CHAPTER 13 #3
I became all too aware of the small closet around us.
The walls were lined with unused coat hooks and hangers, and there was a large built-in near the back corner, with shelves that were empty.
I’d have to brush past him to get out, but I didn’t move.
Later, I’d tell myself it was because I wasn’t thinking, not because I couldn’t tear myself away.
“But that didn’t stop you,” Beck said finally, his low tone almost vibrating in his throat. “You followed me around, anyway.”
I wondered what Beck saw when he looked at me.
Did he see who I was now, or did he see me as an annoying little kid who interrupted his peaceful time with the stars?
Did he see the confident seventeen-year-old, or did he see the little fourteen-year-old lighting flowers on fire beside a pretty boy she could never have?
Who did I see when I looked at Beck? Blond hair, cutting eyes, a smirking mouth that held no humor. That was Beckham Jennings. That had always been Beckham Jennings, but I’d been the one who’d gotten a glimpse at the gentleness that lay underneath.
And I’d cut that gentleness to shreds.
“I’m sure you wished I hadn’t,” I said, but the words came out softer, closer to a whisper. “I’m sure you’ve wished a million times over that I’d just left you alone.”
“Is that what you think I’ve wished?” Beck tilted his head. “Or what you’ve wished?”
I had wished it, many times. That I would’ve squashed the crush on Beck the moment it’d formed. But I’d also wished other things—that Beck had stayed in Addison. That I’d seen him at more than just Alderton-Du Ponte events. That we’d had a chance.
My heart ached now. “I’d been bored,” I said finally, clearly, as if they didn’t feel like rocks scraping their way up my throat. “A kid with nothing to do will follow around the boy she thought was the most handsome.”
“Is that right?”
“Neither one of us can amuse the other, it seems.” I stared him down in the tight space, willing him to believe me. Willing myself to believe it. “It’s time for us to find new toys.”
Beck slid his hands into his pockets. “Don’t wanna.”
And that was all he said. Like an actual child. “Gosh, you are so—”
“You still like me.” Beck’s voice dripped confidence. “You like me following you around. You like me being your toy.”
“I do not—”
“Why else would you have stepped in front of Mrs. Johnson’s cup for me?” Beck took a step toward me, and I couldn’t help but think about the chess game we’d played together, his knight sliding in and stealing my queen. His leg finding mine beneath the table. “You still like me.”
Every sensible part of me knew I should leave. But my body had gone traitor in the tight dark of the closet. “I—I wasn’t thinking.”
Beck’s eyes dipped to my hand before he wrapped his fingers around it, warm and certain, and every thought in my head scattered. “No,” he murmured. “You were.”
The softness of it was worse than if he’d laughed. Worse than if he’d mocked me. I could’ve fought mocking. I could’ve fought mean. But this—this low, knowing gentleness—slid beneath every defense I had left.
“Be honest,” he went on, his fingers tracing mine. “Do you still spell like you used to?”
I stared up at him, holding perfectly still, forcing my hand to be limp in his light grip. I would not give him a reaction. I would not let him see me shaken. “Yes.”
“Spell something for me,” he mused as the memory popped up. “Spell insufferable.”
The words tumbled from my lips like a compulsion. “I-N-S-U-F-F-E-R-A-B-L-E.”
Beck watched my mouth as I spelled, his gaze dropping there with a focus that made my skin go hot. My fingers twitched. “Expected.”
“E-X-P-E-C-T-E-D.” I rushed through the word, and then I drew in a rough gasp. My lungs ached, as if I hadn’t been breathing. “This is ridiculous. You’re ridic—”
“Eleanor.” Beck’s lips spoke my name softly, like an enchantment that snapped me still. His green eyes were locked solely on me, the tip of his middle finger brushing along my palm. I nearly shivered. “Spell it.”
Heat crept its way down the collar of my shirt, foreign to the moment. I didn’t know why I was flushing. With anger, surely. It couldn’t have been anything else. It wasn’t allowed to be anything else. And that was why I was trembling, too. Anger. Nothing else. “E-L-E-A-N-O-R.”
Inexplicably, a corner of Beck’s mouth lifted. It was less of a mocking smirk, but something softer. The smile he used to give me when we were kids. Aside from the hair, which hung in his eyes, he looked so much like the boy I’d given my heart to years ago.
And he’d never given it back.
Beck leaned close, and my heart slammed against my ribs. Close. Not close enough. “You spelled it wrong,” he mused, voice nearly a whisper. “D-E-L-U-S-I-O-N-A-L.”
And just like that, a match struck within me.
The heat at my collar flooded the rest of my frame, the closet suddenly tight and claustrophobic and warm.
Definitely anger, I decided. I wrapped my fingers around his own now, clamping down hard, as if it were a punishment.
I sucked in a breath, taking a half step forward, bringing us closer—
And then I heard my name right outside of the coat closet. “—you seen Eleanor?”
The flare of heat suddenly froze.
Beck turned toward the door. “You don’t want them to know you’re in here? Why not? Oh, Carter—”
I slapped my free palm over Beck’s mouth and pressed down. His lips flattened against my skin, and I dug my fingers into his cheek hard enough that he flinched. It must’ve hurt. Good.
“Nellie?” That was Daisy. “Was she not in the ballroom?”
“I didn’t see her,” Carter replied. “I asked around, and Lydia said she saw her come out into the hallway. I want to introduce her to my parents.”
Lydia had seen me?
They had to be standing right outside the coat closet door.
Beck and I were in plain sight if Carter or Daisy or freaking Lydia were to duck their heads in.
With one hand still pushed against his mouth, I grabbed Beck by the front of his shirt and shoved him around the built-in near the back of the closet, pressing him up against the wall.
He tried to speak against my hand, but I pressed down harder. Shut. Up.
My pulse slammed so loudly in my ears that the sound alone was going to get us caught. I closed my eyes, mind racing to excuse away the intimate situation it looked like we were in.
F-R-A-N-T-I-C.
S-T-U-P-I-D.
D-E-L-U-S-I-O-N-A-L.
“I can call her,” Daisy offered. “Maybe she went to the bathroom?”
My phone was safely on the table back in the ballroom, so I wasn’t worried about it going off, but I still felt like I couldn’t breathe. And all the oxygen disappeared when, louder, Carter asked—“Is she in here?”
And opened the coat room door.
Its hinges squeaked so much louder than they had when Beck drew me inside, or maybe I’d been too focused on him before to hear it.
Where we were tucked behind the storage shelf kept us out of sight of the doorway, as long as Carter didn’t venture further inside.
P-L-E-A-S-E, I spelled frantically, pressing myself against Beck as if to hold him still.
Or as if to disappear into his chest entirely. P-L-E-A-S-E-P-L-E-A-S-E-P-L-E-A-S-E.
Beck’s chest rose, and for that split second, I was sure he was about to ruin everything.
This was his prime chance to. I’d been fooling myself before; there truly was no explanation that could justify the position we were in.
“We were fighting” was the truth, but if that was the case, why had I hidden?
Why did I press myself right up against Beck to hide him?
I’d backed myself into an impossible corner.
Beck pressed his hand on the small of my back and drew me closer to him, almost in a way that was painful.
Panic licked its way up my throat, because of course he was going to try and make this look as bad as possible.
I wanted to wrench from his grip, except that would mean stepping out so Carter would see me.
Maybe I should step out into view before Carter found us. Maybe I should come out, hope Beck would stay hidden, and say “boo!” Surprise him. Play it off as a game. That could work. That might—
The closet door clicked shut. When he spoke again, Carter’s voice was muffled. “Did she answer?”
“No,” Daisy replied. “Come on, let me see if she went back into the ballroom…”
Their voices trailed off into nothingness, and I slumped forward in relief, forehead falling into Beck’s chest, forgetting everything else as the emotion rushed to my head. The universe was smiling down on me. I was sure of it.
I thought that, at least, until I lifted my gaze.
Beck’s green eyes were solely on me, half-lidded as he peered down. The color seemed darker than usual, and it wasn’t just the dim closet lighting. His pupils were wide, as if something about the moment caused them to dilate.
Like the fact that I’d slumped wholly against him, forgetting it wasn’t a wall that’d been supporting my weight.
Or the fact that his hand still rested at the small of my back.
Or the fact that my palm was still against his mouth.
I jerked my hand back, severing the connection, but it only lasted a second. Beck’s own hand reached up with lightning speed, snatching my wrist once again.
His grip was tight and unyielding as he laid my palm back against his mouth.
All while never. Even. Blinking.
Without the rush of adrenaline from nearly being discovered, I had nothing else to focus on other than how soft his mouth was on my skin.
His plush lips were against the seams of my fingers, and I could feel the gentle, slow exhale of his breath through his nose.
It was steady, unaffected, unlike the jerky gasps I tried to discreetly draw in.
I frantically fought for a word to spell, to calm myself, coming up empty. I tried to pull my now-trembling hand back, but Beck held on. He had to feel my pulse stampeding beneath his fingers, but he didn’t react.
H-I-S H-A-N-D. The one pressed against the small of my back. The pressure had lightened more now than when he’d initially pressed me close to him, as if it were no longer necessary. In the midst of my world tumbling over itself, I realized.
Beck had been trying to get me as close to him as possible… to get me out of view from the doorway. He’d been trying to help me hide.
Beck’s lashes swept down in the world’s slowest blink.
Eleanor, he’d said. Ordered. Spell it.
D-E-L-U-S-I-O-N-A-L.
Then, while never looking away, Beck’s lips pursed against my skin to kiss my palm.
The searching touch raced me, my entire body burning as if I’d just been thrown into a fire.
It swamped me so suddenly, so instantly, that I thought I was going to pass out.
Beck’s hold on my wrist loosened enough that I could’ve pulled away, but I didn’t.
Couldn’t. As if magnetized, my hand stayed against his lips, memorizing the way his kiss felt.
Imagining what it’d feel like if I replaced my palm with my mouth.
Have you looked at his mouth yet? Beck had asked me.
Have you imagined kissing him? he’d asked me.
When you want someone, you’ll look at their mouth. You’ll imagine kissing them. You won’t be able to help it.
His mouth was now hidden behind my palm, pressing a kiss to it, but if I moved my hand—if I leaned forward—
Beck flinched, as if I’d spoken those traitorous thoughts aloud.
And then he pulled my wrist away, thumb slipping over the skin as he dropped it.
His expression changed, almost in a flash.
Gone was the honeyed look in his eye, dripping with surety.
In its place was something like horror—the same kind that’d filled his expression that first time at Senior Night, when he realized the girl he’d run into was the one who’d ruined his life.
His jaw shifted. “Like I said,” Beck got out, his voice almost having a shivering quality to it. A tremble he tried to lock down. “Glutton for punishment.”
Without another word, and without looking at me again, he stepped around me and slipped out of the closet. The air was still thick, though, still suffocating. I couldn’t slow my breathing, drawing in breath after gasping breath.
Even with Beck gone, I could still feel him everywhere. The firm press of his hand on my back. His fingers circled around my wrist. The weight of my forehead against his chest.
His cheek against my palm.
His lips against my palm.
A choked sound lodged in my throat. I slapped my hand over my mouth, holding my breath until my lungs burned. Why hadn’t I pulled away? Why had I stood there like that—letting him touch me, letting myself feel it, letting myself think—
My stomach twisted.
The hand over my mouth was the same one he’d kissed.
I yanked it back like I’d touched a hot stove.
“P-E-R-F-E-C-T,” I whispered into the dark, the letters shaky and rushed. A lifeline. A command. “P-E-R-F-E-C-T.”
Perfect girls didn’t gasp against boys in coat closets.
Perfect girls didn’t have crushes on bad boys.
And perfect girls definitely didn’t imagine kissing—
“P-E-R-F-E-C-T,” I said again, more firmly this time, like if I spelled it enough, I could force myself back into shape. Sand down the wild edges. Tuck every ugly, reckless feeling back where it belonged. “P-E-R-F-E-C-T.”
I thought you were better than your sister, Mrs. Johnson’s voice filled my head. Better than kissing bad boys.
I latched onto the reminder. I was. I am. I was Eleanor Brighton. Better than my sister, who disappointed our parents at every turn. Better than my sister, who snuck out to meet boys and kissed them in secret.
I was not my sister. I was Eleanor Brighton.
And Eleanor Brighton was perfect.
P-E-R-F-E-C-T.