Page 125 of A Love Letter to Whiskey
Especially because I knew damn sure that I would have made a move on B.
I was in too vulnerable a space, and I wanted so desperately to let B fill the void. I knew she would have, too. I knew if I showed up, ran my hands back through that curly hair of hers and tugged until she looked up at me, I know she would have let me kiss her.
So, I stayed away.
I didn’t so much as text B, let alone call her or go to her place. I threw myself into the last month of school I had left, spending time with the guys on the basketball team and getting everything ready to move to California.
I stayed away.
Until I didn’t.
I can’t explain the mood that slipped over me the night of graduation. Maybe it was a mixture of anxiety and immense relief, a dizzying cocktail of pride and fear. I wasn’t really worried about going to college anymore — mostly because I knew it was happening, plain and simple, so I might as well embrace it. I also wasn’t super sad about graduating. I knew I’d miss high school, but in a sense… I was ready to leave.
So, after my gown and graduation cap had been put away in my room, I told my parents I was going out to celebrate, dodging my youngest sister and her plea to join me.
I picked up a few guys from the team in the Jeep, their 7-Eleven cups filled with something more than the orange soda it looked like. I played it calm, cool, and collected the whole drive to B’s, but there was a storm brewing inside me, thunder rolling and lightning crackling enough to make the hairs on my arms stand up.
I’d been inside B’s house a few times, chatted with her mom while B got ready to surf or picked out her outfit for the football game, but I’d never seen it like that. Every inch was packed, people dancing and playing drinking games, smoking and laughing, making out and hooking up. The music was so damn loud you had to scream to hear anything, and it was so unbearably hot that I wanted to strip my clothes off as soon as we walked all the way inside.
Of course, B beat me to it.
I’ll never forget that moment, walking into the crowded house and seeing her through said crowd like a fucking vision. She looked around like she was trying to solve a math equation, and then with a shrug, she crossed her arms over her midriff to grab the hem of her V-neck, lavender shirt.
And she peeled it off slowly, the damp fabric sticking to her skin, revealing nothing but a thin, white tank top beneath.
I knew without asking for confirmation that she wasn’t wearing a bra.
I couldn’t take my eyes off her, not even when I knew I should. And thanks to the two shots in a row the guys made me take as soon as I parked the Jeep down the road, I had the viewing pleasure through buzzed eyes.
I kept my gaze on her, feeling that electric rush after depriving myself of her company for so long.
As if she felt me, too — she snapped her head in my direction.
And then she promptly dropped her drink.
Our eyes met across the room, hers wide and caught off guard, while mine were hooded and shameless. She flushed under the intensity of the gaze, muttering something to Jenna before she tore her eyes away from mine and started stacking cups for a new drinking game.
But no sooner than she’d started fussing with the cups, she dropped them just the same and bolted back toward the hallway that I knew led to her room.
God, I wanted to chase her.
I spent the next five minutes thinking about what would happen if I did. I talked to classmates and took pictures and lined up shots, all the while imagining surprising B in her room, locking the door behind me, and then promptly pinning her against it and kissing her the way she deserved to be kissed.
I somehow managed not to follow the urge, though, deciding to wait until she came back out. When she did, her hair had been wrangled into a bun, and she’d painted her lips a deep crimson.
She ran straight into the kitchen, opening a cabinet and hanging her hands on her hips as she stared up at something on the top shelf.
I muttered an excuse of needing to pee to the guys on the team I was hanging out with, and then made my way across the house to where she was now climbing up on the counter.
My hands were on her hips before I could convince myself it was a bad idea.
“Here,” I said, speaking right into the shell of her ear. “Let me help.”
