Painting Sky (14 page)

“Oh, gross. I already told you: none of that while I’m home.” Ryan lifted one hand to hide us from view, as if we were doing much more. I laughed at Cody’s uncomfortable face. He respected my brother too much. I nudged his shoulder and nodded upstairs. Cody turned around and pulled my legs around his waist, so he could give me a piggyback ride.

“Good night,” he said to my brother, while I didn’t bother saying anything. In the living room, Keith looked at us and nodded at me, serious. I nodded back, feeling my smile drop. I didn’t understand him, sometimes.

In my room, Cody threw me on the bed, making me screech. He shrugged off his hoodie and came to stand over me, serious now. I preferred him to be playful over serious. He kissed my neck again and pulled down my shirt to kiss me lower, while one of his hands gripped my hip and the other started working at the string of my sweatpants.

I let him get it loose, but I wasn’t very comfortable at the direction this was taking. The hand on the string had stopped when he felt me tense, so he repositioned it under my shirt, and over my stomach as he kissed me passionately. I could feel how turned on he was against me and already knew I’d have to stop him at any second.

The cue came when I heard my brother shout at the TV downstairs, while Keith laughed. “Cody.” I pushed the hand unhooking my bra off of me. “We should stop. Our brothers are downstairs.”

“They’re distracted,” he murmured against my lips and pulled my bra off me. We had fooled around before—if we were alone, I would let him take my shirt off, as well—but, hearing the boys talking downstairs was distracting me. That wasn’t the only reason, of course. Cody’s patience with me was dissipating and I should stop being a coward and take our relationship to the next level.

“Cody,” I said, sternly, “we need to stop, now.” I pushed him off me. I could already see the disappointment on his face.

“Okay, baby. Can I stay, at least?” I couldn’t turn him down—not when he was making that puppy face.

“Sure.” I gave him a brief kiss and stood up to take off my shoes and the unhooked bra. Cody took off his clothes, and, standing only in his underwear, I couldn’t understand why it didn’t feel right to have sex now.

After locking the door, I turned to the bed. Cody was eying the locked door, confused. I shook my head a little too vigorously.

“It’s because of Ryan. He would throw you out if he came inside. This way, we can ignore him.”

Cody enjoyed my train of thought and pushed the covers back so I could join him in bed.

“I miss sleeping with you,” he said next to my ear. We had camped a few times alone—without my father knowing, of course—and he had also snuck out on special nights, like Valentine’s Day or our anniversary.

“Me too, Cody. You’re never around,” I pouted. He kissed my forehead, nose, cheeks, and, finally, lips.

The rest of the make out session was pretty controlled, especially on his part. He was sweet. I had to at least give him a prize for his restrain.

“Love you,” he whispered at my back a few minutes after we decided to go to sleep.

I half turned and kissed him again, not liking the sad way he said it. “Love you, too.”

In the morning, Cody had already left when I woke up. I saw a note on my nightstand.

“Had to leave for classes. It pained me to leave you. Love you.”

I skipped down the stairs, smiling, but slowed down when I got to the kitchen door, from which heated voices came.

“And are you okay with that?” Keith asked, sounding exasperated.

“What can I do? They’ve been dating for so long—I can’t keep them apart. What’s it to you?” My brother asked, getting upset with Keith, instead.

They were talking about me and Cody. I waited for Keith’s answer, because that’s what I couldn’t understand. What did he have to do with us? I leaned against the door.

“Nothing, Ry, it’s just weird. I guess I still see Jane as a kid,” he answered with a calm and defeated voice.

“Yeah, I know you’ve never been friends, and that you care about her as a brother, right?” I heard the threat at the end of the question. Keith must’ve nodded, because I didn’t hear anything breaking.

“It’s also weird to have a girl around,” Keith continued. I frowned. I knew he didn’t like me very much, in spite of my brother’s comment about him caring about me, but to say that to my brother was strange.

I pushed the door open, trying my best to ignore the conversation I’d just heard.

“Good morning, guys.” I picked up a clean cup from the counter and poured coffee. They both took almost a minute to mumble a response, still uncomfortable with my presence.

My brother kept looking at me, trying to find a way to approach the subject of Cody, I’m sure.

“You know I don’t like to see you and Cody…” He trailed off.

“And you didn’t,” I answered, ending the conversation. I smiled at them and went to my room to get ready for school, not wanting either Ryan or Keith to ruin my good mood.

That day, I made a friend. The first one, actually, since I came to college. Shelby was in one of my classes, Composition and Rhetoric, but we had only just met when the teacher paired us for a small project.

She was a bit taller than me, with dark blue eyes and very blond hair. At first, I had my defenses up, as she looked just like the popular girls from my high school, who had used to make fun of me and point out that Cody and I had nothing in common. As the class progressed, however, I started realizing that I shouldn’t make judgments based on looks. She was nice and we had similar tastes in art. When we stopped for coffee after our class, I discovered we had similar tastes, in general.

“Want to come back to my place to work on the assignment?” I asked when leaving the coffee shop.

“Sure. I heard you live with Keith Hale. Is that true?”

I sighed internally. Was it possible that she’d befriended me just to get closer to one of the boys? “Yeah, he’s my boyfriend’s brother.”

“You live with your boyfriend? I so want my parents to be that cool.” She linked our arms together and walked toward her car.

“We’ve been dating for a while. Cody was my neighbor, as well as Keith.”

“Oh, really? That’s awesome. You must have tons of information on him. Do you know if he’s dating anyone?”

She looked at me, waiting for an answer. The kiss came to my mind.

“No, I don’t think so. Keith isn’t one to date, though. He hooks up, and that’s it.” I tried not to sound bitter and didn’t even know why I would have. It wasn’t my business, but it bugged me that Shelby was so interested in him.

I gave her directions to my house while we chatted about classes. I tried to steer clear of the topic of Keith, but I wasn’t so lucky when we got home. I instantly heard the music coming from the attic. He probably had the door open. My curiosity always got to me, just like the attic also called to me.

“Wow, this house is amazing. It’s pretty clean if three guys live here. My brothers are such pigs.” She propped herself up on the couch and set her books on the coffee table. I wanted to go to the dining room to close the door and avoid seeing Keith’s man-whore demeanor. I asked Shelby if she wanted something to drink and went to grab a couple of sodas.

When I got back to the living room, Keith was leaning on the couch a few inches from Shelby’s face, with that panty-dropping smile he’d practiced so much in high school. I cleared my throat and they both jumped, looking at me. At least they looked guilty for flirting with me in the room. For God’s sake, he just kissed me. Even if he’d forgotten about it, it was… disgusting.

“Keith, I see you met Shelby. She came to work on an assignment.” I wanted him to know that this wasn’t recreational. We were there to work, so he just had to back off.

Shelby got up, picking up her books, and throwing him a sexy smile. “After our assignment, we could talk more about music.”

I didn’t bother saying anything else, and just turned around and went to the dining room.

I never had any real friends. Of course, I had a couple back home, who had gone to colleges far from here, but I couldn’t say that either Callie or Tamara were my best friends. I wasn’t even sure that we would see or talk to each other again. They were best friends with each other, but not with me. They were the popular girls and I tagged along, but I was the third wheel.

Every other girl either approached me because of my brother, or hated me because of Cody. Now I was adding Keith to the equation. Shelby would be my friend just to get close to him, and the girls in my art classes hated me because I lived with him. I rolled my eyes when I sat down, which Shelby noticed.

“What?”

“I only left for a minute. How could you have bonded with him during that short time?” I yanked the book from my backpack.

“I just said I liked the music that was playing. He did the rest of the talking.” Her honey-coated voice told me everything I needed to know.

“Shelby, don’t get into his trap. This is how he plays: he’ll sleep with you and toss you aside.” I hadn’t wanted my words to come out sounding the way they did, but at least I hoped she would get the message that Keith was trouble.

“Maybe I don’t mind playing a little.” Or not.

“Forget it. Let’s work.”

I tried to focus, but her words and his smile kept playing in my head. Now and then, the kiss would pop into my mind. It shouldn’t have bothered me this much, since I knew he was a player. He probably kissed tons of girls and then just forgot about it. This was something normal to him. He probably slept with girls he didn’t even know the names of. So why did it bother me this much? I should have been pleased, but I was pissed.

Shelby didn’t get to talk to him again, though. He was locked in the attic, so I told her she shouldn’t interrupt him and that I could give him the message. Shelby wasn’t too pleased, but I was sure that there would be plenty of opportunities for them to hook up. After all, we were talking about Keith freaking Hale.

Shelby would be my friend from now on—at least until she fell into his trap and came to me, either crying rivers or yelling at me for not keeping them apart. I’ve seen that happen, only it used to be with my brother. At least Keith hadn’t been my friend in high school, or I would’ve been an outcast for the hearts he’d broken back then.

After closing the front door, I stomped up the stairs. I couldn’t let Keith ruin college for me. I knocked on the attic door until the music was turned down.

“Yeah?” I heard from the other side.

“Open the door,” I demanded.

“Go downstairs. I’ll meet you there.”

“No. Open the damn door right now.” I crossed my arms for good measure. He did open it, but just a crack. There was a lot of light coming from the room. Since it was getting dark outside already, I decided he must have some pretty cool lighting set up there. My artistic side kicked in for a second before I remembered why I was mad.

“We need to talk. Let me inside,” I tried.

“Not a chance. Go downstairs, and I’ll be there in a second to help you with dinner.” He closed the door in my face.

I didn’t go to the kitchen, and instead waited at the attic door. He would have to go through me. The door opened and closed exactly two minutes after our talk. I got up when he reached me.

“I told you to wait downstairs. I need to clean up.” He nodded at his body. I let my eyes fall to his shirt, which had paint all over it, as well as his arms, hands, and face.

His hair was all over the place and I finally understood why girls said his hair was one of the things that had attracted them in the first place, even if, in high school, it had been shorter. It was all tangled, as if he’d had his hands through it over and over again, like a girl if she was… I’m not going to think about Keith Hale like that. Not going to happen.

Oh, God, I couldn’t get the image out of my head. I needed to open my mouth and talk before he thought I was delusional, which he already suspected. I saw one of his eyebrows shoot up. Okay, the eyebrow was the second thing that made girls drop their panties.

“Shelby,” I said, sure that it would make my mind start working again. “You were luring her into your… trap.” I nodded vaguely at him, but, as he was a couple of steps higher than me, it ended up being at his groin. He laughed at me for the gesture and kept laughing when he saw me blush.

“You’ve already seen it, baby, don’t need to be shy on me.” He leaned against the wall and crossed one leg over the other.

What nerve.

“You must be kidding me. ‘Baby,’ really? What would Cody think about you calling me that?” I crossed my arms over my chest for protection.

“What would he think about his precious virgin girlfriend drawing his brother naked?” He leaned forward, whispering the word like it was dirty.

He must’ve been joking. Was he threatening me? After all of our conversations, I had thought we were closer to being friends. I guess I had been wrong. I felt something stir inside my chest. Disappointment? Sadness? It was something along those lines.

“I can’t believe you just said that.” I stepped back and saw regret in his eyes, but it was quickly hidden when he stepped forward and grabbed my arm.

“Shelby is a big girl. I can’t promise not to get her into my… trap, if she wants. It’s nothing personal.” His smirk was no longer fun, nor sexy. It was something made to hurt me. I knew he wanted to hurt me, although I wasn’t sure why he was bothering. I also wasn’t sure why it hurt, but it did.

I shook my arm, scratching it on the wall in the process, and then locked myself in my bedroom. I let myself fall to the ground.

I couldn’t understand Keith. He had this loving and caring side, which was so deeply buried that no one could see it. I’d had glimpses here and there, though. Then he would say or do something to make me believe that my mind had only wanted to see that caring side and had made it up.

Why it bothered me this much that he wasn’t that good guy I saw sometimes, especially when we were alone, I couldn’t understand. Maybe one day, we would be related by law through Cody, and we would always have this strange relationship—this hate you/don’t hate you thing.