For the millionth time since I first spotted her in Stratford, I wonder if the Jasmine Killary I knew this summer was real.
“I see we’re sticking with the secret route,” she says, and I was so lost in observing everything that isn’t there that I’m startled by the sound of her voice. I open my mouth to say that we don’t have to, but she adds, “I think that’s a good idea.”
Even though I was expecting it, it feels like a shot to the heart. I don’t answer right away, instead giving myself a little tour of her room. “Where’s all your stuff?”
“In Asheville, mostly. My mom’s selling the house and moving near family, so it didn’t seem worth it to drag everything up here when I’d just be moving again next year.”
Of course her mom would be selling their house, since it’s the scene of one of my favorite memories of the entire summer. Burning those memories down seems to be the theme of the week. In another life, I would’ve asked how she feels about losing her childhood home, and whether her mom’s move is the reason she’s here for the year, but we’re in this alternate life now, so all I can do is make a stupid joke.
“I’m sure your dad would’ve sprung for a new Crazy Rich Asians poster. Hell, I can’t believe you moved in without some sort of decorating clause in the contract.”
Her only response is a little snort. Which means she’s serious about not wanting to dig into our summer, to the many times we watched that movie together, to the day we found the poster at a dollar store and she declared she had to have it. She doesn’t even want to take this opportunity to talk about why, after ten years of a custody situation that’s functioned like clockwork despite the frosty divorce behind it, things have suddenly changed.
She’s serious about burying it all, which means I should be too.
“You really want to just pretend this summer never happened,” I say, finally turning.
“Don’t you?” she says, and I look up. Is that hurt in her eyes? It’s impossible to tell when they’re rimmed in kohl like that, glittering like liquid amber peeking from a cloud of smoke. And now that I’m meeting her gaze, I can’t look away. She has this stupid fucking hold on me, and she knows it.
I’ve never been attracted to girls. I have lain awake so many nights wondering, replaying nights in my mind of hanging out with Shannon, Kiki, Gia, Jamie, whoever, trying to find Signs. Objectively, they’re all pretty, maybe even beautiful. But kissing them, touching them, being with them … it’s never once crossed my mind. It still doesn’t.
And I wasn’t attracted to Jasmine like that either, at first. That’s not what happened. I don’t really know what happened. But I wasn’t staring into her eyes like I am now, looking at her lips like I am now, remembering the feel of her skin on mine like I am now. It wasn’t anything until it was, and then it wasn’t, and now …
Now I am staring at The Spot on her neck and I cannot fucking stop.
I know exactly the sound she’ll make if I touch my tongue to it. If I suck gently on it. If I suck not-so-gently on it. I can hear it in the vestiges of my brain and it’s sending unwelcome waves of electricity right through my leather shorts.
I know the sound she’ll make and I know what it does to me and she knows what it does to me and what to do next. Like a faraway dream I see exactly how this night can progress if we just shut her goddamn door and forget that there’s an outside world, that there’s a party downstairs and a boy at that party who’s supposed to be the only one who makes me feel like this.
“We should go downstairs,” she says, her voice hoarse. “People will be wondering where we are.”
People. Shannon. Gia. Kiki the Detective.
Chase.
“Yeah,” I say. I sound just as hoarse. And I don’t really want to go downstairs. But staying here isn’t an option. I wait for her to leave, but she doesn’t.
So I do.
“There you are!” Chase finds me as soon as I make it downstairs, and despite my libido having gone into overdrive with Jasmine, the smile that lights up his face makes my stomach do a very familiar flip. God, I am a terrible person. A terrible, horny person. “I thought I lost you. Everything OK?”
I can feel Jasmine’s eyes on us, watching as he rests a hand comfortably on my back as if there’s always been a space for him. In a way, I guess there has. She wasn’t there for my full-on gushing about him to our OBX friends, but she knows exactly who he is.
Suddenly, my skin feels prickly and itchy and I need to get out of her line of vision. “I’m fine,” I assure him. “Or I will be once I get your ass on the dance floor.”
He laughs. “Lead the way, madam.”
When I’m sure she can no longer see us, I relax, moving my body along with his to the music. His hands are firm and warm on my hips, and I feel other people watching, sizing up the situation. But I’ll take a thousand eyes of Stratford onlookers over two of Jasmine’s intense, inquisitive ones any day.
“Shamir special?” Two deeply tanned hands extend red Solo cups our way, and I see they’re attached to
