Solving for Ex (13 page)

“You know how I hate DC comics.”

He laughed, lazily, and leaned back against the pillar. He didn’t shiver at all, though his arms were now bare. “Well, then don’t look at me.”

I couldn’t not look at him if I tried. He wasn’t beautiful like Vincent, but my God. There was something about the way his shoulders sloped down into toned arms, and the way his throat moved when he swallowed. And the way he smelled, which surrounded me as I pulled the cotton button-down over my own shoulders. Like his shampoo and dryer sheets and the grapefruit I knew he ate every morning, and a little vanilla—warm and comforting. I don’t know how or why the stupid pink paisley shirt didn’t smell like some perfume that Sofia had put on there, but I was grateful.

“What are you doing out here? You’ll catch your death.”

He chuckled. “You sound like my grandmother.”

“I’m just worried about you,” I grumbled, and shivered again.

Brendan pushed himself away from the pillar and walked over to me, where I leaned against the other one. He faced me and stepped in closer, so that our feet almost touched. His breath came in white clouds that warmed my face. It was all I could do to not close my eyes.

That is, until a split second later, when the smell on his breath hit me. Sharp. Alcohol. Not beer.

But I couldn’t say anything. He was so close. Then, he reached out to rub my upper arms, and I swear, I could have shaken down to my individual molecules right there in the courtyard. I shook, but it was no longer cold. It was straight-up nervousness.

“You’re freezing,” he said, looking down at me with a slight smile on his face. With something in his eyes that I had never seen before. He studied my face, smiling bigger now, and dropped his hands, sliding his fingers down over my forearms and weaving them with mine. Warm waves ran up through my arms and back down my torso. He drew my hands toward him and put them around his waist. “Come here. Dance with me. You’ll warm up.”

“Um…okay,” I managed to stammer before he swept me up in the biggest, softest bear hug we’d ever had. We swayed together there in the freezing air of the courtyard, to a beat decidedly slower than the song playing inside.

We’d sat close before, but never pressed up against each other front-to-front. We’d certainly never hugged for this long. Brendan leaned his chin on the top of my head, and before I could even compose myself from that, kissed it softly.

I couldn’t breathe. I swore I would never take a breath again. Brendan hugged me even closer. “I love you, you know that, Ash?”

I closed my eyes. Those were the words I’d dreamed of hearing since the first week I met him. But something about this picture—Brendan in just a T-shirt in the frigid air, the sharp smell on his breath, and the way the “l” in “love” slurred just the slightest bit—it wasn’t right. This was not right.

Sadie Hawkins was not normally a dance that people brought their own beverages to, as far as I knew—kids at Mansfield saved all their serious partying for prom, when punishments would have less weight, since it was the end of the year. But Brendan had come with Sofia. She was new here. And a bitch. A rich bitch. And probably a lush, too.

“Brendan,” I sighed, “You’re drunk, aren’t you?”

“I don’t think you can get drunk on three shots, Ashley.” His voice went so soft, and husky at the same time, when he said my name, “Ashley” instead of “Ash,” that I almost wanted to believe him. Almost wanted to believe that the way he pressed my body up against his, the way his hand moved up now and played with the hair at the nape of my neck, came from real emotions, instead of fuzzy ones. I knew about beer goggles, and I tried to tell myself that these were just stupid three-shot feelings.

“You, Brendan? Absolutely can. It’s not like you’re pounding down drinks every weekend like some of the kids here do.”

“You were going to ask me, weren’t you?”

I rolled my eyes. Why couldn’t he stick to the topic? “Why does it matter? Sofia asked first.”

Brendan laughed. “Yeah, she did. And she wasn’t taking no for an answer.”

I tried to figure out what the tone in Brendan’s voice, the edge to his words, meant. Obviously, he thought Sofia was cute, from the way he looked at her. But the way he held me told me that he didn’t only have eyes for her. Maybe. I hoped, even against my brain, which screamed at me that Vincent was the one I should logically be swooning over. Somehow, no matter how hard I tried, it kept coming back to Brendan.

“But you’re having a pretty good time with Vince, huh?”

“Vince?”

“Yeah. He seems like a good guy.” Again. The “d” slurred. Great.

I leaned back and looked at him, shaking my head a little bit. Once again, I had no idea what to say. What the heck was wrong with me? Since when had I cared about saying anything to Brendan?

When I looked out over his shoulder, my eyes met Sofia’s. She was wearing the same damn shirt I was, now. And she was pissed.

Then I knew since when. Since he went to Sadie with stupid Sofia. Since he was no longer all mine.

“Dance the rest of this song with me, huh, Ash?” he asked, his voice still husky. And then I couldn’t help it. I let his warmth wash over me, and stood on tiptoes, swaying with him there, and leaned my chin on his shoulder. And looked straight at Sofia, staring at me from the damn punch table.

Annoyance flashed through her eyes. She leaned in and whispered something in Britt’s ear, and started walking straight toward us. She’d be here in ten seconds.

I stepped back, wrenching myself away from Brendan’s bear hug, even with every fiber of my being wanting to stay there all night. I yanked my arms out of his shirt.

“Hey, what’s up?” The softness in his voice was wearing off. I shoved the shirt into his waiting hands and mumbled something about needing to meet Vincent.

Sofia and I crossed paths, and I stopped for a second to avoid bumping into her. She plastered on the most fake smile I’d ever seen, and reflexively, I fake-smiled in return.

“He’s a little tipsy,” I said.

“That’s just why I was coming out here,” Sofia said. Her breath smelled like alcohol, too, but her eyes were clear and her voice was a little too perky for my liking, or for this conversation, for that matter.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“I think Vincent was looking for you.”

I locked my eyes with hers. “Are you okay?” I asked again, articulating each word. Brendan may have been acting ten kinds of confusing, but I wasn’t going to let Sofia drive him home if she had been drinking too much.

“Yeah.” She nodded, meeting my eyes, then looking at Brendan. The plastic smile came back. “You don’t need to worry about him anymore, okay?”

I blew out a shaky breath. The only way she would say that, with so much steadiness and challenge in her voice, was if she knew I’d be tempted to step up to it. If she knew I wanted Brendan too.

And now that she was with him, now that she had staked her claim to him, at least tonight, I couldn’t afford to do that. Not when I still had so few friends, and so many potential enemies. And considering her insta-popularity.

She could crush me. And then I wouldn’t only lose another school, I’d lose Brendan too.

I turned on my heel, stalked back inside, and I didn’t even feel the cold. A blizzard could be going on, and I’d melt a bubble around me just from the heat in my cheeks, and the heat that burned in my chest.

I only made it a few feet inside before Vincent found me.

“Hey,” he called. “Ashley!” His voice was equal parts relieved, happy, and concerned. His eyes danced. Did they do that for everyone, or just for me? Because whenever they were on me, I felt like they didn’t look at anyone else quite that same way. He didn’t grab me. Didn’t step closer. Didn’t pressure me at all.

“Wanna dance?”

My eyes narrowed at Brendan and Sofia, standing outside. She was saying something to him, playing with his hair again, or complaining about it—it was hard to tell. But she squealed, and smacked at his wrist for something, but then caught his arm and wrapped it around her waist. I rolled my eyes. I couldn’t look anymore. Not tonight. Not when I knew Brendan wasn’t even really himself.

Not when I knew that drinking at all wasn’t his real self.

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

if one scheme of happiness fails

Sadie Hawkins night ended as uneventfully as any high school dance night possibly could. I got bored, and kids started heading to after-parties, or whatever. Vincent must have understood by my body language or something that I didn’t want to go, and he didn’t ask. He walked me to the limo, let me in, laughed with me about how lame the Snowball and all the other games Sofia brought up throughout the course of the night to get people dancing were, and that was that.

The whole night, Vincent didn’t dance with anyone else. Didn’t talk to another girl, didn’t bring another girl punch, even. One hundred percent true to his promise.

“I think you made your point, you know,” I said, interrupting his calm stare out the window.

“What do you mean?”

“You can hang out with other people. I think the other girls have quit hating my guts for holding your hand.”

It was true. I got a couple glances dancing with Vincent, but overall, no one had seemed to care that we were together.

Were we together?

With four words, Vincent broke my thoughts. “I don’t want to.”

I laughed. “What do you mean, you don’t want to? Don’t tell me you’re some kind of introverted, antisocial freak.” Like me.

“No. No, I like partying just fine, hanging out with other kids. But I like hanging out with you way more. And if partying isn’t your thing…”

He leaned over to me, reached his fingers out, and let them brush against mine. The warmth of his touch sent a calm through me, a steadiness I hadn’t felt in a long time. My fingers reached back to tangle with his. Yes, something about this was nice. Solid. Adoring.

But it wasn’t real, because I barely knew Vincent, and all things considered—dinner, limo, and gorgeous smile—I had no idea how I felt about him. The only thing I knew was that I still had feelings for Brendan. Despite Sofia, despite the drinking. Even despite him ignoring me.

I extracted my fingers from his and leaned back against the seat, staring out the window, plastering a smile on my face so I didn’t look as shaken as I felt.

“Look, Ashley. I know.”

“Know what?”

“About Brendan.”

I looked down at my hands, my fingers folded together. Like they could be with Vincent’s if I’d just let him. And there was really no reason why not.

“What about him?”

Vincent smiled that gentle, patient smile that brought out his dimple ever so slightly. “I know you like him. A lot. I could tell by the way you danced together.”

Unfortunately, so could I.

“I can also tell that he likes my sister. Like, a lot. I’m a guy, okay? Even though it’s my sister, and that’s weird, I see these things.”

I wanted to say that she didn’t give him much of a chance not to like her, that she was always all over him. I tried to remember if I had even gotten a word in edgewise with Brendan at school since she’d first arrived at Mansfield Prep.

Then I remembered that Brendan was definitely his own person, who could have made time to hang out with me if he had really wanted to.

And as much as I suspected holding hands with Vincent wouldn’t bring me the kind of thrill I’d always gotten bumping shoulders with Brendan, I couldn’t think of any good reason not to give him more of a chance, either.

So instead of saying anything, I bit my bottom lip to keep it from trembling. I also happened to know from looking in the mirror the other day that I looked pretty sexy doing that. I immediately released it.

God, I was a mess.

“No pressure. Because honestly, I like you a lot. You’re pretty, you’re sweet. You’re hella smart, and you always make me laugh. You can eat like nobody’s business. And I love how much you love that camera of yours.”

I stared at him. No high school guy should be this forthcoming with his feelings. He liked me. And he told me. And for the handful of seconds that I sat there thinking that, I realized how much I liked that.

I would have killed for Brendan to tell me how he felt in so many words. I’d pay to hear it.

“You know what I think? I think you’re so afraid of the past repeating itself that you’re afraid to live in the present. I know it sucks to get bullied. Okay, well maybe I don’t know, but I can imagine. And I’m really sorry that happened to you.”

“Yeah,” I scoffed, as I bit my lower lip, holding back tears.

“Really, I am. Anyway, whether you like me or not is beside the point. Even though I want you to.”

My cheeks felt warm, and I looked up at him. He gazed at me with a kind smile on his face. “The point is…you’re a junior in high school. A new high school, where the same shit won’t happen. Things won’t be this easy ever again. Let yourself enjoy stuff, Ashley. Let me help you.”

Just then, the limo pulled up to my house. I smiled at him. I wanted him to know that I appreciated him, even if I wasn’t ready to be as close to him as he wanted me to be. There was just something about him that told me to keep him at arm’s length. “Thank you,” I said, “for tonight. For everything. It was fun.”