These Things About Us (19 page)

I thought I’d feel insecure or embarrassed, naked in front of him with my legs propped open because he knelt between them, but I felt bubbly with anticipation. I’ve been literally dreaming about this for a while now.

“You okay?” he asked, looking straight at me.

“Perfect. Now get out of your clothes already,” I grinned and sat up on my elbows. No matter what Wes or Sierra or anybody else thought, this was actually fun.

I wasn’t losing control. I was
in
control.

Trace shook his head no and pulled my face to his for another kiss.

Well, if he didn’t want to take his pants off, I would. I slipped my hands down and snapped his jeans open, slipping a hand inside. He groaned and pressed into my hand. He was hot and hard and I was about to let my hand move over him, as his hand found mine and pulled it out of his pants. I started to protest and look for answers on his face but he moved down my body and the second I opened my mouth, he pressed his against my heat.

“Oh god!” I gasped as his tongue flicked over my throbbing clit. I dug my nails into my pillow and was surprised I didn’t draw feathers.

I let my head fall back and pushed against him as he kissed me and sucked my clit into his mouth. Even his breath hitting my folds sent ripples of desire through my hips. I curled my free hand into his hair and held him in place.

Trace groaned between my legs. The idea of him finding pleasure in licking me made my head spin. I’d met too many guys who treated oral sex like a chore. I lifted my hips and Trace’s tongue ran up my heat. I moaned, tightening my grip in his hair. Again, he groaned. Apparently, he liked it when I pulled his hair. He pushed his tongue into my hot entrance and my world crumbled to pieces. I screamed his name and pulled his hair only encouraging him as the fire washed through my body until I was all burned up and fell back into the pillow, panting.

He pressed another kiss against my clit and I quaked under him.

“You’re delicious,” he breathed against my skin as he kissed his way up over my belly and between my breasts, running his fingers over my erected nipples and moving his mouth further to my collarbone until finally he came back to me and let me kiss him. I could taste myself on his lips.

Wrapping my arms around his neck, I pressed up against him and shuddered when I felt his hardness between my legs. “I want you,” I whispered and laid my lips back on his.

“Not today.”

What the? “Why not?” We were talking between soft, innocent kisses. He didn’t even touch my breasts anymore. His hand was running up and down my side, comforting but not exciting me.

“There’s something I have to take care of, first.”

I pulled my eyebrows down and backed up just enough to look at him. “Like, buy condoms?”

“No,” he sighed, “I’ve got to talk to someone. I’ll explain tomorrow. Or later, since it’s actually already tomorrow.” A tired grin tugged at his mouth but it didn’t stretch across his face.

I was already a professional in waiting, so I could wait a few more hours for sex. I’d gone months without it anyway. What would a day change? “Okay,” I whispered, still slightly disappointed.

“You’re looking at me like I broke your favorite toy,” he laughed and kissed my forehead, trying to smooth the wrinkles away with a stroke of his thumb. “Stop frowning, love.”

“I’m not frowning. I’m just trying to figure out who you would want to talk to before sleeping with me. I didn’t know there was a third party involved.”

He stole a quick kiss from my lips. “There’s not.”

“Is it a doctor? Because of your meds?”

“No,” he said.

“A therapist? Psychiatrist? Vince?”

“Kitty,” he sighed, “I know about three ways to make you shut up. Do I have to test them all so you let it go for a few hours?”

“Kissing usually works,” I grinned up at him and he playfully rolled his eyes at me but brought his face down anyway, busying my mouth with his. 

I was light as a feather after a few more hours of sleep. Trace excused himself early to go have this ominous talk, which was fine with me. The sooner he got that over with, the sooner I’d get to enjoy all of him. He had a hard time parting with my lips anyway, so eventually I had to make up a story about how I had a couple of things to take care of to shoo him off. I spent some extra time in the shower, making sure I shaved absolutely every tiny hair off my legs and smelled like strawberry soap all over. Not that I had worried about those sort of things last night, but I wanted everything to be nice and easy tonight.

I put on the nicest underwear I’d brought – which were blue panties with a little pink bow in the front and a lacy black bra – and hid it beneath my favorite dark blue skirt and a silky, white top.

When I stepped out of the bathroom, the hallway was… occupied. Wes and Vincent had spread large pieces of paper on the floor and while Wes was taping them together, Vince was mixing some purple color in a bucket by adding red and blue respectively. “New hobby?” I asked, making them both perk up from their work.

“Hi,” Wesley smiled.

“We’re making the backdrop for my new play. I wanted Trace to design it but he is nowhere to be found.” Vince shrugged and poured some more blue into the bucket.

“He left early.” I sank down next to Wesley and took a roll of tape from him to make myself useful. I felt his scrutinizing stare on me, but kept my attention on Vince. “What’s your play about?”

“It’s about a young lawyer who wants nothing more but to dance. So he dances through nights on the rooftops of New York until one night he meets the love of his life who is a ballet dancer but wants to be a famous rock star. It’s called Moonlight Dancers and everybody dies in the end.” Vince wore a wide, happy smile.

“That sounds amazing and romantic,” I said and weirdly enough meant it. Only a couple of weeks ago, I would have thought it was sappy and unrealistic and a few months ago I would have voiced those thoughts. “I’ll cross my fingers for your success.”

“Thank you,” he sang and bobbed his head from side to side. I couldn’t help but smile at his excitement. It was intoxicating.

 “So what are we painting?” I asked once the twenty sheets were taped into one big canvas.

“I want the night sky to be purple to fit with the whole mood of the play and then there should be a black skyline with dozens of tiny windows. I even brought black light paint for those,” he explained and tossed me a tube of fluorescent yellow.

“Tony is going to be a much better help than me,” Wesley said, standing up and wiggling blood into his legs. “She’s a photographer. Do you mind helping him? I’ve got class in an hour.”

“Uh…no, no I don’t mind. But I’m not really a photographer. I just take pictures sometimes. And that doesn’t qualify me to paint theater backdrops. I never wielded a paint brush in my life.”

“We’re going to be fine,” Vince said and tested some of his purple in the corner of the paper. Happy with his result, he grinned up at Wesley. “You can go.”

Wesley jogged into his room and grabbed his backpack, then waved at us on his way to the stairs, almost knocking over the blue paint. He caught it just in time and looked up to see if anyone noticed his faux-pas. Vince was picking paint brushes but I noticed and smiled at his clumsiness. Wes didn’t smile back. His mouth was a tight line and his eyes weren’t friendly and warm as usual as he turned and went downstairs.

So I had pissed him off last night. I knew I hadn’t been the nicest version of myself on the phone, but he had to understand where I was coming from, right?

“I think we should draw an outline first,” Vincent mused and looked at his canvas. “I don’t want the leaning tower of Pisa popping up in Manhattan.”

“Okay.” I shook my head to get Wesley’s strange behavior out of it. I could talk to him later, alone. “Do you have a pen?”

“Trace keeps black sharpies in the top drawer by his desk.” Vincent dropped that information so casually, it made a pang of jealousy go off in my stomach. I wanted to know those sorts of things. The little things. It was irrational to be jealous of Vincent. He was obviously not Trace’s type. But still…

“I’ll get one.” I jumped to my feet.

His room looked exactly like what I remembered but I had changed. When I looked at the CD shelves, I wanted to browse the music and find out what sort of things he liked. I wanted to hear him play on the clothes-covered keyboard and I had a vivid idea of what I wanted to do in that bed. Or his desk. That would be fine too, except that his desk was covered in music sheets and scribbled lyrics and I doubted he wanted to mess up his work for a bit of hot sex.

I opened the drawer and pulled out the metal pencil case. Like Vincent said, black sharpies. I grabbed two and was about to flip the lid shut when I caught a glimpse of Trace’s eyes peeking through the pens. Who kept a picture of themself in a pencil case? Who kept
any
pictures in their pencil case? I slipped my finger in under the photograph and fumbled it out from beneath the pens. My eyes moved over the picture of Trace, happy and smiling with slightly longer hair, to the girl in his arms and time stopped.

I knew there was no way for me to be in this picture, but I could hold a mirror in my hands and it would make no difference. The girl in his embrace had the same hair color, the same curls. She had my big blue eyes and my slim nose. Her mouth seemed wider than mine, but maybe mine stretched just as much when I was in love. She seemed about my height. She had bigger breasts and nicer hips. Her body screamed woman where mine was all teenager-ish. I looked back at her face/my face/our face, trying to find significant differences. Either the picture was too small to find them or there were none.

I turned the picture around to find Trace’s scribbly handwriting.

Me + Poppy, 2011

Her name was a slap across my face. Poppy. Like the red flower he had inked into his chest. Trace wore her name tattooed across his heart.

She couldn’t be his girlfriend. I had never seen her around, and there were no signs, no other pictures, no girly presents like stuffed animals or self-made picture calendars in his room. Which meant she was his ex. And I was the surrogate. Trace and Poppy. Not Trace and Tony.

My chest stung and burned and I had to gasp for air to keep from suffocating. It felt like someone was cracking me open and ripping my beating heart from its strings and veins until it was torn out of me.

He saw her when he looked at me. When he’d first laid eyes on me, he had seen a cheap copy of his ex. That was why he’d stormed off. And then, somewhere along the way, a flip in his head had been switched and he’d realized that I was his chance to preserve that relationship.

Of course he’d refuse to call me Tony. He didn’t want Tony. He wanted Poppy 2.0.

How fucked up was that guy?

I stalked back out into the hallway with flushed cheeks, only to see that giant fucking asshole sitting on the floor with Vincent and pointing at invisible marks on the paper. He looked up, and at first a smile started to spread on his face but then he noticed my mood.

“Kitty?”

“Oh, shut up. Why don’t you just call me Poppy? That would make things a lot easier, right?” I tossed the photograph at him. “Then I could be exactly who you want me to be.”

All color vanished from his face as he leaned forward to pick up the picture and inspect it. “I don’t want you to be Poppy.”

“No. No, you want the real Poppy back, right? She probably realized that you’re just a giant prick and left. Good for her.” I wanted to kick something. Punch something. The anger was bubbling hot just beneath my skin and I had to spill it somewhere.

“Un-fucking-believable.” He stood up, folded the photograph in half and slid it into his jeans. “After everything you still think I’m just a piece of shit.”

“Don’t you dare turn this around on me. You. You are the dickhead. Poppy was too smart to stick around and you couldn’t get her back, right? I’m the second best there was. You probably don’t even see a real person when you look at me. You just see her doppelganger.”

“Let’s pretend for a second that you’re right, okay? What if I used you? You did the exact same thing to me, didn’t you, little miss perfect?”

“I did not!”

“You don’t even know if you like me. You like that I’m willing to look after you. Because your parents never did.” He wasn’t right but he wasn’t entirely wrong either and it made me want to hurt him, just like he was hurting me.

“At least I’m being realistic. I don’t pretend I’m still with my ex and I don’t have hopeless dreams of becoming a famous rock star while I’m working as a bartender – a job I truly, madly hate.”

“I
have
dreams. What’s yours? Finding your mother? You’re too afraid to even look for her because she might not want you and then your future is more than hopeless, it’s empty. You’re just with me because I’m the right kind of distraction.”

The tears were burning in my eyes. “Fuck you, Trace!” I pushed him out of my way and he stepped back as I stormed to my room and banged the door shut.

“No, fuck you. Fuck you!” he screamed on the other side of the door.

I whirled around and stared at the door like it could drop dead from it.
“I was up for it. You didn’t want to!”

I was going to prove him wrong. My future was not empty. With shaking hands, I dove for my phone on the nightstand but sent it clattering to the floor. “God dammit!” I picked it up again and scrolled through my contacts until I hit Lawrence. I clicked call and waited through the dial tone.

“Theresa Lawrence, hello?”

I slumped to the floor.
“Mom?”

I counted the seconds of stretching silence. Sixteen seconds passed until the woman on the other end cleared her throat. “Antonia?” She said my name like it was a foreign dish from a menu in a shabby old restaurant. It was sticky and mistrusted.

“I’m in London,” I said, my voice wavering under the storm going on inside of me. “Dad’s in jail and I’m here.”

“Oh, Annie, honey,” my mother squeaked. I heard her sharp intake of breath and a silent sob.