Текст книги "Slow Twitch"

Автор книги: Лиз Реинхардт

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“I know.” I cut in to let him know that I did know, but mostly I really didn’t want to think about that time or what he had done with her or why, just like he didn’t want to think about my brief time dating Saxon. But this was all tangled up in our decision to have sex, so I owed it to him to think about it and talk about it. Much as it sucked.

“When it happened this winter,” he continued, his words marching on with grim determination, “she and I didn’t connect or anything. I mean, she wanted to more than I did, and I just did it, I don’t know, like to get back at you I guess. It made no sense. And it felt like shit. Again. So, it still makes me kind of freaked out, Bren.”

A huge sigh flipped out before I could stop it. There was no big, perfect pink eraser to run over all our screw-ups. Even if there was, I knew from years of sketching that even the best erasers leave faint traces of the marks you’d made underneath. Our histories just weren’t made to be ignored or run away from. “I know,” I said, though, again, I didn’t reallyknow.

“You have a lot of expectations.” His voice was prayer-in-confessional quiet.

“No I don’t.” I shook my head. “Just you and me. That’s all, Jake. I know it might be…not perfect. I don’t expect or want perfect. I just want you.”

“I know you,” he insisted, giving me a secret side smile. “You’ve run through this in your head, and I know what you’re imagining. I’m kind of nervous about living up to it all.”

“Logically, there is only evidence supporting you being good.” His smile quirked wider, and I leaned close, my voice husky. “Really, really good.” He laughed a little and blushed. “Extremely good,” I said, just to rub it in a little.

“Thanks, Bren,” he said and finally, finally his shoulders relaxed a little. “I take it seriously.”

I rolled my eyes a little. He had this way of talking about the fact that I was a virgin that reminded me of an old lady handling her best china. “Jake, it’s going to happen at some point! This isn’t medieval times. I want it to be with you.”

“Alright.” He took off his cap and ran a hand through his hair before he put it back on. “Do you mind if I flip topics? I’m not trying to get out of talking about it with you.”

“Yeah, sure,” I laughed. “Okay, what’s up?”

“I talked to my…dad. To Ron Kelly.” It was so weird that he was using his step-dad’s full name to identify him, but how else was I supposed to know what ‘dad’ meant after this crazy summer? “I’m signed up for Share Time.”

“Jake!” Immediately I started playing out the year in my head, loving the idea of me and Jake, classes together every day; I had been pushing him towards it for months, and now it was really going to happen. “Jake that’s great news! I’m so happy for you!”

“And Saxon talked to you about what he’s doing?” Jake voice tread around that topic like he was walking over a frozen lake, half sure the ice was about to crack under him.

“Um, no.” I was suddenly sure that I didn’t really want to know.

If Saxon didn’t mention it to me, there was probably a reason. Like he didn’t want to tell me something I didn’t want to hear. I realized now why he looked so serious and worried in the parking lot.

There was something he was too chicken to tell me.

“Oh. I thought he might have told you. Before.” Jake looked a little uncomfortable, like he wasn’t sure if it was his news to tell. Extra bad.

“What’s up, Jake?” As bad as the news could be, it couldn’t possibly be worse than this suspense. “You two are going to be okay at Frankford together, right? There’s not going to be any big kick-down fight or anything stupid like that.”

“Nope. And that’s a guarantee.” Jake stomped through the ice of his secret. “Bren, Saxon isn’t doing his senior year at Frankford.”

I felt like I’d plunged into frigid water.

Saxon wouldn’t be in school with us this year? I had never considered school minus Saxon. Shock kept me silent for a long minute.

“Why?” I wondered. “Is he dropping out?”

“No. He’s enrolling here. By Aunt Helene’s. He’s not coming back.” He was trying to remain calm, but his voice dripped with sweet triumph.

“In Lodi?” I repeated a little dumbly.

“Yeah. I don’t know if he’s enrolling in public. The school system there is shitty. He might go to one of the private schools. Anyway, he’s not coming home.”

The initial shock wore away like alcohol on an open wound. The sting was there, then gone, and all that was left was an ache you’d hardly notice.

Considering the fact that Jake was doing Share Time this year, this was a good thing, no question. The two of them were better kept far apart, no matter what kind of peace they managed to make. Jake and Saxon were matches and firecrackers together…and there was never any telling if the explosion would be celebratory or damage-inducing.

But school without Saxon? That would be like sushi without wasabi. Definitely delicious, but lacking that certain kick.

Jake was and always would be my dependable go-to rock.

Saxon served an entirely different purpose. He added a little competition, a little challenge. Saxon pushed the envelope. I would seriously miss that.

Then I thought about things from Saxon’s perspective.

And it all made so much sense.

He wouldn’t have to deal with Lylee. He wouldn’t have to go back to a school population that saw him as some indolent bad boy and hero-worshipped his crappy attitude and refusal to play by the rules.

Saxon would be with Aunt Helene, who loved him, and Cadence, who he cared about. He could recreate himself however he wanted. He could keep a job, take school seriously, be in love, stay away from drugs.

This was only good for him. A Saxon Reformation. A Saxon Renaissance.

“I think it will be good for him,” I said out loud to Jake. I really meant it, and I knew Jake could hear that.

“I thought you might be upset about it.” Jake weaseled a nervous look from the corner of his eye.

“I liked having classes with him and seeing him in school,” I understated. “But it’s better for him to do his thing here.” Definitely better. Even if it left me with a feeling of empty longing.

“Alright.” His shoulders lost their tightness and his hands loosened their grip.

“And I’ll see you all day now.” I slid my hand across the seat and grabbed his. “How freaking amazing is this? I used to have to wait all morning to see you, and now, we’ll go in together every single day. This is so cool.”

“Um, I took some tests, too. To see if I might be able to place in some honors classes. They gave me this thing called an IEP,” he admitted, his voice all low and tongue-tied around the words.

“When did you do all of this?” The secrets he hid like nesting dolls kept surprising me, one by one.

“This past spring. You were running track a lot, so I had some time.” There was a braggy note of pride in his voice.

I pinched his cheek. “My little covert operative, all hiding information behind my back! Isn’t an IEP for, um, learning disorders?” I asked, hoping that he wouldn’t get offended.

“Yeah.” His voice was easy and confident. “So my dyslexia is workable. They did this oral testing with me. They have this program where I set up this whole computer thing and I can speak into it. It was pretty incredible. I mean, I’d have to do it separate from everyone else, but I actually kind of wrote an essay.”

“Wha…? Why didn’t you tell me about this? Seriously? We were together all summer. How did this never come up?” I was so shocked, I could barely process. This was a big deal! This was important! Why didn’t he tell me?

“I didn’t want you to get your hopes up. But I got a letter this morning. It said I placed into some honors classes.” Pride glowed on his face.

“What!” I screamed, bouncing up and down. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I didn’t want you to get all excited if it wound up I was just a dummy like I always thought.”

I ignored his self-dig and resisted the urge to jump across the seat and kiss him like crazy. “Are you kidding me?” I couldn’t get my excitement under control. “I’m so pissed you never told me!”

“Well, I’m not sure if I’m going to do it. I mean, it might be a lot.”

It was like the brakes screeched on the whole exciting run. “You’re not serious.”

“It’s a lot,” he repeated, his voice edged with warning.

“No.” I shook my head at him. “Do notdo that to yourself. You are so smart. You can ace these classes, Jake!”

“I need to get a computer with the programming that they have. For myself. Like that I didn’t have to borrow.”

“So? You have money saved, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” he said vaguely.

I couldn’t put my finger on what he was getting at, but I knew I was missing something, and he wasn’t saying something.

“So buy it.” I threw my hands up in frustration. “What’s up? Why are you even considering not doing this?”

“Because what if I’m smart?” His voice dropped.

“You are smart,” I argued, kind of automatically.

“Not just to you, Bren,” he countered. “What if I’m actually smart? It kind of screws up my long term life plan.”

“Which is?” I pressed.

“To be who I am and do what I do. To work. Hard. And get money. And provide.” He took a long breath. “For you. With you. Wherever you need to be.”

“Jake,” I said, and stopped. That was it, I guess. If he deviated from this structured plan of his, he got freaked out. “That’s really sweet, but I’m planning on providing for myself, and I want you to do your thing, too. I thought you wanted to go to college.”

His jaw set and he stared straight ahead. “I want to go if you go. I want you,” he insisted stubbornly. “That’s it. I just want to be happy with you.”

“Jake, I’m not marrying you right out of high school or anything.” I felt a little shaky in the face of his totally stubborn plans. “I’m going to college wherever I get in and want to go. I might even go in another country. And I’m going to do internships. And have jobs. And have my own place.”

“So you don’t want to be with me?”

I felt like he was purposefully missing the point of what I was saying.

“I didn’t say that.” Frustration made my cheeks flush hot. “I don’t want being with you to be my only plan. That’s all. And being with me can’t be your only plan either. That would be disaster. There’s so much we should both plan on doing, and it might be seperate.”

He shook his head.

“What?” I asked.

“You just don’t get it,” he muttered.

“What don’t I get?” I felt like shaking him or choking him or smacking him upside the head. “You could be in honors classes and go to college and do things for yourself. And we can be with each other, even if we’re not always physically together. So what am I not getting? What’s so complicated?”

“You have your home right now.” His voice creaked out, rough with emotions he didn’t want me to hear. “You have your mother and Thorsten, and maybe even a dad somewhere who cares about you. You have that.”

“You have Ron,” I argued. “Who stood by you this whole time.”

“He…stands by me,” Jake agreed. “But he’s not home. I don’t have one. Or the promise of one, except with you.” He took a deep breath. “If I work hard for us, you can do your thing, and I’ll be waiting for you. That’s a decent plan.”

He was so serious about it, but I was not going to let him think that I was happy with his plan.

“I don’t want that.” I felt my teeth click together, I clenched them so hard. “I want us to be together, but also doing our own things. If you don’t do these classes, and if you don’t go to college or at least do something for yourself, I willbreak up with you.” It was extreme, but it was the honest truth.

“What?” Jake blinked hard and his nostrils flared slightly. “You can’t break up with me over classes.”

“Oh yes I can.” I crossed my arms over my chest, trying to hold back every sputtering emotion broiling in me. “I can and I will. If breaking up with you makes you go after what you need, I’ll do it in a second. That’s how much I love you.”

Jake’s jaw got tight. “That’s stupid.”

“Your plan is stupid,” I countered, my voice ferocious with equal parts hope and terror.

“I knew you wouldn’t get it. I don’t know why I even brought it up in the first place.” His fists death-gripped the steering wheel and his entire face was hard-lined and tense.

I took a deep breath, ready to smooth some peace over all this, but not prepared to back down either. “I’ll be here for you. I will. But I think you’re using your feelings for me as a copout. There have to be things you do just for yourself, Jake.” I couldn’t believe he was considering anything else.

“Why?” he snapped.

“Because…it’s obvious why!” I took a deep breath and counted to ten. Then eleven. I made it to twenty-seven before I felt remotely able to talk. “Look, I know we’re in the Kelly Boat together, but I’m staging a mutiny if you start drinking the salt water. That’s all I’m saying about this. Alright?”

“Aye aye, Cap’n.” His smile was a blurry, faded photocopy of its usual self.

“Just promise me you’ll think about all this. I’m telling you, you’re going to realize I’m right.”

He took a deep breath and nodded. “You’re wrong, but I love you for being so worried about me. I’ll think about all this.”

We rode the rest of the way to my house in silence, and even though once Jake pulled into my driveway, we kissed and touched and rubbed like two out-of-control animals, it all sat badly.

I watched him pull away, went in and kissed my parents goodnight, and tried calling Evan, but there was no answer. Her Facebook status had been updated two hours before and read, “Out making mischief…”

All of my problems with Jake and Saxon, sex and school paled for a minute and fear gnawed on my nerves.

“Mischief?” I rolled the word around on my tongue as I wriggled into my pajamas. Technically all it meant was mildly troublesome, undesirable behavior without malice. Well, that was one definition anyway. How far would my friend take it?

One of the scariest things about Evan was she was like that girl in the nursery rhyme with the curl. When Evan made up her mind to play it like a good girl, there was no one better. But when she decided to let the bad girl out? I decided I’d better sleep with my phone by my ear, and made up my mind that I would use the number her gramma had sent to my mother in case of emergencies if I didn’t hear from by early the next morning.

  Chapter Fourteen

Saxon

The Folly concert was a total success. Tony and Rosalie were pumped about the whole thing, and when all was good in the Erikson house, all was good with Cadence.

Which was beyond good for me.

She was beyond good for me.

She’d been nervous about the whole concert thing. Especially once she saw Bren’s design, which freaked her out a little. I thought it was damn cool, and kind of talked Cadence out of freaking about it.

“It’s me!” She held the concept shirt Bren had left at Tony out in front of her. Her hands were a little shaky.

I grabbed one hand, bright pink paint on the nails compliments of me. “It’s cool.” I squeezed her hand tight. “Bren’s an art genius. If she thinks it’s good, it’s good.”

Her mouth did this sexy twitchy move that let me know loud and clear she didn’t love that I’d said that. She’d been jumpy about Brenna since the whole essay thing came up.

“Do you still like her, Saxon?”

We were in her room, door open, Sullie running by a hundred miles an hour, the smells of Rosalie’s tortillas wafting up the stairs and making my stomach rumble. It was loud and chaotic and not remotely private, but I loved it.

She was sitting cross-legged on her bed and I was sprawled on the floor. I definitely mostly played the hands-off good boy at her place. No use dredging up trouble with her fucking scary parents.

“Not the way you’re asking. Do you still like Jeff?” I poked her leg with my foot.

“No.” She grabbed my foot. I knew what was coming, because my girlfriend is a sex goddess. She pulled my sock off and grabbed a bottle of lotion from her dresser, then gooped it on her hands and rubbed it into my feet. “But that’s different. I never really liked Jeff.”

“Oh my God,” I moaned. Her fingers were sure and relaxing and fucking magic. “What do you want, woman? Anything! You can have anything!”

“Just you.” Like a damn angel, she smiled over my disgusting lotioned feet.

“Liar,” I accused. “No one gives something that fantastic and gets something that shitty in return unless she’s a moron. And I know for a fact that you’re no moron.”

She laughed, her big-smiled belly-laugh that I loved so much it made me a little nervous. She had these great, full lips…great at smiling, great at kissing, great at telling me to shove it up my ass, and great at telling me how much she loved me. Perfect lips.

“I want to know about Brenna.” She looked right at my lotion-gooped feet, avoiding any eye contact at all.

The thing with Brenna was, if I could have taken her essay and turned it around on her I would have. Reading that to Jake was pretty much the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. Because I knew exactly what she was saying. And he didn’t.

Just like Cadence wouldn’t.

Because Brenna and I had something that was deep and real, but it wasn’t exactly love. Not the way I felt about Cadence or that Bren felt about Jake. I knew why Brenna was freaked about Jake reading it. I would have burned it and any record of it if I’d had the balls to write something like that and Cadence wanted to see it. No way in hell would I try to explain it all.

But Bren was always more fearless than I was. I needed her in my life.

Not as a girlfriend: I thought that would work, but it didn’t. And I’m glad that we tried, because if we hadn’t given it a shot, I would have sworn to God that dating was the thing for us. But I knew now that Bren and I had to be where we were and who we were to each other and just let it go.

It was pretty much impossible to explain. Especially to someone I loved and wanted to make happy.

“Brenna is special to me, Cadence,” I said, and, even though her hands never stopped moving, I could see that her face tensed up. “C’mon, babe, it’s not like that.”

“Like what?” Her words trickled out, deceptively serene.

“Like I want her to be my girlfriend.” Her thumb glided over my arch and I bit my lip hard to keep from moaning.

She shrugged. “I thought she didn’t want you.”

And therein lay my girl’s powers of genius. Here she was rubbing my feet like some kind of perfect saint, rendering me defenseless as she barbed me with her dead-on quips.

This was love.

“She didn’t want me, but she gave me a fair chance. And much as I wanted her to want me, in the end I really didn’t. It wouldn’t have worked between us. We didn’t have the right chemistry.”

“What does that even mean?” Worry lines popped out on her forehead.

I pulled my foot out of her hand and knelt by her bed. I grabbed one of her feet and kissed her toes, made her giggle, and then leaned up and kissed her mouth. “It means I was waiting for you.”

She rolled her eyes. “Sussex County Casanova strikes again.”

“Not Sussex County anymore, babe.” I kissed her neck. She smelled like some kind of cookies. Vanilla wafers, I thought.

“Why not? Are you extending yourself past Sussex County? Are you going to be the New Jersey Casanova? Or the East Coast Casanova?” She giggled as I kissed her collar bones and down to her breast plate, all the time keeping one eye on her open bedroom door and the currently empty hallway.

“No.” I ran a hand up under her shirt, all the way up to the bra that I could feel was little more than a tiny bit of lace. God, I loved her underwear. “I have no plans to expand. In fact, I’m contracting.”

“What?” she asked, her voice a little giggly and off. She bit her lip a little when I got my hand under the lace.

She felt amazing.

“I’m relocating, and downsizing,” I explained, then I saw Sullie run down the hall pulling a wagon full of toys that would serve equally well as run-of-the-mill playthings and items of torture. For my head and sack. I pulled my hand and mouth away from my very hot girlfriend, sat back to wait for Sullie to administer some pain, and finished explaining. “I’m an official Essex County resident.”

Sullie came in and pulled out a heavy toy keyboard, dropped it on my bare foot, and clapped along to “Bingo” while I screamed in agony.

“What do you mean?” Cadence asked, her focus snapped back as mine blurred out in a red cloud of pain.

“Ow, damn, Sullie, that hurts!” Sullie laughed and held his hands up. I swept him off the floor and jostled him on my shoulder. “I mean that I can’t leave Aunt Helene in her rotting hole of a house. What the hell will she do about the ice and snow? What about the heat? That fucking furnace is a hundred years old. I’m surprised you don’t have to shovel coal into it.”

“Don’t swear in front of the baby,” Cadence said absently, which was a fairly hilarious warning considering their mother’s language could melt the ears off a fucking truck driver. “So you’re going to fix Aunt Helene’s up more?”

But, like I said before, my girl’s no moron. Her eyes were shiny with the promise of what she wanted me to say.

I pulled Sullie’s shirt up and blew a loud raspberry on his belly. He screamed with happy laughter. “Yeah, I’m fixing it up more.” I paused to give one more tremendous raspberry, then let the news drop. “And I’m enrolling.”

“Here? At George Washington High?” She leaned towards me.

“Here. At Immaculate Conception,” I corrected. I was down on all fours, Sullie on my back and kicking his little heels into my sides hard. I plodded around the room and fully realized how ridiculous I must look.

“You’re going to my school?” Cadence’s mouth twitched into a smile.

“Yep,” I said, then picked up the pace in response to Sullie’s incessant kicks. When I stopped, I was right in front of her. “You cool with that?”

She pulled Sullie off my back and swung him onto her hip, mercifully allowing me to stand upright. “I’m so happy.” She threw her free arm around me tight. “I’m so glad, Saxon. I…” I felt her give a little sob. Sullie patted her head.

“What’s up, babe?” I asked, dipping my head to see her face.

There were runny mascara-tinged tears all over her cheeks. “You…I was so nervous…I thought this might be…a summer thing…” She laughed and sobbed a little, and I pulled her close, her face making my shirt wet and gray with smudgy tears.

“Shh. What are you, insane? I’m not going anywhere. Not unless you agree to come with me.” That made her cry a little harder. I laughed, and my whole chest felt loose and free when I did it. “Stop. Don’t cry. You look like a zombie.”

“Oh, shit.” She wiped under her eyes with shaky fingers.

“Don’t swear in front of the baby.” I rubbed a thumb over a sooty tear on her chin.

“Shut up!” She looked up at me, so gorgeous it squeezed the breath right out of my lungs. “Do I still look like a zombie?”

“Yeah.” I leaned towards her ear. “I’m feeling a strange surge of necrophilia.”

“I bet you say that to all the pretty zombies.” She bounced on her toes and kissed Sullie’s head. Just then Rosalie called us down to dinner.

I’d been getting fairly regular invites to Cadence’s house for dinner. At least when they had it, which wasn’t always often with everyone working so much. I always invited Aunt Helene, but she had a pretty rocking social life for an older lady, and it was fairly rare that she didn’t have something else on her busy-ass Bingo-and-reading-club-filled agenda.

I liked the big, noisy dinners with the Erikson’s. Pammy and Jimmy accepted me like I was a real sibling; which meant that they switched between loving me and giving me merciless hell.

Tony had already come over and spent some time in the driveway with me, showing me how to do basic shit like rotate tires and change oil, which I really appreciated. Google can take you so far, but after that you’re just shit out of luck if you screw up your car.

And Rosalie was as mean and unforgiving to me as she was to her own brood, which I knew was her form of love, and I ate it up.

So I was pretty glad that I was so crazy about Cadence, because she could have been a hag and I might have kept hanging around anyway just to leech off of her family.

But, much as they all liked me, I still felt weird telling them the news about my move. I had talked to Lylee about it; she was pretty fucking thrilled with the idea of having her house to herself and the ability to do whatever the hell she wanted whenever the hell she wanted. She took my word for it when I told her I wasn’t hooked on drugs anymore.

And Aunt Helene had cried and hugged me and tried to stuff more food down my throat. Damn, I loved that woman.

But those two were predictable variables in my world. The Eriksons were a whole different story. I wasn’t sure if they would be happy to see me. Every day. All year.

We sat down at dinner, and while Cadence snapped Sullie into his high chair, she announced, “Saxon’s enrolling at Immaculate.”

There was that terrible choked moment when I thought all shit would hit the fan, and Tony would tell me summer was enough and Rosalie would say that I was invading her family, and I would walk back to a cold house like a stooge.

“Catholic school, huh?” Tony scooped a huge blob of sour cream onto his plate to combat Rosalie’s fiercely spiced tortillas. “You Catholic, Saxon?”

“No, sir.” Rosalie handed me a glass of iced tea.

“It’s a pretty strict school,” Rosalie warned me, pursing her lips. “They aren’t going to put up with any crap.”

“I don’t plan on giving any, Mrs. Erikson.”

She frowned. “I don’t know if you can help yourself.” She flicked a look at Cadence. Or maybe I imagined she flicked a look at Cadence. “You’re a wild one, Saxon.”

“I think I’m done with all of that.”

Cadence’s parents looked at each other and laughed loud and long.

“You’ll probably be fine,” Tony said, choking so hard, Rosalie had to smack him on the back a few times.

And that was it. It registered with them, and they let it go. I mean, it cracked them up, but they didn’t have a shit-fit or kick me out or anything. And as I ate Rosalie’s cheesy delicious tortillas and thought about why I was so worried about it all, I couldn’t come up with anything that really made sense. I guess it was just my fucked up perception of myself and all the people who had the bad luck of having to deal with me. It made me worried that anyone in my life was just biding time until they could get rid of me.

I left after dinner, but not before Cadence whispered that she would sneak by later. Aunt Helene slept like the dead, and Cadence and I had planned to get together for a while. I felt a little nervous about the whole thing. I had never really orchestrated any kind of actual dating life.

Brenna had been the closest and it wasn’t like I was eating dinner with her family and spending hours flipping through her old yearbooks and photo albums. Which I did with Cadence, and it was, astoundingly, a pretty cool thing. I felt like I got to see her grow up a little. She was a damn cute kid, even when most people are going through their ugly, gawky stages.

I’d never been asked into those intimate places with other girls. Or maybe I had never cared to be asked. It didn’t matter. The bottom line was that Cadence and I were in uncharted territory.

So I cleaned up my room for her and took a shower and made sure the mood was acceptable to get her out of most or all of her clothes. Which meant candles and a good, lyrically deep, emotionally nuanced indie mix playing.

I was waiting in the kitchen when she scratched at the door. I opened up and she smiled at me. A smile like I was the only person in the world she wanted to see. A lot of girls had probably smiled at me like that before, but I had never bothered to give a damn.

With Cadence it was all I was waiting for. I pulled her into the house and let her come at me. She wrapped her legs around my waist, and I navigated to my room, Cadence kissing my face and neck and ripping at my shoulders and bucking against me.

It was fucking hard to keep quiet.

We fell on my bed and she pulled my shirt over my head. I gave her the same treatment. She snuggled down on top of me, all soft, warm girl boobs and hot everywhere kissing. All it took was a flick of my fingers and her bra was gone, one push to get her pants off, and then…nothing. She wasn’t wearing anything else.

“Saxon!” she said against my ear, her hands fumbling at my pants. She yanked them down, and my boxers with them and I kicked them the last of the way off.

I rolled her under me and kissed her harder, my hands on her and my lungs pulling deep breaths of her into my body. She was fantastically good smelling and tasting. Her arms and hair were tangled around me, trapping me. I was happy to be trapped for once.

I ran my hand up and down the long length of her back. She kissed me softly.

“You look like Juliet.” I rubbed my forehead against her shoulder.

“Like Romeo and Juliet?” Her fingers combed through my hair, pushing it back off of my face.

My lips traced all along her arms. “Yeah.”

“How do you know what Juliet looked like?” she asked, kissing my bottom lip.

“From what Romeo said,” I told her. “Dark haired. So pretty it would stop your heart.”

So I was paraphrasing. I was probably high as a damn kite when we read Shakespeare in school. Every time we read Shakespeare in school. But I did know that Juliet was dark-haired. And stunning. Like stars or jewels or flowers. Or Cadence.

“Do I stop your heart?” She pressed her hand over my chest, over my racing, flipping, pounding heart.

I could hardly see the green in her eyes, her pupils were so huge and black. Her left ear was pierced twice, and there was a beauty mark next to it. The right was pierced three times, but one was closed up. She had told me all about it. And the funny thing was, I had been completely fucking fascinated by her ear-piercing stories.

“No.” I pulled her hand down to my chest, over my heart. And my work-hardened pecs. No point in having a developed set of muscles if you didn’t get to make a girl sigh over them once in a while. “You give my heart something to beat for.”

“You’re just trying to get into my pants.” She nuzzled my neck.

“You don’t have any pants on,” I pointed out.