You and Everything After (7 page)

“Just so we’re clear here,
I mean this
,” he says, pressing his lips softly against mine as his other hand moves to my chin, tilting my mouth toward him. I’ve been kissed by some pretty convincing boys in my life, each one wanting to make me believe something by the way their mouth worked against mine, the way their tongues coaxed their way inside. This one kiss from Ty was like removing a blindfold.

No kiss has ever felt like this. His thumbs are soft against my cheek, and his fingertips are gentle in my hair. His lips pause over mine, stroking softly before crashing into me with more force. I’m used to guys using this move to disarm me, to get me on my back so they can see how far I’ll let them go. But Ty is only pulling me closer to him, his hands sliding from my face to my shoulders and arms until I feel his strength lift me completely so I’m on his lap.

When his hands find my face again, he stops long enough to breathe, our foreheads pressed together and the tips of our noses touching. Even this simple touch is perfection. My heart is beating wildly, and I can feel my body trembling as Ty slides his hands deeper into my hair, bringing my lips to his again, this time sucking on my top lip until I give in and open up for him completely as he tastes me with his tongue.

The longer the kiss lasts, the stronger his grip on my body is, and when he finally pulls away from my mouth, he continues to hold me close, cradling my entire body to his. I feel every heavy breath escape his chest, and I start to wonder who is feeling this more—me or him? My knuckles are white from the tense grip I have on the back of his shirt, and when I finally let go, I notice how sweaty my palms feel. I don’t know what Ty has done to me, but I know I will never be the same.

Not after that kiss.

Chapter 7

Ty

The first time I kissed Cass was just my damn impulse. But this last one, yesterday…that was…

The moment she looked up at me from the floor, I was done weighing my options. Watching her hands quickly trying to cover up the brochures and pamphlets with promises to make you feel happy, pretty, popular and whole—whatever bullshit promises brochures like that make—that was enough.

I have a box full of those brochures and books, buried under an equally old tub of trophies and CDs tucked somewhere in the depths of my closet at my parents’ house. I’d get a new brochure with every new group I went to—or with every therapist I spoke to. I got them from the school, and from my mom’s whacko circle of friends who believe in holistic powers and positive thinking. And every time I got one, I’d thank the person, bring it home, and throw it in the collection.

When her backpack opened, I saw all of her insecurities spill right onto the floor, and I just knew. This one.
This girl—
she’s that other half my mom always talks about. I didn’t kiss her because I felt bad for her. I kissed her because I
felt
her. Cass is me—in every possible way. We’re both broken and pissed, fragile yet strong, careful with our hearts, but free with our words. And seeing the look on her face when I caught her in a moment of feeling
less
, in a moment that she felt unworthy…

“You are so much
more
than your sister,” I whisper to myself, amused that somehow she thinks she has something to prove. Fuck that. I have something to earn.

“Mail call!” Nate yells, tossing a hefty envelope at me as he busts through our door. It lands on my chest, so I sit up in my bed and look it over. It’s from Baker, Louisiana.
Kelly
lives in Baker. I toss it to the side and give Nate my full attention.

“Not gonna open it?” he asks, one eyebrow raised, tempting me.

“Nope,” I say, moving to my chair and pushing to the desk. I flip open my laptop to check my training schedule for the rest of the week.

“Wow,” Nate says. I can feel him staring at me, and I know there’s a grin on his face. “You’re smitten.”

“Shut up,” I say, following it up by tossing a pen at him from my desk. I’m more than smitten, but I’m also the one that does the dishing of crap around here. The crap doesn’t flow both ways. “You ask Rowe about the game and dinner with the parents yet?” I know he hasn’t, but this should get the focus off me and…
feelings
.

“Yeah…no…” he says, falling flat on his back and pulling his pillow over his eyes. “I don’t know what it is, dude, but this girl—she intimidates me.”

“Are you still tiptoeing around the boyfriend thing?” My brother saw Rowe hanging up a picture of her with another guy, and he’s too pussy to come right out and ask her about it—so instead, he’s taken to permanently moping. It’s annoying.

“I brought it up. She doesn’t want to talk about it. That’s about as far as it goes.” He blows out a heavy sigh.

“Well, if you don’t ask her, Cass won’t go. And if Cass doesn’t go, I’m going to kick your ass. So quit being a douchebag,” I say, grabbing his shoe and throwing it out in the hall like I always do when he irritates me. I’ve been doing this to him since he was a kid and used to want to hang out in my bedroom while I was talking on the phone to a girl.

“Fucker. I hate it when you do that,” he says, standing with a heavy slouch as he drags his feet toward his sneaker. He keeps walking down the hall when he picks it up, though, so I know he’s just as smitten as I am.
 

I push the door closed and turn to look at the simple brown package lying on my bed. It’s one of those over-sized envelopes, and it’s super puffy. It looks like a shirt. I bet it’s a shirt. That was Kelly’s thing—she loved those shirts with really silly sayings, and I thought they were a tremendous waste of resources, human labor, and money. She would buy me one for every birthday, holiday, anniversary, or whim just to tick me off. I loved it. I loved her for doing it.

Suddenly, I’m back on my bed, holding the package in my hand. For some reason, I smell it, wanting to know if it carried any sign of her along with it during its postal route. It just smells like cardboard and ink.

When I tear the corner open, I see the white fabric and confirm my suspicion immediately. I can’t help that it still makes me smile, and I rip the rest of the envelope away to hold the shirt up and reveal the punch line. It’s a stick man, humping the word
it
. Fuck it. Ha! Okay, that’s funny.

I toss the envelope in the trash and fold the shirt up and slide it in my top drawer. There really might be a time and place to wear that one—it’s a keeper. She finally found the one joke shirt I think is worth the twenty bucks she probably spent on it.

There’s a Facebook message waiting for me when I open my laptop, and I see Kelly’s picture looking back at me.

Well?

She must have followed the tracking code to see if I got it yet.

It took you something like 15 shirts to finally find one I think is funny, but I have to admit it—that shirt kicks ass. Thanks!

I hit send and start to close my laptop, but a message from her pops up right away. She must be online.

I KNEW IT! Glad you like it.

Happy Anniversary, Ty.

There’s this feeling that accompanies stress and anxiety, it’s like a spoon pushing into the side of your gut. It’s similar to that sensation I get when I go on a really charged roller coaster—only sicker. Yeah, I have that feeling…
right now!
I don’t respond. In fact, I exit out of Facebook completely, and turn my laptop off, worried that somehow some internal camera is switching to
on
allowing Kelly to see my forehead broken out in a cold sweat.

It’s our anniversary. She’s right, and the thought floated through my mind once this morning, but I quickly dismissed it. I think of it every year at the start of September, and I wonder if she’s remembering our first date at the fall-festival dance, too. The first year she just sent me an email, acknowledging it. The last two years, she’s blown it off completely. This is the first time she’s gone as far as to send me something though.

Maybe it’s just a funny shirt. And maybe she was just trying to be thoughtful.

Maybe I won’t wear it now, though.

My afternoon appointments rescue me from overanalyzing shit. I grab my workout bag and lock up our door. I can hear Nate and Cass talking down the hall, so I follow the sound of their voices. I have to give Nate a key anyhow, so I use it as an excuse to invite myself in.

I enter the room and catch Cass at the door.

“You love me and you know it!” I hear Nate say around the corner. Cass bends down quickly, kissing me lightly on the lips before rolling her eyes and whispering, “Your brother’s a pain in the ass.” She winks and picks up her step toward the elevator, clearly making her way to the gym.

“You better not!” I say, not really liking Nate using the word
love
with Cass. Stupid and petty? Yes. Do I give a shit if he thinks so? No.

Nate’s elbows-deep in Rowe’s drawers, flipping them over so they dump out all of her clothes when she comes back. It’s funny, and really, I’ll take any excuse to rifle through Cass’s drawers. I join in and flip her drawers over, too, paying special attention to the lacey things in her top drawer. I am looking forward to seeing those things in action.

My brother’s in love; I can tell. It’s not so much the way he talks about Rowe all of the time, but rather the way he
doesn’t
talk about her. This thing he has going with her…it isn’t transient. And as much fun as I had playing big-brother-little-brother party time with him this summer, this feels more like the way things are supposed to be. And it’s not just him—it’s me, too.

He pauses on one of the drawers, and he’s holding a picture. I can see over his shoulder it’s one of Rowe and the other guy; I wince before he turns around. “This is like the one I was talking about. Do you think she has a boyfriend?” he asks. I have no clue, so I tell him he should ask, but I also make a mental note to ask Cass about Rowe and that picture, and then it hits me—I have someone to
ask.
Cass is
someone—my
someone. Holy shit, how the fuck did that happen?

We get the drawers back in place and lock up behind us, heading to the elevator. I’m running late for my first training session, but I hear Paige’s voice as the elevator doors open. I shift my eyes to Nate and urge him to pick up his step. I follow him back to our room.

“Dude, I can’t stand that chick! How is it that I’m crazy about her sister?” Nate’s shit-eating grin clues me in on my big slip, but I don’t really care that he knows how I feel. I like a girl, a girl that isn’t Kelly. Kelly, who just wished me a happy anniversary from her home in Baker, where she lives with her husband and brand new baby boy.
What the fu—

“She has great tits!” Nate says, bringing me right back to
my
Cass and her annoying-ass twin.

“Ah, that’s a good point. Way to focus on the positive. She does indeed have great tits,” I respond, waiting just long enough for her elevator trip to be complete, and her to be gone, before I head back down the hall to race to my training appointment. I pull out my phone to send a text that I’m running late to Sage, the girl who works the front desk, but I pause when I see one from an unknown number.

I miss you…baby ;-)

Cass, you just took another little piece of me.

Miss U 2, reformed baby-hater.

Chapter 8

Cass

I can tell something’s wrong as soon as I walk into our room. Rowe’s clothes are in a pile on the floor, her dresser drawers all empty and stacked on her bed. It looks like a break-in, only a really lame break-in. I can’t figure out why someone would just go through Rowe’s drawers and nothing else.

“Hello?” I say, my heavy backpack now clutched to the front of my body, like
that’s
going to protect me. I kick the closet door open, and it ricochets off the back wall, shutting closed again. It’s empty, as is the room.

I toss my bag on my bed and sit down looking at the strange mess of Rowe’s things across from me. Curious. I stand and tug on the top drawer of my dresser, and the second I do, I feel the tickle of my socks and underwear slide down into a mound around my feet.

“Son of a bitch!” I pull the next drawer, and the heavy thud of jeans and sweatpants follows where undergarments went. I’m about to pull open my third drawer when I hear Rowe come into the room behind me.

“Damn it, Rowe! I didn’t want to be a part of this war, but looks like I’m in it now!” I pull the third drawer out carefully, my hands doing their best to hold my clothing in place, but it’s useless, and shorts and workout clothes land in the heap too.

“Who’s messing with you?” Paige asks, hooking her book bag over her desk chair and sliding her shoes from her feet.

“Ty! And Nate! They flipped our drawers,” I say, stuffing—not folding—clothes back into my drawers so I can slide them in. Paige brushes by me; at first I think she’s going to help, but instead she starts pulling on her drawers to see if she’s been pranked too. When nothing happens, and her clothes all stay in place, I feel a little bad. I can see the hurt on my sister’s face over the fact that Rowe and I are part of something she isn’t. But that’s how this was supposed to go, wasn’t it? Paige finally gets her life, and I get mine? Yes, that’s how it’s supposed to go. But I still don’t like seeing my sister slighted.

“Okay, tell me what you girls need me to do. Let’s get those assholes back,” Paige says, and I know this is just her way of joining—of finding a way
in
on the attention. My gut instinct is to tell her not to worry about it, but then I look at Rowe, and I can see my new friend is happy to finally have my sister’s approval, in some small way, so I let it slide. I’ll let Paige be a part of this, even if she has nothing to do with it.

“I have an idea, but we’re going to need to go to a hardware store,” Rowe says. I can tell this has Paige losing interest right away.

“Yeah, I’m not doing that,” she says, sitting back down on her bed, and pulling her phone from her purse.

“Hey, you wanted in. Either you’re in or you’re out,” I say, taking the phone from her hands and tossing it a few feet away. I stare Paige in the eyes, challenging her to just drop her damn
better-than-everyone
complex for now. My sister is being a bitch because she doesn’t want to like Rowe, she doesn’t like taking orders from Rowe, and I know it’s just because Rowe has the attention of Nate. But my sister needs to get over herself, because Rowe is nice. I need Rowe. And that should be enough.

“Fine,” she says, blowing the bangs from her face with a dramatic huff of air. “Let’s go to the hardware store. But I’m borrowing a car. It’s too hot to walk anywhere,” she says, grabbing her purse and leading us out the door. Out of habit, we follow.

Pain in the ass or not, my sister is good at getting things. Within minutes, she had a car borrowed from some frat guy, and she also managed to get us two gallons of free paint from the guy working the counter at the hardware store in town. We hid the paint and supplies in our closet overnight, and I woke up extra early this morning to set our plan in motion. Now, I just need to catch Ty before he is really ready to leave.

Rowe’s long brown hair is all I can see hanging out from our doorframe down the hall. One more step, and she’s out of sight. I know she’s still listening, though. Somehow, I was nominated for this job—the
inside
job, as Rowe called it. I feel like a criminal, and I’m really bad at things like this. But Rowe got really excited when we picked up the supplies, and she was the first one awake this morning. For some reason, I feel like I need to pull this off for her. I take one more deep breath and knock softly on their door. Ty has a business class early this morning, so I know he’s up. I can hear him making his way to the door. When it opens, I lunge at him before he has a chance to make conversation. I sit on his lap, kissing him until he lets the door fall closed behind us.

Phase one: complete—
I’ve made it inside.

His kiss is intoxicating, even at seven in the morning, and I almost forget the real reason behind my mission. I hate that my next
real
kiss with him isn’t really real at all. Ty pulls away begrudgingly and lets his eyes wash over my body before he speaks—his attention tuned in to my workout pants and bare stomach, a tactic I have to give Paige full credit for. My sister knows men. I may have slept with more of them, but she’s had more of them chase her.

“I’m sorry, did I…order a wake up call?” he says, his tongue barely licking his bottom lip as his perfect smirk slides into place. My body suddenly feels a million degrees hotter, and my pulse is beating like a drum, firing away in my head, arms, and chest.

“No, I was just getting back from an early workout, and I remembered you would be up,” I say, hating that I’m lying to him, but knowing it’s not for a
bad
reason. He studies me, and for a few seconds, I think he might be seeing right through our little plan, but then his smile is back. He’s pulling my head in close to kiss me again.
Oh god, his kiss.

“Baby,” he practically growls. “Wait, I can call you that now, right?” he asks, one eyebrow slightly cocked while he looks at me from only a few inches away. His face is shadowed with the perfect layer of unshaven stubble, and I allow my hands the pleasure of feeling it.

“I don’t know; I’m still on the fence about the whole
baby
thing. Let’s just say I’m
trying it on
,” I say, secretly loving that he calls me anything at all.

“Okay, well then…
baby
…while I would love to stay right here and kiss the honey flavor from your lips all morning, I have to get to class,” he says, losing me somewhere around the word
honey.
That word—which would sound like the hokiest line in the world coming from anyone other than Ty—slides from his tongue, his southern accent caressing it, and making it my new favorite flavor. I had no idea my lips tasted like anything.

“Cass? You with me?” He’s waving a hand in front of my face.
Shit!
I was off daydreaming about him.

“Oh, yeah…uh, yeah. Sorry, it’s just...I don’t have my key. Paige and Rowe are both out.”
Lie, lie, lie
—holy damn my hands are suddenly sweaty. Don’t look panicked—hold it together!

“That’s fine. Just hang out here. Nate won’t be back until late. Just lock it from the inside when you’re done,” he says, pulling his backpack over one shoulder and turning his chair swiftly with his other arm.

“Oh my gosh, that’d be great. Thanks, and yeah…I’ll lock it up,” I say, a little too quickly, bubbly, and about a million other ways that are no doubt shouting at him not to trust a damn thing I’m doing. Shit, I’m talking too much! Just smile, Cass. Smile and act natural.

I make myself comfortable on his bed, tucking my hands under my legs because I fear if I don’t, they’ll just start waving in protest against me, as if to tell him I’m a big fat liar who is tricking him so my girlfriends and I can exact our revenge.

“All right then. I’ll come by later?” he says, winking. Gah! Even that wink is so good it’s practically scripted.

“Sounds good,” I say, going for simple. Two words and done. Once the door shuts behind him, I flop onto my back and let the rush of blood take over. Holy fuck that was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do—and I had to confess some pretty ugly things to my parents my senior year of high school. Maybe it was just my state-of-mind at the time, but this little performance for Ty—just so I could get access to his room for a prank—has damn near exhausted me.

“Excellent work, Smithers,” Rowe says, quickly sliding into the room with Paige behind her.

“Nice, a
Simpsons
reference,” I say, giving her a high five while I still lie flat on my back. Paige has no idea what we’re talking about, so she interrupts and takes over the conversation.

“So what now?” Paige sits down on Nate’s bed, and I can tell she’s trying to stake a claim over it. My sister still thinks Nate’s up for grabs, but I’m starting to think Rowe just might have this match won.

“We paint,” Rowe says, handing each of us a roller and a pan.

Rowe cracks open one of the cans and fills both my pan and hers with a thin layer of a color called
Pretty Princess Pink
. Paige is slow to join in, but eventually she gets to her feet, fills her own pan, and begins rolling the color on the wall over Nate’s bed.

For three hours, we work tirelessly—covering every inch of wall in their dorm room, as well as the ceiling, with the most obnoxious sweet-sixteenish color known to man. There’s still a good hour’s worth of work to do, cutting in on the corners and near the floor, but I’m already late for open tutoring in physics. I bombed my first week’s quiz, and I know that if I don’t get help early, it’s only going to get worse. I’m not a natural learner—my grades take work.

“Rowe, I am so sorry, and I know this is totally sucky, but I have to go,” I say, setting my brush down on a paper plate on the floor.

“You’re bailing? And leaving me here with
her?”
Paige asks, and I can’t help but chuckle lightly because I’m sure Rowe is thinking the same damn thing.
 

“It’s okay. We’re almost done anyway,” Rowe says, jutting her hip out with a little extra flair to show my sister how little she cares about her comment. I kinda think she cares a lot, though.

“Thanks,” I say, wiping my hands off on a paper towel and tiptoeing my way around our paint supplies until I can safely exit the room.

I’m a bit of a mess, but I don’t really have the time to shower, so I just quickly run a brush through my hair while back in our room and pull it up into a ponytail. I peel a few spots of paint from my hand and arm during the elevator ride, and by the time I hit the sidewalk that leads to the science building I look a little less like a contractor.

The lab room is quiet; only one other student is in there. I wonder if this is the normal turnout, or if it’s only the two of us struggling so far. I take a seat near the front of the room and pull out my book and my last quiz. The instructor is still busy reading whatever is amusing on his iPad. I don’t even know if he saw me come in.

“Ehemm,” I clear my throat, trying to make it sound natural, but it doesn’t come out natural at all. And the way he quirks his eyebrow up at me over the top of his iPad is a good indicator that it probably sounded a bit snobby.

“Yes?” he asks, his eyebrows raised and expecting some great response.

“I’m here to go over my last quiz.” My voice comes out small. I feel intimidated, but I can’t quite put my finger on the reason. I suppose it was his
oh-so-warm
greeting. The metal of his chair digs into the floor and makes the most abrasive sound as he slides it out from his desk and drags it along with him to sit next to me at the table.

“Let’s take a look,” he says, his arm reaching across me and slowly dragging the quiz into his view. His arm skims against mine lightly—an accident—but it sends a sharp sensation through my nerves that feels all kinds of wrong, so I pull my hands into my lap, making myself somehow smaller.

“Cassidy…what was your last name?” he arches one brow at me.

“Owens. Cass Owens,” I say, my voice hoarse again.

“Right. You’re missing the final step. Here, let me see your pencil,” he says, reaching in front of me again. He slides his chair a few inches closer so we can both look over my paper. I can feel his breath. It’s not like Ty’s breath. It smells of stale coffee and old cigarettes. “You need to divide by that number to get the total sum, like this.”

My brain is working overtime to make sure I remember every step he’s jotting down, and I’m grateful he’s writing it on paper so I can use it as a guide later rather than having to ask him again. I don’t want to go through
this
more than once. He slides the page squarely in front of me and holds the pencil out for me to take.

“You try the next one,” he says. When I grab the pencil, I swear his grip stays on it for a second too long, almost like we’re playing a mini-game of tug of war, and I think his lips might curl into a small grin. He’s young—probably a grad student like Ty. He’s also very attractive with light brown hair, closely shaved to his head, and forearms that look like they could throw something heavy with very little effort. As good looking as he is, his effect on me is opposite.

I force myself to stay focused on my work, and I manage to correct six of the problems in front of him. He relaxes while I work, leaning back in the chair, which also gives me some very welcome distance. The hairs on my arm are no longer standing. But for some reason, I can still hear him breathe. It’s a steady sound, masculine—unsettling.

“I think I get it now. I can’t believe I blew it on the quiz. It seems so easy,” I say, staring at my redone work with a little disappointment that it won’t matter to my grade. Suddenly, he reaches for the paper, folding it in half as he stands.

“I’m not done entering grades yet. Maybe this is the one I look at instead,” he says, winking as he heads to his desk and his iPad. I’m so uncomfortable by his suggestive tone, but I’m also pretty sure I’m overreacting. He’s flirtatious—that part I’m not mistaking. But I keep looking over at the other girl, sitting in the opposite corner—she hasn’t looked up from her work once. Surely, if something were really off, she’d be staring at us.