Wicked Restless (Harper Boys #2) (7 page)

I step out front and spend a half an hour throwing rocks from Sasha’s driveway into the thick forest abutting her property—listening to each rock fall through the cracked branches and onto the bed of dried brush and leaves. The first snow hasn’t happened yet, but it’s coming. I can see my breath.

My breath.

I cup my hands and smell as best I can. I’m sure I stink of whiskey. Or maybe not. I only had a couple shots hours ago, though, and I feel fine. Maybe a little bit of a headache, but fine otherwise.

I climb into my car and turn the engine on, letting the heat seep into my sweatshirt and reach my skin. My knuckles are red from being cold, so I hold my hands over the vent for a few minutes, letting my bones thaw.

When I glance to the empty seat next to me, I think of Emma. Shutting my eyes, I let my head fall back against the seat and imagine her there. I’m interrupted by the sound of my car door flying open, and I’m startled when House climbs in, laughing hysterically and talking a million-words-a-minute.

“Fucker, get out of my car,” I push at him.

“Yo…yo…no, listen,” he says, speaking through laughter. He’s drunk. And stoned. I’ve seen him like this a hundred times, and it’s always a pain in the ass. “I’m hungry. Like, really hungry. Take me to get a burger, dude. Come on.”

“Go make a sandwich, and get the fuck out of my car,” I say, gripping the wheel, intent on not taking House
anywhere
.

“Awwww, come on man. Here, here…I’ll give you some shit,” he says, pulling a sad-ass bag of weed from his pocket, giggling as he fumbles with it.

“Dude!” I roll my eyes.

“Fucker. You suck,” he says, reaching over the console and smacking my face hard enough that it stings and I’m sure it’s pink.

I lunge at him, but he’s too fast, and is already out of the car walking back toward the house. I am pretty sure I’m okay not getting invited to another one of these parties.

With a deep breath, I look back at the wheel and then to the once-again empty seat, trying to get back to the place I was—imagining Emma there. When it doesn’t work, I push the car into drive and do the next best thing, heading to her house.

I expect the same empty driveway, the lack of cars in the street, the single light shining through the upstairs window. But when I pull around the corner, everything about the Burke house is full and lived in. I’m fumbling with my seatbelt before I even stop the car; I shove the gear into park, and turn the engine off the second I pull behind the small car along the street.

I get to the middle of the brick walkway when I realize I have no clue what I’m doing. It’s almost midnight, and I’m sure everyone in the house is asleep, and I barely know Emma—let alone her family, but she’s in there.

Knowing I can’t knock on the door, I step backward along the walkway and look up to the brightly lit windows over the front door. I make my way to the other side of the street, my eyes straining to figure out what room I’m looking at. I can see two ceiling fans spinning, and the tops of some bookcases, and I’m sure I’m looking at a loft space.

Jogging back across the street, I slow when I come to the corner of the house, and I walk cautiously over the wood chips and mulch along the trail in the side yard. There’s another light on near the rear of her home, so I move to that area, stepping back just enough to let me see pink drapes along either side of a small bay window and then a knee.

Her knee.

I know it’s her leg. I’ve stared at it in PE shorts and pretended to grip it with my hand in my car. I’ve memorized the fantasy of that leg, and I would know it anywhere. She’s sitting in her window, and I’m overcome with a sense of urgency to talk to her.

Looking around the ground in front of me, I bend to pick up a few wood chips then toss them at the base of her window. They’re not heavy enough, and they fall back to the ground after a few feet. I move a little farther away from her window, and finally find some stones nestled in the tufts of dead grass around her lawn. I toss my first one gently, not wanting to make too loud of a noise, but it barely grazes the side of the house. I wait, and her leg doesn’t move.

Fuck.

I hold my arm up and take a deep breath before launching my second attempt. This one pings directly off her window, and her leg jumps back fast. I scared her. Shit! I scared her. I hold my breath, waiting for her face to appear. But it doesn’t. She’s not looking for the noise. I panic and look for another rock, finding a small one and throwing it quickly without much aim. It ricochets off the side of the house, but close enough to her window that she has to know.

Come on, Emma. Look out your goddamned window.

I look for another rock, but hear the sound of her window sliding open.

“Andrew?” she says in a loud whisper. “What the hell are you doing?”

I smile and let the small stones I’ve just found fall from my fingers. I stretch my arms to either side of me and almost laugh.

“I have no idea,” I grin. “Come down.”

She pauses and looks at me for a few seconds, her hair blowing along either side of her face as she leans out the window. I am kissing this girl tonight. I am kissing her, and I don’t care if she hits me because of it. I’m tasting those lips, and I will savor every second I get of it before she smacks me across the face.

“Hang on,” she says, pulling her window shut again. Her light stays on, so I’m not sure whether to look at her window or wait for her at the front door. Finally, I hear the sound of her door opening, so I jog over to her the porch. She locks the door behind her and ushers me to follow her closer to my car along the street.

“Oh my god, what are you doing here?” she asks, her eyes lit up, glowing silver. She’s smiling. She’s smiling because she’s happy to see me.

I…make her happy.

“I missed you,” I admit. Those words hit my chest the second they leave my lips, and I feel both free and terrified at the same time. My hands go deep into my pockets on instinct, and my legs feel numb.

And then her lip ticks up on one side.

“I missed you, too,” she says, her voice soft, not wanting to wake anyone. “Let’s get out of here.”

I don’t hesitate, running to the passenger door and working it open so she can get inside. The sight of her
actually
in my passenger seat is so much better than the version I had going on in my head. I close the door and run to my side, getting in quickly and shutting the door carefully. I know the engine is going to make a loud sound, so I wince when I crank it, but pull away slowly, hoping I didn’t disturb her parents.

“I hope I don’t get you in any trouble,” I say, looking in the rearview mirror, as if I could tell by looking in the one-inch reflection if her parents were awake and catching her escape.

“Me too,” she giggles.

She’s wearing this plaid shirt with long sleeves, and it’s big on her, like it’s her father’s. Her legs are in a pair of tight black jeans, her feet wearing the pink Converse that I use to track her in PE. She’s holding her hands over the vent in front of her, warming them, and I wish I didn’t have to drive this car so I could reach over and warm them within my own.

I drive until we get to a forest preserve, pulling off into the parking lot, not really knowing what I’m doing. I have no plan. I just had to see her. And when she told me to go, I went.

“So…” I say, then let my breath fall into a nervous laugh. I’m gripping the steering wheel for strength, knowing I can’t just kiss her now, but god do I want to.

“So,” she says, pulling her seatbelt off and turning sideways in her seat. She pulls her knees up into her body, her feet flat along the center console. She looks cramped and uncomfortable.

I stare at her shoes for a few seconds, thinking of my life a few hours ago, when an older girl wanted to hook up with me and draped her legs over my lap without invitation. This scene—it’s a million times sexier, maybe because I have to work for it.

With timid hands, I reach to the heel of one shoe, my eyes moving to hers briefly before coming back to her foot. She’s watching me, but she isn’t stopping me. I cup the back of one shoe in my hand and lift her foot from the console and pull it toward me. I let my hand move from her shoe to the back of her leg, my fingers shaking nervously, as if I could break her leg if I were to drop it.

Emma gives in easily, giving me complete control, her muscles relaxing, and I move first one leg then the other to my lap. She eases into the side of her door slowly, her hands clinging to one another in her own lap. I let out a short breath when the weight of her sinks into me, and I rest my hands along the soft denim over her legs, sliding them up and stopping at her knee. That knee. I squeeze it once, and she twitches with a giggle.

“Ticklish,” she smirks.

“Good to know,” I say, my head tilted to the side, my eyes unable to look away from her.

There are so many things I want to know, so many little facts I need to memorize about this girl. But I can’t take my eyes from her lips; I know I can’t kiss them yet, so I look back down at my hands, letting them run down the length of her leg to her ankles. Her ankles to her knees—that’s my line.

“What brought you to Woodstock?” I ask, rapping my fingers a few times along her legs to work out more of my nerves. “I hear it’s the hot bed for dog-catching and telemarketing careers, but…”

She lets out a breathy laugh, then stretches her hands out flat along her thighs. I watch her move, wishing I could touch her there.

“Sort of a family thing. We…we needed to be closer to Chicago,” she says with a lopsided smile and a shrug.

“Woodstock is so not Chicago,” I chuckle, thinking about the ways my hometown is so small compared to the city. There are things I love about being here. The smallness is comforting at times. But the older I get, the more I sense how suffocating it is too.

“No,” she laughs. “But it’s also not Delaware.”

“Good point,” I say.

“What’s your favorite food?” I ask. She tilts her head and offers a suspicious smile.

“Pancakes.”

I nod, then look out to the blackness in front of me to think of another question.

“Have you ever had a pet?” I ask after a few seconds of silence.

“Lots of them. But never very long. I told you…my dad is always rescuing things,” she laughs.

“I’ve never had a pet. I always wanted a dog,” I say, leaning my head back again and looking at her.

“They’re a lot of work,” she shrugs.

“Yeah, but I think I’d be okay with that. I’m good at working hard. And I don’t want a small one; I want one of those big breeds, like a mastiff,” I say, lifting my hands and measuring a wide distance with my arms in front of me.

“You know that means their poop is bigger.”

“The bigger the better, baby,” I joke.

It grows silent again, and I flit my gaze from her to my hands a few times, my stomach twitching nervously.

“Do you like the Excel Program?” she asks.

I suck in my bottom lip and shrug. I never know how to answer that question. It’s like asking someone if they like being really smart. “It’s all right,” I say.

“I bet it’s amazing,” she says, looking to the side, her hair falling over her shoulder slowly, like an avalanche. “You get to go to a college, hang out with professors and learn things like philosophy and culture.”

“It’s not
that
amazing,” I say. “And I still have to do calculus, and language arts and shit.”

“Whatever. It’s amazing, and you know it,” she says, lifting her foot and nudging my chest with it. I grab hold of her leg and hug it. It seemed like a good idea when I spontaneously did it, but then it got weird instantly.

I made it weird.

We’re both quiet and staring at her leg that I’m now hugging, and I start to laugh at the absurdity. I rock it side to side, like it’s an infant, and she gives into laughter too. She kicks at me with her other leg, so I tug on her and pull her closer to me, holding on tight and moving her into me as if I’m pulling in the length of a rope—until she’s in my lap. Her legs curled up against my door, her body in front of me, and her hands pressed on the ceiling, her laughter fills ever inch of space inside my car.

Her sound fades as her eyes open and her gaze meets mine.

Inches. There are inches in life. Inches that make the difference between a race, that determine your height or pants size, that might mean you make it to the train on time.

I’m living in inches right now, inches and breaths.

Beautiful inches.

“I like you, Emma,” I say. My heartbeat fills my throat; I swallow and feel the heat take over my chest and arms and hands.

She doesn’t answer with words, instead letting her lashes sweep shut while I take in the dusting of freckles along her cheeks. Her lips part with a shallow breath, her bottom one trembling.

“Andrew,” she breathes out my name. It’s a whisper. Like I’m a secret.

Maybe I am.

I move my hand to her cheek, and she lets her weight fall into my palm, her eyes closing again briefly.

“I want to know everything about you, Emma Burke,” I say, sweeping hair away from the one side of her face, leaving my other hand flush against her cheek, my thumbs over those very mesmerizing freckles.

“I’m not very interesting,” she says, her voice tiny and unsure. I can see so much of her nerves in the slight tremors on her lips, the way her hands are now quaking with her grip on my sleeves along my biceps. Her eyes, they tell me so much of her story too.

“You liar,” I smirk. She flinches at first, looking hurt. “You are incredibly interesting.”

I let my head fall forward to meet hers, and her eyes close as she hums.

“You’re a lot of other things, too. Like beautiful, and spirited, and funny, and smart,” I say.

“You don’t know that I’m smart,” she lets out with a laugh, her lips almost brushing mine when she speaks.

“Yeah, I kinda do. I saw your transcripts,” I admit.

She slaps her hands flat against my chest and leans back, trying to decide if I’m kidding. I grin with half my mouth and shrug.

“I’m tight with the front office, and I was worried about you missing class last week. I was going to get your work for you,” I say, now my own nerves kicking in. I sound like a lunatic stalker.