Your Biggest Fan

38. ROXANNE

Chapter thirty-eight

My lips throb, feeling like raw hamburger after we had spent the last half hour attacking each other. Noah’s wandering hands have managed to snap one of the straps on my dress, leaving the whole thing hanging on by a literal thread. I’d let him get to second base (okay, maybe second and a half), but I still couldn’t bring myself to round all the way home.

The thought of taking that final step with him sends panic skittering down my spine like a bunch of startled cockroaches. I’m terrified that once we cross that line, everything will be ruined.

What if he sees all of me, the real me, and is disappointed? What if I’m terrible at it, all awkward limbs and nervous giggles, and it’s not what he’s used to? He’d see that I really am a clueless nerd behind my armor of lipstick and black eyeliner.

It’s exactly what happened with Harley, after all. One bad first time and he never wanted to touch me again.

I can’t handle the thought of Noah doing the same.

We’ve relocated to the hood of my car, parked at the edge of the Bell Pond Park. We agreed it was getting too steamy— figuratively and literally—and left the hot seats to sprawl out, listening to Sheriff playing on the radio drift out from the fogged up half-open windows.

Noah, ever the gentleman, or worried I’ll get sick and die before he can get in my pants, has draped his jacket over my bare shoulders to ward off the nippy December air. I refuse to give him the smile that wants to come out when I put my arms through it and smell him all over me.

“Tell me about your dad,” he offers out of the blue, stretching his long legs out across the hood and pillowing his head on his folded arms.

A tingling feeling hits my throat. My dad? He wants to know about my dad after we spent the last hour making out in my car?

Slowly, I lean back with him, staring up at the branches of the leafless tree above us, the moon peeking through. “Um, what do you want to know?”

“Everything.”

Everything? Wow. Okay.

Let me just spin through years worth of memories that I keep locked safely away. I don’t know where to start. I try to rifle through some of them, mostly the ones picturing his smiling face. Which is all of them.

“He was the best,” I begin, my throat already starting to close up. “Total metalhead. Taught me drums, and we’d blast Stones or KISS every day he drove me to and from school. But Def Leppard, man—I think that was the first band he showed me that got me really into music.”

Noah makes an approving noise, and I can feel the warmth of his gaze on the side of my face. I don’t know why I’m killing the mood by talking about it, but I want to tell him about it. It feels great, reminiscing, letting someone know all of my favorite things about him.

“I definitely got my humor and great taste in music from him.” I smile up at the winter stars, fingers toying with the oversized sleeve of the jacket. “So I guess I feel like I still carry a little piece of him with me, wherever I go.”

I gnaw on my lower lip, hesitating to share the next bit, but honestly… I can’t think of any reason not to.

“And whenever I see you, I kind of see a little bit of him too.”

There’s a distant hoot of an owl. Then, softly: “Yeah?”

I grip the sleeve tighter. “Yeah.”

“Does it... does it ever get easier?”

My throat tightens up again. Does Cathy’s ghost ever stop haunting Heathcliff?

I exhale slowly. Not really, is the honest answer.

“I don’t know,” I rasp, voice cracking. “Some days I think maybe, but then something stupid happens. Like, I hear a Stones song in the grocery store, or I smell Old Spice, and it’s like losing him all over again.”

The words keep pouring out like I’ve sprung a leak, and I can’t seem to patch the hole. “At first, it felt like he was... away. On a really long vacation or something. But grief is like a snowball where it’s at the surface at first, but it gets buried deeper and deeper the more it rolls on.”

“That’s a good way of putting it.” He nods, a jerky little motion. “My old man walked out on us when I was a kid. Some days it still feels fresh.”

His head swivels towards me out of the corner of my eye, and I know those blue eyes are glowing in the dark.

“You’re brave, you know that? Dealing with all of that at thirteen, and still?” He exhales a shaky little laugh. “Not sure I could do it. Sometimes I’m scared I’ll end up like my mom.”

Amen to that.

I turn to face him, curious if my hunch is right. The glassy eyes that stare back at me mirror the moonlight, similar to a fresh blanket of snow that has fallen. Two mini jewels sparkling in the dark as the lights hit them just right.

My heart does a little skip. He really is beautiful.

My dad once told me that eyes are the window into the soul. They are the first part of us to see, to understand, to find, to know, to hold whatever is there. To appreciate.

But that’s the thing about eyes, they are also the first thing to show pain.

It makes me want to find every single person who’s ever hurt Noah and introduce their faces to the business end of my drumsticks. Repeatedly.

Starting with that sack of shit he calls a stepfather.

A sick feeling settles between my lungs as I picture him knocking Noah to the ground until he’s bruised, blood vessels bursting under his skin. Noah, still being so damn nice to everyone even when he’s the one hurting. Feeling so numb that he continues on silently. It isn’t right that someone who smiles so much has suffered so much bullshit.

“You’re stronger than you think,” I tell him, his wintry gaze searching mine.

He lets out a deep breath, the air fogging. Then he stretches out a hand, brushing my wind-nipped cheek with a knuckle.

“So are you,” he whispers. “You’re the strongest person I know. The bravest. Don’t ever fucking doubt that.”

I catch his wrist, pressing my lips to his palm. I’m not the one being kissed, but the sparks shoot all the way down to my icy toes inside my Chucks.

We stay like this under the tree. My breath in his hand, his faith in me lifting me up, the cold metal at my back grounding me. And the moon overhead reminds me that even in the darkest times, light finds a way through.

“Will you tell me more about him?” Noah asks when I allow his hand to slip free of mine.

I nod, rolling onto my side and propping my head on my hand to face him, wanting him to see that the windows into my soul are wide open.

He plucks a stray leaf off the hood and rolls it between his ringed fingers. “What do you miss most?”

“A lot.” A wistful smile hits my lips. “I miss being forced to watch his dumb movies and complaining about it. Then I’d sit there and pretend like I wasn’t getting into it.”

Even the memory of pretending to be cranky while watching Mad Max makes me feel wrapped in a safe hug.

“He lived loud. Always cranking up the radio, singing along terribly off-key. He’d let me sing too, never judging. Totally happy I liked his music.”

Even Noah smiles. “He sounds like quite the character.”

My chest falls in a sigh. “Yeah,” I murmur, then lean up on the hood to wrap my arms around my bent knees. “My mom said that after he graduated, he took off on his dirt bike for months, bumming around out west before calling home. I wish I could sit and ask him about things like that. I was too young for him to tell me honest stuff when he was around.”

Not only is being cheated out of getting to really know him the hardest part, but I miss the comfort, too. That feeling of being able to ask him for advice or tell him about some silly little fear. I want to ask him about my life as a little girl, what I was like, what I did but it’s…

It’s okay.

I’m happy with the fact that I got to have him at all as my dad, even for the short amount of time I did. I got to experience something incredible for thirteen years, and I’d take that over never knowing.

Whatever life he is in now, I picture him getting properly shitfaced on this Saturday night, laughing his ass off at how my friends still talk about how hot and beefy he was.

Great . Now my eyes are burning up, but it isn’t out of sadness. It’s from all of the warmth he’d left behind.

“His spirit lives on through you,” Noah says. “Every time I see you losing yourself in the music, not giving a single fuck what anyone thinks. That’s all him.”

I sniffle, swiping at my eyes with his jacket sleeve. “Fuck, you can’t say shit like that. You’re gonna make me ugly cry, and then my mascara will run, and I’ll look gross.”

He laughs, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear with a tenderness that makes my teeth ache. “Please. As if you could ever be anything less than stunning, Alice Cooper eyes and all.”

I shove at him, but I’m laughing. He’s right, though. Somewhere out there, under these same stars, my dad’s keeping watch. Hopefully he doesn’t think I’ve completely screwed everything up.

I turn back up at the vast expanse of the stars, each one crystal clear and bright off in the distance, but the ones directly above us are slowly disappearing as a few light snowflakes start to drift down, kissing my cheeks. It feels like a sort of sign, somehow. The guy on the radio has been yammering about our first snowfall for weeks, but I refuse to ever believe him since he says that every day.

Noah shifts closer, pressing a warm hand to my back. His finger runs up and down the length of my hunched spine through his blazer. The cold seeps through my clothes and up my legs, but inside? Inside, I’m so warm, burning up with something I’m still too chickenshit to put a name to.

“He’d be so proud of you, Roxanne,” he whispers from behind. “I know it.”

Damn you. I offer a watery smile, even though he can’t see it buried in between my knees.

“He had this gnarly finger that got sliced off,” I blurt out, mimicking a hacking motion with my hand. “It was right on the tip so his nail grew back really gross and weird. It was like a little short brown claw, and he’d do this trick where he would loosen the muscles in his hand to wack me with it. It fucking hurt, but it always cracked me up.”

Noah’s hand stills at my back, and I hear the smile in his voice. “Wow. I really wish I could’ve seen that.”

“Me too,” I whisper back. “He would’ve liked you.”

A quiet beat passes, more snowflakes drifting around us and landing on my nose with tiny icy touches.

Then Noah ruins it by asking, “Do you still have his finger?”

I burst into an explosive laugh that steamed in the cold air, the sound carrying across the park, and sliding me halfway off of the hood.

“No!” I crawl back up. “It wasn’t his whole finger, you weirdo.”

His laugh is delicate, as his face turns up, his eyes meeting mine, making me realize he’s trying to lighten the mood. It works, as always.

“I’m serious though. I’m sure he is proud of who you’ve become.” His hand slides up my back, gathering all of my hair into his fist and pulling it out from underneath the jacket. “I don’t want you to think that he’s not. I can only imagine he is. I sure as hell would be.”

I turn to glare at him. He needs to stop making me emotional.

“Say it,” he taunts.

“Say what?”

“Say, ‘I’m Roxanne and my dad is proud of me.’”

My eyes narrow. He’s joking, right?

He tugs at my hair, not joking.

“Fine.” I wiggle in my seat, stretch my arms out to the night sky, and scream out to the park, “I’m Roxane and my dad is proud of me!”

Noah laughs at the sudden attack of sound and my shoulders instantly go lax.

“Enough about me.” My hand swipes at my cold nose. “You’ve never told me anything about your life. What kind of childhood did you have?”

“Walked right into that one didn’t I?”

“And there is no getting out of it.”

He sighs. “Well, there isn’t much to tell honestly. I’m from Washington. Mom married Dennis when I was young because she thought it’d give me a better life here.”

I tilt my head. “And did it?”

His eyes sweep across the pond in front of us, thumbing open his cigarette pack and balancing a single one between his teeth. He shoves the pack back into his pocket and pulls out a lighter, the light showing all the tension in his jaw.

It can’t be an easy answer if nicotine is now a necessity.

“I don’t know,” he admits on an exhale of smoke. “My life would be totally different if I was still there. I wouldn’t be me.” He glances sidelong at me. “And I happen to like who I am.”

“What is it you like about yourself?”

He hums, raking a hand through his hair and freeing it of snowflakes. “Getting deep now are we, Roxanne?”

“Maybe. Maybe you are a lot more interesting than you let on.” I scoot closer on the icy hood until his thigh touches my hip. “Show me more of that soft underbelly.”

He shakes his head, smiling around his cigarette. “I guess what I like about myself is that I’m simple. I know I may not make the best decisions sometimes.” He taps off ashes over the hood, exhaling more smoke and hot air. “But... I like who I am. I’m content.”

“We’re kinda the same person, if you think about it.”

“Two sides of the same pond.”

I roll my eyes while he puffs off his cigarette, again and again, the ends of my hair tangling in his fingertips. He looks up at me with that edgy, dangerous boy look. It doesn’t get to me in the same way it usually does, because this boy with the frost covered hair against the windshield trying to be a hardass is too cute to stay straight faced around for long.

“My parents were very strict about what I did during my spare time. I’d say my entire childhood went by without any real adventure.” He gives my hair a tug. “That’s why I’m such a shit head now.”

“Makes total sense.”

“I’m making up for lost time,” he continues. “All those wasted years I could’ve been stealing street signs and toilet papering trees...”

“My dad would say that a healthy dose of rebellion is fine and good.”

“And that is why he’s a smart man.”

“Yeah,” I sigh, wrapping my arms tighter around my legs.

Bending my neck back, another round of silence settles over us while we look out to the pond, the moonlight bouncing off of the water, making it shimmer. Snowflakes are still floating between the tree branches, disappearing into the short, dead grass. The streets are ghost-town quiet, parents most likely enjoying their kid-free houses tonight thanks to the dance.

“Have you ever heard the story of how Bellpond got its name?” Noah asks, voice matching the soft sound of the snow. His fingers comb gently through my hair and I suppress a happy shiver.

I can’t remember the last time someone touched my hair like this.

I shake my head, leaning into it like a cat. “Isn’t it because of the shape of the pond?”

He smiles, his face half in shadow. “Ah, that’s where you’re wrong, sunshine. The truth is far more interesting than that.”

Noah clears his throat. “Legend has it,” he begins, his voice dropping to a low, mysterious rumble that doesn’t exactly help my concentration, “there were these star-crossed lovers, Bell and Pond. They were so in love with each other, but their families and the whole town said it was forbidden.”

I snort. “How original. Let me guess, they were from two different worlds?”

“Hey, I didn’t write the story, I’m only telling it.” Noah tugs at my hair once more. “Now hush and let me finish.”

I mime zipping my lips and throwing away the key.

“ Anyway ,” he continues pointedly, “Bell and Pond would meet secretly in the dead of night to be with one another, under a special tree by a tranquil pond.”

Leaning back on my hands against the cold hood, I follow his finger as he points up at the towering oak tree on the shore of the pond, ancient and gnarled. Snow clings to every bare branch that claws up at the night sky.

“One night, as they held each other for what they believed would be the last time, a bolt of lightning split the sky and struck the tree above them”—he punctuates his words by jabbing his cigarette skyward—“and in that flash, the outline of the oak lights up in the shape of...”

“The shape of what?” My heart beats a little, caught up in the saga.

Noah pauses to take one last drag, his smile slow and wicked in the street light. “A bell.”

“What!” I stare straight at him. Gape. Then throw my head back and laugh.

Noah laughs too, the sound all full of his dramatic joy. I smack his arm as he cracks up. Still giggling, I gaze up at the old oak, kind of amazed by how huge it is.

Its thick trunk looks like cracked brown stone, textured with ridges and whorls recording decades of growth rings. Massive branches as thick as the trunk itself reach outward, carved with scars of past storms, yet still together and standing so tall.

For some reason I’m starting to admire a tree. I want to be that strong.

There’s delicate, smaller branches from those giant arms, covered in a peeling pale bark and wiry shoots sprouting out for future leaves to grow on.

And holy shit. The overall shape does remind me of an upside down bell. Flared wider at the top like the opening of a bell, but then tapering down like a long wooden handle.

I can’t see it any other way now. How the hell have I never noticed before?

“Okay, fine,” I admit grudgingly. “It kinda looks like a bell. But that doesn’t explain the name.”

Noah’s grin widens. “Well, every year on the anniversary of that night, if you stand under the tree at midnight—”

“Let me guess. You hear a mysterious bell ringing?”

“Nope,” Noah says, popping the ‘p’. “You hear the sounds of ghostly fucking.”

I burst out laughing again, shoving him hard enough that he slaps a hand down to prevent from sliding off the hood. “You are so full of shit!”

“I’m serious, though,” he insists, sobering up. “From that day forward, the tree became known as the Bell Tree. As you can probably guess, the town took it as a sign. They saw it as this symbol of eternal love. The tree and the bell it resembled became an important part of the town’s history, and as generations passed, the original story became legend, and the people of the town were left to wonder where the name Bellpond really came from. Most still believe that the story of Bell and Pond is the true origin of the town’s name.”

My eyes trace up the scar running from an upper branch down through the trunk. If the lightning strike is true, I can imagine it slicing through the darkness in a crack, blinding the whole town and marking the tree forever.

“What happened to the star-crossed lovers?” I ask as he takes another drag, purposely building the drama.

“No one knows for sure. Some say they ran off together right afterward, leaving Bellpond and all its small-minded bullshit behind to start a new life somewhere else.”

I hum, pulling my knees up to my chest and resting my chin on top. “And the less romantic version?”

He clicks his tongue. “They claim the lightning took them that night, that their burnt bodies were found in the morning embraced underneath the broken oak.”

“Well, that’s morbid as fuck.”

He shoots me a look, like I’m ruining his big storytelling moment. “Some say that the town was so moved by their tragedy that they named the pond in their honor. Bell and Pond, destined to be together for eternity in the still waters.”

I nod slowly, glancing back at the lonely oak standing over the pond’s glassy surface. The moonlight makes the water glow, as if Bell and Pond’s spirits are shining up from the depths. Maybe this tree really is their guardian or something.

There’s no way this story could be true though, but I really like it. Especially the way he tells it.

“Either way,” he goes on, “they were together.”

I lean up, watching the snow swirl on the breeze like confetti. “It really is romantic, in a sad way. Two people loving each other so much that not even death can keep them apart.”

“That kind of love will echo through the ages,” he replies, rubbing his thumb over the new scar on his knuckles. “Like ripples in this pond, going on forever.”

“How have I lived here my whole life and never heard that story?”

“Maybe the mayor lets Dennis in on all the juicy historical secrets.”

I laugh at the thought. “Does that mean you believe this story is the true meaning behind the name?”

“I don’t know, but I like believing that version. Makes you see this pond in a whole new light.” He gestures outward. “It’s not dividing the two sides of town, it’s connecting them. That water flows right through the center, touching both shores. Kind of like Bell and Pond’s love linked both their worlds, however briefly.”

Wow . I picture the two lovers meeting on opposite sides, the pond a conduit for their affections rather than a barrier keeping them apart.

I’ve looked at this pond every day of my life, but only now do I see it as this beautiful thing for the first time through the lens Noah has provided.

“It makes the pond feel more special now.” My eyes slide over to him, arms tightening around my legs. “I don’t know if this sounds weird or not, but I can relate to Bell and Pond.”

He shifts his feet against the hood, letting his legs spread open as he props himself on his elbows. “How so?”

“The whole forbidden love thing, yet they still kept on loving each other despite all the obstacles that were in their way.” I pause, staring at my interlaced fingers. “Sometimes when I can’t have something, I want it even more. Like, dangerously more.”

“Yeah, I hear you, Bell.”

My heart stutters to a halt. Noah goes silent, flicking his cigarette out into the grass, and as if his smile doesn’t tell me everything I need to know, his eyes are obvious.

He winks at me like the stars above. “I’m going to kiss you now.”

My heart starts to beat again as he leans in. But instead of forbidden, this feels fated—our own story for the ages, written in pond ripples and snowfall and endless stars.

“Go ahead then. No one is stopping you.”

“I don’t like being told what to do,” he smirks as he slides over the side of the hood and walks around to the front, knocking his knuckles against the metal as he makes his way.

“I wasn’t telling you what to do,” I fire back. “I was daring you to prove your statement. You gonna kiss me or what, Jackson?”

My tongue wets my cold lips as he wraps a hand around my ankle and pulls me down to the very edge of the hood. A loud gasp puffs between my lips when he braces his other hand beside my thigh.

Three inches. Noah is three inches away from me. Inches that I want more than anything to be gone.

“Yes, Roxanne.” He bends down to be face-to-face with me, my knees bent with my feet resting on the front bumper. “I am very much going to kiss you.”

Sweet mercy. The way he talks, all rough and hungry… I think my ovaries explode.

Paradise by the Dashboard Lights starts drifting out from the windows, and we both smile at the timing of it. It’s short lived when his palms go to the sides of my waist, drawing me closer to him. Our numb noses brush up against each other before he closes his eyes and presses his lips against mine.

It’s so quick but slow at the same time, my heart beating a million miles a minute and reminding me my body is alive.

While Noah is a soul sucker, his touch alone is always enough to bring me to life.

“Are we really going to add Meatloaf to the list of songs we’ve ruined?” I tease, nipping at his lower lip.

“Ruined?” he murmurs, then drops his gaze to my collarbone. “I’d say we’ll make it better.”

“We’re going to have to make a mixtape. Songs We Can’t Un-Kiss To.”

“We Put the ‘X’ in Mix Tape.”

“Songs We Soiled,” I offer, trying not to laugh.

“That’s the one.”

I loop my arms around his neck and pull him closer to me. I’m so wrapped up with him that I’m barely paying attention to the snow falling harder around us, the fat flakes clinging to our hair and clothes like lace, or the cold bars from the bumper freezing into my calves.

Everything is so hot, yet so cold. That’s how we’ve always been.

Fire and ice, winter and summer.

Or in this new case…

Lightning strikes and snowstorms.

“Can I kiss you somewhere else?”

Those warm lips press against mine for the millionth time tonight, and my eyes slam shut to soak it in and smell the warmth on his upper lip. Good lord. The idea of him kissing me anywhere is enough to make my head spin.

“I think,” I manage, the words coming out thin and reedy, “that you’ve done enough damage for one night, Mr. Jackson.”

“Have I? You didn’t wear panties for a reason. I’d like to find out why.” His grin is dirty as his hand trails up the side of my calf. “And I want to see it.”

“Maybe,” I breathe as I slide closer, spreading my thighs wider to feel the cool air blow up my dress. “You could try to convince me. See where I stand with this decision.”

As if I need any. I’ve been ready to let him bend me over my snare and show me what a real rhythm feels like.

“Convince you? That sounds like work. I’d rather show you.”

“Oh, come on.” I lean up to flick the tip of my tongue at his ear. “I dare you.”

His hand slides up further, cupping the back of my knee. “It’s a good thing I’m feeling awfully daresome.”

His eyes go so dark as he licks his lips and rests his forehead against mine. A single curl falls into his eye, and my gaze falls to his lips as he breathes out a frost breath.

“First, I’m going to spread you out on the hood of this car. I want to see your back arching, crying out because my hot tongue feels too fucking good.” His lips meet the side of my neck, sliding down the skin that leads to my shoulder. “The temperature’s dropping, but you won’t even notice. You’ll be too busy feeling little fireworks bursting everywhere underneath your skin while I take my sweet time warming you. And… I think Bell and Pond deserve to see this happen under their tree.”

Forget ovaries—I think he dirty talked my entire reproductive system.

“Noah…”

“I mean, there is a backseat…” His voice sounds so deep while his bottom lip drags against my skin. “But it’s a lot more fun when they can hear you, and I’d love everyone to know how loud you are for me.”

“Noah,” I gasp. Does he want to right here? In public? “Someone could come by and see us.”

“And if they do, they’re going to find out exactly how much Roxanne Wishmore likes me touching her.”

I lean forward against the car. The cold air bites at my skin, but his words are heating my body up.

“What would they think when they find out the big bad Noah Jackson can’t resist the girl who once poured soda all over his head?”

He laughs into my neck. “That Noah Jackson has good taste in women. That he got sick of her bullying him in school, and decided to punish her with his tongue. That he loves making her sweat until she plays nice.”

He comes back up, his hair falling over his forehead in a tumble of snow flecked curls. The cold has turned his cheeks and the tip of his nose a ruddy pink, but his eyes…

God, his eyes are burning .

“Now, what do you say?” His hand moves higher, slowly lifting the dress over my knees. “May I... take a peek?”

Oh god.

He keeps pushing up my dress, moving it closer towards my hips.

Such a little soul sucker.

“Okay, Pond,” I whisper between us. “Let’s rewrite a legend.”

“Let’s change the legend.”

The muscles in his jaw flex as he tortures himself— and me— with how slow he moves the dress up. His fingers trace the length of my legs up, each inch bringing him so much closer.

When he finally gets that first glimpse of my thighs, his chest rises in a long breath before he leans down and bites at the skin, the inferno from his mouth a heater in the cold night.

Feeling so damn good I want to scream .

“I haven’t been able to think about anything else,” he whispers as he rises back up, pulling up my dress the final few inches. As the fabric bunches below my hips, his eyes drop down to see the full unveiled view of my naked thighs and nothing but.

This prompts him to fall back a step. As though he had been blindsided by this revelation.

I break into a smile. He should’ve known better. He knows I'm not a good liar.

Noah stays stone-still, eyes as dark as the night sky before he stands up tall and moves back in between my knees. His hands encircle my thighs, those branch-like veins strong and bulging against his skin as his fingers dig into me so tight.

“So that’s where it is,” he murmurs, fingers squeezing harder and harder. “The best parts.”

“Ew. Don’t call them parts.”

“No? Then what should I call it? Your sweet spot?”

“How about you don’t call it anything?”

“Why not?” He smirks down at me, and the skin between my legs burn when that single curl falls back into his eye. “It’s yours, isn’t it? Or should I not even refer to it as being yours?” His thumbs brush against my inner thighs, sliding up further while the light snow settles on my legs and between them. “I wouldn’t want to call them yours if they’re going to be mine for the night.”

“Noah,” I whisper back, my lungs burning. “You’re really playing with fire tonight.”

“What usually happens when you play with fire?” He slides his thumb up my center and the words almost get stuck in my throat.

“Sometimes you get burned.”

He lowers his head, his lips so very close.

“Are you ready to get burned?” he whispers, making me ache and throb and scoot closer to the edge, hoping he’ll take more.

I gasp when his cold thumb pushes between me once when I don’t answer. My breaths go sharp and shallow as I hold my composure, but just from his voice and his touch, I can’t hold back anymore. I want more. Even if it’s in the dead of night in front of a park.

I bite my lip and nod my head at him.

He grins that same stupid (beautiful) grin. “Good, because I’m ready to burn. And I can’t wait to hear how you sound when I get my tongue inside you.”

Then he’s pushing me flat against the hood and sinking to his knees in the snow, his shoulders nudging my legs wider as he presses hot kisses to the inside of my knee.

Higher and higher he goes, the cold tip of his nose grazing the sensitive skin, his breath scorching me even through the cold. And when he reaches the apex of my thighs, when he drags his lips over the damp, aching center of me, I swear, I levitate off the fucking car.

“Oh my god, Noah,” I whimper, my hips twitching restlessly.

He hums against me, the vibration of it zipping up my spine like the same lightning that struck the oak tree. “Yeah, it’s me. It’s all me. And I want you to say my name for everyone to hear.”

Both his hands flatten on my stomach, pressing me down, holding me in place as he licks a long, slow stripe. When he reaches my clit, he circles it with the point of his tongue once, twice, three times…

And then he bites .

I cry out, my bare ass digging into the frosted metal as my back bows off the car and my inner thighs graze his ears to shoot off some arrow of pleasure, sudden and sharp and so fucking good .

My thighs tighten around his head, my nails clawing for something to hang onto as he works me over with lips and tongue and the barest scrape of teeth.

It’s too much. It’s not enough. It’s going to burn me so good that I’ll melt the frozen hood like an iceberg under the sun.

The cold air fades into insignificance as my senses zero in on three overwhelming sensations: his mouth on me, hot and wet; the rear of my skull pressing into the hood, letting the snow kiss my lobes while I face up at the stars; and the dress that wraps around my tight lungs.

“God, look at you,” Noah breathes, and my hands are in his hair, pulling on the strands, breathing out a moan myself. “Bet they can hear you all the way across the pond taking your punishment so well. How’s that for rewriting legends?”

My nails bite through his hair and into my palm as his tongue keeps me on edge. “You’re going to drive me insane.”

I shift closer, wanting him to take more—he denies me and presses his palm harder against my hip to keep me in place.

“I already have.” When he hears my gasp, that ego of his flares up even more. “I think you’ve been gone for a long time, but you’re coming back.”

He groans when the back of my Chucks dig into his back, pushing his tongue further in, the sound of it muffled against my hot skin, and redoubles his efforts. His hands curve around both my hips, yanking me harder against his mouth as he finds a rhythm that has me seeing goddamn stars.

“That’s it,” he rasps, his words buzzing against my clit as I shamelessly grind against his warm, thick tongue. “Let go for me. I wanna hear you again, wanna feel you.”

His tongue keeps tearing up my body, the wind wrapping around my legs and up my chest, and the sounds of his voice… All light and breathless. My mind is fucking gone.

He slides two fingers inside me, curling them just so, and I see the face of God.

“I want every moan to be for me. Only for me.”

“Noah—I’m losing myself again—” And I laugh softly, tilting my chin down to watch, and his eyes slide right up to meet mine.

Right as I’m pondering whether I could explode from the attention he’s paying to me out in the open alone— probably —Noah keeps talking.

“Lose yourself,” he pants, fingers starting to slide down my thighs. “You’re already mine, but I’m going to make it even deeper. I’m going to make it permanent and you’ll never, ever get rid of me.” His eye contact is starting to drive me insane. “Let it all out for me. That’s all I want.”

There he goes, sucking out my soul again.

The tip of his tongue moves against me, curling deep inside me—and he gets all of those things. We both burn so hard until the heat leaves my bare skin and the cold rises up.

After Noah and I manage to pry ourselves apart, and let me tell you, that was no easy feat—the boy’s a human octopus when he wants to be—we clamber back into the car, turning the heat up to the highest setting. I guess he really was training for that career in professional cuddling after all.

My teeth are chattering so hard, they might vibrate right out of my mouth, and Noah notices. He cups my icy hands in his and starts puffing air, his warm breath defrosting my fingertips. In a way it gives me that same comfort of when my mom used to blow smoke on my fresh nails.

We speed back to the high school gym to collect our friends, and not a single one of those oblivious fuckers noticed we were gone. I don’t know whether to be offended or grateful, honestly.

I drop the boys off first, since they’re closest to the school and furthest from the rest of us. Noah kept looking back at me as he walked up to his front door with Daniel leading the way, no doubt thinking about what happened on the car, and my heart beats sad rhythms seeing him go. Then it was Tyler’s turn.

Trying to move his uncoordinated ass up the stairs to his mom’s second floor apartment is an adventure in and of itself. Especially when he decides to pause halfway up to yack peach schnapps all over the balcony.

Always the mom friend.

Stephanie is last. We make a pit stop at the corner store for emergency provisions. AKA donuts, a cherry Pepsi for me, and a cherry 7Up for her, then spend the rest of the drive to her house rehashing every detail of our night.

I tell her about Harley cornering me, asking to talk in private. Again .

How Noah intervened, creating some kind of epic smackdown between them, and she eyes me the whole time because I’m still in his white suit jacket.

Which, okay, fair. I’m sure I’ve got a ‘freshly fucked’ glow going on.

I wasn’t sure what Noah said to Harley, but I’ve got a feeling it’s the last I’ll be hearing from him. The thought makes me feel lighter than I have in ages.

Steph gives me the entire play-by-play of her night, gushing about how cute Daniel looked in his pink tux, all the way home until I drop her off at her driveway. I listen with half an ear, smiling at all the right moments, but my mind is still back at the pond.

I drive the three streets over to my house, pulling into the bumpy driveway. The night is finally catching up with me all at once, exhaustion sinking heavily into my bones.

The porch light is on, as always, and I can hear the late night news filtering out from the living room. Probably mom, falling asleep in front of the TV again.

I don’t look, and head straight for the bathroom to wash off the layers of makeup and hairspray from my face. As I bend over the sink, scrubbing off my eyeshadow, I pause when I hear the creak of my mom’s footsteps passing down the hallway and heading for the front door.

Huh. That’s odd. It’s nearly midnight, so where could she be going?

Not even five minutes later while I’m brushing my teeth, the screen door creaks open again, smacking loudly against the frame. Then comes the sound…

The clinking of bottles knocking together inside of a plastic bag.

My stomach sinks.

The happy little afterglow that’s been brightening my face all night fizzles out, replaced by my muscles knotting up at the back of my neck.

I don’t have to leave this bathroom to know. I know that sound, know it like the back of my own fucking hand. I can feel her energy filtering in underneath the two inch crack at the bottom of the door when she passes by the bathroom again, already groaning and her footsteps sounding heavy.

I guess her month-long sobriety streak is officially over.

The light dies in my eyes as I catch my reflection in the mirror, toothpaste dripping out of the corner of my mouth from staring too long, the inside of my nose starting to build pressure from the sour feeling in the middle of my chest. Fuck, I hate this part.

Hate the mindfuck of getting my hopes up, of starting to believe that this time, this time , she’ll make it stick.

I dread walking back out there to prove myself right, dread being in her black cloud of fucking gloom. I spit out the toothpaste, swish some cold water after I splash my face, take a deep breath, and leave to check anyways.

Creeping into the kitchen on silent feet, I take one look inside the freezer, at the neat row of whiskey bottles lined up, and the last of my good mood sucks out of me.

I hate being right.

I don’t have the energy to be surprised. I’m tired. So fucking tired .

Holding my breath, I shuffle back to my room, my feet sore from the dance and my legs burning from other things. My bedroom door clicks shut and I fall face first onto my bed, groaning into my pillows. It’s all so goddamn predictable , is the thing.

The hope. The backsliding. The disappointment.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

I glare up at the Lee Aaron poster tacked to my wall. “It was nice while it lasted, huh?”

Silence. Even my girl Lee’s got nothing to say to that.

I kick off my shoes and crawl under my blankets, not bothering to change out of my dress from the dance, or Noah’s jacket. I’m too drained and this smells like him, like pine and smoke and something that’s purely Noah, and it feels like he’s here with me.

Sleep is not going to come easy with the anger licking at the back of my brain, and it’d be inevitable that my mom wakes me up in the middle of the night with her drunk groaning.

I can never sleep when I’m expecting to be woken up, so I’ll end up staying awake for as long as possible until I’m so exhausted that I pass out without issue.

Still, just in case the nightmares outside this room try to come inside, I walk over to the door separating my room from the hall and quietly lock it before getting back into bed, rolling over to bury my face in the pillow.

The headache starts to build behind my eyes the more I think about what’s happening on the other side of my room.

But that’s a problem for future me. For now, for tonight... rest.

Even if it’s only for a little while.