The One For Me (9 page)

He leans toward me
, overwhelming me with his scent
and smiles. “You’re nervous, it’s
awfully
adorable.” He
pinches
my cheek and I snatch away from him.

“Stop it,” I hiss lowly.

Jennifer returns, crosses her arms over her chest. “Come on, give ‘em a smooch.”

Oh, shit.
“I--,”

“Not here, Jennifer. If we’re going to prove to you that we want each other, w
e have to do it in the hallway. Let’s make this interesting.”
He is joking with me now, right?

Oh God.
Who the hell wants to punish me
? Liam wraps his arm around my waist and pulls me to him. “Come on, girlfriend. If we’re gonna make everyone believe we’re together we need to have at least one make out session a day.”

A day! I was thin
king more like every two weeks or month!

The hallways
are
flooded when we get
there. My heart is
beating ninety
to nothing. I glance from student to student.
Everyone just evacuate the hallway, I want to scream. Fire!

Jennifer is
at her locker, eyes locked on us.
I’m going to kill her.

Liam pushes me up against the end of a locker and the start of a wall. He is close to me, too close. His breath is minty; he must have popped in some gum. My hands are shaking and Liam is smiling. “Why so nervous, little bear?”

“Don’t call me that.”
I roll my eyes.

“You know why I call you that? You look like a little squeezable stuffed bear.”

Very flattering
. “Very romantic, Liam.”

“You’re nervous,” he whispers.

“I’m not
nervous
, I’m ready to get this over with,” I say, it comes out weakly.

He smiles
and
places each hand on either side of my face. “I think you’re anxious,” he breathes in my ear. I shiver.
“Ready for me to kiss you. You’ve been waiting on it haven’t you?”

“No,” I whisper.

I can see someone staring at us from the opposite wall and it’s not Jennifer, but don’t care. I’m too busy staring at Liam’s face. His grey eyes melting me with one glare, his full lips parted and his heavy jaw line. Not to mention the
sexy as hell
way his black hair falls over his forehead.

“
Liar, but that’s okay. You’re pretend boyfriend knows the truth.
You ready to turn some heads, little bear?”

“Uh huh,” I say and try to focus my mind. It’s spinning.

Liam lowers his mouth to mine and I’m holding my breath. His lips touch mine. I relax into the softness of them. Liam is hesitate, his hands on either side of my head. Liam’s tongue glides across my lower lip and I offer him access to my mouth. He makes a low sound in his chest. It makes heat waves swallow me in pure desire. I reach up and pull on his shirt until he has me pinned against the
locker, without any space between us
. Liam runs his hands down my sides to my hips and holsters me up, wrapping my legs around his waist.

I’m not breathing. My heart is pumping so hard against my ribs I think it might bust from my chest. I feel a hard bump against my shoulder and I snap out of my daze. Liam leans his head down by my ear and laughs. It’s low and sexy. But it doesn’t seem like it’s very friendly.

I ease my legs off of Liam’s waist, down to the ground. I look back and see Hayden walking through the crowd glaring back at me. I smile.
Haha, sucker.
When I turn around Liam is straight faced.

I open my mouth to say something but I’m not sure what I’m going to say. “Well,” Jennifer says, clearing her throat. “That was pretty believable.” She won’t look us in the eyes. She believes it.
A hint of pink is on her cheeks.

Liam shakes his head, smiling down at me. “Yeah, girlfriend. We’re believable now.”

“Guess so,” I mumble.

“See ya after school?” he asks, not waiting for an answer, just walking off. His combat boots scuffing up the floor as he goes.

I don’t know what’s going on but something feels weird. My chest hurts and it’s not heartburn.

Liam isn’t waiting
at my locker when the final bell rings.
I stand for a minute, unsure what to do.
Where is he? Did he leave without me? Did his teach
er
keep him long?
I grab the books I need and walk outside. I search the parking lot until I see Liam’s Jeep at the far end. He seems kind of angry when he left after lunch
. Maybe he is mad? Why do I care? It’s just
a
pretend
relationship
anyways
, right?
When I round the Jeep Liam is leaned up against the door and a giggling girl is beside him.
My jaw drops.

My blood
starts to boil. I try to calm down before I speak but it doesn’t really work at all.
“What the hell, Liam?” I yell.

The girl jumps, dropping her books, scurrying to pick them up. Liam never stops looking at me. “What is it?”

What is it? Are you serious?
“You know good and damned well what it is.”
I point to the girl that is picking
up her books
. She stares up at me, with big blue eyes.
Ugh
.
They start to water
. “Could you excuse us, please?”

“Sure,” she says. She nods and darts off back toward the school.
She looks relieved.

Liam rolls his eyes and kicks
off of his Jeep. “Well, look who is a
cock blocker.”

Anger is
starting to become my favorite emotion of the day. “Liam, we talked about this. You can’t just go and hit on girls…we’re supposed to be together.
That makes me look slutty, still, you look like an asshole and teachers like you even less than they already do.
”

Liam steps closer, his scent overwhelming me. I step back against his Jeep and stiffen. “Yeah, we are
supposed to be together
. So, why is it that you get pleasure out of making Hayden jealous, huh? That’s not very believable.” Liam’s jaw is set. It’s a little scary.

So this is about Hayden?
I bite my lip and shake my head. “Look, you know it’s just a plus to make him angry,” I say, my voice small.
“It makes me feel better.”
Wow, I didn’t realize how awful that was until I said it.

Liam clenches his fist, leans closer to me and smiles. “Well, I’m not going to be your rebound or your puppet. I’m here to help us both out. You don’t want to look like a slut and I need the teachers to give me a damn break.”

Ouch. I hate that that hurt.

“Okay, so no more talking to other girls in public and I won’t smile at Hayden.” I scoff and walk around to get in his Jeep.

“That’s not it Katy--,” Liam says, slamming the door, running his fingers through his hair. “Never mind. Just forget it.
It’s not important.
”

We
don’t
speak on the way home. I
don’t know what to say and I assume he is
mad at me.
Oh well.
It was nice seeing Hayden jealous.
I don’t regret making him jealous. He deserves it and much worse.

I bite my lip and wonder back to Jennifer’s blushing face after our make out session. She seemed to believe us. That’s good news. I didn’t even have to act like I liked it, because I did.
I liked it a little too much. I’m going to have to learn how to control my emotions.

I find
my own cheeks heating. Good thing Liam
isn’t
looking or giving a shit about me right now.

When we pull up to my house, my dad’s SUV is in the driveway. I watch my dad walk out of the house, two boxes balances on one another. My heart thumps hard against my ribs. Dad opens his door and shoves the boxes in.

“Are you getting out?” Liam asks.
It doesn’t look like Liam is going to invite me to his house today, or to play tennis.

“Yeah,” I say, snapping out of my daze. “Um, yeah, I’ll see ya tomorrow.” I open the door and stalk toward my dad. He is adjusting boxes in the backseat when I get to the car door.

“Hey,” I whisper.

Dad pulls back, his salt and pepper hair hanging over his eyes. “Sweetheart,” he says, hugging me.
“How are you?”

I ignore his question.
“Um, when are you moving,” I ask.

He runs his fingers through his hair, closing his eyes. “Next week. Katy, listen. I know you’re upset--,”

“Could you just try and work it out, Dad?” My lip trembles. “Please, stay for dinner, just try and talk to Mom---,”

“Katy, please,” Dad says, resting his hands on my shoulder. “It’s not going to happen with us, we’ve been trying for years.
It’s just time, you have to understand that.
”

I close my eyes, twisting my face, trying not to cry. “Dad, you can’t just abandon us, please!” I beg. I grab his arms, pulling on him. “Please, don’t leave.” I’m crying now, hysterically.

Dad closes his eyes, shaking his head back and
forth. “Katy!” he screams. “I
can’t. This is not your fault. I swear. It’s not. Just please understand that it can’t work out anymore. I love you and your mom. But, it just can’t.”

My hands fall from his shoulders, I stumble back like I’ve been
slapped. I turn toward the road
, walking away from him. I hear him screaming after me, but I break out into a run, throwing my backpack onto the ground.
Tears are streaming down my face. I wipe at them but they keep coming.

I don’t know how long I run before I hear my name being called from behind me. I try to run faster but someone’s arm wrap around my lower waist.

“Katy, K
aty, please, calm down, it’s me.
” Liam is holding me, pulling me against his chest. “Katy,” he coos into my ear.

I take a few deeps breaths to try and calm myself. “What are you doing here?” I ask, between gasp.

Liam r
eaches for my hair, running his fingers through it slowly. I stiffen.
“
Um…y
ou left your wallet. I was coming back to give it to you. Your dad said you took off, so I come to get you. He said to please come home.”

I shake my head
and lean into Liam’s shoulder
. “No, I don’t want to s
ee him. It’s not a home, anyway
.”

Liam
nods.
“Tell ya what. Come with me.” Liam pulls back and looks at me. His grey eyes
piercing
into mine.

“
Go where, Liam? I don’t know…”

“It’ll be fine, Katy. Just relax. Trust me for once,” he says.

I sigh. “Okay, anything to get away from here
,” I say.

“Come on,” Liam says, pulling me to his Jeep parked behind us. I get in the Jeep and press my head to the cool window. I don’t want to think about my dad.
He is a traitor. He is an abandoner
. My chest starts to hurt; I close my eyes and hold back the tears.
This can’t be happening. He is my dad. Always
.

“Are you okay?” Liam asks.

I shake my head. “It hurts,” I blurt out.
“So, bad. He is just leaving like we’re nothing.”

I feel Liam’s hand on mine, I open my eyes. “I know it hurts, Katy. But, I swear, everything will turn out fine. Your dad loves you; he just isn’t in love with your mom anymore. That happens everyday. You know that.”

I squeeze Liam’s hand. I do know that. I loved Hayden, but one day he just didn’t love me. As simple as a light switch being turned off. This happened to my dad. He no longer loves my mom. He n
o longer cares to stay with us.

“Where a
re we going?” I ask, changing the subject.

“To relax, you look like you need it,” he says, giving me the once over. “Very badly.
You look like you need some fun time.
”
He wiggles his eyebrow up and down. I pretend not to see him, I don’t want to know what he means.

I’m too tired to care; I just rest my head against the leather seat and
let my eyes close. It feels great.

Liam is shaking my shoulders. I open my eye
s
. He is smiling. “We’re here, get ya ass up, little bear.”

“I’m not a bear,” I yawn, “stop calling me that.” I run both eyes with my fist, I blink twice.
I look up and out the window.
“We’re at the beach. Why?”

“To relax. It’s still hot, not enough to go swimming but to lie in the sun. Come on,” he says. I
open the door and
get out of his Jeep. He rummages around in the backseat while I watch the waves hit the sand. It is a nice day. The sky is blue, t
he water bluer. Relaxing sounds
like a great idea.