Wilson Mooney, Almost Eighteen (30 page)

“
Me too, I’m sorry if I
sound selfish. I don’t mean to, I just want you to know, my family
isn’t as perfect as it appears to be.” He grabbed my hand and
spread my fingers with his as he held tight.

“
I know,
that
Calvin. He’s a
piece of work!” I leaned against him and smiled wide attempting to
lighten the mood.

“
Well, he’s his own worst
enemy when it comes to people skills.” He cleared his throat and
ran his hands through his hair. “The fact that our father asked
Camille’s husband, Dan, to help run the company and didn’t offer it
to Calvin made their relationship a lot worse. He’s pretty bent
about that.” He looked at me; his eyes constricted and filled with
pain for his brother.

“
That must’ve devastated
him.” The lump I cleared seconds ago clogged the back of my throat
again.

“
Yeah and Cal is the type
that acts like it doesn’t bug him. But I know it’s eating him
alive. I do as much as I can to keep him involved with the family.
One day, he’s just going to leave and not come back and that’s
gonna crush my mom.”

“
As sad as it sounds, I
know how that feels.” I pulled the comforter up and tucked it under
my arms to cover my chest.

He stroked down the inside of my arm
with his fingers, tangling them around my hand as he lifted my
wrist to the tip of his nose. He inhaled and pressed his lips to
the delicate part of my wrist. The temperate air breezed cold
across my skin as he pulled away. He looked into my eyes and I knew
if he could—he would heal me.

Chapter
Twenty-three:

We lay, tangled together, watching the
bottomless orange sun rise up over the snow-covered, rolling hills,
glimmering outside my window. My voice was hoarse and my throat was
dry from talking all night with him. The edges of my eyelids stung
from the thin crisp morning air and lack of rest. Unfortunately, we
couldn’t keep the morning from coming.

“
What time is your flight
today?” Max leaned over me.

“
I don’t know. I’ll grab my
ticket.” I pressed my hand over my mouth as I answered. I didn’t
want to scare him off with my morning breath. I shifted my legs to
the side of the bed and was just about to roll up when he held me
down, pushed my hand away, and gave me a light kiss.

“
Oh my God, Max. My breath
is so bad.” I grabbed his hoodie from the floor and slipped it on.
He caught my waist and pulled me back to the bed.

“
I don’t care, you smell
good to me.” He kissed me, deep and slow. The self-conscious
thoughts of my stenchy breath evaporated instantly. His hand pulled
at the zipper of the hoodie I’d just put on. My hands curved around
his ears, curling my fingertips into his messy black hair. The
ticket could wait.

He slipped his hand past the open
zipper on my hoodie; I lost my breath. He was ready for our last
moment together before we had to return to the Bay Area. I pulled
away from him, the perfect opportunity to tease him one last time;
I stood on the bed by his feet. My hoodie open just enough to see
the curves of my breasts.

“
Okay, so what are you
willing to do, to get me to take this off?” I held the front collar
of his hoodie in my fists.

“
Hum. How about kiss your
feet.” He grabbed my ankle.

“
I don’t know, that doesn’t
seem like a fair trade, what else you willing to do?” I shifted my
feet.

“
This.” He pulled my ankle
and I went down screaming. As fast as I fell, his hands slipped
under the bottom of my hoodie, navigating across my stomach,
clutching at my waist he slid me down to even our bodies. My hair
trailed behind and my hoodie pulled up to expose my
stomach.

“
That’s really unfair. I’m
not as strong as you,” I complained before he tasted my pouting
lips. He was such a good kisser, chills rippled through my body as
he bit my lower lip, causing my mouth to open for him to
explore.

“
Sorry, you’re a weakling.
Survival of the fittest right?” he said, his lips slightly touching
mine—I let out a low whimper.

The handle on the door shook and I
heard Cindy’s voice through the solid wood door.

“
What the hell? What’s she
doing locking the door. It’s not like she went out last night and
brought some random guy home. Frickin Wilson.” Her hand banged
heavy against the door.

We froze staring at each other
listening to what she was doing. Her voice trailed off yelling for
Nick. We broke the silence laughing. It was the first time we
weren’t stressed out by her. I think the chair wedged under the
door handle had something to do with it.

“
Did she just curse me?” I
turned to look at the door then back at him for his answer. I tried
not to smile.

“
Yeah, I think she did and
she called me some random guy.” He twisted his face to look pissed
before he broke with the smile that always captured my
heart.

“
Well at least we’re
frickin random.” I went to grab my ticket. I guess it would be good
to see what time we were going to leave today. “What time is it?” I
pulled open the top drawer of the dresser and found my ticket. He
grabbed his phone off the nightstand.

“
It’s a quarter to seven.”
He slid the phone open and checked his messages.

“
My flight leaves at three
fifteen,” I rambled to him.

“
That doesn’t leave much
time. You’re a little over four hours away from the airport.” He
flipped the covers off and collected his clothes off the
ground.

“
How much time do we have?”
I laid the ticket on the dresser next to me. Reality hammered down
solid against my expectations and I flushed with panic. I didn’t
think about the travel time and the extra two hours you have to
allow for check-in.

“
You need to leave by
nine.” He slipped his shirt over his head and reached for his Levis
he’d tossed on the bed.

His words burned harsh in
my head. The regret scraped down my throat as I swallowed. Just
throw me down on a sharp prickly cactus—probably would have been
less agonizing. I have less than two hours before I have to leave
and of that couple of hours Cindy will monopolize ninety-five
percent. All I’m left with is
right
now
to create a memory that will sustain
both of us until we can be together again.

It was the uncertainty of
our future that kept me on edge.
How are
we going to sneak time? Can I hide my feelings for him while in his
class? How will I react when other girls flirt with him? Seriously,
less than thirty-six hours ago, I didn’t even know if he would have
recognized me outside of class. Now, in less than two days we are,
full-on making out.

“
Wilson? Earth to Wilson.”
He slipped his hands around my waist, shifting me as he searched my
eyes.

God when he looks at me
with his curious eyes, I shiver and melt. If he ran his fingers
through his hair, I swear I’d never leave this room.

“
Wow, you just were
completely somewhere else.” He pressed his hands to the sides of my
face. “Where did you go?” He pulled my attention to him and
smiled.

“
School on Monday.” I bit
my lip trying to stop from showing him how stressed I was about
leaving Aspen.

“
Monday huh? How do I bring
you back to right now? I don’t want to lose you to some experience
we haven’t lived yet.” His eyes danced around my expression,
soaking up every uncertain thought that flowed across my
lips.

“
How are we going to be in
class together without totally blowing it? I can’t look at you
without
everyone
in that room seeing how I feel.” I lowered my head and
dropped my eyes from his.

“
We’ll have to figure that
out on Monday.” He pulled up on my chin and kissed me. He lived in
the
here and now
and knew how to bring me right back.

I ran my hands into his jet
black hair; he dropped his hands around my waist pulling me close.
His aroma bathed my mind with want and his taste pulled at my
desires. It was his instinctive masculine growls that hurled me
over the edge. With all my strength, I pushed him to shuffle back
and drop onto the bed. I wanted to make sure he took one last piece
of
our
Aspen that
would keep him interested and wanting more. He flipped me onto my
back; his lips traced the outline of my chin up to my
ear.

“
You make it so hard to
wait,” he whispered.

“
Twenty-eight days,” I
reminded him as I ran my hands up his back under his
t-shirt.

“
I’m counting the days,” he
answered.

I heard the lock on the door knob turn
and twist. Cindy got the frickin key to unlock my room! My limbs
ran cold, chills flooded my entire body. She pushed on the door, it
didn’t budge. The chair did exactly what it was supposed to do. Max
was in the closet within seconds.

“
Wilson. What the hell is
going on? Did you block the door? Open this now.” She pounded on
the door.

“
I’m coming. You have to
close the door first.” I pushed against the door, looked back at
the closet making sure he was in and dragged the chair out from
under the door knob. I opened the door, Cindy pushed past me,
hoping to catch whoever she was sure I was hiding.

“
What in the hell did you
do? Why would you need to blockade yourself in this room? Where is
he?” She looked out the window, pushed the curtains back looking
for my ‘mystery man’.

“
I don’t know what you’re
talking about Cindy. I’ve been alone. I heard strange noises last
night, I was the only one here, and I got freaked out.” I followed
her to the other side of the room.

“
You wedged a frickin chair
against your door because you were freaked out? Why didn’t you text
me, I would’ve gotten Nick to check on you,” she was
serious.

How sad was our friendship? If that’s
what you would call our association. She’d send her brother to see
if I was okay, god forbid she would leave a club, or drinks, or a
guy for me. I was her failed project and she was my ticket to Max.
That was the extent of our parasitic relationship.

“
I’m sorry, I should have
called you.” I tried to move her towards the door. She plopped on
the bed. She wasn’t going anywhere until she told me what she had
to say.

“
Wilson, there were so many
hot guys. You could’ve had your pick and there still would have
been leftovers for seconds.” She smiled wide and bounced up and
down on the bed.

“
Sorry I missed it. My head
feels better though.” I rubbed the gash up in my hairline. It hurt
when I touched it. Visions of Max’s family flashed in my head. They
never said anything about it; I guess it really wasn’t that
bad.

“
Where did you get that
necklace? I’ve never seen you wear it before.” She plucked the
heart charm up from my skin and pushed her head close to my
neck.

I swallowed and felt my blood as it
sped through my veins. I pushed my hand to hers and took over
holding it. I didn’t want her to touch it and tarnish the feelings
it held for me.

“
This is the first time
I’ve worn it. That’s probably why you’ve never seen it before.” I
pulled the chain across my chin and pressed the charm to my lips.
The tiny key dangling in the middle of the heart tickled at my lips
as it moved.

“
Was it your grandma’s? Did
your grandpa give it to you after she died?” She acted involved.
The one time I hoped she would brush me off she became interested
in my life.

“
Something like that. What
time do we need to get out of here?” I struggled to engage in a
meaningless conversation with her. I went to the dresser and
started pulling out my clothes.

“
We should be on the road
by nine, nine-thirty at the latest.” She held up one of my shirts.
“Wilson, I’m sorry I left last night. I probably should have stayed
with you.” She balled it up and tossed it back onto the bed. What a
big step for her. She doesn’t admit to many wrong doings,
especially this type of one.

“
Don’t worry about it. Not
really worth thinking about. I survived, no permanent damage done,
right?” I started folding my clothes. I didn’t want to make it a
big deal; I just wanted her to leave so Max could come out of the
closet.

“
You’re so right. You
handled it. Crazy to prop a chair under your door knob, but who am
I to say.” She must have talked to her dad; for some reason,
anytime she talks to him she adjusts back to the “bearable”
Cindy.

“
You talk to your dad this
morning?” I pulled at the next drawer down.

“
Yeah, he is coming into
Denver around one o’clock. I told him we’d meet him and have
lunch.” She stood up, waiting for me to argue.

“
Okay, sounds good.” I
snapped my jeans across in front of my body and continued to fold
them.

“
Oh-kay—so keep packing.
I’ll tell Nick to have the car ready by nine sharp.” She held up my
black lacy bra and spun it around her finger before dropping it
back to the bed. “Nice Wilson.”