Not knowing what to say, I mutely look down at his injured hand, then up at him. Pulling on a brave front, ignoring the fact that my mother is in a hospital bed for the third time this summer, I ignore the look he’s giving me and move on with my case.
“At some point, we all have to outgrow pink frill-lace dresses and pigtails.”
“Says the girl with pink nail polish on her fingernails.” He watches me, eyes narrowed. Seriously? Of all the things he could say right now.
“It’s not pink. It’s peach coral, you color blind fool. Now come on.”
None too gently, I lead him, by his injured hand, to the chairs. I have no idea why I did that, touched his injured hand instead of his other one. And now, I have bloodstains in the palm of my hand. His blood in my hands.
With the kit I stole from the nurses’ station, I grab the ointment and a cotton ball, then start cleaning his knuckles. He doesn’t so much as wince, he just watches me silently as I work.
“Doesn’t it hurt?” I ask him after a minute of agonizing silence. “When my dad cleans my bruises, this ointment hurts.”
“And Mom?” he questions when I trail off, my movements now wooden and tense.
“What?”
“You told me about your dad who finances the frill-lace dresses and peach coral manicures. What about your mom?”
“I don’t wear that stuff, talk about fashion suicide of the twenty-first century.” I shudder. The thought of dressing wrong would totally kill the social life I’ve worked so hard to grow. You don’t become me by dressing like that!
“Avoiding the question again?”
I sigh. Yes, I was avoiding the question.
“She’s a force to be reckoned with. Beautiful, smart, she’s the reason I can speak French, Italian and a little Russian.” My heart grows heavier with each thought of her running wild in my head. Nancy Montague is many things, my best friend, the reason why I’m working so damn hard to make her proud and now she’s here.
“Is that all?”
“That’s all I want to tell you.”
“Really?” He eyes me like he’s trying to size up my worth, his anger dissipating some. “You’re not going to tell me about some of the little hints and talks you have with your mom?”
I stare up into his emerald eyes, so beautiful and a bit dark with emotion, and I know he knows. The reason why I’m here. Can he smell it too? The stench of death coming from her room.
“Well, she said pumpkin spiced anything is so cliché, and we don’t do clichés in our house.” I smirk, then look down when my cheeks burn with a remembered memory.
“What else?” he probes like he knows what I’m thinking.
“She warned me about boys like you,” I blurt then slap my mouth closed.
I didn’t mean to say that, but it just slipped out. I look up and hold his gaze. He’s kind of smiling, kind of smirking, kind of not making a facial expression. It’s freaking annoying.
“Boys like me?” he questions, his emerald eyes now dilating a bit. He glances at my lips then back to my eyes.
“Hmm.”
“What did she say about boys like me?”
It’s the way he looks at me now, as if he’s trying not to laugh at me that snaps me out of the trance.
“That you’re probably a jerk because there’s something wrong downstairs.” I try my hardest not to laugh at the frown on his face or the way his eyes harden and narrow on me.
“Really?” His voice is low again and sarcastic. “What else did she say?”
“Oh, a bunch of other stuff.” I try to be vague, ignoring the twisting pain in my heart, trying to be brave when I’m not feeling it at all. My mother is in a hospital room right this second, alone, while I’m out here, talking to a stranger with anger issues, who I think I hate.
“Secretive and a liar.”
“I’m not a liar!” I deny vehemently. I hate the ‘L’ word. I know better than to be a ‘L’ because I know if you’re a ‘L’ then you’ll be taking more ‘Ls’ than anyone else. People who do “L” suck.
Like my father who said he’d be here but isn’t.
Like my aunt who constantly lies to Mom about when she’ll come out here, but never does, choosing a man and his wallet over her sister instead.
Ls suck.
“So, what did she say?”
“That guys like you don’t…” I trail off, my blood warming up with embarrassment. I never blush! Not when I’m trying my hardest not to! I mean, I can blush at will, just to fool a boy but genuinely blushing? That’s so not me.
“Don’t what?” he prompts, leaning in. “Your face is red.”
Way to go pointing that out, genius.
“It’s not.”
“It’s like a big cherry about to explode.”
“I’m not blushing!”
“What did your mother say about boys like me?”
“She said boys like you are jerks and you probably don’t know how to kiss a girl correctly.”
The words come tumbling out of my mouth before I can stop them. Immediately, I feel like dying—which is a foreign feeling to have. Is that what losers who trip over their own two feet in front of the entire school feel like? It’s not hot.
“Really?” His voice drops to a low pitch, making shivers race up and down my spine. “And how do good boys kiss?”
“Uh,” I stutter, then look away. “She says a real kiss is one that steals the air in your lungs, makes your entire body tingle, that by the time it’s over, all you want to do, is to do it all over again because you know, no one will ever kiss you like that. Ever.”
I don’t know why my voice drops to a whisper or why I can’t seem to be able to look him in the eye. I’m a brave girl. I’m the shit no matter where I am, so this, whatever this is, is making me extremely nervous.
I try to calm down, my virgin lips tingling as he looks down at them. I suddenly feel warm inside, and I want it. For the first time since ever, I want a boy to kiss me.
Not just any other boy, but him. He’s tall, dark, handsome, well-spoken, his voice is deep and makes my insides knot up, exactly what older girls say in my ballet class.
He looks like a young warrior, with that menacing expression on his face, his emerald eyes dark and heavy with emotion he’s trying so hard to keep in check. And I want him to take my first kiss.
If I’m lucky, he’ll probably be at my new high school, St. Jude High. The best school in Palos Verdes and something tells me that he’s one of the popular guys there. He has to be. It’ll all be perfect because I’ll be popular too.
“What’s your name?” he questions instead, snapping me out of my steamy fantasy that I’ve never had about anyone before, not even for Shane Matthews.
“Why does that matter?” I croak, grabbing the bandage with buttery fingers as I try to ignore the burning in my cheeks. I can feel his eyes on me, so I carefully start wrapping the bandage around his knuckles like a pro. I’ve learned to take care of my own injuries alone in the past two years.
“What’s your name?” he demands again, watching me with a hooded gaze that’s clear of pain but now looks so dark and threatening, I gasp.