Which is a lot. I’m with him literally every day after school and always at my house. I’ve only been to his place once, because his mother insisted on meeting me. That was a dinner from hell. You could have cut the tension between that family with a butter knife. His mother was kind, but had the resolve of their stainless-steel fridge. His stepfather was on the quiet side and barely looked at either of us. So after that, we decided to just keep hanging out at my house. After all, my sister is barely home and my parents are forever in India. You’d think that would be the perfect set-up for tons of epic sex.
Or just some sex.
Just once.
Even Everly asked me if we’d “done it yet” to which I gave her the same answer she gave me: “There are other ways to have fun.”
So for Halloween I’m going all out. I’m dressing as Cleopatra and wearing the skankiest thing I can get away with wearing at school, since we are allowed to wear our costumes, and then that night I’m taking away even more clothing. If that doesn’t get Anders’ attention, I’m not sure what will.
But, a few hours later, Anders shows up at my door unannounced.
I answer the door and he’s standing there on the steps. It’s raining lightly and the air smells like firecrackers and the threat of snow. His leather jacket is peppered with water, his hair damp and long. It’s nearly shoulder-length now. Everly says it’s the “Euro Trash” look, but I think it suits him.
“Did you walk?” I ask him, looking over his shoulder and not seeing the Mustang he usually borrows from his stepdad.
“They went out, hid the keys,” he says. There’s something weird about the way he’s looking at me. It’s intense. I know he can be an intense, brooding guy sometimes, prone to flights of fancy one moment and hot-headedness the next, but this look, this look, has me in its hold.
“You should have told me,” I tell him. “I could have taken Hannah’s car and come and got you. Or my mom’s, she said ‘emergency only’ but who cares.”
“You’re my emergency,” he says. “I couldn’t wait.”
I smile warily, intrigued. “Wait for what?”
“To tell you something I’ve been meaning to tell you for a long time now.”
My chest constricts. Dread. There’s something too wild about his look.
Dangerous.
Real.
Holy shit. He’s breaking up with me.
My eyes grow large, my lungs stop working all together.
He can’t…he can’t…
“Shay,” he says, walking up and stopping at the step below me, so we’re the same height. His voice is soft but ragged. As if what he’s about to say will break both of us.
He grabs my face in his hands and I watch the rain droplets slide down his cheekbones, his wet, black brows furrowed together. His eyes stare so deep into mine that I know he sees everything that I am.
He has so much power right now. So much.
“I love you,” he says.
I blink, not sure if I heard him right. All feeling leaves my body.
“What?” I ask, barely a whisper.
“I’m in love with you,” he says again, and now I recognize the look in his eyes. Feverish. Mad. “I couldn’t keep it to myself anymore.”
He loves me.
“I…,” I start to say.
He loves me!
He runs his thumb over my lips. I’m glad I wore flavored ChapStick. “I don’t want you to say it back. Not ever.”
I’m dumbfounded. “Not ever?”
“They’re my words for you.”
“And what if I feel the same way?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll know it when you do,” he says, before kissing me.
And if those words, those words, hadn’t stolen all my breath away, this kiss does it.
This kiss is oceans deep.
Fingers in my hair, on my face, the small of my back.
This kiss is the prelude to my dreams.
Lips locked, we stumble back into the house.
Up the stairs.
To my room.
The door shuts.
I lay back on the bed.
I’m nervous. I’m so nervous. Anders isn’t moving, he’s standing at the foot of the bed, pinning me down with his eyes. There are so many emotions swirling in them that I don’t know which one to latch on to. There’s hope and awe and pain and anguish and lust. Pure lust.
I decide to latch onto the lust.
Because that’s what I’m feeling too.
Right down to my bones.
But still Anders doesn’t move. He continues to stare.
And the more he stares at me, the more my mind begins to drift. To think. To over-think. To worry.
But then he snaps out of it.
Moves fast.
A blur, removing his jacket and throwing it on the floor, then his shirt.
Then he climbs on the bed, hovering over me, hands skimming up the sides of my shirt. His skin is fire against mine, his palm melding to my breast as he takes off my bra, my top.
I’m bare now, my skin burning under his touch, under his gaze as he takes me in.
Please don’t hurt me, I think.
And I don’t mean the sex. I know it will hurt a little, that it will feel strange at first.
But this boy loves me.
And I love him.
And I’m about to give him my virginity.
If this doesn’t last, if this doesn’t work, I’ll be ruined. I know it. He’ll always live large in my life as the guy I first slept with. That’s something that can never be erased or taken back.
“I love you,” he whispers to me as he undoes my jeans, pulls them down over my thighs.
“I love you,” I say back, even though he told me not to.
His eyes flash with darkness and desire and something else I can’t describe.
The thrill shoots right through my heart.
He takes off his pants, presses his body against me, the hard length of him between
