Discovering April (24 page)

“Still here, I see,” he murmurs.

“Still got that stick, I see.”

“I still don’t like you.”

“I don’t know about that… I think I’m wearing you down.”

He looks over at me, surprised at my outburst. Maybe it’s the shot talking, but I like to diffuse awkward situations with humor.

“You will never wear me down. This will never work—
I
won’t let it.”

“Well, if that is your goal, you’re failing at it—no offense.”

At the end of my sentence, I notice Jared coming through the dance floor, headed back to the bar. He gets the attention of a few girls that try to dance a little closer. One girl even flips her hair while her friend tries to drop it to the floor. Jared doesn’t seem to notice any of this because his eyes are on mine. The smile that matches his sneaks its way across my face. I feel Eric’s eyes follow his and I feel them end on my face.

“You haven’t even seen me try yet. You wait—this won’t last the winter.” He chugs his beer and slams it on the bar.

“I’ll take that bet!” I scream after him.

Jared is on my side in a few seconds, putting his arm around my shoulders. “What was that about?”

“That’s just sociable Eric.”

I can’t tell if he laughs or I just get a smile because the music begins to get louder and louder and I feel hands grip my wrist. I look over to see Stacey’s little form grabbing my wrist and she pulls me out of Jared’s arms. I send him a shrug as she drags me deeper into the club. I pass through the maze on the dance floor before she pulls me into the bathroom at the other side. Finally releasing me, she reaches into her tiny little clutch and pulls out a little bottle of tequila. Her eyes meet mine and she lets out an excited squeal.

“Oh, no. Me and tequila aren’t a good mix!” I tell her, remembering my night at the police station.

“That’s not what I hear!” She winks at me from her reflection in the mirror.

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, come on! You think Jared and Eric don’t talk?”

“Oh my God.” No wonder Eric hates me; he probably thinks I’m some kind of drunken slut. Having Jared pick me up at the police station… oh my, did he tell him about my impromptu strip tease? I feel my cheeks redden.

“Relax, it was nothing but good things.”

“Good things?”

“Yea, I kinda was eavesdropping.” She pauses as the reapplies her lipstick. “I like you.” She hands me a lipstick redder than I would ever dare to wear.

“You do?”

Her eyes zone out, glancing far beyond the mirror they are staring at. “Yea, you make him happy. He deserves to be happy.”

No one has ever given me such a compliment before. If anyone deserves to be happy, it’s Jared. It gives me the confidence to grab the lipstick from her hands and apply two coats of it to my lips. The red sets off the green in my eyes like Christmas and it reflects the pink in my hair.

“Tequila!” Stacey reminds me.

“Fine.” I smirk, pretending that she has convinced me. She cracks open the seal and takes a tiny swig before passing it to me. Trying my best to not ruin my new lips, I empty the rest of the bottle into my open mouth and take it down in one gulp. Then she pulls out another.

“Woo! Let’s go!” Linking my arm in hers, she guides me out into the heart of the club.

It’s darker than I remember. Multi colored lights play across various faces, and I can’t even make out the bar through the mountain of people around me. My eyes scan the crowd for those perfect brown eyes, but I never find them. Instead, I feel Stacey slip her arm from mine and slowly she begins to gyrate to the music. I chuckle as she shakes her hair about. Apparently, she can’t handle tequila, either. The warmth begins to hum its way through my veins until I decide I can’t let her dance all by herself. So I grab one of her hands and spin her around. I’ve never been a dancer. Actually, I’m not very creative or imaginative, in general. I was always the rebel, the risk taker. Not smart, either. But, here in this moment, I feel like I could be in a dance off. My hips find their own rhythm and my hands slowly move down my slender frame.

“Woo! Ow, work it!” Stacey slurs, mimicking my moves.

She starts dancing around me in a circle, forming some space between us and the other dancers. People are starting to notice us and watch. I’m used to the staring; I wouldn’t have decided to dye part of my hair pink if I didn’t like attention, but this is a little too many eyes for my taste. That is, until my eyes meet his. Across the length of the club, he stands next to Eric by the bar, one hand in his jean pocket, the other holding a beer. His mouth is a little quirked and his eyes are, like always, on me. The glowing bottles behind him have nothing on his eyes. He’s all that I can see. His eyes are suddenly all that matter. I begin my dance again, feeling the weight of his stare just like I felt the weight of his body on me only a few hours ago.

I twirl in a circle as my hips move to the music blaring out of the speakers. My eyes automatically flip back to his spot at the bar. Only they aren’t there any longer. Frantically, I search to find them again. But all I’m met with are the eyes of strangers on Stacey and me. I pause my dancing as someone comes up behind me. I smile slowly, turning to meet his eyes. I gasp when they aren’t the brown eyes I was expecting. It’s not Jared at all. We struggle. I’m trying to get out of his grip on my waist and he keeps pulling my bottom back to his front. I’m silently regretting leaving my mace out of my purse tonight. His hands slip under my shirt and I instinctively lift my knee and jab my foot down onto his. Finally releasing me, he stumbles backwards before Stacey pops up and wiggles her finger at him from left to right. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to have a girlfriend until this very moment. I don’t think I knew what I was missing, the loyalty and having someone watching your back. Only this time no one was watching mine, and I bump into someone else. Their hands wind their way into my belt lops and I clench my fists as their face leans into my neck. Spinning around, I wind up my arm for a right hook when the face comes into view as the flashing lights illuminates it. Jared. I release a deep breath.

“It’s only you.”

“Now, I understand the arrest,” He smirks at my clenched fists and I hide a laugh by turning to make sure Stacey is okay.

She is seductively dancing around Eric, so I’m guessing she’s in good hands. I wrap my arms around Jared’s neck, bringing him closer to me, feeling his hard body against the length of mine. I look up to see his eyes are between us, as well. Feeling my eyes on his, he meets them. His lips don’t have to form it, because his eyes are smiling down on me. My heart freezes inside my chest; it’s hard to breathe and I find myself wondering if this is what a heart attack feels like. Our eyes never leave the others’ and just like that, I’m sucked into the quicksand that is Jared Hoffman. The people around us disappear, the floor beneath us falls away, the music is a distant melody and it’s just us. Us. Just like that, I became an us.

When the drunken kissing has stopped, the bar is blurry and the room is spinning even while I’m not dancing. Jared decides it’s time to leave. Eric is practically carrying Stacey over to us as Jared links his hand with mine. I let him guide me through the crowd and towards the front doors. As we pass the tables hosting bottle service, my eyes hover over a familiar face. Hunter. His green eyes are alive with laughter as his hand rests on Todd’s cousin’s knee. Veronica, with her low-cut shirt accentuating her superior curves. The girl he cheated on me with. I had known the truth all along; deep down I’ve always known. He’s sitting there in a blue collared shirt I bought for him for Christmas one year because it brings out his eyes. His hair is slicked back and his friends all around him are toasting to something I’m no longer a part of. A waitress blocks my line of vision as she places a new bottle of vodka in the bucket of ice at their table and they hoot in celebration again. The waitress moves and Hunter finally sees me. His face loses its smile as his eyes stare at me. His hand pulls back from
her
and I think he looks as if he might stand to his feet. As much as I try to fight it, I wonder what he thinks when he looks at me now. Does he see the good times? Does he see regret? Or is he happy he made the right decision?

“You okay?” Jared tugs at my wrist.

I didn’t notice I had stopped walking until his grip on me tightens. I have to blink a few times to watch as he glances over to see Hunter climbing to his feet. He turns to me again as if trying to read my mind.

“I’m okay,” I finally mutter, gripping his hand back. Without another glance back at me, he pulls me out of the club and onto his motorcycle.

It seems like it takes us forever before Jared pulls his bike into his driveway. The ride home is silent. I am thinking once again. My mind is a vortex of memories and self doubt as Jared puts the bike in park and slips off to help me down. He unclasps my helmet and peels it off my head before pausing to look at me. My mind is once again eased. It’s as if Jared is my faith in myself. He is the reason I want better for myself; he is the reason I realize that I deserve better for myself. His lips purse, as if to speak, and without further thought I lean up to kiss him. Once my lips are on his all is forgotten – for both of us. His question never comes and my mind is finally blank. I pull away slowly from his bottom lip before licking my lips and hopping over the line of daises. I saunter up to my front door, fumbling awkwardly with the keys because I have once again forgotten to leave the lights on for myself. I’m shouldering the door a second time when I feel a warm body behind me. His face is in my neck again, this time kissing his way up to my ear. Jared reaches around me and opens the door on his first try.

I turn my head to mumble something sarcastic, like “Show off,” or “I loosened it for you,” but instead his lips crash down on mine. All that is heard is a soft moan before he pushes me inside.

I almost trip over Jinx on the steps before he meows, excited to see Jared. I pull away from Jared’s lips only long enough to whisper, “Shoo!”

Jinx just swats at my ankles as we pass him. We share a drunken giggle before breaking apart long enough to climb the rest of the stairs. I throw open the door to my room and kick off my shoes. I’m expecting him to say something about the last time I was drunkenly stripping for him, but he doesn’t. Instead, he sits on the side of my bed, looking at his hands in his lap.

“Apes, can I ask you something?”

I stand in front of him and place my hands on his shoulders. “Anything.”

He squares his shoulders so my fingers slip off of him. “Are you over him?”

I step back, feeling like I have just been punched in the gut. “What?”

“Are. You. Over. Him?” he repeats, still looking down as if he needs to prepare himself for the response.

“I don’t think I will ever be over him. I think we will always be linked by some kind of stupid, immature bond. We will always have a connection. But, romantically we will never be the same. We will never be April and Hunter again.”

He’s silent. I wish the alcohol streaming through my blood right now hadn’t made me so brutally honest. Seeing the hurt in his eyes, I wish I had lied. I wish I had told him I had no feelings; that things were over, that he hadn’t gutted me like a fish when he left. But he would know I was lying. He witnessed it.

“I care about you now,” my hand cups his cheek and Jared pulls away from me.

“You know I can’t give you everything that he could. I will never be super rich; I will never go to work in a suit; there will never be a charity ball to go to or a mansion hosting maids and servants. I have a need for speed, dirty calloused hands, and an even dirtier mind. I can’t give you all that, but I promise you I will always have more than enough.”

He totally misconstrued my look towards Hunter’s table. I wasn’t envying the bottle service or jealous of him with his new girlfriend. I was sad. I feel like I lost a friend, someone who knows my secrets, my funny quirks; someone I have inside jokes with. Someone who knew me better than I knew myself. That’s what I miss.

My eyes gravitate to my dresser and my line of snow globes. The Tinkerbell snow globe is situated in front of all the rest. It’s the little things that matter. The cheap, thoughtful things that offer happiness money can’t buy.

“That’s all I need!” I blurt out when my voice finally catches up with my mind. His eyes finally look up at me as I lean over to cup his face between my hands again. This time he lets me. “
You
are all I need.”

His lips meet mine, then part mine with desperation. I let him. I let him take out his hurt, every year he had to watch me kiss Hunter. Every tear he shed thinking about me. Every daydream he ever had about us. I let him kiss me and prove to himself that I’m real. I’m here and I care for him with every piece of me, even if I can’t say the words out loud.

“JARE!” I CALL FROM THE spot where he left me cuddled up under the covers.

He pauses and turns to face me from the doorway. “I’m gonna go take a shower.” He points over his shoulder towards the hallway.