Chapter One #3
like he was choking on something, at the same time sounding like he was trying
not to laugh.
“Why’d you stop me?” I asked, sounding annoyed, which I
was.
Whenever we started to get to the good part, he kept doing
that!
He touched his lips to mine, lifted his head and stated.
“Malia, I’m not gonna have our first time being on an old, grungy couch in my
parents’ garage.”
This was his constant refrain, ever since I told him I was a
virgin (and this happened on our first date, under the clouds, hours after our
first kiss, when we’d talked about everything, well…under the clouds, and that
was months ago).
“Argh,” I grumbled, arching my neck and looking at the arm
of the couch.
“How ’bout this?” he murmured, now just sounding like he was
trying not to laugh.
But I wasn’t paying attention to what he sounded like.
I was paying attention to what his hand was doing, that
being going down my stomach, toward the waistband of my jeans, also toward my…
“Darius,” I whispered.
He touched his lips to mine again, but didn’t go far away
when he told me, “We’re gonna go back to the meadow.”
His hand went inside my jeans.
“And I’m gonna bring some fancy shit for us to eat,” he went
on, his fingers curling in.
My neck arched for a different reason this time.
He kissed my throat, and his fingers…
His fingers…
They worked magic.
His lips were now at my ear. “And we’re gonna watch the
clouds go by again. And while we do, like the last time, we’re gonna talk about
everything there is to talk about…”
I squirmed under him, feeling it, the muscles down there
rippling, my breasts seemed heavy, my nipples were tingling, and he wasn’t even
touching them.
I was getting close. I’d heard about them—orgasms—but I’d
never had one, and the way his fingers moved, the pressure he was putting on,
it wasn’t just right.
It was everything.
“Then I’m gonna tell you I love you, and after that, I’m
gonna make love to you,” he whispered in my ear just as it happened.
I came for the first time…for Darius.
I started to cry out, but he kissed me so all I was feeling,
all he’d given me was swallowed by his mouth, coaxed deeper by his tongue.
It was phenomenal.
His hand was gone when it was over, but it was like he
sensed it had washed through me, because, with perfect timing, he rolled us so
I was cocooned between the back of the couch and Darius.
I’d been here before (we did a lot of making out, we also
did a lot of cuddling), and it was my second favorite place to be (my first
favorite was where I was ten seconds ago, and my new first favorite place for
Darius’s hand to be was where it was thirty seconds ago).
But even if I’d had my first orgasm, given to me by Darius
Tucker, my boyfriend, the best boyfriend in history, the sweetest, most
thoughtful, loving, teasing, awesome boyfriend of all time…
I was stuck on what he’d said when he’d given it to me.
“You love me?” I asked.
“I love your big, chocolaty eyes. And I love your pointy
chin.”
Ugh.
“I don’t have a pointy chin. My face is oval.”
“It’s a beautiful chin,” he muttered before he kissed it.
“It’s still pointy.”
“Whatever,” I mumbled.
“And I love how short you are,” he carried on.
For heaven’s sake.
“I’m not short, I’m average,” I told him, though, in all
honesty, maybe I was a tad bit on the low side of that. “It’s just that you’re
tall.”
“So…short to me. Still short,” he teased.
I pushed at his shoulders (however, it must be noted, I did
this half-heartedly). “Darius, be serious.”
When he looked me in the eyes again, my heart stuttered to a
halt.
Because he was being serious.
Deadly serious.
“I love your perfect nose and your thick lower lip and the
shape of your eyebrows,” he continued.
I wouldn’t say my lower lip was “thick,” more like “full”
(though, even I liked the arch of my brows, it rocked). But I wasn’t going to
interrupt him.
No way.
Thus, he kept going.
“And your gorgeous skin and your huge smile and the fact you
use words like ‘alcove’ and ‘omnipotent’ that no one else knows what the fuck
they mean.”
I started giggling even though I kind of wanted to start
crying.
Darius wasn’t done talking.
“And I love how you get on with my sisters, even though
they’re pains in the asses, and when you’re over, you always help Mom with
dinner, and you sit and listen to Dad going on about the Rockies or the Nuggets
or whatever, like you give a shit, when you don’t.”
One must say, I wasn’t a sports person.
But I loved Darius’s dad, and he was, so there you go.
“Darius,” I whispered.
“But I’m not gonna tell you until we’re under the clouds, or
the stars, or whenever we stop talking, even though something else I love about
you is that we always have something to talk about.”
Okay, it was safe to say, I was feeling this.
Feeling everything.
I knew what my dad would say about what I was feeling. He
would say it’s too soon, being sixteen and finding the guy of your dreams that
you know you want to spend the rest of your life with.
My mom would say that too.
(Lena wouldn’t, she adored Darius and already told me she
wanted him as her brother.)
But I knew it.
I knew it now and ten minutes ago and when he tickled me so
much last week, disaster nearly struck because I was this close to
peeing my pants.
And when he helped my dad, who had no sons, but had started
treating Darius like one, put in our new kitchen cupboards.
And when Darius took me out to a fancy dinner on our
one-month anniversary.
And again on our two-month one (you get the picture).
And on our first date in the wildflowers.
And all the times in between.
I knew it.
I might not know everything about myself, who I was or who I
was going to be.
I just knew, whoever that was, I’d be her with Darius.
“So, yeah, it’s gonna be special,” he concluded. “When I say
that and when we do that.”
“Okay.” My reply was soft.
His answering smile was tender.
I touched my fingers to it in wonder, even if I’d seen it
before. It was just that wonderful.
I lifted my eyes to his. “But can I say it now?”
His arms around me got tighter and he shook his head.
But he said, “You don’t have to say it, baby. You show it
all the time.”
Okay, the tears were coming.
So when I said, “I try,” it sounded croaky.
“You succeed,” he assured.
I was glad. So, so glad he knew I loved him. He deserved
that. And more.
Everything I could give him, everything, it was his.
To communicate that, I kissed him.
He kissed me back then ended it before it got too much for
the both of us (See? Annoying!).
And then we cuddled on the couch and watched a movie.
I didn’t pay a lot of attention to the movie.
I was reveling in the fact that this would be my life. Me
and Darius and talking and kissing and TV and nights out and family and friends
and knowing Darius had been right back in the stacks of Fortnum’s when he told
me nothing would ever cut me.
I’d found him, and I’d done it early.
So I knew down to my soul, nothing ever would.
No, that wasn’t right.
We’d found each other so we had it all.
And I knew, lying in his arms, feeling his long, strong body
behind mine, smelling him all around me, we always would.
Not long later…
“Malia, honey, come on down. We’ve got to
go,” my mom called.
I didn’t want to go.
I really, really didn’t want to go.
But I had to go.
However, I had to do something else first.
I sat at my desk, the paper Duke gave me at Fortnum’s what
seemed like forever ago on top, my notebook open next to it, and I was copying
the words of the song.
And just like Duke did, I wrote at the bottom:
They’ll cut you ‘til you cry out.
Be the boxer.
Remain.
But I finished mine with:
I’m here for you, forever.
Love you always, Malia
I tore the page out of my notebook, folded it so it was
little and tucked it into my purse.
Then I walked down the stairs to go with my parents to
Darius’s dad’s funeral.
One week later…
I knew Ally didn’t want to, but she did.
She passed the note to me in the hallway at school that day,
the look on her face saying it all.
I didn’t need the look. I felt the look. We all did.
Darius’s dad, Morris had been murdered.
It was unthinkable. Unconscionable.
And, no surprise, those two were exactly alike, super close,
Darius being the apple who proudly stuck close to Morris’s tree, it had torn
Darius apart.
I knew the writing on the outside, the slants and drifts
that spelled my name, so I knew I couldn’t open it, until now.
I was home from school, up in my room.
He was gone from me, which was bad, considering I was
pregnant with our child.
Yes, we’d been back to the meadow…and then some.
Mom didn’t know about the pregnancy…yet.
Dad didn’t either…yet.
Darius didn’t know about it either…yet.
So obviously none of them knew I was going to find a way. I
was going to figure it out. I was keeping our baby. The baby we made together
amidst his sweetness and kisses that made me melt and tender teasing and the
love in his eyes when he looked at me like there was no other girl in the whole
world and he was going to be my shelter from every storm until I died…
At least they didn’t know…yet.
But I talked to Mom about Darius and how he had shut down,
gone somewhere dark, somewhere scary.
“Grief, sweetheart, it’s nasty business,” Mom had shared. “I
know you’re grieving Mister Morris too. He was a good man. But you have to seek
patience. Darius will find his way.”
I wasn’t sure. Since that day in the shelves at Fortnum’s,
we’d spent as much time together as we could, and if we couldn’t be together,
we were on the phone talking to each other about people we knew, dreams we had,
plans we needed to make to realize them, and how we felt about each other.
I knew him pretty well.
And this wasn’t him. This flatness. The blankness. The
seething anger barely contained under the surface.
And then there was the fact I was sixteen and pregnant.
Yeah, I had some worries and patience wasn’t going to work.