Forever Now (Forever - Book 1) (2 page)

The music that had announced wide-collared, all-rayon shirts, and man perms forty years ago was blasting from the living room. My house had gone back in time to 1977, and the Bee Gees were singing all about it at the top of their lungs in a falsetto that sounded like Mariah Carey and made me giggle.

Hyper-happy, bikini-clad Mom danced with The Boyfriend, barefoot on the shag carpet in the living room. They swirled around like two old farts and occasionally bumping into the couch and the recliner. The guests stood by, holding drinks and watching the dancing.

I wanted to vomit.

And kill myself.

And point and laugh.

My mom had ordered me to make margaritas in the kitchen, and I was more than happy to do it. Anything not to watch them.

But I had a problem. I couldn’t make margaritas because Cruz was sitting at the kitchen counter, his arms resting only inches away from the blender. I couldn’t handle the blender without touching him, and if I touched him, I would wind up jumping on his back and licking him from his head to his toes.

That might be embarrassing.

I hovered at the kitchen entrance, debating with myself about what to do. If I didn’t make the margaritas, my mother would literally kill me, but I didn’t want to be known as “the licker.” Stuff like that gets around, and being invisible was bad enough. I didn’t want to add, “The licker” to my list of miseries.

I knocked on the side of my head. What was wrong with me? What was I scared of? How likely was it that I was going to lick a perfect stranger?

Who was I kidding? It was ninety-nine percent sure I would lick him. Cruz looked yummier than cookie dough ice cream, and he smelled yummy, too. I was getting a good whiff of him from my position in the kitchen, and his odor was making me dizzy.

I caught myself licking my lips, and I stuck my tongue back in my mouth. The music changed from the Bee Gees to Donna Summer. I heard the dancers bump into the wall. They would be wanting more drinks soon.

I didn’t have long before my mother would start screaming at me for not making the drinks fast enough, and maybe this time, she would insist I take my t-shirt off. I would be a lot better off if I made the margaritas quickly and got out of my mom’s line of sight.

But I couldn’t move from my spot. It was a really, really good vantage point, there between the toaster and the refrigerator. I could see all of Cruz. His perfect, sculpted cheekbones. His big round, brown eyes, fringed in long black eyelashes. His hair.

Oh, his thick, beautiful, lickable hair.

And then there was his body, sitting on the barstool, his feet tucked underneath him, his muscular thighs poking out from under his bathing suit. His muscly, long, beautiful body.

Like Lot’s wife turning back, I had to look at him. Looking at him was a pleasure, like eating ice cream on a hot day, or slipping into a warm bath to soothe sore muscles.

I could stare at him all I wanted, because he was too busy looking at his hands to notice. It dawned on me that he didn’t want to watch the dancing any more than I did, and that made me indescribably happy.

Not that I thought I had any chance with him. I was the invisible girl. He hadn’t even said hello to me, even though we were the only two people in the kitchen.

I loved to look at him. That was enough for me. He was beautiful. Special. I felt a flutter of happiness, as my eyes traveled from his face to his muscular shoulders, which were on display in his blue tank top.

Muscle T
, I thought. That’s what it’s called. Of course he would wear something with
muscle
in the name. It fit him.

I had a terrible desire to write in my notebook. I could write pages and pages about his shoulders. Wide and tan, muscly but not bodybuilder big.
Cut.
That’s what he was. I tapped my forehead to pound the memory of him into my brain. I would have to note every detail and save it for always. That way, I could look at him forever.

My eyes darted to the digital clock on the microwave. Forty-eight minutes to go before I could return to my room and write about Cruz.

The beginning of a story was taking form in my mind. In it, I would call Cruz, Roman, and he would be a prince and save a girl from kidnappers—No, a tsunami!—and her name would be Emma or Olivia. No…Pippa!

While I hashed out the story in my head, I assembled the ingredients for the margaritas and placed them on the counter at a safe distance from Cruz’s arms. Then, it was the moment of truth. I took the lid off the blender and put it down on the marbled granite, almost grazing his fingertips.

Cruz’s hands flew off the counter, presumably to not touch me. Our eyes locked for the briefest of moments. His look drew me into him, like Alice down the rabbit hole. Down, down, down I fell into another world.

Lost.

My ears grew hot, and my breath hitched. An electrical charge ran through my body—the after effects of our connection, like I had put my finger in a socket. Or worse.

The room spun around, and I took a step back, trying to catch my balance.

Off with her head
, I thought, dimly.

I felt like Cruz had tried to communicate something in that moment, but I didn’t understand the language of boys, and I couldn’t ask him because the moment had gone. And because I would never talk to him. Never. Was this what
boy crazy
was? Had I gone crazy at the sight of a perfect boy? Is this what happened to Angelina Jolie when she met Brad Pitt?

Of course not. Cruz was much better looking than Brad Pitt.

I took a healing breath and went back to looking at him. With his hands now in his lap, he studied them even more intently.

My mouth had dropped open, and I closed it. Then, I remembered to blink. What was I supposed to be doing before Cruz rearranged my molecules with a split-second look? Oh, yes.

I poured margarita mix, tequila, and ice into the blender, sneaking glances at Cruz the whole time. I forgot about my made-up story, too intent at looking at the real thing.

I followed the line of his muscles down his arms to his hands. Strong. I had never studied a boy before. I had never looked too closely.  It was better than the books described.

Then, it wasn’t better. In fact, it was pretty miserable. In the books, the boy looked back. In the books, the goo-goo eyes went both ways. I needed another connection and quick. I wanted more Alice down the rabbit hole. I wanted more electrical charge.

I wanted Cruz to see me.

I didn’t want to be invisible.

Donna Summer ended her song with a long, four-on-the-floor beat, and I could hear my mom and The Boyfriend stumble out of the living room.

“Uh oh,” I said and slapped on the lid and switched the
on
switch. It made a horrible grinding noise. I prayed I had put in the right amounts of margarita mix and tequila, but luckily, my mother and her guests were already halfway to sloshed and wouldn’t notice if the recipe was slightly off.

I finished just as she stepped into the kitchen, clinging to The Boyfriend with her guests trailing behind her. I backed away from the blender and skulked into the corner.

Forty-three minutes until I could go upstairs.

“Get the cups, Tess,” Mom ordered me. “The red plastic ones.”

Cruz’s head snapped up, and he looked at me like I had sprouted a couple more ears. I shuddered and tried to get my hands to work. Luckily, the fear of my mother was stronger than anything Cruz could inflict through his dreamy eyes.

I handed her the cups, and she poured drinks.

“How are you getting on?” The Boyfriend asked Cruz.

“Fine,” he said. Cruz’s voice was deep and soft. I could have listened to it forever.

“Feel free to use the pool whenever you want,” Mom sing-songed to him and gulped down a margarita like it was a 7Up.

“Thanks,” he said. “You want to?”

The second part—the question part—was directed to me. He was looking right at me, smiling, and asking me something. I willed my mouth to work.

“Uh—“ I said, finally.

Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. Emily Dickinson wasn’t dumb. Why did I have to be dumb? Why couldn’t I say something meaningful and funny? Something smart?

I cleared my throat and started again. “What?” I asked.

Dumb.

“Come on. Let’s go,” he said, putting his hand out to me.

The world stopped spinning on its axis. The tides rolled backwards, and birds fell from the sky.

Cruz’s hand levitated in the air, outstretched, waiting, and his attention was on me and nobody else. I inhaled deeply and watched as my hand took on a life of its own and slipped into his. My fingers glided over his palm, and his hand closed over mine.

Found.

He hopped off the barstool and tugged me out of the house.

“That’s better,” he said, once we were standing on the deck at the shallow end of the small pool. He pulled off his shirt and tossed it on a chair. My eyes teared up. It was like a Calvin Klein commercial had come to life minus the air brushing.

Cruz didn’t need air brushing.

I pinched myself. For the first time in my life, everything was perfect. I hadn’t even followed my bliss, but here it was in front of me, half-naked and sporting a six pack. No, an eight pack!

Bliss. Happiness.

And then just like that, it was over.

“You ready?” he asked. It was time for me to take off my shirt and reveal my side butt.

No way. No way. No. Way. I hated the bikini. I hated my side butt. How could I hide my side butt? Why was I cursed with side butt?

“Are you okay?” he asked. “You’re kind of sweaty.”

I had broken out into a huge sweat. My t-shirt was wet, and my hair had come undone from my ponytail and was sticking to my face in long, wet strips.

Eight packs had that effect on me. Also, he expected me to talk to him. He was actually paying attention to me. I didn’t know what had changed. One minute I was invisible; the next minute, he was stripping down and wanting to swim with me.

Obviously, he didn’t know about my side butt.

“After you,” I said. “It takes me a long time to get undressed.”

Dumb.

He shrugged his shoulders and stepped down into the pool. The minute he had his back turned, I ripped off my shirt and took a fast running jump into the water. I splashed down so fast that my side butt was only a blur.

Genius.

I tread water in the deep end, and Cruz breaststroked his way to me. “Nice,” he said. “I give it a nine-point-seven. Point-three off for not tucking your knees in during the cannonball entry.”

I spit out pool water like a fountain gnome. I still couldn’t believe he was speaking to me.

“You’re talking to me,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, about that,” he said. “Sorry I was giving you the cold shoulder. I thought you were Brooke Lyon, and I was a little star struck.”

“Brooke Lyon the movie star?”

“I’m kind of shy.”

“Brooke Lyon, the beautiful movie star?”

“Then, your mom called you Tess, and I realized my mistake.”

“Brooke Lyon, the beautiful movie star who was voted Best Dressed Hottie on the Red Carpet at the Emmys last year?”

“I know. Stupid,” he said, shrugging. He waded to the side and held onto the wall. I followed him.

“Do you go to Hoover High?” he asked me.

I nodded. “Brooke Lyon the runner up for Sexiest Woman Alive in Maxim magazine?”

Either I had died and had gone to heaven, or I slipped through a wormhole into another dimension where I was a dead-ringer for Brooke Lyon. Since I wasn’t particularly spiritual or a sci-fi freak, I was baffled.

“I’m going to go to Uni. It starts next week. My dad has a condo near there,” he said. “My parents had a bad breakup. I’m trying life with my father for a while,” he explained, freely telling me about his life.

He was a new kid. No wonder he was talking to me. He didn’t know I was invisible, yet. I hoped he liked wine and paella because I didn’t see a lot of Bagel Bites in his future.

“I thought you were older,” I said.

“Eighteen. Senior.”

I was sixteen and a senior, but I had skipped fifth grade, and I was turning seventeen in December.

“I’m a senior, too,” I said.

“Cool.”

Cool. I was cool. My high school status was cool. Side butt and everything…cool.

Maybe I was dead, after all.

We played together in the water for hours. We splashed each other, did three rounds of Marco Polo, and simulated water skiing where I stood on his bent legs, he held my hands, and ran around the shallow end.

Luckily, the water was cold enough that when I touched him, I didn’t burst into flames.

When we were thoroughly pickled, we got out and sat by the umbrella-covered table on the deck. We ate something called hummus with kale chips. The Boyfriend had banished onion dip and Cheetos from our property.

Getting out of the pool without Cruz seeing my mostly nakedness was harder than going in. I actually did a “Look over there!” move. He was still looking over there when I wrapped myself in a big beach towel, safely on the deck.

“Where? Where? I still can’t see the eagle,” he said while we ate kale chips.

“It flew away.”

We sat outside and talked until the disco music ended, until the sun went down, and the margaritas and beer were gone, taking the guests with them. We talked about TV and movies and kale chips. He talked about his goals in life—to be rich with a Tesla because it was sicker than a Maserati. My goals in life—Living in Paris, writing in my notebooks and miraculously sipping coffee with Hemingway, even though he had been dead for over a half of a century.

Cruz didn’t care about Paris or Hemingway, but he had a lot to say about coffee, and we talked for another thirty minutes about lattes versus mochas before my mother slinked out of the house, hanging over The Boyfriend like he had sprouted a human cape.

I could smell the alcohol wafting out of her pores from twenty feet away. The Boyfriend didn’t smell all that teetotalery either.

It had been magical, spending one-on-one time with Cruz. I didn’t even mind the burning in my gut from the hummus and kale chips. But all good things must come to an end, and my good thing ended at 8:30 that Saturday night at the end of August.