Chapter 34 #3
She was wearing big sunglasses and a black dress hat with feathers popping out of it.
“She looks like she’s going to a funeral,” I said. Will burst out laughing.
“No offense to your mom,” I clarified, embarrassed.
But he didn’t take offense; he turned to me, and our eyes met.
“I missed your spontaneity, June.”
I smiled with my eyes on the floor, while Will clumsily rubbed his chest.
“There are way too many people, and my mom is breathing down my neck,” he admitted. He started biting the inside of his cheek. He seemed a little apprehensive, so I decided to calm him down.
“You know what? I don’t want to go back down there.”
“We’ll definitely find something better to do,” he said, shrugging.
James was leaning on the desk in the back of the room. At that exact moment, my eyes caught his, which looked up lightning quick from the paper he handled between tapered fingers. It lasted a second, then he went back to tinkering with his stuff.
“What do you say, Will?” James pointed at the freshly rolled joint he held between his index and middle finger.
“What do you want to do?” I asked, frightened.
“Smoking. You’re not invited, White.”
“It just so happens that this is my bedroom.”
James didn’t answer, but he stood up and made a gesture that left me speechless. I saw his hand grab the key and lock the door. Did he really lock my bedroom door? Calm down, June.
“Why’d you lock it?” I jumped up, irritated.
James put the mouthpiece of the joint between his lips and studied me contemptuously. “James! Are you serious?” I shouted, stretching my arms out.
He couldn’t smoke in my room, the smell would get in my curtains and fabrics; my mom would notice right away.
“You know, Snow White, maybe the question you should be asking isn’t What we want to do,”—James addressed me seriously, approaching me in an intimidating way—“but who.”
He and Will exchanged an intense look that made my heart burst out of my mouth.
James immediately noticed the lines of my face fold into a bewildered grimace, so he let out an amused chuckle.
He was screwing with me, as usual.
“Shouldn’t you avoid smoking and drinking right now?” I asked. Will just sat down on my bed and shrugged.
“My pee is Jackson’s, and his is so clean that I could take a shower in it,” asserted James, cupping his hand in front of his lips to light up the joint.
“James, eww.”
Will and I looked at him reluctantly.
“And so can you two manage like that?”
“What’s your problem?”
“Well, I don’t think that’s right,” I insisted obstinately.
“Keep your moral opinions to yourself,” he spat, embittered.
“James.” William called his name in a mellow voice, but the calmness had left my body a while back.
“What makes you think you can smoke in here?” I went back on the offense.
“This one always ruins the fun.”
“You can stick it where I tell you to. In your ass to be specific.” I said the vulgar comment, now exasperated.
“June!” exclaimed Will laughing, then he got serious and went back to rekindling James’s innate curiosity. “About the first thing we said about doing something fun?”
“What do you mean fun, Will?” An unexpected glint flashed in James’s dark eyes.
“I don’t know. June?”
William threw the ball back in my court, and I didn’t know what to come up with. “What’s fun for you?” he asked, letting his gaze drift on my bookshelf.
“Um.”
I spent my nights watching old true-crime documentaries. I was boredom incarnate, and James would never let me live it down if I told him about my obsession for cold cases.
“Let’s smoke, then, since you guys are completely short of ideas.” A fed-up James shot me down.
“Look, put that thing out. You can’t smoke in my room. I don’t understand why you always have to be so rude!”
“Says the one who—”
James bit his lip, piquing my curiosity.
I shouldn’t’ve provoked him, I knew that, but it was stronger than me. I sat on the edge of the bed next to William and stared at James with my arms crossed.
“Who what?”
James turned around to look me right in the eye.
“Someone who keeps making out with my two best friends.” I turned purple. Immediately. The provocation ended up being stronger than expected.
“You made out with Jackson?!” exploded Will, sounding incredulous.
“What? No!”
“Oh my god! You made out with Jackson?” James mocked him cheekily, imitating William’s indignant expression.
“He’s talking about Tiffany,” I specified, nipping that little misunderstanding in the bud.
I got up and went to the bathroom solely to hide my face, which was red with embarrassment. I turned on the water and pretended to wash my hands, but I could still hear William’s voice.
“James.” I held my breath.
“What are we doing?”
“I’m smoking, what about you, Will?”
James seemed to love beating around the bush.
“Come on. You know what I’m talking about.”
“What are your intentions?” James talked with a serious voice.
“You disappeared with her, James, and today you’re here. Still with her.” Will’s observation didn’t seem to find any objections.
“And?”
“You can’t stay away from her.”
“You’re wrong. You’re the one who can’t, Will.”
“I just want to—”
William stopped because James shot him down curtly. “Be careful what you wish for, William.”
Followed by silence, so I decided to go back to them.
“You’re still smoking even though I told you not to?” I asked, without getting an answer.
James took two steps toward Will, who had just made himself comfortable, stretching his legs on my quilt. He brought the joint between William’s lips, who breathed in the poison while keeping his eyes on me.
“Will’s smoking in your room,” said James in velvety voice, without taking his eyes off his friend’s lips.
Then he came close to me, pushed a lock of hair behind my ear, and put the filter that had just touched their lips in my mouth.
“And now Snow White’s smoking too,” he murmured, his eyes plunging into mine. I blew out the smoke in his face, but it didn’t seem to bother James.
“So you’re sure?”
William’s uncertain voice called me. I didn’t know what he was talking about, but I decided to sit back next to him. “Sure about what?”
“Do you want us to just be friends?” he whispered. Yeah, but not like last night.
“Yeah, Will. I think this is better.”
Meanwhile, James walked away to keep smoking.
“So now you’re back to—how do you do it with the drugs?”
I tried using a distraction, partly because I was genuinely interested in William’s well-being, partly because I didn’t want to broach the subject of June and Will in front of James. If a June and Will ever even existed.
“My mom found empty boxes, but I’d actually lightened the dose weeks ago.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re preparing for the game and the coach is doing nothing but scream behind me. And he’s right. I’m a disaster when I’m on my meds.”
His confession made me sad.
“Football isn’t everything, Will,” I said.
“Shut up,” I heard James say from the other side of the room.
“You know I’m right, that’s why my words upset you,” I replied, as James glared sharply at me.
“Oh my god, not even shoving a joint in her mouth shuts her up.”
“If you aren’t capable of shutting a girl up, it’s certainly not my fault.” That was really sexist, but I didn’t care. My only instinct was to answer him in kind.
“Practical demonstrations are free, Snow White. Do you want to try?”
I looked far away from James and his obscene provocations.
“You were saying, Will?”
“Nothing, it’s just, those meds suck. They make me tired and make me not want to do anything. I don’t want to go out, hang with friends, or even be with a girl. It’s frustrating at our age,” he admitted.
“Meaning?”
“Your girlfriend wants a drawing, Will,” retorted James, giggling.
I’m not his girlfriend.
“Having just stopped taking them is another story,” murmured Will, staring at my lips.
I realized I’d completely lost the plot. Why wasn’t William jealous anymore?
Was breaking up with him enough to make me less special in his eyes? Or maybe kissing Ari was so important that it canceled out whatever had happened between us? It was so hard to understand. Was it his illness or his character?
I felt a sense of guilt punch me in the gut for having such a cynical thought. The truth was that Will needed people to be there for him and not judge him.
And when Will put his head on my shoulder and let his lips slide along my bare collarbone, I wound up in the confused state that took over every time that I was alone with them. And I started quivering. I just wanted to look up. I passionately desired him.
Don’t do it, June, don’t do it.
And I did. I looked at James.
He was still standing up; his back against the wall and a hand was in his pocket. A diffused warmth burned my stomach.
When I turned to William, I noticed his knuckles were about to graze my cheekbone.
Does he really want to kiss me now?
I heard James’s heavy footsteps come closer.
He put a hand around William’s neck gently, forcing him to lift his head up, and brought the joint between Will’s parted lips.
William closed his eyes and let him do it.
I was speechless. Such an intimate gesture between them sent me right to the moon.
James leaned over me to do the same thing, and I allowed myself to inhale a mouthful of that poison.
But this time his thumb hesitated a bit on my skin, massaging my cheek, like a soft caress.
And if everything was all innocuous before, at that moment, I felt the warm effect rush through my veins as my limbs relaxed.
I stuck my head out to breathe in more, but James shook his head.
I held back a moan when I felt the heat of William’s mouth part when it came into contact with my neck. His tongue slid slowly along my skin. There was an explosion in my chest, and my eyes opened up again and violently filled with blue.
“Okay, princess, but this is the last one,” growled James huskily, before giving me another hit.
I kept my head lifted, remaining imprisoned in his eyes, which oscillated from my lips to my eyes.
But Will caught my attention again by sucking in the smoke that came out of my lips.
He greedily sucked it into his mouth, bringing his lips dangerously close to mine.
I felt a pleasant tremor when a warm hand was placed on my bare thigh.
I immediately recognized the touch. The length of the fingers and the metallic cold of the rings led me to look at where our skin touched.
James continued to look at me with his bright, dilated eyes.
His scent reached my nostrils insolently, forcing me to close my eyes from the pleasure radiating throughout my whole body, all of it gathering in my lower stomach.
I couldn’t hold his frenzied, arousing gaze any longer; his red, full lips were a vision that made my stomach tie itself in knots.
William applied a little pressure, and I soon realized that the pecks he was leaving on my neck were becoming full-blown love bites.
I should’ve stopped them. It was wrong. But then why did it feel so good? My heart stopped in my throat when James’s hand started moving along my thigh. I opened my eyes again, and couldn’t help but follow the trajectory of his rough palm across my boiling skin.
My cheeks started burning and the shivers multiplied as I felt the rings gently scratch against my soft flesh.
And when his fingers met the hem of my skirt, I saw his lips move. I didn’t let out a peep, just an imperceptible movement.
June, stop me. James sent me that message just using lip movements.
He’d been waiting for me to tell him to stop.
He was hesitating because of that. But I stayed still, incapable of opposing it.
And I sensed from how his expression became worried that my reaction stirred conflicting emotions.
His hand was planted on my thigh, but he seemed tormented by an internal struggle that I couldn’t decipher.
I bit my lip when William’s nuzzles increasingly lingered along my whole neck. He kissed me in more than one place, causing me to let out small moans that I struggled to hold back.
But James didn’t seem to pay attention. I caught him licking his lips as he targeted me like a famished predator.
He never got close to my face, but all it took was for him to look at me to throw me into turmoil.
My heartbeat sped up and every inch of my bare skin was burning under his warm fingers.
An odd pressure between my thighs throbbed, and when James’s warm fingertips slid my skirt up so slowly it was almost painful.
“Will, easy.” I let out a stifled groan when I felt William’s hand grab my chin firmly to make me look at him.
“Will,” said James again, without getting his friend’s attention.
William snared my lower lip in his mouth and sucked on it, then he bit it firmly. I let out another groan, this time in pain.
“Will. She fucking told you to go easy.” James’s voice was so authoritative that William immediately ripped himself from my lips and looked at him, frowning.
We were all out of breath, with our chests throbbing and our cheeks red.
James ran his fingers through his hair; he looked conflicted, again unsure what to do.
“June!”
Suddenly someone was trying to force the door open.
“Did you lock yourself inside?!”
My mom . . . my mom? My mom!
“Fuck!” James cursed under his breath.
“Get out now!” was the only thing I could say right then.
I bolted to the bathroom to grab a spray to remove the persistent smell.
“From where?” The guys laughed.
James pointed out the window to William who, after reaching it, decided to come back to give me a peck on the lips that left me confused.
I felt my knees buckle. I sat down on the bed and was shocked when James came back too. My heart skipped a beat when he got close to my face and reached his hand behind my back.
“I forgot this,” he sneered in my ear, grabbing a lighter off the bed.
I closed my eyes, but I could faintly hear what he said.
“This time you took a big risk, princess.”