Page 3 of The Wrong Side of Kai
“Vanessa,” Harrison suddenly says, gently grabbing my face with both hands and lifting my head. “Can I ask you something?”
He shifts beneath me, stretching over to switch on a bedside light. It brightens up the room and I can see him again, his chest rising and falling beneath me, his breath heavy. His tee’s pulled up and I rest my hands on his bare chest and stare at him, bemused by the interruption.
It feels like his tone isn’t that playful anymore, and the solemn way he’s looking at me isn’t his usual style either.
“Right now?” I laugh, then press my lips back to his to shut him up. I try to kiss him deep enough to distract him, but it doesn’t work the way it usually does.
He pushes me away again and sits up a little beneath me, propping himself up on his elbows. He looks so serious that I wonder if perhaps heisn’tdrunk. “Listen,” he says, and he flicks his blond hair out of his eyes. “Next month me and some of the guys are going skiing up Mad River Mountain for a couple days. Some of their girlfriends are joining us, and I was thinking maybe you could come too.”
It sounds cool; I like skiing. But even so, panic grips me like a vice. Is Harrison. . . asking me out? Is he serious? He’s asking me to go on a skiing trip with him and his friends, and that sounds pretty damn serious to me. It means only one thing. . . He wants to take things further. He wants more from me, for us to spend time together like a couple, but there’s no way I can give him that. My stomach suddenly feels like the final spin cycle of a washing machine – it’s now somersaulting around at full speed while I fight the urge to vomit.
The answer has to be no.
I can’t let anyone into my life. Not like that. I can’t take the risk.
So, brick by brick, I construct a solid wall of defense between Harrison and me.
“Woah,” I say, sitting bolt upright. My hand is still pressed flat to his chest, and I can feel his heart beating fast. The room has fallen silent, and it’s like the party around us has disappeared into a void. “You’re asking me out?”
“I just think it would be fun—”
“No dates, Harrison Boyd,” I say, wagging a finger at him with a coy smile to mask the panic that’s got me tight in its grip. We already established this back in the summer when I first kissed him in his truck. He’d picked me up after we’d spent the entire day flirting by text, and we didn’t hesitate to get straight to business. We made it clear at the time that we were only fooling around, and that there was nothing more to any of this. Purely fun. Nothing serious. “We’re just keeping it casual, remember?”
Whether or not he knows it, I’ve just made the decision that this is the end of us. I have no choice but to bail if someone shows signs of wanting to take things further. I kind of like Harrison. He’s hot and he knows how to work his hands and he’s notasmuch of a self-absorbed jock as the rest of his teammates. But I don’t like him likethat. I’ve realized that “real” relationships scare the absolute hell out of me. They always end and someone will always get hurt when they do, one way or another. I can’t shake the thought that you’ll always, inevitably, lose the person you’ve fallen for.
I can’t help it. Uninvited, my dad weaves his way into my head, and I see an image of him now, a man with ashes where his heart once was and a hollow emptiness in his eyes. I never want to end up like him.
Harrison groans, bringing my focus back to him. “You’re so hard to read sometimes.”
“Isthishard to read?” I ask, and I lean in close to him again, distracting him, pushing him back down against the bed. I cup his face in my hands and my nails brush against his cheekbones as I press my lips to the soft skin of his neck. I kiss a path down to his collarbone, making sure I leave a hickey that’ll take forever to fade, something to remember me by because, after this, I won’t ever be kissing him again.
“Vanessa,” Harrison murmurs, his voice a low rumble, and he exhales as his body relaxes beneath mine. One hand is on the small of my back, the other is pulling at my hair, tangling it around his fingers.
We break apart only so I can pull off his damp shirt. I toss it to one side and sit back up again, this time smirking seductively down at him. My favorite part of all this? The teasing. The driving them crazy. The hunger that captures their eyes. The control I have over them. It feels like the only part of my life that Idohave any control over.
But right now, my performance is as much a distraction to myself as it is to Harrison. I focus all of my energy on pleasing him so that I can stop the whirlwind of panicked thoughts spiraling through my mind.
I move against Harrison as he stares up at me, the denim of his jeans rubbing against the exposed skin of my thighs. I like to believe that I’m talented when it comes to maintaining eye contact – I never, ever break it. My gaze is locked on Harrison as I play faux-innocently with the ends of my hair, as I bite my lip, as I pretend I don’t knowexactlywhat I’m doing.
“You’re so hot, Vanessa,” Harrison is mumbling, “I can’t handle you.”
He’s right, he can’t. But at least he’s finally enjoying this now, allowing adrenaline and desire to take over.
Then, “Smile,” he says with a wink, and that’s when I notice he’s pulled out his phone and is holding it up suggestively. “How about you give me a show?”
And I do.
I smile straight into the camera, and give him a show that’ll be worth remembering tomorrow.
2
I wake to Chyna snoring in my ear and slobbering over my shoulder. I push her away, shoving her to the other side of her huge bed so that I can get some peace. I don’t know what time it is, but I know it’s definitely not early. My stomach is grumbling too much for that.
I rub my eyes, my lashes thickly clumped together by the mascara I was too tired to remove last night when we got back here. I did remove my clothes, though, because when I slide out of the bed, the chill of the AC in Chyna’s room hits my bare skin. I stand still for a second, testing out whether I’m still drunk, hungover, or miraculously fine.
My clothes are scattered on the floor, but when I scoop them up, they reek of last night. A sure sign that the party was good.
“Chyna?” I say, but she doesn’t stir, only continues to breathe too heavily until suddenly she is snoring like a damn freight train again. On her bedside table there’re three odd, mismatched cans of beer that she swiped from the party as we left. She won’t have drunk them, but it’s a totally Chyna thing to do. She’s been swiping stationery from classrooms all through high school.
