between us. I’m not going to tell Reed about Lena, and without that explanation, my dad is just a caricature of a Neanderthal, the overprotective father who turns rabid around every male his daughter encounters. “He’s not a bad person.”
Reed looks over his shoulder at me as we head out the front door, and I’m struck by the line of his jaw and the muscles in his neck. I want to touch him again.
“Of course not,” he says.
“He carries a gun.”
“Right. I’ll go.”
We walk out onto the porch and down the steps. “Would you have kissed me if I’d told you that before?”
He turns to me. “About the gun? I thought you were kidding, but yeah. Of course.” He meets my gaze and the glimmer in his eye holds me there. “I just would’ve kissed you twice as hard for half the time.”
I want to come back with something witty, but my stomach is flipping backward and over onto itself because I can’t not imagine what it would feel like to be kissed twice as hard, and maybe I need to sit down.
“I’ll drive you back,” I offer, but he shakes his head.
“It’s a ten-minute walk. Besides, aren’t you drunk off virgin pina coladas?”
I grin. “Maybe.”
He leans in close and his lips tickle my ear as he murmurs, “I’m just saying you taste like pineapple and coconut. That’s all. Good night, Annie.”
He turns and walks up the street, leaving me, heart thumping, under the streetlight.
Changing clothes is too much work. Besides, I want to stretch tonight into forever, or at least into tomorrow. So I crawl into bed still wearing my dress, ignoring the way it strangles my waist, bunching and twisting, because honestly, whatever. After that kiss, whatever. I don’t even know.
I pull the cool sheet over me and live it again. Then again and again. His scent, his pulse, his heat, his breath. How could I feel both weaker and stronger in that single kiss than anything I ever got pressured into with Chris Dorsey?
Exhaustion presses down on my calves, my chest, my eyes, but my mind can’t let go of my body. That kiss made color explode in my brain, and I’m almost afraid that sleep will fade it. It was that perfect. In that moment, I was closer to whole than I’ve been in forever, or at least since Lena left, except I can’t see the chain that connects the two—losing Lena and kissing Reed.
I’m hovering over sleep when it occurs to me that Mo is absolutely right. Some things are meant to be. Not that I’m about to believe in fate or God or soul mates, but as of this evening, I might have to believe that in this world of random chaos and pain, I am meant to be kissing Reed.
Which reminds me, I should call Mo back.
Chapter 14
Mo
Of course Annie doesn’t call me back. It’s fine, whatever, I don’t care. Why would I want my fiancee checking up on me during my bachelor party, anyway?
Bachelor party. Ha.
I’m not sure what I would call my evening, but it’s not a party. I don’t get drunk. I don’t get a tattoo or a lap dance or anything significant to celebrate my exit from bachelordom, which is fitting since I’m not really leaving it anyway.
Here’s a breakdown of the night’s lameness. Guest list: me and Sarina. Festivities: helping pack Sarina’s china doll collection in bubble wrap, while listening to her try to convince herself she’s happy for me. Menu: Tropical Skittles and teriyaki beef jerky (the latter of which Sarina refused to eat even though we’ve never kept Halal.) Playlist: every song Taylor Swift ever sang.
Definitely not a bachelor party. If Bryce wasn’t off riding ponies in Argentina, the two of us could at least try to sneak into a strip club. Not that I could tell him about getting married, but he’d probably go along without a reason, and it would at least be something. Maybe I’d be too distracted to feel like a traitor.
It’s not like Dad doesn’t deserve a backstabbing. He did it to me first. I shouldn’t be feeling guilty for going behind his back when he’s the one screwing us all over like it’s nothing. Like we’re nothing. At Mom’s insistence, I’m faking it well, acting just as shell-shocked and dejected as before so he doesn’t think something’s up. What a joke. He wouldn’t notice if I was high as a kite.
Mom should be more worried about her own acting skills. She’s stopped crying and gazing off into nothing and is actually packing. She almost seems happy, which is crazy because at some point we’re going to have to tell him what we’ve done. I can’t even imagine what he’s going to do. He doesn’t have much of a temper, but as far as I know, Mom’s never done anything so deceptive or brave in her entire life. But she’s clearly not thinking about what he’s going to do or say when we tell him. Or maybe she is and that’s what’s making her happy. I don’t know. I don’t want to know.
After the so-called bachelor party, I lie in bed and wonder if I’ll be able to do it. Not get married—though that’ll be weird enough—but watch Sarina get on a plane in a week wearing her feeble, optimistic smile. Why does she have to be so irrationally hopeful?
She cried when she found out I’m not going back too. I rub my eyes, trying to force the memory back down, but I don’t think it will ever be very deep. She couldn’t have just thrown a tantrum like a normal teenage girl, or even pulled a Mom and sobbed inconsolably. No, she had to sit there with her hands over her mouth and cry without making a single sound.
“I’ll visit,” I said. Lame, but the only thing I could come up with in that moment of unadulterated self- loathing. How could I be so happy about abandoning her?
She took her hands away from her mouth. “When?”
I had no clue. Still have no clue. “I won’t be able to leave the country while they’re processing my documents, and that can take a little while,” I said.
She nodded, believing me, not because I had any idea what I was talking about but because she always believes me. And as soon as I could, I slunk out to go shoot hoops.
By evening, when Sarina came out with china dolls and packing boxes, the tears were gone, replaced by the eerily positive glow.
Now, lying in bed, I realize it’s not that I can’t handle the crying or the hopeful glazed-over look. It’s that both are the wrong things to be feeling. Sadness—that’s for victims, and I don’t want her to be one. And optimism—in this case, that’s for idiots.
She should be severely pissed off. I need her to recognize the injustice of what’s happening to her, because I did nothing to earn redemption and she definitely did nothing to deserve what she’s getting. I’d feel so much better if she was raging like a lunatic, ripping pillows open or flailing around or kicking her evil little cat.
I roll onto my side, stare out my window into the Dubrowski backyard. Now that Mom’s stopped crying, our house is silent. So weird.
My stomach hurts. Puking is a very real possibility tonight. I blame Sarina for providing the Skittles— everyone knows beef jerky is a stand-alone.
I swing my legs out of bed and reach for my phone, on the off chance I missed Annie’s call. Nope. Whatever. I lie back down. She’s probably with that Reed guy from work, or whoever she’s been so giddy and secretive about lately. Like I’d care that she’s having a summer fling with custard boy.
I lie back down. If I wasn’t such a coward I’d be having a summer fling of my own. Why aren’t I at least trying with Maya? I’ve been given time. A chance. She might not flat-out reject me. She can’t possibly be happy with Chase, and what’s the worst thing that could happen? I mull the idea over as I glide closer to sleep, my thoughts becoming weirder and weirder until I’m not lying in bed. I’m with Maya, and we’re standing at the airport security line, and it doesn’t matter that I know I’m dreaming, because I’m holding her hand, trying to convince her
