Page 9 of Told You So
Bethany blinks and clears her throat. “I don’t want to talk about it, though, okay?”
I nod. “Yeah, sure.” It’s silent for a few seconds, and I scratch the back of my head, wondering why I had to open my stupid mouth. Now the silence isn’t just awkward, it’s charged with everything I want her to forget. “So, what have you been up to,” I finally ask. “I mean, I feel like it’s been a really long time since I’ve seen you around. You avoid me at school and this is the first time I’ve seen you off campus ...ever.”
“I don’t avoid you,” she starts, then rubs her hand over her jeans. “I’ve been busy with life...and school. What about you?” She smiles. “You’re a big baseball star, I hear. MVP last year, even.”
Flattered, I tilt my head. “How’d you know that?”
“I’m on your turf now. I hear a lot of things.”
“Too much, probably,” I say, and I think of how crazy the past couple years have been, how different high school is than I’d expected. The games, the hangouts, the parties. I like to have fun, but high school is the rumor mill, and the stuff I hear, even about myself, is mystifying sometimes.
“Maybe, but it sounds like you’re pretty popular.”
My smile grows into a full-ass grin. “So, you’ve been asking around about me, huh?”
Her cheeks turn red, and she rolls her eyes. “No.”
I nudge her a little and lean closer. “Come on, you can tell me. It’s flattering, really. Is it my eyes that you like? I’ve been told they can see into a girl’s soul.” I bat them at her, too buzzed and high on her smile to care how ridiculous I’m being. “Or is it my rugged exterior—I work out, you know? This throwing arm doesn’t just happen on its own.” I flex my bicep, laughing when I earn another eye roll.
“You’re so full of yourself and ridiculous,” she says through her laughter. “It’s embarrassing.”
“Yeah, but making you laugh is worth it.”
Her eyes shift up from her hands to my face, and I hold her dusty gaze. I like the way she looks at me. I like the curiosity and the uncertainty. It mirrors mine. My mom always told me there’s a lot to learn about someone by looking into their eyes, and Bethany’s eyes are like storm clouds that are bursting with emotions I can’t even grasp.
“I wanted tonight to be epic,” she whispers, like she’s confessing or maybe reminding herself. I don’t know what she’s talking about, but her eyes don’t leave mine. Her chest is heaving. She licks her lips. Everything is charged between us.
Then suddenly, her lips are on mine, and I freeze.
They’re soft and glossy, and they taste like beer and berries as I inhale her. I hadn’t expected this, but I welcome it. She kisses me more deeply, and in a blissful blur, I reach for her side, wanting to pull her closer to me, to feel her warmth, when she grabs hold of my hand and breaks away.
“I’m—uh,” she says, breathing heavily against my mouth.
I lick my lips and my eyes shift over her, taking in her every look and movement. I have no idea what just happened.
She stands up. “I’m—uh—going to use the bathroom. I’ll be right back.”
“Yeah,” I say, nodding. “Sure.” But she’s already walking out the doorway and disappears around the corner. Did I do something wrong?
Taking a deep breath, I glance around the room. Whatever that was, it was strangely liberating and horrifying at the same time. The girls are still huddled on the couch across the room. They glance over at me but when I catch their eyes they glance away again, like the little gossip queens that they are.
Leaning back against the couch, I let out a deep breath and hope to God I didn’t just fuck everything up somehow. Bethany barely knows me, and whatever that was that just happened, I’d like it to happen again sometime.
“There he is!” Slinsky appears in the doorway. I groan inwardly. He looks around the room, totally overlooking the girls on the couch to my annoyance. Something to keep him occupied would be nice right about now. “Where’s that cute blonde you disappeared with? She was smokin’.”
“She’s in the bathroom,” I say, wondering if I should make sure she’s okay.
“Dude, you’re the mac! First Brenda and Rachel, now the hot freshman? And those are only the girls I know about. My man gets around.” Slinsky laughs, but I stop listening to him. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Rachel is Mac’s friend, and I was doing her a solid by posing as her date at the beach. Brenda’s cool, but we only made out a couple times before I found out she likes Reilly, and he’s not even into her.
“...can tell The Rodster all about it.”
“Yeah, sure, later,” I tell him, standing up. “I’m busy.” I walk past Slinsky and head for the door. The last thing I want is to be is trapped in a room with him while Bethany’s having a panic attack or whatever.
I glance down the hall in search of the bathroom, and find the door’s open. Knowing there’s probably a private one somewhere else, I head back toward the living room so that Anna Marie might point me in the right direction. That’s when I spot Bethany’s purple tank top and long blonde hair among a group of people. At first, I think she’s been pulled into an unwanted conversation, but then she pulls some guy’s mouth down onto hers. Her kiss is more needy, more eager than the kiss I shared with her only minutes ago, and my blood burns in my chest.
What. The. Fuck.
When she finally pulls away, she licks her lips. The moment she sees me, I swear, a glint of something shimmers in her eyes, and her mouth sets in a firm line. She said she wanted tonight to be epic, maybe mind-fucking me and making out with multiple dudes is what she meant.
