Page 22 of My (Not So) Perfect Plan

He brushes my mouth with feather soft kisses before he withdraws. He sits back, but catches the fingers of one of my hands in his. I don’t open eyes because I don’t want to wake up and have him tell me he’s not interested. I’ve liked him for too long for this to be just a kiss.

“Wow.” His voice comes to my ears breathy, rough, and lower than normal. He is not unaffected. I open my eyes. He studies me, an intensity in his eyes that makes me catch my breath. I can’t say I’ve ever had someone look at me like that before, but I’ve seen it a couple times with him now. Now I can put a name to it and I don’t know whether or not I should be disconcerted that the hottest, most popular boy in school who I’ve been crushing on for foreverwantsme.

I’m scared, but also flattered. Either way, though, I don’t know if either of those mean anything. Does he like me? Does he think I’m like every other girl that will fall for him? Am I? I don’t know. My mind can barely process my thoughts because I’m still so lost in the sensation of my first kiss.

“You kissed me,” I whispered.

He bites his lip like he’s regretful, but not quite. “I did. Can’t say I’m sorry.”

“Do you kiss all the girls you like then?” I ask, my brows knitting together. I know this sounds offensive, but I have to know what this was. Did it mean anything to him?

“Some girls just want a good time.”

And he’s willing to give it. Of course, he is. I turn away from him at the answer and gently withdraw my hand from his and rise from the bed. I can’t bring myself to look at him yet. I feel like such a fool. My arms hug me as I look out at the pool without seeing it. “Not this girl. I think we should really focus on keeping this professional from now on, okay?”

To my chagrin, my voice wobbles as I say the words, so we both know it wasn’t easy for me to say.

“Claire-“ he begins, but I ignore him and march across the room to the chair that he kicked over. I wheel it over next to the bed and pass him the ipad, looking anywhere but at him. Wow, I’m an idiot.

“I’m going to use the bathroom and grab some ice for your knee while you look this over, okay? I’ll be right back.” I run-walk out of the room and into the hallway where the spare bathroom is. I splash some water on my face to get my watering eyes under control. The mirror reflects back a girl on the tall side with double blonde braids on either side of her head. She has a Norwegian look that might be considered girl next door pretty. And now she has a red nose to go with her red eyes.

Stupid Claire. Getting your hopes up for him. He’s everything you aren’t – bold, funny, fun, relaxed, popular, handsome, wealthy. You should be dating skinny hot nerds with a weakness for lattes and poetry readings, not football players built like greek statues. Come on, Claire, get it together.

As far as pep talks go, this one kind of sucks.

FIVE

EVAN

I watch the tips of Claire’s braids disappear around the corner as she all but runs out of the room. I scrub my face with my hands. What in the heck is wrong with me? Why does this girl get me all tied up in knots? I already have enough knots, don’t I, considering I just had a career ending injury before my career even got started? And now this? Why do I feel like I just kicked a puppy?

I have kissed at least thirty different girls since kissing became something that girls wanted to do with me, starting in eighth grade. There had been some serious make out sessions in there, along with some lighter, sweet ones for girls that wanted more than I was willing to give them. But I was always aware of the difference between them. With Claire, everything had gotten all mixed up.

All it takes is one look at her to know that she’s a forever girl. She wants the works, including the commitment and dating and the whole nine yards. I know my reputation was bit man-whore-ish, but I was never the type to lead a forever girl on because that was just cruel. I mean, I flirt with anything by the name of female, but some girls were more fun to flirt with than others and if they were good with a flirtationship, so was I.

But kissing Claire had gotten out of hand. That was where I had screwed up. I lace my fingers behind my head and lean back against the headboard, wondering how it was that I had even started kissing her in the first place. Maybe the injuryhad something to do with it. And being starved for attention. That was it. I’m tired because I haven’t been sleeping well. I’m on pain killers. We had had fun all day and then she was there, looking so beautiful and fresh and compassionate. Completely irresistible. And then I couldn’t stop because I wanted to drown in her sweetness and not come out. I frown. Maybe it was the compassion that did it. Or the drugs. It could definitely be the pain killers they gave me.

Claire surprised me today. She surprised me earlier too with the card and the chocolates (hey, jerk off, next time lead with ‘thank you’ instead of waiting until you screw everything up!). I never expected her to get all slave driver and professional on me, like I was just some idiot that was wasting her time unless I tried harder. I could relate to that. Pushing my buttons about my body hadn’t done much for me just because it conveyed her desire for me more than the threat of obesity in my future, but the dig about my being a wuss had actually worked, though I would never admit it to her.

And now she wanted everything professional. Probably a good idea considering I didn’t have any intention to seriously date anyone. I opened the ipad and went into my assignments. Of my four classes, English IV was proving the most difficult, followed up by Spanish II. I really hadn’t wanted to take Spanish II, but somehow I hadn’t managed to get my foreign language credits completed before senior year.

I really shouldn’t have kissed Claire. Was it going to get all weird now, what with her tutoring me and helping me with the rehab? I sigh. Idiot.

She comes back in with a few icepacks and some hand towels. “Here.”

I take them from her and work on fixing them around my knee with the ice packs folded inside them. By the time I’m done,she’s sitting down with her own ipad out, looking through her assignments. We work on assignments for another hour, getting help from each other on the stuff we need tutoring on. Reading into literature is really not my thing, but after she explains it to me, I understand it better. While I’m working on Spanish I practice saying the words out loud, she bursts out laughing at me.

“What?” I ask.

“That’s the worst Spanish accent I’ve ever heard!” she sighs.

“Well, you do it, then. You’re my tutor. How do I make it sound right?”

She studies me. “Okay.” She points to, the word ‘escribe.’ “Say that.”

“E-scribe.”

She laughs again. “Oh, gosh. Sorry. Okay, I think you are trying too hard. Spanish is a soft language. Think romantic. There are a few hard sounds, but when you push the sounds too hard, they come out sounding, um, with an American accent, let’s say. Try this one,” she says, pointing to ‘derecha.’

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