How to Hook a Bookworm (20 page)

Chapter 25

Wow
.

Early internship.

Early.

June
early.
Next freaking month!

I look at the post date. March. He’s had two whole months to tell me about this…

My breath whooshes out of me in a panic. I try to tell myself this was inevitable. He was going to leave anyway. What does it matter that it’s now sooner than September?

But it does matter. Time slams down on my back, and it feels like everything I want to say to him won’t get said before he’s gone. And the fact he never told me about this doesn’t help the words come out, because I’m mad. Beyond mad. I’m so pissed I want to shove the computer off his desk and destroy his room like a psycho.

Something buzzes in my ears, and I don’t hear Adam when he walks in the room, but I sense he’s there, right behind me. My breath is still steaming from my nose, lips pursed as I control all the curses I want to chuck his way.

“Whoa,” he says when he catches my face in the middle of its conniption. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I clip, and try to maneuver around him, but he grabs my upper arms. Even pissed, a wave of butterflies zap around my stomach.

He waits for me to give in. A million excuses not to say anything flit through my brain. We’re in a hurry. Zak is waiting on us. We need to get back. I
can’t
get into this right now.

“Is it Jay?” he asks, and I’m so far past Jay I end up snorting a dismissive laugh.

“We broke up, Adam. So no, it’s definitely not him.”

“Broke up? When?”

I wiggle in his arms. He loosens his hold but doesn’t go far. This isn’t about Jay. I don’t want to tell Adam it’s
him
I have a problem with right now. I also hate myself for wasting so much freaking time, for realizing things way too late, and for being so effing stupid for pushing away reality.

“You didn’t tell me you applied for an internship.” The truth slips through my teeth despite not wanting to talk about it, and Adam’s face drains of color.

“I… I didn’t think I’d get it.”

I
pfft
at him and shrug completely out of his hold. “You did though. You got the letter in
March
. Why didn’t you tell me?”

He shrugs. His fingers twitch at his sides. Suddenly the carpet is more interesting than my face, and something completely fractures in my chest and drops into my gut.

“Well, that’s cool,” I spit out, not meaning any of the words.

“I don’t know if I’ll—”

“Of course you’ll go.” Because he will. He should. Even though I don’t want him to. Even though it kills me to think he’ll be so far away, and I have no internet. My phone has stupid limits. “You should go. It’s great, Adam.”

His eyebrow rises. I know I sound like it’s anything but great, but I can’t keep my voice steady. It’s coming out louder, sharper, and I have to blink a few hundred times to keep the water building in my eyes at bay.

“So go,” I say, not even pretending to smile about it. “Hell, why not move tomorrow? Get a feel for the place.”

“Brea…”

“I’ll even help you pack,” I snap, trying to slide around him to his drawers. I’ve lost my freaking mind. “This is actually great for me, you know? Now I can take your damn job with no guilt. In fact, I’ll call Pegs tomorrow.”

“Stop, I’m sorry—”

“About what? Not telling me? It’s not like we’re friends or anything. Not like you’re my
best
friend. Not like you give a shit that I’m stuck here with failing grades while you have a million choices of schools in your drawer.” I wave my hand at all those acceptance letters in his desk.

“When was I supposed to bring it up, Brea?” Now he’s getting mad. “It’s a sensitive subject, and you’ve been on edge lately.”

“How about when I left you that message? You know, the one you’ve said
nothing
about. The one that took so much out of me to actually admit and you completely ignored.”

“What was I supposed to say?” He tosses his hands up, runs them over his head, and pulls at his hair. “That I’ll miss you too? That I hope a piece of you
does
go with me because I can’t even think about the distance between us. It’s hard to let those words out. Especially since you have… or
had
a boyfriend.”

“What does that matter?”

He rolls his eyes. Like I’m
stupid
. My hands fly to his chest and shove.

“Just go, then! Leave right now.” Obscenities drop from my lips, completely out of my control. Every time my hands make contact with his chest makes me feel better and worse all at once. He lets me beat him, scream, and I don’t even know what I’m saying. I know I’m saying everything I don’t mean. That he needs to get out of here, he needs to leave me alone, that we can’t talk anymore, and we shouldn’t hang out because there’s no point. And during the middle of my cursing, my shouting, his arms catch me mid-shove. He pulls me into him, my fingers fist into his button-up, and I drop my forehead against his warm chest.

“You
can’t
leave me,” I croak into the material. “What am I going to do without my best friend?” My fists tighten, leaving starburst marks in his shirt. His hand runs over my back, up and down. “I love you. I need you to stay, but you can’t stay. I know you can’t and it hurts.” I pound my head against his chest. “Why? Why didn’t you tell me?”

He loosens his hold on me, and I step back to compose myself, but my hands won’t let go of his shirt. Like they don’t want him to get too far away. My voice leaves my throat. I’ve screamed it to oblivion. Adam steps into me, and I stumble back into his desk. His hands move to mine, gripping my fists as I grip the white fabric of his shirt. I blink past the blur to his face, so close that I feel a wave of warmth rush through my neck and cheeks.

“How do you love me?” he asks, voice tight.

“What?”

“You said you love me.” His fingers twitch over mine and hot breath crashes over my face, making my knees buckle. “In what way do you love me?”

I want to look at him—study his features and his expression because he’s watching me with that same intensity that causes waves of tummy tickles. But I find myself shutting my eyes, embarrassed by just how much I need him.

I love him as a friend. I love him as family. I love him as a book nerd, a dancing squirrel on the side of the road. I love him as a comfort, a confidant, a person, a
guy
. It’s so overwhelming I can’t hold myself steady, and I clutch onto him harder, wishing and wishing I could keep him here.

“In
every
way,” I croak, not able to stanch the flow of tears.

His heart slams against my knuckles, and I manage to open my eyes enough to look up at him. His glasses are tilted, and his lips part. His breath seems to have left the room as he moves his eyes back and forth, gazing into mine. I blink and more tears fall, and I don’t care that I’m crying. It’s okay to be vulnerable with Adam, and though that confused me before, I know why it’s okay now.

Adam’s breath comes back in a deep, long exhale that blows some flyaway hair from my face. He doesn’t say anything as his hands move from mine and trickle down my arms. His fingers pull gently at the skin by my elbows before they slide up to my shoulders. My heart flies with fast and furious wings, soaring up to my throat as he cups my face.

My mouth is open, and I’m breathing hard and my cheeks are wet with tears, but he wipes them away, replacing them with warm, healing trails. He leans in, forehead hitting mine as he taps a brief and light kiss to my top lip. It’s less than a second, but I shiver against him as the touch travels through my body. My fingers hold tight to his shirt, wanting to pull him in farther, but I can’t seem to move much at all.

His breath is hot against my mouth. His heart punches my knuckles over and over, and his hands burn against my neck. He takes another step into me, and my legs spread to let him get even closer. I watch his eyes while he watches mine, then they close and mine close, and his lips touch my top lip again. It’s longer this time—long enough for me to catch his bottom lip and taste the tears he kissed away. I shiver again and his mouth moves so I’m the one who has his top lip while he has my bottom, and we start kissing with more intensity. A deep sound erupts in the back of his throat, and his hands move from my neck to my thighs. He lifts me on the desk, and my butt hits everything on it.

“Ow.” I laugh around his mouth and my leftover tears. He helps swipe his keyboard from under my skirt. His lips turn into a smile against mine.

“Sorry, I was trying to be smooth about that.”

His fingers trace along the inside of my blouse near my hipbone, and I can’t control my breathing as I say, “You were smooth.” My legs grip his hips as much as my skirt allows, and one of his hands curls around my nape. He brings our mouths back together, his tongue tentatively reaching for mine in a small sweep across my bottom lip. I swing my arms around his neck, and his glasses press tight against my face. He reaches to take them off, but I don’t want them off. I like them there. I like his glasses and his red hair and his pocket tees and his warm smile. I grab his wrist and guide his hand back to my waist, letting him dip underneath my shirt and spread his fingers over my skin. Shivering and gasping under his palms, I tug on his hair and taste all the different corners of his mouth, then let him do the same to me.

He’s the first taste of soda after nothing but water. He’s hot chocolate mid-winter. He’s the first crack when opening a brand new hardback. He’s bacon for breakfast, fuzzy socks for Christmas, candles in a blackout. Everything I love, and never fully appreciate until I go without it for a long, long time.

Tingly bubbles stroke my tongue, travel every inch to my toes. A rush of vertigo hits me, like I’m falling and flying all at once. My heart pounds, wanting to beat right out of my body and into his pocket. And it feels like his is doing the same, and I want to hold onto it—cherish that heart and keep it safe for the rest of forever.

I gasp when his teeth pull at my bottom lip, and more and more sounds cascade from my mouth as he bites and kisses a path across my jaw and down my neck. His forehead rests on my shoulder, and he pauses there, breathing hard against my skin, warm air soaking into my shirt. I gulp and try to resist the urge to pull his mouth back to mine and kiss him till the end of the world—then longer than that.

“That really just happened, right?” he asks into my neck. His eyes lift as I let out a breathy laugh.

“I think it’s still happening.”

He smiles before kissing me again, and my heart won’t stop singing and my legs won’t stop shaking. And his touch is everywhere. In my hair, running down my spine, over my hips, clutching the crook of my knee, on my shoulders, holding my hands. I can’t catch my breath. I can’t even think. Not even when a constant buzzing reaches my ears and something vibrates against my knee.

He breaks away with a sigh, pulling his phone from his pocket and answering with a very out of breath, “Hello?”

I move back as much as I can to get rid of the flush going through my neck.

“Hey, yeah. I’ve got it.” He gestures to the flash drive, and I pull it out and hand it over. “Yep, be there in ten.”

He quirks a grin at me as he shoves his phone back in his pocket. I do something I’ve never ever done before. I poke my bottom lip out and bat my eyes.

“Not even in the wedding party, and they are demanding your services.”

“It wouldn’t be a Star Wars wedding without the proper light show during the cake cutting.”

I scoot to the edge of the desk, and his hands settle on my waist as he helps me off. “I could go for cake,” I say.

“Maybe I can finally dance with you.”

“Finally?”

“I’ve been trying to ask you all night.”

“Hmm…” I playfully tap my chin. “I don’t know. I’m still mad at you.”

I’m sorta teasing, but his smile fades, and he pulls me close, nodding against my forehead. “I know. We can talk about the long distance thing, I promise. But can we just… not tonight?”

I wish I had a pause button so I won’t have to talk about it ever. But I agree, and he gives me a brief kiss that turns into a not-so-brief kiss. We break apart when his phone buzzes again.

“Okay, we really have to go. No distracting me.”

What feels like a permanent smile hits my lips, and I push him two feet away and speed walk to the car. But once he hands over that flash drive, all that space I just gave him is going to close right up.

Chapter 26

Anything to keep her from table dancing.

So I only sort of dance with Adam. We get back to the wedding, and he’s instantly carted away. Then we have to sit for a while for a slideshow and toasts. Adam sneaks to the table during Levi’s speech, taking the spot next to me and putting one of his arms over the back of my chair. My body instantly moves into his touch.

Jolie sends me eye signals when she sees Adam hold my hand. After lots of pointed looks, I finally mouth to her that I’ll tell her all about it later, so she leaves us alone and flirts with the guy who’s totally into her.

Zak and Zoe cut the cake. The light show is pretty cool, and it really does look like they are slicing the thing with light sabers. The inside is dark chocolate, and my mouth pools thinking about how good that’ll taste. If I ever get married, I’m
so
having a chocolate cake.

Zoe dances with Zak, then her dad, then we all dance, and I finally get a whole song with Adam before they announce the bouquet toss. Sierra and Ariana battle for the toss, Ariana winning in the end. But Levi gets the garter, so Sierra doesn’t pout too long.

We wave off the bride and groom, and Adam grabs my hand, pulls me to the hall with all the red light sabers and brings me in close.

“You want to get out of here before we’re wrangled into cleaning up?”

I nod, and he weaves our fingers together. We laugh and run all the way to his Geo.

He takes the long way home, circling the neighborhoods, and we talk about the wedding mostly. We’ve agreed not to talk about the internship tonight, but I can’t help but bring it up a little—just the fact that I’m not in the least bit surprised he got it. He stops at a gas station and buys me a bag of M&Ms. We sit on the trunk and fight over the green aphrodisiac myth he’s determined to prove as he pops one in my mouth. Then we share chocolate flavored kisses, and maybe he has something on the whole green M&M theory. But I won’t admit that out loud.

His hand doesn’t leave mine once we get back in the car. I lean on his shoulder, breathe out a content sigh, not allowing my brain to count the days I’ll have left like this with him.

“Where am I taking you tonight?” he asks, pressing his cheek to the top of my head. “Sierra’s? Jolie’s?”

I stifle a yawn and shake my head. “I think… I think I’m going to try home.”

“You want me to stay with you for a bit?”

“I’ll be okay.”

His thumb caresses my knuckles as he flicks his blinker on and flips a U. I snuggle as much as I can into his side, inhaling the smoked almonds and whatever guy-like deodorant he wears. It’s weird that I’m not even nervous about going back home tonight. Who knows if I’ll talk to my mom or if I’ll just go to bed. But I finally feel strong enough to take that step.

Adam pulls up to the trailer, and on some sort of subconscious level I think about how Jay never did this because I never felt comfortable sharing this part of me. But with Adam, I’m comfortable sharing all parts of me. Seems like a big flashing sign that my stupid brain didn’t see until it’s in the rearview.

“Library tomorrow?” I ask him when I open the front gate.

“After my shift.”

I smile, and his cheeks push his glasses up slightly when he smiles back. Keeping our hands locked, I step into him, pressing our lips together for my first ever goodnight kiss on the porch. The tickle monster plants real estate in my stomach, and without even meaning to, my left foot rises two inches from the ground.

He lingers a bit, and I keep pulling him back for kisses when he goes to leave, or he keeps running back for more two seconds after he turns around. And the thing is, I thought kisses were meant to make you forget problems or take you to places somewhere outside of yourself. But maybe real kisses don’t make you forget, they make you feel like you can take on anything.

When Adam finally gets to his car, I step into the trailer, bouncing like a balloon on the ceiling, unable to fly clear to the freaking moon. I lean against the door, one hand on the doorknob, vision not all that focused.

I wonder if he’s still out there. Maybe I can catch him if I move fast.

But something shifts on the edge of my peripheral.

“You’re home,” Mom says, sitting up from the couch. When my kiss-induced fuzzy vision blinks back to normal, I take in her matted hair on one side, tired eyes, and holey pajama bottoms.

“Yeah.” I bring one foot up and slide a heel off. Mom’s gaze flicks over my pastel skirt, and a small smile crosses her face.

“You look gorgeous. Your hair…”

“Jolie did it for me.”

“It’s beautiful.”

There’s an awkward pause when I debate on saying thank you, but I’ve never really been good at that. And I’m still not sure if I want to talk with her tonight, or if I’m just going to do this “coming back home” thing one step at a time.

“Um, I’m going to head to bed,” I say. Then I pad my way across the smashed carpet. A stray piece of hair flies into the corner of my mouth, and when I push it back into place, my feet stop dead. Mom doesn’t say a word. I can’t even hear her breathing. And I squeeze my eyes tight, unlocking that part inside of me that keeps things to myself.

“Actually… no.” I turn to face her, shoulders back, standing as tall as my short frame allows. “I want to talk.”

Mom’s blue eyes pop wide, and she slides over, opening a seat for me, but I stay where I am.

“I promise I didn’t—”

“No,” I cut her off. “
I
want to talk, and I want you to listen.”

She purses her lips, and a giant grey cloud forms over us. I beg my feet not to run. I beg my voice to work.
Please get through this, Brea. Face it.

“I can’t be in a house where that stuff goes on,” I say, voice shaking, but I don’t allow my gaze to drop. I keep my eyes focused on hers. “I won’t do it.”

She nods, the corners of her mouth turning down. I take a deep breath and step forward.

“I know things are bad. I may not be the one looking at the bills, but I understand what’s happening. But no matter how bad things are, they are never
that
bad.
Never
.”

“I know,” she says right into my eyes. I find myself sitting next to her, the closest I’ve dared to get since that day.

“I’m sorry Dad left. I’m sorry you have to float from temp job to temp job. I’m sorry I haven’t been doing everything I can to help out.” My gaze finally drops to my hands because suddenly my mom is holding them. She hasn’t touched me like this in who knows how long. We haven’t talked like this in… well, ever. “I promise I’ll get a job and help out, but please…
please
don’t do…
that
…for me. I won’t stay here. I won’t be the reason.”

Her thumbs run across mine and a tear drops onto our skin. She sniffs, and I don’t look at her because I’m not sure if I can stand to see it.

“You don’t have to be sorry at all,” she says.

“Okay, I won’t be then.” I smile to lighten the grey clouds over our heads, and she lets out a small, snotty laugh.

“I didn’t go through with it.” She picks my chin up. “You have to know that. He was gone right after you left, and I haven’t been able to look at myself since.”

“I know. You said that before, but you made it sound like you were still gonna…”

“I was mad at myself. I had gone through every scenario, justified it all, and wanted you to know my intentions were good. That I hadn’t made a mistake. But that’s all codswallop and we both know it.”

“Codswallop?” I laugh, and she does too. Then her arms are around my shoulders, and my face buries into her chest.

“I’m so sorry, my Brea. You are so strong and smart and brave. So I promise I’m going to be those things too.”

“I’ll help out,” I mumble into her shirt. “I was offered a job, and I’ll help you find one too.”

“I’m sorry that you have to—”

“I
want
to.” I squeeze her tight, let her hold me back, and the clouds part. We’re like that till Levi walks in, and I make my way to my room, promising Mom I’ll stay there as long as she keeps her word. Levi stares at us both with the most confused expression, but Mom kisses her fingers and crosses her heart. And I do the same.