Wilson Mooney, Almost Eighteen (21 page)

“
What do you win?” he spoke
against my lips.

“
Any question I want to
ask. Nothing’s off limits.”

“
Nothing’s off
limits?”

“
Nothing,” I answered. He
pulled away; I watched his mind tilt off to another world I
wondered if he was ready to share with me.
Maybe I should’ve thought this through before I decided to
put it out there. There I went again, my mouth speaking before my
mind was ready.

“
What do you want to know?”
he interrupted the dialogue in my head.

Great. Was I ready to ask what was
racing through my mind; or would it be better to pretend I wanted
to know some safe answer to some random question? Of course I
pulled the same old, same old, and decided to put it out
there.

“
How many— ‘Wilsons’ have
you had?” I felt the question scratch out of my throat and fill the
car. He looked out the front window. His cheek caved slightly into
the side of his face and I watched the muscles through his jaw
tense up past his temples. He turned to me indicating he wanted
some clarification on the question. I nodded.

“
When you say
had
. Does that mean
serious ones? Ones that I’ve been…intimate with?” His eyes
tightened and his eyebrows curved to a serious
expression.

“
Yeah, that’s exactly what
I meant.” I swallowed waiting for him to think carefully about his
answer. His eyes rounded reminisced by the bridged memories I
shouldn’t have asked him to remember. His mouth broke to a slight
smile that flooded his eyes.

I’ve changed my mind. It
wasn’t too late was it? I’ve decided I don’t want to know. I don’t
care how many girls he’s slept with
. My
question became the perfect excuse to relive his life before
me.

“
Wilson, do you really want
to know the answer to this question?” He tapped the heel of his
hand onto the steering wheel. His attempt to give me the time I
needed to decide.

“
Because once it’s out
there, I can’t take it back. I can’t make it okay or change my
history before I met you.” He stared at me. I could tell he wasn’t
comfortable in telling me.

“
You don’t have to tell me
if you don’t want to,” my voice broke.

“
Three—I’ve been intimate
with three people.” I stared at him; he grabbed the wheel looking
at his hands.

A silence filled the car. There was
the irrational part of me that was worried he was going to tell me
double digits. Three wasn’t horrible. Ideal, for me, would have
been one but if you think about it, three is actually a pretty
reasonable number. He was twenty-two, with high school and college
alone he could’ve easily had a lot more. I’m okay with
that.

“
Were any of them serious
girlfriends?”

What was I doing? It was
like I wanted to be tortured. Who owned the car before I bought it
right? Not even close. This was so much more emotional. At least
you can get a car detailed and remove evidence of personal
ownership. You can’t remove the evidence of an emotional memory
imprinted in the soul of a person. Each experience with every one
of those women had left a part of his essence changed
forever.

“
At the time I was with
them, at that particular point, they all held some type of
significance in my life. Can I say I was
serious
with all of them? I would be
lying if I said I yes.” He shifted his body to face me bouncing his
fist on his knee.

“
Thank you.”

“
For what?” He looked
around the car scowling.

“
For being honest enough to
share that with me. As hard as it was to hear you say it, it had to
be even harder to tell me.”

“
Well then, you’re
welcome.” He took a deep breath ran his fingers through his hair
causing it to curl back off his face and down around his ears.
“We’d better get you back. It’s already twenty to four.” He started
the car, pulled down into the parking lot of the ski resort and
found a place to park away from the front curb.

“
I think this is the best
spot so we aren’t seen,” he said as he hopped out of the car, raced
around and held open my door. He grabbed my hand and helped me out.
He pushed the door shut and leaned against it. I noticed his eyes
glistening as he pulled me close to him. His hands tracked around
my waist and rested across my back. I lost my hands in his hair. I
felt him take a deep breath and exhale it across my neck as he
leaned into me.

“
Dinner’s at six thirty. I
was hoping you could be there around five thirty.” His hands pulled
out from around my waist and anchored up around the sides of my
head, pressing against my ears. I heard the echo of his lips as he
dragged them across my cheek to my mouth. A primal deep moan in his
throat vibrated to my center. He was deliciously warm, creating in
my body a flash of hope he wasn’t kissing me goodbye. I didn’t want
him to leave.

“
Max? Your parents, what
are you going to tell them?” My heart thumped sturdy in my chest.
He pulled me closer.

“
About what?” he asked
against my skin.

“
About us.”

“
What about us?”

“
They’re going to want to
know how we met. What are you ready to tell them?” I pulled back, I
wanted to look at him and see what he was going to say. He curved
his lips to one side of his face and shook his head. His eyes
squinted tight. He took a deep breath and I watched as his words
mingled with the condensation that swirled around our
taboo.

“
I’m not. They don’t need
to know.” He stood straight his muscles turned firm and
cold.

“
They’re gonna want to know
how we met. We better get our stories straight. How about a video
store? …a library…a grocery store? Oh, I got it, how about a
stripper bar?” I tried to lighten his mood. I felt his body pull
back from mine.

I didn’t like the distance
creeping between us. I found the
one
subject he wasn’t willing to
share with anyone, including me.

“
Nobody needs to know how
we met. It’s better that way. Trust me.” He stared at the ground.
Lingering time filled the space where his eyes should have blinked.
He was captivated by the pictures in his head—evidence he must have
kept filed and locked somewhere safe away from anyone trying to
break in.

I crouched down trying to knock him
free from the impervious hold the thoughts had on him.

“
Okay, nobody will know.
But we have to decide what our story will be. Just in case someone
asks.” I pushed his head up to look at me. I could tell he wasn’t
settled. He must have buried it deep in his soul to pretend there
wasn’t an unwritten rule about our circumstances.

“
We met at a coffee shop,”
I told him. He smiled, I continued, “You ordered the same drink as
I did; a double mocha with whip cream and the tiny chocolate
sprinkles. We sat and talked for hours about politics, religion and
sports.”

He laughed.

“
Sports huh? Really?” His
eyebrows creased lightening the weight in his expression. He pulled
at the little pockets of my blue suit bringing me to lie against
him.

“
I guess there’s some stuff
you’ll need to learn about me. Like my extensive knowledge of
professional sports teams in the Bay Area.” I cuddled my face into
his chest.

“
Really.” He laughed
tilting his head back.

“
Really! Ask me something.”
I pushed my elbows up onto his chest so he could see I was
serious.

“
Okay. Let’s see—what two
teams played in the eighty-nine World Series?”

“
Oh please, this is no
challenge at all. It was the Oakland A’s and the San Francisco
Giants. Oakland swept them in four games. First two games were in
Oakland the third rescheduled because of the Loma Prieta earthquake
then the other two in San Francisco.” I faked a yawn and stretched
my arms into the air.

He grabbed around my back, chills
rushed my skin as he spun me against his car. He pushed strong
against me, he explored my neck kissing his way up to behind my
ear.

“
God you make me so crazy.
How am I going to exist for the next couple of hours without being
next to you?” He pushed his forehead to mine. Our arms knotted
around each other keeping me heated to the perfect temperature of
arousal. He didn’t know how hard it was for me not to just get back
into his car and go to his place.

I shivered from the thought of walking
away from him. He noticed and unzipped his jacket. I slid my hands
up under his shirt around his waist and up his back. His fiery hot
skin burned across my frosted hands. He wrapped the front of his
jacket around us swaddling me in his comfortable
embrace.

“
Do I have to leave?
Because I could live right here, forever.” I pushed my nose to his
aroma and drowned in his heart beat.

“
It’s four fifteen. You
better go and find Nick and Cindy.” He waited until I pulled away
to let me go.

He gave me a gentle kiss tugging away
until I anchored my hands into his hair hauling him back to my
lips. I needed the feeling of this kiss to radiate and last me for
the next couple of hours. Like the first sweet taste of a forbidden
fruit before it is ripped out of your hands. I didn’t want to be
the one to walk away. He pushed his hands to my cheeks and I felt
him back away from our kiss.

“
You really better go,
before they come looking for you.” He kissed my forehead. I
trembled. His hand tender to the touch, encouraged me to walk away
from him. I looked back, he stood there vacant of me in his arms;
he looked empty. I felt the wings of my butterflies become
motionless. It will be one hour and fifteen minutes before they’d
fly again. But who was counting.

Chapter
Sixteen:

It was the longest walk from where I
had left Max in the parking lot, to the front of the ski lodge.
Even though it was less than a hundred feet, it felt like universes
away. Only now I noticed the chill that wrapped and bound me tight
into a battle between the emotional intensity that burned in my
core and the bone freezing resentment trying to snuff it out. I
belonged with Max. When I was with him, nothing else mattered,
nothing else existed. Was it altogether healthy of me to get lost
in his existence? Probably not, but when you’re handed a weekend
with someone you’ve dreamt about for so long, you live in that
moment until it doesn’t exist anymore.

My moment evaporated in seconds when I
saw the black Sequoia parked in the loading zone. The back hatch
was up and Nick was loading our duffel bags. Cindy was hanging on
some random guy. The regret hiccupped into my throat. Would they
really miss me if I just decided to turn back? I slipped next to
the chartered buses and came up behind Cindy. Nick grabbed the skis
and spotted me.

“
Hey Wilson, Whoa, what
happened to you?” He pointed to the side of my head. I pressed my
hand to it and felt the bandage that I had forgotten was even
there.

“
She fell down the bunny
slope. Wonder if it was because she didn’t have Shane to teach
her?” Cindy leaned away from the guy she was wrapped around and
pointed at Nick. She started in, right away with bashing him. It
was as if I hadn’t left. Gosh why didn’t I just stay with
Max?

Nick ignored Cindy’s digs, as usual.
It was nothing new to him. Her inability to keep her opinions to
herself was as common as Aspen snow in the winter.

“
Are you okay?” he asked
turning to load Cindy’s skis into the SUV.

“
Yeah. I don’t think I’m
cut out to be a skier. I spent most of the day hanging out in the
lodge,” I bold face lied. I had a surge of anticipation crawl up
the back of my neck. Blood rushed to my cheeks and the muscles
around my mouth uncontrollably tighten to a smirk.

“
You should’ve called me.
I’d have come and picked you up.” I handed him my skis he must have
collected from in front of the lodge.

“
Nah, I was fine. They have
tons of books and a TV. I was fine,” as each word came out of my
mouth I could feel the excitement build trying to wake up the
butterflies dormant in my gut.

I glanced at Cindy she was completely
taken in by the ski stud she’d been with all day. She was so
involved with him she didn’t see that we were sitting in the car
waiting for her to say goodbye.

“
I can’t believe this guy
likes her. She is so full of herself,” Nick said, gazing in the
rearview mirror looking at me.

“
Maybe some guys like a
confident girl.” I met his eyes then looked away.

“
Or maybe this guy sees her
as an easy target.” He shuffled his eyes between Cindy and
me.

“
What?” I choked. Cindy was
not an easy target. She knew what she wanted and how to get it. If
anything, she was targeting that guy. I wouldn’t be surprised if
she marked him when we first arrived. She was anything but an easy
target.

“
If she keeps acting like
she’s
easy
, she
will keep attracting these guys that only want one thing from her.
And it isn’t her phone number.” He looked at her kissing him
goodbye. “See…right there…why is she doing that? She’s just
reconfirming to him that she’s easy.” He held his hand out towards
Cindy.