Instead of You (25 page)

   “I love you.”  Her words were soft and it looked as though saying them made her almost as happy as hearing them made me.

   “I love you too.”  She moved in closer, resting her cheek on my chest, so I wrapped my arms around her and pressed a kiss to her hair, which smelled like my shampoo.  Then I pictured her in my shower, using my shampoo, and I knew we had to get moving or else I really would drag her back to my bed.  “Feel like grabbing some breakfast somewhere and then heading back home?”

   She tilted her head back to meet my eyes.  “Do we have to go back?”  Her lips moved into a pout and I’m sure she didn’t mean it as such, but it was sexy as hell.

   “Unfortunately.”  My mind wandered to my mom and I hoped she was doing okay with Mrs. Harris.  “We can come back soon.  We’ll figure something out.”

   She sighed and then rested her face against me once more.  “I can’t wait until we can just be open about everything.  I hate having to hide from everyone.  I love you too much to keep it to myself.”

   I cupped my hands around her face, making sure her eyes were looking into mine when I spoke.  “In a few months, when I’m done teaching here, and you’re out of high school, and my mom’s better, we’ll be able to act just like any other couple.  It’s complicated now, but I wouldn’t trade last night for the world, McKenzie.  Maybe we had to drive two hours away, and maybe we had to bend the truth to a few people, but being able to hold you in public, to kiss you, dance with you, to take you home to my apartment and make love to you, that was worth everything to me.”

   “Just a few more months?”

   “Then it’ll be different,” I promised.

   “Okay,” she whispered.  I kissed her, softly but deeply, and then we both got ready to head back to reality.

   Still not wanting to be apart, we figured her mom wouldn’t be too suspicious if we told her McKenzie had called and asked me for a ride home from her sleepover.  And we were all prepared to tell her mom our fabricated story when we got to my house, but instead we were met with a worried Mrs. Harris.

   “I’m glad you’re home,” she said as soon as I put my bag down by the door.  “I was just about to call you.”

   “What’s wrong?” I asked, my panic striking fast and hot.

   “Everything was good overnight.  We even played some cards and watched a movie.  We went to bed and I thought we’d had a good time.  But now, I went to check on her and she won’t talk to me.  Won’t even acknowledge me.  I don’t know what happened.”

   I looked back at McKenzie, who’d stopped just inside the door, hoping to get some invisible strength from her.  She looked just as worried as I felt and I wanted to feel her arms wrapped around me, her voice whispering in my ear that everything was going to be all right.  Instead, I turned and walked down the hallway toward my mother’s bedroom.

   I knocked gently on her door, but then pushed it open.  She was sitting in the rocking chair she’d placed by the bay window when my brother had been born.  We’d heard the stories a million times about how he was a terrible sleeper, so she’d rocked him in that chair all night sometimes, because it was the only place he would sleep.

   “Mom?”

   If she heard me, she didn’t respond.  She was just rocking back and forth, staring out the window, eyes lost and unfocused.  My eyes scanned the room, looking for any hint as to why she’d had such a drastic setback in just a few short hours.  On my father’s side of the bed, atop the things he’d usually left there but would never come back for, lay a piece of paper with creases in it, as if it had been folded and inside an envelope.  I walked over to it, picked it up, and started reading.  I’d only made it one sentence in when it all became clear.

  
Dear Cory Wallace,

  Congratulations! On behalf of the faculty and staff at Central Florida University, it is with great pleasure that we inform you of your admission….

   I didn’t need to read any more.

   Kneeling down next to her, I placed my hand on her knee, hoping to break whatever trance she was in.  It didn’t.  In fact, for the next twelve hours my mother seemed nearly catatonic.  She rocked in her chair, but wouldn’t talk, wouldn’t acknowledge anyone else in the room.  When the sun went down, I’d gone to check on her and found her in her bed, still awake, but still silent.

   McKenzie and Mrs. Harris eventually left.  I think McKenzie wanted to stay, to help me with my mother, but Mrs. Harris told her, “Everyone needs some space.”  I didn’t want to think about what would happen if she had caught on to us—if she’d somehow figured out we’d spent the night away together—but those words stuck with me, lodged themselves in the back of my mind, just something else to worry about.  When she left, McKenzie wrapped her arms around my neck, hugging me, and I tried to hug her back in the most platonic way possible, knowing her mom was watching us, examining us.  But what I wouldn’t have given for five minutes alone with her.  Just five minutes to feel her and let her comfort me.  To just hold her.

   Over the next few days, it felt as though we were back at square one.  We were on a cyclical loop of mom sleeping, eating, and then sleeping some more.  In the middle of the night I’d hear her crying, and I’d check on her.  But there was nothing I could do.  I’d lost her to the grief again.  Everyone was worried, but we were hoping she’d pull out of it again, just like she had before.  We just didn’t need any more setbacks.

   Unfortunately, each night got progressively worse.

Chapter Twenty-One

McKenzie

    It was lunchtime, Tuesday, and I hadn’t had a moment alone with Hayes since we got back from Bellingham.  He’d been dealing with his mom, and my parents both kept me away, afraid that in her grief Mrs. Wallace would lash out at me again. 

   I looked over my shoulder, stupidly paranoid that someone would see me walking toward the practice rooms and become suspicious.  I made it into the equipment room, fairly confident no one had seen me enter, and stood next to the door with the lights off.  I pulled out my phone to send a text to Hayes.

  
*Can you meet me in the equipment room?**

   It took an agonizing three minutes before he responded.

   **I’ll be there in a few.**

   Time stood still until I heard footsteps coming down the hall.  I held my breath when the door opened.  It would be easy enough to explain why I’d be in the room with the lights off; I could tell whoever it was I had a headache.  But I was a terrible liar, so I hoped it was Hayes.

   I saw the silhouette of his broad shoulders and long hair and let out a sigh of relief.

   “Kenz?” he whispered.

   “I’m here,” I replied quietly, standing but not moving.  I wanted the door closed tightly behind him before I even attempted to move.  The sliver of light that had leaked into the room disappeared as the door clicked closed, and I was immediately pulled into his arms.  My hands twined in his hair that was hanging loose that day and I pressed my nose into his neck.

   “God, I’ve missed you,” he said, his voice raspy, full of emotion.  “These past few days,” he started, but paused, squeezing me tighter.  “All I’ve wanted was to have you by my side.”

   His words shattered my already fractured heart.  It pained me to be away from him, especially when I knew he was struggling, but it was obviously hurting him as well.  “What can I do?”  There was almost nothing to my voice; it was a strangled sound, like fear, anger, and regret squeezed through a funnel. 

   He pulled back at my words, his hands leaving my back and coming to my face.  “You’re doing it.  Right now.  Just by being near me.”  He brought his lips to mine, and even though the room was dark, my eyes closed.  He walked me back until I was pressed against the wall, his tongue gently sweeping into my mouth, his hands sliding down my chest.

   It had been a few days since we’d had sex, and I would have been lying if I’d said I hadn’t thought about it nearly every second since, but the way Hayes was kissing me in that darkened room was nothing like the way he’d kissed me in his bed.  Before, he’d wanted to share something with me, to show me how much he loved me.  But in that equipment room, with the lights off, and the sound of shoes on the linoleum just outside the door, it felt as though he were using me for a distraction.  It took me only a moment to come to the conclusion that I was all right with it, that I was happy, even, to let him use me and my body to take his mind off everything else in his world that was troubling him.

   I wasn’t sure if he could feel my acquiescence, or if he just didn’t care that we were just feet away from the very people who could turn his world upside down, but suddenly he became unapologetically intense.  His kisses were harder, his hands groped with more force, and I found myself right in the middle of a storm of lust I’d never experienced before.

   His knee pushed between my own, pressing my legs apart, while his hands continued to roam my body.

   “Did you wear this for me?” he asked as his hand slid over the curve of my ass, right to the edge of the denim skirt I’d put on that morning.  Of course, when I’d dressed I’d considered whether or not Hayes might like my outfit, but I never imagined this would be happening.  However, that wasn’t the answer Hayes was looking for.

   “Yes,” I breathed.  His lips smiled against mine, but I gasped when his hand yanked on the crook of my knee, hauling my leg up and over his hip.  He rolled his pelvis into me, his hardness rubbing against my clit, the roughness of his denim no match for the cotton of my panties.  I whimpered into his mouth, trying hard to be as silent as possible.

   “At night, I lie in my bed and imagine you underneath me again, think of all the ways I can explore your body, and it kills me that you’re not there when I wake up.”  His hand disappeared from my breast and I jumped when I felt it between my legs, slowly moving my panties aside, and gently pushing into me.  I didn’t have his mouth to swallow my cries, so I bit my bottom lip, hoping to contain the screams wanting to break free.  His movements were a strange and addictive mixture of needy and loving.  He touched me because he needed to, but he did it with tenderness and gratitude.  I’d never felt more desired than in that moment.

   My body shuddered at his touch, but my heart filled with hope for the day when waking up in Hayes’s arms was a possibility.  A day when we weren’t hiding in equipment rooms from other teachers or students, or his mother, or my parents.

   “What are you thinking, Kenz?” he asked, two fingers disappearing inside of me.  I gasped at first, my body reacting to being full again, but then I managed a response.

   “I’m thinking that I love you.”  I managed to say the words, but they were soft, quite nearly a moan.  I saw his cheeks bunch slightly and knew he was smiling, but I gasped again as his thumb stroked my clit.

   “That’s sweet, babe, and I love you too.  But my thoughts are a lot dirtier at the moment.”  All I could do was hold back a cry as he increased the pressure of his thumb, the depth of his fingers.  His face moved and suddenly his mouth was at my ear, his words rushing past with fast breaths, making my entire body pulse.  “I’m thinking about how wet you were when I slid my fingers inside of you.  How you were waiting in this dark room, hoping I’d come here and touch you.  You’ve missed me just as much as I’ve missed you.”  His words were like sandpaper scratching against me.  I felt them everywhere.

   “Hayes.” I managed a strangled cry just before I came apart.  His mouth slanted over mine, taking any noises from me, as his fingers continued to lazily dip in and out.  He dropped my knee and had I not been leaning against the wall I would have toppled over.  I was weak and dizzy from him.  I lazily reached for his belt, wanting and needing to touch him, to give him the escape he’d given me, but the sound of voices from the hallway caught our attention.  They started distant, but grew louder, one voice becoming more prominent than the others.

   “I think I left a twenty in the pocket of my uniform last week.  I gotta check.” 

   Hayes’s eyes became wide and mine mirrored his.  Someone, it sounded like a student, was headed toward the room we were in.  The room in which Hayes had just fingered me to the point of orgasm.

   “Quick,” he whispered, stepping away and pulling my skirt down. “Over here.”  He took my hand and led me to the rack that stretched along the far side of the room.  It was wall-to-wall marching band uniforms.  He forced me into the corner, behind the curtain of polyester.  He grabbed what looked like a tuba case and placed it in front of our feet, hiding them from view, and we pressed our bodies up against the wall as far as we could.  Not even two seconds later the door opened and the light switched on.

   Hayes’s fingers squeezed mine as I heard the footsteps move closer.  The rack was probably twenty feet long, but in that moment the room was rapidly closing in on me.  The clothes around us moved, and somewhere along the line of uniforms I heard the student rifling through them.

   “Josh,” came a new voice from the hallway, “if you need money for lunch, I’ll spot you five bucks.”

   Josh Miller.  Nice guy.  Asked me out freshman year, but I wasn’t allowed to date and Cory nearly gave him a black eye.  I was sure he’d have loved to find me holding my History teacher’s hand in a room that was dark just a few seconds ago.

   “It’s not lunch, bro.  I’m supposed to take Kasey to a movie tomorrow and that was my movie money.”

   He was slowly making his way down the line.  Each second and each uniform that didn’t hold a twenty in the pocket brought him closer to us.  Bringing Hayes and me closer to being discovered.

  
Please let him find his twenty.

   Pocket by pocket, he slowly made his way toward our end of the room.  I was breathing shallowly, hardly enough air to keep me upright, but Hayes was stone-like.

   “Got it,” Josh said excitedly.  “Thank God they never wash our uniforms between performances.”  There were more rustling noises, but then the sound of footsteps in the hallway got softer and the door clicked shut.  We both let out audible breaths.  It was a few moments before either of us moved.  I was afraid someone would come back, or some other student would wander into the room.  But when Hayes’s hand pulled out of mine, I knew he was upset.