6. Official
The longer we sat in the parking lot by the boat launch, the more people showed up to hang out for the night. But all I wanted was to be alone with Faith for five minutes.
Staring off into space, she swayed beside me with the music blaring out of someone’s stereo across the bonfire. Every time she rocked into me, she gave me a dose of her perfume, and I couldn’t take it anymore.
The next time she moved in my direction, I slid my finger into her sleeve to hold her still and leaned into her ear. “You want to go for a walk with me?”
Sliding down from the truck’s gate, she set the bottle of soda I bought her on top and wiggled her hips as she pulled her shorts back in place. “Sure.” Nodding at a cleared-off space in the tree line, she pushed her fingers into her back pockets. “There’s a trail right over there that leads all the way around to the other side of the field.”
I lifted my toes to get Jason’s attention and told him we were leaving with a wave. “Sorry. I thought it would be more private here.”
Her cheek puffed back at me as she shook her head. “Nope. Sorry. If you want a quieter fishing hole, you’ll have to go to the lake like Dad does.” Wrinkling her nose at herself, she tossed her head back and forth as she hummed. “Hmm. It’s like five bucks a day per person to hunt and camp and fish on top of the license, so it’s pretty dead most of the time.”
I laid my hand on her back, sliding it up and down to see how she responded as I clicked my tongue. “Ten dollars to have you all to myself for the day. That sounds like a hell of a deal if you ask me.” Holding back a branch that blocked the path she stopped at, I waited for her to go underneath before following her in. “I’m just not much for crowds of people.”
Once we got through the thicket of trees, she crossed her arms as her face scrunched back at me. “Really? You seem so comfortable all the time, though.” Taking a deep breath through her nose, she playfully rolled her eyes away as she tossed me more compliments. “And super smart, and funny, and a way better running back than anyone on Varsity.”
All week, she sat in the bleachers after school during practice. But unlike all the cheerleaders and girlfriends who did the same thing, she spent the rest of the evening on the phone with me, dissecting each play.
Brushing against me with every other step, she finally bumped my shoulder with hers. “You smoked everyone on that last forty, so I bet they move you up any day now. “
I squeaked a laugh back at her as I flipped my hat around. “I’m glad you think so well of me, but…” Talking about my feelings is what you’d call frowned upon in my house, and how easy it was for me to spill my guts to her only made that bond between us stronger. I was becoming completely dependent on her as my support system. “My brain is always buzzing with all these ideas. So the extra noise from everyone is just too much, and I have to, I don’t know, escape.”
Turning toward me, she laid her hand on my arm. “Well, I’ll try not to talk too much if it helps.”
Smiling at my feet, I bent my arm to grab her fingers before she got away. “No, don’t do that. You’re one voice that doesn’t bother me at all.”
A few seconds went by before she got her courage back. “Um, so, I love your truck. How long have you had it?”
“Dad surprised me with it for my birthday, and my mother about keeled over.” Clenching my jaw from the stress of them arguing every time the topic of me came up, I rolled my eyes at myself and sighed. “They’re probably still fighting about it right now.”
Bringing me to a stop, she cocked her head toward her shoulder and narrowed her eyes at me as what I said caught up with her. “Wait a minute. When was your birthday?”
This girl was everything I didn’t know I wanted until I found her, but I understood how unequal our positions in life were and how it embarrassed her.
If she had a piggy bank to crack open, I know she would have done it to get me something, and I absolutely didn’t want that.
Cringing back at her, I bit my lip and waited for her to poke my belly like she always did when I teased her too much. “Don’t get mad at me. Okay?”
She gasped when she realized I meant that day and shoved me away with her finger. “Dominic Vasser. How could you?”
I snatched up that hand, too, and pulled her closer. “That’s why we came over so late. I waited around the DMV all morning to take my test so I could come pick you up.”
She backed us toward the clearing with the redwood picnic table in the center. “Why didn’t you say anything before? I would have made you dinner or a cake or something. Now I feel like a jerk.”
Letting her go just long enough to climb on top of the table, I leaned over again to reach for her. “That’s why I didn’t tell you. It’s not a big deal.”
She landed beside me, folding up on herself and pouting her lips. “It’s a big deal to me.”
I’d practiced every move I’d make in my head about a hundred times, and I was as ready as I would ever be.
My hand planted on the table behind her as I turned on my hip and swept the hair back over her ear. “All I wanted was for you and me to spend time together, but Jase didn’t think your dad would be cool with some strange guy showing up at your house all alone.”
The glow across her face lit up the dimming light between us when she dropped her eyes away from me. “Oh.”
I watched her shy away from everyone she came across to avoid being uncomfortable, but I wasn’t going to let her make me one of those people she feared even looking at. So, I brought my ear to my shoulder to make her look at me again, whether she liked it or not. “But if you had your heart set on doing something special, why don’t you go ahead and make this whole girlfriend-boyfriend thing with me official?”
She breathed so hard and fast that I thought she might pass out on me. So, I shrugged and put her out of her misery like I knew she wanted me to. “Actually, I’m not even taking no for an answer. You’re mine, and that’s it, Faith.”
Tears glistened in her eyes, and she blinked them up at the sky as her voice shrank to almost nothing. “Are you sure? Like every girl at school is in love with you.”
She wasn’t a game to me, and I wasn’t playing with her. But getting her to admit what we both knew was true had to be done. I couldn’t go on another day without it.
I laid my hand on her cheek, rubbing my thumb across her lip to torture myself for a few more seconds. “But I only care if the one I’m looking at is. So, are you?” When her bottom lip rolled away from my thumb to wet it as she nodded, I curled my fingers around her face. “I’m getting my birthday kiss now. So, go on and close your eyes.”
Despite Jason chatting me up to the other guys about the game I had when it came to sweet talking girls, I’d never even kissed one before.
My lawyer father’s gift for taking charge fell out of my mouth sometimes when I was in a mood, but I didn’t have a damn clue what I was doing with her. It’s only that taking care of her made me braver and stronger, because I knew she needed me to be.
Her entire body shivered so hard I had to put my other hand on her face to hold her still.
Like the cherry-flavored lip balm she slathered on earlier, her lips tasted so good, I might have sucked a little too hard.
It was messy and clumsy. It was also the most memorable kiss of my life, and I replayed it in an endless loop in my head when I wasn’t with her.
I wasn’t even sure if she liked anything I was doing to her until she put her hand on my waist, sinking into me entirely on the next exhale. Sliding my hand back through her hair to keep her from stopping, I pulled her closer to me with the other until her breasts massaged me with every breath she took.
From the second she smiled at me in the cafeteria, I belonged to Faith Bennett. And when she whimpered into my mouth like that, I knew she was mine, too.