at the same time, after hearing his confession, I actually felt sorry for Eve. She must have still loved Justin if she was calling him.

Once Justin really looked at me, he seemed to stall for a second. I smiled.

“What’s with the shiny disco shirt?” he
asked, his tone critical.

“You don’t like it?” I glanced down. “It was a gift from my mother.”

“It’s nice,” he noted nonchalantly.

“I like how it feels,” I said, rubbing the fabric.

“It does look pretty soft.” he grinned. I couldn’t read his face. I didn’t know if he was trying to be rude or what.

“Well, for your information Pam said I look beautiful.”

“You do,” he breathed, and instantly looked regretful that he’d said such a thing to me. My face flushed.
I was…blushing?
Because of something Justin said to me? In my defense, I’d never heard him refer to anything as beautiful that didn’t have four-wheel-drive before.

We heard the muted tingling sounds of small bells ringing. Rea
lizing it was time for dinner; we went and sat together at the table Pam had assigned us. The food was so amazing. I tried to take a bite of everything, but couldn’t do it. There was so much that there was no way I could taste it all.

After a couple hours of mingling and several glasses of green champagne, I needed a break and went out on the back porch. Justin fo
llowed me. The chilly air felt good. Our warm snap was over. I propped myself against the railing and sighed.

“What’s with you?” he chuckled.

“I’m a little bit tired.
Someone
decided to take me camping late last night.”

“Aw, poor baby,” Justin whined, and patted his chest. I leaned against him and closed my eyes. “You’re turning soft on
me, Reynolds.”

I pinched his side. “Ow,” he griped, and then laughed.

“Yeah well, behave or they’ll be more where that came from,” I playfully threatened, looking at him. I couldn’t get over how different Justin looked to me. Stronger, bigger somehow since the last time I’d seen him. I leaned back against him, enjoying his warmth, and toying with the idea of running my hands up his arms to feel how muscular they were now.

Then Pam came bursting through the door, giving me a good reason to stand up straight and stop thinking about feeling up her son.

“Oh, you two are so cute!” she gushed. “And look where you’re standing,” she practically sang the words her tone was so melodious. There was no place you could stand on the porch without being under mistletoe. It was completely booby-trapped.

“Pam, how much have you had to drink?” Justin que
stioned her.

“Not nearly enough, sweetie.” She looked serious, igno
ring his assumption. “Now, you two have to kiss.”

Justin glared at Pam. I giggled. I couldn’t help it. I was a touch tipsy and the thought of Justin and me kissing was dow
nright funny.

“It’s Christmas law that if you’re standing under mistletoe with someone, you must kiss them. Now, I love you both, so I would really hate to have you arrested.”

We both cackled. That sounded so ridiculous. She cocked an eyebrow at us. “We kiss all the time, Pam,” I blurted, without thinking.

“Not on the mouth,” she reminded me. “So smoochie poochie,” she said, wide eyed.

“Come on Pam, leave us alone,” Justin whined.

“I’ll leave you alone right after you kiss her. On the mouth,” she added quickly, touching her index finger lightly against her muted red lips. She had a huge sloshy smile on her face, waiting for us to comply with her d
emand.

“Go on,” she wiggled her fingers toward us.

“No,” Justin answered sharply.

I almost felt offended, as if he found kissing me a disgus
ting thought or that he might contract cooties.

“You two are about a couple of chickens. Just do it a
lready!” Pam howled.

Justin quickly grabbed my shoulders and smashed his mouth against mine without any notice at all. “There. Now go away,” he o
rdered Pam.

“Well, I bet that really made Annie weak in the knees. You didn’t kiss her, you accosted her!” She looked at me, her eyebrow arched. “Did he take your wallet, too, sweetie?”

Pam and I hooted with laughter.

“Fine,” Justin growled and turned back to me, taking my face in his hands, pressing his lips to mine, less forcefully this time. His mouth gently isolated my bottom lip between his. It felt nice. Like a sexier ve
rsion of a peck. His hands moved down my back, pulling me until it was impossible for us to be any closer. Then his tongue brushed over my lip, making me feel like I was being electrocuted. My heart instantly reacted, thumping wildly. Justin’s warm breath against my mouth, and the soft sound it made as it exited his throat sent a chill up my spine. My skin flushed, my head was swirling. I wanted to push through the cloud of confusion in my brain, but it was too hard for me to think. It was happening so fast, but I still felt there should have been a greater force yanking me away from him, registering that it would be wrong to respond. That I shouldn’t
want
to respond.

I breathed out, twisted my fingers in Justin’s hair, and kissed him back. His mouth moved slowly, softly. He kissed me in a way that I knew intended to make me weak in the knees—per Pam’s request.

Mission accomplished.

I knew I should stop.
That I needed to stop. That this shouldn’t have been happening, but kissing Justin shouldn’t have made me feel like this either.

I was so distracted that I had forgotten all about Pam. Justin must have, too. Her clapping and squealing caused us to r
elease each other immediately. I clutched the railing behind me, still feeling woozy. I never expected Justin to kiss me, so the last thing on my mind was how it would make me feel. The fact that I had felt something confused the hell out of me.

“No, don’t stop! That was
good
! Do it again,” Pam raved.

“You said you’d go away Pam,” Justin complained, his
breath staggered.

“Alright, alright, I said I would go.” Then she disappeared wit
hout another word.

Apparently neither one of us knew what to say, which was even more obvious once we’d been left alone. I was too freaked out to even look at Justin, much less speak to him. “I’m going to get us a drink,” he mumbled.

Once he was out of sight, I took a few deep breaths as my thoughts raced. I groaned, shaking my head like an etch-a-sketch, trying to erase our kiss from my mind. When that didn’t work, I considered making a run for it, but talked myself out of it. I didn’t want him to think that I couldn’t handle it, or that something was wrong. Then I wondered if he might decide not to come back. I would look stupid for staying if he didn’t. But, this is his house, he wouldn’t just leave on Christmas, I rationalized.