Page 37 of Tell Me Softly
Taylor
I wondered if I’d made a mistake. If my brother found out I’d invited Kami over, there’d be hell to pay. He’d made that evident the day before, but I didn’t agree, and even Mom had said she wanted to see her. Thiago couldn’t keep blaming her for what happened. If she and I had gotten over it—or learned to live with it, at least—then he should figure out how to as well.
If he kept hassling me about our friendship, there were going to be problems. I knew that, but I didn’t care. Coming back to Carsville meant coming back to my old life, and I was happy again. Of course it brought back the pain and bad memories, but you can’t change the past, and there was no point in trying. And in the present, I liked Kamila Hamilton more and more every time I saw her. Not like before, though, when I saw her like a sister. Now I liked her for real. I wanted to get to know her more, and not just as a friend. We had been like brother and sister, but the years apart had put an end to that, even if I did feel weird and sometimes guilty for certain thoughts I had about her. I just couldn’t help them.
I pictured her in my mind, and all the hairs on my body stood on end. We’d both grown up; there was no denying it, and therewas no denying the way she made me feel. I wasn’t an amateur by this point. I’d hooked up with girls, and I’d been one of the first kids in my class in DC to lose my virginity early in high school. I remember my brother catching me sneaking out of the garage of our old house with a girl. I thought Thiago would chew me out, but he just gave me a high five. We were like that, the Di Bianco brothers: a couple of players, always with a line of girls waiting to get with us.
Thiago was two years older, but age had never mattered; he and I had always been inseparable. I remember he even used to buy me condoms at the pharmacy when I needed them. There was a time when he stood up for me to Mom when I showed up with a split lip and a giant bruise around my eye. If we both got in trouble, he always took the hit, telling Mom it was his fault. He was protective. Overprotective, maybe.
But there had been a distance between us since returning to Carsville. Over a girl, obviously. Kami, with her long hair and brown eyes. We were both obsessed with her, but for very different reasons. I woke up every morning thinking about her, and my brother spent every day thinking about how much he hated her. I wondered, though, did the intensity of his emotions conceal something else?
I got some books and notebooks out of my locker and walked to math class. Julian was the only guy I knew in there. It was an advanced section, and none of the other guys from the team were smart enough for it. He waved at me when I walked in, and I waved back instinctively, but I don’t know…there was something about him that made me nervous. I didn’t know if it was the way he looked at Kami or the way he’d hit Danny the other day. He hadn’t been angry, the way I had been. He had looked calculating, cold, completely in control, as if he were trying to convince us of something with his show of heroism.
Or maybe not.
Maybe I was just jealous.
When class ended, Julian and I walked to the cafeteria. He’d joined the basketball team, and the others had begrudgingly accepted it. I didn’t mind him following me to the table where the rest of the team was, but it seemed odd that he walked past all the guys to sit down with the cheerleaders.
I guess he thought that would help him get somewhere with the team?
He headed straight for Kami, and he didn’t mind that everyone could tell, nor did he respect her personal space. But Kami smiled at him. Of course she did. She was too sweet not to. And the rest of the girls acted like it was natural for him to sit down and eat with them.
Well, to hell with it: if he could do that, I could too. Don’t ask me what I was thinking, but I pulled up a seat on Kami’s other side. Her best friend, Ellie, frowned when I nudged her out of the way.
“I’m sorry, Taylor, do you need something?” she asked, elbowing me in the ribs.
I smiled and stole a tater tot off her tray.
“We’re going to Falls Church this weekend,” I said, making things up as I went along. I could feel the heat rising within me as Kami turned to me, starting to glow with happiness as she saw I’d be eating lunch with her. “And I was wondering if you ladies would like to join us guys for an adventure unlike anything this school has ever seen…”
“He just wants us all to get in trouble the way he did,” Ellie said sarcastically, touching up her lipstick.
“You’re wrong there,” I said, not even looking at her. “We’re talking about a paintball tournament. Carsville against Falls Church. Who’s in?”
Slyly, Kami asked, “Isn’t it enough that they’re going to stomp your ass at basketball?”
Everyone laughed except Julian. I pretended I couldn’t believe what she said and poked her in the ribs, making her jump.
“You thinkthey’regoing to stompourasses at basketball? Sorry, neighbor, but since I joined the team, the days of Carsville losing are over.”
“How are we going to get away, though? I’m pretty sure there are going to be chaperones the whole time…” she said.
“I guess that’s how we’ll figure out who’s a scared little baby here and who’s willing to act like an adult and tell Coach Klebb to shove it.”
“For real, though,” Kate said, “we’ll have practice that afternoon, and the game’s the next day, so when do you plan on organizing this paintball tournament?” Kate was another friend of Kami’s—the head cheerleader, if I wasn’t mistaken. She was looking at me, arching her perfectly plucked brows.
I smiled and looked around at everyone. “We’re playing that night,” I said. Then I stood up. “Anyone who wants in needs to tell me by tomorrow morning.”
Everyone started talking loudly, and as they did, I bent over Kami, whispering in her ear, letting my lips graze it softly to see how she reacted: “I hope you’re not too scared to sign up.”
Then I went back to the guys’ end of the table, unable to wipe the smile off my face.
Chapter Fifteen
Kami
I watched Taylor go back to sit with the guys. He had clearly found his place with them. It was almost as though he’d never left. Some guys still remembered him from before, but those who didn’t had only needed a few days to become inseparable from him. Taylor was like that; everyone just naturally wanted to be with him. He wasn’t serious and intimidating like Thiago. With him, you wanted to laugh, have fun, get in trouble, and forget the rest of the world.
