“So,” Porter says, facing me.
“So . . . ,” I repeat, swallowing hard as I glance around the dark street. A few golden lights glow in the windows of nearby houses, but there’s no sound but the occasional passing of distant cars and a frog singing along with some crickets in the redwoods.
Porter shifts closer. I back up. He’s always in my personal space, I think weakly.
“Why did you come to the bonfire tonight?” he asks in a low voice.
I fiddle with the zipper on my hoodie. “Grace invited me.”
“You snuck out of the house because Grace invited you?”
He steps closer.
I step back—and my butt hits cedar. Crap. I’ve run into the mailbox post. I start to shimmy around it, but Porter’s arm shoots out and blocks me. Damn! Ten points for surfer agility.
“Not this time,” he says, trapping me with his hand on the mailbox. His head dips low. He speaks close to my ear. “Answer the question. Why did you come to the bonfire? Why sneak out at all? Why risk it?”
“Is this a quiz?” I ask, trying to sound mad, but I’m really just insanely nervous. I’m cornered—which I hate. And he’s so close, his hair is tickling my cheek, and his breath is warm on my ear. I’m scared and intoxicated at the same time, worried that if either of us says another word, I might push him away.
That I might not.
I’m trying-trying-trying not to breathe so fast. But Porter shifts, and the hand that isn’t trapping me falls to the side. His fingers dance over my hand, a gossamer touch, and he traces soft patterns on my open palm, Morse code taps, gently urging, send a thousand electric currents of signals up my nerves.
“Why?” he whispers against my cheek.
I whimper.
He knows he’s won. But he asks one more time, this time against my ear. “Why?”
“Because I wanted to see you.”
I can’t even hear my own voice, but I know he does when a sigh gusts out of him, long and hard. His head drops to the crook of my neck and rests there. The fingers that were teasing me with their little tap-tap-tapping messages now curl around my fingers, loosely clasping. And the arm pinning me to the mailbox is now lifting away, and I feel his hand smooth down the length of my hair.
A tremor runs through me.
“Shh,” he says softly against my neck. I nearly fall to pieces.
I don’t know what we’re doing. What he’s planning to do. What I want him to do. But we’re swaying and clinging to each other like the earth might crack open beneath our feet at any given moment, and I’m a little bit afraid that I really might be having a stroke, because I can hear the blood swishing around in my temples and my knees suddenly feel like they’ve gone rubbery and I might collapse.
Then he freezes against me.
“Whatwasthat?” he slurs, pulling all his wonderful warmth away.
Now I hear it. Windowpanes shaking. “Oh, God,” I whisper. I’m going to have a heart attack. “It’s the surround sound on the TV. My dad’s probably watching some stupid sci-fi movie. It shakes the windows during the battle scenes.” Now come back here.
Then we hear a slam. That was no TV. That’s the door to the—
“Carport!” I whisper. “Other side of the house!”
“Crap!”
“That way!” I say, shoving him toward a bush.
Two quick strides, and he’s hidden. I hear the squeal of the trash bin in the carport and exhale a sigh of relief; Dad can’t see us from there. But that was close. Too close.
“Bailey?” Dad calls out. “Is that you?”
“Yeah, Dad,” I call back. Stupid curfew. “I’m home. Coming around.”
Movement catches my eye. I turn in time to see Porter sneaking across the street. He’s pretty good, I must admit. No Artful Dodger, but still. When he gets to the other side, he turns to look at me one last time, and I swear I can see him smiling in the dark.
“Never trust a junkie.”
—Chloe Webb, Sid and Nancy (1986)
15
Tiny arms hug me from behind. I’m engulfed by the scent of baby lotion. “I’m so, so sorry,” Grace’s elfin voice says into the middle of my back as she squeezes me. “Will you ever forgive me?”
It’s the following day, and I’m standing in front of my locker in the break room at work. We texted last night after Porter sneaked away—and after my dad got over being amazed that he never heard Grace’s car drive up, and why didn’t she come inside? Ugh. Once you tell one lie, plan on telling about twenty more, because they pile up like yesterday’s garbage.
“There’s nothing to forgive,” I tell her. I’m just relieved she didn’t think I ditched her for Porter—or ask why I was with him. “But for Halloween, I’m dressing up like a tree and you’re going as a sloth. I’ll carry you around while you eat my leaves.”
“You probably could,” she says, releasing me and flopping back against the lockers, arms crossed. “You’ve got all that secret strength for taking down adolescent boys. Were you on the varsity wrestling team back in DC? Coronado Cove’s got a Roller Derby team, you know. The Cavegirls.”
I snort a laugh. “No, I didn’t know that, but I’ll keep it in mind for this fall.”
“Look, I really am sorry for losing you at the bonfire. I didn’t mean to. I don’t even know how it happened. Freddy started talking to me and you just disappeared. Someone said you were talking to the twins—”
“I was. They introduced me to someone else. I don’t know. I’m not great at being social,” I admit. “Anyway, it all worked out.”
She glances around the break room. Only a few people are there, and no one’s paying attention to us. “So, yeah. Do tell. Porter took you home? And . . . ?”
“And what?” Crap. So much for avoiding that subject. I can feel my face getting hot, so I busy myself feeling around inside my locker for some nonexistent thing.
“I’m just saying, the two of you are spending an awful lot of time together and asking an awful lot of questions about each other—”
“I haven’t asked any questions.” Have I?
“And you’re giving him an awful lot of looks that say I’d like to jump on you with my mighty roller-derby strength. And he’s giving you looks that say I’d like to surf your waves.”
“You are nutty.”
“Mmm-hmm. Let’s see about that,” she murmurs, and then calls out past my face in a chipper voice, “Afternoon, Porter baby.”
“Hello, ladies.”
My heart rate jumps to a five on the Richter scale. I attempt to look casual, stay cool as I turn to my right. But there he is, hand braced on my locker door, and whatever self-control I tried to muster just blows away like paper napkins on a windy day.
“You’re still alive, so I guess everything went okay with your dad,” he says.
“No problems whatsoever,” I confirm.
“Good, good. Glad to hear it.”
“Yeah.” Is it just my imagination, or does he smell extra Sex Wax–y today? Did he do that on purpose? Is he trying to seduce me? Or am I just being sensitive? And—what the hell?—is the air-conditioning broken in the break room, because it suddenly feels like the Hotbox up in here. Note to self: Do not think the words “sex” and “wax” while he’s standing in front of you. Ever, ever, ever.