Cover.html (17 page)

We settle into the cab. Chelsea crunches away on the popcorn while I stare through the windshield, watch the sun use the distant mountains as a staircase down to the bottom of the nearby lake. This entire night is balanced on a stack of lies. Her folks, who are taking it easy at the resort, think she’s at Pike’s. Brandon, who’s playing yet another gig for Pop’s summer crowd, thinks she’s on a moonlight bicycle ride with fifteen other vacationers. My folks think I’m at the resort, helping the kitchen with inventory (of all the lame excuses). Kenzie thinks I’m on a stargazing hike.
If something is right, should it
really involve this much sneaking around?

“I don’t even know what’s playing tonight,” I mumble, just to have something to say. “Bound to be something as vintage as the theater, though.”

“Ah,” Chelsea says. “The black-and-white days when men lit the ladies’ cigarettes and the women wore high heels to bed.” I guess I toss her a stunned look, because she teases me with a shocked expression of her own and shoots a popcorn kernel at my head. We laugh—in that moment, it’s easy. And maybe, I think, it’s supposed to be. Still, something in me keeps pressing closer to the door, like any minute I might just jump from the cab and bolt. Chelsea crosses her legs, making the hem of her sundress fall back an inch. Licks the tips of her butter-greased fingers. 145/262

Ouch.

You want me to beat the bullshit out of you?
I can still hear Greg yelling at me, telling me it’s time to move on, as he kicked me in the middle of that dirt road. And as I listen to those words circle through my head, I think of the compass—and remember that when Chelsea pulled it from my shorts, its arrow pointed straight from her to me. I’m still nervous, but as I stare at her profile, desire starts to bubble inside me. Starts to eclipse the fears I’ve been carrying around for two years.

This is what I want.

The blond, beautiful, peach-scented creature sits next to me, waiting for me to touch her. Chelsea

charging

After a Road Runner cartoon, the opening credits reveal that the night’s feature is an Alfred Hitchcock number—
Vertigo
, with Kim Novak and Jimmy Stewart. The movie makes me wonder what it’d be like to love someone so much, you’d stalk their double. Really—what would it be like to be
that
infatuated?

I glance sideways at Clint. In so many ways, this black diamond of a man, his insides obscured by darkness, is nothing like the overtly romantic Gabe, who wears his love for me like a screenprinted message on a T-shirt. Is it completely bizarre to be drawn to two guys who are practically polar opposites? What does it mean about how I feel for Gabe when I’m drawn to someone else who’s so completely different?

Clint begins to run his fingertips down my arm, erasing the question marks that have been swirling through my mind, replacing them with bold-print exclamations. His touch is gentle, but I feel like he’s just lit my skin on fire.

He’s never reached out and touched me this way. 147/262

I lean toward him, locking his gaze for a minute before closing my eyes and finding his lips on mine.

God, he tastes as good as the butter-laden popcorn—better. Forget Jimmy and Kim—Clint and I are the night’s hottest couple. Wait—
couple
?

“Chelsea,” he murmurs in my ear. “Do you give a crap about this movie?”

I flash what feels like a devilish grin, shake my head no. He throws himself back into his seat, starts the engine, and reaches for my hand as he steers out of the drive-in.

I’m soaring as I feel Clint’s hand in mine. I swear—Publishers Clearing House winners couldn’t be any happier when they peer through the curtains to see balloons and a five-foot check waiting for them on the porch.

Clint and I ride quietly back toward the edge of the lake. The eerie shriek of loons and the creaky-screen-door call of crickets fill the cab with their music.

He cuts the engine in a secluded area—a rough and rugged section of shore. No dock, no kayak rental, no signs proclaiming when the next fishing boat will leave the dock. Just the moon, the crickets, the loons, and the trees.

Without a word, Clint covers my lips with his own. I savor the feel of him a moment before deciding to test him a bit; I strengthen the kiss. But Clint doesn’t pull away. He answers back—his mouth plunges deeper against my own, no reservations. I sink my fingers into his hair. We make out for who knows how long. Kissing like that—deep, soulful—it just doesn’t seem to have any time attached to it at all. We kiss until kissing’s not enough. Until Clint’s hand starts to stroke one of my thighs.

A need builds deep inside of me, more powerful than anything I’ve ever felt before. A hunger unfolds—only it isn’t coming from my 148/262

stomach. It’s coming, to be honest, from a region decidedly lower. I close my eyes and nearly drown in our seclusion, our solitude. Clint reaches up beneath my sundress as his lips start to rove toward my neck. But I wiggle until our mouths meet again. Clint draws his hand out from underneath my dress and slowly begins working his way up, resting gently on my breast. In a single swift tug, he pulls the top of my sundress down.

A gasp escapes my throat—it had still been too hot, in the early evening hours when I’d dressed, to mess with a bra. My mind starts swimming. I’m not quite sure how to handle being naked from the waist-up, in full view of any die-hard fisherman who just might happen to wander by. But when Clint’s tongue starts tracing my nipple, my mind falls quiet. I’m immersed—only instead of being underwater, I’m under-
desire
. My hands race all over Clint, even though I’ve never made a conscious decision to touch him. My fingers dive under his shirt, exploring his skin.

Clint tugs at my thighs until I start sliding, my back coming down to rest against the bench seat. His kisses grow deeper as he stretches out on top of me. He slips his hand between my legs, rubbing me through my underwear.

When Clint lifts his face from my mouth, a moan, unlike anything I’ve ever heard coming from my own body, peels out from between my lips.

But it isn’t just that I have this itch I want scratched. It isn’t that I want Clint to do something to me; I want to do as much to Clint. I want to devour every single inch of him. Boyfriends and pasts and right and wrong be damned. I want Clint—wildly.

My hands travel down Clint’s side. I massage his thigh, inching my fingers around to the front of his body. Inching closer to the fly on his shorts.

149/262

“Wait,” Clint barks. He flinches as he knocks my hand away. He pushes himself away from me, sits himself up in the driver’s seat, turns his face toward the window.

“Sorry.” I hastily adjust my sundress as I hoist myself back up. “I thought—you seemed like—I didn’t mean to push—”

I stop, wondering if I’m still the same Chelsea Keyes who’d been nervous about losing her virginity in one of the most romantic locations of all time, a swanky room her boyfriend had rented at the Carlyle. Why would I want to give up that kind of first-time perfection? Had I really been ready for—
that—
to happen
here
? At the muddy fringes of a lake, with torn-up upholstery scratching my back?

“I
do
want to,” Clint says. “That’s the problem. I want to so bad that if you touch me, I don’t think I’ll be able to stop.”

“Would that really be such a bad thing?” The words pop out so quickly, I wonder for a moment if they’ve actually come from my own mouth.

“I don’t know,” Clint admits, pushing his hair back from his face.

“This is so far from where I thought this night would go—so much faster.”

“I’m scared, too, you know.”

“You don’t exactly seem like it.”

“I am—have been—” I sigh. “First time is scary.”

Clint’s frown has crevices deeper than the Grand Canyon. “I thought you had a boyfriend.”

“I do. Hip surgery doesn’t put you on the fast-track to losing your—” I stop short. There’s that word again:
virgin.
Clint’s face grows a cloud. He seems to shrink a little, in that moment.

“Don’t freak out on me,” I say, reaching for his hand again. “I know it’s a lot—the boyfriend. The broken hip. The … virginity. I’m not the 150/262

easiest girl in the world to take on. But I’m not about to add to your load, you know? My issues are mine, not yours.”

“But if I’m complicating things—”

“Then I’d have to smack you upside the head. Don’t forget,
you’re
the one who just put the brakes on
me
.”

Clint leans away from me, puts an elbow on the door, rubs his eyes. But there’s far more than just space between us. Including, I remind myself, Rosaline Johnson. The seriousness of the moment weighs as much as Clint’s truck. My mind drifts back to our laughter—and I want desperately to find a path back to it.

“You know what we need?” I ask him, grinning playfully. “A small step. To tackle something that scares the both of us. Together.”

Clint stops rubbing his face to stare off into the distance. He’s wearing a look like a dead-end road sign. My stomach starts to sink in on itself, as I think he’s about to tell me it’s too much, all this history, heavy as an eighteen-wheeler, that the two of us are dragging around. But I know I have to be delicate here. As much as I want to hang on to him, stay with him until this mood has passed, I know the worst thing I could do would be to press him, turn clingy.
Strategy, Chelse,
I tell myself.
You’re a smart girl. Get yourself a game plan.

“Tomorrow,” I say, nudging his side. “Something that scares both of us. Actually, me more than you.”

“What would that be?” he asks, perking up a little.

“Nope. Tomorrow. Not a word until then.”

Clint

man on

Sowhere doIturn, anyway?” Iask. “We’re definitely notheaded to town.”

“Not to Baudette, anyway.”

“How is it that
you’re
telling
me
where to drive? Wouldn’t it be easier if you’d just tell me where we’re going?” I raise my eyebrow, waiting for Chelsea to answer.

“Nope.” She sticks her nose in the air, the wind making her ponytail dance a frenzied salsa routine. “I Googled this place three times over. I know exactly where we’re going.”

“Not even a
hint
?” I ask, the same way I’d asked when we were on my group fishing expedition earlier that day. Even now, with evening creeping over the tops of the pines, I still have no idea what she’s got planned.

“Eyes on the road, bub,” is all she says, pushing my cheek so that my face turns back toward the windshield.

“One hint.”

152/262

“If you don’t mind, I thought we could do something a little—physical.”

Physical?
I remember the way the curve of her breast fit in my mouth the night before, as we draped that thick blanket of steam across the windows of my truck.
Just how physical is this thing she has in
mind?

She scolds, “A little professionalism, please, sir,” like she knows what I’m thinking. “A
small
step, remember? Something a little scary for us both to tackle. Turn here.”

As I ease the truck across the cracked asphalt of a parking lot, Chelsea points to a large warehouse-looking building.

“You’re kidding,” I say, my stomach bottoming out. A huge pink neon sign, complete with flashing white bowling pins, announces that we have just arrived at the Rose Bowl.

“Are you fifty or something?” I tease her as we pile out of the truck.

“Bowling.”

“Small step—how many times do I have to tell you?” she asks playfully. She hurries ahead of me, grabs the door to the Rose Bowl, and opens it for
me.
Already she’s messing with my mind, showing me she’s got the upper hand. Showing me
I’m
the weaker one. She’s challenging me, even though I told her sports were behind me. I give her a hard stare to let her know I’m on to this strategy. But she only widens her eyes and shrugs, acting completely innocent. Still, I don’t really appreciate having a challenge forced on me. Especially since I’ve spent the entirety of her vacation playing by her rules. Making sure we don’t do anything too strenuous. Watching out for her. Doesn’t really feel like she’s doing me the same honor. And for a second, it kind of pisses me off.

“Smells like I remember,” she sighs as we step inside. “Like sweaty shoes and cigarettes and stale beer.”

153/262

“Like you remember,” I mumble, dragging my feet. “This is my neck of the woods, isn’t it?”

“Like
I
remember,” she repeats. “All bowling alleys smell the same. And, yes, I’ve been bowling before. What were you expecting? That you’d get to wrap your arms around me while you showed me how to roll the ball down the lane?”

“That’s not—look, Chelse, I wasn’t kidding when I said I left competitive sports behind me. You can respect that, right?”

But she puts her hand on her hip and says, “If you think bowling is a serious competitive sport, you really
have
been on the sidelines too long.”

“I’m done. I
meant
that,” I insist.

“What is this, some sort of martyr complex?” she asks. “Really. Is this the same person who insisted
I
looked like one of the old men wasting their lives away outside of bait and tackle shops? Is this the same person who wanted to know where all
my
passion had gone?”

“Is this the same person who wouldn’t even attempt to toss a basketball?”

She juts her chin out. “See that? The way you just volleyed the conversation back at me? Your competitive spirit is
crying
to see the light of day.”

She wants me to smile at her, but I refuse. She slumps a little, then says, “The other day, at Pike’s, when you and Brandon went to hang up the flyers, your mom used the word
scared
to describe me. ‘I know you’re scared,’ she said.”

“So?”

“So—she used it like it was just some
obvious
word anybody would use to describe me, you know? Like—
blond
or
tall.
And I keep thinking about how I refuse so much of the stuff you suggest.”