Chapter 16
Note to self:
Research how much text can go on a tombstone.
A blinding ray of sunshine landed on my face, let in by a tiny crack where the curtains didn’t quite meet. With a groan, I burrowed farther into the blankets to get away from it. My eyes drifted closed as I drew in a deep breath of oranges and sunshine and soap, a comforting smell. A familiar one. A Theo sort of scent.
I froze and took stock of where I was. I remembered falling asleep holding his hand on one side of the bed. But I was now pressed against him, my face buried in his side. One of my hands was resting on his chest, which was rising and falling steadily, and his fingers were tangled in my hair, and it was so comfortable and lovely and perfect and…oh, crap.
I’d had this dream too. Usually involving us trapped somewhere in the mountains during a blizzard. Alone. With one bed and…
Okay. Right. This was the opposite of Friend Zone and even if my feelings were starting to grow, it was all so confusing. Not just my own feelings but Theo, too. He’d been different since we’d left for this trip, and I had no idea what any of this meant.
Time for a plan. I’d extract myself quietly and calmly.
I raised my head slowly to find the easiest escape route. Then it all came back to me. Theo pushing the beds together and laying next to me for my safety.
Sweet, wonderful, thoughtful Theo who had taken care of me last night. The same Theo who currently had one hand in my hair and another on my back, the tips of his fingers grazing the strip of skin exposed from my tank top rising up during the night. The same Theo who I was now certainly seventy-five percent in love with.
Oh, this was not good.
Inching back slowly, I tried to free myself so as not to wake him. But his hand on my back pulled me closer as he shifted. We were now, somehow, by some weird Jenga bed magic, facing one another, one of his legs curled around mine. I sucked in a breath, afraid to move. But he seemed to sleep on.
I realized I’d been granted a rare moment to stare at him without it being weird. So, I gave in to the temptation. Like I was strong enough to turn down this opportunity. I studied the way the tips of his dark-blond eyelashes rested on his cheeks. How the right side of his mouth tipped up ever so slightly in a half-smile. I wondered if he was dreaming. And yes, I wondered if I was in those dreams.
Maybe I’d go back to sleep for a bit and when I woke up, I’d realize I’d been the one dreaming. I snuggled in, my eyelids growing heavy again. Sleep was a breath or two away when my nose started to itch. The sneeze was inevitable and loud enough to wake most of the county.
Theo startled. Reflexively, his arm squeezed me tighter and hauled me closer. I squawked at the bone-cracking embrace and held my breath as his sleepy blue eyes met mine. He blinked slowly. He seemed to take stock of his body. His leg slid from mine. Which was kind of sad. The hand on my back eased off.
I cleared my throat, my face hot. “Hi.”
“Hi?” His hand in my hair began to move through my hair. And then again. And then again.
“Are you petting me?” I whispered.
The hand stopped. “I, um…”
I sat up quickly, taking the blanket with me, and stared at him. Which was a terrible idea. Awake and alert Theo I could handle (barely). Sleepy, rumpled Theo with his hair askew and his eyes lazy. Whoa, Mama. This was going to be how I died.
Please put the following on my tombstone:
Here Lies Alicia Ramos
Daughter, Sister, Friend
She died doing what she loved:
Staring at Theo Goodnight in wonder
Maybe I was in a dream?
I saw the second his brain clicked online. His eyes widened and a faint blush dusted his cheeks. He sat up slowly. Our eyes met for half a second before we both looked away. That’s when I noticed we’d managed to squish ourselves on his bed, the one he pushed next to mine. At some point last night, I’d crossed the imaginary line to plaster myself to him. I could not be trusted. Seriously.
“I, ah…I wasn’t…I mean, it must have…” He raked his fingers through his hair which only made it stand on end. “I don’t know what I’m trying to say here.”
“Hey, no biggie. It happens, right?” I shrugged.
He nodded. “Right. Yeah. It happens.”
“Totally.”
“Yup.”
“All the time, I’m sure.”
He frowned. “What are we talking about?”
I opened my mouth and closed it, then huffed a laugh. “I have no idea.”
His mouth tipped in a crooked smile. Our gazes locked and held. I pressed a hand to my stomach where the dragons were engaged in some kind of aerial routine.
Somewhere outside a dog barked and broke the Theo-induced trance I was under. “I’ll just get out of your way.”
Blanket in a death grip, I scooted down the bed and slipped off the bottom, almost falling when I tripped on a flip-flop. I leaned an elbow on the dresser at the foot of the bed. “So, busy day ahead, and all.”
I was proud of myself for how calm and cool I sounded. Since it was the exact opposite of what was going on inside. There, the dragons seemed to be growing in strength and number. I peeled a curtain back from the window above the dresser, anything to distract me from red-cheeked, messy-headed, totally adorable Theo, in time to see a man stroll by walking his dog. Naked, except for the sandals and a belt bag. With a shudder, I flipped back around.
Seconds turned to minutes filled with awkward silence. I played with the edge of my shirt, studied the wood plank floor, watched an ant make its way toward the dresser. My skin felt itchy. Suddenly, I couldn’t stand there one more breath.
“I am going to the bathroom. To, um, get dressed and brush my teeth. Unless you want to go first,” I said to the general area above Theo’s head.
He cleared his throat. “Nope, you, ah, go first.”
“Alright. Well, then…” I sidestepped toward my backpack. “I will go get ready. In the bathroom. Right now.”
I skittered into the bathroom and hastily shut the door. After dumping my backpack on the counter, I gazed at myself in the mirror.
“Okay, that was awkward.”
Things were never awkward between us anymore because I made sure they weren’t. I’d had years to get over this teenage infatuation with him. I mean, after that one time he made it very clear I needed to get over it.
And then Mom and Dad sat me down and told me I needed to get over it.
And Abe had sat me down and…well, you get the picture.
So, I’d hiked up my big girl soccer shorts and did it; I got over him. It was a mind over matter thing really. All about willpower and self-control. I hardly had a passing thought of Theo Goodnight and his crinkly, laughing eyes and his slow smiles and…
But just now, neither one of us could look the other in the eye and we had days, days, still stuck in a car together. I couldn’t stand it if this awkwardness followed us for the whole trip. I needed to fix this.
Resolved, I ripped the bathroom door open and stomped back into the room. Theo was in the same place I left him, sitting up in bed, a curious expression in his blue eyes. It would help if he wasn’t so dang handsome; it made my knees weak sometimes.
Then again, I feared Theo could one day decide to take up playing the recorder while wearing a foam cheese wedge hat every day of his life and I’d find it sexy. Not that there was anything wrong with occasionally admiring from afar. As long as I didn’t start writing poetry again and naming our children.
“I want you to know I won’t make things weird,” I blurted out and kept going before I lost the nerve. “I mean, I’m not a teenage girl with a crush anymore.”
Theo’s eyes widened.
“This morning was weird, okay? We…you know.” My eyes landed on the bed with emphasis. “It looks like I invaded your personal space and?—”
“Ali—”
I held my hand up. “No, let me talk. I know you don’t think of me as anything besides a friend, a little sister, whatever, and that’s okay. I’m over all that. I promise.”
And the understatement of the year goes to Ali Ramos.
I forged on, determined to get this out even if I melted from pure embarrassment in the process. “I made things very uncomfortable for you back then. But I’m not a dumb kid anymore and I don’t want what happened last time to happen again.”
It had been awful. After my latest scheme to get Theo to notice me, which involved a series of increasingly obvious anonymous love letters I mailed to him at college, it had all come to a head when I’d shown up at his dorm room unannounced. I’d only had my license for a week, skipped school, wore what I’d deemed my most alluring outfit, drove to College Station and surprised him on a random Thursday morning with one last letter and a truly horrid poem I’d written.
Then, because I didn’t do things by half, after professing my undying love, I’d gone for it. I’d tried to kiss him.
I still cringed just thinking about how gentle and kind and patient he’d been. How he’d sidestepped the kiss and carefully explained I was too young and didn’t know what I was saying. How I’d put on a brave face and laughed it off as a huge prank.
“I really got you, didn’t I?” I’d bragged, grinning so widely my face had hurt.
I was sure he’d seen right through me, but Theo being Theo, his kindness had won out and he’d gone with it. Then I’d punched him in the arm good-naturedly even though my heart had been shriveling up at that very moment. God, I’d been so young and clueless.
Despite all that, the next three years were strained and awkward between us. I made myself scarce when he was around. We didn’t joke around anymore; I didn’t clamor to sit next to him at every meal. I couldn’t look him in the eye, and sometimes, I’d catch him staring at me across a room, confusion and hurt in his eyes. We barely spoke two words to each other, and when we did, they were painfully polite.
It had been too much, and I’d missed his friendship. So, I’d willed myself to get over it. By the time I got home from my first year at college, I’d made the decision we would be friends again. I willed that into existence too.
Things had been fine for years between us. Sure, sure, the feelings tended to rear their ugly head when I least expected them, but I pushed them down and went on. I dated, Theo dated, and we were okay. I’d rather have Theo as a friend. I chose that over some dumb crush.
Now, with Theo in front of me, watching me with serious blue eyes, I knew I’d made the right decision.
“I just want to say thanks for being my friend. It was sweet of you to help me last night. I want you to know there will be absolutely no weirdness from me. Nope. We can both agree we’ll forget about all this and, you know, go back to being completely un-weird.” Like a dork, I shot him with a finger-gun with the sound and everything. “So, we good?”
There. That felt better. But then the silence stretched from uncomfortable to very uncomfortable territory. And Theo wasn’t saying anything; in fact, he looked partially stunned, partially something else and his eyes were so…intense.
Should I have said all that? No. Or yes? I don’t know. I thought of Alec telling me I was emotionally unavailable. Which was basically a fancy way of saying I didn’t share my feelings. This was why. When I did, it came out like this.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, inching back to the bathroom. “I made it weird trying to reassure you I wouldn’t make it weird.”
Quickly, I skittered inside the bathroom, closing the door and leaning against it. Huge gulps of air filled my lungs. I stood there waiting for the embarrassment to put me out of my misery by spontaneous combustion.
A quiet knock on the door startled me.
“Oh, hey,” I said, scrambling to open my backpack and pull my clothes out. “I’ll just be a few more minutes.”
Theo’s voice came through the door. “I promise it won’t be weird, okay?”
Relief roared through me, relaxing body parts I hadn’t realized I’d been clenching. “Okay.”
“And Alicia?”
“Yeah?”
“Just so we’re clear, you are not my sister.”
My smile was small. “I knew you were going to say that.”