SEVENTEEN

WREN

THE MUSIC WAS SO LOUD, A THUDDING, OVERPOWering bass with which my pulse seemed to keep time.

Grayson’s mouth moved, but I didn’t hear what he said. The only thing I was aware of was the feeling that my face was slowly dripping downward, like melting wax. I felt dizzy and off‑kilter, like I’d wandered into a dream, and any minute I’d pull out my teeth, or Chace Crawford would appear from behind the hoodies and offer to take me to prom.

I hadn’t recognized Gray at first. He wore a black leather jacket and dark jeans. His look was calculated . . . slick . The way he’d leaned into that girl behind the counter, playing with her hair, acting like they were together. The desire on her face as she spoke with him . . . that stabbed me right through my heart, a true physical sensation that almost made me gasp. And yet there I stood. Silent. Shocked. Holding three shirts on hangers and not wanting to say a word, because I might embarrass Grayson or the Hollister girl.

And so I followed her to the dressing room.

Her in her flip‑flops.

And fucking jeggings .

And close‑fitting blue hoodie

And shiny, dark hair that fell straight and perfect and gleamed in the dim light.

She opened the door.

“I’m Allegra. Let me know if you need anything else. Another color or size, just give me a shout.”

A shout was the least of what I wanted to give her, but I managed to nod before completely losing my grip behind the closed dressing‑room door.

What just happened?

I hung up the shirts and sat down on the bench, my face in my hands, willing it to just go away. I’d been floating on a cloud all morning–more specifically, since last night . . . the cottage . . . saying good night in Grayson’s car. Every time I thought about one of his slow, deep kisses, it was like a buzz through my body, a yummy ache that could only be filled by seeing him again.

Not like this.

Not like this.

There was a knock at the door.

“Wren.”

“Go away. Go away. Go away,” I whispered into my hands.

“Wren, please. Open the door,” Grayson whispered.

I was instantly flushed, hot. The door seemed so far away.

“Please,” he said.

I got up, opened the latch. He came in and shut the door behind him. We stood there, about a foot apart.

Looking at each other.

Grayson’s eyes were wary as he studied me. As if I might claw at him. I wasn’t entirely sure I wouldn’t. I felt duped. All the wonderful feelings I’d been carrying around taunted me now, made the night before feel like a pathetic lie.

“What?” I asked.

“I know this looks . . . bad.”

I struggled to take a normal breath.

“Wren, if I knew–”

“Knew what?” I asked, voice catching, my throat so tight it hurt. “That I’d be here?”

Brooke had spent the morning on the phone scouring the tri‑state area to find a retired gold Pandora charm she wanted to buy her future mother‑in‑law for Christmas, before she and Pete headed back to DC for their final exams. Her “shopping quest,” as she called it, took us twenty minutes away to the Pandora store in the Staten Island Mall. While Brooke ran to get the charm, I ran to Hollister–not my usual go‑to place, but I had a leftover fifty‑dollar store gift card from my sweet sixteen that I’d been saving for something special. My date with Grayson seemed like the perfect occasion to blow it on. Even a gal who didn’t make NHS could appreciate the irony of the moment.

“You’ve got every right to be pissed, but I swear it’s not what it looks like.” The words were laced with sincerity. I hated myself for caving, even tilting in his direction the slightest bit. The image of them leaning together flashed through my mind again.

“And what is it?”

He put his hands up to his face, covering his eyes, praying, maybe, for an answer that would help me not feel so shitty.

His head tilted back as he ran his fingers down his face and heaved an exasperated sigh.

“I’m doing a favor for Luke.”

“Luke? Really? Because he has trouble talking to girls.”

“I am here because of Luke, but I can’t . . . I can’t go into it right now.”

“You touched her hair,” I said, stepping back. “The way she looked at you–”

“No, Wren . . . I’m sorry. I wasn’t . . . I didn’t . . . I’m a total jackass, okay? Don’t–”

“Grayson, I need to go. My sister’s waiting for me, and I came here to . . .” I couldn’t even finish.

He reached for me then, his eyes soft, remorseful. I wanted to believe him, to forget that any of this happened.

“Wren, last night was amazing,” he said, touching his forehead to mine, closing his eyes. His hands were around my waist, drawing me in to him. And there was that scent, that earthy, spicy shower‑gel thing that took me back to the night before, the way my body had felt underneath his. “You have to know there’s nothing I would do to screw that up. Nothing.”

I put my forehead on his shoulder. I wanted to believe him. Knew somehow that I could. He relaxed into me, breathing out, pulling me closer. My hands snaked around him. Our mouths found each other, becoming more insistent as neither of us pulled away. We moved until we hit the wall of the dressing room, bodies pressing together, like no time had passed since our after‑work tryst. I never thought I’d be the kind of girl who made out in the Hollister dressing room, but there I was, sliding my hands into Grayson’s back pockets, pulling him as close as he could get.

“Everything okay in there?” Allegra called.

“Mmm‑hmm,” I answered, my mouth still on Grayson’s.

I heard her flip‑flop away. We stopped, straightening up.

“Now what?” I asked.

“I’m going home,” he said.

“And your favor?” I asked, not wanting to bring the jeggings‑clad Hollister goddess back into it but not wanting to be a complete love‑starved doormat either.

“Screw Luke,” he whispered, kissing me again. “We’re still on for tonight?”

“You will explain all of this to me, right?” I asked.

“It’s complicated, but, yeah I’ll, um, try.”

Complicated . . . was this what he was talking about at the cottage?

“See you later then,” I said, motioning for him to leave. The thought that he might go back out and continue his conversation with . . . that girl . . . crossed my mind, but I decided to trust him for the moment.

“Later,” he said, kissing me. He tugged on his jacket, straightened himself up, and walked out, closing the door behind him.

I turned toward the shirts I’d picked out, catching my reflection in the mirror. My chest was flushed, the echo of Grayson’s kiss still making my lips tingle. I took a breath to compose myself and left the dressing room.

Brooke was on a bench out front, sucking down a ginormous cup of lemonade, apparently one of the few things that didn’t make her nauseous, Pandora shopping bag next to her.

“Hey, let’s go,” I said, joining her. When she saw I was empty‑handed, she frowned.

“You were in there for half an hour and found nothing ?” she asked. Another lovely side effect of pregnancy was that she’d transformed into a total bitch. My mother, who, even if she hadn’t accepted the fact that she was going to be a grandmother, had at least softened to it, gave Brooke a wide berth and expected me to do the same.

“Wait until you come visit me in January. The shopping in DC is so much better.”

“I thought I was coming for a college visit,” I said, sitting down next to her. This brilliant idea had been discussed during her and Pete’s dinner with the parents. I had the sinking suspicion Brooke was gunning for me to go to Georgetown more for babysitting purposes than higher education, but the thought of an actual college visit–even if it was to a reach school–made me excited. At least I’d have something to tell Mrs. Fiore in our second strategy meeting.

“The college visit will take an hour, two at most; then we’ll have fun.”

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I slid it out, checked my messages. Grayson.

Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry .

For someone who claimed to be doing a favor for someone else, he was awfully regretful. I promised myself I wouldn’t get so caught up in his kiss that I let him get away with not telling me what this supposed favor was about.

I thought about what Ava had said to me in the hallway at school, how she and Luke just gravitated to each other when they were in the same place. Was that what Grayson and I were doing? Gravitating? Could I handle this relationship if it was just a physical thing?

“You realize that about one percent of the population can wear pants like that,” Brooke said, wrinkling her nose and motioning toward the store in front of us.

No surprise, she was talking about her . The Hollister girl stood on the porch of the store. She had one of those see‑through purses that shop employees needed to carry and kept searching up and down the length of the mall, frowning. The hollow feeling in my gut told me this had something to do with Grayson, and I felt a momentary obligation to tell her that he’d left.

But it was only momentary.

“I hate that store,” I said, standing up. “Can we get out of here now?”

Brooke finished the rest of her lemonade with a loud slurp, tossed it in the trash, and we left.

“So let me guess. You’re some skating genius too,” I said, surprised by Grayson’s choice of evening entertainment. I was also secretly excited because, well, I could skate. I’d had five years of basic‑level training when, once upon a time, I had wanted to be the next Sasha Cohen. And while I’d pretty much quit after my body, as my mother politely put it, filled out, I thought I could pull out a decent scratch spin or something that might at least be a little impressive.

He stood up, the ice skates giving him another three inches of height that made him wobble.

“I think I was about a foot shorter the last time I did this.”

“It’ll come back,” I said as I finished lacing up the rentals. I hopped to standing, a move that surprised him. “C’mon, let’s see what you got.”

It was painful. Not inching‑along‑the‑rink‑wall painful, but painful. We glided along the ice. Well, I glided. Gray shuffled unsteadily. It was the first time I felt like I had the upper hand, and I wasn’t going to let that get away from me. After our third trip around the rink, I crossed in front of him and skated backward, holding both of his hands in mine.

“So about that favor for Luke,” I said, trying to playfully bring up the subject. I’d spent the afternoon on the phone with Jazz and Maddie, getting their opinions on Grayson’s mall scene. Maddie, who was head cheerleader for Team Grayson since he’d invited us to Andy’s party, told me to let it go. Grayson was the kind of guy who girls noticed, and we weren’t officially together , so for now it was okay. Her take on it made me feel hopeful.

Jazz had the opposite opinion. Suddenly Grayson sounded like the sleazy boyfriend in Adventures in Babysitting , the one who cancels his date with sweet Chris Parker in order to date the sexy girl who puts out. I was starting to agree with Mads’s opinion that Jazz needed to enter the new millennium and stop living her life according to eighties movies. Even if what she said haunted me a little.

I was somewhere in between, because right there, in that moment, I was holding hands with a dark‑haired, brown‑eyed boy who looked so deliciously vulnerable, he was worlds away from the slick guy who was doing a favor for Luke in the store this morning. This was the Grayson I knew. The Grayson I wanted to be around. I tugged on his hands to propel him, and he lost his footing.

“We have to talk about this now?” he asked, scrambling to stay upright.

“That’s why we’re here, is it?” I asked, leading us around a turn. “To completely avoid talking about what you were doing at the mall?”

“Why does anyone go to the mall?”

“You know what I mean,” I said, narrowing my eyes at him and speeding us up slightly.

“This is a side of you I’ve never seen. Very sexy, devious,” he said, narrowing his eyes back at me and flipping his bangs away from his face.

I let go of his hands. He was not going to get away with not telling me. No matter how hot he looked when he pulled that bang‑flipping move.

“Wren,” he said, shuffling a little to get his balance.

I sped away from him, weaving my way through other skaters to put some distance between us. When I caught up to him again, he nearly knocked into a little girl in a sparkly, aqua skate outfit who scrunched her face at him.

“Ready to talk?” I asked, adjusting my speed and grabbing his hand. His fingers tightened around mine.

“Okay, but there’s really not much to talk about; I already told you I was doing a favor for Luke.”

“Right, Luke who has trouble talking to girls . . . go on.” He scowled. “I’m serious. He’s interested in that girl and just wanted me to talk to her to see if she was, you know, available.”

“Did he want to know if her hair was soft too?”

“Wren.”

“Isn’t he with Ava?”

Grayson snickered. “Luke has a pretty wide definition of being ‘with’ someone.”

I let that one sit a minute as our blades scratched across the ice. “Do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Have a wide definition of being with someone?” His eyebrows rose at the question, but he didn’t answer right away.

After a pass around the rink, he spoke. “I’ve never really been with anyone.”

“No way!” I said, so loud that a couple skating by turned to see the commotion. After they faced forward again, I spoke. “Really, that can’t be possible.”

“Skate in front of me again.”

I waited until we rounded the edge of the rink to cross over and switch my direction. Grayson’s eyes were serious.

“I’ve been with girls, but it’s always been . . . more physical. Short‑term.”

Physical and short‑term . I stumbled. “Okay, you don’t have to go into it.”

“That’s just it. With you? I want to go into it. I want you to know me, but I don’t know where to start. Wren, you’re so . . . honest and funny and . . . I haven’t stopped thinking about you since we met.”

I stopped pumping my legs. “Really?”

“Yes. So I’d say my definition of being with someone is tiny. Miniscule, really.”

We slowed down. I held on to his hands and broadened my footing as we hit the straightaway. He inhaled, keeping his eyes steady on mine. “I want to be with you. Period.”

I bit my lip, aware that we’d come to a full stop as others scratched by on their skates. He kissed me, soft and light, just a whisper on the mouth that left me wanting more. If he was playing me, he was damn good at it.

“I think I like that definition,” I said.

“Why don’t we get out of here before I crack my skull?” he asked, teetering as someone sped by us.

We returned the rentals, and I made a quick stop to the ladies’ room, mostly for damage control, as skating always had the lovely side effects of a runny nose and a glaze of sweat. I took lip gloss from my pocket and freshened up, wondering what the rest of the night held. I tried to focus on the sweet things Grayson had said and not on what he meant by short‑term and physical when describing his past relationships.

I left the ladies’ room and saw Gray across the lobby. He was leaning against a column and talking to a girl. I’d been gone for five freakin’ minutes . I ran a hand through my hair, stood up straighter. Talking to a girl or not, he was with me. And I wanted to be with Gray. And it was time to go after something I wanted. This was something–Gray and girls–I was going to have to get used to. As I got closer, I noticed she was a bit older, maybe Brooke’s age, and was vaguely familiar. He pointed in my direction. The girl peeked over her shoulder at me.

“Hey,” I said.

“See you ’round, Mike,” she said, carrying her skates toward a bench.

“Who was that?”

“Waitress at Leaning Tower,” he said. “She never remembers my name.”

For some reason that made me feel better.

“So where to?” I asked. “Or was that our big date?”

“You can still hang out, right?”

“I’m all yours.”

“Great. Feel like going to my house?”

Alone. With him?

“Yes.”

Date: 2015-02-16; view: 606