Suddenly, I could breathe. Suddenly, I could think. Suddenly, I was me again. And I was head over heels in love with Trace.
My heartbeat slowed inside the confines of my chest. Gone was the thrill and the excitement and the lure of power. Exhilaration and pleasure of another kind flooded me. My heart swelled with it, thumped furiously with it. My blood pulsed with it, flowed vigorously with it. It crashed over my body like a musical crescendo washing away all traces of anything but him.
As I’d done once before, I turned inside the grip of Trace’s long fingers. I looked up into his golden eyes and became lost for a few seconds, also as I’d done once before.
But then I saw him, really saw him. Though he was carefully concealed, I got a glimpse of the Trace that had been so open with me the night before. I saw past his devotion to my brother, past my own insecurities, past all that seemed impossible and improbable, and I peered into the depths of the real Trace—the one he kept hidden from his friends, from his classmates, the one he kept hidden from casual inspection. For a moment, I got to see what he’d been playing so close to the vest. For a moment, I got to see what he really thought, what he really felt. For a moment, I got to see that he loved me.
And then it was gone.
“He’s in the hall in front of his bedroom,” I answered, not even having to look to see where Brady was. I knew. I remembered from the night before.
With his next words, words I was expecting because I’d heard them only hours before, Trace was back to his familiar, light-hearted, teasing, guarded form. But he didn’t fool me. I’d seen his secret. I’d seen what he was hiding. And I’d never forget it.
“What’s he doing back there, getting his bat so he can fight off your suitors?”
Falling right back into our playful dialogue, I rolled my eyes and snorted embarrassingly. Again.
“Yep. That’s exactly what he’s doing. Didn’t you see the line out the door? They’re out en force tonight. And this bunch is particularly unruly.”
After the rest of our short conversation and Trace’s subsequent exit from it, I spun toward Lacey. She had just raised her hand to wipe at my lip, as I’d done to her earlier, and my quick adjustment startled her.
“Holy crap!” she exclaimed, grabbing her chest. “You’re such a spazz today!”
I couldn’t help but grin. It was a thousand wonders that spazzing was all I was doing. I’d earned much, much more than that, maybe something along the lines of a nervous breakdown.
Shaking my head in an effort to get my thoughts back on track, I scrambled to formulate some kind of plan, some way around the heated demise of Trace and Brady’s friendship. The only thing I could think of was to instigate something that had a longstanding history of bringing about intense male bonding between my brother and his best friend. The first thing that came to mind was a friendly competition, so I went with it.
Turning from Lacey, I weaved and wiggled my way to the periphery of the room where I stepped up onto the coffee table that had been pushed aside earlier by the two very men that I was trying to protect.
“All right, who thinks they can outdrink the two birthday boys? Longest tap hit wins a…a…” I stammered, not having put nearly enough forethought and planning into my wager. Unfortunately, I panicked and blurted out, “a kiss!”
CHAPTER SIX
As I glanced around the big open room, I saw the heads of both Trace and Brady whip toward me. It was then that what I’d said, what I’d done finally set in. It was then that I felt my cheeks burn with the flames of a thousand candles.
For a moment, all I could think was,
Why would anyone want to kiss you, Peyton?
But then, much to my surprise, most of the males in the room started clapping and making all sorts of strange, guy-noises of approval, chanting my name. They shuffled quickly into a line that pointed directly to the keg where it sat in the kitchen.
Suddenly, I felt queasy. I glanced first at Lacey, who was watching me with eyes wide and mouth agape, then I looked up and my gaze collided with Trace’s.
His warm, glittering eyes were guarded, enigmatic. Catching the tiniest bit of movement, my eyes dropped to his mouth. Ever so slightly, Trace’s lips twitched at the corners right before he slapped my brother on the shoulder and began moving through the crowd. As he made his way toward the kitchen, his eyes kept straying to me where I stood, stupefied, on the coffee table at the opposite end of the room.
Once the actual competition began, I silently commended myself for the stroke of genius in initiating it. Trace and Brady were getting along beautifully and my glance at the clock assured me it was well past midnight. Whatever other idiotic things I’d done or said were peanuts in comparison to keeping the peace between them.
I ended up keeping my post atop the coffee table. It provided someone with my stature a bird’s eye view of the festivities in the kitchen, as I could see the keg right through the door.
“All right, who’s next?” Brady asked, scanning the dwindling line of challengers. Nearly every male at the party had participated, none able to best Brady’s time. He even agreed to let them go twice if they felt like they could do better, and many did. But not a single one could outdo Brady.
My brother, the burgeoning alcoholic
, I thought snidely. Not for one second, though, did I believe that Brady had a problem. I would never joke about something so serious if I thought he was in danger of losing control.
When no one responded, I saw Trace move away from his position leaning against the bar behind Brady.
“Well if none of you pansies can beat Brady’s time, I guess it’s up to me. Can’t have him kissing his own sister now, can we?” he teased, his eyes finding mine over the heads of the crowd. He winked almost imperceptibly and my stomach did a flip. Was he actually
trying
to win so he could kiss me? Did he think he could get away with it without making Brady mad that way?
The more I thought of it, the more genius it sounded. Maybe it would work. Maybe Brady would see it as a part of the game and not be upset by it. But if he didn’t…
My blood began to warm at the mere prospect of Trace’s lips on mine, even if it was in a crowded room with my brother and my best friend looking on. With Trace, I’d take whatever I could get.
“I’ll give it a shot,” a deep voice called from behind me.
All eyes, including mine, turned toward the door. Standing just inside it, obviously having only recently arrived, was none other than Adam Queen. My ex.
“Queen! What up, man?” Brady exclaimed happily, motioning him forward.
With a smile, Adam nodded, moving through the crowd to approach my brother where he stood in the kitchen. They’d always gotten along well and Brady had been very upset with me when I’d dumped Adam in the middle of our freshman year. Of course, this guy looked nothing like the first guy I’d ever kissed all those years ago. This Adam was…grown.
The two embraced in one of those manly guy-type hugs, which was nothing more than a couple of fisted thumps to each other’s back for five seconds before they moved apart.
“You back?” Brady asked.
“Just until graduation.”
“Better than not at all, right dude? Besides, that’s the best part.”
For a couple of minutes, as others began to recognize Adam, there was a bit of a reunion. But then Adam’s dark brown eyes found mine where I stood, hovering over every other person in the room. He smiled, a wide smile that spoke of his pleasure at seeing me. I fumbled through returning the gesture, not feeling quite comfortable with his reaction since I’d basically broken his heart. It appeared, however, that Adam was very much over it. He’d grown up—quite nicely, in fact—and had obviously moved past our break-up.
“Looking good, P,” he teased with a nod of his head. He’d always called me “P” as well. In fact, it was during our brief relationship that Brady had begun calling me that, so I couldn’t really be sure Adam hadn’t been the one to start it.
All eyes swung toward me and I blushed furiously. I thought my face would surely burst into flame. How I wasn’t incinerated on the spot was beyond me.
“Omigod, Peyton! Is that Adam Queen?”
Thankfully, Lacey had appeared at my side, providing me with a much needed distraction.
“Yep. None other.”
Mouth slightly agape, her eyes bounced between Adam and me several times before they settled on me.
“What is the matter with you? How could you give that up?”
We both glanced back toward the now-drinking Adam. His hair, though longer, was still the same rich, dark chestnut and his eyes were still the same nearly-black brown. It was the rest of his face, however, that seemed to have settled into a much more pleasing placement. His features seemed to have found the perfect shape and spot, raising him from “meh” to “wow” in the space of three short years.
“Well, partly because ‘that’ didn’t look like that when I gave it up,” I explained. “But seriously, Lace, you remember how obnoxious he was. That was the biggest problem.”
“Well, he doesn’t look that obnoxious anymore,” Lacey noted as we watched Adam laugh and cut up with the people around him. Charm and charisma practically oozed from his pores.
The crowd erupted just then and lots of back-slapping ensued. And the back most being slapped was Adam’s.
“Well, pull my leg and call me Lucy,” Lacey giggled over the commotion.
“That can’t mean what I think it means.”
She turned to me with a devilish smile on her lips and a mischievous gleam in her eye. “I think you’ve got yourself a winner, Peyton.”
“No!”
Lacey shrugged, unconcerned. “Should’ve thought of the consequences before you offered yourself up like a blue ribbon at the county fair.”
While it’s true that I hadn’t given my rash announcement a second’s thought, I’d begun to hope that Trace would win and the whole thing would turn out to be a dream come true. But, as was the case with most everything in life, my plan had backfired. Horribly.
“You know I don’t think, Lacey! Why didn’t you stop me?”
Lacey laughed. “Like I could’ve. First of all, I had no idea you were gonna do something stupid. Secondly, I probably wouldn’t have even if I had known. It’s way too much fun watching you work your way out of these precludaments.”
I assumed Lacey meant
predicaments,
as
precludaments
wasn’t even a word. At least not in English. But her terrible vocabulary was the least of my worries. Casting her a quelling sidelong glance, I turned my attention back to the activity in the kitchen. The mood was still light and now the other guys near Adam were pushing him toward the doorway, toward the living room. Toward me.
I watched as Adam made his way closer, his eyes locked on mine, a teasing yet anticipatory light glinting in their dark depths. My mouth went dry. Why, I didn’t know. And it wasn’t the good kind of dry, like I was nervous or anxious. It was a dry born of dread, but I wasn’t sure why. He was more attractive than I’d ever dreamed he could be. He seemed much more pleasant than he ever had. And yet, there was something I couldn’t quite put my finger on that gave me pause. Maybe it was my feelings for Trace.
Just then, as if reading my mind and my level of discomfort, I heard Trace speak up from the bowels of the kitchen.
“Not so fast, Queen!”
For the space of a single second, a hush fell across the room as Adam turned to look back at Trace. I saw Trace step up to the keg and grab the black hose from Brady, causing the other guys in the room to yell and whistle their support of the thrown gauntlet.