The Book Boyfriends Collection: Wither, Wait For You, The Edge of Never

The Book Boyfriends Collection: Wither, Wait For You, The Edge of Never Lauren DeStefano J. Lynn J. A. Redmerski Move over Brad Pitt. Take a hike George Clooney. On your way Prince Harry. Give us Mark Darcy, King Aragorn and Edward Cullen instead.Have you met your book boyfriend yet?In WITHER 16-year-old Rhine Ellery is kidnapped and sold as a bride to Linden, a rich young man with a dying wife. Even though he is kind to her, Rhine is desperate to escape her gilded cage. With the help of Gabriel, a servant she is growing dangerously attracted to, Rhine attempts to break free, in what little time she has left. The Handmaid’s Tale for a new generationIn WAIT FOR YOU, a New York Times #1, Avery knows she should stay away from Cam Hamilton: he might be the hottest guy on campus but she really doesn’t need that sort of drama right now. Love is best left in the past - along with her troubles. But sometimes, the last thing that you want is just the thing you need…In New York Times bestseller, THE EDGE OF NEVER, twenty-year-old Camryn has always known that she wants a life less ordinary. But when tragedy strikes, she boards the next bus leaving town, destination unknown. On a journey of self-discovery, she meets another lost soul: Andrew Parrish, who harbours his own dark secrets… Andrew shows Camryn what it’s like to live by your own rules and how good it feels to give in to your deepest desires. But the dark shadow of Andrew’s secret is looming. Will it push them together – or tear them apart forever? The Book Boyfriends Collection J.A. Redmerski, J. Lynn and Lauren DeStefano Table of Contents Cover (#uad456593-cb15-5f3f-bb0c-3eb2b985ec81) Title Page (#ub41baf06-36fb-55f3-aaf9-87662d153565) The Edge of Never (#uc8b53a32-be9a-5158-bce6-1145e40d8afb) Wait for You (#litres_trial_promo) Wither (#litres_trial_promo) Copyright (#litres_trial_promo) About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo) The Edge of Never J.A. Redmerski To lovers and dreamers and anyone who hasn’t truly experienced either. Contents In New York Times bestseller, THE EDGE OF NEVER, twenty-year-old Camryn has always known that she wants a life less ordinary. But when tragedy strikes, she boards the next bus leaving town, destination unknown. On a journey of self-discovery, she meets another lost soul: Andrew Parrish, who harbours his own dark secrets… Andrew shows Camryn what it’s like to live by your own rules and how good it feels to give in to your deepest desires. But the dark shadow of Andrew’s secret is looming. Will it push them together – or tear them apart forever? Cover (#uc8b53a32-be9a-5158-bce6-1145e40d8afb) Title Page (#u60059945-cc25-552b-945d-44391b93800a) Dedication (#u4e168242-5b91-5d76-a24a-9ba1a2f2e46d) One (#uc8b5239c-60e7-5ff4-8442-9206d8317c6f) Two (#u14278c0e-b265-508c-94e9-14f1a3182bab) Three (#u9b6d27f3-4070-52cb-b7a9-507539b822ed) Four (#ufd8ee05e-903e-5073-809b-61ceb278f890) Five (#u1d789b2f-8f65-5569-aa5f-d52b0eb939ea) Six (#u3df9285d-7622-583c-a1bf-8e386d855dfd) Seven (#ud56684ba-e6c1-5993-9b98-252b6e15fa90) Eight (#u03ca2d17-68ad-54eb-879c-303051058c31) Nine (#u6a457f05-bdff-556e-873f-c6f32a895d26) Ten (#u8071a99d-4967-590c-8e20-b311cda51f22) Eleven (#uc2a3820c-cfd6-521a-9d74-439bd47c9ba0) Twelve (#ud4923ffd-b2fa-5513-afaf-3337f447f238) Thirteen (#u69d81128-4c8b-5fb2-bf62-136283b3bdd9) Fourteen (#ud845dd4b-6d13-5f60-a19d-2661ca932788) Fifteen (#u2fa7a1cc-5eaf-5656-8148-179adce059aa) Sixteen (#u5f1da43d-bb09-5d93-961a-9b42ec8f4224) Seventeen (#u047c514e-1340-5c73-89b9-fc659b8bd597) Eighteen (#u5b0b6cf1-ac8b-5465-8a2e-34d66759f21a) Nineteen (#ua0dc270f-b8db-53c3-8080-63dfcb451a85) Twenty (#u874f0ddd-8508-556e-a11e-8fcaa42817f4) Twenty-One (#ue284fc8c-71d2-5ac6-bf48-4307ebfe78cf) Twenty-Two (#u166a3389-9c07-5acb-997f-c75039a29329) Twenty-Three (#u035a88df-55d2-54b2-96ac-0d015e579f92) Twenty-Four (#u7206b467-0012-5472-85c0-9bc1386b9932) Twenty-Five (#u73716217-2987-504a-b3c3-0fa3507ed856) Twenty-Six (#litres_trial_promo) Twenty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo) Twenty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo) Twenty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo) Thirty (#litres_trial_promo) Thirty-One (#litres_trial_promo) Thirty-Two (#litres_trial_promo) Thirty-Three (#litres_trial_promo) Thirty-Four (#litres_trial_promo) Thirty-Five (#litres_trial_promo) Thirty-Six (#litres_trial_promo) Thirty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo) Thirty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo) Thirty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo) Forty (#litres_trial_promo) About the Author (#litres_trial_promo) Other Books by J.A. Redmerski (#litres_trial_promo) Exclusive bonus material - the hospital scene from Andrew’s point of view (#litres_trial_promo) Copyright (#litres_trial_promo) One (#ulink_95979d9d-5728-5b07-b372-2b92224dcfcc) Natalie has been twirling that same lock of hair for the past ten minutes and it’s starting to drive me nuts. I shake my head and pull my iced latte toward me, strategically placing my lips on the straw. Natalie sits across from me with her elbows propped on the little round table, chin in one hand. “He’s gorgeous,” she says staring off toward the guy who just got in line. “Seriously, Cam, would you look at him?” I roll my eyes and take another sip. “Nat,” I say, placing my drink back on the table, “you have a boyfriend—do I need to constantly remind you?” Natalie sneers playfully at me. “What are you, my mother?” But she can’t keep her eyes on me for long, not while that walking wall of sexy is standing at the register ordering coffee and scones. “Besides, Damon doesn’t care if I look—as long as I’m bending over for him every night, he’s good with it.” I let out a spat of air, blushing. “See! Uh huh,” she says, smiling hugely. “I got a laugh out of you.” She reaches over and thrusts her hand into her little purple purse. “I have to make note of that,” and she pulls out her phone and opens her digital notebook. “Saturday. June 15th.” She moves her finger across the screen. “1:54 p.m. – Camryn Bennett laughed at one of my sexual jokes.” Then she shoves the phone back inside her purse and looks at me with that thoughtful sort of look she always has when she’s about to go into therapy-mode. “Just look once,” she says, all joking aside. Just to appease her, I turn my chin carefully at an angle so that I can get a quick glimpse of the guy. He moves away from the register and toward the end of the counter where he slides his drink off the edge. Tall. Perfectly sculpted cheekbones. Mesmerizing model green eyes and spiked up brown hair. “Yes,” I admit, looking back at Natalie, “he’s hot, but so what?” Natalie has to watch him leave out the double glass doors and glide past the windows before she can look back at me to respond. “Oh. My. God,” she says eyes wide and full of disbelief. “He’s just a guy, Nat.” I place my lips on the straw again. “You might as well put a sign that says ‘obsessed’ on your forehead. You’re everything obsessed short of drooling.” “Are you kidding me?” Her expression has twisted into pure shock. “Camryn, you have a serious problem. You know that, right?” She presses her back against her chair. “You need to up your medication. Seriously.” “I stopped taking it in April.” “What? Why?” “Because it’s ridiculous,” I say matter-of-factly. “I’m not suicidal, so there’s no reason for me to be taking it.” She shakes her head at me and crosses her arms over her chest. “You think they prescribe that stuff just for suicidal people? No. They don’t.” She points a finger at me briefly and hides it back in the fold of her arm. “It’s a chemical imbalance thing, or some shit like that.” I smirk at her. “Oh, really? Since when did you become so educated in mental health issues and the medications they use to treat the hundreds of diagnoses?” My brow rises a little, just enough to let her see how much I know she has no idea what she’s talking about. When she wrinkles her nose at me instead of answering, I say, “I’ll heal on my own time and I don’t need a pill to fix it for me.” My explanation had started out kind, but unexpectedly turned bitter before I could get the last sentence out. That happens a lot. Natalie sighs and the smile completely drops from her face. “I’m sorry,” I say, feeling bad for snapping at her. “Look, I know you’re right. I can’t deny that I have some messed up emotional issues and that I can be a bitch sometimes—” “Sometimes?” she mumbles under her breath, but is grinning again and has already forgiven me. That happens a lot, too. I half-smile back at her. “I just want to find answers on my own, y’know?” “Find what answers?” She’s annoyed with me. “Cam,” she says, cocking her head to one side to appear thoughtful. “I hate to say it, but shit really does happen. You just have to get over it. Beat the hell out of it by doing things that make you happy.” OK, so maybe she isn’t so horrible at the therapy thing after all. “I know, you’re right,” I say, “but …” Natalie raises a brow, waiting. “What? Come on, out with it!” I gaze toward the wall briefly, thinking about it. So often I sit around and think about life and wonder about every possible aspect of it. I wonder what the hell I’m doing here. Even right now. In this coffee shop with this girl I’ve known practically all my life. Yesterday I thought about why I felt the need to get up at exactly the same time as the day before and do everything like I did the day before. Why? What compels any of us to do the things we do when deep down a part of us just wants to break free from it all? I look away from the wall and right at my best friend who I know won’t understand what I’m about to say, but because of the need to get it out, I say it anyway. “Have you ever wondered what it would be like to backpack across the world?” Natalie’s face goes slack. “Uh, not really,” she says. “That might … suck.” “Well, think about it for a second,” I say, leaning against the table and focusing all of my attention on her. “Just you and a backpack with a few necessities. No bills. No getting up at the same time every morning to go to a job you hate. Just you and the world out ahead of you. You never know what the next day is going to bring, who you’ll meet, what you’ll have for lunch or where you might sleep.” I realize I’ve become so lost in the imagery that I might’ve seemed a little obsessed for a second, myself. “You’re starting to freak me out,” Natalie says, eyeing me across the small table with a look of uncertainty. Her arched brow settles back even with the other one and then she says, “And there’s also all the walking, the risk of getting raped, murdered and tossed on the side of a freeway somewhere. Oh, and then there’s all the walking …” Clearly, she thinks I’m borderline crazy. “What brought this on, anyway?” she asks, taking a quick sip of her drink. “That sounds like some kind of mid-life-crisis stuff—you’re only twenty.” She points again as if to underline, “And you’ve hardly paid a bill in your life.” She takes another sip; an obnoxious slurping noise follows. “Maybe not,” I say thinking quietly to myself, “but I will be once I move in with you.” “So true,” she says, tapping her fingertips on her cup. “Everything split down the middle. Wait, you’re not backing out on me, are you?” She sort of freezes, looking warily across at me. “No, I’m still on. Next week I’ll be out of my mom’s house and living with a slut.” “You bitch!” she laughs. I half-smile and go back to my brooding, the stuff before, that she wasn’t relating to, but I expected as much. Even before Ian died, I always kind of thought out-of-the-box. Instead of sitting around dreaming up new sex positions, as Natalie often does about Damon, her boyfriend of five years, I dream about things that really matter. At least in my world, they matter. What the air in other countries feels like on my skin, how the ocean smells, why the sound of rain makes me gasp. “You’re one deep chick.” That’s what Damon said to me on more than one occasion. “Geez!” Natalie says. “You’re a freakin’ downer, you know that right?” She shakes her head with the straw between her lips. “Come on,” she says suddenly and stands up from the table. “I can’t take this philosophical stuff anymore and quaint little places like this seem to make you worse—we’re going to The Underground tonight.” “What? No, I’m not going to that place.” “Yes. You. Are.” She chucks her empty drink into the trash can a few feet away and grabs my wrist. “You’re going with me this time because you’re supposed to be my best friend and I won’t take no again for an answer.” Her close-lipped smile is spread across the entirety of her slightly tanned face. I know she means business. She always means business when she has that look in her eyes: the one brimmed with excitement and determination. It’ll probably be easiest just to go this once and get it over with, or else she’ll never leave me alone about it. Such is a necessary evil when it comes to having a pushy best friend. I get up and slip my purse strap over my shoulder. “It’s only two o’clock,” I say. I drink down the last of my latte and toss the empty cup away in the same trash can. “Yeah, but first we’ve got to get you a new outfit.” “Uh, no.” I say resolutely as she’s walking me out the glass doors and into the breezy summer air. “Going to The Underground with you is more than good deed enough. I refuse to go shopping. I’ve got plenty of clothes.” Natalie slips her arm around mine as we walk down the sidewalk and past a long line of parking meters. She grins and glances over at me. “Fine. Then you’ll at least let me dress you from something out of my closet.” “What’s wrong with my own wardrobe?” She purses her lips at me and draws her chin in as if to quietly argue why I even asked a question so ridiculous. “It’s The Underground,” she says, as if there is no answer more obvious than that. OK, she has a point. Natalie and I may be best friends, but with us it’s an opposites attract sort of thing. She’s a rocker chick who’s had a crush on Jared Leto since Fight Club. I’m more of a laid-back kind of girl who rarely wears dark-colored clothes unless I’m attending a funeral. Not that Natalie wears all black or has some kind of emo hair thing going on, but she would never be caught dead in anything from my closet because she says it’s all just too plain. I beg to differ. I know how to dress, and guys—when I used to pay attention to the way they eyed my ass in my favorite jeans—have never had a problem with the clothes I choose to wear. But The Underground was made for people like Natalie and so I guess I’ll have to endure dressing like her for one night just to fit in. I’m not a follower. I never have been. But I’ll definitely become someone I’m not for a few hours if it’ll make me blend in rather than make me a blatant eye sore and draw of attention. Two (#ulink_7fd98acc-d4c4-5b49-9159-42393dd74ab4) We make it to The Underground just as night falls, but not before driving around in Damon’s souped-up truck to various houses. He would pull into the driveway, get out and stay inside no more than three or four minutes and never say a word when he came back out. I’ve known him almost as long as I’ve known Natalie, but I’ve never been able to accept his drug habits. He grows copious amounts of weed in his basement, but he’s not a pothead. In fact, no one but me and a few of his close friends would ever suspect that a hot piece of ass like Damon Winters would be a grower, because most growers look like white trash and often have hairdos that are stuck somewhere between the 70s and 90s. Damon is far from looking like white trash—he could be Alex Pettyfer’s younger brother. And Damon says weed just isn’t his thing. No, Damon’s drug of choice is cocaine and he only grows and sells weed to pay for his cocaine habit. Natalie pretends that what Damon does is perfectly harmless. She knows that he doesn’t smoke weed and says that weed really isn’t that bad and if other people want to smoke it to chill out and relax, that she sees no harm in Damon helping with that. She refuses to believe, however, that cocaine has seen more action from his face than any part of her body has. “OK, you’re going to have a good time, right?” Natalie bumps my backseat door shut with her butt after I get out and then she looks hopelessly at me. “Just don’t fight it and try to enjoy yourself.” I roll my eyes. “Nat, I wouldn’t deliberately try to hate it,” I say. “I do want to enjoy myself.” Damon comes around to our side of the truck and slips his arms around both of our waists. “I get to go in with two hot chicks on my arms.” Natalie elbows him with a pretend resentful smirk. “Shut up, baby. You’ll make me jealous.” Already she’s grinning impishly up at him. Damon lets his hand drop from her waist and he grabs a handful of her butt cheek. She makes a sickening moaning sound and reaches up on her toes to kiss him. I want to tell them to get a room, but I’d be wasting my breath. The Underground is the hottest spot just outside of downtown North Carolina, but you won’t find it listed in the phone book. Only people like us know it exists. Some guy named Rob rented out an abandoned warehouse two years ago and spent about one million of his rich daddy’s money to convert it into a secret nightclub. Two years and going strong; the place has since become a spot where local rock sex gods can live the rock n’ roll dream with screaming fans and groupies. But it’s not a trashy joint. From the outside it might look like an abandoned building in a partial ghost town, but the inside is like any upscale hard rock nightclub equipped with colorful strobe lights that shoot continuously across the space, slutty-looking waitresses and a stage big enough for two bands to play at the same time. To keep The Underground private, everybody who goes has to park elsewhere in the city and walk to it because a street lined with vehicles outside an ‘abandoned’ warehouse is a dead giveaway. We park in the back of a nearby Mickey D’s and walk about ten minutes through spooky town. Natalie moves from Damon’s right side and gets in between us, but it’s just so she can torture me before we go inside. “OK,” she says as if about to run down a list of do’s and don’ts for me, “If anybody asks, you’re single, alright?” She waves her hand at me. “None of that stuff you pulled like with that guy who was hitting on you at Office Depot.” “What was she doing at Office Depot?” Damon says, laughing. “Damon, this guy was on her,” Natalie says, totally ignoring the fact that I’m right here. “I mean like all she had to do was bat her eyes once and he would’ve bought her a car—you know what she said to him?” I roll my eyes and pull my arm out of hers. “Nat, you’re so stupid. It wasn’t like that.” “Yeah, babe,” Damon says. “If the guy works at Office Depot he’s not going to be buying anybody any cars.” Natalie smacks him across the shoulder playfully. “I didn’t say he worked there—anyway, the guy looked like the lovechild of … Adam Levine and …” she twirls her fingers around above her head to let another famous example materialize on her tongue, “… Jensen Ackles, and Miss Prudeness here told him she was a lesbian when he asked for her number.” “Oh shut up, Nat!” I say, irritated at her serious over-exaggeration illness. “He did not look like either one of those guys. He was just a regular guy who didn’t happen to be fugly.” She waves me away and turns back to Damon. “Whatever. The point is that she’ll lie to keep them away. I don’t doubt for a second that she’d go as far as to tell a guy she has Chlamydia and an out of control case of crabs.” Damon laughs. I stop on the dark sidewalk and cross my arms over my chest, chewing on the inside of my bottom lip in agitation. Natalie, realizing I’m not walking beside her anymore runs back towards me. “OK! OK! Look, I just don’t want you to ruin it for yourself, that’s all. I’m just asking that if someone—who isn’t a total hunchback—hits on you that you not immediately push him away. Nothing wrong with talking and getting to know one another. I’m not asking you to go home with him.” I’m already hating her for this. She swore! Damon comes up behind her and wraps his hands around her waist, nuzzling his mouth into her squirming neck. “Maybe you should just let her do what she wants, babe. Stop being so pushy.” “Thank you, Damon,” I say with a quick nod. He winks at me. Natalie purses her lips and says, “You’re right,” and then puts up her hands, “I won’t say anything else. I swear.” Yeah, I have heard that before … “Good,” I say and we all start walking again. Already these boots are killing my feet. The ogre at the warehouse entrance inspects us at the door with his huge arms crossed in front. He holds out his hand. Natalie’s face twists into an offended knot. “What? Is Rob charging now?” Damon reaches into his back pocket and pulls out his wallet, fingering the bills inside. “Twenty bucks a pop,” the ogre says with a grunt. “Twenty? Are you fucking kidding me?!” Natalie shrieks. Damon gently pushes her aside and slaps three twenty dollar bills into the ogre’s hand. The ogre shoves the money into his pocket and moves to let us pass. I go first and Damon puts his hand on Natalie’s lower back to guide her in front of him. She sneers at the ogre as she passes by. “Probably going to keep it for himself,” she says. “I’m going to ask Rob about this.” “Come on,” Damon says and we slip past the door and down one lengthy, dreary hallway with a single flickering florescent light until we make it to the industrial elevator at the end. The metal jolts as the cage door closes behind us and we’re rather noisily riding to the basement floor many feet below. It’s just one floor down, but the elevator rattles so much I feel like it’s going to snap any second and send us plunging to our deaths. Loud, booming drums and the shouting of drunk college students and probably a lot of drop-outs funnels through the basement floor and into the cage elevator, louder every inch we descend into the bowels of The Underground. The elevator rumbles to a halt and another ogre opens the cage door to let us out. Natalie stumbles into me from behind. “Hurry up!” she says, pushing me playfully in the back. “I think that’s Four Collision playing!” Her voice rises over the music as we make our way into the main room. Natalie takes Damon by the hand and then tries to grab mine, but I know what she has in store and I’m not going into a throng of bouncing, sweaty bodies wearing these stupid boots. “Oh, come on!” she urges, practically begging. Then an aggravated line deepens around her nose and she thrusts my hand into hers and pulls me towards her. “Stop being a baby! If anybody knocks you over, I’ll personally kick their ass, alright?” Damon is grinning at me from the side. “Fine!” I say and head out with them, Natalie practically pulling my fingers out of the sockets. We hit the dance floor and after a while of Natalie doing what any best friend would do by grinding against me to make me feel included, she eases her way into Damon’s world only. She might as well be having sex with him right there in front of everybody, but no one notices. I only notice because I’m probably the only girl in the entire place without a date doing the same thing. I take advantage of the opportunity and slip my way off the dance floor and head to the bar. “What can I getcha?” the tall blond guy behind the bar says as I push myself up on my toes and take an empty barstool. “Rum and Coke.” He goes to make my drink. “Hard stuff, huh?” he says, filling the glass with ice. “Going to show me your ID?” He grins. I purse my lips at him. “Yeah, I’ll show you my ID when you show me your liquor license.” I grin right back at him and he smiles. He finishes mixing the drink and slides it over to me. “I don’t really drink much anyway,” I say, taking a little sip from the straw. “Much?” “Yeah, well, tonight I think I’ll need a buzz.” I set the glass down and finger the lime on the rim. “Why’s that?” he asks, wiping the bar top down with a paper towel. “Wait a second,” I hold up one finger, “before you get the wrong idea, I’m not here to spill my guts to you—bartender-customer therapy.” Natalie is all the therapy I can handle. He laughs. “Well that’s good to know because I’m not the advice type.” I take another small sip, leaning over this time instead of lifting the glass from the bar; my loose hair falls all around my face. I rise back up and tuck one side behind my ear. I really hate wearing my hair down; it’s more trouble than it’s worth. “Well, if you must know,” I say looking right at him, “I was dragged here by my relentless best friend who would probably do something embarrassing to me in my sleep and take a blackmail pic if I didn’t come.” “Ah, one of those,” he says, laying his arms across the bar top and folding his hands together. “I had a friend like that once. Six months after my fianc?e skipped out on me, he dragged me to a nightclub just outside of Baltimore—I just wanted to sit at home and sulk in my misery, but turns out that night out was exactly what I needed.” Oh great, this guy thinks he knows me already, or, at least my ‘situation’. But he doesn’t know anything about my situation. Maybe he has the bad ex thing down—because we all have that eventually—but the rest of it, my parents’ divorce, my older brother, Cole, going to jail, the death of the love of my life … I’m not about to tell this guy anything. The moment you tell someone else is the moment you become a whiner and the world’s smallest violin starts to play. The truth is, we all have problems; we all go through hardships and pain, and my pain is paradise compared to a lot of people’s and I really have no right to whine at all. “I thought you weren’t the advice type?” I smile sweetly. He leans away from the bar and says, “I’m not, but if you’re getting something out of my story then be grateful.” I smirk and take a fake sip this time. I don’t really want a buzz and I definitely don’t want to get drunk, especially since I have a feeling I’m going to be the one driving us home again. Trying to take the spotlight off me, I prop one elbow on the bar and rest my chin on my knuckles and say, “So then what happened that night?” The left side of his mouth lifts into a grin and he says, shaking his blond head, “I got laid for the first time since she left me and I remembered how good it felt to be unchained from one person.” I didn’t expect that kind of answer. Most guys I know would’ve lied about their relationship phobia, especially if they were hitting on me. I kind of like this guy. Just as a guy, of course; I’m not about to, as Natalie might say, bend over for him. “I see,” I say, trying to hold in the true measure of my smile. “Well, at least you’re honest.” “No other way to be,” he says as he reaches for an empty glass and starts to make a Rum and Coke for himself. “I’ve found that most girls are as afraid of commitment as guys are these days and if you’re up front in the beginning, you’re more likely to come out of the one-nighter unscathed.” I nod, fitting my fingertips around my straw. There’s no way I’d openly admit it to him, but I completely agree with him and even find it refreshing. I’ve never really given it that much thought before, but as much as I don’t want a relationship within one hundred feet of me, I am still human and I wouldn’t mind a one-night stand. Just not with him. Or anyone in this place. OK, so maybe I’m too chicken for a one-night stand and this drink has already started going straight to my head. Truth is, I’ve never done anything like that before and even though the thought is kind of exciting, it still scares the shit out of me. I’ve only ever been with two guys: Ian Walsh, my first love who took my virginity and died in a car accident three months later, and then Christian Deering, my Ian rebound guy and the jerk who cheated on me with some red-haired slut. I’m just glad I never said that poisonous three-word phrase that begins with ‘I’ and ends with ‘you’, back to him, because I had a feeling, deep down, that when he said it to me, he didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. Then again, maybe he did and that’s why after five months of dating, he hooked up with someone else: because I never said it back. I look up at the bartender to notice he’s smiling back at me, waiting patiently for me to say something. This guy’s good; either that, or he really is just trying to be friendly. I admit, he’s cute; can’t be older than twenty-five and has soft brown eyes that smile before his lips do. I notice how toned his biceps and chest are underneath that tight-fitting t-shirt. And he’s tanned; definitely a guy who has lived most of his life near an ocean somewhere. I stop looking when I notice my mind wandering, thinking about how he looks in swim shorts and no shirt. “I’m Blake,” he says. “I’m Rob’s brother.” Rob? Oh yeah, the guy who owns The Underground. I reach out my hand and Blake gently shakes it. “Camryn.” I hear Natalie’s voice over the music before I even see her. She makes her way through a cluster of people standing around near the dance floor and pushes her way past to get to me. Immediately, she takes note of Blake and her eyes start glistening, lighting up with her huge, blatant smile. Damon, following behind her with her hand still clasped in his, notices, too, but he just locks emotionless eyes with me. I get the strangest feeling from it, but I brush it off as Natalie presses her shoulder into mine. “What are you doing over here?” she asks with obvious accusation in her voice. She’s grinning from ear to ear and glances between Blake and me several times before giving me all of her attention. “Having a drink,” I say. “Did you come over here to get one for yourself, or to check up on me?” “Both!” she says, letting Damon’s hand fall away from hers and she reaches up and taps her fingers on the bar, smiling at Blake. “Anything with Vodka.” Blake nods and looks at Damon. “I’ll have Rum and Coke,” Damon says. Natalie presses her lips against the side of my head and I feel the heat of her breath on my ear when she whispers, “Holy shit, Cam! Do you know who that is?” I notice Blake’s mouth spread subtly into a smile, having heard her. Feeling my face get hot with embarrassment, I whisper back, “Yeah, his name is Blake.” “That’s Rob’s brother!” she hisses; her gaze falls back on him. I look up at Damon, hoping he’ll get the hint and drag her off somewhere, but this time he pretends not to ‘get it’. Where is the Damon I know, the one who used to have my back when it came to Natalie? Uh oh, he must be pissed at her again. He only ever acts like this when Natalie has opened her big mouth, or done something that Damon just can’t get past. We’ve only been here for about thirty minutes. What could she have done in such a short time? And then I realize: this is Natalie and if anyone can piss off a boyfriend in under an hour and without knowing it, it’s her. I slip off the barstool and take her by the arm, pulling her away from the bar. Damon, probably knowing what my plan is, stays behind with Blake. The music seems to have gotten louder as the live band ends one song and starts the next. “What did you do?” I demand, turning her around to face me. “What do you mean what did I do?” She’s hardly even paying attention to me; her body moves subtly with the music instead. “Nat, I’m serious.” Finally, she stops and looks right at me, searching my face for answers. “To piss Damon off?” I say. “He was fine when we came in here.” She looks across the space briefly at Damon standing by the bar, sipping his drink, and then back at me with a confused look on her face. “I didn’t do anything … I don’t think.” She looks up as if in thought, trying to recall what she might have said or done. She puts her hands on her hips. “What makes you think he’s pissed?” “He’s got that look,” I say, glancing back at him and Blake, “and I hate it when you two fight, especially when I’m stuck with you for the night and have to listen to you both go back and forth about stupid shit that happened a year ago.” Natalie’s confused expression turns into a devious smile. “Well, I think you’re paranoid and maybe trying to distract me from saying anything about you and Blake.” She’s getting that playful look now and I hate it. I roll my eyes. “There is no ‘me and Blake’, we’re just talking.” “Talking is the first step. Smiling at him—” her grin deepens, “which I totally saw you doing when I walked up—is the next step.” She crosses her arms and pops out her hip. “I bet you’ve already had a conversation with him without him having to pry the answers out of you—Hell, you already know his name.” “For someone who wants me to have a good time and meet a guy, you don’t know when to shut up when things already appear to be going your way.” Natalie lets the music dictate her movement again, raising her hands up a little above her and moving her hips around seductively. I just stand here. “Nothing’s going to happen,” I say sternly. “You got what you wanted and I’m talking to someone and have no intention in telling him I have Chlamydia, so please, don’t make a scene.” She gives in with a long, deep sigh and stops dancing long enough to say, “I guess you’re right. I’ll leave you to him, but if he takes you up to Rob’s Floor, I want details.” She points her finger at me firmly, one eye slanted and her lips pursed. “Fine,” I say, just to get her off my back, “but don’t hold your breath because it’s not gonna happen.” Three (#ulink_8b9f0d00-b4b6-56ce-8414-649d0bac9cf1) An hour and two drinks later, I’m on ‘Rob’s Floor’ of the building with Blake. I’m just a little buzzed, walking and seeing perfectly straight, so I know I’m not drunk. But I’m a little too happy and that bothers me a bit. When Blake suggested we ‘get away from the noise for a while’, my warning sirens were going off like crazy inside my head: Don’t you go off by yourself at a nightclub after a couple of drinks with this guy you don’t know. Don’t do it, Cam. You’re not a stupid girl, so don’t let the alcohol make you stupid. All of these things screamed at me. And I listened until at some point, Blake’s infectious smile and the way he made me feel completely at ease calmed the voices and the sirens down so much that I couldn’t hear them anymore. “This is what they call Rob’s Floor?” I ask, looking out over the cityscape from the roof of the warehouse. All of the buildings in the city are lit up brilliantly with glowing blue and white and green lights. The streets appear bathed in an orangish hue pouring down from the hundreds of street lamps. “What did you expect?” he says, taking my hand and I inwardly flinch at the gesture but accept it. “A posh sex room with mirrors on the ceiling?” Wait a second … that’s exactly what I thought—well, in a roundabout way—but then why in the hell did I come up here with him? OK, now I’m panicking a little. I think maybe I am slightly drunk after all, otherwise my judgment would not be this far off. And it freaks me out and almost completely sobers me up to think that I would ever be up for any kind of ‘sex room’ even in a drunken state. Is the alcohol really just making me stupid, or is it bringing out something inside me that I don’t want to believe is there? I glance over at the metal door set in the brick wall and notice a light shining through it and the doorjamb. He left it open; that’s a good sign. He walks with me to a wooden picnic table and nervously I sit down next to him on top of it. The wind brushes through my hair, pulling a few strands into my mouth. I reach up and tuck my finger behind them and pull the strands away. “Good thing it was me,” he says, looking out at the city with his hands draped between his knees; his feet are propped on the bench seat below. I pull my legs up and sit Indian-style, folding my hands in my lap. I look over at him questioningly. He smiles. “Good thing it was me who brought you up here,” he clarifies. “A beautiful girl like you down there with all of those guys.” He turns his head to look right at me; his brown eyes appear faintly luminescent in the dark. “If I had been someone else, you might’ve been the rape victim of your very own Lifetime movie.” I’m completely sober now. Just like that, in two seconds flat, it’s as though I never drank a thing. My back shoots straight up rigidly and I suck in a deep, nervous breath. What the fuck was I thinking?! “It’s alright,” he says, smiling softly and putting up both hands, palms facing outward in front of him, “I would never do anything to a girl that she didn’t want, or anything to one who’s had a few drinks and just thinks it’s what she wants.” I think I just dodged a very deadly bullet. My shoulders relax somewhat and I feel like I can breathe again. I mean sure, he could just be filling my head full of more bullshit to make me trust him, but my instincts are telling me that he’s perfectly harmless. Keep my guard up and be careful while I’m alone up here with him, but at least I can relax. I think if he intended to take advantage of me, he wouldn’t have announced the danger of the possibility like that. I laugh a little under my breath, thinking about something he said. “What’s so funny?” He looks across at me, smiling and waiting. “Your Lifetime movie reference,” I say, feeling my lips shape in a faint, embarrassed smile. “You watch that stuff?” He looks away, sharing my embarrassment for him. “Nah,” he says, “I think it’s just common knowledge comparison.” “Really?” I taunt him. “I don’t know; you’re the first guy I’ve ever heard use ‘Lifetime movie’ in a sentence.” He’s blushing now and I’m kicking myself for being so happy to see it. “Well, just don’t tell anybody, alright?” He gives me his best pouty face. I smile back at him and then look out at the city lights, hoping to deter any hopeful expectations he might have developed over the course of our brief, playful exchange. I don’t care how nice or charming or sexy he is, I’m not caving to him. I’m just not ready for anything other than what we’re doing right now: having an innocent, friendly conversation with no sexual or relationship strings attached. It’s so damn hard to have that with any guy because they always seem to think that a simple smile means something more than it is. “So tell me,” he says, “why are you here alone?” “Oh, no …” I shake my smiling head and my finger at him, “… let’s not go there.” “Come on, throw me a bone here. It’s just conversation.” He turns fully around at the waist to face me and rests one leg on the tabletop. “I genuinely want to know. It’s not a tactic.” “A tactic?” “Yeah, like digging around inside your problems to find something to pretend I care about just so I can get in your panties—if I wanted in your panties, I’d come out and tell you.” “Oh, so you don’t want in my panties?” I look at him in a half-smiling sidelong glance. A little defeated, but not deterred by it, he softens his face and says, “Eventually, yeah. I’d be fucking mental to not want to sleep with you, but if that’s all I wanted from you and that’s what I brought you up here for, I would’ve told you before you agreed to come up here.” I appreciate the honesty and definitely have more respect for him, but my smile sort of locked up when he said something about ‘if that’s all’ he wanted from me. What else could he want from me? A date, which could lead to a relationship? Ummm, no. “Look,” I say, backing off a little and letting him know it, “I’m not looking for either, just so you know.” “Either of what?” And then he realizes ‘what’ a second later. He smiles and shakes his head. “It’s alright. I’m with you on that one—I really did just bring you up here for the conversation, as hard as that may be to believe.” Something tells me that if I wanted either, sex or a date, or both, that Blake would give it to me, but he’s smoothly backing off without making himself look rejected. “To answer your question,” I say, giving in to him for conversation’s sake, “I’m single because I had a few bad experiences and right now I’m just not looking for any do-overs.” Blake nods. “I hear yah.” He looks away from my eyes and the breeze catches his blond hair, pushing his semi-long bangs away from his forehead. “Do-overs generally suck, at least in the beginning. The learning process in itself is a nightmare. When you’re with someone for so long you get used to them, y’know? It’s a comfort-zone thing. When we get settled in our comfort zone, trying to pull us out of it, even if everything about it is hell and unhealthy, is like trying to pull a fat ass couch potato out of his living room long enough to get a life.” Maybe realizing he was getting too deep with me too soon, Blake lightens the mood by adding, “Took me three months with Jen before I was comfortable taking a shit with her in the house.” I laugh out loud and when I’m brave enough to look back at him, I see that he’s smiling. I’m starting to get the feeling he’s not over his ex-fianc?e as much he’s trying to make himself believe. “My boyfriend died,” I blurt out, suddenly. “Car accident.” Blake’s face falls and he looks right at me, his eyes full of remorse. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—” I put up my hand. “No, it’s perfectly alright; you didn’t do anything.” After he nods subtly and waits for me to go on, I say, “It was a week before graduation.” He places his hand on my knee, but I know it’s not for anything other than to comfort me. I start to tell him what happened when I hear a loud smack! and Blake falls off the tabletop and hits the roof floor. It happened so fast I never saw Damon rushing him from the side, or heard when he burst through the metal door several feet away. “Damon!” I shriek as he tackles Blake before he can get up and starts pummeling his face with his fists. “STOP! DAMON! OH MY GOD!” Another series of punches rain down on Blake before the shock wears off me and I run over and try pulling Damon off of him. I lunge on Damon’s back, grabbing his flailing arms by the wrists, but he’s so focused on beating the shit out of Blake that I feel like I’m on the back of one of those mechanical bulls. I’m thrown off and land hard on the concrete on my butt and hands. Blake finally gets up after serving one good punch at the side of Damon’s face. “What the fuck is your problem, man?!” Blake says, stumbling to his feet. One hand never leaves his jaw where he continuously rubs it as if trying to pop it back into place. His nose is bleeding from both nostrils and his upper lip is busted and swollen. All of the blood looks black in the darkness. “You know what the fuck!” Damon roars and goes to attack him again, but I rush over and do what I can to hold him back. I step around in front of him and shove the palms of my hands against his rock-hard chest. “Just stop it, Damon! We were just talking! What the hell is wrong with you?” I’m yelling so loud already my voice feels strained. I turn at the waist, keeping my hands firmly on Damon’s chest and I look right at Blake. “I’m so sorry, Blake, I-I—” “Don’t worry about it,” he says with a hard, rebuffed expression. “I’m outta here.” He turns and walks away through the metal door. A vociferous bang! resounds through the air as it slams behind him. I whirl back around at Damon with fire in my eyes and I push him as hard as I can in the chest. “You asshole! I can’t believe you did that!” I’m screaming three inches from his face. Damon’s lip furrows and he’s still breathing hard from the fight. His dark eyes are wide and unfettered and sort of feral. A part of me feels suspicious of him, but the part of me that has known him for twelve years cancels the suspicion out. “What are you doing leaving with some guy you just fucking met? I thought you were smarter than that, Cam, even buzzed out of your mind!” “Are you calling me stupid? We were just talking! I’m perfectly capable of recognizing the assholes from the nice guys and right about now I’m seeing a total fucking asshole!” He appears to grit his teeth behind his tightly-closed lips. “Call me what you want, but I was just protecting you.” He says it surprisingly calm. “From what?” I shout. “Bad conversation? A guy who genuinely just wanted to talk?” Damon smirks. “No guy just wants to talk,” he says as if he’s an expert. “No guy is going to lead a girl that looks like you out alone on the top of a goddamned warehouse building just to talk. Ten more minutes and he would’ve thrown your little ass on top of that table and had his way with you. No one can hear you scream out here, Cam.” I swallow down a lump in my throat, but another one forms in its place. Maybe Damon’s right. Maybe I was so blinded by Blake’s sincere and privately wounded personality that I completely fell for a tactic I never contemplated … No, I don’t believe it. He would’ve thrown me on the picnic table if I asked him to, but my heart tells me he wouldn’t have otherwise. I turn my back on Damon, not wanting him to see anything left in my face that might give away that for a second I actually believed him. “Cam, look at me please.” I wait a few defiant seconds before turning around with my arms still crossed. Damon peers in at me with a softer gaze than before. “I’m sorry, I just …” he sighs and looks off to the side now as though what he’s about to say he can’t while looking right at me, “… Camryn, I can’t stand the thought of you with some other guy.” I feel like someone just punched me in the gut. I even let out a weird yelping sound from my throat and my eyes grow wide. I glance nervously toward the metal door and then back at him. “Where’s Natalie?” I have to drive this topic completely off this roof. What the hell did he just say? No, he can’t mean what it sounded like. I must’ve heard him wrong. Yeah, my buzz is back and I’m not thinking straight. He steps up closer to me and cups my elbows in his hands. Instantly, I feel the need to back away from him, but I’m frozen in the same spot, barely able to move anything other than my eyes. “I mean it,” he says, lowering his voice to a desperate whisper. “I’ve wanted you since seventh grade.” There’s that punch to the gut again. Finally, I manage to back away from him. “No. No.” I shake my head back and forth, trying to make sense of this. “Are you drunk, Damon? Or strung out? Something’s wrong with you.” My arms come uncrossed and I put up my hands. “We need to go find Natalie. I won’t say anything to her about what you said because you won’t remember it in the morning, but we really do need to go. Now.” I start to walk toward the now closed metal door, but feel Damon’s hand collapse around my bicep and he turns me around. My breath catches and that suspicious feeling I had about him earlier comes back full-force, completely reversing the years I’ve known him and have trusted him. He glares at me with eyes more feral than before, but manages to retain a sort of eerie softness in them, too. “I’m not drunk and I haven’t done any coke since last week.” The fact that he does coke at all is more than enough to make it impossible to ever be attracted to him, but he’s always been one of my closest friends and so I’ve always overlooked his drug use. But he’s telling the truth right now and being such a close friend for so long is what allows me to know this. For the first time, I wish he was strung out because then we really could forget this ever happened. I look down at his fingers clamped around my arm and finally notice how much pressure he’s applying and it scares me. “Let go of my arm, Damon, please.” Instead of loosening, I feel his fingers tighten and I try to pull away. He jerks me towards him and before I can react, he crushes his mouth over mine, his free hand wraps around the back of my neck forcing my head still. He tries to stick his tongue in my mouth, but I manage to rear my head back just enough to butt my forehead into his. It stuns him—and me—and instinctively he lets go of my body. “Cam! Wait!” I hear him yelling out to me as I run away and throw open the metal door. I hear his fierce footsteps moving after mine as he races down the loud metal stairs behind me, but I lose him once I make it back into the cage elevator, slam the fence gate closed and pound hard once on the MAIN button. The same ogre who let us in the club is standing at the door when I rush past him, having to partially shove him out of my way to get outside. “Take it easy, babe!” he shouts as I run down the sidewalk and away from the warehouse. I walk as far as the Shell station and call a cab to pick me up. Four (#ulink_b0cc82ae-243f-52ac-aa0c-9542e32a773a) My cell phone wakes me up the next morning. I hear it buzzing around on the nightstand beside my head. NATALIE reads in bold letters across the screen and her wide-eyed, toothy smiling face is staring back at me. Seeing her face wakes me the rest of the way up and I rise up stiffly from the bed and just hold the phone in my hand, letting it buzz against my palm for a few seconds more before finally getting the courage to hit the answer button. “Where did you go?” her voice shrieks into my ear. “Oh my God, Cam, you just disappeared and I was freaking out and Damon was missing for a short while and then he showed back up and I saw Blake leaving at one point with blood all over his damn face and then I really started to see what you were talking about when you said that Damon was pissed—” She finally breathes. “And I kept asking him what I did or said or if it was because of last week at the restaurant, but he just ignored me and said it’s time to go and I—” “Natalie,” I cut in, my head spinning with her run-on sentences, “just calm down for a second, alright?” I toss the blanket off me and get out of the bed with the phone still pressed to my ear. I know that I have to do this, to tell her what Damon did. I have to. Not only would she never forgive me later when she found out, but I would never forgive myself. If the tables were turned I would want her to tell me. But not over the phone. This is a mandatory face-to-face discussion. “Can you meet me for coffee in an hour?” Silence. “Uhh, yeah, sure. Are you sure you’re alright? I was so worried. I thought you got kidnapped or something.” “Natalie, yes, I’m …” I’m totally not fine. “Yes, I’m fine, OK. Just meet me in an hour and please come alone.” “Damon’s passed out at his house,” she says and I detect the grin in her voice. “Girl, he did things to me last night I never knew he could do.” I shudder at her words. They’re like screaming entities blaring at me on the other end of the phone but I have to pretend they’re just words. “I mean I couldn’t even think about sex until I knew you were OK. You wouldn’t answer your cell so I called your mom at like three and she said you were asleep in your bed. I was still so worried because you just left and—” “One hour,” I interrupt before she goes off on another tangent. We hang up and the first thing I do is look at the missed calls on my phone. Six were from Natalie, but the other nine were from Damon. The only voicemails though were left by Natalie. I guess Damon didn’t want to leave any incriminating evidence behind. Not that I need evidence. Natalie and I have been best friends since the bitch stole my Corduroy Cool Barbie Doll at a sleepover. I’m fidgeting by the time she shows up and have drunk down over half of my latte. She plops down on the empty chair. I wish she wasn’t smiling so much; it’s only making it that much harder. “You look like hell, Cam.” “I know.” She blinks, stunned. “What? No sarcastic ‘thanks’ followed by your famous rolling eyes?” Please stop smiling, Nat. Please, just take my strange UNsmiling behavior serious for once and look at me with a serious face. Of course, she doesn’t. “Look, I’m just going to cut right to it, OK?” There it is: finally the smile starts to fade. I swallow and take a deep breath. God, I can’t believe this happened! “Cam, what’s going on?” She senses the severe measure of what I’m about to tell her and I can see in her brown eyes how already she’s trying to figure out if this is something she wants to hear, or not. I think she knows it has something to do with Damon. I see the lump move down the center of her throat. “Last night, I was out on the roof with Blake—” Her worried face is suddenly assaulted by smiles. It’s as if she’s grabbing a hold of the opportunity to mask the inevitable news with something she can joke around about. But I stop her before she has a chance to comment. “Just listen to me for a minute, OK?” Finally, I’ve reached her. The natural playful spirit that always exudes from her face drains right out of her. I go on: “Damon thought Blake took me out on the roof to have his way with me. He stormed out and blew up on Blake; beat the shit out of him. Blake left understandably pissed off and then it was just me and Damon. Alone.” Natalie’s eyes are already giving away her fears. It’s like she knows what I’m going to say and she’s starting to quietly hate me for it. “Damon forced himself on me, Nat.” Her eyes grow narrower. “He kissed me and tried to tell me he’s had a thing for me since seventh grade.” I can tell her heartbeat has sped up just by how heavy her short breaths have become. “I wanted to tell you—” “You’re a lying bitch.” I feel punched in the gut again, except this time it completely knocks the breath out of me. Natalie shoots up from the chair, shoulders her purse and glares down at me through ravenous dark eyes framed by equally dark hair. I still can’t move, stunned by what she said to me. “You’ve wanted Damon since I started dating him,” she hisses down at me. “You don’t think I’ve seen it all these years, the way you look at him?” Her mouth stretches into a hard line. “Shit, Camryn, you’re always taking up for him, bitchin’ at me when I joke around about other guys.” She starts motioning her hands out in front of her and imitating me in an exaggerated, nasally voice: “You’ve got a boyfriend, Nat—Don’t forget about Damon, Nat—You should think about Damon.” She slams her palms down on the table, causing the table to sway precariously side to side on its base before becoming still again. “Stay away from me and away from Damon.” She points her finger in my face. “Or I swear to God, I will beat you senseless.” She walks away and right out the tall double glass doors, the ringing of the little bell at the top of the door echoes around the space. Once I finally snap out of the shock, I notice about three customers watching me from their tables. Even the barista behind the counter looks away when my eyes fall on her. I just look down at the table, letting the patterns in the wood grain move around in my unfocused vision. I rest my head in my hands and sit here for the longest time. Twice I go to call her, but force myself to stop and just set the phone back on the table. How did this happen? Years of inseparable friendship—I cleaned up after the girl’s stomach bug for Christ’s sake!—and she tosses me out like moldy leftovers. She’s just hurting, I try to tell myself. She’s just in denial right now and I need to give her time to let the truth sink in. She’ll come around, she’ll dump his ass and she’ll apologize to me and drag me back to The Underground looking to find both of us new guys. But I don’t really believe anything I’m saying, or rather, the less rational, wounded part of me won’t let me see past the angry red. A customer walks by, a tall older man in a wrinkled suit, and sneaks a glance at me before walking out. I’m totally humiliated. I look up again and catch the same pairs of eyes as before looking, only to look away. I feel like I’m being pitied. And I hate being pitied. I grab my purse from the floor, stand up and throw the strap sloppily over my shoulder and storm out almost as indignantly as Natalie had. It’s been a week and I haven’t heard a word from Natalie. I did eventually break down and try to call her—several times—but her voicemail always picked up. And the last time I called, she had changed her greeting to: Hi, this is Nat. If you’re a friend—a real friend—then leave me a message and I’ll call you back, otherwise, don’t bother. I wanted to reach through the phone then and punch her in the face, but I settled with chucking it across the room. So, I stopped calling. I purposely avoided our favorite coffee shop and settled with the crap at the closest convenience store and I went two miles out of my way to go into my job interview at Dillard’s, just so I didn’t have to drive past Natalie’s apartment. I got the job. An assistant manager’s position—my mom put in a good word for me; she’s good friends with Mrs. Phillips, the lady who hired me—but I’m as excited about working at a department store as I am about drinking this craptastic coffee every morning. And it hits me as I sit at the kitchen table and watch my bleach-blonde mom sift her way through the refrigerator: I’m no longer moving out on my own and in with my best friend. I’m going to either have to find an apartment and live by myself, or be stuck here for a while longer with my mother until Natalie comes to her senses. Which might be never. Or, it might take so long that I become unforgiving and tell her to screw off when she does. The room feels like it’s swaying. “I’m going out with Roger tonight,” my mom says behind the refrigerator door. She lifts up from leaning inside and looks across at me, wearing too much eye shadow. “You met Roger, didn’t you?” “Yes, I met Roger.” Really I didn’t, or maybe I did, but I’m getting his name mixed up with the last five guys she’s gone out on a date with in the past month. She signed up to one of those weird speed-dating things. And she sure speeds right through these guys, so I guess the term is literal in her case. “He’s a nice guy. It’s my third date with him.” I squeeze out a smile. I want my mom to be happy even if it means getting remarried, which is something that scares me to death. I love my dad—I’m Daddy’s little girl—but what he did to my mom is unforgivable. Ever since the divorce four months ago, my mom has been this strange woman who I only know halfway anymore. It’s like she reached inside a drawer that has been locked for thirty years and pulled out the personality she used to wear before she met my dad and had me and my brother, Cole. Except that it doesn’t really fit anymore, but she tries her damnedest every day to wear it. “He’s already talking about taking me on a cruise.” Her face lights up just thinking about it. I close the lid on my laptop. “Don’t you think three dates is a little soon for a cruise?” She purses her lips and waves the notion away. “No baby, it’s just right. He has plenty of money so to him it’s as casual as taking me to dinner.” I just look away and nibble on the edge of the sandwich I made, though I’m not at all hungry. “Don’t forget about Saturday,” she says as she starts to load the dishwasher, which is a surprise. “Yeah, I know, Mom.” I sigh and shake my head. “Though I might take a rain check this time.” Her back straightens up and she looks right at me. “Baby, you promised you’d go,” she says desperately, tapping her nails nervously on the countertop. “You know I don’t like going inside that jail by myself.” “It’s prison, Mom.” I casually pick off a few pieces of bread crust and drop them on the plate. “And they can’t get to you; they’re all locked up, just like Cole. And it’s their own damn faults.” My mom lowers her eyes and a huge ball of burning hot guilt knots up in my stomach. I sigh deeply. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that.” I totally meant what I said, just not out loud and to her because it hurts her whenever I talk about my older brother, Cole, and his five-year sentence in prison for killing a man in a drunk-driving accident. This happened just six months after Ian died in the car accident. I feel like I’m losing everybody … I get up from the table and stand in front of the bar and she goes back to loading the dishwasher. “I’ll go with you, OK?” She pushes out a smile still masked by a thin layer of hurt, and she nods. “Thanks, baby.” I feel sorry for her. It breaks my heart that my dad cheated on her after twenty-two years of marriage. But we all saw it coming. And to think, my parents tried to keep Ian and me away from each other when I confided in my mom at sixteen, telling her that we were in love. Parents have this twisted belief that anyone under the age of about twenty simply can’t know what love is, like the age to love is assessed in the same way the law assesses the legal age to drink. They think that the ‘emotional growth’ of a teenager’s mind is too underdeveloped to understand love, to know if it’s ‘real’ or not. That’s completely asinine. The truth is that adults love in different ways, not the only way. I loved Ian in the now, the way he looked at me, how he made my stomach swim, how he held my hair when I was puking my guts up after eating a bad enchilada. That’s love. I adore my parents, but long before their divorce the last time my mom was sick, the most my dad did for her was bring up the Pepto-Bismol and ask where the remote control was on his way out. Whatever. I guess my parents really screwed me up somewhere along the line because as good as they are to me, as much as they do for me and as much as I love them, I still managed to grow up terrified I would end up just like them. Unhappy and only pretending to live out this wonderful life with two kids, a dog and a white picket fence. But in reality, I knew they slept with their backs facing each other. I knew my mom often thought about what life would’ve been like if only she had given that boy in high school who she secretly ‘loved’ another chance. (I read her old diary. I know all about him.) I know that my dad—before he cheated on Mom with her—thought a lot about Rosanne Hartman, his prom date (and first love), who still lives over on Wiltshire. If anyone’s delusional about how love works, what real love feels like, it’s the majority of the adult population. Ian and I didn’t have sex that night he took my virginity; we made love that night. I never thought I’d say those two words together: ‘make love’, because they always sounded corny, like it was an adult-only phrase. I winced when I heard someone else say it, or when that guy sang Feel Like Makin’ Love from my dad’s car stereo every morning on the classic rock station. But I can say it because that’s exactly what happened. And it was magical and wonderful and awesome and nothing will ever compare to it. Ever. I started my job as assistant manager the following Monday. I’m grateful to have a job because I don’t want to live off my dad’s money the rest of my life, but as I stood there dressed in a cute black pants suit and white button-up shirt and heels, I felt completely out of place. Not necessarily because of the clothes, but … I just don’t belong there. I can’t put my finger on it, but that Monday and the rest of that week when I woke up, got dressed and walked into that store, something was itching the back part of my consciousness. I couldn’t hear the actual words, but it felt like: This is your life, Camryn Bennett. This is your life. And I would look up at the customers walking by and all I could see was the negative: snooty noses in the air, carrying expensive purses, buying pointless products. That was when I realized that everything I did from that point on produced the same results: This is your life, Camryn Bennett. This is your life. Five (#ulink_1954c567-c206-5b7c-ba07-8d2ba077fc20) The day when everything changed was yesterday. That itch in my brain compelled me to get up. And so I did. It told me to put on my shoes, pack a small bag with a few necessities and grab my purse. And so I did. There was no logic or any sense of purpose except that I knew I had to do something other than what I was doing, or I might not make it through this. Or, I might end up like my parents. I always thought that depression was so overrated, the way people toss the word around (a lot like the L-word that I will never say to a guy again for as long as I live). I never like to see someone hurting, but I admit whenever I heard someone play the depression card, I’d roll my eyes and go about my business. Little did I know that depression is a serious disease. It’s not only about sadness. In truth, sadness really has little to do with it. Depression is pain in its purest form and I would do anything to be able to feel an emotion again. Any emotion at all. Pain hurts, but pain that’s so powerful that you can’t feel anything anymore, that’s when you start to feel like you’re going crazy. It bothers me immensely to realize that the last time I actually cried was that day at school when I found out that Ian was killed in that crash. It was in Damon’s arms that I cried. Damon, of all people. But that was the last time I ever shed a tear and that was a little over a year ago. After that, I just couldn’t anymore. Not over my parents’ divorce, or when Cole got sentenced, or when Damon showed his true colors, or when Natalie stabbed me in the back. I keep thinking that any day now I’m going to break down and bawl my eyes out with my face buried in my pillow. I should be puking from crying so much. But it never comes and I still feelnothing, except this sense of breaking free from it all. That itch, although vague and stingy, compels me to obey it. I don’t know why, I can’t explain it, but it’s there and I can’t stop myself from listening to it. I spent most of the night at the bus station, sitting there waiting for that itch to tell me what to do. And then I walked up to the counter. “Can I help you?” the woman said blankly. I thought about it for a second and said, “I’m going to see my sister in Idaho because she just had a baby.” She looked at me awkwardly, and I admit, it felt awkward. I don’t have a sister and I’ve never been to Idaho, but it was the first lie that popped into my head. And she had been eating a baked potato. It was sitting behind the counter in a buttery bowl of foil and sour cream. So, naturally Idaho was the first state I thought of. It doesn’t matter where I choose to go really, because I just don’t care. I thought, once I get to Idaho I’ll just buy another ticket to somewhere else. Maybe I’ll go to California. Or Washington. Or, maybe I’ll just head south and see what Texas is like. I always imagined it a giant landscape of dirt and roadside bars and cowboy hats. And people in Texas are supposed to be some kind of badasses, or something. Maybe they’ll stomp the crap out of me with their cowboy boots. I won’t feel it. I don’t feel anything anymore, remember? That was yesterday, when I decided to just get up and go, to break free from everything. I had always wanted to do it, to break free, but I never imagined it happening like this. Ian and I, before he died, planned our life in an unconventional way. We wanted to steer clear of anything predictable, anything that made us the same drones of society that get up at the same time every morning and duplicate yesterday. We wanted to backpack across the world—it’s why I brought it up to Natalie that day in the coffee shop. Maybe a part of me hoped she’d share the passion for the idea that Ian and I had and she’d do it with me, but like everything else, it didn’t exactly turn out like I hoped. Tennessee slips by my window in a blur. Night falls and I eventually fall asleep, too. I don’t have any dreams; haven’t had a single dream since Ian died, but it’s probably better that way. If I have dreams they might provoke emotion and I’m done with emotion. I’m starting to get used to this feeling of not caring about anything. Aside from a few shady bus station dwellers, I’m really not afraid of anything anymore. I guess when you just don’t care it kind of makes fear your bitch. I never used to curse this much, either. I ride all the way to Kansas with the double-seats to myself, finally getting to lay more horizontally across the seats instead of upright with my face pressed against the window. Everything looks the same. Between home and Missouri, it seems the only things that change are the license plates. There’s always a hitchhiker and a guy wearing a wife-beater carrying a gas can from his truck to the nearest exit where all the gas stations and fast food restaurants congregate. And there’s always, always a single shoe on the shoulder somewhere. The two hours drag by endlessly and when my next bus finally pulls into the station, I’m among the first small group of people to get up and stand in line. At least the seats on the bus have padding and I’ll be able to get somewhat comfortable again. The bus driver reaches out for my ticket and tears off his portion, handing the rest back to me. I tuck it safely down into my bag and board the bus, searching both rows of seats to find the one that feels like the one. I take a window seat near the back and instantly feel better once my body hits the comfort of the padding beneath me. I sigh and hold my bag close against my stomach, crossing my arms over it. It takes ten minutes or so for the bus driver to be satisfied that he has all of the passengers he’s supposed to have for this round. The driver goes to close the doors but then pulls back on the lever and they squeal open again. A guy gets on carrying a black duffle bag on his shoulder. Tall, stylish short brown hair and he’s wearing a tight-fitting navy tee and a sort of crooked smile that could either be genuinely kind, or something more confident. “Thanks,” he says to the driver in that laid-back way. Even though there are plenty of empty seats for him to choose from, I still make it a point to slide my bag over onto the one next to me, just in case he decides it’s the one for him. It’s not likely, I know, but I’m a just-in-case kind of girl. The doors squeal shut again as the guy walks down the aisle toward me. I look down into the magazine that I’d found inside the terminal and start reading an article about Brangelina. I sigh with relief when he passes me up and takes the pair of empty seats behind me. I doze off after staring out the window next to me for an hour. Muffled headphone music blaring right behind me wakes me up sometime after dark. At first, I just sit here, hoping maybe he’ll notice the top of my now fully awake head bobbing over the seat and decide to turn the music down. But he doesn’t. I lean up, reaching back to rub a crooked muscle in my neck from sleeping on my arm and then I turn around to look at him. Is he asleep? How can anyone actually sleep with music blasting in their ears like that? The bus is pitch dark except for a couple of dim reading lights shining down onto books and magazines from above the passengers’ seats and the little green and blue lights at the front of the bus in the driver’s dashboard. The guy sitting behind me is covered by darkness but I can see one side of his face lit up by the moonlight. I contemplate it for a second and then push myself up with my knees on the seat and I lean over the back of it, reaching out and tapping him on the leg. He doesn’t move. I tap him harder. He stirs and slowly opens his eyes, looking up at me hanging over the top of the seat. He reaches up and pulls the earbuds from out of his ears, letting the music funnel from the tiny speakers. “Mind turning it down a little?” “You could hear that?” he says. I raise a brow and say, “Uhhh, yeah, it’s pretty loud.” He shrugs and thumbs the MP3 player for the volume button and the music fades. “Thanks,” I say and slide back down in my seat. I don’t lie down across the seats in the fetal position this time, but lean against the bus and press my head back against the window. I cross my arms and close my eyes. “Hey.” My eyes pop open, but I don’t move my head. “Are you asleep yet?” I raise my head from the window and look up to see the guy hovering over me. “I literally just closed my eyes,” I say. “How can I already be asleep?” “Well, I don’t know,” he whispers. “My granddad could fall asleep in two seconds flat after closing his eyes.” “Was your granddad narcoleptic?” There’s a pause. “Not that I know of.” Wow, this is awkward. “What do you want?” I ask as quietly as he had. “Nothing,” he says grinning down at me. “Just wanted to know if you were asleep yet.” “Why?” “So I can turn the music back up.” I think about it for a second, uncross my arms and lift the rest of the way from the seat, turning at the waist so that I can see him. “You want to wait until I’m asleep to turn the music back up so that you can wake me up again?” I’m having a hard time getting this. He smiles a crooked smile. “You slept for three hours without it waking you up,” he says. “So, I’m guessing it wasn’t my music that did it, must’ve been something else.” My eyebrows draw together. “No, I’m pretty sure I know it was the music that did it.” “OK,” he says, slipping away from the seat and out of sight. I wait for a few seconds before closing my eyes in case this might get weirder and when it doesn’t, I drift back into the Land of No Dreams. Six (#ulink_c24af599-c44e-57fa-997f-796cfceff49e) The sunlight beaming in through the bus windows wakes me the next morning. I lift up to get a better view, wondering if the scenery has changed any yet, but it hasn’t. And then I notice the music blasting from the earbuds behind me. I creep up over the top of the seat, expecting to see him sound asleep, but he looks back at me with an I-told-you-so smile. I roll my eyes and sink back down, pulling my bag onto my lap and sifting through it. I’m starting to wish I’d brought something to keep my mind busy. A book. A crossword puzzle. Something. I sigh heavily and literally start fiddling my thumbs. I wonder where we are in the United States, if I’m even still in Kansas and decide that we must be because every car that passes by the bus has Kansas license plates. When I can’t find anything interesting to look at, I pay more attention to the music behind me. Is that …? You’ve got to be kidding me. Feel Like Makin’ Love comes from the guy’s earbuds; I can tell at first by the distinctive guitar riff in the solo that everyone knows even if Bad Company isn’t their kind of music. I don’t hate classic rock, but I much prefer newer stuff. Give me Muse, Pink or The Civil Wars and I’m happy. The earbuds dangling over the back of the seat and practically on my shoulder scare the crap out of me. My body jerks up and my hand flies over as if to slap away a bug that at first I think just landed on me. “What the hell?” I say, looking up at the guy as he hovers over me again. “You look bored,” he says. “You can borrow them if you want. Might not be your type of music, but hey, it’ll grow on you. I promise.” I’m looking up at him with an awfully twisted face. Is this guy serious? “Thanks, but no,” I say and go to turn around again. “Why not?” “Well, for one,” I say, “you’ve had those things stuck in your ears for the past several hours. Gross.” “And?” “What do you mean, and?” I think my face is just getting more twisted. “That’s not enough?” He smiles that crooked smile again, which in the daylight I notice produces two tiny dimples near the corners of his lips. “Well,” he says, reeling the earbuds back in, “you said ‘for one’; I just thought there might be another reason.” “Wow,” I say, flabbergasted, “you are unbelievable.” “Thanks.” He smiles and I can see all of his straight, white teeth. I definitely didn’t mean that as a compliment, but something tells me he knows as much. I go back to digging in my bag already knowing I’m not going to find anything but clothes, but it’s better than dealing with this weirdo. He plops down on the empty seat next to me, just before another passenger walks past toward the restroom. I just kind of freeze here, one hand buried inside my bag, unmoving. I may be looking right at him, but I have to let the shock wear off before I can actually figure out what kind of lecture I want to give him. The guy reaches into his own bag and pulls out a little packet containing an antibacterial wipe, rips off the top half and unfolds the towelette. He wipes each earbud down thoroughly and then reaches over to me. “Like new,” he says, waiting for me to take them. Seeing as how it actually seems like he’s trying to be nice, I let my defenses down just a little. “Really, I’m good. But thanks.” It surprises me at how fast I got over the whole sit-next-to-me-without-asking thing. “You’re probably better off anyway,” he says, putting the MP3 player in his bag. “I don’t listen to Justin Bieber or that crazy meat-wearin’ bitch, so I guess you’ll just have to do without.” OK, defenses are back up. Bring it on. I snarl over at him, crossing my arms. “First off, I don’t listen to Justin Bieber. And second, Gaga isn’t so bad. Playing the shock-value card a little too long, I admit, but I like some of her stuff.” “That’s shit music and you know it,” he replies and shakes his head. I blink twice, just because I’m at a loss and don’t know what to say. He puts his bag on the floor and leans back on the seat, propping one booted foot up on the back of the seat in front of him, but his legs are so long it looks uncomfortable to me. He’s wearing those stylish work-boot-looking things. Dr. Martens, I think. Dammit. Ian always wore those. I look away, not really in any mood to further this very strange conversation with this very strange person. He looks over at me, his head pressed comfortably against the itchy fabric behind him. “Classic rock is where it’s at,” he says matter-of-factly and then gazes out ahead. “Zeppelin, the Stones, Journey, Foreigner.” He lets his head fall to the side to look over at me again. “Any of that ringing any bells?” I scoff and roll my eyes again. “I’m not stupid,” I say, but then change my tune when I realize I can’t think of many classic rock bands and I don’t want to make myself look stupid after so eloquently saying that I’m not. “I like … Bad Company.” A little grin lifts one side of his mouth. “Name one song by Bad Company and I’ll leave you alone about it.” I’m nervous as hell now, trying to think of any song by Bad Company other than the one he had been listening to. I’m not going to look this guy in the face and say the words: I Feel Like Makin’ Love. He waits patiently, that grin of his still in-tact. “Ready For Love,” I say because it’s the only other one I can think of. “Are you?” he asks. “Huh?” A smile etches deeper into his face. “Nothing,” he says, looking away. I blush. I don’t know why and I don’t want to know why. “Look,” I say, “do you mind? I was sort of using both seats.” He smiles, this time without the smirk hiding behind his eyes. “Sure,” he says getting up. “But if you want to borrow my MP3 player, you know where it’s at.” I smile thinly, relieved more than anything that he’s going to move back to his seat without a fight. “Thanks,” I say, appreciative, nonetheless. Just before he makes it all the way back, he leans around the outside seat and says, “Where are you going, anyway?” “Idaho.” His bright green eyes seem to light up when he smiles. “Well, I’m heading to Wyoming, so looks like we’ll be sharing a few buses.” And then his smiling face disappears somewhere behind me. I won’t deny that he’s attractive. The short, tousled haircut, the toned arms and sculpted cheekbones, the dimples and how that stupid fucking grin of his makes me more willing to look at him even though I don’t want to. But the reality is that it’s not like I’m into him, or anything—he’s a random stranger on a road-to-nowhere bus. No way in hell would I ever entertain something like that. And even if he wasn’t, even if I knew him for six months, I wouldn’t go there. Not ever. Not anymore. The endless ride through Kansas seems to take longer than it should. Another hour and a half and my back and butt feel like stiff, hard pieces of meat. I’m constantly shifting on the seat, hoping to find some way to sit to relieve the tenderness, but I just end up making other parts of my body sore. I’m only starting to regret this because the bus ride sucks. I hear the bus intercom squeal once and then the driver’s voice: “We’ll be stopping for a break in five minutes,” he says. “You will have fifteen minutes to grab a bite to eat before we get back on the road. Fifteen minutes. I will not wait longer, so if you’re not back in that time the bus will leave without you.” The speaker goes dead. The announcement causes everyone to stir in their seats and gather their purses and such—nothing like talk of getting to stretch your legs after hours on a bus to wake everyone up. We pull into a spacious lot where several semis are parked, and in between a convenience store, a car wash and a fast food restaurant. Passengers are standing up in the center of the aisle before the bus even comes to a stop. I’m one of them. My back hurts so bad. We file out of the bus one by one, and the second I step off I cherish the feel of concrete underfoot and the mild breeze on my face. I don’t care that this area is hick-in-the-sticks remote, or that the convenience store gas pumps are so outdated that I know the restrooms will probably be scary; I’m just glad to be anywhere but cooped-up inside that bus. I practically glide (like an ungraceful, wounded gazelle) across the blacktop parking lot and toward the restaurant. I take advantage of the restroom first and when I come back out there are several people in line in front of me. I stare up at the menu, trying to decide between a large fry or vanilla shake—never was a big eater of fast food. And finally when I walk out of the restaurant with a vanilla shake, I see the guy from the bus sitting on the grass that separates the parking lots. His knees are bent and he’s eating a burger. I don’t look at him when I start to walk past, but apparently it’s not enough to keep him from bothering me. “Eight more minutes before you have to crawl back into that tin can,” he says. “You’re really going to spend that precious time in there?” I stop next to a little tree still being held up by a stick in the ground and tied with pink fabric. “It’s just eight minutes,” I say. “Won’t make that much of a difference.” He takes a huge bite of his burger, chews and swallows it down. “Imagine if you were buried alive,” he says and takes a drink of soda. “You wouldn’t have much time before you suffocated to death. If only they’d gotten to you eight minutes earlier, hell, even one minute, you’d still be alive.” “OK, I get it,” I say. “I’m not contagious,” he says and then takes another bite. I guess I have been sort of a bitch. I mean, in a way he kind of deserved it, but he’s really not being obnoxious or anything, so there’s no reason to keep the defenses all the way up. I’d rather not make any enemies on this trip if I can help it. “Whatever,” I say and take a seat on the grass a couple of feet in front of him. “So why Idaho?” he asks, though he looks at his food and all around him more than he looks directly at me. “Going to see my sister,” I lie. “She just had a baby.” He nods and swallows. “Why Wyoming?” I ask, hoping to divert the topic from myself. “Going to visit my dad,” he says. “He’s dying. Inoperable brain tumor.” He takes another bite. It doesn’t seem like what he just told me bothers him too much. “Oh …” “Don’t worry about it,” he says, looking right at me this time for a brief moment. “We all gotta go sometime. My old man isn’t worried about it and told us not to be, either.” He smiles and looks at me again. “Actually, he told us if we do any of that cryin’ bullshit, that he’d write us out of his will.” I suck on my vanilla shake for a moment, only to be doing something to keep my mouth from having to respond to the stuff he’s saying. I’m not sure if I could anyway, really. He takes another sip. “What’s your name?” he asks, setting his drink on the grass. I wonder if I should give him my real name. “Cam,” I say, settling on the short version. “Short for what?” I didn’t expect that. I hesitate, my eyes trailing. “Camryn,” I admit. I figure with all the lies I’m going to have to keep track of, I might as well be truthful about my first name at least. It’s one less-significant piece of information I don’t have to remember to keep under wraps. “I’m Andrew. Andrew Parrish.” I nod and smile slimly, not about to tell him my last name is Bennett. He’ll have to make do with the first-name-basis only. As he finishes the last of his burger and scarfs down a few fries, I secretly study him and notice the bottom of a tattoo poking out from underneath both sleeves of his t-shirt. He can’t be older than mid-twenties, if even that. “So, how old are you?” It still felt too personal of a question. I hope he doesn’t read something in it that’s not there. “Twenty-five,” he says. “What about you?” “Twenty.” He glances at me ponderingly, pauses and then subtly purses his lips. “Well, it’s good to meet you, twenty-year-old Cam short for Camryn heading to Idaho to see her sister who just had a baby.” My lips smile, but my face doesn’t. It’ll take a while before any of my smiles directed at him can be genuine. Genuine smiles can sometimes give the wrong impression. At least this way, I can be civil and kind, but not the civil kind who after a few big smiles ends up in a trunk with their throat slit. “So, are you from Wyoming?” I ask and take another sip of my shake. He nods once. “Yeah, was born there, but parents divorced when I was six and we moved to Texas.” Texas. How funny. Maybe all of my crap-talk about their cowboy boots and reputation is finally catching up to me. And he doesn’t look like he’s from Texas, at least, not the stereotypical way that most people assume everyone from Texas looks like. “That’s where I’ll be headin’ back to after visiting my dad—what about you?” OK, to lie or not to lie? Oh screw it. It’s not like he’s a private investigator sent by my dad to get information. As long as I steer clear of #1, my last name, and #2, any addresses or phone numbers that might lead him back to my house in the event that I ever go back home, and then end up in his trunk with my throat slit. I think telling mostly the truth will be a lot easier than trying to conjure up a fitting lie for just about every question that he asks me and then having to remember all of them later. This is going to be a long bus ride, after all, and just like he said, we’ve got several buses to share before we part ways. “North Carolina,” I say. He looks me over. “Well, you don’t look like you’re from North Carolina.” Huh? OK, that was really weird. “Well, what’s a girl from North Carolina supposed to look like?” “You’re very literal,” he says, grinning. “And you’re sort of confusing.” “Nah,” he says with a harmless, humorous snarl, “just outspoken and sometimes people can’t deal with that kind of shit. It’s like, you ask that guy over there if your ass looks big in those jeans and he’ll tell you, no. You ask me, and I’ll tell you the truth—anything out of people’s usual expectations throws them off track.” “Really?” I’m not any closer to understanding this guy’s personality than I was before I knew his name. I just continue to look at him like he’s sort of nuts and I’m sort of intrigued by it. “Really,” he answers matter-of-factly. I wait for him to elaborate, but he doesn’t. “You are very strange,” I say. “Well, aren’t you going to ask?” “Ask what?” He laughs. “If I think your ass looks big in those jeans.” I feel my face crinkle. “I’d really rather not … I uhhh—” Screw this times two. If he’s going to play games, I’m not going to sit back and let him win all the hands. I smirk at him and say, “I know my ass doesn’t look big in these jeans, so I don’t really need your opinion.” A devilishly handsome grin sneaks up at the corners of his mouth. He takes another drink from his soda and goes to his feet, offering his hand. “Looks like our eight minutes are up.” Maybe it’s because I’m still completely confused by this entire exchange, but I accept his hand and he pulls me to my feet. “See,” he says looking over at me once and letting my hand go, “look how much we learned about each other in just eight minutes, Camryn.” I walk beside him, but still keep a little distance. I’m not sure yet if his crafty comebacks and that confident air about him annoys me, or if I’m finding it more refreshing than my brain wants to admit. Everyone on the bus gets their usual seats. I had left the magazine I took from the last terminal sitting on mine, hoping no one would come behind me and claim it. Andrew also got his usual pair of seats behind me. I’m glad he didn’t take my willingness to actually hold a conversation with him as the OK to plop himself back on the seat next to me. Hours pass and we don’t talk. I think a lot about Natalie and Ian. “Goodnight, Camryn,” I hear Andrew say from his seat behind me. “Maybe tomorrow you’ll tell me who Nat is.” I rise up quickly and lean over the top of the seat. “What are you talking about?” “Calm down, girl,” he says, lifting his head from his bag he pushed up against the bus to use as a pillow. “You talk in your sleep.” He laughs quietly. “Heard you bitchin’ at someone named Nat last night—something about Biosilk, or some shit like that.” I notice his shoulders shrug even though he’s lying down with his legs stretched across the empty seat, his arms crossed over his chest. Great. I talk in my sleep. Just perfect. I wonder why my mom never told me. Briefly, I think about what I could’ve been dreaming about and realize that maybe I have been dreaming after all, and I just don’t remember anymore. “Goodnight, Andrew,” I say and slip back down into my own attempt at a comfortable position. I give a quick moment’s thought to the way I just saw Andrew, who actually looked pretty comfortable and I decide to try laying down the way he is. I thought about trying to sleep like that a few times, but I never wanted to be rude by letting my feet stick out into the aisle. No one’s going to care, I guess, and so I ball my bag packed with clothes up and position it behind my head, laying my body out over both seats just like Andrew. I’m already comfortable. I wish I’d done this a long time ago. The bus driver announcing that we’ll be arriving in Garden City in ten minutes wakes me up the next morning. “Be sure to gather all of your belongings,” the driver says through his intercom, “and don’t leave trash on the seats. Thank you for riding through the great state of Kansas and I hope to see you again sometime.” It sounded totally scripted and deadpan, but then I guess I probably would sound like that too, having to say the same thing to passengers every single day. I lift up the rest of the way, pulling my bag from the seat and unzipping it to fish around for my bus ticket. I find it crumpled between a pair of jeans and my vintage-style Smurfs babydoll tee, unfold it and peer down into my next stop. Looks like Denver is about six and a half hours away, with two rest stops in between. Damn, why did I choose Idaho? Really. Of all the places on the map, I chose mine based on a baked potato. I’m riding all this way and don’t even have anything to look forward to once I get there. Except more riding. Hell, I may just go ahead and use my credit card and buy a plane ticket home. No, I’m not ready for that yet. I don’t know why, but I know I can’t go back there yet. I just can’t. Surprised that Andrew has been so quiet, I find myself trying to see if I can glimpse him through the tiny space between my seats, but I can’t see anything at all. “Are you up?” I ask, lifting my chin so maybe he’ll hear me back there. He doesn’t answer and I lift up to see. Of course, he’s plugged in at the moment. I’m a little shocked I can’t hear the music funneling from the earbuds this time. Andrew notices me and smiles, raising his hand and shaking his index finger as if to say good morning. I motion a finger too, toward the front of the bus to let him know there’s been an announcement. He pulls the buds from his ears and looks up at me, waiting for me to put words to the gesture. Andrew Seven (#ulink_8f29fbbc-e95f-5f7b-b035-8e0c423fbedf) I got a call from my brother in Wyoming today. He said our old man wasn’t going to be around much longer. He’d already spent the last six months in and out of the hospital. “If you’re gonna see him,” Aidan said on the other end of the phone, “you better come now.” I do hear Aidan. I do. But all I can really comprehend right about now is that my dad is about to fucking die. “Don’t you ever dare cry for me,” he’d said to my brothers and me last year when they diagnosed him with a rare form of brain cancer. “I’ll cut you right out of my will, boy.” I hated him for that, for telling me in so many words that if I cried for him, the one man in my life that I would die for, that I’d be a pussy for it. I don’t care about the will. Whatever he leaves me I’ll just let it sit. Maybe I’ll give it to Mom. Dad was always a hardass growing up. He drilled the shit outta me and my brothers, but I like to think we turned out decent (and that was probably the plan behind the drilling). Aidan, the oldest, owns a successful bar and restaurant in Chicago and is married to a pediatrician. Asher, the youngest, is in college and has his sights set on a career at Google. Me? I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve secretly done a few modeling gigs for several high profile agencies, but I only did it because I fell on hard times last year. Right after I found out about my dad. I couldn’t cry, so I let it all out on my 1969 Chevy Camaro. Destroyed it with a baseball bat. Dad and I rebuilt that car from the ground up together. It was our ‘father-son’ project that began just before I graduated. I figured if he isn’t going to be around, then neither should the car. So yeah, modeling. Hell no, I never went looking for a gig. I don’t care about that kind of shit. I just happened to be at Aidan’s bar when a couple of scouts found me getting shitfaced. I guess it didn’t matter that I was … well, shitfaced, because they slipped me their card, offered me a generous sum of money just to show up at their building in New York and after three weeks of staring at that Camaro and regretting what I’d done to it, I decided, why not? That one check just for showing up could cover some of the body work. And I did show up. And despite the money I made from the few ads I shot being enough to fix the car, I turned down the fifty-thousand-dollar contract I’d been offered by LL Elite because, like I said, prancing around in my underwear for a living just isn’t my thing. Hell, I felt dirty for accepting the few gigs I did accept. So, I did what any red-meat-eating, beer-drinking guy would do and I tried to make myself look more man and less pansy by getting a few tattoos and a job as a mechanic. Not the kind of future my old man wanted for me, but unlike my brothers, I learned a long time ago that it’s my future and my life and I can’t make myself live the way someone else wants me to live. I dropped out of college after I realized that I was studying something I didn’t give a shit about. What is it with people and their willingness to follow? Not me. I want one thing in life. It’s not money or fame or a Photoshopped dick on a billboard in Times Square or a college education that may or may not benefit me later. I’m not sure what it is that I want, but I feel it deep in the pit of my stomach. It’s there sitting dormant. I’ll know it when I see it. “A bus?” Aidan says, unbelieving. “Yes,” I say. “I’ll take a bus there. I need to think.” “Andrew, Dad might not make it,” he says and I can hear the restraint in his voice. “Seriously, bro.” “I’ll be there when I get there.” I run my thumb over the end call button. I think a small part of me hopes that he dies before I make it. Because I know I’ll lose my shit if he dies while I’m there. This is my father, the man who raised me and who I look up to. And he tells me not to cry. I’ve always done everything he’s ever told me and like the good son I’ve always tried to be, I know I’ll force back the tears because he told me to. But I also know that by doing it, it’ll create something in me more destructive. I don’t want to end up like my car. A single duffle bag packed with a clean pair of clothes, toothbrush, cell phone and MP3 player with my favorite classic rock songs—another mark that Dad left on me: “That new stuff kids listen to these days is shit music, son,” he said at least once a year. “Get the Led out, boy!” I’ll admit I didn’t completely shun newer music just because my dad did. I have my own damn mind, remember? But I did grow up on a healthy dose of the classics and I’m very proud of that. “Mom, I don’t need those.” She’s stuffing a Ziploc bag with about a dozen little packets of hand-sanitizing wipes for me to take. She’s always been a germaphobe. I’ve lived back and forth between Texas and Wyoming since I was six-years-old. Ultimately, I realized that I fit better in Texas because I like the Gulf and the heat. I’ve had my own apartment in Galveston for four years now, but last night my mom insisted I stay at her place. She knows how I feel about my dad and she knows that sometimes I can be explosive when I’m hurting, or when I’m pissed off. Spent a night in jail last year for beating the fuck out of Darren Ebbs after he punched his girlfriend in front of me. And when I had to have my best friend, Maximus, put to sleep because of congestive heart failure, I busted my hands up pretty good taking my emotions out on the tree behind my apartment. I’m not violent in general, only to douchebags and occasionally, myself. “Those buses are nasty,” she says, tucking the baggie down into my bag. “I rode on one back before I met your father and I was sick for a week afterwards. I still don’t understand why you won’t take a plane. You can get there in a fraction of the time.” “Mom,” I say, kissing her cheek, “it’s just something I need to do—like it was meant to be, or something.” I don’t really believe that second part, but I thought I’d humor her with something meaningful, even though she knows I’m full of shit. I walk over and open the kitchen cabinet, taking two brown sugar and cinnamon Pop-Tarts from the box and dropping them in my bag. “Maybe the plane is supposed to crash.” “That’s not funny, Andrew.” She glances over at me sternly. I smile and squeeze her. “I’ll be alright, and I’ll make it in time to see Dad before …” my voice trails. Mom hugs me back tighter than I did her. By the time I make it to Kansas, I’m starting to wonder if my mom was right. I thought I could use the long ride to think, to clear my head and maybe figure out what I’m doing and what I’m going to do after my dad dies. Because things will be different. Things always change when someone you love dies. You just can’t prepare yourself for those changes no matter what you do in advance. The only thing that’s a certainty is always wondering who’s going to be next. I know I’ll never be able to look at my mom the same again … I think the bus ride has been more of a taunt than a time for meaningful contemplation. I should’ve known that time alone with my thoughts would be unhealthy. Already I’ve decided that my life has been pretty much wasted and I’m going through all the eye-opening emotions: What am I here for? What’s the point in life? What the hell am I doing? I sure as hell haven’t had any epiphanies, or stared out the bus window, lost in some dramatic movie-moment when suddenly life becomes clear to me. The only music playing in the background of this movie is Alice in Chains’ Would?, and that’s not exactly an epiphany-moment kind of song. The driver is just about to close the doors on the bus when I step up and he notices me. Thank God, a bus I might actually get to sleep on; plenty of empty seats. I head toward the back, my sights set on two empty seats right behind the cute blonde who I’m pretty sure is jailbait. My dad said it right once: “Can’t tell twelve from twenty these days, son. It must be something the government has been puttin’ in the water—be damn careful when you need to knock some boots.” As I near the girl on the bus, I notice her move her bag over onto the aisle seat so that I won’t sit there. That’s funny. I mean yeah, she’s cute and all but there are about ten or so empty seats on this bus, which means I’m going to get two to myself so I can sprawl my ass out however I want and get some much-needed shuteye. Things don’t go as planned and several hours later, just after dark and I’m still wide awake, staring out the tall window beside me with music blasting in my ears. The girl in front of me has been passed out for about an hour and I got tired of hearing her talk in her sleep; though I could hardly make out anything she was saying, I didn’t really want to know. Kind of feels like spying, hearing someone’s thoughts when they have no idea what they’re doing. I’d much rather hear my playlist. After I finally fall asleep, my eyes crawl open when I feel something tapping against my leg. Wow, she’s kind of beautiful even with her hair all smashed on one side of her face and the darkness covering the rest of her. Jailbait, Andrew. I don’t have to remind myself that she’s probably jailbait to keep myself from doing anything I know I shouldn’t; no, I remind myself because I don’t want to be disappointed when I find out that I’m right. After a quick back-and-forth about the possibility of my music being what woke her up, I turn it down and she slips back down into her little bus-seat-cubicle. When I lean up over the top of her seat to look down at her, I’m wondering to myself what possessed me to do it. But I’ve always been one for a challenge and her spunky attitude towards me in a conversation that lasted less than forty-five seconds was enough to shake her hand in this metaphorical bet. I’ve always been a sucker for spunky attitudes. And I never back down from a challenge. The next morning, I offer to let her borrow my MP3 player, but apparently she’s as much of a germaphobe as my mother. A man, probably in his early forties, has been sitting on the other side of the bus, three seats up from the girl. I saw the way he was looking at her when I first got on. She had no clue he had been watching her and it’s disturbing to think about how long he’s been watching her since before I got on, or what he’s been doing to himself sitting up there all alone in the dark. I’ve been sort of keeping my eyes on him ever since. He’s so enamored by her that I doubt he knows I’ve been watching. His eyes keep glancing between her and down the center of the aisle towards the matchbox restroom. I can almost hear the gears churning in his head. I wonder when he’s going to try to make his move. Just then, he gets up. I slide out of my seat and into the one beside her. I just play it off like it’s nothing. I can feel her eyes on me, looking at me wondering what the fuck I think I’m doing. The man walks past, but I don’t let him see my eyes because then that would give away that I’m onto him. Right now, he probably thinks I’m just playing my own game with the girl; that I’m making my own move and for now, he’ll get over it and probably try again later. And later is when I’ll cave his face in with my fist. I reach into my bag and fish for the baggie of antibacterial wipes my mom packed. Ripping one from the packet, I wipe the earbuds down and then reach over to her. “Like new,” I say, waiting for her to take them, but I know she won’t. “Really, I’m good. But thanks.” “You’re probably better off anyway,” I say, putting the MP3 player in my bag. “I don’t listen to Justin Bieber or that crazy meat-wearin’ bitch, so I guess you’ll just have to do without.” Judging by that irritated look on her face, I pissed her off. I laugh quietly to myself, turning my head at an angle so she doesn’t catch me grinning. “First off, I don’t listen to Justin Bieber.” Thank God. “And second, Gaga isn’t so bad. Playing the shock-value card a little too long, I admit, but I like some of her stuff.” “That’s shit music and you know it,” I quote my father, shaking my head. I put my bag on the floor and lean back on the seat, propping up one foot on the seat in front of me. I wonder why she hasn’t told me to leave yet. And this also worries me. Would she have been ‘too nice’ to tell that man to leave right away if he had made it here before me? There’s no way someone like her would be in to someone like him, but face it, sometimes girls let that overly sympathetic gene get the best of them. And that few seconds is really all it takes. I look over at her again, letting my head fall sideways against the seat. “Classic rock is where it’s at,” I say. “Zeppelin, the Stones, Journey, Foreigner—any of that ringing any bells?” She rolls her eyes at me. “I’m not stupid,” she says and a grin lifts one side of my mouth because there’s that spunky attitude again. “Name one song by Bad Company and I’ll leave you alone about it,” I challenge her. I can tell she’s nervous, how she gently bites down on her bottom lip, and like talking in her sleep and being watched by bad men, she probably doesn’t even know it. I wait patiently, unable to peel the grin from my face because it’s amusing watching her squirm, trying to sort through all of the times she was in the car with her folks listening to this stuff, searching for some memory that will help her in this critical moment. “Ready For Love,” she finally answers and I’m impressed. “Are you?” I ask and something hits me in this moment. I don’t know what the hell ‘it’ is, but it’s there, waving at me from behind a wall, like when you know someone’s watching you, yet you don’t see anybody. “Huh?” she says, as caught off-guard by my question as I was afterwards. A smile creeps up on my face. “Nothing,” I say, looking away. The pervert from the restroom comes quietly back down the dark aisle and goes back to his seat, no doubt pissed off that I’m sitting where he wants to be sitting. I’m just glad she waited for him to pass by before finally asking me to move so she can have both of her seats back. After I crawl back behind her, I lean around the edge of her seat and say, “Where are you going, anyway?” She tells me Idaho, but I think there’s more to her answer than that. I can’t put my finger on it, but I get the feeling she’s either lying, which is probably a good thing because I’m a total stranger, or she’s hiding something else. I let it go for now and tell her where I’m heading and then duck back in my seat behind her. The man three seats up just looked at her again. I’m about ready to bash his fucking brains in right now, just for looking. Hours later, the bus pulls into a rest stop and the driver gives us all fifteen minutes to get out, stretch our legs and get something to eat. I watch the girl head inside toward the restrooms and I’m the first in line to order food. I get my food and head back outside, taking a seat on the grass next to the parking lot. The pervert walks past me, stepping back inside the bus by himself. I manage to talk her into sitting with me. She’s hesitant at first, but apparently I’m charming enough. My mom always told me I was her charming middle-child. I guess she was right all along. We talk for a minute or two about why I’m going to Wyoming and why she’s going to Idaho. I’m still trying to figure her out, what it is about her that I can’t quite place, but at the same time trying to force myself not to be attracted to her because it’s like I just know she’s jailbait, or she’s going to lie about it. But she looks close to my age, younger than me, but we can’t be too far apart. Goddammit! Why am I even considering an attraction to her? My dad is dying right now as I sit here on the grass next to her. I shouldn’t be thinking about anything other than my dad and what I’m going to say to him if I do manage to get to Wyoming before he passes. “What’s your name?” I ask, setting my drink on the grass and trying to push thoughts of my dad’s death somewhere else in my mind. She thinks about it for a minute, probably wondering whether she should tell me the truth, or not. “Cam,” she finally answers. “Short for what?” “Camryn.” “I’m Andrew. Andrew Parrish.” She seems a little shy. “So, how old are you?” she asks and it completely surprises me. Maybe she’s not jailbait, after all, because underage girls, when they want to lie about their age, usually steer clear of this topic at all costs. I’m hopeful now that maybe she’s legal. Yeah, I really want her to be … “Twenty-five,” I say. “What about you?” I can’t breathe all of a sudden. “Twenty,” she says. I think about her answer for a moment, pursing my lips. I’m still not sure if she’s lying, but maybe after more time with her on this journey that seems to have brought us together, I will find out the truth eventually. “Well, it’s good to meet you, twenty-year-old Cam short for Camryn heading to Idaho to see her sister who just had a baby.” I smile. We talk for a few minutes more—eight minutes to be exact—about this and that and I screw with her head some more because that spunky mouth of hers deserves it. Actually, I think she likes it, the way I treat her. I can tell there’s an attraction. Though small, I sense it. And it can’t really be because of the way I look—hell, my breath probably smells like ass right now and I haven’t had a shower today—if it was because of looks, unlike most girls who are ever into me, she turned me down already. She didn’t want me sitting next to her on that bus. She wasn’t shy to tell me to turn my music down, with a snippy-ass attitude at that. She got pissed when I accused her of having Bieber Fever (it pisses me off that I even know what the fuck that means—I blame that on society) and I get the feeling that she would have no problem kicking me in the nuts if I touched her in an inappropriate way. Not that I would. Hell no. But it’s good to know that she’s the type. Hell yeah, I like this girl. We board the bus and I crawl back in my seat, letting my legs stretch out into the aisle and then I see her white tennis shoes poke out from her aisle seat and I smile at the thought that I’d been interesting enough for her to take ideas from. I check on her about twenty minutes later and just like I thought, she’s passed out cold. I turn the music back up and listen to it until I fall asleep, too, and wake up the next morning long before she does. She pops her head over the top of her seat and I smile and wave a finger at her. She’s even prettier in the daylight. Camryn Eight (#ulink_2ebbb5d7-0b5a-5051-bd55-b73e45c5ba20) “Ten minutes,” I say, “and we’re off this tin can.” Andrew grins and pulls his back away from the seat and goes to put his MP3 player away. I’m not exactly sure why I felt the need to tell him. “Did you sleep better?” he asks, zipping up his bag. “Yeah, actually I did,” I say, reaching around to feel the back of my neck where I don’t feel any twisted muscles this time. “Thanks for the involuntary idea.” “You’re very welcome,” he says with a huge grin. “Denver?” he asks, looking up at me. I’m assuming he’s asking if that’s my next stop. “Yeah, almost seven hours away.” Andrew shakes his head, seeming as dissatisfied with that time-frame as I am. Ten minutes later and the bus pulls into the Garden City station. There are three times as many people at this station than there were at the last one and this worries me. I make my way through the terminal and to the first empty seat I see because they are filling up quickly. Andrew slips around a corner underneath the vending area sign and comes back with a Mountain Dew and a bag of chips. He sits down beside me and cracks the top on the soda can. “What?” he asks looking over at me. I didn’t notice I had been watching him gulp that soda down with a disgusted look on my face. “Nothing,” I say, looking away, “I just think it’s gross.” I hear him laugh under his breath beside me and then the chip bag rattles open. “You seem to think a lot of stuff is gross.” I look over at him again, positioning my bag on my lap. “When was the last time you ate something less … heart-attack inducing?” He crunches another chip and swallows. “I eat whatever I want to eat—what are you, one of those uppity vegetarian girls that complain about how fast food is making the country fat?” “I’m not one of those,” I say, “but I think the uppity vegetarian girls might be onto something.” He chomps down on a couple more chips and takes a swig of his soda, grinning over at me. “Fast food doesn’t make people fat,” he says steadily chewing away. “People make their own choices. Fast food restaurants are just bankin’ good on the stupidity of Americans who choose to eat their food.” “Are you calling yourself a stupid American?” I grin right back at him. He shrugs. “I guess I am when my options are limited to vending machines and burger joints.” I roll my eyes. “Oh, like you’d actually choose to eat something better if you had the choice to make. I don’t buy that.” I think I’m getting better at these comebacks. He laughs out loud. “Hell yeah I’d choose something better. I’ll take a fifty-dollar steak over a day-old burger any day, or a beer over a Mountain Dew.” I shake my head, but can’t wipe the faint grin off my face. “What do you normally eat, anyway?” he asks. “Salads and tofu?” “Bleh,” I say with a wrinkled face. “No way in hell would I ever eat tofu and salads are just weight-loss fads.” I pause and grin over at him. “Honestly?” “Well, yeah—spit it out,” he says. He’s looking at me as though I’m something funny and cute that needs to be studied. “I like SpaghettiOs with meatballs and sushi.” “What, like all mixed together?” Now he looks quietly disgusted. It takes me a few seconds to catch on. “Oh, no,” I say, shaking my head back and forth, “that would be gross, too, by the way.” He smiles, looking relieved. “I’m not big on steak,” I go on, “but I’d eat one if offered to me, I guess.” “Oh, so you’re asking me to ask you on a date?” His grin just got wider. My eyes bulge and my mouth falls open. “No!” I say, practically blushing. “I was just saying that—” Andrew laughs and takes another swig. “I know, I know,” he says, “don’t worry. I’d never consider asking you on a date.” My eyes and mouth get even bigger and my face flushes hot. He laughs even louder. “Damn, girl,” he says, still with laughter in his voice, “you don’t catch on too quick, do you?” I frown. He frowns, too, but he’s still sort of smiling at the same time. “I’ll tell you what,” he says, looking a bit more serious, “if we happen to get lucky enough to find a steakhouse at one of our rest stops that can cook a steak in the fifteen minutes we have before the bus leaves us behind, then I’ll buy you one and let you decide while we eat our steaks together on the bus if it’s a date, or not.” “Well, I can tell you now that it won’t be a date.” He smiles crookedly. “Then it won’t be,” he says. “I can live with that.” I think he’s done with the topic, but then suddenly he adds, “But then what would it be, if not a date?” “What do you mean?” I say. “It would be a friendship thing, I guess. Y’know, two people who happen to be sharing a meal together.” “Oh,” he says with a sparkle in his eyes, “so now we’re friends?” That catches me off-guard. He’s good. I give it a moment’s thought, pursing my lips in contemplation. “Sure,” I say. “I guess we are sort of friends at least until Wyoming.” He reaches over and offers his hand to me. Reluctantly, I shake it. His grip is gentle, but firm and his smile is genuine and kind. “Friends until Wyoming it is then,” he says, shaking my hand once and letting go. I’m not sure what just happened, but I don’t feel like I’ve done anything I’m going to regret later. I guess there’s nothing wrong with having a traveling ‘friend’. I can think of a hundred other kinds of people who Andrew could be and it could be worse. But he seems harmless and I admit he’s interesting to talk to. He’s not an old lady looking to tell me stories of when she was my age, or an older delusional man who still thinks he’s as hot as he was when he was seventeen and that somehow he thinks I might be able to see him for what he used to look like. No, Andrew is right there in the goldilocks zone. Sure, it’d be better for many different reasons if he was a girl, but at least he’s close to my age and he’s not at all ugly. Oh no, Andrew Parrish is far from being anywhere near the Ugly Tree. Truthfully, he lives right next door to the Sexy Tree and I think that’s the only thing that bothers me about this whole situation. You know damn well that it doesn’t really matter what’s going on in your life, who you just lost, how much you hate the world, or how inappropriate it is to have an attraction to someone before that mending phase has reached the acceptable zone. You’re still human and the moment you see someone attractive, you can’t help but make note of it. It’s human nature. Acting on it is a whole other story and that’s where I draw the line. That’s not gonna happen, no matter what. But yeah, the fact that he’s hot bothers me because it only means that I will have to try that much harder to make sure that nothing I say or do will give him the wrong impression. Hot guys know they’re hot. They just do, even the ones who don’t go around flaunting it. And it’s also human nature for hot guys to automatically assume that an innocent smile, or a conversation that goes on for three minutes without awkward silence, are signs of an attraction. So, this ‘friendship’ is going to take a lot of work on my part. I want to be nice, but not too nice. I want to smile when necessary, but I have to be careful and measure the level of the smile. I want to laugh if something he says is funny, but I don’t want him to think it’s an I’m-so-fucking-into-you kind of laugh. Yeah, this is definitely going to take work. Maybe an old lady would’ve been better, after all … Andrew and I wait in the terminal for nearly an hour before the next bus pulls into the station. And as expected, it doesn’t look like we’re going to have two seats to ourselves this time. The line waiting to board already looks like there might not be enough seats to hold everyone. Dilemma. Crap. Andrew and I are suddenly temporary friends, but I can’t bring myself to ask him to sit with me. That might count as one of those things that gives the wrong impression. So, as the line inches forward and he follows close behind, I’m hoping he’ll take it upon himself to sit next to me. I’d rather it be him than someone else who I haven’t even spoken to. I make my way toward the center of the bus and into two empty seats, passing up the one on the outside and taking the one by the window. He sits next to me and I’m secretly relieved. “Since you’re a girl,” he says, putting his bag on the floor between his feet, “I’ll let you keep the window seat.” He smiles. After the bus is full and I can already feel the extra body heat rising up all around us from so many people crammed inside the space, I hear the door squeal shut and the bus lurches in motion. The drive doesn’t seem so long and torturous anymore now that I have someone to talk to. It only takes about an hour of constant conversation about everything from what all of his favorite classic rock bands are, to why I like Pink and how much better her stuff is than Boston and Foreigner who sound the same to me. We argued about this for twenty minutes out of that hour—he’s really stubborn, but then he said the same about me, so maybe we’re both guilty. And I let him in on who ‘Nat’ is, though I don’t go into the gruesome details of mine and Natalie’s relationship. By the time the night falls, I realize there hasn’t been a single awkward moment of silence between us since we boarded the bus and he decided to sit next to me. “How long are you staying in Idaho?” “A few days.” “And then you’re riding back on a bus?” Strangely, Andrew’s face has lost all of its humor. “Yeah,” I say, not wanting to go too deeply into this topic because I don’t already know my answers in advance. I hear him sigh. “It’s none of my business,” he says looking over at me and I feel the space between us closing in since he’s sitting so close, “but you shouldn’t be traveling around by yourself like this.” I don’t look at him. “Well, I kind of have to.” “Why?” he asks. “I’m not trying to hit on you or anything, but a young, devilishly gorgeous girl like you traveling by herself in the slums of the bus stations of America is dangerous.” I feel my face break into a smile, but I try futilely to hide it. I look over at him. “You’re not trying to hit on me,” I say, “yet you call me ‘devilishly gorgeous’ and practically use that what’s-a-girl-like-you-doing-in-a-place-like-this line all in the same sentence.” He seems gently offended. “I’m serious, Camryn,” he says and the playful smile on my face dissolves. “You could really get hurt.” In an attempt to shift the awkward moment, I grin and say, “Don’t worry about me. I’m confident in my ability to scream really loud if I get attacked.” He shakes his head and takes a deep breath, slowly giving in to my attempts to lighten things up. “So tell me about your dad,” I say. The almost-smile flees from his face and he looks away from me. It wasn’t an accident, bringing it up like I did. I don’t know, I just get this strange feeling that he’s hiding something. When he briefly mentioned back in Kansas about his dad dying, on the outside it didn’t seem to faze him. But he’s going all this way, by bus at that, to see his dad before he dies, so he must love him. I’m sorry, but you’re never unfazed when someone you love is dead, or dying. Sounds strange coming from me, who can’t cry anymore. “He’s a good man,” Andrew says, still looking in front of him. I get the feeling he’s picturing his dad right now, that he doesn’t actually see anything in front of him except for his memories. He looks over at me and is smiling now, but it’s not a smile trying to cover up any pain, more-so one washed with a good memory. “Instead of taking me to a baseball game, my dad took me to a boxing match.” “Oh?” I feel my smile light up. “Do tell?” He looks back out ahead, but the warmth in his face never leaves him in this moment. “Dad wanted us to be fighters—” He glances over. “Not boxers or actual fighters, though he probably wouldn’t have minded that so much, either. But I mean fighters in general, you know, in life. Metaphorically.” I nod to let him know that I understand. “I sat ringside, eight-years-old, mesmerized by these two men beating each other and the whole time I could hear my dad talking over the crowd next to me: ‘They fear nothing, son,’ he said. ‘And all of their moves are calculated. They move one way and it either works, or it doesn’t, but they learn something from every move, every decision.’” Andrew catches my eye briefly and his smile dissolves, leaving his expression blank. “He told me that a real fighter never cries, never lets the weight of any blow bring him down. Except that final blow, the inevitable one, but even then they always go out like men.” I’m no longer smiling, either. I can’t tell exactly what’s going on in Andrew’s head right now, but we share the same sober mood. I want to ask him if he’s OK, because it’s obvious that he’s not, but the timing doesn’t feel right. It feels weird because I don’t know him well enough to be digging around inside of his emotions. I say nothing. “You must think I’m a dick,” he says. I blink, surprised. “No,” I answer. “Why do you say that?” He backs off immediately and downplays the seriousness of his own question, letting that devastating smile slip back to the surface again. “I’m going to see him before he kicks the bucket,” he says, and his choice of words shocks me a little, “because that’s what we do, right? It’s a customary thing, kind of like saying ‘bless you’ when someone sneezes, or asking someone how their weekend was when really you don’t give a shit.” Damn, where is all of this coming from? “You have to live in the now,” he says and I’m quietly stunned. “Don’t you think so?” His head falls to the side and he’s looking at me again. It takes me a moment to get my head together, but even then I’m not sure about what to say. “Living in the now,” I say, quoting him, yet at the same time thinking of my own belief of loving in the now. “I guess you’re right.” But I still wonder exactly what his take on the belief is. I straighten my back against the seat and raise my head a little to look over at him more closely. It’s like suddenly I have this great desire to know all about his belief. To know everything about him. “What is living in the now to you?” I ask. I notice one of his eyebrows twitch for a second and his expression shifts, surprised at the seriousness of my question, or the level of my interest. Maybe both. He straightens his back and raises his head, too. “Just that dwelling and planning is bullshit,” he says. “You dwell on the past, you can’t move forward. Spend too much time planning for the future and you just push yourself backwards, or you stay stagnant in the same place all your life.” His eyes lock on mine. “Live in the moment,” he says as if making a serious point, “where everything is just right, take your time and limit your bad memories and you’ll get wherever it is you’re going a lot faster and with less bumps in the road along the way.” The silence between us is just two minds thinking about what he just said. I wonder if his thoughts are the same as mine. I also wonder, more than I want to admit, why so many of his thoughts already make me feel like I’m staring into a mirror when I look at him. The bus glides heavily over the freeway, always loud and rarely soft. But after so long, it’s easy to forget how unpleasant a bus ride is compared to the luxury of a car. And when you’re thinking more about the positive aspects of a bus ride, instead of the negative, it’s easy to forget that there’s anything negative about it at all. There is a guy sitting next to me with beautiful green eyes and a beautiful sculpted face and a beautiful way of thinking. There’s no such thing as a bad bus ride when you’re in the company of something beautiful. I shouldn’t be here … Andrew Nine (#ulink_274e4b44-9b1a-5a51-9329-2b32627e8953) I can’t believe she brought up my dad. Not that I’m pissed about it, but I’m surprised that she seemed to really want to know. That she even remembered. She didn’t dive into questions about what I do for a living to calculate how much money I might make, or giggle and blush and look all stupid while reaching out to touch my tattoos, using them as an excuse to touch me. Huge fucking turn-off. I mean yeah, it’s a turn-on when you’re just looking to get laid—makes it easier—but for some reason, I couldn’t be happier that Camryn didn’t do it. Who the hell is this girl? And why am I even thinking about this stuff? She falls asleep before me with her head propped against the bus window. I resist the urge to watch her, noticing how soft and innocent she looks, which makes me that much more primal, more protective. The pervert seems to have stopped watching her when he saw us sitting together inside the last terminal. In the eyes of men, he probably sees her as my ‘territory’ now, my property. And that’s a good thing because it means he’ll leave her alone as long as I’m around. The truth is though, we’ll only be together until Wyoming and this worries the fuck out of me. I hope the man changes buses before Camryn and I have to depart ways. Two more rest stops between here and Denver—I hope like hell Denver is his last stop and if not, I’ll be watching him the rest of the way to Wyoming. He’s not going to Idaho. I’ll stop him anyway I can. I gaze through the dark and stillness of the bus. The man is asleep, his head pressed back against the aisle seat. A woman sits beside him next to the window, but she’s way too old to catch this guy’s eye. He likes them young, probably really young. It makes me fucking sick to think of what he may have already done to some other young girl. Despite the bus generally being loud, the whistling of the wind pushing against the metal, the fast crushing sound of rubber moving swiftly over the road, the large engine humming as it compels the heap of metal across the freeway, it’s still quiet. It’s almost peaceful. As peaceful as a bus ride can be. I finger my earbuds in and turn on the power on my MP3 player, setting it to shuffle. What will it be, what will it be? I always let the first song set the mood. I have over three hundred songs on this thing. Three hundred different mood-setters. I think my MP3 player is biased though because the first song is almost always between Kansas’ Dust in the Wind, Zeppelin’s Going to California or something by The Eagles. I wait for it, not looking down at the information on the playlist as if it’s some kind of guessing game and I don’t want to cheat. Ah, good choice. Aerosmith’s Dream On. I lean my head back against the seat and shut my eyes, not realizing until after I’m in the middle of doing it that my finger is gently pressing the volume down. Because I don’t want to wake Camryn up. I open my eyes and look over at her, how she clutches that bag of hers so tightly that she must still be completely conscious of it even in a deep sleep. I wonder about what might be inside, if there’s anything in it that could tell me more about her. If there’s anything in it that can tell me the truth about her. But it doesn’t matter. I won’t know her after Wyoming and she’ll probably never even remember my name. But I know it’s better that way. I have too much baggage and even as a friend, she doesn’t need any of it in her lap. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. The low, melodious droning of Steven Tyler’s voice lulls me to partial-sleep. Except when he’s screaming that high-pitched scream, where I wait for him to let it all out and then I drift off the rest of the way. “Dude, seriously,” I hear a voice say. Something is pressing against my shoulder. I wake up to find Camryn pushing me off of her with her little arms. It’s actually kind of funny, that awry look on her morning face and how no matter how hard she pushes, the weight of my body is too heavy to move me completely. “Sorry,” I say, still trying to wake up. I lift up disoriented and feel the back of my neck as stiff as wood. I really didn’t mean to end up with my head pressed against her arm, but I’m not as mortified about it as she’s pretending to be. At least I’m pretty sure she’s pretending. She’s trying really hard not to break a smile. Let me help her a little with that. I grin over at her. “You think it’s funny?” she says, her mouth partly hanging open and her eyebrows rumpled in her cute little forehead. “Yeah, actually I do think it’s funny.” My grin gets bigger and finally that smile of hers breaks softly in her face. “But I am sorry. Really.” And I mean it. She narrows one eye and looks at me sideways, scrutinizing my sincerity, which is also kind of cute. I look away and reach my arms above my head to stretch and that makes me need to yawn. “Gross!” she says and that word doesn’t surprise me at all. “Your breath smells like ass.” A single voluble laugh comes out through my words: “Damn, girl, how would you know what ass smells like anyway?” That shuts her up. I laugh again and rummage through my bag after dropping my MP3 player inside of it. I pop the cap on my toothpaste and squirt a dab on the end of my tongue, move it around inside my mouth real good and then swallow. Of course, Camryn’s watching me do all of this with a look of revolt, but that’s what I was shooting for. The rest of the bus seems to have woken up before me. I’m surprised I slept this long and without waking up at least three times to find another comfortable position, which always manages to elude me. My watch says that it’s 9:02 a.m. “Where are we anyway?” I ask, gazing out the large window next to Camryn, searching for any freeway signs. “About four hours away from Denver,” she answers. “Driver just announced another rest stop in ten minutes.” “Good,” I say, stretching one leg out into the aisle, “I need to walk around. I’m stiff as hell.” I catch her grinning, but she turns to face the window. Stiff as hell. OK, so she also has a dirty mind. I just laugh thinking about it. The next rest stop isn’t too much different from the last several, with a series of gas stations on either side of the freeway and two fast food restaurants. I can’t believe this girl has me actually debating whether or not to head inside one like I normally would without a thought otherwise. I just can’t really tell if it’s because I want to prove to her that I can choose to eat better stuff if given the choice, or because I know she’s going to yell at me. Wait a damn second. Who’s the one in control of the situation here? Clearly she is. Goddammit. We file out of the bus, Camryn in front of me, and after walking around the front of the bus she stops and turns at the waist, crossing her arms and looking up at me, pursing her lips. “Well, if you’re so smart,” I say, sounding sort of third grade and I admit it, “then see if you can find something healthy to eat—that doesn’t taste like rubber dipped in shit—in one of these places.” A grin tugs one corner of her mouth. “You’re on,” she accepts the challenge. I follow her into the gigantic convenience store and she makes her way first to the drink coolers. Like that blonde chick on that game show (I don’t know which because I don’t watch game shows, but everybody knows about that blonde chick), Camryn waves her hands in front of the cooler doors, as if revealing the world of fruit juices and bottled water to me for the first time. “We start off with a variety of juice, as you can see,” she says in her proper showcase voice. “Any of this is better than soda. Take your pick.” “I hate juice.” “Don’t be a baby. There’s plenty to choose from. I’m sure you can find something you can stomach.” She moves back two steps to let me see the dozens of flavored bottled waters on display behind the next door. “And there’s water,” she says, “but I just don’t see someone like you sipping on a fancy bottle of water.” “No, that’s too douchy.” Really, I have no issue with drinking bottled water, but I like this game we’re playing. She smiles, but tries to keep a straight face. I wrinkle my nose at her, purse my lips and look back and forth between her and the juice cooler. I sigh heavily and step up closer, scanning over the different brands and flavors and mixed flavors and I wonder why there’s so much with strawberry or kiwi, or strawberry and kiwi in it. I hate both. Finally, I open one glass door and settle on plain OJ. She sort of winces. “What?” I ask, still holding the door open. “Orange juice isn’t so good to wash stuff down with.” I let out a spat of air and just look at her, unblinking. “I pick something out and you tell me it’s not good enough.” I want to laugh, but I’m trying to lay a guilt trip on her here. And I think it’s working. She frowns. “Well, it’s just … well that’s more of a grab-n-go vitamin C boost, really. It just makes you thirstier.” She actually looks as though she’s worried that she offended me and this strikes me in the strangest way. I let myself smile just to see her smile again. She grins at me like the Devil. Oh, she’s good … Camryn Ten (#ulink_5a75230b-5cfb-511e-bcfc-c6f46585a9bb) Denver finally flies by and we’re drawing closer to Andrew’s final stop in Wyoming. I can’t lie and say it doesn’t bother me. Andrew was right in saying that it’s dangerous for me to be traveling alone. I’m just trying to understand why that fact didn’t faze me much before I met him. Maybe I just feel safer with him as my company because he does look like he can bust a few jaws without breaking a sweat. Damn, maybe I shouldn’t have ever talked to him in the first place; definitely shouldn’t have let him sit next to me because now I’m sort of used to him. Once we’re in Wyoming and we go our separate ways, I’ll be back to staring out the window watching the world fly by and not knowing where in it I’m going next. “So, do you have a girlfriend?” I ask just to spark up conversation so I won’t think about being alone again in a few hours. Andrew’s dimples appear. “Why do you want to know?” I roll my eyes. “Don’t flatter yourself; just a question. If you don’t—” “No,” he answers, “I’m happily single.” He just looks at me, smiling, waiting, and it takes me a second to understand what he’s waiting for. I point at myself nervously, wishing I had come up with a less personal topic. “Me? No, not anymore.” Feeling more confident now, I add, “I’m happily single as well and want to stay that way. For about … forever.” I should’ve just left it at ‘happily single’ instead of rambling my way right out of the confident zone and making myself look obvious. Of course, Andrew notices right away. I get the feeling he’s the type that never misses someone else’s foot-in-your-mouth moment. He thrives on them. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he says, grinning. Thankfully he doesn’t probe. He rests his head back against the seat and absently taps his thumbs and pinky fingers against his jeans for a moment. Secretly, I glimpse his muscular, tanned arms and try to see once and for all what the tattoos are of on his arms, but as usual they’re mostly hidden by the sleeves of his t-shirt. The one on the right side I saw a little more of earlier when he stretched down to tie his boot. I think it’s a tree of some sort. The arm facing me now, I can’t really tell but whatever it is, it has feathers. All of the tattoos I’ve seen so far are colorless. “Curious?” he says and I flinch. I didn’t think he saw me checking them out. “I guess.” Yes, I’m very curious, actually. Andrew lifts away from the seat and pulls the sleeve of his left arm over the tattoo, revealing a phoenix with a long, flowing beautiful feathered tail that ends a couple of inches past where his sleeve ends. But the rest of its feathered body is skeletal, giving it a more ‘manly’ appearance. “That’s pretty awesome.” “Thanks. I’ve had this one about a year,” he says, pulling the sleeve back down. “And this one,” he says, turning at the waist and pulling up the other sleeve (first, I notice the obvious outline of his abs underneath his shirt), “is my gnarly, Sleepy-Hollow-lookin’ tree—I have a thing for wicked trees—and if you’ll look real close …” I peer closer where his finger points within the tree trunk, “is my 1969 Chevy Camaro. My dad’s car, really, but since he’s dying I guess I have to keep it.” He looks out in front of him. There it is, that tiny glimmer of pain that he kept hidden before when talking about his father. He’s hurting a lot more than he’s letting on and it sort of breaks my heart. I can’t imagine my mom or dad being on their deathbed and I’m sitting on a Greyhound bus on my way to see them for the last time. My eyes scan his face from the side and I really want to say something to comfort him, but I don’t think I can. I don’t feel like it’s my place for some reason; at least not to bring it up. “I’ve got a couple of others,” he goes on, looking back over at me with the back of his head lying against the seat again. “A small one here,” he turns over his right wrist to show me a simple black star in the center right below the base of his hand; I’m surprised I didn’t notice that one sooner. “And a larger one down the left side of my ribs.” “What is it, the one on your side? How big is it?” His bright green eyes sparkle as he smiles warmly, tilting his head over to see me. “It’s pretty damn big.” I see his hands move as if he’s going to lift his shirt to show me, but he decides against it. “It’s just a woman. Nothing worth getting naked on a bus for.” Now I want to see what it looks like more than ever, just because he doesn’t want me to see it. “A woman you know?” I ask. I keep looking to and from his side, thinking maybe he’ll change his mind and lift his shirt, but he never does. He shakes his head. “Nah, it’s nothing like that. It’s of Eurydice.” He waves his hand out in front of him as if to dismiss any further explanation. The name sounds like something ancient, maybe Greek, and it’s vaguely familiar, but I can’t place it. I nod. “Did it hurt?” He smiles. “A little. Well actually it hurts the most on the ribs, so yeah it hurt.” “Did you cry?” I grin. He laughs lightly. “No, I didn’t cry, but hell, I might’ve if I decided to get it even a fraction bigger than it is. In total, it took about sixteen hours.” I blink back, stunned. “Wow, you sat there for sixteen hours?” For such a detailed conversation about this tat, it makes me wonder why he won’t actually show it. Maybe it doesn’t look all that great and the tattoo artist screwed it up, or something. “Not all at once,” he says, “we did it over a few days’ time—I’d ask if you have any tattoos, but something tells me that you don’t.” He smiles, knowingly. “And you’d be right,” I say, blushing a little. “Not that I’ve never thought about getting one.” I hold up my wrist and wrap my thumb and middle finger around it. “Thought about getting something here, like script that says ‘freedom’ or something in Latin—obviously, I didn’t think about it much.” Smiling, I breathe out a little embarrassed spat of air. Me talking about tattoos with a guy who obviously knows more about them than I ever could is a bit intimidating. When I go to set my wrist back down on the armrest, Andrew’s fingers curl around it. It stuns me for a brief second, even sends a strange chill through my body, but it quickly fades when he starts talking so casually. “A tattoo on the wrist for a girl can be very graceful and feminine.” He traces the tip of his finger around the inside of my wrist to indicate where it should go. I shiver a tiny bit. “Something in Latin, very subtle, just about here would look nice.” Then he lets go gently and I let my arm rest back on the armrest. “I expected you to say ‘no way’ about ever getting one yourself,” he laughs and brings up his leg, resting it at the ankle on his knee. He interlaces his fingers and slides back further against the seat to get more comfortable. It’s getting dark fast; the sun is barely peeking over the landscape now, leaving everything bathed in fading orange and pink and purple. “Guess I’m not a predictable person.” I smile over at him. “No, I guess you’re not,” he says smiling back and then looking thoughtfully in front of him. Andrew wakes me up the next day sometime after 2 p.m. at the bus station in Cheyenne, Wyoming. I feel his fingers poking me in the ribs. “We’re here,” he says and finally I open my eyes and lift my head from the window. My breath I know smells God-awful because it tastes dry and funky, so I look away from him when I yawn. The bus’ brakes squeal to a stop at the terminal and like always, the passengers stir themselves out of their seats and start grabbing their carry-on bags from the overhead compartment. I just sit here, feeling a little panicked and I glance carefully over at Andrew. I literally feel like I’m going to have a mini-anxiety attack. I mean, I knew this time would come, that Andrew would leave and I would be alone again, but I didn’t expect to feel like a scared little girl sent out in the world to fend for herself with no one to look after her. Shit! Shit! Shit! I can’t even believe I let myself get comfortable with him and as a result I’m no longer able to make fear my bitch. I fear being alone. “Comin’?” he asks looking down at me from the center aisle and holding out his hand. He smiles at me gently, setting aside any smartass remarks or making jokes at my expense because, after all, it is the last time we will ever see each other. It’s not like we’re in love or something crazy like that, but something weird happens when you spend several days with a stranger on a bus, getting to know them and enjoying their company. And when they’re not so different from you and you share that bond without actually telling one another why you’re hurting, that just makes the inevitable departure more difficult. But I can’t let him know this. It’s stupid. I put myself in this situation and I intend to go through with it. No matter where in the world it eventually leads me. I smile back up at him and place my hand into his. And all the way down the aisle as he walks in front of me, he keeps my fingers clasped carefully within his hand from behind. And I find a sense of warmth in his touch, clinging onto it mentally for as long as I can so that maybe I can be more confident when I’m alone again. “Well, Camryn …” he looks at me as if fishing for my last name. “Bennett.” I smile and cave to my own rule. “Well, Camryn Bennett, it was a pleasure to meet you on the road to nowhere.” He adjusts his bag strap on his shoulder and then slides his hands down inside the pockets of his jeans. The muscles in his arms harden. “I hope you find what you’re looking for.” I try to smile and I do, but I know it looks like something in between a smile and a frown. I adjust the strap from my purse on one shoulder and my sling bag on the other and then just let my arms hang limply at my sides. “It was nice meeting you, too, Andrew Parrish,” I say, though I don’t want to say it. I want him to ride with me just a little farther. “Do me a favor if you don’t mind.” I’ve piqued his curiosity and he cocks his chin a little to one side. “Alright. What kind of favor? Is it sexual?” His dimples deepen as his devilishly handsome lips start to curve. I laugh a little and look down with a blush hot on my face, but then I let the moment fade because this really isn’t a lighthearted kind of request. Instead, I soften my expression and look upon him with true sympathy. “If your dad doesn’t make it,” I begin and his expression falls, “let yourself cry, OK? One of the worst feelings in the world is being unable to cry and eventually it … starts to make things darker.” He stares at me for a long, silent moment and then he nods, allowing a tiny thankful smile to appear only in the depths of his eyes. I reach out my hand to shake his goodbye and he does the same, but he holds it there for a second longer than normal and then pulls me into a hug. I hug him back tight, wishing I could just blurt out to him that I’m scared of him leaving me alone, but I know I can’t. Suck it up, Camryn! He pulls away, nods at me one last time with that smile I grew so quickly to like and then he walks away and out of the terminal. I stand here for what feels like forever, unable to move my legs. I watch him get into a cab and I keep watching until the cab drives away and out of sight. I’m alone again. Over a thousand miles away from home. No direction, no purpose, no goals other than to find myself on this journey I never imagined I could bring myself to begin. And I’m scared. But I have to do this. I have to because I need this time alone, away from everything back home which brought me here in the first place. Finally, I take control again and walk away from the tall glass windows to find a seat. There’s a four-hour layover before I get on the next bus into Idaho, so I need to find something to make use of my time. I hit the vending machines first. Sliding my change into the slot I start to hit E4 to get the fiber bar—the closest thing to healthy in the whole machine—but then my finger makes a sharp U-turn to hit D4 instead and a fattening, disgusting, sugary chocolate candy bar falls from the spiral and into the bottom. Happily taking out my junk food, I move over to the soda machine, passing up the one before it which has bottles of water and juice, and I get a teeth-decaying, stomach-bubbling, carbonated drink instead. Andrew would be so proud. Dammit! Stop thinking about Andrew! I take my junk food and find an empty seat and wait out the day. A four-hour delay turns into a six-hour delay. They announced it over the intercom, something about my particular bus being late due to mechanical failure. A chorus of disappointed moans rises throughout the terminal. Great. Just great. I’m stuck in a bus station in the middle of nowhere and I could very well end up here all night, trying to sleep curled up in the fetal position on this hard plastic chair that’s not even comfortable for sitting. Or, I could just go ahead and buy another bus ticket somewhere else. That’s it! Problem solved! I just wish I would’ve thought of this sooner and spared myself the six hours I’ve already wasted here. It’s like I tricked my brain somehow into thinking I actually had to drive all the way to frickin’ Idaho just because I already paid for the ticket. I grab my bag and purse from the seat next to me and shoulder them as I march my way across the terminal, past a boatload of disgruntled passengers who clearly don’t have the option that I do, and make my way to the ticket counter. “We’re closing the counter down ma’am,” the employee says on the other side. “Wait, please,” I say, throwing my arms across the counter desperately, “I just need to get another ticket somewhere else. Please, you’ll be doing me a huge favor!” The wiry-haired old woman wrinkles her nose at me and appears to chew on the inside of her cheek. She sighs and then taps a few keys on her computer keyboard. “Oh thank you!” I say. “You’re awesome! Thank you!” She rolls her eyes. I swing my purse around and toss it on the counter and search quickly through it to find my little zipper wallet. “Where are you traveling?” she asks. Oh great, there’s that million dollar question again. I look around the counter for any other ‘signs’ like that baked potato back at the North Carolina terminal, but I don’t see anything obvious. The old lady is starting to get even more agitated with me and it makes me more anxious to hurry and figure this out. “Miss?” she says with a heavy sigh. She glances at the clock on the wall. “I clocked out fifteen minutes ago. I’d really like to get home to my dinner.” “Yeah, I’m so sorry.” I fumble my credit card out of my wallet and hand it to her. “Texas,” I say first as a test, but then afterwards I realize it felt right on my tongue. “Yeah, anywhere in Texas would be great.” The old lady raises an ungroomed reddish brow. “You don’t know where you’re going?” I nod furiously. “Uh, yeah, I just mean that I’ll take any bus going to Texas that’s next in line.” I smile across at her hoping she’s buying this load of crap and doesn’t feel the need to have my driver’s license checked out for anything suspicious. “I’ve already been here for six hours. I hope you understand.” She looks right at me for a long, unnerving moment and then takes my credit card from between my fingers and starts tapping her keyboard again. “Next bus leaving for Texas is in an hour.” “Great! I’ll take that one!” I say before she even has a chance to tell me whereabouts in Texas exactly. It doesn’t matter. And she’s in such a hurry to get home that she doesn’t seem to think it matters, either. As long as I don’t care, she surely doesn’t. I get my brand new bus ticket and shove it inside my purse next to the old one as the counter closes behind me at 9:05 p.m. and I feel a small sense of relief wash over me. Walking back towards my seat, I fish around in my purse for my phone, pulling it out to check to see if I missed any calls or text messages. My mom called twice and left a voicemail both times, but still no call back from Natalie. “Baby, where are you?” my mom asks on the other end when I call her back. “I tried calling Natalie to see if you were staying with her but can’t seem to catch her. Are you OK?” “Yeah, Mom, I’m fine.” I’m pacing in front of my chair with my phone pressed to my right ear. “I decided to take a trip up to see my friend Anna in Virginia. I’ll be here for a little while hanging out with her, but I’m OK.” “But Camryn, what about your new job?” She sounds disappointed, especially since it was her friend who gave me the chance and hired me. “Maggie said you worked for a week and then didn’t show up or call or anything.” “I know, Mom, and I’m really sorry, but it just wasn’t for me.” “Well, the least you could’ve done was be courteous and tell her—give her a two-weeks’-notice—something, Camryn.” I feel awful about how I handled that and normally would not have done something so inconsiderate, but the situation unfortunately warranted it. “You’re right,” I say, “and when I get back I’ll call Mrs. Phillips personally and apologize to her.” “But it’s not like you,” she says and I’m getting worried she’s steering too close to the reasons why I really left and all that which I refuse to go into with her. “And to just up and leave to Virginia without calling me or leaving a note. Are you sure you’re alright?” “Yes, I’m fine. Stop worrying. Please. I’ll call you again soon, but I gotta go now.” She doesn’t want to and I can tell by how deeply she sighs on the phone, but she gives up. “OK, well you be careful and I love you.” “I love you, too, Mom.” I check my phone one more time, hoping maybe Natalie sent me a text message and I just didn’t see it. I scroll back to several days, even though I know full-well that if there were any unread text messages on my phone that there would be a little red circle on the icon indicating it. I end up scrolling back down so far without realizing it that Ian’s name pops up and my heart freezes inside my chest. I stop it right there and start to run my thumb over his name so that I can read the back-and-forth between us shortly before he died, but I can’t. I thrust the phone angrily back into my purse. Eleven (#ulink_6fb70d4c-fa1d-5d64-889d-983203308d20) Now I remember another reason I don’t like soda: it makes me have to pee. The thought of being trapped on that bus with just a tiny matchbox restroom in the back forces me straight toward the facilities inside the terminal. I chuck the half-full soda in the trash on my way. Passing up the first three stalls, because they’re disgusting, I close myself up inside the fourth and hang my purse and bag on the hook mounted at the top of the blue door. I spread a good layer of toilet paper over the seat so I don’t catch anything; do my business fast and now comes the strategic part. With one foot propped on the toilet seat to keep it from flushing on its own because of the sensor, I fumble the button on my jeans, reach out to get my bags from the hook and then open the door, all still with one foot propped awkwardly behind me. And then I jump out fast right before the toilet flushes. Blame it on MythBusters; I was mortified for months after the episode on how the toilet really does spray invisible germs on you when it flushes. The fluorescent lights in the restroom are duller than the ones in the waiting area. One flickers above me. There’s two spiders burrowed behind webs tangled with dead bugs in the corner wall. It stinks in here. I step in front of a mirror and look for a dry spot on the counter to put my bags and then I wash my hands. Great, no paper towels. The only way I’m drying my hands is by that obnoxious blower hanging on the wall, which never really dries anything, but just spreads the water around. I start to wipe my hands on my jeans instead, but I hit the large silver button on the hand drier and it roars to life. I wince. I hate that sound. As I’m pretending to dry my hands (because I know in the end, I’ll be wiping them on my jeans anyway), a moving shadow behind me catches my eye in the mirrors. I turn around and at the same time the hand drier turns off, bathing the room in silence again. A man is standing at the restroom entrance, looking at me. My heart reacts and my throat goes dry. “This is the ladies’ restroom.” I glance at my bags on the counter. Do I have a weapon? Yeah, I did at least pack a knife, though little good it’ll do me when it’s several feet away inside a zipped-up bag. “Sorry, I thought this was the men’s room.” Good, apology accepted, now please get the hell out of here. The man, wearing dirty, old running shoes and faded jeans with paint stains on the legs, just stands there. This isn’t good. If it really was an accident that he came in here, surely he’d look more embarrassed and would’ve already turned tail and left. I march over to my bags on the counter and I notice from the corner of my eye that he takes a few more steps toward me. “I … didn’t mean to scare you,” he says. I throw open my bag and dig around inside of it for my knife, while at the same time trying to keep my eyes on him. “I’ve seen you on the bus,” he says and he’s still drawing closer. “My name is Robert.” I swing my head around to face him. “Look, you’re not supposed to be in here. It’s not exactly the place for conversation and I suggest you leave. Now.” Finally, I feel the contours of the knife and grip it in my hand, keeping my hand hidden inside the bag. My finger presses down on the thin metal piece to set the blade free from the handle. I hear it click open and lock in place. The man stops about six feet from me and smiles. His black hair is oily and slicked back. Yes, I remember him now; he’s been on every bus change with me since Tennessee. Oh my God, has he been watching me all this time? I pull the knife out of the bag and hold it up clutched in my fist, ready to use it and letting him know that I will not hesitate. He just smiles. That scares me, too. My heart is banging against my ribs. “Get the hell away from me,” I say, gritting my teeth. “I swear to God I will fucking gut you like a pig.” “I’m not going to hurt you,” he says, still smiling eerily. “I’ll pay you—a lot—just if you suck my dick. It’s all I want. You’ll leave the bathroom about five hundred dollars richer and I’ll get this image out of my head. We’ll both get something out of it.” I start to scream at the top of my lungs when suddenly another dark shadow catches my eye. Andrew barrels into the man, hurling his body over a two-foot space and onto the long counter. His back crashes into one of the mirrors. The glass shatters and shards rain down all over the place. I jump back and shriek, pressing my back against the hand drier, waking it up again. My knife fell from my hand at some point. I see it on the floor, but I’m too afraid to move right now to pick it up. Blood drips off what’s left of the mirror when Andrew pulls the man off the counter by the front of his shirt. He pulls back his other hand and buries his fist in the man’s face. I hear a nauseating crunch! and blood pours from his nose. Andrew rains blows down on his head, one hit after another until the man can’t hold his head up straight and it starts to bob and sway drunkenly on his shoulders. Andrew lets go and the man’s body falls against the floor. I hear his head thump against the tile. Andrew just stands there hovering over him, maybe waiting to see if he’s going to get up, but there’s something disturbingly untamed in his posture and his enraged expression as he stares down at the unconscious man. I can hardly breathe but I manage to say, “Andrew? Are you alright?” He snaps out of it and jerks his head around to face me. “What?” He shakes his head and his eyes narrow under lines of disbelief. He marches over. “Am I alright? What kind of question is that?” He fastens his hands around my upper arms and stares deeply into my eyes. “Are you alright?” I try to look away because the intensity in his eyes is overpowering, but his head follows mine and he shakes me once to force me to look at him. “Yeah … I’m fine,” I finally say, “thanks to you.” Andrew pulls me into his rock-hard chest and wraps his arms around my back, practically squeezing the life out of me. “We should call the cops,” he says, pulling away. I nod and he takes me by the hand and pulls me with him out of the restroom and down the gloomy gray hallway. By the time the cops get here, the man has disappeared. Andrew and I agree that he probably slipped out right after we left. He must’ve gone out the back while Andrew was on the phone. Andrew and I give the cops a description of the man and our statements. The cops commend Andrew—sort of vacantly—for stepping in, but he really just seems to want to stop talking to them altogether. My new bus to Texas left ten minutes ago and so once again I’m stuck in Wyoming. “I thought you were going to Idaho?” Andrew says. I had let it slip that my ‘bus to Texas’ just left without me. I bite gently on the inside of my bottom lip and cross one leg over the other. We’re sitting near the front doors inside the bus station, watching passengers come and go from the tall windows. “Well, now I’m going to Texas,” is all I say, even though I know I’m ‘caught’ and have a feeling I’ll be spilling some of the truth very soon. “I thought you left in the cab?” I say, trying to divert the subject. “I did,” he says, “but don’t turn this around on me, Camryn. Why aren’t you going to Idaho anymore?” I sigh. I know he won’t stop asking until he gets it out of me so I throw in the towel. “I don’t really have a sister in Idaho,” I admit. “I’m just traveling. Nothing more to it, really.” I hear him let out an irritated sigh next to me. “There’s always something more to it—are you a runaway?” I look over at him finally. “No, I’m not a runaway, at least not in the underage illegal sense.” “Well then in what sense?” I shrug. “I just had to get away from home for a while.” “So, you ran away from home?” I let out a sharp breath and look right into his intense green eyes staring right through me. “I didn’t run away, I just had to get away.” “So you jumped on a bus alone?” “Yes.” I’m getting irritated at the drilling. “You’re gonna have to give me more than that,” he says, relentless. “Look, I’m more appreciative than you know for what you did. I really am. But I don’t think you saving me gives you the right to know my business.” A small wave of insult subtly stuns his features. I feel bad instantly, but it’s the truth: I’m not obligated to tell him anything. He gives up and looks out ahead, propping an ankle on the other knee. “I saw that piece of shit eyeing you since I got on the bus in Kansas,” he reveals and has all of my attention. “You didn’t see it, but I did so I started watching him.” He still hasn’t looked over at me again, but I’m staring right at him from the side as he explains. “I saw him get into a cab and leave here before I did and only then did I feel it was OK to leave you here by yourself. But on the way to the hospital, I just had this bad feeling. I told the cab driver to drop me off at a restaurant instead, and I ate. Still couldn’t get it out of my head though.” “Wait,” I say, interrupting him, “you didn’t go to the hospital?” He looks at me. “No, I knew if I went that …” he turns his eyes away again, “… I wouldn’t be enough in my right mind to pay attention to the bad feeling I was having if I was staring down at my dying father.” I understand and I don’t say anything else. “So, I went to my dad’s house and got his car, drove around for a while and when I couldn’t take it anymore, I came back here. I parked across the street and waited for a while and sure enough, a cab pulled in and dropped the guy back off.” “Why didn’t you come inside instead of waiting in the car?” He looks down in thought. “I just didn’t want to freak you out.” “How would that freak me out?” I realize I’m smiling a little. Andrew looks right at me and I see that playful, smartass look start to crawl back into his features again. He holds his hands open, palms up. “Ummm, strange guy you met on the bus coming back hours later to sit next to you?” His eyebrows crinkle in his forehead. “That’s almost as creepy as suck-my-dick-for-$500-guy, don’t you think?” I laugh. “No, I don’t think it’s anything like that.” He tries to bury his smile, but relents. “What are you going to do, Camryn?” His face is serious again and my smile fades. I shake my head. “I don’t know; I guess I’m going to wait here until the next bus to Texas comes and then I’m on my way to Texas.” “Why Texas?” “Why not?” “Seriously?” I slap my hands down against my thighs. “Because I’m not going home yet!” He’s unfazed by my shouting at him. “Why don’t you want to go home yet?” he asks calm and intently. “Might as well spill your fucking guts because I’m not leaving you alone in this bus station, especially not after what happened.” I cross my arms tight over my chest and stare out in front of me. “Well then I guess you’ll be sitting here for a long time until I get on the bus.” “No. That includes not letting you get on another bus alone to go anywhere. Texas. Ida-fucking-ho. Wherever. It’s dangerous and I can tell you’re an intelligent girl—so here’s what we’re going to do …” I blink a few times, stunned by his sudden authoritarian arrogance. He goes on: “I’ll wait here with you until morning. That’ll give you enough time to decide whether you’re going to let me pay for your plane ticket back home, or if you want to call someone to fly here to get you. It’s your choice.” I look at him like he’s crazy. His eyes say back at me: Yeah, I’m dead serious. “I’m not going back to North Carolina.” Andrew shoots up from the chair and stands in front of me. “OK, then I’m coming with you.” I blink, looking up at his intense eyes; his perfectly sculpted cheekbones seem more pronounced from this angle making his gaze even fiercer. A shiver moves through my stomach. “That’s insane,” I laugh it off, but I know he’s serious and then I say with more severity, “What about your dad?” His teeth grind together and the intensity in his eyes becomes more forlorn. He starts to look away but a thought pulls him back. “Then come with me.” What? No way … He looks hopeful rather than determined now. He sits back down next to me on the plastic blue seat. “We’ll stay right here until morning,” he goes on, “because surely you wouldn’t leave with some strange guy from a bus station after dark? Right?” He turns his chin away from me, looking at me in a questioning sidelong glance. “No, I wouldn’t,” I say, even though I really do feel like I can trust him—he saved me from being raped, for God’s sake! And nothing about him is giving me the same fears I had when Damon practically did the same thing. No, Damon had something darker in his eyes when he looked at me that night on the roof. All I see in Andrew’s eyes is concern. But I still won’t leave with him like this. “Good answer,” he says, apparently glad I’m as ‘intelligent’ as he hoped I was. “We’ll wait until daylight and just to give you more peace of mind I’ll have a cab drive up straight to the hospital instead of expecting you to get in my car.” I nod, glad he thought of that. I won’t say that I hadn’t exactly sorted that part out yet. I mean, I already trust him enough, but it’s like he wants to be sure that I don’t, like he’s teaching me a lesson in a quiet, roundabout way. “And then from the hospital, we’ll catch a cab back here and wherever you want to go, I’ll go with you.” He holds out his hand to shake on it. “Deal?” I think about it a moment, confused, yet at the same time utterly fascinated by him. I nod reluctantly at first and then again with more assurance. “It’s a deal,” I say and place my hand into his. Honestly, I’m not sure I agree with it entirely. Why would he even do that? Doesn’t he have a life elsewhere? Surely he’s not as miserable with home as I am. This is crazy! Who is this guy? We sit together for hours right here in the station and talk about nothing important, yet I love every second of our conversations. About how I gave in and drank a soda and it was the soda’s fault I ended up in the restroom with the man—he laughs it off and tells me I just have a weak bladder. We quietly gossip about the passengers that come and go; the weird-looking ones and those who look dead, as if they’ve been riding a bus for the past week and haven’t been able to sleep. And we talk about classic rock some more, but the argument remains as much a stalemate as it was when we first discussed it on the bus. He practically died when I said that I’d listen to Pink over The Rolling Stones, any day. I mean, I literally think I wounded him. He put his big hand over his heart and threw back his head in devastation and everything. It was very dramatic. And funny. I tried not to laugh, but it was hard not to when his hardened, over-exaggerated face was practically smiling, too. And just as we went to leave after the sun rose, I stopped to look at him for a moment. A slight breeze brushed through his stylish brown hair. He cocked his head to the side, smiling at me and waving me into the cab. “You’re still coming, right?” I smiled warmly back at him and nodded. “Of course.” And I took his hand and slid into the backseat with him. What I had been thinking about when I looked at him was that I realized I haven’t smiled or laughed this much since before Ian died. Not even Natalie could get a genuine elated emotion out of me and she tried really hard. She went out of her way to help snap me out of my depression, but nothing she ever did came close to what Andrew has managed to do in such a short time and without even trying. Andrew Twelve (#ulink_4d088ee3-07fd-567b-8ec0-4d895b0e7871) My throat closes up when we step foot inside the hospital, like a wall of blackness came out of nowhere and engulfed me. I stop for a second at the entrance and just stand here with my arms heavy at my sides. And then I feel Camryn’s hand touch my wrist. I look over at her. She’s smiling so warmly that it melts me a little. Her blonde hair is pulled into a messy braid around to one side, lying freely over her right shoulder. A few strands that escaped the rubber band rest freely down the side of her face. I have this urge to reach up and brush them softly with my finger, but I don’t. I can’t be doing shit like that. I need to get rid of this attraction. But she’s different from other girls and I think that’s exactly why I’m having such a hard time with it. I don’t need this right now. “You’ll be fine,” she says. Her hand falls away from my wrist when she sees that she has my attention. I smile faintly back at her. We follow the hall to the elevator and ride up to the third floor. Every step of the way I feel like I should just turn around and leave this place. My father doesn’t want me to show emotion when I go in there and right about now I’m about to explode with it. Maybe I should go outside and punch a few trees and get it all out of my system before I go in there. We stop at the waiting area where a few other people are all sitting around reading magazines. “I’ll wait here for you,” Camryn says and I look right at her. “Why don’t you come with me?” I really do want her to. I don’t know why. Camryn starts to shake her head no. “I-I can’t go in there,” she says, looking uncomfortable now. “Really, I … I just don’t think it’s appropriate.” I reach out and gently take her sling bag from her shoulder and put it on mine. It’s light, but she’s starting to look discomforted by it. “It’s fine,” I say. “I want you to go with me.” Why am I saying this? She looks down at the floor and then carefully gazes around at the rest of the room before her blue eyes fall on me again. “OK,” she says with a subtle nod. I feel my face break into a small smile and I instinctively take her by the hand. She doesn’t pull away. I’m comforted by her, needless to say, and I get the feeling she’s happy to oblige. Surely she knows how hard something like this would be for anyone. We walk hand in hand toward my father’s room. She squeezes once, looking over at me as if to give me more encouragement. And then I push open the hospital room door. A nurse looks up when we walk in. “I’m Mr. Parrish’s son.” She nods solemnly and goes back to adjusting the machines and tubes hooked up to my father. The room is a typical bland and sterile space with bright white walls and a tile floor so shiny the lights running along the ceiling panels blaze off of it. I hear a constant and steady beep coming from the heart rate monitor next to my father’s bed. I still haven’t actually looked at my father. I realize I’m looking at everything in the room but him. Camryn’s fingers squeeze around mine. “How is he doing?” I ask, but I know it’s a stupid question. He’s dying; that’s how he’s doing. I just can’t get anything else out. The nurse looks at me expressionless. “He’s in and out of consciousness, as you probably already know.” No, I didn’t know, actually. “And there hasn’t been any change, good or bad.” She adjusts an IV running from the top of his rugged hand. Then she walks around the bed and picks up a clipboard from the side table and tucks it underneath her arm. “Has anyone else been here?” I ask. The nurse nods. “Family has been in and out for the past several days. Some left about an hour ago, but I expect they’ll be back.” Probably Aidan, my older brother and his wife, Michelle. And my younger brother, Asher. The nurse slips out of the room. Camryn looks up at me, tightening her hand around mine. Her eyes smile carefully. “I’m going to sit over there and let you visit with your father, OK?” I nod, though everything she said just kind of slipped through my head like a wispy memory. Her fingers slowly fall away from mine and she takes a seat against the wall on the empty vinyl chair. I suck in a deep breath and lick the dryness from my lips. His face is swollen. Tubes are running from his nostrils, feeding him oxygen. I’m surprised he’s not on life support yet, but this gives me a small sense of hope. Really small. I know he won’t get better; that’s pretty much already been established. What’s left of his hair has been shaved off. They had talked about trying to perform surgery, but after my dad found out that it wasn’t going to save him he, of course, complained: “You’re not cuttin’ into my fuckin’ head,” he had said. “You want me to shell out thousands of dollars so you boys can have these cereal box doctors crack my damn skull open? Dammit, boy!” He had been talking to Aidan specifically. “You are one nut shy of a man!” My brothers and I were prepared to do whatever it took to save him, but he had gone behind our backs and signed some kind of ‘stipulation’ that when things got worse that no one would have the right to make these decisions for him. My mom was who alerted the hospital of his wishes days before the surgery was to be performed and provided them with the legal papers. We were upset by it, but my mother is a smart and caring woman and none of us could ever be pissed at her for what she did. I move closer and look the rest of him over. My hand sort of has a mind of its own and the next thing I know it’s slithering up beside his and taking a hold of it. Even this feels odd. Like I shouldn’t be doing it. If it were anyone else, I’d have no issue holding their hand. But this is my dad and I feel like I’m doing something I shouldn’t. I can just hear his voice inside my head: “You don’t hold another man’s hand, boy. What the hell is wrong with you?” Suddenly, my dad’s eyes crack open and instinctively I pull my hand away from his. “That you, Andrew?” I nod, gazing down at him. “Where’s Linda?” “Who?” “Linda,” he says and his eyes can’t decide if they want to stay open. “My wife, Linda. Where is she?” I swallow hard and glance over at Camryn who is sitting so quietly, watching. I turn back to my dad. “Dad, you and Linda divorced last year, remember?” His pale green eyes are glazed over by moisture. Not tears. Just moisture. He looks dazed for a moment and smacks his lips together, moving his dry tongue around in his mouth. “Do you want some water?” I ask and go to reach for the long lap table on wheels that had been moved away from the bed. A pale pink pitcher of water sits on it next to a thick plastic mug with a pop-on top with a straw poking up through the center. My dad shakes his head no. “Did’ja fix Ms. Nina?” he asks. I nod again. “Yeah, she looks great. New paint job and rims.” “Good, good,” he says, nodding a little, too. This feels awkward and I know it’s written all over my face and my posture. I just don’t know what to say or if I should try to force him to drink some water or if I should just sit down and wait for Aidan and Asher to get back. I’d rather them do this than me. I’m not good with this kind of thing. “Who’s that pretty thing?” he asks, looking toward the wall. I wonder how he can even see Camryn all the way over there and then I notice he’s looking at her through the tall mirror on the other side of him which reflects that portion of the room. Camryn freezes up a little, but that pretty smile of hers brightens her face. She raises her hand and waves at him through the mirror with her fingers. Even through his swollen skin, I see a grin on my dad’s lips. “Is that your Eurydice?” he asks and my eyes freeze wide open. I hope Camryn didn’t catch that, but I don’t see how she couldn’t. My dad weakly raises one hand and gestures toward Camryn. She gets up and walks over to stand next to me. She smiles so warmly at him it even impresses me. She’s a natural. I know she’s nervous and probably feels more uncomfortable than she ever has standing in this room with this dying man who she doesn’t even know, yet she doesn’t break. “Hi, Mr. Parrish,” she says. “I’m Camryn Bennett, a friend of Andrew’s.” His eyes move to me. I know that look; he’s comparing her answer with the look on my face, trying to decipher her meaning of ‘friend’. And then suddenly my father does something I have never seen him do: he reaches out his hand … to me. The gesture stuns me numb. Only when I notice Camryn covertly glaring at me to acknowledge him, do I break free from the numbness and nervously take his hand. I hold it for a long, awkward moment and my father closes his eyes and drifts back to sleep. I move my hand from his when I feel his weak grip go completely slack. The door opens and my brothers walk in, along with Aidan’s wife, Michelle. I step away from my father right on cue, taking Camryn with me and not realizing that I’m holding her hand again until Aidan’s eyes move down to see our interlocked fingers. “Glad you could make it,” Aidan says, though with a bit of contempt in his voice, no doubt. He’s still pissed at me for not taking a plane and getting here sooner. He’ll have to fucking get over it; we grieve in our own ways. Regardless, he pulls me into a hug, gripping one hand between us and patting my back with the other. “This is Camryn,” I say, looking back at her. She smiles up at them, having already found her way back to the empty chair against the wall. “This is my older brother, Aidan, and his wife, Michelle.” I point gently at them. “And that’s the runt, Asher.” “Dickhead,” Asher says. “I know,” I say. Aidan and Michelle take the other two seats next to a table and start distributing the burger and fries they just bought. “The ol’ man still hasn’t come to,” Aidan says, stuffing a few fries in his mouth. “I hate to say it, but I don’t think he’s going to.” Camryn looks right at me. We both spoke to my father just moments ago and I know she’s waiting for me to give them the news. “Probably not,” I say and see Camryn’s eyes wrinkle in confusion. “How long are you staying?” Aidan asks. “Not long.” “Why doesn’t that surprise me?” He takes a bite of his burger. “Don’t start your shit with me, Aidan, I’m not in the mood for it and this isn’t the fucking time or the place.” “Whatever,” Aidan says, shaking his head and working his jaws around to chew his food. He dips a few fries in a mound of ketchup Michelle just made on a napkin in between them. “Do what you want, but be here for the funeral.” There is no emotion in his face. He just continues to eat. My whole body goes rigid. “Damn, Aidan,” Asher says from behind me. “Can you please not do this right now? Seriously, bro, Andrew’s right.” Asher has always been the mediator between Aidan and me. And always the most level-headed. When it comes to me or Aidan, we think better with our fists. He always won the fights between us when we were kids, but little did he know that all that time he was beating the shit out of me, he was training me. We’re pretty even now. We avoid actual contact fighting with each other at all costs, but I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t hold my shit back as good as he does. And he knows it. It’s why he’s backing off now and using Michelle as a distraction. He reaches up and wipes ketchup from the side of her mouth. She giggles. Camryn catches my eyes; she’s probably been trying to get my attention for the past couple of minutes, and for a second, I think she’s trying to indicate that she’s ready to go, but then she shakes her head, telling me instead to calm down. Instantly, I do. “So,” Asher chimes in to lessen the tension in the room, “how long have you two been going out?” He leans against the wall near the television, crossing his arms over his chest. We look almost exactly alike with the same brown hair and crazy fucking dimples. Aidan is the oddball of the three of us; his hair is a lot darker and instead of dimples, he has a small birthmark on his left cheek. “Oh, no we’re just friends,” I say. I think Camryn just blushed, but I can’t be sure. “Must be a good friend to come all the way to Wyoming with you,” Aidan says. Thankfully he’s not being a dick. If he decided to take his anger on me out on her, I’d have to break his face. “Yeah,” Camryn speaks up and instantly I’m absorbed by the sweetness of her voice, “I live near Galveston; thought someone should ride along with him since he was taking a bus.” I’m surprised she remembers what city I told her I lived in. Aidan nods kindly at her; his cheeks moving as he chews. “She’s hot, bro,” I hear Asher whisper at me from behind. I turn around at the waist and glare at him to shut up. He smiles, but he does shut up. The ol’ man stirs almost unnoticeably and Asher moves over to the side of the bed. He taps Dad on the nose playfully. “Wake up. We brought burgers.” Aidan holds his burger up as if our dad can actually see it. “They’re good, too. Better wake up soon or they’ll be gone.” Dad doesn’t stir again. He has all three of us trained. We would never think to stand around his bed and look all depressed and shit. And when he dies, Aidan and Asher will probably order a pizza and buy a case of beer and shoot the shit until the sun comes up the next morning. I won’t be here for that. In fact, the longer I stand here the better the chances are that he will die before I can leave. I talk with my brothers and Michelle for a few more minutes and then walk over to Camryn. “Are you ready?” She takes my hand and stands up with me. “Already leaving?” Aidan says. Camryn speaks up before I do and says with a smile, “He’ll be back; we’re just going to grab something to eat.” She’s trying to diffuse an argument before it starts. She looks at me and I, agreeing to go along with it, turn to Asher and say, “Call me if there’s any change.” He nods but offers nothing else. “Bye Andrew,” Michelle says. “It was good to see you again.” “You too.” Asher walks with us out into the hall. “You’re not coming back, are you?” he says. Camryn turns away from us and walks a little ways down the hall to give us a minute. I shake my head. “I’m sorry, Ash, I just can’t deal with this. I can’t.” “I know bro.” He shakes his head. “Dad wouldn’t even care, you know that. He’d rather you be getting laid, or shitfaced, than hanging around his old ass in that bed.” He does speak the truth, strangely enough. He also glances at Camryn once after having said that. “Just friends? Really?” he whispers at me with a devious grin. “Yes, we’re just friends, so shut the fuck up.” He laughs in his chest and then pats the side of my arm. “I’ll call you when I need to, alright?” I nod, agreeing. When he ‘needs to’ call me, he means when Dad has died. Asher raises his hand to wave at Camryn. “Nice to meet you.” She smiles and he disappears back inside the room. “I really think you should stay here, Andrew. I really do.” I start to walk faster down the hall and she keeps up right alongside me. I slide my hands down in my pockets. I always do that when I’m nervous. “I know you probably think I’m a selfish bastard for leaving, but you don’t understand.” “Well, tell me,” she says, grabbing me around the elbow and we just keep walking. “I don’t think you’re being selfish, I think you just don’t know how to deal with this kind of pain.” She’s trying to catch my gaze, but I can’t look at her. I just want to get out of this death sentence built with red bricks. We make it to the elevator and Camryn stops talking since there are two other people inside with us, but as soon as we stop on the ground floor and the silver metal doors slide open, she goes back to it. “Andrew. Stop. Please!” I stop at the sound of her voice and she turns me around. She gazes up at me with such a tormented look on her face that it sort of hurts my heart. That long, blonde braid still hangs over her right shoulder. “Talk to me,” she says more softly now that she has my attention. “It doesn’t hurt to talk.” “Kind of like how it doesn’t hurt to tell me why Texas?” That stings her. Camryn Thirteen (#ulink_b31129b7-c235-558f-a10d-9aa92aaac9dc) His words shut me up for about five full seconds. My hand drops from his elbow. “I think your situation is a little more important than mine right now,” I say. “Really?” he says. “And you wanting to ride around alone on a bus, not knowing where the hell you’re going and putting yourself in danger; that doesn’t seem imminently as important to you?” He seems angry. I can tell that he is, but most of it, if not every bit of it, is because his father is upstairs dying, and Andrew doesn’t know how to let him go. I feel sorry for him, for being raised to believe that he can’t show the kind of emotion needed in a situation like this, or else it will make him less of a man. I can’t show the emotion, either, but I wasn’t raised that way, I was forced into it. “Do you cry at all?” I ask. “About other things? Have you ever cried?” He scoffs. “Of course. Everybody cries, even big tough guys like me.” “OK, name one time.” He answers easily: “A … movie made me cry once,” but he suddenly appears embarrassed and might be regretting his answer. “What movie?” He can’t look me in the eyes. I feel the mood lightening between us, despite what created it. “What does it matter?” he says. I smile and step up closer to him. “Oh come on, just tell me—what, you think I’m going to laugh at you and call you a pussy?” He breaks a small grin underneath the embarrassed flush of his face. “The Notebook,” he says so low that I didn’t quite catch it. “Did you say The Notebook?” “Yes! I cried watching The Notebook, alright?” He turns his back on me and I’m using every shred of strength I have to hold back the laughter. I don’t think it’s at all funny that he cried watching The Notebook; what’s funny is his humiliated reaction admitting it. I laugh. I can’t help it, it just comes out. Andrew whirls around with eyes wider than plates and he glares at me for a second. I yelp when he grabs me and throws me over his shoulder, carrying me right out of the hospital. I’m laughing so hard I have tears in my eyes. Fun tears, not the ones I stopped shedding after Ian died. “Put me down!” I beat my fists against his back. “You said you wouldn’t laugh!” Him saying that only makes me laugh harder. I cackle and let out weird noises I never knew I could make. “Please, Andrew! Put me down!” My fingers are digging into his back through the fabric of his shirt. Finally, I feel my shoes touch the concrete. I look at him and I do stop laughing because I want him to talk to me. I can’t let him leave his father. But he speaks up first: “I just can’t cry around or for him, like I told you before.” I touch his arm gently. “Well then don’t cry, but at least stay.” “I’m not going to stay, Camryn.” He stares deeply into my eyes and I know just by the way he’s looking at me that I’m not going to be able to change his mind. “I appreciate you trying to help, but this isn’t something I can give in to.” Reluctantly, I nod. “Maybe sometime during this road trip you agreed to, we’ll be able to tell each other the things we don’t want to tell,” he says and my heart, for some reason, reacts to his voice. There’s a flutter inside my chest, just between my breasts behind my ribcage. Andrew smiles brightly, his perfectly-shaped green eyes like the centerpiece of his sculpted face. He really is gorgeous … “So, what have you decided?” he asks, crossing his arms and looking all inquisitive. “Am I buying you a plane ticket home, or are you really set on the road to Nowhere, Texas?” “You really want to go with me?” I just can’t believe it and at the same time, I want more than anything for it to be true. I hold my breath waiting for him to answer. He smiles. “Yes, I really do.” The fluttering turns into hot mush and my face smiles so hugely that for a long moment, I can’t seem to soften it. “I just have one complaint about tagging along though,” he says, holding up a finger. “What?” “Riding on that bus,” he says. “I really fucking hate it.” I chuckle quietly and have to agree with him on that one. “So how else are we supposed to go?” One side of his mouth lifts into a knowing smile. “We can take the car,” he says. “I’ll drive.” I don’t hesitate. “OK.” “OK?” he says, pausing. “That’s it? You’re just going to hop in the car with a guy you barely know and trust him not to rape you on a deserted highway somewhere—I thought we already went over this?” I tilt my head to one side, crossing my arms. “Is it any different than meeting you at the library and going out with you a night or two later, alone in your car?” I tilt my head to the other side. “Everybody starts out as strangers, Andrew, but not everybody meets a stranger who saves her from a rapist and takes her to meet his dying father practically in the same night—I’d say you passed the trustworthy test a little ways back.” The left side of his mouth lifts into a grin, disrupting the seriousness of my heartfelt words. “So this road trip is a date then?” “What?” I laugh. “No! It was just an analogy.” I know he’s aware of that, but I need to say something to help distract him from my reddening cheeks. “You know what I mean.” He smiles. “Yeah, I know, but you do owe me a ‘friendly’ dinner in the company of a steak.” He quotes with his fingers when he says ‘friendly’. The smile never leaves his face. “I do, I admit it.” “Then it’s settled,” he says, looping his arm through mine and walking me toward the cab waiting near the parking lot. “We’ll pick up my dad’s car from the bus station, stop by his house and grab a few things and then we’re on the road.” He opens the back door on the cab to let me get in first, shutting it behind him once he slides in next to me. The cab pulls out of the lot. “Oh, I should probably set a few ground rules before we do this.” “Oh?” I turn at the waist and look at him curiously. “What kind of ground rules?” He smiles. “Well, number one: my car, my stereo; I’m sure I don’t need to elaborate on that.” I roll my eyes. “So, basically you’re telling me I’m stuck with you in a car on a road trip and can only listen to classic rock?” “Ah, it’ll grow on ya’.” “It never grew on me when I was growing up and had to endure my parents listening to it.” “Number two,” he says holding up two fingers and dismissing my argument altogether. “You have to do whatever I say.” My head snaps back and my brows draw together harshly. “Huh? What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” His smile gets bigger, crafty even. “You said you trusted me, so trust me on this.” “Well, you’re going to have to give me more than that. Really, no joke.” He leans back against the seat and folds his hands between his long, splayed legs. “I promise you I won’t ask you to do anything harmful, degrading, dangerous or unacceptable.” “So basically, you won’t be asking me to suck your dick for five hundred dollars, or anything like that?” Andrew throws his head back and laughs out loud. The cab driver shifts in the front seat. I notice his eyes veer away from the rearview mirror when I look up. “No, definitely nothing like that—I swear.” He’s still sort of laughing. “OK, but what would you ask me to do then?” I’m totally leery of this whole idea. I still trust him, I admit, but I’m also a little terrified now in a worried-I’ll-wake-up-with-a-Sharpie-moustache sort of way. He pats my thigh with his hand. “If it makes you feel better, you can tell me to screw off if you want to refuse anything, but I hope you won’t because I really want to show you how to live.” Wow, that totally catches me off-guard. He’s serious; nothing humorous about those words and once again I find myself fascinated by him. “How to live?” “You ask too many damn questions.” He pats my thigh one more time and moves his hand back into his lap. “Well, if you were on this side of the car, you’d be asking a lot of questions, too.” “Maybe.” My lips part halfway. “You are a very strange person, Andrew Parrish, but alright, I trust you.” His smile becomes more warming as he lays his head against the seat looking over at me. “Any more ground rules?” I ask. He looks up in thought and chews on the inside of his mouth for a moment. “Nope.” His head falls back to the side. “That’s about it.” It’s my turn. “Well I have a few ground rules of my own.” He lifts his head with curiosity, but leaves his hands flat over his stomach with his strong fingers interlocked. “Alright, shoot,” he says, grinning, prepared for anything I can throw at him, surely. “Number one: under no circumstances will you be getting in my panties. Just because I’m friendly to you and am agreeing to—well, the craziest thing I’ve ever done—I’m giving you advance warning that I’m not going to be your next lay, or fall in love with you.” He’s grinning from ear to ear right now and it’s very distracting. “Or anything like that. Is that understood?” I’m trying to be very serious about this. I really am. And I do mean what I said. But that stupid grin of his is sort of forcing me to smile and I hate him for it. He crinkles his lips in thought. “Completely understood,” he agrees, though I feel there is a hidden meaning behind his words. I nod. “Good.” I feel better that I made myself clear. “What else?” he asks. For a second I forgot about the other ground rule. “Yeah so number two is: no Bad Company.” He looks mildly mortified. “What the hell kind of rule is that?” “It’s just my rule,” I say, smirking. “You have a problem with it? You have all the other classic rock you can listen to and I’m not allowed to listen to anything I want, so I see nothing wrong with my tiny stipulation.” I hold my thumb and index finger a half inch apart to show how tiny. “Well I don’t like that rule,” he grumbles. “Bad Company is a great band—why such a hater?” He looks wounded. I find it cute. I purse my lips. “Honestly?” I’m probably going to regret this. “Well yeah, honestly,” he says, crossing his arms. “Out with it.” “They sing too much about love. It’s cheesy.” Andrew laughs out loud again and I’m starting to think the cab driver is really getting an earful with us in his car. “Sounds like someone is bit-ter,” Andrew says and a deep grin warms his lips. Yep, I regret it. I look away from him because I can’t let him see anything in my face to confirm that he’s right on target with his assessment of me. At least where my cheating ex, Christian, is concerned. With him, it’s bitterness. With Ian, it’s cruel, unadulterated pain. “Well, we’ll fix that, too,” he says nonchalantly. I look back over. “Ummm, well thanks Dr. Phil, but I don’t need help with that sort of thing.” Wait a damn minute! Who ever said I needed to be ‘fixed’ at all? “Oh?” He tilts his chin, looking curious. “Yeah,” I say. “Besides, that would sort of break my ground rule number one.” He blinks and smiles. “Oh, you automatically assume I was going to offer myself up as the guinea pig?” His shoulders bounce with gentle laughter. Ouch! I try not to look offended. Not sure if it’s working all that well, so I use a different tactic: “Well, I would hope not,” I say, batting my eyes. “You’re not my type.” Oh yeah, ball’s in my court again; I think he actually flinched! “And just what’s wrong with me?” he asks, but I’m totally not buying anymore that my comment really hurt him. People don’t normally smile after they’ve been offended. I turn around the whole way, pressing my back against the cab door and look him up and down. I’d be lying my ass off if I said I don’t like what I see. I haven’t found anything yet that doesn’t make him my type. In fact, if it weren’t for me not being into sex or dating or relationships or love, Andrew Parrish is the kind of guy that I would totally go for and who Natalie would openly drool over. She would wear him across her boobs. “There’s nothing ‘wrong’ with you,” I say. “I just tend to end up with the … tame types.” For the third time, Andrew’s head falls back into laughter. “Tame?” he says, still laughing. He nods a few times and adds, “Yeah, I guess you’re right in saying I’m not exactly the tame type.” He holds up his finger as if to make a point. “But what interests me more about what you said is that you ‘end up’ with them—what do you think that means?” How did the ball even get back in his court? I never saw him coming. I look to him for the answer, even though he’s the one who asked the question. He’s still smiling, but there’s something much softer and perceptive in it this time, rather than the usual jest. He doesn’t say anything. “I-I don’t know,” I say distantly and then look right at him. “Why does that have to mean anything anyway?” He shakes his head subtly, but just looks out in front of him as the cab pulls into the parking lot near the bus station. Andrew’s dad’s 1969 Chevy Chevelle is the only car left in the lot. They must really be into that whole vintage car thing. Andrew pays the driver and we get out. “Have a good night, man,” he says, waving as the driver pulls away. I end up riding to Andrew’s dad’s house mostly in a contemplative quiet, thinking about what he said, but then I let it go when we pull into the driveway of his dad’s immaculate house. “Whoa,” I say with parted lips as I step out of the car. “That’s a lot of house.” His door shuts. “Yeah, my dad owns a successful construction and design company,” he says nonchalantly. “Come on, I don’t want to spend too much time here in case Aidan shows up.” I walk alongside him down the curved, landscaped walkway leading to the front door of the three-story house. It’s such a rich, immaculate place I just can’t see his particular father living in it. His father just seems more of a simple kind of man and not one to be as materialistic as my mother. Mom would faint in something like this. Andrew thumbs through his keys and pushes the right one into the door lock. It clicks open. “Not to be nosey, but why would your dad want to live in a house this big?” The foyer smells like cinnamon potpourri. “Nah, this was his ex-wife’s doing, not his.” I follow him straight to the white-carpeted staircase. “She was a nice woman—Linda, the woman he mentioned at the hospital—but she couldn’t deal with Dad and I can’t blame her.” “I thought you were going to tell me she married him for his money.” Andrew shakes his head as he leads me up the stairs. “No, it was nothing like that—my dad is just a difficult man to live with.” He slips his keys down into his front right jeans pocket. I steal a quick glance of his butt in those jeans as he pads up the stairs in front of me. I bite my bottom lip and then mentally kick myself. “This is my room.” We enter the first bedroom on the left. It’s fairly empty; looks more like a storage room with a few boxes piled neatly against one taupe-colored wall, some exercise equipment and a weird-looking Native American statue pushed into the far corner and partially wrapped in plastic. Andrew moves across the space to the walk-in closet and flips a light switch inside. I stay near the center of the room, arms crossed, looking around and trying not to look like I’m snooping. “You say ‘is’ your room?” “Yeah,” he says from inside the closet, “for when I visit, or if I ever want to live here.” I walk closer to the closet to see him sifting through clothes hanging much how I hang mine. “You’re OCD, too, I see.” He looks at me questioningly. I point to the clothes hung by color and on matching black plastic hangers. “Oh, no, definitely not,” he clarifies. “Dad’s housekeeper comes in here and does this shit. I could care less that my clothes are hung up at all, much less by color—that’s too … wait—” He pulls away from the shirts and looks at me in a sidelong glance. “You do this to your clothes?” He points his finger horizontally at the shirts and moves it back and forth. “Yeah,” I say, but I feel weird admitting it to him, “I like my stuff neat and everything has to have a place.” Andrew laughs and goes back to sifting through the shirts. Without really looking at them much, he yanks a few shirts and pairs of jeans from the hangers and throws them over his arm. “Isn’t that stressful?” he asks. “What? Hanging my clothes up neatly?” He smiles and shoves the small mound of clothes into my arms. I look down at them awkwardly and back up at him. “Never mind,” he says and points behind me in the room. “Can you put those in that duffle bag hanging from the workout bench?” “Sure,” I say and carry them over. First I set them down on the black vinyl bench and then grab the duffle bag hanging from the weights. “So, where are we going to go first?” I ask, folding the shirt on top of the pile. He’s still rummaging through the closet. “No, no,” he says from inside; his voice is kind of muffled, “no outlines, Camryn. We’re just going to get into the car and drive. No maps or plans or—” He’s popped his head out of the closet and his voice is clearer. “What are you doing?” I look up, the second shirt from the pile already in a half-fold. “I’m folding them for you.” I hear a thump-thump as he drops a pair of black running shoes on the floor and emerges from the closet towards me. When he makes it over, he looks at me like I’ve done something wrong and takes the half-folded shirt from my hands. “Don’t be so perfect, babe; just shove them in the bag.” He does it for me as if to show me how easy it is. I don’t know which has my attention more: his lesson in disorganization, or why my stomach flip-flopped when he called me ‘babe’. I shrug and let him have his way with his clothes. “What you wear really doesn’t matter much,” he says, walking back to the closet. “All that matters is where you’re going and what you’re doing while you’re wearing it.” He tosses the black running shoes to me, one at a time, and I catch them. “Shove those in there, too, if you don’t mind.” I do exactly what he says, literally shoving them inside the bag and I cringe while doing it. Good thing the bottoms of the shoes look like they’ve never been worn, otherwise I would’ve had to protest. “You know what I find sexy in a girl?” He’s standing with one muscular arm raised high above his head as he searches through some boxes on the top shelf of the closet. I can see the very end of that tattoo he has down his left side, peeking just at the edge of his shirt. “Ummm, I’m not sure,” I say. “Girls who wear wrinkled clothes?” I scrunch up my nose. “Girls who just get up and throw something on,” he answers and takes down a shoe box. He walks back out with it perched on the palm of his hand. “That just-got-up-and-don’t-give-a-shit look is sexy.” “I get it,” I say. “You’re one of those guys who despise makeup and perfume and all that stuff that makes girls, girls.” He hands me the shoebox and just like with the clothes, I look down at it with vague question. Andrew smiles. “Nah, I don’t hate it, I just think simple is sexy, is all.” “What do you want me to do with this?” I pat the top of the shoe box with my finger. “Open it.” I glance down at it, uncertain, and back up at him. He nods once to urge me. I lift the red top off the box and stare down at a bunch of CDs in their original jewel cases. “My dad was too lazy to put an MP3 player in his car,” he begins, “and when traveling you can’t always get the best radio reception—sometimes you can’t find a decent station at all.” He takes the shoebox top from my hand. “That’ll be our official playlist.” He smiles hugely, revealing all of his straight, white teeth. Me, not so much. I grimace and scrunch up one side of my mouth sourly. Everything is here, all of the bands he mentioned when I met him on the bus and several others I’ve never heard of. I’m pretty confident that I’ve heard ninety percent of the music I’m staring at at one time or another being around my parents. But if anyone were to ask me the name of this or that song, or what album it’s from, or what band sings it, I probably wouldn’t know. “Great,” I say sarcastically, frown-smiling at him with a wrinkled nose. His smile just gets bigger. I think he loves torturing me. Andrew Fourteen (#ulink_f0833d79-0bc4-55f5-a7b0-5e5ff9a07ca3) She’s cute when I’m torturing her. Because she enjoys it. I don’t know how I got myself into this, but I do know that as much as my conscience is ripping into my fucking ears, telling me to leave her alone, I can’t. I don’t want to. We’ve already gone too far. I know I should’ve left it at the bus station, bought her a First Class plane ticket home so she would feel obligated to use it since it cost so much, then called her a cab and had it drop her off at the airport. I should never have let her leave with me, because now, I know that I won’t be able to let her go. I have to show her first. It’s mandatory now. I have to show her everything. She might get hurt in the end after all is said and done, but at least she’ll be able to go back home to North Carolina with something more to look forward to in her life. I take the shoebox from her hands and place the top back over it and set it on top of the opened duffle bag. She watches me as I throw open the top dresser drawer and fish out a few clean pairs of boxers and socks and then shove them down inside the bag, too. All of my basic hygiene necessities are in the bag out in the car that I brought on the bus with me. I hoist the duffle bag strap over my shoulder and look at her. “Are you ready?” “I guess so,” she says. “Wait, you guess?” I ask, stepping up to her. “You either are, or you aren’t.” She smiles up at me with those beautiful crystal blue eyes. “Yes, I’m definitely ready.” “Good, but why the hesitation?” She shakes her head softly to say I’m wrong. “Absolutely no hesitation,” she says. “All of this is just … strange, you know? But in a good way.” She looks like she’s trying to untangle something in her head. Obviously, she’s got a lot on her mind. “You’re right,” I say. “It is kind of strange—OK, it’s a lot strange because it’s not natural, stepping out of the box like this.” I peer in at her, forcing her to catch my eyes. “But that’s the whole point.” Her smile brightens as though my words rang a little bell inside her mind. She nods and says with a fun and eager air, “Well, then what are we waiting for?” We walk back out into the hall and just before we start to head down the stairs, I stop. “Wait one second.” She waits there at the top of the stairs and I turn back, passing my bedroom and head toward Aidan’s. His room is as pathetic as mine. I see his acoustic guitar sitting propped against the far wall and I walk over and grab it by the neck and carry it out. “You play guitar?” Camryn asks as I lead her down the stairs. “Yeah, I play some.” Camryn Andrew chucks his bag in the backseat with his smaller bag and mine and my purse. He’s a little more careful with the guitar, though, laying it neatly across the seat. We hop inside the vintage black car (with two white racing stripes down the center of the hood) and shut our doors at the same time. He looks over at me. I look over at him. He thrusts the key in the ignition and the Chevelle roars to life. I can’t believe I’m doing this. I’m not afraid or worried or feel like I should stop this right now and just go home. Everything about it feels right; for the first time in a very long time, I feel like my life is back on track again, except on a very different sort of road, one in which I have no idea where it’s going. I can’t explain it … except that, well, like I said: it feels right. Andrew punches the gas once we hit the entrance ramp and get on 87 going south. I kind of like watching him drive, how he’s so casual even when he speeds past a few slow drivers. It doesn’t look like he’s trying to show off as he’s weaving between cars; it just looks like second-nature to him. I catch myself getting a glimpse every now and then of his muscled right arm as his hand grips the steering wheel. And as my eyes carefully scan the rest of him, I go right back to wondering about that tattoo hidden underneath that navy t-shirt which fits him so well. We talk about whatever for a while; about that guitar being Aidan’s and that Aidan will probably blow up if he finds out that Andrew took it. Andrew doesn’t care. “He stole my socks once,” Andrew said. “Your socks?” I said back with a rather screwed-up expression. And he looked over at me with an expression that read: hey; socks, guitars, deodorant—a possession is a possession. I just laughed, still finding it ridiculous, but easily letting him slide. We also got into a really deep conversation about the mystery of the single shoes that lie on the side of the freeways all across the United States. “Girlfriend got pissed and tossed her boyfriend’s shit out the window,” Andrew had said. “Yeah, that’s a possibility,” I said, “but I think a lot of them belong to hitchhikers, because most of them are raggedy.” He glanced over at me awkwardly, as if waiting for the rest. “Hitchhikers?” I nodded, “Well yeah, they do a lot of walking so I imagine their shoes get worn out fast. They’re walking along, their feet are hurting and they see a shoe—probably one of those tossed out by that angry girlfriend—” I point at him to include his theory “—and seeing that it’s in better shape than the ones on his feet, he trades one out.” “That’s stupid,” Andrew said. My mouth parted with a spat of offended air. “It could happen!” I laughed and reached over and smacked him on the arm. He just smiled at me. And we went on and on about it, each of us coming up with an even stupider theory than the one before. I can’t remember the last time I laughed this much. We finally make it back into Denver nearly two hours later. It’s such a beautiful city with the vast mountains in the background that look like white clouds at their peaks, sprawled across the bright blue horizon. It’s still pretty early in the day and the sun is shining full-force. When we make it into the heart of the city, Andrew slows the car to a forty-mile-per-hour crawl. “You have to tell me which way,” he says as we coast toward another entrance ramp. He looks in three directions and then over at me. Caught off-guard, my eyes dart around at each route and the closer we get to having to make a decision on which way to turn, the slower he drives. Thirty-five miles per hour. “What’s it gonna be?” he asks with sparkling bright green eyes flecked by a little bit of taunt. I’m so nervous! I feel like I’m being asked to choose which wire to cut to diffuse a bomb. “I don’t know!” I shout, but my lips are smiling wide and nervously. Twenty miles per hour. People are honking at us and one guy in a red car zooms past and flips us off. Fifteen miles per hour. Ahhh! I can’t stand the anticipation! I feel like I want to burst out laughing, but it’s being held captive in my throat. Honk! Honk! Fuck you! Move out of the way asshole! It all just rolls off Andrew’s back and he never stops smiling. “That way!” I finally yell, throwing my hand up and pointing to the east ramp. I squeal out laughter and slide my back down further against the seat so that no one else can see me, I’m so embarrassed. Andrew flips his left blinker on and slides over into the left lane with ease, in between two other cars. We make it through the yellow light just before it turns red and in seconds we’re on another freeway and Andrew is pressing on the gas. I have no idea which direction we’re traveling, only that we’re going east, but where it leads exactly is still up in the air. “Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?” he says, glancing over at me with a grin. “Kind of exhilarating,” I say and then let out a sharp laugh. “You really pissed those people off.” He brushes it off with a shrug. “Everybody’s in too much of a hurry. God forbid you drive the speed limit or you might get lynched.” “So true,” I say and look out ahead through the windshield. “Though I have to come clean—I’m usually one of them.” I wince admitting it. “Yeah, me too sometimes.” Everything gets quiet all of a sudden and it becomes the first quiet moment that the both of us notice. I wonder if he’s thinking the same thing, wondering about me and wanting to ask, just as I’m curious about so much when it comes to him. It’s one of those moments that are inevitable and almost always open the door to the stage where two people really start to get to know each other. It’s very different from when we were on the bus together. We thought that our time was limited then and if we were never going to see each other again, there was no reason to get all personal. But things have changed and personal is all that’s left. “Tell me more about your best friend, Natalie.” I keep my eyes on the road for several long seconds and I’m slow to answer because I’m not sure which part of her I should tell. “If she’s even still your best friend,” he adds, sensing the animosity somehow. I look over. “Not anymore. She’s sort of whipped, for lack of a better explanation.” “I’m sure you have a better explanation,” he says, putting his eyes back on the road. “Maybe you just don’t want to explain it.” I make a decision. “No, I do want to explain it, actually.” He looks pleased, but keeps it at a respectful level. “I’ve known her since second grade,” I begin, “and I didn’t think anything could break up our friendship, but I was so wrong about that.” I shake my head, disgusted just thinking about it. “Well, what happened?” “She chose her boyfriend over me.” I think he expected more of an explanation and I intended to give him more, but it just came out the way it did. “Did you make her choose?” he asks with a subtly raised brow. I turn around to look at him. “No, it wasn’t like that at all.” I sigh long and heavily. “Damon—her boyfriend—got me alone one night and tried to kiss me and tell me he wanted me. Next thing I know, Natalie is calling me a lying bitch and says she never wants to see me again.” Andrew nods one of those long, hard nods that show he completely understands now. “An insecure girl,” he says. “She’s probably been with him for a long time, huh?” “Yeah, about five years.” “You know, this best friend of yours, she believes you, right?” I gaze over at him confusedly. He nods. “She does; think about it, she’s known you practically all her life. Do you really think she’d just toss away a friendship like that because she didn’t believe you?” I’m still confused. “But she did,” I say simply. “It’s exactly what she did.” “Nah,” he says, “it’s just a reaction, Camryn. She doesn’t want to believe it, but not so very far down, she knows it’s true. She just needs time to think on it and to see it for what it is. She’ll come around.” “Well, by the time she does, I might not want her.” “Maybe so,” he says and flips on his right blinker and switches lanes, “but I don’t take you for the type.” “Unforgiving?” I say. He nods. We speed past a crawling semi and move around in front of it. “I don’t know,” I say, unsure myself anymore, “I’m not like I used to be.” “How did you used to be?” I’m not even sure about that, either. It takes me a second to find a way around mentioning Ian. “I used to be fun and outgoing and I …” I laugh suddenly as the memory tickles my mind, “… and I used to run naked into a freezing lake every winter.” Andrew’s whole beautiful face twists into a curious, energized smile. “Wow,” he says, “I can just picture it …” I smack him on the arm again. Always smiling. He pretends it stings, but I know better. “It was a fundraiser for the hospital in my town,” I say, “and they put it on every year.” “Naked?” He looks thoroughly confused aside from grinning thinking about it. “Well, not fully naked,” I say, “but in a tank-top and shorts in freezing water, you might as well be naked.” “Shit, I should sign up for hospital fundraisers when I get home,” he says, hitting the steering wheel once. “Didn’t know what I was missing out on.” He tames the smile a little and looks back at me. “So why is that something you used to do?” Because Ian was the one who talked me into it and who I did it with for two years. “I just stopped about a year ago—just one of those things you fall out of.” I get the feeling he doesn’t believe there’s not more to it than that, so I jump onto something else to distract from it. “What about you?” I ask, turning around at the waist to give him my full attention. “What’s something crazy that you’ve done?” Andrew purses his lips in thought, looking out at the road. We pass another semi and get around in front of it. The traffic is thinning out the farther away from the city we drive. “I hood-surfed once—not so much crazy as it was stupid, though.” “Yeah, that’s pretty stupid.” He reaches his left hand up and puts the underside of his wrist into view. “I fell off the damn thing and sliced my wrist open on no telling what.” I peer in at the two-inch scar running along the skin from the bottom of the thumb bone and onto his arm. “I rolled across the road. Cracked my head open.” He points to the back right side of his head. “Got nine stitches there in addition to the sixteen on my wrist. I’ll never do that again.” “Well, I would hope not,” I say sternly, still trying to see the scar through his brown hair. He switches hands on the steering wheel and takes a hold of my wrist, sliding his index finger over the length of the top of mine so he can use his as a guide. I pull closer, letting his hand guide mine. “Right about … there,” he says when he finds it. “Do you feel it?” His hand falls away from mine, but I watch it for a moment. Coming back to the issue of his head, I look up and run the tip of my finger along an obvious uneven smooth strip of skin on his scalp and then I part his short hair away with my fingers. The scar is about an inch long. I run my finger over it one more time and reluctantly pull away. “I imagine you have a lot of scars,” I say. He smiles. “Not too many; got one on my back from when Aidan clipped me with a bicycle chain, swingin’ it around like a whip.” I wince, gritting my teeth. “And when I was twelve, had Asher riding on the handlebars of my bike. Hit a rock. Bike flipped forward and sent us both skidding across the concrete.” He points to his nose. “Broke my nose, but Asher broke an arm and had fourteen stitches on his elbow. Mom thought we’d been in a car wreck and were just lying about it to cover our asses.” I’m still looking at his perfectly shaped nose; don’t see any evidence that it had ever been broken before. “Got a weird L-shaped scar on my inner thigh,” he goes on and points to the general area. “Not gonna show you that one though.” He grins and puts both hands on the wheel. I blush, because it really took me all of two seconds to start envisioning him dropping his pants to show me. “That’s a good thing,” I laugh and then lean up toward the dashboard so I can pull my babydoll Smurfette shirt up just over my hip. I catch his eyes on me and it does something to my stomach, but I ignore that. “Camping one year,” I say, “jumped off these bluffs into the water and hit a rock—I almost drowned.” Andrew frowns and reaches over, tracing the edges of the small scar on my hipbone. A shiver runs up my spine and through the back of my neck like something freezing racing through my blood. I ignore that too, as much as I can. I let my shirt fall back over my hip and I lean back against the seat. “Well, I’m glad you didn’t drown.” His eyes warm up with his face. I smile back at him. “Yeah, that would’ve sucked.” “Definitely.” Fifteen (#ulink_27c5b629-0277-5661-a3f5-3de4c5add048) I wake up after dark when Andrew slows down through a toll. I don’t know how long I slept, but I feel like I got a full night in, despite being curled up in the corner of the passenger’s seat with my head against the door. I should be trying to rub out a couple of stiff muscles like when I rode on the bus, but I feel good. “Where are we?” I ask, cupping my hand over my mouth to cover the yawn. “Middle of nowhere Wellington, Kansas,” he says. “You slept a long time.” I rise up the rest of the way and let my eyes and body adjust to being awake again. Andrew pulls onto another road. “I guess I did, better than I slept on the bus the entire trip from North Carolina to Wyoming.” I look at the glowing blue letters on the car stereo: 10:14 p.m. A song is funneling low from the speakers. It makes me think of when I met him back on the bus. I smile to myself feeling like he made sure to keep it at a low level in the car while I slept. “What about you?” I ask, turning around to see him, the darkness casting his face in partial shadow. “I feel weird offering because it’s your dad’s car, but I’m good to drive if you need me to.” “Nah, you shouldn’t feel weird,” he says. “It’s just a car. A precious antique that my dad would string your ass up from a ceiling fan for if he ever knew you were behind the wheel, but I would totally let you drive it.” Even in the shadow, I see the right side of his mouth pull into a devious grin. “Well, I’m not so sure I want to anymore.” “He’s dying, remember? What’s he gonna do?” “That’s not funny, Andrew.” He knows it’s not. I’m fully aware of the game he’s playing with himself, always looking for anything to help him cope with what’s going on but coming up short. I just wonder how much longer he’ll be able to keep this up. The misplaced jokes will eventually run dry and he’s not going to know what to do with himself. “We’ll stop at the next motel,” he says, turning onto another road. “I’ll get some shut-eye there.” Then he glances over at me. “Separate rooms, of course.” I’m glad he had that part sorted out so fast. I may be driving awkwardly across the U.S. alone with him, but I don’t think I can share a room with him, too. “Great,” I say, stretching my arms out in front of me with my fingers locked. “I need a shower and to brush my teeth for about an hour.” “No arguments there,” he jokes. “Hey, your breath isn’t all that great, either.” “I know it,” he says, cupping one hand over his mouth and breathing sharply into it. “It smells like I ate that horrid shit casserole my aunt makes for Thanksgiving every year.” I laugh out loud. “Bad choice of words,” I say. “Shit casserole? Really?” I mentally gag. Andrew laughs, too. “Hell, it might as well be—I love my Aunt Deana, but the woman was not blessed with the ability to cook.” “Sounds like my mom.” “That must suck,” he says, glancing over. “Growing up on Ramen noodles and Hot Pockets.” I shake my head. “No, I taught myself how to cook—I don’t eat unhealthy food, remember?” Andrew’s smiling face is lit up by a soft gray light pouring from the light posts along the street. “Oh, that’s right,” he says, “no bloody burgers or greasy fries for little Miss Rice Cakes.” I make a bleh! face, disputing his rice cake theory. Minutes later we’re pulling into a small two-floor motel parking lot; the kind with rooms that open up outside instead of an inside hallway. We get out and stretch our legs—Andrew stretches legs, arms, his neck, pretty much everything—and we grab our bags from the backseat. He leaves the guitar. “Lock the door,” he says, pointing. We enter the lobby to the smell of dusty vacuum cleaner bags and coffee. “Two singles side by side if you’ve got them,” Andrew says, whipping out his wallet from his back pocket. I swing my purse around in front of me and reach in for my little zipper wallet. “I can pay for my room.” “No, I got it.” “No, seriously, let me pay.” “I said, no, alright, so just put your money away.” I do, reluctantly. The middle-aged woman with graying blonde hair pulled into a sloppy bun at the back of her head looks at us blankly. She goes back to tapping on her keyboard to see what rooms are available. “Smoking or non-smoking?” she asks, looking at Andrew. I notice her eyes slip down the length of his muscled arms as he fishes for his credit card. “Non-smoking.” Tap, tap, tap. Click, click, click. Back and forth between the keyboard and the mouse. “The only singles I have right next to each other are one smoking and one non-smoking.” “We’ll take them,” he says, handing her a card. She pulls it from between his fingers and all the while she watches every little move his hand makes until it falls away from her eyes down behind the counter. Hmm. After we pay and get our room keys, we head back outside and to the car where Andrew grabs the guitar from the backseat. “I should’ve asked before we got here,” he says as I follow alongside him, “but if you’re hungry I can run up the street and get you something if you want.” “No, I’m good. Thanks.” “Are you sure?” He looks over at me. “Yeah, I’m not hungry at all, but if I do get hungry I can just get something from the vending machine.” He slides the keycard into the first door and a green light appears. He clicks open the door afterwards. “But there’s nothing but sugar and fat in those things,” he says, recalling our earlier conversations about junk food. We walk into the fairly dull-looking room with a single bed pressed against a wood headboard mounted behind it on the wall. The bedspread is brown and ugly and scares the crap out of me. The room itself smells clean and looks decent enough, but I have never slept in any motel without stripping the bed of the bedspread first. There’s no telling what’s living on them, or when the last time was they were washed. Andrew inhales deeply, getting a good whiff of the room. “This is the non-smoking room,” he says, looking around as if inspecting it first. “This one’s yours.” He sets the guitar down against the wall and walks into the small bathroom, flips on the light, tests out the fan and then goes over to the window on the other side of the bed and tests the air conditioner—it is the middle of July, after all. Then he goes to the bed and carefully pulls back the comforter and examines the sheets and pillows. “What are you lookin’ for?” He says without looking at me, “Making sure it’s clean; I don’t want you sleeping in any funky shit.” I blush hard and turn away before he can see it. “Kind of early for bed,” he says, stepping away from the bed and taking up the guitar again, “but the drive did take a lot out of me.” “Well, technically you haven’t slept since before we got off the bus back in Cheyenne.” I drop my purse and bag down on the foot of the bed. “True,” he says. “So that means I’ve been up for about eighteen hours. Damn, I didn’t realize.” “Exhaustion will do that to you.” He walks to the door and places his hand on the silver lever, clicking it open again. I just stand here at the foot of the bed. It’s an awkward moment, but it doesn’t last. “Well, I’ll see you in the morning,” he says from the doorway. “I’m right next to you in 110, so just call or knock or bang on the wall if you need me.” There’s only kindness and sincerity in his face. I nod, smiling in answer. “Well, goodnight,” he says. “Night.” And he slips out, shutting the door softly behind him. After absently thinking about him for a second, I snap out of it and rummage around inside my bag. This will be the first shower I’ve had in couple of long days. I’m drooling just thinking about it. I yank out a clean pair of panties and my favorite white cotton shorts and varsity babydoll tee with pink and blue stripes around the quarter-sleeves. Then I find my toothbrush, toothpaste and Listerine and head to the bathroom carrying it all with me. I strip down naked, happily pulling all of the days-old dirty clothes off and tossing them in a pile on the floor. I stare at myself in the mirror. Oh my God, I’m hideous! My makeup has completely worn off; I barely even have any mascara on anymore. More wandering strands of blonde hair have fallen from my braid and are smashed against one side of my head in a rat’s nest. I can’t believe I’m been driving around with Andrew looking like this. I reach up and pull the hairband from the braid to release the rest of the hair and then run my fingers through it to break it all apart. I brush my teeth first and leave my mouth full of mint Listerine long until after the burning has already stopped. The shower is like heaven. I stay in it forever, letting the semi-scalding hot water beat on me until I can’t take it anymore and the heat starts to lull me to sleep standing up. I clean everything. Twice. Just because I can and because it’s been so damn long. Lastly I shave, glad to get rid of that gross wig I was starting to grow on my legs. And finally, I turn off the squeaky faucets and go for the white motel towel folded OCD-like on a rack over the back of the toilet. I hear the shower running in Andrew’s room next door and I catch myself just listening to it. I picture him in there, just showering, nothing sexual or perverted even though something like that wouldn’t be hard to do at all. I just think about him in general, about what we’re doing and why. I think about his dad and it breaks my heart all over again knowing how much Andrew is hurting and how I feel helpless to do anything for him. Finally, I force myself back into me and into my life and my issues, which really have nothing on Andrew’s. I hope it never comes down to me being forced to tell him my problems and all of the things that led me on that road-to-nowhere bus trip, because I will feel so stupid and selfish. My problems are nothing compared to his. I get into bed with wet hair, combing it out with my fingers. I turn on the TV—not tired at all since I just slept most of the way from Denver—and flip through the channels, eventually leaving it on some random movie with Jet Li. But it’s more for background noise than anything. Mom called four times and left four messages. Still nothing from Natalie. “How are you doing in Virginia?” my mom says into my ear. “Having loads of fun, I hope.” “Yeah, it’s been great. How are you?” My mom giggles on the other end of the phone and instinctively it repels me. There’s a man with her. Oh gross, I hope she’s not talking to me in bed, naked, with some guy licking her neck. “I’ve been good, baby,” she says. “Still seeing Roger—going on that cruise next weekend.” “That’s great, Mom.” She giggles again. I scrunch up my nose. “Well, baby, I need to go. Stop it, Roger.” She giggles again. I’m going to throw up in my mouth. “I just wanted to know how you were doing. Please call me tomorrow sometime and give me an update, alright?” “OK, Mom, I will. Love you.” We hang up and I let the phone fall on the bed in front of me. Then I fall back against my pillows, instantly thinking about Andrew being in the room next door. He may be leaning his head against the same wall. I flip through the channels some more until I’ve been through every one of them at least five times and then just give up. I slump down further and look at the room. The sound of Andrew playing the guitar pulls me out of myself and I lift my back slowly from the pillows so I can hear it more clearly. It’s a soft tune, kind of something in between searching and lamentable. And then when the chorus comes around, the speed picks up just a fraction only to lament again for the next verse. It’s absolutely beautiful. I listen to him play for the next fifteen minutes and then it goes silent. I had turned the TV off before I first heard him and now all that I can hear is a constant drip coming from the bathroom sink and the occasional car driving through the motel parking lot. I drift off to sleep and the dream comes back: That morning, I didn’t get my usual string of text messages from Ian before I got out of bed. I tried calling his phone, but it rang and rang and the voicemail never picked up. And Ian wasn’t at school when I got there. Everybody was staring at me as I walked through the halls. Some couldn’t look me in the eye. Jennifer Parsons burst into tears when I walked past her at her locker, while another group of girls, cheerleaders, turned their noses up at me and eyed me as though I was something contagious. I didn’t know what was going on, but I felt like I had walked into some freaky alternate reality. No one would say a word to me, but it was so damn obvious that everybody in that school knew something that I didn’t. And it was bad. I never really had any enemies, except sometimes a few of the cheerleaders showed jealousy towards me because Ian loved me and wouldn’t give them the time of day. What can I say? Ian Walsh was hotter than the star quarterback and it didn’t matter to anyone, not even Emily Derting, the richest girl in Millbrook High School, that Ian didn’t have much and that his parents still drove him to school. She still wanted him. Everybody did. I went on to my locker, hoping to see Natalie soon so maybe she could tell me what was going on. I lingered around my locker longer than usual waiting for any sign of her. It was Damon who found me and told me what happened. He pulled me off to the side, in between the alcove that housed the water fountains. My heart was hammering inside my chest. I knew something was wrong when I got up that morning, even before I realized there were no text messages from Ian. I felt … off. It was like I knew … “Camryn,” Damon said and I knew right then the seriousness of what he was about to tell me because he and Natalie always call me ‘Cam’. “Ian was in a car accident last night …” I felt my breath catch and both of my hands flew to my mouth. Tears were burning my throat and streaming from my eyes. “He died early this morning at the hospital.” Damon was trying so hard to tell me this, but the pain in his face was unmistakable. I just stared at Damon for what felt like an eternity before I couldn’t stand up on my own anymore and I collapsed into his arms. I cried and cried until I made myself sick and finally Natalie found us and they both helped me into the nurse’s office. I wake up from the nightmare sweating, my heart racing like mad. I throw the sheet off of me and sit in the center of the bed with my knees drawn up, running my hands across my head and I let out a long sigh. The dream had stopped a long time ago. In fact, it was the last dream I remember having. Why is it back? A loud banging on my room door jolts me up. “RISE AND SHINE BUTTERCUP!” Andrew says harmoniously from the other side. I don’t even remember when I fell back asleep after the dream. The sun is shining through a sliver parted between the curtains, pooling on the tan carpet just below the window. I rise up from the bed and push back the sloppy hair away from my face and go to open the door before he wakes up the whole motel. He’s gawking at me when I open the door. “Damn girl,” he says, looking me over, “what the hell are you trying to do to me?” I look down at myself, still trying to wake up the rest of the way and realize I’m in those tiny cotton white shorts and varsity tee with no bra on underneath. Oh my God, my nipples are like beacons shining through my shirt! I cross my arms over my chest and try not to look him in the eyes when he helps himself the rest of the way inside. “I was going to tell you to get dressed,” he goes on, grinning as he walks into the room carrying his bags and the guitar, “but really, you can go just like that if you want.” I shake my head, hiding the smile creeping up on my face. He plops down on the chair by the window and sets his stuff on the floor. He’s wearing a pair of tan cargo shorts that drop just past his knees, a plain dark gray t-shirt and those low black running shoes with no-show socks, or no socks at all. I glimpse the tattoo on his ankle; looks like some kind of circular-shaped Celtic design positioned right over his ankle bone. And he definitely has runner’s legs; his calves are bulging with tight muscles. “Wait there and I’ll get ready,” I say, going toward my bag sitting on the elongated dresser where the TV sits on the opposite end. “How long will this take?” he asks and I detect a hint of interrogation in his voice. Remembering what he said back at his dad’s house, I think about my answer first and weigh my options: my usual thirty-minute prep time, or cave to a throw-it-on-and-go? He helps me out with the dilemma: “You have two minutes.” “Two minutes?” I argue. He nods, grinning. “You heard me. Two minutes.” He holds up two wriggling fingers. “You agreed to do whatever I said, remember?” “Yeah, but I thought it was going to be crazy stuff like mooning someone from a moving car or eating bugs.” One of his brows rises and he draws back his chin as if I just slapped two ideas into his lap. “In time you will moon someone from a moving car and eat a bug—we’ll get to that.” What the hell did I just do? My head rolls backward in dispute and mortification and my hands fly to my hips. “Uh, there is no way—” I notice his grin has changed into something more ‘crafty school boy’ and I look down, realizing my arms are no longer covering my nipples poking so proudly through the thin fabric of my shirt. I let out a puff of air and my mouth falls open. “Andrew!” He lowers his head with false shame, but it just makes him appear more devious the way he looks back up under hooded eyes at me. He is so fucking hot … “Hey, you’re the one who’d rather complain about the ground rules than protect your girls from my eyes—I should warn you they have a mind of their own.” “Yeah, I bet they aren’t the only things on you with a mind of their own.” I smirk and grab my bag, shuffling my way barefooted into the bathroom and shutting the door. I’m smiling like one of those 1980s cheesy portrait studio photos when I look at myself in the mirror. OK, two minutes. I literally dive into my bra and tight jeans, jumping up and down to get them to slide over my butt. Zip. Button. Brush teeth thoroughly. A quick shot of Listerine. Swish. Gargle. Spit. Comb out raggedy hair and twist it into a sloppy braid over my right shoulder. A little bit of foundation and a light layer of powder. Black mascara, because mascara is the most important piece of makeup in the arsenal. Lipsti— BAM! BAM! BAM! “Your two minutes are up!” I smooth the lipstick on anyway and blot with a square of toilet paper. I can tell he’s smiling on the other side of the bathroom door and when I open it a second later, I see that I was right. He stands with both arms raised above his head, propped on the doorjamb. His hard six-pack is partially visible with his shirt raised up high with his arms. A little happy trail moves from just below his belly button and down beneath the waist of his shorts. “See? Look at you?” He whistles while blocking the door, but I’m definitely not the one of us I’m looking at. “Simple is sexy.” I push my way past him, finding the perfect opportunity to press my palms against his chest and he lets me pass. “Didn’t know I was trying to be sexy for you,” I say with my back turned, throwing the clothes I slept in inside my bag. “Wow, look at that,” he goes on, “simple, sexy and disorganized—I’m proud!” I didn’t even realize it. I just shoved my clothes into the bag without even thinking of trying to be neat about it. I’m not ‘clinically’ OCD; I’m just one of those people who claim the acronym because of a few methodical habits. Still, folding my clothes and trying to be neat is something I’ve always done since I was like eleven. Andrew Sixteen (#ulink_ade14266-5781-5c8f-9fe7-c0e31ad0c17e) Talk about early morning sexual frustration. Alright, I’m going to have to take it down a notch with her or she’ll start to think that’s really what I’m hanging around for. Any other time, with some other random girl, I would’ve already gotten out of bed to toss the condom in the toilet, but with Camryn, it’s different. It’s hard (pun intended), but I’m going to have to try laying off the flirting. This is an important trip, for both of us. I only have one shot to get this right and I’ll be damned if I fuck it up. “So what’s next on our spontaneous trip?” she asks. “Breakfast first,” I say, grabbing my bags from the floor, “but I guess it wouldn’t be spontaneous if I had a plan in place.” She grabs her cell phone from the table beside the bed, checks it for new text messages and phone calls and then tosses it in her purse. We head out. Enter stubborn, whiney Camryn: “Please, Andrew; I can’t eat at those places,” she says from the passenger’s seat. The town is small and most of the food joints are fast food or not open this early. “I’m serious,” she says with a cute pouty face I just want to cup in my hands and lick so she shrieks and pretends it’s the grossest thing ever. “Unless you want an annoying road trip companion, holding her nauseous stomach and moaning for the next hour, you won’t make me eat that stuff, especially this early in the morning.” I draw my head back and press my lips together looking over at her. “Come on, you’re exaggerating.” I’m starting to think she’s not. She shakes her head and props her elbow on the car door and then rests her thumb between her front teeth. “No, I’m serious; every time I eat fast food I get sick. I’m not trying to be difficult, believe me, it creates a problem whenever I go anywhere with my mom or Natalie. They have to go out of their way to find a place to eat that won’t make me miserable.” OK, so she’s telling the truth. “Alright, well I definitely don’t want to make you sick,” I laugh lightly, “so we’ll drive a little farther and find something else along the way. More places will be open in a couple of hours.” “Thank you.” She smiles sweetly. You’re very welcome … Two and a half hours later, we’re in Owasso, Oklahoma. Camryn looks up at the big yellow and black restaurant logo and I think she’s debating whether she wants to eat here, or not. “There’s really only one place to eat breakfast,” I say, pulling into a parking space, “especially across the South—kind of like Starbucks, there’s a Waffle House on every corner.” She nods. “I think I can handle this—do they have salad?” “Now look, I agreed not to make you eat the fast grease,” I tilt my head to one side and turn at the waist on the seat, “but I draw the line with salads.” She puckers her lips and chews on the inside of her mouth and then says, nodding, “Alright, I won’t eat a salad, even though salads can come with chicken and all sorts of good stuff that someone like you probably never thought of.” “No. So just give it up,” I say resolutely and then gently jerk my head back in gesture. “Come on, I’ve waited long enough to eat. I’m starving. And I get grumpy when I’m hungry.” “You’re already grumpy,” she mumbles. I grab her arm and pull her next to me. She tries to hide her blushing face. I love the smell of Waffle House; it’s the smell of freedom, being on the open road and knowing that ninety percent of the people eating around you are also on that road. Truck drivers, road-trippers, hangovers—those who don’t live that monotonous life of society slavery. The restaurant is nearly full. Camryn and I get a booth close to the grill farthest away from any of the tall windows. A mandatory jukebox—symbolic of Waffle House culture—sits against one of those windows. The waitress greets us with a smile, standing with a notepad resting in one hand, and a pen ready to write with the tip poking the paper in the other. “Can I get you some coffee?” I look up at Camryn, who’s already scanning over the menu on the table in front of her. “I’ll have a glass of sweet tea,” she says. The waitress jots that down and looks back at me. “Coffee.” She nods and goes to make our drinks. “Some of this stuff looks good,” Camryn says peering down at the menu with one cheek propped on the top of her folded hand. Her index finger slides over the plastic and lands on the tiny salad section. “See, look,” she glances up at me, “they have Grilled Chicken Salad and Chicken Apple Pecan Salad.” I can’t resist that hopeful look in her wide blue eyes. I cave. Totally fucking cave. “Order whatever you want,” I say with a warm expression. “Really, I won’t hold it against you.” She blinks twice, mildly stunned I gave in so easily and then her eyes seem to smile back at me. She closes the menu and places it back on the menu holder above the table as the waitress returns with our drinks. “Ready to order?” the waitress asks after placing our drinks in front of us. The tip of her pen, as if it never really leaves that spot, is still pressed against the notepad waiting to be put to work. “I’ll have the Fiesta Omelet,” Camryn says and I catch a small grin in her face as her eyes skirt mine. “Toast or biscuit?” the waitress asks. “Biscuit.” “Grits, hash browns or tomatoes?” “Hash browns.” The waitress jots the last of Camryn’s order down and turns to me. I pause for a second and then say, “I’ll have the Chicken Apple Pecan Salad.” Camryn’s grin shuts down immediately and her face just freezes like that. I wink at her and slide the menu behind hers. “Livin’ on the edge, huh?” the waitress says. She rips off the top ticket. “For today,” I tell her and she shakes her head and walks away. “What the hell?” Camryn says holding her hands out, palms up. She can’t decide whether to smile or look at me awkwardly, so she ends up doing a little of both. “I figure if you’re willing to eat something for my sake, then I can do the same for you.” “Yeah, well I just don’t see that salad doing it for you.” “You’re probably right,” I say, “but fair is fair.” She scoffs lightly and leans her back against the booth seat. “It won’t be so fair if I’m listening to you complain about being hungry when we get back on the road—you said yourself that you’re grumpy when you’re hungry.” I couldn’t really be grumpy towards her, but she’s right: the salad’s not going to do it for me. And lettuce gives me gas—she’ll definitely hate riding in the car with me if I eat this shit. But I can do this. I just hope I can eat the whole thing without letting any one of a hundred complaints about it, which are already tap-dancing on the tip of my tongue, give me away. This should be interesting. Several minutes later, the waitress is bringing Camryn her food and setting my plate of blasphemy down in front of me. She refills our drinks, asks if we need anything else and then goes back to her other customers. Camryn is already scrutinizing me. She looks down at her plate, arranges the biscuit on the other side of the hash browns and then twists the plate around by its edges to put the omelet in reach. I pick up my fork and poke the salad around a few times, pretending, just like Camryn, to prepare it. We look up at each other and pause as if waiting for the other to say something. She purses her lips. I purse mine. “Wanna trade?” she asks. “Yeah,” I say without hesitation and we’re sliding the food across the table to one another. Relief washes over both of our faces. It’s not something I would’ve ordered on my own, but it beats lettuce. Halfway through the meal—well, halfway for her; I’m done with mine—I’m ordering a slice of chocolate pie and getting another coffee refill. And we go on and on about her ex best friend, Natalie, and how Natalie is some over-the-top bi-sexual with huge boobs. At least that’s what I’ve been getting out of Camryn’s descriptions of her. “So what happened after the restroom incident?” I ask, taking a bite of my pie. “I never went in a public restroom with her again after that,” she says. “The girl has no shame.” “She sounds fun,” I say. Camryn looks thoughtful. “She was.” I study her quietly. She’s lost in some memory, poking her fork at the last piece of chicken in her salad. My fork clinks against the plate as I make a decision and set it down. I wipe my face with my napkin and slide out of the booth. “Where are you going?” She looks up at me. I just grin and walk away toward the jukebox by the window. I slip the money in and scan the titles, finally choosing one song and pressing the buttons. Raisins In My Toast starts to play as I make my way back. All three of the waitresses and the cook eyeball me with glaring, unforgiving looks. I just smile. Camryn’s whole body has locked up on the seat. Her back is rigid, the whites of her eyes blaring at me and then when I start mouthing the words to the fifties-sounding song, she slinks way down onto the seat, her face redder than I have ever seen it. I slide back into my seat, moving my hips all the way down. “Oh God, Andrew, please don’t sing it!” I’m trying my damnedest not to laugh, but I just sing along to the lyrics with a giant grin plastered all over my face. She buries her face in her hands, her little shoulders, covered by a thin white shirt bounce up and down as she suppresses her laughter. I snap my fingers in tune with the music as if my hair is greased back and when the high-pitched voice comes on, I mimic it, my face all scrunched up with exaggerated emotion. And I hit the deeper notes, too, dropping my chin toward my chest and looking all serious. I never stop snapping my fingers. The further into the song I go, I start to put a little more emotion into it. And by the middle, Camryn can’t contain herself any longer. She laughs so hard under her breath that her eyes water-up. She’s let herself fall so far down onto the seat by now that her chin is almost level with the table’s edge. When the song ends—to the relief of the employees—I get one pair of hands clapping for me from the old lady sitting in the booth behind Camryn. Nobody else cares, but by the look on Camryn’s face, you’d think everyone in the restaurant was watching and laughing at us. Hilarious. And she’s so cute when she’s embarrassed. I prop my elbows on the table and lay my arms across it, folding my hands together. “Ah, it wasn’t that bad was it?” I smirk. She slides the edge of her finger underneath each of her eyes to wipe off that tiny streak of black that she instinctively knows is there. A few more laughs still rattle through her calming chest. “You have no shame, either,” she says, laughing one more time. “It was embarrassing, but I think I needed that.” Camryn kicks off her shoes and pulls her bare feet onto the front seat in the car. We’re back on the road again, and taking direction only from Camryn’s pointing finger. Heading east on 44; looks like we’re going to be passing through the bottom half of Missouri. “Glad I could oblige.” I reach out and press the power on the CD player. “Oh no,” she teases, “I wonder how far back into the seventies we’ll go this time.” I tilt my head over and smirk at her. “This is a good song,” I say, reaching out to turn the volume up a little and then tapping my thumbs on the steering wheel. “Yeah, I’ve heard it before,” she says, laying her head against the seat. “Wayward Son.” “Close,” I say, “Carry On Wayward Son.” “Yeah, close enough you didn’t need to correct me.” She pretends to be offended, but isn’t doing a very good job. “And what band is it?” I test her. She makes a face at me. “I don’t know!” “Kansas,” I say with an intellectually raised brow. “One of my favorites.” “You say that about all of them.” She purses her lips and flutters her eyes. “Maybe I do,” I relent, “but really, Kansas songs have a lot of emotion. Dust in the Wind, for example; can’t think of a more fitting piece of music for death. It has a way of stripping your fear of it.” “Stripping your fear of death?” she says, not convinced. “Well yeah, I guess so. It’s like Steve Walsh is the reaper and he’s just telling you that there’s nothing to be afraid of. Shit, if I could choose a song to die to, that one would be at the top of my playlist.” She looks discouraged. “That’s a little too morbid for my blood.” “If you look at it that way, I guess so.” She’s fully facing me now with both legs pulled onto the seat, knees drawn up, and her shoulder and head lying on the back of the seat. That golden braid of hers which makes her look that much softer always draped over her right shoulder. “Hotel California,” she says. “The Eagles.” I look at her. I’m impressed. “That’s one classic song that I like.” That makes me smile “Really? That’s a great one; very chilling—kind of makes me feel like I’m in one of those old black and white horror films—Good choice.” I’m actually really impressed. I tap my thumbs some more on the steering wheel to Carry On Wayward Son and then I hear a loud pop! and a constant flap-flap-flap-flap-flunk-flap-flunk until I veer slowly off the side of the freeway and pull onto the shoulder. Camryn has already dropped her bare feet back onto the floorboard and is looking all around the car trying to figure out the direction of the noise. “Do we have a flat?” she asks, though it’s more like: “Oh great, we have a flat!” “Yep,” I say putting the car in park and turning the engine off. “Good thing I have a spare in the trunk.” “Is it one of those ugly mini tires?” I laugh. “No, I have a life-sized tire in there with a rim and everything and I promise it’ll match the other three.” She looks slightly relieved, until she realizes I was making fun of her and she sticks her tongue out at me and crosses her eyes. Not sure why that made me want to do her in the backseat, but to each his own, I guess. I put my hand on the door handle and she pulls her legs back onto the seat. “What are you getting all comfortable for?” She blinks. “What do you mean?” “Get your shoes on,” I say, nodding to them on the floorboard, “and get your ass out with me and help.” Her eyes get wider and she just sits there as though waiting for me to laugh and tell her I’m only kidding. “I-I don’t know how to change a tire,” she says when she realizes I’m not. “You know how to change a tire,” I correct her and it stuns her even more. “You’ve seen it done hundreds of times in real life and in movies—trust me, you know how; everybody knows how.” “I’ve never changed a tire in my life.” She all but sticks out her bottom lip. “Well you’re going to today,” I say grinning, opening my door just a few inches so the semi coming toward us doesn’t knock it off. A few more seconds of disbelief and Camryn is slipping her feet down into her running shoes and shutting the car door behind her. “Come over here.” I motion to her and she walks to the backside of the car with me. I point to the flat one, back passenger’s side. “If it had been one of those two on the side with the traffic, you might’ve gotten out of it.” “You’re seriously gonna make me change a tire?” I thought we already established this. “Yes, babe, I’m seriously going to make you change a tire.” “But in the car you said help you, not actually do all the work.” I nod. “Well you are going to help technically, but—just come here.” She walks around to the trunk and I lift the spare out and set it on the road. “Now get the jack and the tire iron out of the trunk and bring them over.” She does what I say, grumbling under her breath something about getting ‘black gook’ on her hands. I restrain my very passionate desire to laugh at her as I roll the tire over near to the flat one and lay it on its side. Another semi zooms by; the wind rocks the car gently side to side. “This is dangerous,” she says, dropping the jack and the tire iron on the ground at my feet. “What if a vehicle veers off the road and hits us? Don’t you watch World’s Dumbest?” Holy shit! She watches that show, too? “As a matter of fact I do,” I say, “now get over here and let’s get this done. If you’re the one squatting down, hidden from the traffic by the car then we’re less likely to get run-over by anyone.” “How does that make it less likely?” Her eyebrows are knotted in her forehead. “Well, if you’re standing out here in the open lookin’ all sexy and shit, I’d probably veer off the road looking at you, too.” She rolls her eyes so hard and bends over to pick up the tire iron. “Ugh!” she grunts, trying to get the lug nuts loosened. “They’re too damn tight!” I loosen them for her but let her twist them off the rest of the way, all the while keeping my eyes on the oncoming traffic without letting her know that it’s making me nervous. If I’m watching, I’ve got a better chance of grabbing her in time and getting us both out of the way than if it were the other way around. Next is the jack; I help her with it, showing her how to loosen it so it expands and I guide her about the best spot to place it, though she seemed to know where without my help. She fumbles at first with the jack handle, but quickly gets the hang of it and she hoists the car up a little. I check her butt out because I’d be an idiot, or gay, not to. And then out of nowhere, not even a hint of thunder or lightning beforehand, rain literally starts pouring from the sky in buckets. Camryn starts yelling about getting soaked and it starts to distract her from the tire completely. She shoots up from the ground and starts to run toward the car door, but stops once she realizes she probably shouldn’t try to get in with the car being held up by the jack. “Andrew!” She’s completely drenched, holding her hands over her head as though it’s actually going to do something to help shield her from the rain. I laugh my ass off. “Andrew!” She’s laughably furious. I take her shoulders into my hands and say with rain pounding on my face, “I’ll finish the tire.” It’s hard to keep a straight face. And I don’t. In a few minutes, the new tire has been tightened and I chuck the flat one along with the jack and the tire iron back into the trunk. “Wait!” I say as Camryn starts to get inside the car now that it’s safe. She stops. She’s shivering in the rain and every part of her is drenched. I slam the trunk closed and step up to her, feeling the water squishing around inside my shoes because I’m not wearing socks and I smile in at her, hoping to make her smile, too. “It’s just rain.” She relents a little, searching for more playful encouragement from me, no doubt. “Come here.” I hold out my hand and she clasps hers around it. “What?” she asks coyly. Her braid is heavy with water; the few loose strands that always lay softly about her face are stuck to her forehead and on one side of her neck. I walk her around to the trunk and hop onto it. She just stands there as the rain continually washes over her. I reach out my hand again and hesitantly she takes it and I hoist her onto the back of the car. She climbs to the roof with me, all the while looking at me like I’m some crazy person that she can’t resist. “Lay down,” I say over the loud, pounding rain as I lay my back against the roof and let my feet dangle over the end and on the windshield. Without question or objection—although both are kind of written all over her face—she lies down next to me. “This is crazy,” she shouts. “You are crazy.” She must like crazy because I’m getting the feeling she wants to be up here with me. Tossing that earlier plan of mine out the window, the one where I needed to control myself around her, I let my left arm lay straight out at my side and instinctively she lays her head on it. I swallow hard. I really didn’t expect that. But I’m glad she did it. “Now just open your eyes and look up,” I say, already looking up myself. A smaller truck zooms past, followed by a few cars, but neither of us notices. Another semi flies by and the wind knocks the car a little, but we don’t care about that, either. She winces at first as the rain gets in her eyes, but she does it, every now and then squinting and trying to curl her face into my side to shield it from the rain and the whole time, laughing gently. She forces herself to look straight up, but this time closes her eyes and lets her mouth part halfway. I watch her lips, how the rain moves over them in rivulets and how she smiles and flinches when the drops hit her in the back of the throat. How her shoulders push up when she tries to bury her face, smiling and laughing and soaking wet. I watch her so much that I forget it’s raining at all. Camryn Seventeen (#ulink_77f5d0e9-463d-5608-8d5e-e656bd5895b6) When I could hold my eyes open long enough, I did stare up at the rain pelting down on me. I’ve never looked at it like that, straight up into the sky, and while I flinched more than I could actually see, when I could see it was absolutely beautiful. Like each drop rocketing towards me was separate from the thousands of others and for a suspended moment in time, I could glimpse it and see its delicate facets. I saw the gray clouds churning above me and felt the car shake when the wind from the traffic pushed against it. I shivered even though it’s warm enough to swim. But nothing I saw or felt or heard was as warm and fascinating as Andrew’s closeness. I scream and laugh as we race to get back inside the car minutes later. The door slams shut and then his does after mine. “I’m freezing!” I shudder out a laugh, pressing my uplifted arms between my breasts with my fingers tightly interlocked and my chin pressed against them. Andrew, smiling so hugely that it stretches his entire face, shivers once and flips on the heat. Instinctively, I try to forget that I had lain against his arm, or that he put it out there for me to begin with. I think he tries to forget, too, or at least not to make it obvious. He rubs his hands together, trying to get warm as the heat blasts from the vents. My teeth are chattering. “Wearing wet clothes sucks,” I say with shivering jaws. “Yeah, I’m with you on that one,” he says, stretching his seatbelt around and clicking it in place. I do the same, though like always, after being in the car so long I’ll end up slipping out of it so that I can find another comfortable seating position. “My toes feel slimy,” he says, looking toward his feet. My whole face crumples. He laughs and then reaches down and pulls his shoes off, tossing them in the back floorboard. I decide to do the same because even though I won’t say it, my feet feel slimy, too. “We need to find a place to change,” I say. He puts the car in drive and looks at me. “There’s a backseat,” he says, grinning. “I won’t look, I swear.” He puts his hands up for assurance and then grips the steering wheel again, pulling back onto the freeway when he has an opening between traffic. I scoff. “Nah, I think I’ll wait until we find a place.” “Suit yourself.” I know he would totally look. And, well, it wouldn’t bother me much … The windshield wipers are swishing back and forth full blast and it’s raining so hard that it’s still difficult to see the road out ahead. Andrew leaves the heat on until it starts to feel like a sauna and he turns it down after checking first to see if I’m good with it. “So, Hotel California, huh?” he asks, grinning over at me with deep dimples. He reaches out and presses the button to choose another CD and then keeps pressing until he finds the song. “Let’s see how much you know.” His hand drops back on the wheel. The song begins like I always remembered with that eerie guitar, slow and haunting. We look at each other back and forth, letting the music move through and between us, waiting for the lyrics to begin. Then at the same time, we raise our hands as if knocking on the air one, two, three with the beat and we start to sing with Don Henley. We get fully into it, line after line and sometimes we switch off, him letting me sing a line and then he sings one. And when the first chorus comes, we sing together at the top of our lungs, practically shouting the lyrics at the windshield. We squint our eyes and bob our heads and I pretend I’m not mortified by my singing. Then the second verse comes and our taking-turns starts to get a little tangled, but we totally have fun with it and only trip-up a couple of times. And we say ‘1969!’ loudly together. Then we lose a little of the passion to sing and just let the music funnel through the car instead. But when the iconic second chorus comes around and the song slows and becomes more haunting, we get serious again and sing every single word together, looking right at each other. Andrew hits ‘alibis!’ so flawlessly that it sends shivers up my arms. And we both ‘stabbed the beast’ together, pumping our fists at our sides and getting into it. And that was how the drive was to wherever for the next several hours. I sang so much with him that my throat became sore. Of course, all of it was classic rock with the occasional early nineties: Alice in Chains and Aerosmith mostly, and none of it bothered me one bit. I actually loved it all and the memory it was creating in my mind. A memory with Andrew. We find a rest stop off the freeway in Jackson, Tennessee, and take full advantage of it. We slip inside the restrooms to change out of our wet clothes, which we’ve been in for longer than either of us realized. I guess our fun together in the car with my less-than-stellar singing and him pretending he loves it distracted us from everything else. He’s dressed before me and already waiting inside the car when I stroll out wearing the only thing I had left in my bag that was clean: the white cotton shorts and varsity tee I like to sleep in. I only brought one bra and I happened to be wearing it when I was being rained on so it’s completely wet still. But I’m wearing it anyway because there’s no way I’m getting in that car with him bra-less. “I am not wearing these shorts for your benefit,” I say, pointing sternly at him as I crawl back inside the car. “For the record.” The corner of his mouth lifts into a grin. “Note taken,” he says, jotting it down on a pretend tablet. I lift my butt from the seat and grasp the end of my shorts, pulling them just a little so they aren’t crawling up my crotch and to cover a little more skin on my thighs. I start to kick my black flip-flops onto the floorboard until I see how saturated the floor mat is and decide to leave them on. It’s a good thing the seats are leather. “I’m gonna have to find some more clothes,” I say. Andrew’s wearing jeans again and his black Doc Marten boots, and another plain gray t-shirt, lighter in color than the last one. Like anything, it looks good on him, but I kind of miss his tanned muscled calves and the black and gray Celtic tattoo on the ball of his ankle. “Why is that all you brought?” he asks, keeping his eyes on the road. “Not that I’m complaining, of course.” I smirk over at him. “I guess since I didn’t know where I was going I didn’t want to lug a bunch of crap around.” “Makes sense.” The sun is shining in Tennessee and we’re heading south now. The other side of the freeway is grid-locked because of road construction and we both express how glad we are that we’re not on ‘that side of the road’. Eventually, the daylight fades behind the landscape and dusk bathes the rice and cotton fields in a purplish haze; there’s always some kind of massive field on either side of the freeway, stretching far off in the distance. We make it to Birmingham, Alabama, a little after 7 p.m. “Where do you wanna stop for clothes?” he asks, creeping along a city street lined by stoplights and gas stations. I rise up from the seat and look around, trying to glimpse the lighted signs for someplace suitable. Andrew points out ahead. “There’s a Walmart.” “I guess it’s as good as any,” I say and he makes a left at the stoplight and we pull into the parking lot. We get out and the first thing I do is pull my panties out of the crack of my butt. “Need some help?” “No!” I laugh. We walk together through the sea of cars in the parking lot, my flip-flops snapping against my heels. Instantly, I recoil into myself, knowing I look like hell with a dirty, matted braid over my shoulder and dressed in these skimpy shorts that keep crawling up my ass. No makeup anymore, since my becoming-one-with-the-rain washed it all off. I keep my eyes on the bright white floor as we walk through the store and avoid eye contact with anyone. We head to the women’s clothes first and I grab a few simple things: two more pairs of cotton shorts that are still short but not up-my-crotch short like the ones I’m wearing, and a couple of cute v-neck graphic tees with random stuff on them. I hold out on my desire to visit the panties and bras section. I think for now I’ll make do with what I have. Then I follow Andrew over to the area by the pharmacy where all of the vitamins and cold medicines and toothpaste and stuff are. We go straight into the aisle with the razors and shaving cream. “I haven’t shaved in a week,” he says, rubbing the stubble that has been growing on his face for the past few days. I think it’s sexy, but with or without it, it’s still sexy so I don’t complain. Why would I anyway? I grab a pack of razors, too, as well as some Olay shaving cream in a gold can. Then in the next aisle, I pick up a small bottle of mouthwash because one can never have enough mouthwash. I adjust my purse on the opposite shoulder as the items start to fill up in the other arm. We go into the next aisle and I pluck a set of shampoo and conditioner from the shelf, trying to balance them in my hands with the other stuff, but Andrew takes it from me and carries it instead. He takes the mouthwash, too. We head over to the medicines and there’s a middle-aged couple standing in front of the cough syrup, reading the labels. Andrew says casually, without lowering his voice, “Babe, did you find that yeast infection stuff?” My eyes spring open and I freeze in front of the Tylenol. He removes a small box of Advil from the shelf. The couple pretends not to have heard what he said, but I know they heard him. “I mean are you even sure that’s what’s causing the itch?” he goes on and I’m literally melting from the heat in my face. The couple does glance over this time, covertly. Andrew is grinning his ass off at me from the side, pretending to be reading labels. I want to smack him, but instead, I play him at his own game. “Yeah, baby, I found it,” I say as casually as he had. “What about you? Did you see if they have extra-small-sized condoms?” The woman turns her head and looks right at him, up and down, and then she eyes me before going back to reading labels. Andrew doesn’t break; somehow I knew he wouldn’t. He just smiles over at me, enjoying every second of this. “One size fits all, baby,” he says. “I told you they fill out better when you can actually make it hard.” A spitting noise bursts from between my lips followed by laughter. The couple leaves the aisle. “You are so bad!” I hiss at him, still laughing. The can of shaving cream clanks against the floor after it falls from my arm and I bend over to pick it up. “You’re not so innocent yourself.” Andrew grabs a tube of antibiotic ointment and holds it in the same hand with the Advil and we head to the register. He tosses two packages of beef jerky on the moving belt and a pack of Tic Tacs. I get a travel-sized bottle of hand sanitizer, a tube of ChapStick and a package of beef jerky for myself. “Gettin’ brave aren’t yah?” he says about the beef jerky. I smirk at him and put the plastic gray item divider in between his stuff and mine. “Nope,” I say. “I love jerky. If it contained radioactive material I’d still eat it.” He just smiles, but then tries to tell the cashier that his and my stuff is ‘together’ as he pulls his credit card from his wallet. “No, not this time,” I argue, laying my arm on the belt next to the item divider. I look right at the cashier and shake my head, daring her to ring my stuff up with his. “I’ll pay for mine.” She looks between me and Andrew briefly, as if waiting for his turn. When he starts to argue back I turn my chin at a stern angle and say, “I’m paying for my stuff and that’s that. Deal with it.” He sort of rolls his eyes and gives in, sliding his card through the machine. When we get back in the car, Andrew rips the top strip off one of his beef jerky bags and pops a jagged piece into his mouth. “Are you sure you don’t want me to drive some?” I ask. He shakes his head, his jaws working hard on that stiff piece of jerky. “We’ll get another motel and crash for the night.” He swallows and pops another piece in his mouth and puts the car in drive and we pull away. We find a motel a few miles out and grab everything and take it up to our side-by-side king rooms. Green checkered carpet in this one with matching dark green, heavy curtains and a dark green flowery bedspread. I turn the television on immediately, just to give some light and animation to the dark and gloomy atmosphere. He paid for the rooms again, using how I ‘got my way’ with paying for the stuff at Walmart as his excuse to get away with it. Andrew checks the room out first, just like the last time, and then plops down on the recliner by the window. I drop my stuff on the floor and rip the bedspread from the bed and toss it in the corner next to the wall. “Is there something on it?” he asks, leaning back into the recliner and letting his legs splay below. He looks exhausted. “No, they just scare me.” I sit on the end of the bed and kick off my flip-flops, drawing my legs onto the bed Indian-style. I place my hands within my lap because still wearing the white cotton short shorts, I feel a little exposed to him with my knees open like this. “You said: since you didn’t know where you were going,” Andrew says. I look up and it takes me a second to understand what he’s referring to: back in the car when I mentioned my reason for not bringing more clothes. He knits his fingers together, laying his hands flat over his stomach. It takes me a moment to answer, although the answer I give him is vague: “Yeah, I didn’t know.” Andrew lifts his back straight up from the chair and leans over forward, resting his arms on his thighs, his hands draped together below his knees. He cocks his head to one side looking across at me. I know we’re about to have one of those conversations where I can’t foresee if I’ll accept or dodge his questions. It’ll depend on how good he is at drawing the answers out of me. “I’m no expert on this stuff,” he says, “but I don’t see you setting out alone like you did on a bus, of all things, with a purse, a small bag and absolutely no idea where you’re going just because your best friend stabbed you in the back.” He’s right. I didn’t leave because of Natalie and Damon; they were just part of the pattern. “No, it wasn’t because of her.” “Then what was it?” I don’t want to talk about it; at least, I don’t think I do. A part of me feels like I can tell him anything and I sort of want to, but the other part is telling me to be careful. I haven’t forgotten that his issues outweigh mine and I would feel stupid and whiney and selfish telling him anything at all. I look at the TV instead of him and pretend to be halfway interested in it. He stands up. “It must’ve been pretty bad,” he says walking over to me, “and I want you to tell me.” Pretty bad? Oh great, he just made it worse; even if I did tell him, at least before I wouldn’t have had it in my head that he expected something really horrible. Now that I know he does, I feel like I should make something up. I don’t, of course. I feel the bed move when he sits down next to me. I can’t look at him yet; my eyes stay focused on the TV. My stomach swims with guilt and also something tingly when I think about how close he is. But mostly guilt. “I’ve let you get away with not telling me anything for a long time,” he says. He rests his elbows on his thighs again and sits the way he had been sitting on the recliner, with his hands folded and hanging between his legs. “You have to tell me sometime.” I look over and say, “It’s nothing compared to what you’re going through,” and leave it at that, facing the TV again. Please stop prying, Andrew. I want more than anything to tell you because somehow I know you can make some sense of it all, you can make it all better—what am I saying?—Please, just stop prying? “You’re comparing it?” he says, piquing my curiosity. “So, you think that because my dad is dying that whatever made you do what you did somehow doesn’t live up?” He says this as if the very thought of it is absurd. “Yes,” I say, “that’s exactly what I think.” His eyebrows draw inward and he looks at the TV briefly before turning back to me. “Well that’s complete bullshit,” he says matter-of-factly. My head snaps back around. He goes on: “Y’know, I’ve always hated that expression: Others have it worse than you do; I guess if you want to look at it in a competitive way, sure, give me welfare over blindness any day, but it’s not a fucking competition. Right?” Is he asking me because he wants to know how I feel, or was that his way of telling me how it is and hoping I get it? I just nod. “Pain is pain, babe.” Every time he calls me ‘babe’ I notice it more than anything else he says. “Just because one person’s problem is less traumatic than another’s doesn’t mean they’re required to hurt less.” I guess he makes a valid point, but I still feel selfish. He touches my wrist and I look down at it, the way his masculine fingers drape over the bone along the side of my hand. I want to kiss him; the urge inside of me just climbed its way to the surface, but I swallow and force it back down into the pit of my stomach which has been trembling for the past few seconds all on its own. I pull my hand away from his and get up from the bed. “Camryn, look, I didn’t mean anything by that. I was just trying to—” “I know,” I say softly, crossing my arms and turning my back on him. It’s definitely one of those it’s-not-you-it’s-me moments, but I’m not about to lay that on him. I sense him stand up and then I turn carefully at the waist to see him grab his bags and his guitar from against the wall. He walks to the door. I want to stop him, but I can’t. “I’ll let you get some sleep,” he says gently. I nod but don’t say anything because I’m afraid that if I do, my mind will betray my mouth and I’ll just dig myself deeper into this dangerous situation with Andrew that I’m finding more conspicuous every day that I spend with him. Eighteen (#ulink_5011fae9-2b82-5826-889e-c5b63def1e8c) I hate myself for letting him walk out that door, but it had to be done. I can’t do this. I can’t let myself fall into the world that is Andrew Parrish even though everything in my heart and in my desires is telling me to. It’s not just about being afraid of getting hurt again; everybody goes through that phase and maybe I’m not out of it completely yet, but it’s about so much more. I don’t know myself. I don’t know what I want or how I feel or how I should feel and I don’t think I ever really have. I would be a selfish bitch to let Andrew into my life. What if he falls in love or wants something from me that I can’t give him? What if I add a broken heart on top of his dad’s death? I don’t want his pain hanging over my head. I turn abruptly and look at the door again, picturing the way he looked right before he walked through it. Maybe that’s not even an issue. How conceited of me to even entertain the thought of him ever falling in love with me. Maybe he just wants a friend with benefits, or a one-time thing. My head is swimming with a chaotic swarm of thoughts, none of which I feel are right and all of which I know are possible. I walk over to the mirror and stare at myself in it, looking into the eyes of some girl that I feel like I’ve met, but never really got acquainted with. I really do feel detached from myself, from everything. Fuck this! I grit my teeth and smack the palms of my hands against the TV stand. Then I grab a new pair of black cotton shorts, my new white tee with je t’aime written in script across it, wrapped around the Eiffel Tower and I head for the shower. I spend forever letting the water beat on me not because I feel dirty but because I feel like shit. All I can think about is Andrew. And Ian. And why suddenly I feel this strange, provoking need to think about them both in the same thought at all. After my skin feels stripped of its top layer by the hot water, I get out and dry off, soaking up the water from my hair into the towel. I blow-dry it naked in front of the mirror and then go back into the room to get dressed because I didn’t bring a clean pair of panties in with me. Finally, I comb out my halfway dried hair and leave it down to air-dry the rest of the way, pushing it back behind both ears and out of my face. I hear Andrew playing the guitar through the wall again. The TV is still yapping and it pisses me off so I stomp over and turn it off so I can hear Andrew more clearly. I just stand here for a few seconds, taking in the notes funneling through the wall and painfully into my ears. It’s not a sad kind of tune, but for some reason it’s still painful for me to hear. Finally, I grab my room key, slip my feet into my flop-flops and leave the room. Nervously licking the dryness from my lips, I take a deep breath, swallow and raise my hand to knock lightly on his door. The sound of the guitar ceases and a few seconds later, the door clicks open. He has showered, too. His brown hair is still wet; pieces of it a little messy in the front above his forehead. He stares at me, shirtless and wearing nothing else but a pair of black cargo shorts. I try not to look at his lightly-tanned six-pack abs or the veins running along the length of his arms that somehow appear more pronounced with the rest of his skin in plain-view. Oh … my God. Maybe I should just go back … No, I came over here to talk to him and that’s what I’m going to do. For the first time, I see the tattoo down his left side and I want to ask about it, but I’ll save that for later. He smiles gently at me. “It started about a year and a half ago,” I just come out with it, “a week before graduation—my boyfriend was killed in a car accident.” His gentle smile fades and he softens his eyes, letting me see just enough remorse to show that he feels bad for me without it seeming fake or exaggerated. He pushes the door open the rest of the way and I walk inside. The first thing he does before I even sit down on the end of the bed is pull a shirt over his chest. Maybe he doesn’t want me to feel like he’s trying to be distracting or flirty, especially when I came here to tell him something obviously painful. I respect him even more for that. That small, seemingly insignificant gesture speaks volumes, and although it might be unfortunate that he hid that body away, I’m OK with it. That’s not what I came here for. I think … There’s a sort of genuine sadness in his green eyes, mixed with something thoughtful. He turns the TV off and sits down next to me, the same way he did on my bed and he looks over, waiting patiently for me to go on. “We fell in love at sixteen,” I begin and look out ahead of me, “but he waited for me for two years—two years—” I glance over once in emphasis, “before I slept with him. I don’t know any teenage guy who would wait that long to get in a girl’s panties.” Andrew makes a slight you-have-a-point face. “I had had a couple of short-term boyfriends before Ian, but they were so …” I look up in thought searching for the word, “… mundane. To tell you the truth, I started seeing a lot of people as mundane by the time I was twelve.” Andrew looks reflective, his brows gently creasing inward. “But Ian was different. The first thing he said to me after we met and had our first real conversation was: ‘I wonder if the ocean smells different on the other side of the world.’ I laughed at first because I thought it was a weird thing to say, but then I realized that simple sentence set him apart from everyone I knew. Ian was a guy standing on the outside of the glass, looking in at the rest of us shuffling back and forth, doing the same thing every day, taking the same paths, like ants in an ant farm. “Now, I had always known that I wanted something more in life, something different, but it was when I met Ian that things started to become clear to me.” Andrew smiles gently and says, “Established and matured before twenty—that’s a rare trait.” “Yeah, I guess so,” I say, smiling back at him and then I let out a small laugh. “You wouldn’t believe how often Damon or Natalie or even my mom and my brother, Cole, messed with me about how ‘deep’ I was.” I quote ‘deep’ with my fingers and roll my eyes. “Deep is good,” he says and I glance over coyly because I detect the attraction even though he’s taming it very well for the sake of the conversation. But then his smile fades and his voice drops a little. “So when you lost Ian, you lost your partner in crime.” My smile fades, too, and I prop my hands on the edge of the bed and let my body slump between my shoulders. “Yes. We were going to backpack across the world after graduation, or maybe just Europe, but we were determined; had that much planned out at least.” I look straight at Andrew now. “We knew we didn’t want to do the college thing and end up working the same job for forty years—we wanted to work everywhere, try everything while on the road!” Andrew laughs. “That’s actually a pretty cool idea,” he says. “One week you’re waitressing at a bar and bankin’ on tips and the next week, in a different city or town, you’re belly-dancing on a street corner and tourists are tossing money in a jar as they walk by.” My slumped shoulders bounce softly with laughter and I blush, looking over at him. “Waitressing, sure, but belly-dancing?” I shake my head. “Not so much.” He grins and says, “Ah, you could pull it off.” Still with a hot, blushing face I look out ahead of me again and let the blush fade. “Six months after Ian died,” I go on, “my brother, Cole, killed a man in a drunk-driving accident and now he’s in prison. And after that, my dad cheated on my mom and they got divorced. My new boyfriend, Christian, cheated on me. And then, of course, you already know about what happened with Natalie.” That’s all of it. I told him everything that, combined, made me want to get away. But I can’t look at him because I feel like I shouldn’t be done, like he’s thinking to himself: OK, where’s the rest of it? “That’s a lot of shit to dump on a person’s lap,” he says and I look back up when I feel him adjusting on the bed beside me. I smell his minty breath now that he has turned fully at the waist to face me from the side. “You have every right to be hurt, Camryn.” I don’t say anything, but I thank him with my eyes. “I guess I can see now why you weren’t hard to convince to go on this road trip with me,” he says. His face is unreadable. I hope he doesn’t think I’m using him to mimic that part of my life I had planned with Ian. The whole road trip situation seems similar, even to me now that I think about it, but it couldn’t be further from the reason I left with Andrew. I’m with him now because I want to be. It’s in this moment that I realize I haven’t been thinking of Ian and Andrew so much because I’m trying to find Ian in Andrew … I think it’s guilt … maybe I’m trying to replace Ian completely. I stand up from the bed and shake those thoughts from my mind. “So what are you going to do?” Andrew asks from behind. “After this road trip is over, what do you plan to do with your life?” My heart hardens in my chest. Not once during this trip with Andrew, or even before I met him after I left North Carolina, have I thought beyond the present. It wasn’t ever that I tried not to think about what lies ahead, I simply just didn’t think about it at all. Andrew’s question wakes me up and now I feel panicked inside. I never wanted a dose of that reality; I was content with my illusion. I turn around, my arms crossed over my chest. Andrew’s beautiful eyes are gazing intensely at me. “I … don’t really know.” He looks mildly surprised, his gaze becoming more contemplative and his eyes stray. “You can still go to college,” he says, offering ideas to help me feel better, I guess, “and it doesn’t mean you have to get a job afterwards and work there until you die—hell, you can still backpack across Europe if you want.” He stands up with me. I can tell the thinking gears are churning in his head as he paces the dark green carpet a few times. “You’re gorgeous,” he says and my heart flutters, “you’re intelligent and obviously have more determination than the average girl; I think you could do just about anything you wanted—shit, I know that all sounds commonplace, but it couldn’t be truer in your case.” I shrug. “I guess so,” I say, “but I don’t have the slightest idea about what I want to do except that I don’t want to go home to figure it out. I think I’m afraid that if I go back there, I’ll be drowned in the same crap I pulled myself out of when I got on that bus that day.” “Tell me something,” Andrew says suddenly and my eyes lock on him, “what part of being around everyone else frustrates you the most?” Frustrates me? I think on it for a second, my gaze fixated on the brass lamp mounted on the wall beside the bed. “I-I’m … not sure.” He steps up to me and places two fingers at the bend of my arm, guiding me to sit back down with him and I do. “Just think about it,” he goes on, “based on what you’ve told me already, what is different between you and them?” I hate it that it’s taking me longer to figure something out that he seems to already have an idea about. I stare down at my hands within my lap and think about it long and hard until I come up with the only answer I feel might be right, but I’m still unsure of myself: “Expectations?” “Is that a question, or your answer?” I give up. “I really don’t know—I mean I feel … restricted around everyone, with the exception of Ian, of course.” He nods and listens, letting me go on without interruption while the answer is hanging on the tip of my brain. And then out of nowhere, the answers just come: “No one wants to do what I want to do,” I say and my explanation begins to unfold more quickly now that I feel more confident in the answer. “Just like with living free and not taking the ordinary route, y’know? No one wants to step out of their comfort zone to do that with me because it’s not something most people do. I was afraid to tell my parents I didn’t want to go to college because that’s what they expected me to do. I accepted a job at a department store because my mom expected it to fulfill me in some way. I went with my mom every Saturday to visit my brother in prison because she expected me to go, because he’s my brother and I should want to see him even though I didn’t. Natalie relentlessly tried to hook me up with guys because she thought it was abnormal that I be single. I think I’ve been afraid most of my life to be myself.” My head whirls around to face him. “In a way, that was even true with Ian.” I look away quickly because that last part was not something I really expected to say out loud. It just came out while the realization was taking shape in my mind so fast. Andrew looks inquisitive, but at the same time, unsure if he should probe. I’m not sure if I should elaborate. He nods. Apparently, he decides it’s not his place to further this particular subject. He twists the inside of his cheek in between his teeth. I watch him for a moment, always trying to force down the obvious attraction I have for him, but it’s becoming harder to do. I glimpse his lips and wonder what they taste like. And then I force my eyes away—I’m doing it again. Right now. I’m afraid to tell him what I want. Or, at least what I think I want. “Andrew,” I say and his face quietly reacts to my voice saying his name. Think about this, Cam, I say to myself. Are you sure this is what you want? “What is it?” he asks. “Have you ever had a one-night stand?” It feels like I just let slip the biggest secret I’ve ever been told while standing in front of a microphone in a room full of people. But it’s out of the bag now. I’m still not entirely sure if it’s even what I want, but it’s there in my mind and has been for a while. I remember vaguely thinking about it while up on that roof with Blake. Andrew’s face loses all emotion and he can’t seem to find words to say. Instantly, my heart freezes and I feel sick to my stomach. I knew I shouldn’t have said that! He’s going to think I’m a slut or something. I jump up from the bed. “I’m sorry—God, you must think I’m—” He reaches out and takes my wrist, “Sit back down.” Reluctantly, I do, but I can’t look at him. I’m completely fucking mortified. “What’s wrong with you?” he asks. “Huh?” I look back at him. “You’re doing it right now.” He motions his hands to emphasize ‘right now’; his eyebrows are knotted. “Doing what?” He licks his lips, sighs as if disappointed and finally says, “Camryn, you started to tell me something that maybe you’ve contemplated a time or two and just when you got the courage to speak your mind, you did a one-eighty and regretted it.” He looks deep into my eyes, his full of intensity and knowledge and something else I can’t yet place. “Ask me the question again and this time, wait for me to answer.” I pause, searching that tense look on his face, unsure of it. Or, maybe it’s just me that I’m unsure of. I swallow and say, “Have you ever had a one-night stand?” His expression doesn’t shift or fall. “Yes, I’ve had a few here and there.” He’s waiting for me now, even though I’m not sure yet how to make myself feel comfortable in this awkwardly-developing conversation. It’s like he knows I’m squirming inside, but to teach me a lesson he’s going to make me do the talking instead of being my shrink like he’s been since I came into his room. His eyebrows arch a little as if to say: Well? “Well, I was just wondering … because I’ve never done something like that.” “Why not?” he says so casually. I look down and then back up at him so he doesn’t scold me for it. “Well, it’s just kind of slutty, I guess.” Andrew laughs and it surprises me. Finally, he relieves me somewhat of my torture. “If a girl did that a lot,” he draws out that word with a squeamish smile, “then it would be slutty, sure. Once or twice, I don’t know …” he motions his hands at level with his shoulders as if shaking the numbers around in his mind indecisively, “there’s nothing wrong with that.” Why isn’t he taking full advantage of this right now? I start freaking out a little inside, wondering why he’s still all shrink-mode rather than amping up the flirting and getting down to business. “Alright, so …” I can’t say it. It’s just not me, to be able to casually talk about my sexual anything. I can only vaguely do that with Natalie. Andrew sighs and his shoulders slouch over. “Are you wanting to sleep with me, to have a one-night stand with me?” He knew I wasn’t going to come out and say it, so he gave in and did it for me. The question, although obvious for both of us, stops my breath. It embarrasses and mortifies me with him saying it as much, maybe more, than if I would have. “Maybe …” He stands up and looks down at me and says, “I’m sorry, but I’m not into you in that way.” The biggest fist in existence just slammed into my stomach. My hands go rigid, gripping the edge of the mattress, making my arms all the way up to the top of my shoulders completely unmovable. All I want to do right now is run out that door and lock myself inside my room and never look at Andrew again. Not because I don’t want to see him, but because I don’t want him to see me. I’ve never been so embarrassed in my entire life. And this is what speaking my mind got me! I don’t know whether to accept it as a lesson learned, or to hate him for making me do it. Nineteen (#ulink_334cf8f5-ee38-5890-90c5-29c09e8ead16) In a split-second, I leap off the bed and walk as fast as I can to the door. “Camryn, stop.” I just keep moving, even faster when I feel him coming up behind me, and I grab the lever and swing the door open and then I run out into the hall. “Please, just wait a damn minute!” he says, following me and I can hear the aggravation elevating in his voice. I ignore him and reach into the little pocket on the back of my shorts and yank out my card key, thrusting it in my door. I push my way inside the room and go to close the door, but Andrew is already through it behind me. The door shuts after him. “Will you just listen to me?” He tries once more, exasperated. I don’t want to look at him, but I do anyway. His eyes are wide and fierce and sincere when finally I turn around. He steps up to me and grips my upper-arms carefully in his hands. And then he leans in and presses his lips softly against mine. I wilt, but I’m still too confused to react properly to it. Confused and stunned and my heart is racing. He pulls away and looks in at me, his face every bit of sincere and he tilts his head to one side … smiling. “Why is that funny?” I ask sharply and go to push away from him. He holds me still by my arms and forces my humiliated gaze, which is beginning to reflect resentment. “I say that I’m not into you like that, Camryn, because …” he pauses, searching my face, looking at my lips for a moment as if deciding whether or not he should kiss them again, “… because you’re not the girl I could only sleep with once.” His words snap the thoughts out of me and my racing heart flickers behind my ribs. I can’t make myself understand what he just said and instead of trying to figure out exactly what he means, I pull my head together the best I can and try to gain back some of the composure I lost when I stormed out of his room. “Look,” he says, moving to my side and slipping his hand around the back of my waist. Just feeling his fingers graze my skin causes shivers along that side of my body. What the hell is happening to me? I do want him … I mean, right now I feel like there’s no going back, that I would force myself to be a slut just for tonight just to keep him in the room. But what I don’t understand is why I feel like I want more from him than sex … “Camryn?” His voice snaps me back into whatever it was he was trying to say moments ago. He guides me to sit down on the bed and then crouches down in front of me on the floor. He gazes up into my eyes. “I won’t have a one-night stand with you, but I will make you come, if you let me.” A tiny jolt of electricity just shot through my belly and down in between my legs. “… What?” I can’t say anything else, really. He smiles gently, deepening those dimples just a little, and he rests his arms across the length of my naked thighs, clasping his hands to my sides. “No strings attached,” he says. “I’ll get you off and tomorrow morning when you wake up, I’ll be in my room next door getting ready to head out with you to our next location. Nothing will change between us—I won’t even bring up what happened joking around or otherwise. It’ll be like it never happened at all.” I can hardly breathe. He just made the sweet spot between my legs swell with just a few direct words. “But … what about you?” I manage to get out. “What about me?” He presses his fingertips into my sides a little more. I pretend not to notice. “That doesn’t … seem fair.” I really have no idea what I’m saying. I’m still shocked that this is happening at all. Andrew just smiles up at me, unfazed by my observation and then suddenly he lifts up from being crouched on the floor and moves in between my legs, causing me to slide backward a little on the bed. He sits in front of me and pulls me onto his lap, one leg over each side of him. I’m wide-eyed and practically biting into my bottom lip. He’s being so casual about this that it alone, the mere unexpectedness of it, makes me wetter. He wraps his firm arms around my back and leans in, brushing the edge of my chin with his mouth. Chills attack me from head to toe. Then he pulls me closer toward his body and whispers near my mouth, “It’s fair. I want to make you come, and trust me; I’ll definitely be getting something out of it.” I hear the grin in his voice and I look down into his eyes and I can’t resist them. If Andrew told me right now to bend over and get on my hands and knees for him, I would without hesitation. He brushes the other side of my jaw with his lips. “Then why won’t you just sleep with me?” I ask quietly, but then try to re-word it, “I mean, if you wanted to do … something else to me—” He leans back from my jaw and puts his three middle fingers over my lips to hush me. “I’m going to say this just once,” he begins and his eyes are so bottomless, churning with intensity, “but I don’t want you to comment when I say it, alright?” I nod nervously. He pauses, moistening his lips with his tongue and then says, “If you were to let me fuck you, you would have to let me own you.” A wave of unrestricted pleasure shudders through my entire body. His words shock me into submission. My heart is telling me to say one thing. My mind is telling me to say another. But I can’t hear what the fuck either one of them are saying because of this feeling between my legs that just keeps getting more and more impossible to ignore. I swallow hard, searching desperately for saliva. It feels like every part of me that normally produces its own moisture has stopped working because all of the moisture has localized that to one spot in the center of my body. I still can’t breathe. Oh my God, he hasn’t even touched me yet and I already feel this way? Am I dreaming? “But what if I give you a hand-job, or something?” I admit it; the idea of this is making me feel guilty. He cocks his head to one side, smirking, and it makes me want to kiss him hungrily. “I told you not to comment.” “I-I well, I didn’t comment on what you said, exactly, I just—” He slips his fingers underneath the thin fabric of my panties and touches me. I gasp, forgetting about what I had started to say. “Be quiet,” he demands gently, though he completely means it. My lips snap shut and I gasp again when he slips two fingers inside of me and just holds them there, his thumb pressing on the outside against my pelvic bone. “Are you going to be quiet, Camryn?” I shudder out the word, y-yes, and bite my bottom lip. Then his fingers slide out of me. I want to beg him not to move them away, but he told me to be quiet in such a way that makes me utterly mad for him and equally submissive, so I say nothing. My eyes open carefully when he moves his wet fingers across my lips and instinctively I lick them, just a little, until he pulls them toward his own lips and takes in the rest of me on his tongue. I lean toward him, touching his mouth to my own, shutting my eyes softly just wanting to taste him and myself on him. His tongue snakes out to touch mine, but then he pushes me carefully back on the bed, instead of giving in to the ravenous kiss I so desperately want. He slips both hands on the fabric around my waist and slides my shorts and panties over my hips and down my legs, dropping them somewhere on the floor. Then he crawls up and lies next to me, draping one arm over my body and slipping his hand up the front of my shirt. I never did put a bra on earlier. He gently pinches one nipple, then the other and kisses me along the jaw again. Every tiny hair along the back of my neck rises when his tongue traces the curvature of my ear. “Do you want me to touch you?” His breath is warm against the side of my face. “Yes,” I gasp. He pins my earlobe between his teeth and his hand starts to slide down my belly, but it stops near my belly button. “Tell me that you want me to touch you,” he breathes into my ear. I can hardly open my eyes. “I want you to touch me …” He slides his hand down further and my heart starts pounding fiercely in my chest, but when I think he’s going to touch me, his hand moves to my inner thigh instead. “Spread them for me.” I let my legs fall gently apart, but he moves them apart further with his hand, the edges of his fingers pushing against my flesh until I’m completely exposed. He lifts up from my side and leans over my body, pushing my shirt up to expose my breasts and then pins my nipples between his teeth, one after the other. Then he flicks the tip of his wet tongue over them and places his mouth around them, kissing each one of them hungrily. I wind my fingers through the top of his hair, wanting to grip it and pull it, but I don’t. Andrew makes his way down my chest and to my ribs, tracing each one with his tongue before my belly button. He looks up at me with dominant, hooded eyes and says with his lips gently pressed against my stomach, “You have to tell me what you want, Camryn.” He licks my belly once so slowly that my skin ripples with shivers. “You won’t get it unless you tell me and make me believe you.” I breathe in an unsteady breath that literally rattles my chest. “Please, please touch me …” “I don’t believe you,” he says tauntingly and licks my clit once. Just once. He stops and looks at me across the landscape of my body, waiting for me. Because I’m afraid to say the word, I whisper so softly, “Please … I want you to lick my pussy,” that he pretends he didn’t hear me. “What was that?” he says and licks my clit again, this time taking a little longer and a wave of shivers runs through me below. “I didn’t quite catch that.” I say it again, raising my voice just a little, still too embarrassed to say that forbidden word, the one I’ve always found dirty and wrong and belonging only in a porno movie. Andrew slides his hand between my legs and parts my lips with two fingers. He licks me once. Only once. My thighs are starting to tremble heavier. I don’t know how much longer I can wait. “A woman who knows what she wants sexually,” he licks me again, his hooded eyes always watching me, “and isn’t afraid to express it is so fucking hot, Camryn—Tell. Me. What. You. Want. Or, I won’t give it to you.” He licks me again and I can’t take it anymore. I reach my hands down and grab fistfuls of his hair, pushing his face further between my legs, as much as he’ll allow me, and I say looking right into his eyes, “Lick my pussy, Andrew; goddammit, lick my fucking pussy!” I catch the darkest grin I’ve ever seen on his face just before my eyelids slam shut and my head arches back when he starts to lick me and this time doesn’t stop. He sucks hard on my clit and works his fingers in and out of me at the same time and I think I want to faint. I can’t open my eyes; they feel drunk with pleasure. I buck my hips toward him and pull the shit out of his hair, but he never misses a beat. He licks me hard and fast and every now and then he’ll slow down to suck on me and roll the pad of his thumb over my swollen clit, before diving right back in. And when I start to feel like I can’t take it anymore and try to slide myself away from his face, he grasps my thighs and forces me to stay put until I come hard, my legs trembling uncontrollably, my hands gripping his head with all my strength. A moan shudders from my lips and both of my hands come up behind my head, clutching the headboard with my fingertips, trying to use it as leverage to pull away from Andrew’s lashing tongue. But he grips me harder, his hands curled under my thighs and over my hips; he puts so much pressure on me that it hurts, digging his fingertips into my skin, but I like it. And as my shuddering body begins to calm and my labored breathing starts to slow, although unevenly, Andrew also starts to lick me more gently. When my body stops moving, he kisses the inside of both of my thighs and then right below my belly button before crawling upward towards my mouth, bracing his tight, muscled arms against the mattress on each side of me. His soft, wet lips fall on my neck and both sides of my jawline first and then my forehead. Lastly, he looks down into my eyes for a long moment and then leans in and pecks my lips softly. And then he gets up from the bed. I can’t move. I want to reach out and grab him and pull him down on top of me, but I can’t move. Not only am I still reeling from the orgasm he just gave me, but my mind is still reeling from the entire experience. I just look at him, barely raising my head from the pillow as he goes toward the door. He looks at me once just after he places his hand on the door lever. But I’m the one who speaks first: “Where are you going?” I know where he’s going, but it was the only thing I could think to say to delay him from leaving my room. He smiles gently. “To my room,” he says as if I should already know. The door opens and light from the hallway floods into the space around him, illuminating his features over there in the shadow. I want to say something, but I’m not sure what. I raise my back from the bed and sit up straight; my fingers restlessly fidget with the sheet near my lap. “Well, I’ll see you in the morning,” he says and he gives me one last meaningful grin just before he closes the door behind him and the light from the hall snaps out. But it’s still fairly bright in my room; I had left the lamp on by the bed. I look over, thinking about the lamp. It was on the whole time. I had always been kind of shy in bed and even with Ian the most light I ever had sex with him in was from a television, but never bright light. I didn’t even think about it this time. And the words that came out of my mouth … I have never said something like that before. Not the P-word. I can’t even say it right now. Sure, I often told Ian to ‘please fuck me’ or ‘fuck me harder’, but that was the extent of my pornographic vocabulary. What is Andrew Parrish doing to me? Whatever it is … I don’t think I want it to stop. I get up from the bed and dive back into my panties and shorts and go to the door, intent on marching right back over there and … I don’t know what. I stop at the door before opening it and just look down at my bare feet against the green carpet. I don’t know what I’d say if I went over there because I don’t even know what I want or what I don’t want. Then I let my arms fall loosely at my sides and a deep sigh bursts through my lips. “Like it never happened at all,” I mock him dryly. “Yeah, you’re not good enough to pull that one off.” Andrew Twenty (#ulink_d2e4653e-2a02-5e26-98a6-841fa7909259) I’ve been awake since 8 a.m. I got a call from my brother, Asher, and was afraid to answer because I thought it would be the ‘news’ of my father. He was just calling to let me know that Aidan is pissed off about me taking his guitar. I don’t give a shit; what’s he gonna do, drive down to Birmingham and fight me for it? I know it really has nothing to do with the guitar; Aidan is just pissed that I left Wyoming while our dad is still alive. And Asher wanted to check up on me. “Are you doin’ alright, bro?” he said. “Yeah, I’m perfect, actually.” “Is that sarcasm?” “No,” I said into the phone, “I’m being straight with you, Ash, I’m having the time of my life right now.” “It’s that girl, isn’t it? Camryn? Was that her name?” “Yeah, that’s her name and yeah, it’s the girl.” I grinned inwardly, distracted by the very vivid image in my mind of what happened last night, but then I just smiled, thinking about Camryn in general. “Well, you know where I’m at if you need me,” Asher said and I heard the quiet message in his voice that he wanted to convey but knows better than to speak of it more openly. I told him before never to bring it up again, or I’d have to beat the shit out of him. “Yeah, I know, thanks, bro—hey, how’s Dad doin’?” “He’s the same as he was before you left.” “That’s better than worse, I guess.” “Yeah.” We hung up and I called my mom to let her know I was alright. A day longer and she would’ve had the police looking for me. I get up and shove my stuff into my duffle bag. As I walk past the television, I pound on the wall with the bottom of my palm next to where Camryn’s head is probably lying against her pillow on the other side. If she wasn’t already awake, that might’ve done the trick. Well, OK maybe not, since she is such a deep sleeper—except when it comes to music, apparently. I take a quick shower and brush my teeth and I think about her being in my mouth last night and it’s kind of a shame I have to brush my teeth at all. Oh well, maybe I’ll do it again later. If she wants me to, of course. Shit, I have absolutely no issues with it whatsoever, except that afterwards I have to take care of myself, but that’s alright, too. I’d rather do it than risk letting her touch me. I know that when she does, it’ll all be over. For me anyway. I fucking want her, but I’ll only take her if the street goes both ways. And right now, I can tell she doesn’t know what she wants. I get dressed and slip my bare feet down into my black running shoes, glad they’re dry now after being soaked by the rain. I shoulder both of my bags and take Aidan’s guitar by the neck and head out into the hallway and next door to Camryn’s room. I hear the TV on inside, so I know she must be up. I wonder how long it’ll take her to crack. Camryn I hear Andrew knock on the door. I suck in a sharp breath, hold it there for a long, tense minute and then let it out in a gush of air, blowing a tassel of hair outward that hangs freely from my braid—preparation to keep me from cracking. Like it never happened, myass. Finally, I open the door and when I see him standing there so casually—and so edible—I crack. Well, it’s more like a really red blush, so hot that my face literally feels like it’s on fire. I look down at the floor because if I look at his smiling eyes a second longer my head might melt. I manage to look back up at him seconds later. His close-lipped smile is bigger now and much more telling. Hey! I think an expression like that is the same as talking about it! He looks me up and down, seeing that I’m already dressed and ready to go and then jerks his head back a little and says with a huge grin, “Come on.” I grab my purse and my bag and head out with him. We hop inside the car and I do what I can to distract myself from the best oral sex I’ve ever had in my life by finding something random to talk about. He smells extra good today: natural skin with a hint of soap and some kind of shampoo. That’s not helping me, either. “So, are we just going to drive to random motels and not stop anywhere except Waffle Houses?” Not that that bothers me one bit, but I’m struggling to find ‘random’ here. He clicks his seatbelt on and starts the engine. “No, I actually have something in mind.” He glances over. “Oh?” I ask, my curiosity piqued. “You’re breaking from the spontaneous rule of our trip and actually have a plan?” “Hey, technically it wasn’t ever a rule,” he says, underlining the fact. We back out of the parking lot and the vintage Chevelle purrs onto the road. He’s wearing the same black cargo shorts he wore yesterday and I get a quick glimpse of his rock-hard calves, one foot pressing gently on the gas pedal. A dark navy t-shirt fits his chest and arms just right, the fabric tighter around his biceps. “Well, what’s the plan, then?” “New Orleans,” he says, smiling over at me. “It’s only about five and a half hours from here.” My face lights up. “I’ve actually never been to New Orleans before.” He smiles inwardly, as if excited about being the one who gets to take me there my first time. I’m as excited about it as he is. But really, I don’t care where we go, even if it’s the mosquito swarms of Mississippi, as long as Andrew is with me. Two hours later, after we’ve exhausted the random topics which have only been a distraction from talking about what happened last night, I decide to be the one to break it. I reach out and push the down button on the volume. Andrew looks over at me curiously. “Stuff like that has never come out of my mouth before, just so you know,” I get it off my chest. Andrew grins and moves his hand down on the steering wheel, letting his fingers casually steer instead. He appears more relaxed, his left arm lying across the door on the other side of him, left knee bent upward while the right foot stays on the gas pedal. “But you liked it,” he says, “saying it, I mean.” Ummm, there wasn’t anything about last night that I didn’t like. My face is only a little red. “Yeah, I did, actually,” I admit. “Don’t tell me you’ve never thought about saying something like that during sex before,” he says. I hesitate. “Actually, I have.” I look over sharply. “Not that I sit around and dream about it though, I’ve just thought about it.” “Why didn’t you ever do it before then, if you had the urge?” He’s asking me these questions, but I’m pretty sure he already knows the answers. I shrug. “I guess I was just chicken shit.” He laughs lightly and moves his fingers back up the steering wheel, holding it more securely as we go around a curvy section of highway. “I guess I’ve just always thought of it as something Dominique Starla or Cinnamon Dreams would say in Legally Boned or Friday Night Dikes.” “You’ve seen those flicks?” My head jerks around and I gasp. “No! I … I didn’t know they were real, I was just making up—” Andrew’s smile becomes playful. “I don’t know if they’re real, either,” he says, giving in before I die of mortification, “but I wouldn’t doubt it, really. And I get what you mean.” My face relaxes. “Well, it’s hot,” he says, “for the record.” I blush some more. Might as well just leave the blush on all the time because I find myself doing it around him a lot more every day. “So, you think porn stars are hot?” I cringe inwardly, hoping he says no. Andrew gently purses his lips and says, “Not really, it’s hot in a different way when they do it.” My brows draw together. “Different as in how?” “Well, when … Dominique Starla,” he picks the name from the air, “does it, it’s just to some random guy lookin’ to get off behind a keyboard.” His green eyes fall on me. “That guy’s not dreaming about anything with her except her face in his lap.” Then he looks back out at the road. “But when someone … I dunno … like a sweet, sexy, completely un-slutty girl does it, the guy is thinking about a lot more than her face in his lap. He’s probably not even thinking about that at all, at least on a deeper level.” I definitely caught the secret meaning behind his words and he probably knows as much. “It drove me mad,” he says, glancing at me long enough to lock eyes with me, “just so you know.” But then he turns away completely and pretends to be concentrating more on the road. Maybe he doesn’t want me to accuse him of ‘talking about it’, even though I’m the one that started this conversation. I take full blame and I don’t regret it. “What about you?” I ask, stirring the brief silence. “Were you ever afraid to try something sexually you had the urge to try?” He thinks about it a moment and says, “Yeah, when I was younger, like around seventeen, but I was only afraid to try things with girls because I knew they were …” “They were what?” He smiles softly, pressing his lips together and I get the feeling there’s about to be some kind of comparison. “Younger girls, at least the ones I hung out with, were ‘grossed out’ by anything unconventional. They were probably like you in a way, secretly turned on by something different than the missionary position, but too shy to admit it. And at that age it was risky to say: ‘Hey let me do you in the ass,’ because chances are she’d be freaked out by it and think you’re some sexually disturbed pervert.” A laugh pushes through my lips. “Yeah, I think you’re right,” I say. “When I was a teenager, I was grossed out when Natalie would tell me things she let Damon do to her. I didn’t start actually finding them hot until I lost my virginity at eighteen, but …” my voice starts to trail thinking about Ian, “… but even then, I was still too nervous. I wanted to … umm …” I’m nervous admitting it now. “Go on, just say it,” he says, but not with any measure of playfulness. “You should know by now you can’t run me off.” That takes me aback (and makes my heart flutter). Is the truth written all over my face, that I’m afraid of giving him any bad impressions of me? He smiles gently as if to give me that much more assurance that nothing I can say to him will give him a bad impression. “OK, if I tell you, do you promise not to think it’s an invitation?” Perhaps it is, even though I’m not sure about that myself yet, but I definitely don’t want him to think that. Not right now, maybe never. I don’t know … “I swear,” he says, his eyes serious and not at all offended, “I won’t think that at all.” I take a deep breath. Ugh! I can’t believe I’m about to tell him this. I’ve never told anyone; well, except for Natalie, in a roundabout way. “Aggression.” I pause, still feeling embarrassed to go on. “Most of the time when I daydream about sex, I’m …” His eyes are grinning! When I said ‘aggression’ something triggered in his features. It almost seems as if … no, surely that can’t be right. He softens his eyes once he notices. “Go ahead,” he says, smiling gently again. And I do, because for some reason I’m less afraid to finish than I was seconds ago: “I’m usually dreaming about being … manhandled.” “Rough sex turns you on,” he says evenly. I nod. “The thought of it does, but I’ve never really experienced it, not in the way I think about it, anyway.” He seems faintly surprised, or, is that contented? “I think it’s what I meant when I told you I always end up with tame guys.” Something just clicked in my head: Andrew knew before me what I really meant back in Wyoming when I said I ‘end up with’ tame guys. Without realizing it, I basically expressed that ending up with them was unfortunate, something I didn’t prefer. He may not have known my definition of ‘tame’ until now, but he knew before I did that it wasn’t something I wanted. But I loved Ian, and right now I feel awful for thinking this way. Ian was tame sexually, and the thought of having any bad thoughts of him at all makes me feel guilty. “So, you like hair-pulling and …” he starts to say inquiringly, but his voice trails when he notices my expression. “Yeah, but more aggressive,” I say suggestively, trying to get him to say it so I don’t have to. I’m getting nervous again. He shifts his chin sideways, his eyebrows rise a little. “What, like … wait, how aggressive?” I swallow and look away from his eyes. “Force, I guess. Not like flat-out rape or anything extreme like that, but I have a very sexually submissive personality, I think.” Andrew can’t look at me now, either. I turn enough to see that his eyes are slightly wider than seconds ago, and full of shrouded intensity. His Adam’s Apple moves gently as he swallows. Both of his hands are on the steering wheel now. I change the subject: “You never did technically tell me what you were afraid to ask a girl to do.” I smile, hoping to bring the playful atmosphere back from before. He relaxes and grins looking back over at me. “Yeah, I did,” he says and adds after an odd pause, “anal sex.” Something tells me that’s not what he was really afraid of. I can’t put my finger on it, but that whole mention of anal sex I think is just a smokescreen. But why would Andrew, out of the two of us, be the one afraid to admit the truth? He’s the one pretty much helping me to be more comfortable with myself sexually. He’s the one who I thought wasn’t afraid to admit anything, but now I’m not so sure. I wish I could read his mind. “Well, believe it or not,” I say, glancing at him, “Ian and I did try that once, but it hurt like hell and needless to say, I mean ‘once’ in the most literal way possible.” Andrew laughs lightly. Then he looks up at the road signs and seems to be making a quick route decision in his head. We ease off the highway and onto another one. More fields are sprawled out on both sides of the road. Cotton and rice and corn and no telling what else; I really don’t know the difference in most crops except the obvious: cotton is white and corn is tall. We drive for hours and hours until the sun starts to set and Andrew pulls off the side of the road. The tires grind to a stop onto the gravel. “Are we lost?” I ask. He leans across the seat towards me and reaches for the glove box. His elbow and the under part of his lower arm grazes my leg as he pops the glove box and pulls out a rather worn road map. It’s folded awkwardly as if after it had been opened it was never folded back into the same creases. He unfolds the map and lays it against the steering wheel, examining it closely and running his finger along it. He twists the right side of his mouth in his teeth and makes an inquisitive clicking noise with his lips. “We’re lost, aren’t we?” I want to laugh, not at him, just at the situation. “It’s your fault,” he says, trying to be serious, but failing miserably seeing as how his eyes are smiling. I let out a huff of air. “And how is it my fault?” I argue. “You’re the one driving.” “Well, if you weren’t being so ‘distracting’, talkin’ about sex and secret desires and pornography and that slut, Dominique Starla, I would’ve noticed I was taking 20 instead of staying on 59 like I should have.” He flicks the center of the map with the snap of his finger and shakes his head. “We drove two hours in the wrong direction.” “Two hours?” I laugh this time and slap the dashboard. “And you’re just now realizing this?” I hope I’m not bruising his ego. Besides, it’s not like I’m mad or disappointed; we can drive ten hours in the wrong direction and I wouldn’t care. He looks wounded. I’m pretty sure he’s faking it, but I grab a hold of this opportunity and take a chance at doing something I’ve wanted to do since our time together in the rain on the roof in Tennessee. Reaching over my waist, I unlock my seatbelt and slide across the seat and sit next to him. He seems quietly surprised, but inviting as he lifts his arm so that I can curl myself underneath it. “I’m just messing with you about being lost,” I say, laying my head against his shoulder. I feel a little bit of reluctance before his arm comes down around me. It feels so right to be here like this. Too right … I pretend not to notice how comfortable both of us feel right now and be as nonchalant as before. I look up into the map with him, running my finger along a new route. “We can just go this way,” I say, running my finger south, “and hit 55 straight into New Orleans. Right?” I tilt my head over to see his eyes and my heart jumps when I notice how close his face is to mine now. But I just smile, waiting for him to answer. He smiles back, but I get the feeling he really didn’t hear much I said. “Yeah, we’ll just hit 55.” His eyes search my face and briefly skim my lips. I reach out and start to fold the map back together and then I turn the volume back up. Andrew moves his arm from around me to put the car in gear. When we pull away, he rests his hand on my thigh pressed next to his and we ride like that for a long time; the only time he moves his hand is to take better control of a sharp curve or to adjust the music, but he always puts right back. And I always want him to. Twenty-One (#ulink_df16142b-07a7-5c90-af47-420037a74a86) “Are you sure we’re still on 55?” I ask much later after dark and haven’t seen any headlights coming or going in either direction in forever, it seems. All I see are fields and trees and the occasional cow. “Yes, babe, we’re still on 55; I’ve made sure of that.” Just as he says that, we pass another highway sign that actually reads: 55. I lift away from Andrew’s arm, which my head has been pressed against for the past hour, and start to stretch my arms and legs and back. I lean over and massage my calf muscles afterwards; I think every muscle in my body has infused like cement around my bones. “You need to get out and stretch your legs for a while?” Andrew says. I look over to see his face in shadow; a light blue hue is washed over his skin. His sculpted jawline looks more pronounced in the dark. “Yeah,” I say and lean up toward the dashboard to get a better look out the windshield at what the landscape looks like. Of course. Fields and trees and—there goes another cow—I should’ve known. But then I notice the sky. I press myself up further against the dash and look upward at the stars wrapped in the infinite blackness, noticing how easy they are to see and how many of them there are without any light pollution for miles. “Do you want to get out and walk around?” he asks, still waiting for the rest of my answer. Getting an idea of my own, I smile brightly at him and nod. “Yes, I think that’s a great idea—is there a blanket in the trunk?” He looks at me curiously for a moment. “Actually, yes, I keep one in that box back there with the rest of my emergency roadside supplies—why?” “I know it might be clich?,” I begin, “but it’s something I’ve always wanted to do—have you ever slept under the stars?” I feel a little silly asking, I guess because it is kind of clich? and nothing about Andrew thus far has come anywhere near clich?. His face spreads into a warm smile. “As a matter of fact, no, I have never slept under the stars—are you gettin’ all romantic on me, Camryn Bennett?” He looks at me with a playful sideward stare. “No!” I laugh. “Come on, I’m serious; I just think it’s the perfect opportunity.” I motion my hands toward the windshield. “Look at all of the fields out there.” “Yeah, but we can’t lay a blanket out in a cotton or corn field,” he says, “and most of the time those fields are saturated with ankle-deep water.” “Not the ones covered with grass and cow bombs,” I say. “You want to sleep in a field where cows shit?” he says casually, but equally humored. I snicker. “No, just the grass. Come on …” then I glare at him teasingly. “What, are you afraid of a little cow shit?” “Ha ha!” He shakes his head. “Camryn, there’s nothing little about a pile of cow shit.” I scoot back over next to him and lay my head right dead-center on his lap, looking up at him with a pouty face. “Please?” I bat my eyes. And I try hopelessly to ignore what my head is actually lying on. Andrew I absolutely fucking melt when she looks up at me like that. How would I ever say no to her? Whether it was about sleeping next to a pile of cow shit or under a bridge overpass next to a homeless drunk—I would sleep anywhere with her. But that’s the problem. I think this became a problem the second she decided to sit next to me in the car. Because that’s when she changed, when I think she started to believe she wants more from me than oral sex. I may have done that for her back in Birmingham, but I can’t let her want more than that. I can’t let her touch me and I can’t sleep with her. I do want her, I want her in every way imaginable, but I can’t bear to break her heart—that little body of hers, that’s another story; I could bear to break that. But if she ever lets me have her, breaking her heart (and mine) is what will happen in the end. It’s harder since she told me about her ex … “Please,” she says one more time. Despite just giving myself the third-degree, I reach down and brush my fingertip along the side of her face and say very gently, “Alright.” I never was one to listen to reason when it came to something that I wanted, but with Camryn, I’m finding myself telling reason to fuck off a lot more than usual. Another ten minutes of driving and I find a field that looks like a flat, endless sea of grass and I park the car on the side of the road. We are literally in the middle of nowhere. We get out and lock the doors, leaving everything inside the car. I pop the trunk and rummage that roadside box for the rolled-up blanket, which smells like old car and somewhat like gasoline. “It stinks,” I say, taking a whiff. Camryn leans in and sniffs, wrinkling her nose at it. “Oh, well, I don’t care.” I don’t, either. I’m sure she’ll make it smell better. Without even thinking about it, I grab her hand and we walk down a small slope through a ditch and up the other side to the low-lining fence separating the field from us. I start looking for the easiest way for her to get over it. Next thing I know, her fingers are falling away from mine and she’s climbing over the damn thing. “Hurry!” she says as she lands on the other side in a crouched position. I can’t wipe the grin off my face. I leap over the fence and land beside her and we take off running into the wide open; her like a graceful gazelle, me like the lion chasing after her. I hear her flip-flops slapping against her feet as she runs and see the way wisps of stray blonde strands of hair appear illuminated around her head as the breeze stirs it. I’ve got the blanket in one hand as I run behind her, letting her stay a few steps ahead of me so if she happens to fall I’ll be there to laugh at her first and then help her up afterwards. It’s so dark with only the light from the moon bathing the landscape. But there’s enough light that we can see where we’re stepping and not fall into a chasm or trip over a tree on our way. And I don’t see any cows, which means this might be a shit-free field and that’s a plus. We get so far away from the car that the only part of it I can see anymore is the reflective glint from the silver rims. “I think this is good enough,” Camryn says coming to a winded stop. The nearest trees are thirty or forty yards out in every direction. She raises her arms high above her head and tilts her chin back, letting the breeze rush over her. She’s smiling so hugely, her eyes closed, that I’m afraid to say anything and disturb her moment with nature. I unroll the blanket and lay it on the ground. “Tell me the truth,” she says, curling her fingers around my wrist and guiding me to sit down on the blanket with her, “you’ve never spent the night under the stars with a girl before?” I shake my head. “It’s the truth.” She seems to like that. I watch her smile in at me as a light wind moves between us and brushes loose hair across her face. She reaches up and moves a few pieces from in between her lips, slipping her finger behind them carefully. “I’m not really the rose-petals-on-the-bed kind of guy.” “No?” she asks, a bit surprised. “I think you’re probably a really romantic guy, actually.” I shrug. Is she fishing? I think she’s fishing. “I guess it depends on your definition of romantic,” I say. “If a girl expects a candlelit dinner and Michael Bolton playing in the background, she’s definitely got the wrong guy.” Camryn giggles. “Well, that’s a little too romantic,” she says, “but I bet you’ve had your share of romantic gestures though.” “I guess,” I say, honestly not really coming up with any at the moment. She looks at me with her head cocked to one side. “You’re one of those,” she says. “One of what?” “Guys that don’t like to talk about their exes.” “You want to know about my exes?” “Sure.” She lies down on her back, leaving her bare knees drawn up and she pats the blanket beside her. I lie next to her in the same position. “Tell me about your first love,” she says and already I feel like this isn’t a conversation we should be having but if it’s what she wants to talk about, I’ll do my best to tell her what she wants to know. I guess it’s only fair since she told me about hers. “Well,” I say, looking up at the star-filled sky, “her name was Danielle.” “And you loved her?” Camryn looks over at me, letting her head fall to the side. I keep looking at the stars. “Yeah, I loved her, but it wasn’t meant to be.” “How long were you together?” I’m wondering why she wants to know this; most girls I know snap into that jealousy-fueled mood-swing stuff that makes me want to cover my nuts when it comes to talking about exes. “Two years,” I answer. “The break-up was mutual; we started checking out other people and I guess realized we didn’t love each other as much as we thought we did.” “Or, you just fell out of love.” “No, we were never in love to begin with.” I look over at her this time. “How did you know the difference?” she asks. I think about it for a moment, searching her eyes just about a foot from mine. I can smell the cinnamon toothpaste she brushed with this morning when she breathes. “I don’t think you ever really fall out of love with someone,” I say and see a flicker of thought move through her eyes. “I think when you fall in love, like true love, it’s love for life. All the rest is just experience and delusions.” “I didn’t know you were so philosophical.” She grins. “I should tell you, that counts as romantic.” Usually, it’s her doing the blushing, but she got me this time. I try not to look at her, but that’s not so easy to pull off. “So, who were you ever in love with, then?” she asks. I straighten my legs out in front of me, crossing my ankles and locking my fingers together over my stomach. I look up at the sky and from the corner of my eye see Camryn do the same. “Honestly?” “Well yeah,” she says, “I’m just curious.” I stare at a bright cluster of stars and say, “Well, no one.” A tiny burst of air escapes her lips. “Oh please, Andrew; thought you were going to be honest?” “I am,” I say, glancing over, “a few times I thought I was in love, but—why are we talking about this anyway?” Camryn lets her head fall sideways again and she isn’t smiling anymore. She looks sort of sad. “I guess I was using you as my shrink again.” My eyes draw inward. “What do you mean?” She looks away; her pretty blonde braid falls away from her shoulder and onto the blanket. “Because I’m starting to think maybe I wasn’t … No, I shouldn’t say something like that.” She’s not the happy, smiling Camryn anymore that I ran out here with. I raise my back from the blanket and prop myself up on my elbows. I look over at her curiously. “You should say whatever you feel whenever you need to. Maybe saying it is exactly what you need.” She doesn’t look at me. “But I feel guilty even thinking it.” “Well, guilt is a bitch, but don’t you think if you’re thinking it in the first place that it just might be true?” Her head falls to the side. “Just say it. If after you say it and it doesn’t feel right, then deal with that, but if you hold that shit in, the uncertainty will be a bigger bitch than the guilt will be.” She stares up at the stars again. I do, too, just to give her some time to think about it. “Maybe I wasn’t ever in love with Ian,” she says. “I did love him, a lot, but if I was in love with him … I think maybe I’d still be.” “That’s a good observation,” I say and smile slimly, hoping she might again, too. I really hate to see her frown. Her face is blank, contemplative. “Well, what makes you believe that you were never in love with him?” She looks right at me, searching my face and then says, “Because when I’m with you, I don’t think about him much anymore.” I immediately lie back down and fix my gaze on the black sky. I could probably count all of those stars if I tried, just as a distraction, but there’s a much bigger distraction lying next to me than all the stars in the universe could be. I have to stop this, and soon. “Well, I’m very good company,” I say with a grin lacing my voice. “And I had your little ass crawling across that bed the other night, so yeah I can see how you might be more inclined to think of my head between your legs than anything else.” I’m just trying to shift her mood back to playful, even if it means she’ll smack me for it and accuse me of breaking my like-it-never-happened promise. And she does smack me, right after lifting up and propping herself on her elbows like I had. She laughs. “Asshole!” I laugh louder; I’d throw my head back if it wasn’t pressed against the ground. Then she moves closer to my side, propped up on one elbow as she looks down at me. I can feel the softness of her hair brushing against my arm. “Why wouldn’t you kiss me?” she asks and it surprises me. “When you went down on me last night, you never kissed me. Why?” “I did kiss you.” “You didn’t kiss-kiss me,” she says and she’s so close to my lips that I want to kiss her now, but I don’t. “I don’t know how to feel about that—I don’t like how I feel about it, but I’m not sure how I should feel.” “Well, you shouldn’t feel bad, that much I do know,” I say, being as vague as I can. “But why?” she probes and her expression is beginning to harden. I give in and say, “Because kissing is very intimate.” She cocks her head. “So, you won’t kiss me for the same reason you won’t fuck me?” I’m instantly hard. I hope like hell she doesn’t notice. “Yes,” I say and before I have a chance to say anything else, she’s crawling on top of my lap. Shit, if she didn’t know I was as hard as a rock then, she definitely knows now. Her bare knees are pressed against the blanket on each side of me and she leans over, her arms holding up her weight and I fucking die when she brushes her lips across mine. She looks right into my eyes and says, “I won’t try to make you sleep with me, but I want you to kiss me. Just a kiss.” “Why?” I ask. She really needs to move off my lap. Oh shit … it’s not helping that my dick is pressed between her ass cheeks right about now. If she moves just an inch backward— “Because I want to know what it feels like,” she whispers onto my mouth. My hands move up her legs and then her waist where I grip my fingers around her form. She smells so damn good. She feels amazing and all she’s doing is sitting on me. I can’t even begin to understand what she would feel like inside; the thought makes me crazy. Then I feel her pressing herself against me through our clothes, her little hips moving gently, just once to persuade me, and then she stops and holds herself there. I’m throbbing painfully. Her eyes search my face and my lips and all I want to do is rip off her clothes and bury my cock inside her. She leans in and places her lips over mine, slipping her warm tongue into my reluctant mouth. My tongue moves against hers slowly, tasting it first, feeling the warm wetness of it as it begins to tangle with mine. We breathe deeply into each other’s mouths and, unable to resist her or deny her this one kiss, I grab each side of her face and press her forcefully against me, locking my lips around hers with ravenous intent. She moans into my mouth and I kiss her harder, wrapping one arm around her back and pulling the rest of her body closer. And then the kiss breaks. Our lips linger on one another for a long moment until she lifts away and looks down at me with an enigmatic expression I’ve never seen before, one that does something to my heart that I’ve never felt before. And then her face falls and the expression withers into the darkness, replaced by something confused and wounded, but she tries to hide it by smiling down at me. “With a kiss like that,” she says, grinning playfully as if to mask something deeper, “you’d probably never have to sleep with me.” I can’t help but laugh; it is kind of ridiculous, but I’ll let her believe what she wants. She crawls off my lap and lies beside me again, resting the back of her head in the cradle of her hands. “They’re beautiful, aren’t they?” I look up at the stars with her, but I don’t see them really; she’s all I can think about and about that kiss. “Yeah, they are beautiful.” And so are you … “Andrew?” “Yeah?” We keep our eyes on the sky. “I wanted to say thank you.” “For what?” She answers after a pause: “For everything: for making me shove your clothes into that bag instead of folding them and for turning the music down in the car so it wouldn’t wake me up and for singing about raisins.” Her head falls to the side and so does mine. She looks me in the eyes and says, “And for making me feel alive.” A smile warms my face and I glance away and say, “Well, everybody needs help feeling alive again every once in a while.” “No,” she says seriously, and my gaze falls back on hers, “I didn’t say again, Andrew; for making me feel alive for the first time.” My heart reacts to her words and I can’t respond. But I can’t look away from her, either. Reason is screaming at me again, telling me to stop this before it’s too late, but I can’t. I’m too selfish. Camryn smiles gently and I return it and then we both gaze up at the stars again. The hot July night is just right with a light breeze blowing through the wide open space and not a cloud in the sky. There are thousands of crickets and frogs and a few whippoorwills singing into the night. I always did like to listen to those birds. The quiet is shattered suddenly by Camryn’s shrieking voice and she’s jumping up from the blanket faster than a cat from a bathtub. “A snake!” She’s pointing with one hand and the other is clasped over her mouth. “Andrew! It’s right there! Kill it!” I jump up when I see something black slithering over the foot of the blanket. I jump back quickly to keep my distance and then I go to stomp on it. “No-no-no-no!” she screams, waving her hands in front of her. “Don’t kill it!” I blink back, confused. “But you just said to kill it.” “Well, I didn’t mean it literally!” She’s still freaking out, her back slightly hunched over as if shielding the rest of her body from the snake, which is hilarious. I raise my hands out, palms up. “What, you want me to pretend to kill it?” I laugh, shaking my head at how funny she is. “No just—there’s no way I can sleep out here now.” She grabs my arm. “Let’s just go.” She’s literally shaking and trying not to laugh and cry at the same time. “Alright,” I say and lean over to snatch the blanket off the grass now that the snake has moved off it. I shake it out with one hand since Camryn’s holding on for life to the other. Then I take her hand and we start to head back toward the car. “I hate snakes, Andrew!” “I can see that, babe.” I’m trying so hard not to laugh. As we’re walking across the field, she starts to pull me along a little, picking up the pace. She yelps when her almost-bare foot steps on a harmless soft mound of soil and I see we might not make it back to the car before she faints. “Come here,” I say, stopping her in mid-sprint. I pull her around behind me and help her onto my back, holding her straddled around my waist with her thighs in my arms. Twenty-Two (#ulink_0a82d8b5-b50e-5ebe-a105-2b11b69b81b6) Camryn wakes me up the next morning adjusting her head on my lap in the front seat of the car. “Where are we?” she asks, rising up; the sun beams in through the car windows and pools against the inside of her door. “About half an hour from New Orleans,” I say, reaching behind me and rubbing a muscle loose in my back. We got back on the road last night after leaving the field and intended to just drive on to New Orleans, but I was so damn tired I almost fell asleep at the wheel. She had fallen asleep first. So, I pulled off the side of the road, leaned my head back and passed out. I could’ve slept more comfortably in the backseat alone, but I would rather be stiff in the morning if it meant I was next to her when I woke up. Speaking of stiff … I wipe the blur from my eyes and move around some to work out a few muscles. And to make sure my shorts are loose enough in the front that my obvious hard-on isn’t a blatant conversation piece. Camryn stretches and yawns and then pulls her legs up and props her bare feet on the dashboard, causing her shorts to ride up far past her thighs. Not a good idea first thing in the morning. “You must’ve been really tired,” she says, pulling her fingers through her hair to break apart the braid. “Yeah, if I tried to drive any longer we might’ve ended up wrapped around a tree.” “You’re gonna start letting me drive some, Andrew, or—” “Or what?” I smirk at her. “You’ll whine and lay your head on my lap and say please?” “It worked last night, didn’t it?” She has a point. “Look, I don’t mind if you drive.” I glance over at her and then start the engine. “I promise, after New Orleans, wherever we go, I’ll let you take the wheel for a while, OK?” A sweet forgiving smile lights up her face. I pull back onto the highway after an SUV speeds past and Camryn goes back to working her fingers through her hair. Then she starts winding the hair back into a neater braid so fast and without having to look that I can’t wrap my head around how something like that is done. My eyes keep trailing back to her naked legs though. I really need to stop doing that. I turn away and glance out the window beside me, back and forth between it and the windshield. “We need to find a laundromat soon, too,” she says, snapping the rubber band in place around the end of her hair. “I’ve run out of clean clothes.” I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to ‘adjust myself’ and when she starts looking down into her purse, I take it. “Is it true?” she asks, looking over at me with one hand in her purse. I move my hand away from my lap, thinking I’m getting away with it appearing to be nothing more than making my shorts more comfortable when she says, “That all guys get massive hard-ons in the mornings?” My eyes grow bigger in my face. I just watch out the windshield. “Not every morning,” I say, still trying not to look at her. “What, just like Tuesdays and Fridays or something?” I know she’s smiling, but I refuse to confirm it. “Is this a Tuesday or Friday?” she adds, taunting me. Finally, I glance over at her. “It’s Friday,” I say simply. She lets out an aggravated breath. “I’m not a slut, or anything,” she says, dropping her legs from the dashboard, “and I’m sure you don’t think that since you are the one who has sort of pushed me to be more open with my sexuality and what I want …” Her voice trails. It’s as if she’s waiting for me to confirm what she just said, like she’s still worried of what I might think of her. I look right into her eyes. “No, I would never think you were a slut unless you went around screwing a bunch of guys, for which then I would be in jail because I would have to beat the fuck out of all of them—but no, why are you saying this?” She blushes and I swear her shoulders almost come up around her cheeks. “Well, I was just thinking …” she’s still not sure if she wants to say it, whatever it is. “What did I tell you, babe? Say what’s on your mind.” She tilts her chin and looks at me gently. “Well, since you did something for me, I thought maybe I could do something for you.” She changes her tune fast afterwards, as if still worried what I might think. “I mean, no strings attached, of course. It’ll be like it never happened.” Ah, shit! Why didn’t I see that coming? “No,” I say instantly. She flinches. I soften my face and my voice. “I can’t let you do anything like that for me, alright?” “Why the hell not?” “I just can’t—God, I want to, you have no idea, but I just can’t.” “That’s stupid.” She’s getting seriously aggravated. “Wait …” she looks at me inquiringly and turns her face at an angle, “you got some kind of ‘issue’ down there?” My mouth falls open. “Ummm, no?” I say with wide eyes. “Shit, I’ll pull over and show you.” She throws her head back and laughs and then gets serious again: “Well you won’t have sex with me, you won’t let me get you off and I had to force you to kiss me.” “You didn’t force me.” “You’re right,” she snaps, “I seduced it out of you.” “I kissed you because I wanted to,” I say. “I want to do everything with you, Camryn. Trust me! In just a few days I’ve imagined more positions with you than there are in the Kama Sutra. I’ve wanted to—” I notice I’m white-knuckling the steering wheel. She looks wounded, but this time I don’t break. “I told you,” I say carefully, “I can’t do anything like that with you or—” “Or I’ll have to let you own me,” she finishes my sentence angrily. “Yeah, I remember what you said, but what does that mean exactly: let you own me?” I think Camryn knows exactly what it means, but she wants to be sure of it herself. Wait a second … she’s playing games with me; either that or she still doesn’t know what she wants, sexually or otherwise and she’s just as confused and reluctant as I am. Camryn He passed my test. I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t want to have sex with him, or pleasure him in other ways like he did for me—I totally want to do all of those things with him. But really I wanted to see if he would take the bait. He didn’t. And now I’m terrified of him. I’m terrified because of how I feel about him. I shouldn’t feel this way and I hate myself for it. I said I would never do it. I promised myself I wouldn’t … Trying to gain some sense of lighthearted normalcy back in our conversation, I smile gently at him. All I want to do is take back the offer and go back to how we were before I brought it up, except with the knowledge I have now: Andrew Parrish respects me and wants me in ways that I don’t think I can give him. I bring my knees toward me, propping my feet on the leather seat. I don’t want him to answer my last question: what does it mean to let him own me? I hope he forgets that I asked at all. I already know what it means, or at least I think I do: to own me is to be with him, the way I was with Ian. Except with Andrew I believe in my heart that I could fall in love with him, true love. So easily I could. Already I can’t stand the thought of being away from him. Already all of the faces in my daydreams have been replaced with Andrew’s face. And already, I dread the day our road trip ends, when he has to go back to Galveston or to Wyoming and to leave me behind. Why does it scare me? And where did this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach come from all of a sudden? “I’m sorry, babe, I really am. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Not in any way.” I look up and over at him and then I shake my head hard. “You haven’t hurt me. Please don’t think you hurt me.” I go on: “Andrew, the truth is …” I take a very deep breath. He’s having a hard time keeping his eyes on the road now. “… the truth is that I—well, first off, I won’t lie and say that pleasuring you isn’t something that I wouldn’t do—I would do it. But I want you to know that I’m glad you refused me.” I think he understands. I can see it in his face. He smiles gently and reaches out his hand to me. I take it and scoot over next to him and he wraps his arm around my shoulder. I tilt my chin upward to see him and drape my fingers over his thigh. He is so beautiful to me … “You scare me,” I finally say. My admission sparks a faint reaction in his eyes. “I said I would never do this; you have to understand. I promised myself that I would never get close to anyone again.” I feel his arm harden around my arm and the beating of his heart has picked up speed; it thumps rapidly against the side of my throat. Then a grin slides across his mouth and he says, “Are you in love with me, Camryn Bennett?” I blush super-hard and twist my lips into a hard line, pressing my face deeper against his hard pec. “Not yet,” I say with a smile in my voice, “but I’m gettin’ there.” “You’re so full of shit,” he says, squeezing my arm a little tighter. He kisses the top of my hair. “Yeah, I know,” I say with the same amount of jest in my voice as was in his and then my voice trails, “I know …” I get my very first glimpse of New Orleans from afar: Lake Pontchartrain and eventually the sprawling landscape of cottages and townhouses and bungalows. I’m in awe of it: from the Superdome, which I’ll always be able to recognize after seeing it all over the news during Katrina, to the giant, expansive oak trees that are creepy and beautiful and old, and to the people shuffling along the streets of the French Quarter, though I think most of them are tourists. And as we drive along, I’m mesmerized by the familiar balconies, which wrap around the entire length of many of the buildings. They look just like they do on TV, except that Mardi Gras isn’t going on and no one’s flashing their boobs or throwing beads from the balconies. Andrew smiles over at me, seeing how excited I am to be here. “I love it already,” I say, curling back up next to him after practically pressing my face against the window looking out at everything for the past several minutes. “It’s a great city.” He beams, proudly; I wonder just how intimate he is with this place. “I try to come every year,” he says, “usually Mardi Gras, but anytime of the year is good, I think.” “Oh, so you usually come when there are boobs.” I wink at him. “Guilty!” he says, moving both hands from the steering wheel and holding them up in surrender. We get two rooms at the Holiday Inn in walking distance to the famous Bourbon Street. I almost told him to just get a single room with two beds this time, but I stopped myself. No, Camryn, you’re just feeding the desire. Don’t move into a room with him. Stop this while you can. And for a moment as we stood side by side at the counter when the clerk asked how he could ‘help us’, Andrew paused and I got the strangest feeling from it. But we ended up with side-by-side king rooms, like always. I head toward mine and he strolls over to his. We look at each other in the hallway with our keycards in our hands. “I’m gonna hop in the shower,” he says, holding the guitar in one hand, “but whenever you’re ready, just come on over and let me know.” I nod and we smile at each other before we disappear inside our rooms. Not five minutes in and I hear my phone buzzing around inside my purse. Pretty sure it’s my mom, I pull it out and am prepared to answer and tell her that I’m still alive and I’m having a good time, but I see that it’s not her. It’s Natalie. My hand just freezes around the phone as I stare down at the glowing screen. Should I answer it, or not? Well, I better figure it out quick. “Hello?” “Cam?” Natalie says in a careful voice on the other end. I can’t get any words out yet. I’m not sure if enough time has passed that I should be pretend-unforgiving, or if I should be nice. “Are you there?” she asks when I don’t say anything else. “Yeah, Nat, I’m here.” She sighs and makes that weird whiney, moaning sound she always does when she’s nervous about saying or doing something. “I’m a total fucking bitch,” she says. “I know that and I’m a horrible best friend and I should be groveling at your feet right now for forgiveness, but I … well, that was the plan, but your mom said you were in … Virginia? What the hell are you doing in Virginia?” I plop down on the bed and kick my flip-flops off. “I’m not in Virginia,” I say, “but don’t tell my mom or anyone else.” “Well then where are you? And where could you be for over a week?” Wow, has it only been a week? It feels like I’ve been on the road with Andrew for a month at least. “I’m in New Orleans, but it’s a long story.” “Ummm, well, hell-o?” she says sarcastically, “I’ve got plenty of time.” Getting irritated with her quickly, I sigh and say, “Natalie, you’re the one who called me. And if I remember correctly, you’re the one who called me a lying bitch and didn’t believe me when I told you what Damon did. I’m sorry, but I don’t think jumping right back into being best friends and acting like nothing happened is the best thing right now.” “I know, you’re right and I’m sorry.” She pauses to gather her thoughts and I can hear the tab on a can of soda crack open in the background. She takes a small sip. “It wasn’t that I didn’t believe you, Cam, I was just really hurt. Damon is a bastard. I dumped him.” “Why, because you caught him cheating in the act as opposed to believing your best friend since second grade when she tells you he’s a pig?” “I deserved that,” she says, “but no, I didn’t catch him cheating. I just realized I missed my best friend and that I committed the worst crime against the Code of Best Friends. I finally confronted him about it and of course he lied, but I just kept nagging at him about it because I wanted him to admit it to me. Not because I needed the validation from him, but I just … Cam, I just wanted him to tell me the truth. I wanted it to come from him.” I hear the pain in her voice. I know she means what she’s saying and I intend to fully forgive her, but I’m not ready to let her know I forgive her enough to tell her about Andrew. I don’t know what it is, but it’s like the only person that exists in my world right now is Andrew. I love Natalie with all my heart, but I’m not ready for her to know yet. I’m not ready to share him with her. She has a way of … cheapening an experience, if that’s fair to say. “Look, Nat,” I say, “I don’t hate you and I want to forgive you, but it’s going to take some time; you really hurt me.” “I understand,” she says, but I detect the disappointment in her voice, too. Natalie has always been an impatient, instant-gratification kind of girl. “Well, are you alright?” she asks. “I can’t imagine why you’d run off to New Orleans of all places—is this hurricane season?” I hear the shower running in Andrew’s room. “Yeah, I’m doing great,” I say, thinking about Andrew. “To tell you the truth, Nat, I’ve never felt so alive and as happy as I have been this past week.” “Oh my God … it’s a guy! You’re with a guy, aren’t you? Camryn Marybeth Bennett, you fucking bitch, you better not keep these things from me!” That’s exactly what I mean by cheapening the experience. “What’s his name?” She gasps loudly as though the answer to the world’s mysteries just fell into her lap. “You got laid! Is he hot?” “Natalie, please,” I shut my eyes and pretend she’s a mature twenty-year-old and not still stuck on the high school campus. “I’m not gonna talk about this with you right now, alright? Just give me a few days and I’ll call you and let you know how things are going, but please—” “I’ll take it!” she says, agreeing, but not at all getting the hint that she needs to tone her enthusiasm down a notch. “As long as you’re OK and you don’t still hate me, I’ll take it.” “Thank you.” Finally, she comes down from her horny gossip cloud: “I really am sorry, Cam. I can’t say it enough.” “I know. I believe you. And when I call you later, you can also tell me what happened with Damon. If you want to.” “Alright,” she says, “sounds good.” “I’ll talk to you later … and Nat?” “Yeah?” “I’m really glad you called. I’ve missed you a lot.” “Me too.” We hang up and I just stare at the phone for a minute until my thoughts of Natalie fade into my thoughts of Andrew. Just like I said: all of the faces in my daydreams have become Andrew’s face. I take a shower and put on a pair of jeans which still haven’t been washed, but they don’t stink so I guess it’s OK for now. But if I don’t get my clothes washed soon I’m going to be hitting another department store for something new. I’m just glad I packed twelve pairs of clean panties in that duffle bag of mine. I start to put on makeup and do the usual, but then I let my fingers rest on the bathroom sink and I look at myself in the mirror, trying to see what Andrew sees. He’s almost seen me at my absolute worst: no makeup, circles under my eyes after being awake on the road for so long, nasty breath, wild, grungy hair—I smile thinking about it and then picture him standing behind me, right now, in the mirror. I see his mouth buried in the curve of my neck and his hard arms wrapped around my body from behind, his fingers pressing against my ribs. There’s a knock on my room door, snapping me out of my daydream. “Are you ready?” Andrew asks when I open the door for him. He comes the rest of the way into the room. “Where are we going, anyway?” I ask walking back into the bathroom where my makeup is. “And I need some clean clothes. Seriously.” He walks up behind me and it shocks me a little because it almost feels like that daydream I was having moments ago. I start to put on mascara, leaning over the sink toward the mirror. I squint the left eye while applying mascara to the right eye while Andrew checks out my butt. He’s not being secret about it at all. He wants me to see him being bad. I roll my eyes at him and go back to my mascara, switching to the other eye. “There’s a laundry facility on the twelfth floor,” he says. He locks his hands around my hips and looks at me in the mirror with a devilish grin and his bottom lip pinned between his teeth. I swing around. “Then that’s the first place we’re going,” I say. “What?” He looks disappointed. “No, I want to go out, walk around the town, have a few beers, see a few bands play. I don’t want to do laundry.” “Oh, quit whining,” I say and turn around back to the mirror whipping my lipstick out of my bag. “It’s not even two o’clock in the afternoon—you’re not one of those beer-for-breakfast guys, are you?” He flinches and presses his palm against his heart, pretending to be wounded. “Absolutely not! I wait at least until lunch.” I shake my head and push him out of the bathroom; toothy, dimpled smile and all, and then shut the door with him on the other side. “What was that for?” he says through the door. “I have to pee!” “Well, I wouldn’t have looked!” “Go get your dirty clothes from your room, Andrew!” “But—” “Now, Andrew! Or, we’re not going out later!” I can picture his bottom lip puckered out, though of course that’s totally not what he’s doing. He’s grinning a hole through that damn door. “Fine!” he says and then I hear the room door open and then shut behind him. When I’m done in the bathroom, I gather up all of my dirty laundry and stuff it into my sling bag and I slip on my flip-flops. Twenty-Three (#ulink_00e5bf4e-920a-5af7-9bfb-4d2a1cb90934) We do laundry first and while we’re there I do fold everything after I take it out of the dryer, rather than shoving it all back into the bags. He tries to protest, but I get my way this time. Afterwards, we hit the town and he takes me everywhere, even to the St. Louis cemetery where the tombs are above ground and I’ve never seen anything like that before. We walk together all the way down Canal Street toward the World Trade Center New Orleans where we find a much-needed Starbucks. We talk forever over coffee and I tell him that I got a call from Natalie earlier. And we go on and on about her and Damon, who Andrew has grown quickly to detest. Later we pass up a steakhouse which Andrew tries to get me to stop with him at by throwing that deal I made with him back on the bus in my face. But I’m not the slightest bit hungry and try to explain to a whimpering steak-deprived Andrew that I have to be ready for a big meal if he wants me to enjoy a steak. And we find a mall: The Shops at Canal Place, where I am actually excited to go after being stuck wearing the same boring clothes for the past week. “But we just did laundry,” Andrew protests as we head inside. “What do you need new clothes for?” I hoist my purse strap on the opposite shoulder and grab him by the elbow. “If we’re going out tonight,” I say, dragging him along, “then I want to find something cute that looks halfway decent.” “But what you’re wearing now is cute as hell,” he argues. “I just want a new pair of jeans and a top,” I say then stop and look at him. “You can help me pick it out.” That got his attention. “Alright,” he says, smiling. I pull him along again. “But don’t get your hopes up,” I say, jerking his arm in emphasis, “I said you can help, not choose.” “You sure are getting your way a lot today,” he says. “You should know, babe, I’ll only let you get away with so much before I start playing my cards.” “What cards do you think you have to play exactly?” I question with confidence because I think he’s bluffing. He purses his lips when I glance over and my confidence is starting to drain. “If you recall,” he says all sophisticatedly, “you’re still on whatever-I-say duty.” Confidence lost. He grins and jerks my arm towards him this time. “And since you already let me go down on you once,” he adds and my eyes widen, “I think I could tell you to lie back and spread your legs and you’d have to listen, right?” I can barely move my eyes around to see if anyone walking by had heard him. Andrew didn’t exactly say that in a whisper, but I wouldn’t expect as much. Then he slows our pace and leans in toward my ear and says quietly, “If you don’t let me have my way with something simpler soon, I might have to torture you again with my tongue between your legs.” His breath on my ear, combined with his wetness-inducing words, sends shivers up the side of my neck. “Ball’s in your court, babe.” He pulls away and I want to slap that grin off his face, but he’d probably like it. Dilemma? Let him have his way with something simple, or keep getting my way and him ‘torture’ me later? Hmmm. I guess I’m more of a masochist than I thought. Night falls and I’m ready for our night out. I’m wearing a new pair of tight jeans, a sexy black strapless top that hugs my waist and the cutest black heels I’ve ever found in any mall. Andrew gawks at me in the doorway. “I should play my card right now,” he says coming into the room. I’ve braided my hair into two loose braids this time, one resting over each shoulder, stopping just above my breasts. And I always leave a few strands of blonde hair to fall freely about my face because I always thought it was cute on other girls, so why not me? Andrew seems to like it. He reaches up and slides each one within his fingers. I blush inwardly. “Babe, no fucking joke, you are smokin’.” “Thanks …” Oh my God, did I just … giggle? I look him up and down, too, and although he’s back to jeans and a simple t-shirt and his black Doc Martens, he’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen no matter what he’s wearing. We head out and I turn a few old guys’ heads in the elevator and down the hall. Andrew is enjoying the hell out of that, I can tell. He’s beaming walking next to me and it just makes my face beet red. We hang out at d.b.a first and watch a band play for about an hour. But when I get carded and it looks like I’m not going to get to drink here, Andrew takes me farther down the street to another bar. “It’s a hit or miss,” he says as we approach the bar, hand in hand. “Most of them will card you, but every now and then you get lucky and they don’t bother if you look twenty-one enough.” “Well, I’ll be twenty-one in five months,” I say, gripping his hand as we cross a busy intersection. “I was worried you were seventeen when I met you on the bus.” “Seventeen?!” I hope like hell I don’t actually look that young. “Hey,” he says glancing over once, “I’ve seen fifteen-year-olds that look twenty—hard to tell anymore.” “So you think I look seventeen?” “No, you look about twenty,” he admits, “I’m just sayin’.” That’s a relief. This bar is slightly smaller than the last and the people in it are a mixture of fresh-out-of-college and early thirty-somethings. A few pool tables are set side by side near the back and the lighting is dim in the place, mostly localized over the pool tables and in the hallway to my right, leading into the restrooms. The cigarette smoke is thick unlike the last place where it was non-existent, but it doesn’t bother me much. I’m not fond of cigarettes, but there’s something natural about cigarette smoke in a bar. It would almost seem naked without it. Some kind of familiar rock music is playing from the speakers in the ceiling. There’s a small stage to the left where bands usually play, but no one’s playing tonight. That doesn’t diminish the party-like mood in the atmosphere though, because I can barely hear Andrew talking to me over the music and the shouting voices all around me. “Can you play pool?” he leans in, shouting near my ear. I shout back, “I have a few times! But I suck at it!” He tugs my hand and we walk toward the pool tables and the brighter light, pushing our way carefully through people standing around in just about every available walkable space. “Sit here,” he says, able to lower his voice a little with the speakers in front of us. “This’ll be our table.” I sit down at a small round table pressed against a wall where just over my head and to my left there is a staircase leading up to a second floor on the other side of me. I nudge the cigarette-laden ashtray across the table and away from me with the tip of my finger as a waitress walks up. Andrew is talking to a guy a few feet away next to the pool tables, probably about joining a game. “Sorry about that,” the waitress says, taking the ashtray and replacing it with a clean one, setting it upside-down upon the table. She washes the top of the table off afterwards with a wet rag, lifting the ashtray to get the spot under it. I smile up at her. She’s a pretty black-haired girl, probably just turned twenty-one herself and she’s holding a serving tray on one hand. “Can I get yah anything?” I only have one chance to act like I’m asked that question a lot without being carded, so I say almost immediately, “I’ll have a Heineken.” “Make that two,” Andrew says stepping back up with a pool stick in his hand. The waitress does a double-take when she notices him, and like Andrew in the elevator with me, I’m eating the hell out of it. She nods and glances back down at me with that you-are-one-lucky-bitch look before walking away. “That guy’s got one more game and then we’ve got the table,” he says, sitting down on the empty chair. The waitress comes back with two Heinekens and sets them in front of us. “Just wave if yah need anything,” she says before leaving again. “She didn’t card you,” he says, leaning across the table so no one will hear. “No, but that doesn’t mean I won’t eventually get carded—that happened once in a bar in Charlotte; Natalie and me were almost drunk by the time we were carded and sent packing.” “Well, then just enjoy it while you can.” He smiles, bringing his beer to his lips and taking a quick drink. I do the same. I’m starting to wish I hadn’t brought my purse so I wouldn’t have to keep up with it, but when it’s our turn to play a game of pool, I set it on the floor under our table. We’re kind of off in a cubby-hole so I’m not too worried about it. Andrew takes me over to the stick rack. “What’s your pleasure?” he asks, waving his hands across the space in front of the rack. “You have to pick one that feels right.” Oh, this is going to be fun; he actually thinks he’s teaching me something. I play coy and clueless, scanning the pool sticks like one might books on a shelf and then take one down. I run my hands along the length of it and hold it out like I would to hit a ball, as if to get the feel of it. I know I look totally dumb-blonde right about now, but that’s exactly how I want to look. “This one’s as good as any,” I say with a shrug. Andrew racks the balls in the triangular rack, switching solid for stripe all around until he gets the sequence right and then slides them across the table and into position. Carefully, he removes the rack and shoves it in a slot underneath the table. He nods. “Want to break ’em?” “Nah, you can.” I just want to see him lookin’ all sexy, concentrating and leaning over the table. “Alright,” he says and positions the cue ball. He spends a few seconds twisting the head of his stick into a square of chalk and then sets the chalk on the side of the table. “If you’ve played before,” he says, moving back around in position with the cue ball, “then I’m sure you know the basics.” He points the end of the stick at the cue ball. “Obviously, you only hit the white ball.” This is funny, but he’s got this one comin’. I nod. “If you’re stripes, the only balls you want to sink in any pockets are the striped balls—hit one of the solids and you’re only helping me beat you.” “What about that black ball?” I point at the 8 ball near the center. “If you sink that one before all of your stripes,” he says with a grim face, “you lose. And if you sink the white ball, you lose your turn.” “Is that all?” I ask, twisting the head of my stick in a square of chalk now. “For now, yeah,” he says; I guess he’s letting me slide about the few other basic rules. Andrew takes a couple steps back and leans over the table, arching his fingers on the blue felt and resting the stick strategically within the curl of his index finger. He slides the stick back and forth a couple of times to steady his aim before pausing and then slamming the head of it into the cue ball, scattering the others all over the table. Good break, baby, I say to myself. He sinks two—one stripe, one solid. “What’ll it be?” he asks. “What’ll what be?” I continue to play dumb. “Solids or stripes? I’ll let you choose.” “Oh,” I say as if I’m just getting it, “doesn’t matter; I’ll take the ones with stripes, I guess.” We’re straying a little from the proper way to play 8 Ball, but I’m pretty sure he’s doing it for my benefit. My turn comes and I walk around the table searching for that perfect shot. “Are we calling them, or what?” Andrew looks at me curiously—maybe I should’ve said it more like: Do I hit any of my balls that I want? Surely, he’s not onto me already. “Just pick any striped ball you think you can sink and go for it.” OK, looks like I’m still hustling his clueless butt. “Wait, aren’t we going to bet something?” I ask. He looks surprised, but then surprise turns to devious. “Sure, what do you want to bet?” “My freedom back.” Andrew frowns. But then his delicious lips turn upward again once he realizes that I apparently don’t know how to play pool. “Well, I’m a little hurt you would want it back,” he says, switching the stick back and forth between his hands with one end of it standing against the floor, “but sure, I’ll take that bet.” Just when I think the agreement has been made he adds, putting up one finger: “However, if I win, I get to take that do-whatever-I-say to a whole new level.” It’s my turn to raise a brow. “A whole new level how?” I ask in a leery, sidelong glance. Andrew rests his stick against the table and props his hands on the edge, leaning into view of the light. His deep-set grin, just the sheer intent behind it, sends a shiver up my back. “Is it a bet, or not?” he asks. I’m pretty sure I can beat him, but now he kind of has me scared shitless. What if he’s better than me and I lose this bet and end up eating those bugs or hanging my bare ass out of the moving car? Those were the types of things I wanted to keep him from eventually trying to force me to do—I never did forget that he said: we’ll get to that. Sure, I could refuse anything he told me; he assured me of that before we left Wyoming, but not having to go through all that in the first place is all I wanted. Or … wait … what if it’s sexual in nature? Oh, it’s on now … I almost hope that he does win. “It’s a deal.” He smiles wickedly and pulls away from the table, taking his stick with him. A small group of guys and two girls just finished their game at the table next to ours and a few of them have started watching us. I lean over the table, position my stick much the same way Andrew had, slide it back and forth through my fingers a few times and smack the cue ball dead-center. 11 smacks into 15 and 15 smacks into 10, sinking both of them into a corner pocket. Andrew just looks at me, his pool stick resting vertically between his fingers in front of him. He raises a brow. “Was that beginner’s luck, or am I being hustled?” I grin and walk around to the other side of the table to gauge my next shot. I don’t answer. I just smile faintly and keep my eyes on the table. Purposely taking the shot closest to Andrew, I bend over the table in front of him (covertly glancing down to make sure my boobs aren’t in full view of the guys watching directly across from me) and measure my shot before hitting the 9 hard into the side pocket. “I’m being hustled,” Andrew says behind me, “and teased.” I rise up and skim my grinning eyes across his as I make my way to the end of the table. I miss this shot on purpose. The table is set almost perfectly and I might actually be able to pull off an easy win, but I don’t want it to be easy. “Ah, hell no, babe,” he says stepping up, “none of that pity-shot bullshit—you could’ve sank the 13 easily.” “My finger slipped.” I look at him coyly. He shakes his beautiful head at me and narrows his eyes, knowing full-well I’m lying. Finally, we just go at it: he sinks three balls flawlessly, one turn after the next, before missing the 7. I sink another one. Then he sinks one. And we do this back and forth, taking our time with each shot, but both of us missing every now and then to keep the game going. Now it’s down to business. It’s my turn and the only balls left on the table are his 4, the cue and the 8. The 8 is six inches too far from a perfect corner shot in either direction, but I know I can bank it on one side of the table and let it come back to this side and sink it in the left. Two more guys have started watching, no doubt because of the way I’m dressed (I’ve been listening to their quiet comments about my ‘t-n-a’ the whole time, especially when I bend over to take a shot), but I don’t let them distract me. Though, I’ve noticed Andrew’s eyes on them a lot and it excites me that he’s at all jealous. I point my stick at the table and call it, “Left pocket.” I move around to the side and crouch down at eye-level with the table to see if my lining is off. I stand back up and check the lining of the cue and the 8 again from another perspective and then lean over the table. One. Two. Three. On the fourth slide-back, I smack the cue gently and it hits the 8 at just the right angle, sending it against the right side of the table where it bounces back a few inches over and sinks flawlessly into the left pocket. The few guys watching on the other side of me make various noises of tamed excitement as if I can’t hear them. Andrew is on the other side of the table grinning wide at me. “You’re good, babe,” he says racking the balls again. “I guess you’re free now.” I can’t help but notice that he seems a little sad about that fact. His face may be smiling, but he can’t hide the disappointment in his eyes. “Nah,” I say, “I don’t want that freedom unless it comes to eating bugs or hanging my ass out the car window—I kind of like you being in control of the rest.” Andrew smiles. Twenty-Four (#ulink_c422680c-e5c3-5d51-9c41-b760439965f2) We play another game, which he wins fairly, and afterwards I decide to sit back down at our table before these new shoes start rubbing blisters on my feet. I’m on my second Heineken and still am only feeling it in my toes and the bottom of my stomach. It’ll take another one to get me a good buzz. “Want a game, man?” a guy asks stepping up to Andrew just as he starts to sit down with me. Andrew looks over and I wave him on. “Go on, I’m fine—gonna check my messages and rest my feet for a while.” “Alright, babe,” he says, “just let me know if you’re ready to go before I’m done and we’ll go.” “I’m good,” I say, urging him, “go on and play.” He smiles in at me and walks back over to the table not more than fifteen feet away. I get my purse from underneath the table and set it in front of me, rummaging inside in search of my phone. Just as I suspected: Natalie has blown my phone up with text messages, sixteen in all, but at least she hasn’t tried to call. My mom hasn’t called, either, but I remember she was going on that cruise with her new boyfriend this weekend. I hope she’s having a great time. I hope she’s having as great a time as I am. A new song starts funneling through the speakers in the ceiling and I notice the amount of people inside the bar has tripled since we got here. Even though Andrew isn’t that far away, I can only see his lips moving when he says anything to the guy he’s shooting pool with. The waitress comes back and I ask for another beer and she goes off to get it, leaving me to the Text Message Queen. Natalie and I go back and forth a few times about what she did today and where she’s going tonight, but I know it’s all just filler-conversation, taking the place of what she’s dying to know more about: me in New Orleans with this ‘mystery guy’, who he looks like (not ‘what’ because she always compares guys to famous people) and if I’ve ‘bent over for him’ yet. I keep everything vague just to torture her. She still deserves it, after all. Besides, I’m still not ready to go into Andrew with her. Or with anyone, really. It’s like if I talk about him at all, even just to confirm he exists and that I’m with him, that this whole experience will go up in a puff of smoke. I’ll jinx it. Or, I’ll wake up and realize that Blake slipped something in one of the drinks he served me that night before I went out onto the roof with him and I’ve just been hallucinating this entire road trip with Andrew. “I’m Mitchell,” a voice says above me, accompanied by a strong waft of whiskey and cheap men’s cologne. The guy is of average build, the buff-but-not-too-buff kind. His eyes are bloodshot like the blond-haired guy standing next to him. I smile back squeamishly and glance at Andrew who is already walking this way. “I’m with someone,” I say gently. The buff guy looks at the other chair and then back at me as if to make note of how empty it is. “Camryn?” Andrew says standing behind them. “Are you alright?” “Yeah, I’m fine,” I say. The buff guy turns at the waist to see Andrew. “She said she’s fine,” he says and I hear the challenge in his voice. I didn’t mean ‘I’m fine, leave me alone, Andrew’ and Andrew knows as much, but these guys apparently do not. “She’s with me,” Andrew says, trying to remain calm, though probably only for my sake—he already has that unmistakable look of aggression in his eyes. The blond guy laughs. The buff guy looks at me again, a bottle of Budweiser in one hand. “Is he your boyfriend or something?” “No, but we’re—” The buff guy smiles tauntingly and looks back at Andrew, cutting me off. “You’re not her boyfriend, so back off, man.” Aggression just shifted into murderous rampage. Andrew isn’t going to be able to hold back much longer. I stand up. “Maybe she wants to talk to us,” the buff guy says and takes another swig of his beer. He doesn’t look drunk, just buzzed. Andrew steps up closer and cocks his head to one side, staring the guy down. Then he looks at me: “Camryn, do you want to talk them?” He knows that I don’t, but this is his way of adding vinegar to the wound he’s about to give this guy. “No, I don’t.” Andrew rounds his chin and I can see his nostrils flare as he gets in the buff guy’s face and says, “Back the fuck off or you’re eatin’ your teeth.” The small crowd from around the pool tables is gathering at a distance. The blond guy, the smarter one of the two, puts his hand on his shoulder. “Come on, man, let’s head back over.” He nods toward wherever they must’ve been sitting before. The buff guy pushes his hand off him and steps up in Andrew’s face further. That’s all it took. Andrew rears back with the pool stick and bashes it across the guy’s chest, knocking him from his feet and the breath from his lungs. The guy stumbles backward, narrowly missing my table but reaches out to grab the edge of it to keep him on his feet. I yelp and yank my purse from the top of it just before it goes crashing onto the floor with him. My beer shatters against the floor. Before the guy can get up, Andrew is on top of him, standing over him raining his fists down on his face. I push myself farther away and closer to the end of the staircase, but other people are rushing in to see now and they create a barrier behind me. The blond guy jumps on Andrew from behind, grabbing him around the neck to pull him off his friend. Then I jump on him, beating the side of his face with my flimsy little fist, my purse wrapped tightly around my shoulder hindering my blows as it flops around behind me. But Andrew gets out of the blond guy’s hold easily, swings around behind him and kicks him square in the back, sending him onto the floor face-first. Andrew grabs my wrist. “Move out of the way, baby!” He shoves me back toward the crowd behind me and turns back to the two guys in a split-second. The buff guy has finally gotten back to his feet, but not for long when Andrew comes around with two fast punches to both sides of his jaw and then one blood-splattering uppercut to the underside. I see a bloody tooth fall onto the floor. I cringe. The guy falls backward into another small table, knocking it from its metal base, too. And when the blond guy comes at Andrew again, the guy Andrew had been playing pool with jumps in and takes him on, leaving Andrew to the buff guy. By the time the bouncers get through the crowd to break up the fight, Andrew has already blackened both the buff guy’s eyes and blood is draining from his nostrils. The buff guy stumbles, holding his hand over his nose as the bouncer pulls him by the shoulder toward the crowd. Andrew pushes away the other bouncer’s hand that comes after him. “I got it,” he threatens, putting up one hand telling the bouncer to back off, and wiping a trickle of blood from his nose with the other. “I’m out of here, no need to help me see the door.” I run over to him and he takes my hand. “Camryn, are you OK? Did you get hit?” He’s looking me over everywhere, his eyes fierce and uncontrolled. “No, I’m fine. Let’s just go.” He tightens his hand around mine and pulls me beside him, pushing our way through the parting crowd. When we make it outside into the night air, the funneling music from the bar shuts off once the door closes. The two idiot guys from the fight are already outside walking down the street, the buff guy still with his hand pressed over his bloodied face. I’m convinced Andrew broke his nose. Andrew stops me on the sidewalk and takes my upper-arms into his hands. “Don’t lie to me, baby, did you get hurt anywhere? I swear to fucking God if you did I’m going after them.” He’s melting my heart, calling me ‘baby’. And that concerned, fierce look in his eyes … I just want to kiss him. “I mean it,” I say, “I’m fine. I actually hit that one guy a few times myself when he jumped you from behind.” He moves his hands from my arms and cups my face in his palms, looking me all over as if he still doesn’t believe me. “I’m not hurt,” I say one last time. He presses his lips hard against my forehead. Then he grabs my hand. “We’re going back to the hotel.” “No,” I argue, “we were having a good time and dammit, I lost my buzz because of that.” He tilts his head to one side and softens his gaze. “Where do you want to go then?” “Let’s go to another club,” I suggest. “I don’t know, maybe a more laid-back one?” Andrew sighs heavily and squeezes my hand. Then he looks me up and down again: first my feet where my painted toenails are peeking through the front of my heels and then up my body straight to my tight strapless black top that could use a little adjusting. I pull my hand from his and grasp the fabric above my boobs and pull the top up a little so that it feels better in place. “I love you in that,” he says, “but you have to admit, it’s a distraction for douchebags.” “Well, I don’t want to walk all the way back to the hotel just to change my top.” “No, you don’t have to do that,” he says, reaching for my hand again. “But if you want to go to another club, you’re gonna have to do something for me, alright?” “What?” “Just pretend you’re my girlfriend,” he says and a little smile spreads across my lips. “At least that way no one will fuck with you, or they’re less likely to try, anyway.” He pauses and looks at me and says, “Unless you want guys to hit on you?” It takes no time at all for my head to start shaking. “No. I do not want any guys to hit on me. Innocent flirting, fine—it does wonders for my confidence—but not douchebags.” “Good, then it’s settled. You’re my sexy girlfriend for the night, which means I get to take you back to the room later and make you squeal a little.” There’s that boyish grin of his again that I love so much. I’m tingling between the legs now. I swallow hard and play it off by playfully narrowing my eyes at him. I’m just glad to see his dimples again, as opposed to that wrathful—although incredibly sexy—expression that consumed his features moments ago. “As much as I like it—well, ‘like’ is really putting it lightly—I’m not going to let you do that anymore.” He looks hurt and a little shocked. “Why not?” “Because, Andrew, I … well, I just won’t let you—now come here.” I cup my hands around the sides of his neck and pull him toward me. And then I kiss him softly, letting my lips linger on his afterwards. “What are you doing?” he asks, staring down into my eyes. I smile sweetly up at him. “I’m getting into character.” A grin tugs the corners of his lips. He turns me around and locks his arm around my waist as we head toward Bourbon Street. Andrew Twenty-Five (#ulink_9bac3aa5-03a8-54bd-9112-30f75d653071) Maybe I can do this with Camryn. Why do I have to torture myself and deny myself what I want most when it should be the time when I’ve earned the right to have anything I want? Maybe things will turn out differently and she won’t get hurt. I could go back to Marsters. What if I do let her go and I never see her again and then afterwards, Marsters realizes his fuck-up? Goddammit! Excuses. Camryn and I hit two more bars in the French Quarter and she managed to pass for twenty-one in both of them. Only one asked to see her ID and I guess since her birthday is in December the waitress decided to let her slide. But now she’s drunk and I’m not sure if she’ll be able to walk back to the hotel. “I’ll call a cab,” I say, holding her up beside me on the sidewalk. Couples and groups of people come and go from the bar behind us, some stumbling from the doorway. I’ve got my arm tight around Camryn’s waist. She reaches up a hand and drapes it over my shoulder from the front; she can hardly hold her head up straight. “I think a cab is a good idea,” she says with heavy eyes. She’s either going to pass out or throw up soon. I just hope she waits until we get back to the hotel. The cab drops us off at the front of the hotel and I help her out of the backseat, finally just lifting her in my arms because she can barely walk on her own anymore. I carry her to the elevator with her legs dangling over one arm and her head lying against my chest. People are staring. “Fun night?” a man in the elevator asks. “Yeah,” I nod, “some of us can hold our liquor better than others.” The elevator dings and the man walks out after the doors slide open. Two more floors up and I carry her out and toward our rooms. “Where’s your key babe?” “In my purse,” she says weakly. At least she’s coherent. Without putting her down, I pull her purse around from her arm and unzip it. Normally, I would crack some joke about what the hell she carries in this thing and if anything in it is going to bite me, but I know she’s not in the joking mood. She’s miserable. This is going to be a long night. The door shuts behind us and I carry her right over to the bed and lay her down. “I feel like shit,” she moans. “I know, babe. You’ll just have to sleep it off.” I take off her shoes and set them on the floor. “I think I’m going to be—” She throws her head over the side of the bed and starts puking. I reach over to grab the trash can pressed against the nightstand and catch most of it, but it looks like the housekeeper is going to be pissed in the morning. She throws up everything in her stomach, which surprises me because she didn’t really eat much today. She stops and falls back against the pillow. Tears, caused by the vomiting, stream from the corners of her eyes. She tries to look at me, but I know she’s too dizzy to focus. “It’s so hot in here,” she says. “Alright,” I say and get up to turn the AC on full blast. Then I go into the bathroom and run a wash cloth under the cold water and then wring it out. I go back in the room and sit beside her on the bed, swabbing her face with the cloth. “I’m so sorry,” she mumbles. “I should’ve stopped after the vodka shot. Now you’re cleaning up my puke.” I wipe her cheeks and forehead some more, pushing away the loose strands of hair stuck to her face and then I swipe the cold rag over her mouth. “No apologies,” I say, “you had a good time and that’s all that matters.” I add, grinning, “Besides, I can take complete advantage of you now.” She tries to smile and reach up and hit me on the arm, but she’s too weak even for that. Her almost-smile turns into something anguished and sweat instantly beads on her forehead. “Oh no …” She raises herself from the bed. “I need the bathroom,” she says, holding onto me trying to get up and so I help her. I walk her to the bathroom where she practically throws herself over the toilet, both hands gripping the sides of the porcelain. Her back arches and falls as she starts to dry-heave and cry harder. “You should’ve had that steak with me, babe.” I stand over her from behind, making sure her braids don’t get hit in the crossfire and I keep the cold rag pressed to the back of her neck. I hurt for her, just watching her body heave violently like that, but hardly anything being produced from it. I know her throat and chest and insides are going to hurt after this. When she’s done, she lies against the cool tile floor. I try to help her up, but she protests softly: “No, please … I want to lay here; the floor is cooler on my skin.” Her breathing is shallow and her lightly-tanned skin is as sickly pale as a pneumonia patient. I get a clean rag, soak it and keep wiping down her face and neck and bare shoulders. Then I unbutton her pants and carefully pull them off, relieving her stomach and legs from the pressure of how tight they were. “Don’t worry, I won’t molest you,” I say, jokingly, but she doesn’t answer this time. She’s passed out on her side with her face pressed against the floor. I know if I move her right now she’ll probably wake up and start dry-heaving again, but I don’t want to leave her like this lying next to the toilet. So, I lay down beside her and I swab her forehead and arms and shoulders with the cloth for hours until eventually I fall asleep with her. Never thought I’d intentionally sleep on a bathroom floor next to a toilet while sober, but I meant it when I said I would sleep anywhere with her. Camryn The door to my room opens. Bright sunlight is shining in through a slim opening in the curtain on the other side of me. I flinch like a vampire at it, squinting long enough to turn away. It takes me a second to realize that I’m lying on my bed in the strapless top I wore last night and my purple bikini panties. The bed has been stripped of everything but the sheet I’m lying on and a top sheet that smells and feels like it has recently been washed. I guess I puked on the other one; Andrew must’ve gotten this one from housekeeping. “Feeling any better?” Andrew asks coming into the room with an ice bucket in one hand and a stack of plastic cups and a bottle of Sprite in the other. He sits down beside me and places the stuff on the nightstand, breaking the seal on the Sprite. Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. 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