What the hell am I doing?
She’s moving to New York. It’s dinner. That’s it.
But seriously, what the hell am I doing? I shouldn’t be doing this.
I pull on a pair of jeans and walk to my closet to find a clean shirt. Right when I get the shirt over my head, the door swings open.
“Hey,” Kyle says, leaning against the doorframe. “Nice of you to come home for a change.” Jesus. Not now. “Want to have dinner with me and Jordyn tonight?”
“Can’t. I have a date.” I walk to my dresser and grab my cologne. I can’t believe Fallon willingly got as close to me as she did with the way I smelled today. It’s a little embarrassing.
“Oh yeah? With who?”
I slide my wallet off the dresser and grab my jacket. “My girlfriend.”
Kyle laughs as I slip past him and begin walking down the hallway. “Girlfriend?” He knows I don’t do girlfriends, so he follows after me to drain me for more info. “You know if I tell Jordyn you’re on a date with your girlfriend, she’ll question me until my head explodes. You better give me something to work with.”
I laugh. He’s right; his girlfriend likes to know everything about everyone. And for some reason, since she’s about to move in with us, she thinks we’re already family. And she’s especially nosy when it comes to family.
Kyle follows me straight out the front door, all the way to my car. He grabs my door before I can shut it. “I know where you were last night.”
I stop trying to shut the door and fall against the seat. Here we go again. “Your girlfriend has a big mouth, you know that?”
He leans against the door, staring down at me with his arms folded across his chest. “She’s worried about you, Ben. We all are.”
“I’m fine. You’ll see. I’ll be fine.”
Kyle stares at me silently for a few moments, wanting to believe me this time. But I’ve promised him I’ll be fine so many times, it falls on deaf ears now. And I get it. But he has no idea that this time really is different.
He gives up and shuts my door without another word. I know he’s only trying to help, but he doesn’t need to. Things really are going to change. I knew that for a fact the moment I laid eyes on Fallon today.
• • •
I walk up to her front door at approximately 5:05 p.m. I’m early, but like I said . . . she’s leaving for New York and I’ll never see her again. Fifty-five extra minutes with her isn’t nearly as many as I want.
The door opens almost as soon as I knock on it. Amber grins at me and steps aside. “Why hello, Fallon’s boyfriend whom I’ve never heard of.” She motions to the couch. “Take a seat. Fallon’s in the shower.”
I glance at the couch and then at the hallway that leads to Fallon’s bedroom. “You don’t think she needs my help in the shower?”
Amber laughs, but then just as quick, her face falls flat and serious. “No. Sit.”
Glenn is seated on the couch opposite the one I’m being forced to sit on. I give him a nod and he raises an eyebrow in warning. I guess this is the moment Fallon warned me about.
Amber crosses the living room and takes a seat next to Glenn. “Fallon tells me you’re a writer?”
I nod. “Ben the Writer. That would be me.”
Right before she fires her second question, Fallon suddenly appears in the opening to the hallway. “Hey. Thought I heard you out here.”
There are no signs of her actually having just taken a shower. I turn back to Amber and she shrugs. “Can’t blame me for trying.”
I stand up and walk toward the hallway, pointing at Amber but looking at Fallon. “Your roommate is sneaky-sneaky.”
“That she is,” Fallon says. “And you’re here an hour early.”
“Fifty-five minutes.”
“Same thing.”
“Is not.”
She turns around and walks backward through her bedroom door. “I’m so tired of fighting with you, Ben.” She heads toward a bathroom off the side of her bedroom. “I just finished packing. Haven’t even started getting ready yet.”
I resume my spot on her bed. “No worries. I’ve already made myself comfortable.” I reach over and pick up the book sitting on her nightstand. “I’ll just read until you’re finished.”
She peeks her head around the doorway of the bathroom and eyes the book in my hands. “Careful. That’s a good one. It might change your mind about writing a romance novel.”
I scrunch up my nose and shake my head. She laughs and disappears back into the bathroom again.
I open the first page of the book, expecting to skim over it. Before I know it, I’m on page ten.
Page seventeen.
Page twenty.
Thirty-seven.
Jesus, this is like crack.
“Fallon?”
“Yeah?” she says from the bathroom.
“Have you finished this book yet?”
“Nope.”
“Well, I need you to finish it before you move to New York so you can tell me if she finds out he’s really her brother.”
She reappears in the doorway in a flash. “What?!” she yells. “He’s her brother?”
I grin. “Gotcha.”
She rolls her eyes and disappears into the bathroom again. I force myself to stop reading and toss the book aside. I look around Fallon’s room and it already looks different from when I was in here an hour ago. She’s removed all the pictures from her nightstand and I didn’t even get a good look at them earlier. Her closet is almost empty, sans a few boxes on the floor.
I did notice when I walked in that she still had on the dress, though. I was hoping she wouldn’t change her mind and pack it before I had a chance to intervene.
I see movement out of the corner of my eye, so I glance at the bathroom. She’s standing in the doorway.
My eyes fall to the dress first. I have to give myself props for picking that one out. There’s just enough showing at her neckline to keep me good and happy, but I’m not even positive I’ll be able to look away from her face long enough to stare at her cleavage.
I can’t tell what’s different about her because it doesn’t even look like she’s wearing makeup, but she somehow looks even more beautiful than before. I’m glad I pushed my luck and asked her to wear her hair up, because she has it pulled up into some messy little knot on top of her head and I’m really digging it. I stand up and walk to where she’s propped up in the doorway. I lift my hands to the doorframe above her head and I smile down at her. “Fucking beautiful,” I whisper.
She smiles and then ducks her head. “I feel stupid.”
“I barely know you, so I’m not about to argue with you over your level of intelligence, because you could very well be as dumb as a rock. But at least you’re pretty.”
She laughs and focuses on my eyes for a beat, but then her focus falls to my mouth and God, I want to kiss her. I want to kiss her so bad it hurts and now I can’t smile anymore because I’m in too much pain.
“What’s wrong?”
I grimace and grip the doorframe tighter. “I want to kiss you really, really bad and I’m doing everything in my power not to do that yet.”
She pulls her neck back and her eyebrows draw together in confusion. “Do you always look like you’re about to puke when you feel like kissing a girl?”
I shake my head. “Not until you.”
She huffs and pushes past me. That did not come out how I meant it. “I didn’t mean the thought of kissing you makes me sick. I meant I want to kiss you so bad it’s making my stomach hurt. Kind of like blue balls, but in my stomach instead of my balls.”
She starts laughing and brings both of her hands up to her forehead. “What am I gonna do with you, Ben the Writer?”
“You could kiss me and make me feel better.”
She shakes her head and walks toward her bed. “No way.” She sits down on her bed and picks up the book I was just reading. “I read a lot of romance, so I know when the timing is right. If we’re going to kiss, it has to be book-worthy. After you kiss me, I want you to forget all about that Abitha chick you keep talking about.”
I make my way to the other side of the bed and lie down next to where she’s propped against the headboard. I roll onto my side and lift up on my elbow. “Abitha who?”
She grins at me. “Exactly. From now on when you meet a girl, you better be comparing them to me instead of her.”
“Using you as a standard is completely unfair to the rest of the female population.”
She rolls her eyes, assuming I’m kidding again. But in all honesty, the thought of comparing anyone to Fallon is ridiculous. There’s no comparison. And it sucks that I’ve only spent a few hours with her and I already know that. I almost wish I’d never met her. Because I don’t do real girlfriends and she’s moving to New York and we’re only eighteen and so . . . many . . . things.
I stare up at the ceiling and wonder how this is going to work. How the hell am I supposed to just say goodbye to her tonight, knowing I’ll never talk to her again? I lay my forearm across my eyes. I wish I wouldn’t have walked into that restaurant today. People can’t miss what they’ve never been introduced to.
“Are you still thinking about kissing me?”
I tilt my head back against the pillow and look up at her. “I moved beyond the kiss. Marry me.”
She laughs and scoots down on the bed so that she’s facing me. Her expression is soft with a trace of a smile. She reaches a hand out and presses her palm against my neck. My breath hitches. “You shaved,” she says, running her thumb over my jaw.
I don’t think a single part of me could possibly smile when she’s touching me like this, because there’s absolutely nothing good about the fact that I’m not going to feel this way again after tonight. It’s fucking cruel.
“If I asked for your phone number would you give it to me?”
“No,” she says, almost immediately.
I press my lips together and wait for her to explain why not, but she doesn’t. She just continues to run her thumb back and forth over my jaw.
“Email address?”
She shakes her head.
“Do you have a pager, at least? A fax machine?”
She laughs, and it feels good to hear her laugh. The air was feeling way too heavy.
“I don’t want a boyfriend, Ben.”
“So you’re breaking up with me?”
She rolls her eyes. “You know what I mean.” She pulls her hand from my face and rests it on the bed between us. “We’re only eighteen. I’m moving to New York. We barely know each other. And I promised my mother I wouldn’t fall in love with anyone until I’m twenty-three.”
Agree, agree, agree, and . . . what? “Why twenty-three?”
“My mother says the majority of people have their lives figured out by the age of twenty-three, so I want to make sure I know who I am and what I want out of life before I allow myself to fall in love. Because it’s easy to fall in love, Ben. The hard part comes when you want out.”
Makes sense. If you’re the Tin Man. “You think you can actually control whether or not you fall in love with someone?”
“Falling in love may not be a conscious decision, but removing yourself from the situation before it happens is. So if I meet someone I think I might fall in love with . . . I’ll just remove myself from their presence until I’m ready for it.”
Wow. She’s like a mini-Socrates with all this life advice. I feel like I should be taking notes. Or debating with her.
Honestly, though, I’m relieved she’s saying these things because I was afraid she would kiss me drunk and convince me we were soul mates by the end of the night. Because Lord knows if she asked, I’d jump right in, knowing it’s the absolute last thing I should do. Guys don’t say no to a girl like her, no matter how unappealing relationships are to him. Guys see boobs coupled with a great sense of humor and think they’ve found the holy fucking grail.
But five years seems like an eternity. I’m pretty sure she won’t even remember tonight after five years. “Will you do me a favor then and look me up when you’re twenty-three?”
She laughs. “Benton James Kessler, you’ll be too famous of a writer in five years to remember little old me.”
“Or maybe you’ll be too famous an actress to remember me.”
She doesn’t respond to that. In fact, if anything, my comment made her sad.
We remain quietly in our positions, face to face on her bed. Even with the scars and the obvious sadness in her eyes, she’s still one of the most beautiful girls I’ve ever seen. Her lips look soft and inviting, and I’m trying to ignore the knots in my stomach, but every time I stare at her mouth, the intensity of trying to hold back actually causes me to grimace. I try not to imagine what it would feel like if I leaned forward and kissed her, but with her this close, I’m really wishing I’d have already somehow read every romance novel ever written, because what the hell makes a kiss book-worthy? I need to know so I can make it happen.
She’s lying on her right side, and with the dress she’s wearing, a lot of her skin is exposed. I can see where the scars begin, right above her wrist, all the way up her arm and neck, pouring across her cheek. I touch her face just like she was touching mine. I can feel her flinch beneath my palm, because I’m touching the part of her she didn’t even want me looking at a few hours ago. I run my thumb over her jaw and then slide my hand down the length of her neck. She’s tense everywhere beneath my touch. “Does this bother you?”
Her eyes flicker back and forth between mine. “I don’t know,” she whispers.
I wonder if I’m the only one who has ever touched her scars before. I’ve had accidents in the past where I’ve burned myself attempting to cook, so I know what it feels like when a burn heals. But her scars are a lot more prominent than a superficial burn. Her skin feels a lot softer to the touch than normal skin. More fragile. There’s something about the way it feels beneath my fingertips that makes me want to keep touching her.
She allows it. For several quiet minutes, neither one of us speaks as I continue running my fingers over her arm and neck. Her eyes moisten, as if she’s on the verge of tears. It makes me wonder if she doesn’t like it. I can understand why this might make her uncomfortable, but for some twisted reason, I feel more comfortable with her right now than I have all day.
“I should hate this for you,” I whisper, trailing my fingers over the scars on her forearm. “I should be angry for you, because going through this must have been excruciatingly painful. But for whatever reason, when I touch you . . . I like the way your skin feels.”
I’m not sure how she’ll take the words that just came out of my mouth. But it’s true. I suddenly feel grateful for her scars . . . because they’re a reminder of how it could have been much worse. She could have died in that fire, and she wouldn’t be next to me right now.
I run my hand down her shoulder, down the length of her arm, and back up again. When my eyes meet hers, there’s evidence of a tear that just trailed down her cheek.
“One of the things I always try to remind myself is that everyone has scars,” she says. “A lot of them even worse than mine. The only difference is that mine are visible and most people’s aren’t.”
I don’t tell her she’s right. I don’t tell her that as beautiful as she looks on the outside, I only wish I could look like that on the inside.
