Chapter 17 #2
I yelped and dropped the picture, my heart nearly bursting from my chest. Someone started to chuckle, and I jerked my head up to see Oliver leaning against the window frame, arms crossed over his chest. His entire upper body shook as he laughed at me.
“Where the hell did you come from?” I demanded, my heart still thumping hard.
Oliver responded with a mischievous grin before turning around and climbing out the open window. When I didn’t immediately follow, he poked his head back in. “You coming or what?”
Curious what the heck he was doing climbing out people’s bedroom windows, I nodded.
“Yeah, okay,” I said and pinned the picture back to the bulletin board.
Once I reached the window, I realized there was a section of roof, six by six at the most, for us to sit on without being in any danger of falling.
Oliver offered me his hand and helped me climb outside.
When we’d first arrived at the Morrises’, there was still a wash of color left in the sky, oranges and pinks and purples as the sun set, but now it was completely dark.
The air had cooled off considerably with the arrival of night, and I wished I was wearing more than a tank top as a rush of goose bumps spread up my arms.
“So,” I asked after finding a comfortable position on the shingles, “what are you doing up here?”
“Enjoying the party,” Oliver said.
“But you’re not even at it.”
“Of course I am.”
“But—”
“Just be quiet for a sec,” he instructed me and pointed down.
I followed his gaze and fell silent. From the roof, I could see the entire backyard. White Christmas lights woven through the deck railing and tiki torches positioned throughout the garden lit the area, and most of the party had spilled out of the house into the refreshing night air.
There was a stone fire pit in the middle of the yard where someone had started a bonfire.
More than a dozen kids were gathered around roasting marshmallows or cooking pudgy pies, and their laughter was warm and bright, like the crackling of the flames.
Most of the adults were on the deck, drinks in hand, talking and laughing and enjoying the company.
Every now and then the wind would snatch away part of a conversation and carry it up on a breeze for us to listen to.
“All right,” I admitted. “This is a pretty awesome spot.”
“When we were younger, JJ and I would scoot all the way down to the gutter so we could dangle our feet over the edge. Mrs. Morris banned us from coming out on here because she was afraid one of us would fall off and break a leg or something, but I think that’s why we liked it so much. It drove her crazy.”
“You spent a lot of time together.” It was meant to sound like a casual observation, but really I was digging for any information Oliver would give me about his childhood and who he was, aside from being the front man of the Heartbreakers.
It was frustrating that Oliver was still a blank slate to me, while he’d uncovered most of the deep details that filled my own page.
I could easily google him and find out everything for myself, but it wasn’t really the background knowledge that I wanted.
Opening up to Oliver about Cara’s cancer had been terrifying, like dodging out into traffic with a blindfold on.
But I’d trusted him to guide me safely to the other side of the road instead of running me over, and I wanted him to do the same—to trust me.
Because if he did, then maybe I could prove that I could be just as good a friend as he had recently been to me.
“My brother from another mother,” he said, cracking a smile. “Our moms were good friends in high school, so I spent a lot of time here growing up.”
I kept my eyes down and focused on the bumpy texture of the shingles, not wanting him to see just how interested I was.
“Oh?” I asked, hoping he would keep talking.
This was the first time he’d ever brought up any of his family.
I thought I would meet them at the party tonight, but since he’d been hiding up here alone, I was willing to bet they hadn’t come.
Next to me, Oliver lay back and tucked his hands behind his head. “Wanna see something cool?” he asked.
I sighed at the change of subject but said, “Sure.” Then I copied him, inching back on my elbows so I could gaze up the sky. “What am I looking at?”
“You said your favorite Disney movie was Hercules, right?”
A partial smile tugged at my lips; he’d remembered. “Yeah.”
“Okay, do you see the four stars that kind of form a square?” Oliver asked, pointing straight overhead.
“I think so,” I said, tilting my head and squinting.
“That’s the keystone asterism in the Hercules constellation.”
“Ah…you lost me.”
“So an asterism is a pattern of stars in the sky, which can be made up of part of a constellation, or more than one,” Oliver told me.
As he explained, I let my head roll to the side so I could watch him.
I wasn’t paying nearly as much attention to his words as I was to the way his eyes held a hint of the stars above us.
They gleamed with excitement as he spoke.
“This particular asterism is shaped sorta like a keystone, hence the name.”
“Thanks for the astronomy lesson, Galileo,” I said, biting my lip and trying not to laugh. “But I’m still confused.”
Oliver grinned and propped himself up on his elbow so he was facing me. “Basically you’re looking at Hercules’s torso. He’s got a head and arms and legs too, but I’ve never really been good at visualizing them,” he said. “Oh, and if you look a little more to the left, you can see Pegasus.”
I studied his face. “Where’d you learn all this?”
“My uncle. He’s into astronomy and that kind of stuff.”
“So you do have a family,” I said, half joking.
At this, Oliver looked away from me and rolled onto his back.
“Of course I do,” he said, his tone suddenly tight.
Apparently something I said had sucked the good nature right out of our conversation, something that struck a nerve and made Oliver clamp up.
When the roles were reversed, he’d pushed me, so I decided to push back.
“Then why aren’t they here?”
“How do you know that they’re not?” he asked, and his voice was restrained, like he was trying to hide any emotion that might come across.
“Oliver,” I said, shooting him a pointed look. “If they were, wouldn’t you be down at the party?”
He pushed himself into a sitting position and yanked his hair back, as if it would help sort out whatever matter was currently wrecking havoc in his heard. “Look,” he said, releasing his tight grip. His bangs flopped back into place. “Can we just talk about something else?”
I sat up next to him. “Like what?”
His eyes flickered across my face, examining every inch of it.
It was one of those long, intense stares that made my heart start to skip, and finally a tired smile relaxed his face.
“Do you know that ‘Stella’ means ‘star’ in Latin?” he asked.
Then he reached up and cupped my cheek with his hand.
“There was this sixteenth-century poet, Sir Philip Sidney, who created the name for a collection of sonnets he wrote called Astrophil and Stella.”
“I know what you’re doing,” I said a little breathlessly as his thumb started to move in soothing circles just beside my ear.
“Yeah,” he said. “And what’s that?”
“Trying to distract me.”
He leaned in, slowly running his tongue over his lips. “You’re wrong,” he said, and I could feel the warmth of his breath as he spoke. “If I were trying to distract you, I’d do this.”
I knew what was going to happen, but before I could pull away, Oliver wrapped his arm around my waist and tilted his head.
As soon as his mouth was on mine, I knew this wasn’t like our first kiss.
That one was thrilling, filled with the excitement of exploring someone new.
This one was aggressive, as if Oliver had been waiting too long for something he desperately wanted, and now he couldn’t hold back.
It didn’t take long for me to feel completely out of breath, and I pulled away panting. “Oliver, stop,” I said, but I kept my forehead pressed against his and my arms around his neck. I didn’t want to stop, but I’d made the decision not to do this with him. “We can’t do this.”
“Why?” he asked. I closed my eyes as he brushed his hand up my arm and across my collarbone.
“I know you’re feeling the same thing I am.
I can tell by the way you’re out of breath and the flush on your cheeks, and how you can’t even look me in the eye because you know I’m right.
So, tell me again not to kiss you and I won’t, but you’d better give me a damn good reason. ”
I could still feel the way Oliver’s lips had felt on mine a moment ago, how they tasted like the lemonade Mrs. Morris made, and I knew he was right. I wanted this even though I had a hard time believing he did too.
Oliver didn’t give me long to answer before his lips found mine again, kissing my mouth, my neck, my shoulder.
He took control quickly, moving his body over mine and guiding me down onto my back.
The rough shingles scraped against my bare shoulders, but I hardly noticed.
I ran my hand over his arm and down his torso, enjoying the feeling of the tight muscle beneath his skin.
“You know, people can see you up here.”
Oliver and I both shot up at the sound of JJ’s voice and smacked our foreheads together. He was hanging out the window, a sly grin on his face.
“God, JJ!” Oliver said, scowling and rubbing the sore spot on his head. “You’re such a creep. You know that, right?”
“Creepy would be watching without saying anything,” JJ responded, and then he shook his head in disbelief. “Sex on the roof? That’s way more dangerous than dangling our feet over the edge. My mom would have a heart attack.”
“We were not going to screw on the—”