Searching for Neverland (11 page)

Josh put his arm around me then and squeezed me close to him. “I know you’re just holding out for me, Tay. It’s okay. It’s why I love you.” Then he kissed me on the cheek – a big, wet, sloppy kiss that felt more like a dog was kissing me.

“Ugh! Get off,” I said, trying to push him off of me. 

Across the table Corey and Kyle were laughing, so I glared at them, but I realized even Allison was having a hard time fighting off the giggles, so I tried to mentally take a step back and view Josh from their perspective.

“Not until you tell me you love me, too,” Josh said then.

“Fine, Josh, I love you, too,” I said, exasperated enough to humor him.

“So, you could never really be mad at me, right?” he prompted.

“Whatever, fine. I’m not mad.”

“Okay, good,” he said, releasing me and smiling widely.

I shot a look at Allison. She was openly laughing now.

“Do
you
want to take care of him tonight?” I asked her.

“No way,” she said, backing up slightly and waving her hand
s. “He’s all yours. I’m going
back to Corey’s.”

“Thanks for the support. Love you for it.”

She blew me a kiss.

*
*
*

Right around one-thirty, I decided that I was finally ready to go. Across from me, Allison was yawning and asking Corey and Kyle if they could leave, so our little party disbanded. Lucky me, I was stuck with my practically falling over roommate. 

As we walked to his jeep, I thought I might just be able to have a little fun at his expense. I desperately wanted to get back at him for being an ass in front of Nathan. He was leaning on me as we walked and had his slung arm around my shoulders.

“So, it sucks that Kimmy didn’t call, huh?” I asked, smiling to myself.

“Fuck her,” he slurred. “She’s a bitch.”

Thank God, he finally realized it.

“Oh yeah?” I asked, knowing I should stop, but this was sort of entertaining. I rarely got to see this side of him. He seemed very vulnerable to me.

“No, not really,” he said, sounding sad all of a sudden. We reached his jeep at that moment, so I opened the passenger door for him and stood behind him to make sure he didn’t fall getting in.

“Put your seatbelt on,” I told him, as I got in on the other side. “Can you hand me my hat?”

“Here you go, Mom,” he said, laughing at his joke as he handed me the UF hat that I’d stuffed under the seat when we’d gotten out earlier in the evening. 

Irritated at his comment, I pulled my hair into a ponytail and shoved the hat on my head.

“I am not your mother,” I said, as I backed out of the parking space. I stole a glance over at him. He was leaning back against the seat, but his head was turned toward me, his hair blowing in the breeze from the open top.

“I know you’re not,” he said, sounding very southern. “You’re way to pretty to be my mother.”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever, drunk-ass.”

I drove slowly out of the parking lot, while Josh fiddled with the radio. He was flipping stations, not satisfied with anything. I sighed and hoped we’d get home soon. He finally settled on an old
Rihanna
song and
turned it up louder than it needed to be.

Mercifully, we only lived a few miles away, so we got home quickly. And the fresh air must have sobered him a little, because as we walked inside, he wasn’t falling all over me anymore. I took that as a good sign. He shocked me, though, when he walked over to the fridge and pulled out not one, but two beers. By my count, he’d had sixteen already. The boy was wasted. He did not need to keep drinking.

“You’re drinking more?”

“No,
we’re
drinking more,” he said, handing one to me. I took it from him, giving him an odd look. “You barely drank anything tonight. I’m drinking more, so you’re staying up with me.”

“I kind of just want to go to bed,” I said, as I attempted to hand the beer back to him.

“Come on, Swift,” he whined. “My girlfriend stood my up tonight. Be a friend and drink with me. Please?”

“Fine,” I said begrudgingly.

We settled on the couch, but didn’t turn the TV on. Josh put the stereo on instead, and I had to remind him that we had neighbors when he turned the volume way up
, blasting a cheesy One
Direction song
.
Josh had a penchant for pop music when he’d been drinking. It was a sickness.

“Oops,” he said, as he turned it back down and came to sit right beside me on the couch. He sat so close that his whole body was flush against mine.
“This song makes me think of you.”

I laughed out loud. “That’s sweet, Josh. Thank you,” I said sarcastically.

His face scrunched up in frustration. “I’m serious. You’re beautiful.”

“And you’re drunk.”

He grinned. “This is true.”

I took a sip of my beer, but it no longer tasted good. I could just pretend to drink it to humor him. He’d probably pass out soon anyway, and then I could go to bed. 

“Hey, watch it,” I said, as he bumped into me, and I felt beer spill down my chin and onto my lap.

“Oh, sorry,” he said, as I wiped my chin clean.

I set the beer down on the coffee table. I didn’t want it, and it was turning into a liability.

Josh let his head fall onto my shoulder for a few seconds which made me laugh. He was seriously in rare form. I should have videotaped him.

He popped his head back up, and I could tell he was looking at me. “Taylor,” he whispered, even though we were the only people in the room.

I turned my head to face him, muffling a laugh as I did. He was downright hilarious. He was looking at me expectantly.

“Yes, Josh,” I said, humoring him.

“You’re my favorite,” he said, and I had no idea what he was talking about.

“You’re favorite what?”

“My favorite person,” he sighed.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, and I think it would be really cool if you were my partner.”

I narrowed my eyes at him, having no clue what he was talking about. “Your what?”

“My partner. At the bar. I didn’t tell you,” he slurred, his eyes hooding even further. “I’m buying O’Donnell’s, and I want you to be my partner.”

“Josh, what are you talking about?”

I wasn’t sure if he was being serious. Was Stu selling the bar? If he was, it was the first I was hearing about it.

Josh pushed his finger against my chest. “You and me,” he said, ever cryptic.

“You and me what, sweetie?” I clarified, taking a more passive tone with him.

“Mmm-hmm,” he said, definitely not answering my question. “Because I love you.”

“I know you do. You told me earlier, remember. Now what were you saying about the bar?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I really love you.”

He had an intense look on his face that had me suddenly fearing that what he said was true. I was trying to figure out if he was being serious, so I didn’t notice that he’d been getting closer to
me. Before I knew what was happening, his mouth was on mine and he was kissing me. It was a full on kiss that had so much force and surprise behind it that I didn’t pull back in time. When I finally realized how I should have reacted, he had pulled away from me and was smiling.

“I love you,” he said again, as his head fell to my shoulder. I felt his whole weight against me, so I knew he had passed out.

Aww crap,
was all I could think.

Chapter 5

The next afternoon, I hung out at the pool at Corey’s condo with Allison to avoid seeing Josh. I had no idea if he’d even remember kissing me, but I wanted to avoid a potentially awkward conversation if I could.
I had a feeling he’d just been drunk, and I really, really hoped that was the case. Anything else would just complicate things, and I didn’t want that. I was good with the way things were between us.

He’d
still been asleep on the couch when I’d left our house at noon
, so thankfully I got to put off talking to him. But another part of me sort of wanted to find out what he’d been saying about buying
O’Donnell’s and wanting me to be his partner
. Had that been legitimate? T
hen again he’d been really drunk when he’d asked, so I couldn’t put much stock in his question. But that would be really cool, and it would solve my job problems. I’d
wait to see if
he brought it up when we finally talked
– if we could get past the embarrassing situation of him kissing me first, of course.

I was stretched out on my pool chair, and was almost asleep, when my phone rang. My heart launched itself into my throat, and I panicked that it was Josh. I let out a huge sigh when I saw it was my youngest brother, Tanner.

“Hey T,” I said cheerfully. “What’s up?”

“I won my game, Taylor!”

“Dude, that’s awesome,” I said, sitting up straighter. “How did you play?”

I adored my brother. He was only eleven and an ‘oops’ that my parents announced to us right at the start of my senior year of high school. Never in a million years had I thought it was even possible that my parents could have more kids, but my mother was thirty-nine when she had him, so it wasn’t improbable, just unexpected – for all of us.

But Tanner had arrived in the spring, and I’m not sure there was ever a baby more adored than he was. He was so tiny and cute, and I tried to cram in as much big sister time as I could before I left for college in the fall. Since I’d moved back to Ta
mpa after graduation, I made
a
point to spend time with him whenever I could. I knew it was hard for him being the youngest of four siblings, so I never wanted him to feel disconnected from the rest of us.

And we were all so much older than him. My sister was twenty-two, and my brother, Trey, was nineteen, so Tanner really was the baby of the family. And he’d had an especially rough year adjusting to Trey leaving home.
Trey ha
d started school at UF the previous fall, and Tanner hated it. He and Trey were close, and he idolized his big brother. I tried to make up for
it, but it just wasn’t the same. And
now that Taryn was back living in Tampa, I knew she was doing what she could to fill the void, as well.

And Tanner was a cool kid, so we loved to hang out with him. He was an awesome baseball player, he did really well in school, and he was really stinkin’ cute. My dad had complained constantly about the girls who called the house at all hours asking for him, so he finally got Tanner a cell phone, so the home phone wasn’t always tied up. And if Tanner was anything like Trey, the calls wouldn’t ever stop, so it was probably a good call on my dad’s part. Girls loved Trey, and Tanner looked like a younger version of him.

“I pitched a no hitter!” he bragged. “We totally creamed them.”

He was playing on a Little League All-Star team, and his team was really good.

“So, I guess I owe you that Xbox game, huh?”

I’d promised him the year before if he ever threw a no hitter, I’d buy him a video game. He’d pitched two already, and this was his third. He was making out like a bandit.

“I want the new
Call of Duty
,” he said quickly.

“Tanner, you are too young for that game,” I heard my mother say in the background.

“Mom,” he whined.

“Let him have the game, Liz,” my dad chimed in, and it made me feel like I was right there in the car with them.

“No, Rick, he’s too young.”

“Mom, Braden and Stewart got it. Why can’t I have it?” Tanner whined, and I couldn’t help but smile.

“I’ll buy it for you, buddy,” I told him.

“You will?!” he shrieked, and I had to pull the phone away from my ear. “Mom, Taylor said she’d get it for me.”

“She what? Give me that phone.”

Uh-oh.

“Taylor, you are not buying him that game,” my mother chastised as soon she had the phone in her hands.

“Mom,” I said, aiming for reason. “His two best friends have it. He’s going play it their house. It’s inevitable. Let me buy it for him. Please. He worked really hard. He deserves it.”

She paused for a few seconds, no doubt contemplating what I’d told her. Then she sighed loudly. “Fine.”

“Yes!” I heard Tanner shout from the backseat. “Can she come for dinner tomorrow? Can she? She can bring the game, and we can all play it.”

I laughed out loud, and so did my mother. We all knew that I’d be there for dinner. As much as we hadn’t ever intended to, we had spoiled Tanner from day one. He had us all wrapped around his finger and knew just how to get what he wanted.

“I’ll be there,” I told my mom. “Tell him I’ll bring his game and we’ll play it after we eat. He’ll probably kick my butt, but that’s fine.”