Unlit Star (16 page)

And he kisses me again.

“ARE YOU A VIRGIN?”

I frown at the pages of the book I am holding between my hands, glancing up. “Wow. Way to be tactful. No really, just blurt it out out of nowhere.”

“Sorry.” Rivers taps his fingers against the wrought iron patio table, squinting against the sunlight hitting him, despite the umbrella above us. He doesn't sound sorry. He sounds and looks agitated. “I've been wondering for weeks and I didn't see any good way of asking it, so...are you?”

“No.” His eyebrows furrow and I laugh, setting the book down. “Not the answer you were expecting?”

“Honestly, I think no matter if you had said yes or no, I would have been surprised.”

“Why's that?”

He frowns as he ponders my words. “I don't know. I guess because in some ways you seem innocent and in other ways you seem worldly.”

“Hmm.” I turn to the crystal liquid of the pool. It looks tranquil, undisturbed.

“Who was it?”

“I am
not
answering that!” I lightly punch his shoulder and he grunts.

“Why not? I'll tell you who I slept with.”

“
Everyone
knows who you slept with.” Bitterness creeps into my tone, putting a sour taste in my mouth. I am annoyed that it upsets me more that Rivers was with Riley than it does that Riley was a bitch to me all through middle and high school. Where is the logic in
that
?

“Yeah, but they don't know she was the only one.”

“Yeah, right,” I scoff. Rivers only having sex with one female? Incomprehensible.

“Riley cheated on me. I never returned the favor. I never got serious enough with anyone else for it to come to that,” he tells me softly. The somber cast to his expression gives me pause and I know he is telling the truth. He has no reason to lie anyway.

“Why did you take her back, knowing she did that?” Was it some great love others can only hope to have? Doubtful.

“I don't know. I guess because she needed me. I did care about her. I even loved her, in a way. Riley doesn't mean a lot of what she does. She can be horrible at times, but I understand her and why she is the way she is. She's scared. And when you're scared, you do things you wouldn't normally do. Sure, I didn't feel the same for her after that. How could I? But I didn't want her to think she was unforgivable.”

His words make me hate Riley a little less, and at the same time, a little more. I sigh, deciding I can be honest too. “It was Jeff Monroe. The whole experience was uncomfortable and forgettable.”

“
Jeff Monroe?
That guy is a serious dumbass.” Rivers shakes his head at me. “I mean,
really
? Jeff Monroe?”

“Yes. I realize that Jeff Monroe was not the best choice to have sex with. I was there. I remember how it all played out,” I answer dryly.

“Why'd you do it then?” He sounds angry and I wonder if he is jealous. Crazy. Of course, I'm jealous of the person he had sex with, so I guess we're equally insane.

I shrug, faking a nonchalance I do not feel. It's embarrassing, really. The first time is supposed to be special and with someone you love. Mine was with a guy I didn't really like or know all too well. The alcohol I'd consumed at the party that night didn't help with my decision-making skills. He was sitting there and I was sitting there and it just sort of happened. I felt dirty and cheap for a long time after that. I feel it even more right now, thinking about it, especially compared to how I feel about Rivers and how it would feel with Rivers. It would mean something. It would mean everything, which means it would mean too much. I have not fully admitted my feelings for him to myself, although I have, at least, admitted I have them.

“That's your answer? To
shrug
?”

“Well, at least I didn't say
sigh
.”

He moves away, situating himself in a patio chair farther away from me.

“You did not just physically shun me.”

Rivers' response is to glare into the lapping water of the pool. I want to laugh at the same time I want to roll my eyes, but then I really look at him. He is actually upset over this, over who I had sex with, or maybe that I ever had sex with anyone, or maybe that it wasn't with him, or...isn't.

His body is tense, his lips pulled down and fire blazing in his eyes, but I can see beyond the anger. I can see into him and I can see he is angry because he cares about me, and oh, if that doesn't pull at something deep inside me. Looking at him, taking in his stance and the pure energy that is him, I feel poignancy wash over me, but there is sweetness to it as well. And desire. Yeah, I want him. I admit it, and not just a little, but
a lot
. He is this beautiful, dark creature that is consuming me the longer I am around him.

“Why are you so mad?” I quietly ask, moving to stand near him.

“I honestly don't know,” he admits, glancing up at me. He shakes his head and sighs, looking down at his clasped hands.

“You know what I think?”

“What?” he asks with hesitation clear in his voice.

“I think we should go shopping.”

“For?”

“I don't know. Whatever we want.”

“You know what I think?”

“What?”

He looks up at me. “I think you're terribly obvious when you're trying to change the subject.”

“Duh.” I grin.

Rivers gets to his feet. “Do you like steak?”

“Now who's changing the subject?”

“Steaks on the grill sound good.” He puts his hands on his hips and studies the fancy stainless steel grill across the deck. “Do you think we can manage it without starting anything on fire?”

“I guess we won't know until we try.”

He snorts. “I guess. We need to go to the store.”

“We? As in you and me? In public again? Together? Are you sure you want to chance it? Someone might recognize us.”

He looks up at the sky. “Why did my mom have to hire such a smartass to babysit me?” Glancing at me, he answers, “Depends on if you're going to put on a big show again or not.”

“I'll try to contain my theatrical tendencies.”

“And I'll try not to fall on my face while attempting to walk.”

I thread my arm through his as we walk toward the house. “Do you know how unbelievably awesome we are?”

Rivers pauses as he glances down at me, secrets and emotions unable to be kept hidden floating in the depths of his eyes. “I do now.”

We take the Charger. He lets me drive. I can tell he regrets that decision when I roll the windows down, crank the stereo up, and maneuver us through traffic like I am a race car driver. 'It's Tricky' by RUN-DMC is on the radio and I whoop, fist pumping the air.

“This song is amazing!” I shout to Rivers over the force of the wind, bopping in the seat as I drive.

“You are absolutely out of your mind!” he tells me, but he's laughing.

I pull into the parking lot of Market Fresh and cut the engine, grinning out the front window. Letting my head fall against the headrest, I laugh as my heart pounds from the exhilarating ride. “I love this car.”

Rivers doesn't respond and I turn my head to look at him. He is watching me with a strange expression on his face. His eyes never leave mine as he ever so slowly brings his rough hand to my cheekbone and lets his fingers slide down the side of my face. My breathing becomes shallow, the rise and fall of my chest fast and deep.

“What are you thinking?”

His eyes fall to my mouth. He focuses on the dip and curve of my lips as he answers, “I'm thinking I'm glad I fell into the water that day.” He looks up, holding my eyes.

“You're thankful your legs are a mess, your face is scarred, and your life has been changed forever?” I keep my tone dubious, but I really, really want him to say yes. I guess that makes me selfish.

“You're here, aren't you?”

“Yes,” I breathe.

“And you don't care about what I look like, do you?”

“No.”

“In fact, you think I'm pretty hot.” Half of his mouth lifts.

I roll my eyes. “Upon occasion. When your mouth is shut, usually.”

He laughs, but immediately sobers. “Knowing that makes me think maybe I'm not so bad the way I am. I'm okay not being perfect.”

“You were never perfect.”

“But close,” he tells me, his lips turning up at the corners.

There is this giddy, sick, swirly feeling starting in my stomach and bubbling up to my throat. I want to laugh. I want to toss my head back and shout from the pressure of it. What is it? As I stare at Rivers, unable to keep a smile from my face, I think I know what it is. It's him. He makes me feel this way. He makes me look past all the crap that has the power to bring me to my knees if I let it, and he makes me strong enough to stand. I think that's what I do for him as well. I'm not even going to try to figure out why.

I turn in the seat to face him, reaching my hand forward and letting it caress the length of his marred flesh. Tenderness washes through me and I know it shows in my expression. “You should be proud of your scars, and you know why? Because your scars tell the world that you were stronger than whatever gave them to you.”

“What about you? Where are your scars?”

I look away, my hand falling to my lap. “Mine are where you can't see them.”

“So they run deeper than mine.”

“Deeper? Maybe, maybe not. Are they any more significant than yours? No. We all have scars, Rivers, in some form or another. Yours are just more visible than some. Doesn't mean they hurt any less.”

He tilts his head. “You know what I think I like the best about you?”

I squint my eyes at him. “What?”

“You make me think.” He opens the door, carefully shifting his body out and up.

I meet him at the side of the car, unconsciously reaching for his hand. I don't realize what I have done until his hand is lifting to mine. Without hesitation, he threads his fingers through mine—naturally, without thought. I look down at our clasped hands and then up to his face. Rivers has a faint smile on his mouth. He is unapologetic. That hits me hard, shattering through whatever lingering doubt I had about the popular boy falling for the loner girl. What we were in high school doesn't even matter to him. The emotions I have for him grow, deepen.

I hold his hand tightly, feeling the warmth of it move up my arm until it is like I am cocooned in all of his heat. I am ablaze with Rivers. I sing the lyrics to 'Piano Man' by Billy Joel as we walk to the store and he joins in, surprising me that he knows the song, and that his deep voice harmonizes so well with my higher one. I go to drop his hand when we get to the tan and brown building and he grips my hand harder, telling me without words that he refuses to let me go.

Our eyes meet, his fierce and determined, and I spontaneously kiss his nose. He does something really crazy then. He drops my hand long enough to cup my face and he kisses me, right in the entrance of Market Fresh, in public, for anyone and everyone to see. It isn't a quick kiss. It isn't a sweet kiss. It's deep and long and powerful. It makes my stomach swoop and my lips tingle as I get lost in Rivers, forgetting where we are, forgetting the world around us.

It's the whistling that finally reaches through the fog of my brain. We break apart, smiling at each other. How long we smile at one another, I do not know, but my face feels unusually warm and my mouth hurts from the wideness of it, so it must be for quite some time.

“We should probably go inside,” Rivers finally tells me.

“Yeah.”

I feel half-drugged as we walk up and down the aisles. It's chilly inside the store and my skin pebbles. Rivers shops one-handed, the other firmly locked around mine for the duration of our shopping experience. “I wanted to fly planes when I was a kid,” he tells me as we pick out T-bone steaks, placing them in the carrier I hold in my free hand.

“You don't anymore?”

He shrugs. “Seems a little farfetched. It was just a kid thing. What did you want to be?”

This is an unusually hard question for me. It shouldn't be. I try to simplify it as we stand in the checkout lane. “Well,” I begin, immediately faltering.