Bound Together (18 page)

There was no air circulation in the tiny room, and I was starting to sweat.  I pushed her shirt up and bent down to kiss her chest, all along her bra, when all I wanted to do was take it off, but it’s not li
ke we had a lot of privacy here –s
omeone could barge in any second.
And
Zoey
felt so good, I didn’t know how I would stop myself with her.
I must have been losing my grip on reality because when her arms closed around me, I wished we could stay like this forever.

Chapter Twenty
-three

Zoey

I broke apart from Matt and
fixed my clothes.
I
ducked my head out the open door
and confirm
ed
no one was around. I
glanced back
inside for one last
look
at Matt. “See
ya
, buddy.”

“You have to go
…
now
?” he groaned.

It almost changed my mind, but I knew the longer we stayed together in this laundry room the more likely it was that one of two things would happen – one, we’d be caught
by someone
and I didn’t want to deal with that right now, or two – that
we’d
end up going all the way, and for some reason the thought of that scared me.
Like it would catapult our relationship to a new
level
that I wasn’t ready to accept.

He pulled me
back
in by the waist for
a quick peck on the lips
before I disappeared down the hall to go find Morgan.
She wasn’t hard to find. She was straddling a bar stool at the island, challenging some guy to
do
a shot
with her
, but when she saw me, she broke into a sloppy grin. “Where the hell have you been?” She lifted my hair off my shoulder and looked at it like it was a foreign object hanging down by my face. Which it was, she rarely saw me with my hair down, but for some reason, whenever Matt was involved my hair came down.
“Someone’s been naughty.” She smiled.
“Bedroom hair.” She lifted it again to show the guy next to her.
“But Jordan’s outside smoking, so where the
hell’ve
you been?”

“
Shh
. Keep your voice down.” I swatted her hand away from my hair. The look on her face told me she wasn’t going to give up that easily. “Fine. Come with me.”
It was probably time to get this over with
anyway
.

Morgan hopped down from the bar stool and followed me out the front
door. We sat down on the
step
s
, and hugged our knees against the
chill in the
night air. Morgan was
looking at
me
, waiting for me to start
.

“So, were you hooking up with a mystery man?”
she prompted.

I glanced around to make sure no one was around to overhear us. “Sort of.”

Morgan clapped her hands. “Oh man, I knew it. Who is it?
Braydon
?”

“What? No.”
Braydon
was one of Jordan’s skating buddies.

“Who then?” She nudged me with her knee.

“You’ll never guess.” 
I shook my head.
Her smile
grew wider. “And if I tell you
—
you will need to be
sworn
to secrecy.”

“I can do that.” She
nodded
, looking at me expectantly.

“So, I kind of hooked up
with Matt
Parker
on the trip.”

“What!” She screamed, turning her body towards mine.

“
Shh
. Keep it down, Morgan. No one can know about this.”

She clamped her
hand over her
mouth
, he
r
eyebrows furrowed.
“And it’s still happening? You two…”

“Uh, yeah. In the laundry room just now.”

“Holy shit,
Zoey
!
That boy is a fine piece of man meat.”
Her dopey grin was back.

I cracked a smile.
“I know
—
trust me.”

We sat in the night air, letting the reality of it sink in. “Are you guys like…what? Friends…dating…what?”

“Um, no. We’re nothing. It’s done,” I said, but even I noticed
that my voice lacked conviction.

“Yeah right. You’re
gonna
give that up?”
She nodded her head towards the street.

Perfect timing
.
Matt was w
alking around the side of the house
out towards his truck with
his friend Justin behind him, who was t
rying to talk him into staying.
They stopped under the
street lamp and stood there arguing for a few minutes.
Defeated, Justin headed back towards us, while Matt continued down the street to his truck.

“Sup?” Morgan gave a head nod to Justin as he stepped in between us up the front steps into the house.

I waited for the door to close again, blocking out the sounds of the party, leaving Morgan and I in complete silence.
“I’ll admit, it was fun,
and he’s…okay looking.”

“
Okay looking?
T
hat boy is
redonkulously
sexy. I need details.” She grabbed my shoulders and shook me.

“We actually didn’t do much more than just make out.”

“How much more are we talking
—
let’s focus our conversation there.”
Her finger punctured the air as she said
there
.

I thought
back to that afternoon in Paris
—
I’d wanted things to go farther, but then an unwelcome visitor had arrived and ruined everything.  “It was actually pretty embarrassing. We were starting to get it on, and…” I laughed nervously and shook my head.

“What?” Morgan looked at me.

“I started my period.”

“
Goo
.”

“Yeah,
I know
.”

She made a face, showing her teeth. “You didn’t like, bleed all over him or anything?”

“Oh, God, no. He was actually really cool about it
and
went out to get me supplies.”

“Hmm,” she said.

“What?”

“I don’t know,
Zoey
. T
hat sounds like something a boyfriend would do.”

“
Psh
. No. Don’t get any weird ideas. We were hook
-
up buddies, that’s all.” I opened my mouth to explain that he was just returning the favor from when I’d helped him out with his migraine, but then thought better of giving Morgan any more ideas about what exactly was going on between
me and
Matt.

I talked Morgan into leaving a little while later, and when we got back in her Civic, I pulled my phone from the cup holder. I had a new text. From Matt.
Good
n
ight
,
he’d written.

“Who was it? Everyth
ing okay at home?” Morgan asked, pulling the car out carefully from our parallel parking spot.

I deleted it without responding.
“
Yeah, everything’s fine.
It was nobody.”

She looked over at me suspiciously, but didn’t press for details.

*****

Monday and Tuesday passed without Matt and
I
exchanging a single word in class. Maybe he thought my no talking ban in the laundry room at Summer’s last weekend was still in effect, but for whatever reason, Matt was avoiding me. I sat in the back, as I usually did and Matt returned to the front row. I
did my best to ignore
him
and act like everything was normal between us
.
T
hough we’d decided on a topic
for our paper
, we hadn’t actually
discussed it any further.

I ducked out of class
Wednesday
, keeping my eyes on the floor as I squeezed past the desks in the front row.  I wanted to avoid this whole, ‘why did you pull me into the laundry room for a make out session last Friday’ conversation we were probably going to have.

I spotted Morgan in the hall and walked with her to our locker. “Di
d you see him again?” she asked, wagging her eyebrows at me.

“No.”

Chelsey hung on Matt’s arm and tried to keep up as he walked down the hall and my eyes followed them. She wore actual coordinated outfits. Today it was short skirt, black leggings, with black sequined flats and a fitted black and white striped sweater. It looked really soft and the way it strained tight over her chest was hard not to notice. I, on the other hand wore what Morgan called
groutfits
, gray outfits. I looked down at my faded jeans and old V
-
neck
T-shirt
that was
heathered
and w
orn thin from so many washings, but it clung to me in the right places, so maybe it was okay.

*****

After school,
Pete and I walked side by side down the uneven sidewalk towards town. With Ty
at soccer practice, Charlie with his friends and Cora
at
swim lessons
for the next two hours, i
t was just Pete and I
. A
nd in honor of his getting an A on his spelling test, the two of us wer
e going out to eat to celebrate
—
somewhere with
chicken strips
per his request. And bonus –
it meant I didn’t have to cook.

Pete was still young enough that he liked hanging out with me, whereas my other brothers saw it as punishment to have me watching over them. 
I felt
like we were being watched and
turned to the street just in time to see Matt’s SUV slowing down beside us.

He lowered the passenger side window. “Hey!” he called.

I gave a head nod, and tried to keep walking. Pete tug
ged
my hand. “Who’s that,
Zoey
?”

“If you’re lost, the interstate’s that way
.
” I pointed
up ahead without meeting his eyes.

He laughed. “
H
old up a second.” He pu
lled up to the curb and parked, then
hoped out and jogged around to meet us on the sidewalk. “You’re talking to me again.”
It wasn’t a question.

“Maybe.”

“Well this calls
for a celebration.
What’dya
say
—
Chick
-
Fil
-
A
,
my treat.”

“Can’t. I have Pete tonight.” I set my hand on Pete’s head. He turned
back and forth,
looking from me to Matt.

“So we’ll
bring him. Man, woman and child
—
it’ll be fun.”

I gave him my best
WTF, are you kidding me
look.

“Come on. I’ll teach him guy stuff.”

“He’s eight
.
C
alm down on all that. I don’t want you turning him into a macho
football
meat
-
head.”

“Whoa. I’m offended.  I have a sensitive side.”

“Yeah? And where’s that?”
I took a swing
at
his stomach, but he stepped out of the way before I connected. Then h
e
lunged at me,
wrapp
ing
his huge arms around my waist and swung me up, lifting my feet from the ground.
It was
as though
away from the prying eyes at school, he couldn’t help but touch me. I pushed the thought from my
mind
.
“Set me down!”

“You have a big mouth for someone so miniature. Are you going to be nice now?”