Page 17 of Catch My Fall (Catch)

My eyeballs almost popped out of my head. “Holy shit! Darby, you didn’t tell me last night that you had sex with Trace! When did that happen?”

Shrugging her shoulders, she rolled her eyes and said, “That happened when I was sixteen, but it’s not the last time we made lo…had sex.”

I was flabbergasted. “It isn’t?”

“No—the last time we got together was the night of my high school graduation. It’s been two years since we had sex for the first time, and we’ve been together fairly regularly since then, but he’s not about committing and I finally had enough of his shit. I took a stand a few days after my graduation and told him that he needed to shit or get off the pot. He got off the pot.”

“But you still like him.”

“No. I stilllovehim. Trace Chamberlain is my soul mate, but he’s too stubborn to admit it. If he didn’t love me as much as he does, I would probably be furious with him for pushing me away.”

“What an asshole! And here I thought Trace seemed cool. What the hell?”

Rubbing her face with her hands, she was silent for a moment before she answered. “I can’t really explain without telling you things that aren’t for me to share, but suffice it to say, Trace has issues that skew his opinion of himself. He’s a good guy, I swear. I wouldn’t love him so much if he weren’t, but I do hate that he’s so chickenshit. I don’t know if it can ever work out for us…honestly, I very much doubt it…but untillast night I was praying for a miracle. Now I see that my miracle is never going to happen.”

There was nothing to be said to that. I didn’t know the ins and outs of their relationship and it wouldn’t be cool for me to tell her to wait for him if that was never going to happen.

“Well, no matter what happens with Trace, you’ve got me.”

The smile she gave me didn’t reach her eyes, but I could see that she was really trying. Opening her mouth, she sang a few bars of “I’ve got you, Babe” to me and after that we dropped the subject.

* * *

I was ready to head out to Tristan’s, dressed in jeans, navy Chucks and a white empire-waist shirt. My hair was down but I spiced it up a little by giving myself what I call ‘beach style hair’ after I got out of the shower.

I hadbutterflies in my stomach and told myself I was just nervous about going to Tristan’s house without Darby, but the reality was that was only a very small percentage of the reason. I’d never in my life had the butterfly feeling about a guy and it was both scary and exhilarating.

When I pulled upto the house, I was surprised that there weren’t a ton of cars in the driveway. Both of the previous nights I was here, I had to park on the front lawn because there were already people in the driveway. Realizing that the party wasn’t in full swing, I tried to calm my nerves as I headed for the door.

Tristan had the door opened wide before I was even all the way up onto the porch, and I smiled at him shyly as he said hello and motioned for me to enter. Looking around, I saw no oneelse in the room, and I realized that I really was the early bird tonight.

“All right,” he said with a grin, “I’ve got choices for you to make. We can either watch the lastTwilightmovie,Tedor21 Jump Street. What’s your pick?”

I looked around confused, wondering what the hell he was talking about. “If everyone is goingto watch a movie, shouldn’t we wait for them to get here so we can take a vote? I don’t want to pick something that nobody else wants to see.”

“No one else iscoming over so it’s just you and me. This is what friends do, Mimi. We’re going to sit here, watch a movie, and eat really amazing junk food.”

Nobody else was coming. I was alone in a house with a guy. My palms started to sweat and I prepared for a full on episode to hit me…only it didn’t. I was giddy because I was getting to spend time alone with Tristan, not because I was afraid of being in the house with him.

Mentally yelling at myself to act like a normaleighteen-and-a-half-year-old girl I smiled and said, “I chooseTed.”

“Tedit is,” he said with a wink. “Make yourself comfortable on the couch or one of the recliners. I’ll be back as soon as I finish making popcorn.”

I wasn’tnervous in a crazy way, but I was nervous enough that I wasn’t trying to sit next to him on the couch. The thing might be a mile long, but I wasn’t taking the chance that he’d sit next to me. No matter that I wasn’t scared of him. Baby steps is the name of the game.

After sitting in one of the recliners I looked down at the coffee table in shock.There was a massive assortment of candy spread out all over the table—Junior Mints, Skittles, Nerds, Milk Duds, Sour Patch Kids, Gummy Bears, M&Ms, Hershey Bars, Butterfingers and Reese’s Pieces. Clearly Tristan and Trace have insatiable cravings for sweets, although there were a few jars of assorted nuts thrown into the mix.

Tristan came backa few minutes later carrying a box as a makeshift tray. He smiled at me as he pulled out a big bowl of popcorn and set it on the table. Next he set out two Yoo-Hoos, a 7-Up, a Cherry Pepsi, a blue Gatorade, a bottle of water and a Snapple.

“What is this, a dentist’s worst nightmare?”

With a chuckle he started opening some of the boxes of candy, setting them up in a row. “Well, I guess it’s that too, now that you mention it. I went to Walmart this afternoon and bought us a whole bunch of stuff for the movie.”

I watched in equal parts shock and amazement as he put Skittles, M&Ms, peanuts, Gummy Bears and Milk Duds in the popcorn bowl—with the freakin’ popcorn—before mixing it all around and holding it out to me. “Heaven in a bowl, Mimi. Take a bite.”

Raising my eyebrows at him, I shook my head. “Ah, pretty sure that’s hell in a bowl. Why would you mix that all together?”

“Nah, you can’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it. Right now you’re thinking it’s nasty, but once you’ve eaten some, I guarantee you’ll keep right on going.”

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