“Imagine I’m naked,” I whisper, praying that his mother isn’t eavesdropping.
His eyes snap onto mine and it’s perfect. My pencil flies across the page.
“Don’t move!” I laugh as he lunges for me. “I need to get this right.”
He groans and sits back, looking at me as if he wants to devour me. I’ve almost got the eyes exactly right when he runs his hands up my legs and makes me forget to breathe. “Just one second more,” I manage, just as the eyes on the page match up perfectly with the eyes staring me down.
I toss the sketchbook aside and feel myself spiral into him.
We’ve made out down here a million times, but this is different. Things get heated so fast. I feel like I can’t possibly get close enough to him. His clothes make me angry.
I can see from his eyes that he feels the same way. There’s this crazy moment where he pulls back and looks at me, and it’s so intense I can’t even breathe.
When we start kissing again, he puts his hand up my shirt and unhooks my bra. He’s done that before, and I’ve always scooted away to do it back up, shaking a finger playfully at him. But this time it feels right. He pauses for a minute to see if I’ll protest. When I don’t, he lifts my shirt so slowly and carefully that I think I might explode. My breath catches in my throat and he breaks my gaze to look down at me. He lets out a low moan, and a blush creeps up all the way from my toes.
He kisses my belly button and then trails little kisses up to my chest. I stop breathing. In my head I’m begging him to touch me and terrified that he will all at once. His lips close around my nipple and his tongue darts against it and I moan. Loudly.
That breaks the spell in a hurry. Our eyes meet in a panic. Scott’s mother is the fun police. She’s on constant patrol when I’m over, on high alert lest I corrupt her angelic son.
“Yes, honey?” she calls from the top of the stairs.
We scramble in slow motion, frantically rearranging ourselves while trying not to sound frantic.
“Yeah, Mom?” He tosses me a blanket and moves over to the chair.
“I thought I heard you call me.” She comes down the stairs so fast that she must be taking them two at a time. Her eyes take in the scene in front of her, and she zeroes in on me sprawled on the couch. “Are you cold, Annie?”
I pull the blanket up a little higher. I didn’t have time to fix my bra. “A little, Mrs. Hutchins. But Scott found me a blanket, so I’m good now.”
“I can make you kids some hot chocolate,” she suggests, her eyes never leaving me.
“That’d be great, Mom. We’re about to put in a movie.”
Her eyes flick over to the television, where MTV is on low volume. “You haven’t started the movie yet? What have you two been doing down here all this time?” There’s a hard edge to her voice, and I look at Scott in a panic.
He’s so smooth, though. “We were talking, Mom.”
She smiles hard, overcompensating. “Of course! Of course! I didn’t mean anything by that. I’ll get you hot chocolate and a snack, and you can settle in for the movie.” She rushes up the stairs, probably eager to get back as soon as possible and reevaluate the situation.
We stifle our laughter behind our hands as she clears the top step. “That was close!” I reach behind me to do up my bra, embarrassed that Scott’s watching me.
“Annie . . .”
“Mmmhmm?”
He goes quiet and I start to get nervous. I meet his eyes, and he looks more serious than I’ve ever seen him. “I love you.”
My mouth drops open, and there are no words in me. I feel tears tracking down my face. I haven’t heard those words from anyone in such a very long time. Scott’s suddenly beside me on the couch, drying my tears with his shirtsleeve. “What’s wrong?”
“I . . . I just . . .”
He looks down. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No! I mean . . . I love you too.” I’d hesitated to say the words, not sure if I meant them. But as they pass my lips, I feel the truth of them. “I do,” I repeat, more confident now. “I love you.”
He puts his arms around me, and we sit back on the couch, nestled together. I close my eyes and see the pieces of my life falling together. All the loneliness. All the sadness. It doesn’t matter anymore because I have someone who loves me.
I jump when I hear his mother come back down the stairs, but Scott just holds me tighter and ignores her startled look.
She clears her throat loudly. “Here are your snacks.” She holds out the tray, waiting for Scott to get up and take it from her.
“Thanks, Mom. Can you put it on the coffee table?”
She sniffs and sets the tray down. “Are you planning on watching the movie?”
“I think so.”
“Well, why don’t you come on over to the chair, Scott?” she suggests. “That way Annie can stretch out on the sofa.”
“No, thanks, Mom. I’m comfortable here.”
“Well, then. What movie are you watching?”
“We haven’t decided yet.”
“Why don’t I join you? I haven’t watched a movie in so long!”
“Maybe another time, Mom. I was hoping for some time with Annie.”
It’s almost painful, holding my smile back. I want to shout from the rooftops that I love him. I want to break into song and dance around the basement. Instead, I fix my gaze on MTV and try hard to ignore the waves of suspicion rolling off of his mother.
“I’ll be down to check on you soon,” she warns.
“I’m sure you will,” Scott says with a laugh. He tightens his arm around me, and I feel my whole life beginning.
Jessie
I
