CHAPTER 61 #2
Ana takes the glass from me with one sharp tug and glare, though I don’t miss the warm flush glazing all over her cheeks.
My chest feels that thumping sound again, and I have to focus on the pirate movie that’s apparently still playing to distract from the reality that this girl’s been taking up my mind even more than she usually does. And the thoughts attached to her, they’re all dangerous. And off-limits.
I’m not crossing that line.
_________
Ana
The Wisteria yearbook was a splendid surprise.
A surprise that, credited to the book, meant I was off-the-hook from post-dinner cleaning duties, browsing through the pages I didn’t realize I’d missed this much.
Old classmate names and faces I’d forgotten all about, all but two that rarely ever fade away.
When those faces appear on the page, the scene of a winter field trip and three happy smiles force me to rip violently to the next one.
I eventually find the photo Troy was claiming I looked a certain way, and if that meant my brows were massively wrinkled and eyes so narrowed in you could hardly see anything other than a line and lashes, then yeah, I guess you could say I made the same face tonight after taking a generous bite into the annoyingly tasty, spicy beef wrap he made.
Deeply invested in the rest of the collaged memories, when I spot an image of our tiny elementary school playground—Troy sitting on the bottom of the slide, me on the wood chips, with wood chips on the top of my head, thanks to his decorative efforts—the moment leaps right off the page and into my brain.
I was grumpy that day, I vividly remember, also thanks to Troy.
Career dreams were very seriously spoken into existence through strings of gold and silver stars inside of our kindergarten classroom, right before recess, where I made the grave mistake of sharing my ambitious endeavors with my newly-formed nemesis.
I want to skate on a chunk of ice that goes a mile long, I spilled my little guts out to the even then, wiseass Troy Larsson.
That’s not a career, stinky butt, the second-grader provoked me with a giant laugh.
I threw a wood chip at Troy at the nickname alone; he threw two back my way. And somehow, a pile of ginger-stained wood sits on my hair in the photo, explaining the evil smile he’s also wearing in it.
From the disturbingly identical set of curved lips I find once I turn myself around—it seems the menace still remembers his scoundrel behavior, briefly mesmerized by shimmering green eyes as Troy slides a damp washcloth from in between his palms, tossing it onto the island.
Parting one of his numerous fancy kitchen cabinets, two sparkling clear wine glasses appear from the wood, his fingers hugging around the stems. Another cabinet pops open, a bottle of Merlot in the grip of his weighty hand, the spot beside me heating up again.
It's the red wine.
Not the fit athlete pouring me a refill to my right.
Or the black joggers and cozy light grey sweatshirt he’s wearing that’s at least covering his skin—most of his skin—his forearms decided they needed to be on display tonight, his sleeves bunched right below the elbows.
The small trail of exposed golden skin sends my heart on a spiral run, wondering if he’s got a shirt on underneath it all.
I need more red wine, lifting my glass to quell the also sudden dryness in my mouth, setting it down when—thank God—a new yearbook distraction reveals itself.
“Look, it’s Sarah,” I chuckle out, ready to roast him for this one.
“Remember how you lost your virginity to her right when we got to the ski lodge, and Mrs. Sue spent an entire hour lecturing everyone to throw away their condom wrappers?” Pointing at the portrait of the spunky brunette—the only other person besides Troy’s older brother who also wound up attending our high school in Faerieladle—Troy’s flexed jaw and embarrassed eyes confirm he also remembers his infamous freshman year moment that I was lucky enough to witness, thanks to a winter skating camp despite my seventh grader status.
“Keeping tabs on my sex life, even then, huh, Petrov?” he says arrogantly.
I roll my eyes. “Didn’t need to, when you kept blabbing on about it.”
His smile fades, his expression waning. “Yeah, well, that changed quickly after I realized people would yap about you plenty on their own.”
Odd, hearing him say that. Maybe a little oddly comforting, too.
Sitting myself up, turning toward him a bit more, I ask, “How did you—how do you deal with the scrutiny?”
He looks at me, also odd. Like the question was odd, or rather it feels that way coming from my mouth.
I shake the glass in my right hand, giving it a little swirl, losing my thoughts in the rippling burgundy.
Anxiously waiting for his lips to move again, I start to wonder if I was better equipped for the online hate, maybe I’d find a way to indulge in my own share of clandestine romances when I was younger.
“It’s not my business,” Troy says simply.
My chest deflates, after all that waiting, half-intrigued, half-confused by his answer.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“The scrutiny, what people are saying about me, it’s not my business.”
“Even when they’re saying things that aren’t true?”
“You can deny every rumor all you want, but then they’ll start a new one.
It’s a poisonous snake that keeps growing another head when you cut its previous one off.
” He sets down his half-full glass onto the coffee table before us.
“I know who I am, and so do my friends and my brothers. That’s enough for me. ”
I wish that was enough for me, I think.
If only pleasing people didn’t come as such a burden, or currency of attention, maybe then all my accomplishments—maybe then I—would be enough, for me.
Bringing the chilled glass to my lips, I chug down the rest of the red wine in one gulp, limbs stagnant, mind busy storing the shoved-away baggage, saving it for when vulnerability turns into my fatal flaw.
With the never-ending liquor and newfound mental vacancy, I’m reminded of the sort of elephant in the room.
“Surprised you’re staying in tonight,” I say.
“Why?”
“Because it’s a Saturday night,” I parrot Troy’s previous line of reasoning he used on me. “And I just thought—”
“That I’d be banging a new girl every other night?” He raises a snarky brow my way.
“Well…,” I shrug, “yeah.”
“I know what you think about me.” He takes a sip of his drink, noticeably colder.
I think he meant it as a joke, but the way he said the words hardly drew any humor.
His eyes focused on the glass anchored in a palm, and no longer on me, the idea that my opinion of him could weigh enough to tamper with his abundant cockiness rumbles my stomach.
It’s not like him to be affected by me.
It’s not like me to care.
I don’t care.
Reaching for the maroon-tinted bottle, ignoring the fact that I’m pouring myself a third glass of rich wine, I gulp half of it at once.
“When’s the last time you hooked up with somebody?” The question slips out.
Yeah the wine’s really kicked in alright.
It must be, it has to be the wine, since Troy’s face—that usually wouldn’t let me move past such a question unscathed—looks like he’s also floating in his own murky thoughts.
“Four months ago,” he says. “I hooked up with this girl the day before our first ice dance rehearsal. Before that, it was a six-month dry spell. You?”
Six months? I’m not so sure what I was expecting, certainly not that.
“Last hookup was in January,” I reply, “which was super underwhelming. Last date was last summer.”
Troy pushes himself up with noticeable interest, tilting his body toward me. “With the F1 driver?”
“Yeah, how did you know?”
“Violet told me at practice.” Hearing her name so out of the blue stings almost as much as the sight of her face, drowning the surprise from Troy’s intel on my dating life. “I still can’t believe you went out with a guy named Lancelot.”
I scoff. “His name is Lance.”
“Did he take you on a tour of his medieval gardens?” he says teasingly.
“You’re hilarious, Troy.”
“So, was it a good date?”
“Dinner was fine. The rest of the night, not so much.”
“What did Lancelot do?”
I roll my eyes at the pouted full lips before me.
“He let me go down on him, and then afterward told me he doesn’t go down on girls on a first date.
Not that I expected him to, but it felt like a double standard.
Then his publicist told the tabloids that I wouldn’t go down on him when a rumor broke that I turned down a second date. ”
“He asked you out again?”
“Yup.”
“Some nerve,” he says, his brows tense. “I didn’t know that part.”
“I’m surprised, it was all over the front page of all the gossip magazines.”
“I don’t read that garbage. Tabloids are rarely saying anything of substance.”
“That, they are not.”
“Well, Lancelot’s an idiot.”
I chuckle. “Lance.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way. But if it were me, you would be coming on my tongue first.” A bolt of pleasure tingles from my neck all the way to my toes without warning.
Like that was so normal, such a common things to spit out, Troy taps my knee twice, just as cool, pushing off the couch. “Night, Petrov.”