Unspeakable (20 page)

Me: Okay. I’m back.

Brody: What’d you do?

Me: Told Jenna I had to go.

Brody: Why?

Me: Um… so I could talk to you.

Brody: Ah.

Huh. Maybe that was too much information. I shouldn’t have said anything. Crap.

Brody: I’m glad. Now I have you all to myself.

Or maybe not. I just got major chill bumps everywhere
.

Me: So, what are you doing?

Brody: Thinkin’ about you.

Oh, wow. My chill bumps just got chill bumps and now I have flutters in my chest.

Brody: Were you serious about getting out of the house?

Me: Maybe. Why?

Brody: I have an idea. No disguise needed.

Me: Ok. I’m game.

Brody: You don’t even know what it is.

Me: I trust you.

Brody: Pick you up in 10.

Me: Don’t come to the door.

Brody: ?

Me: My parents are official members of the Jaden fan club.

Brody: Ah. They wouldn’t like you going out with me.

Me: Right.

Brody: I’ll park in front of your neighbor’s.

Me: I’ll be waiting.

I jumped off the bed and grabbed a pair of yoga pants and a long shirt, trying to pull them on at the same time I pulled off my pajamas. Putting on a loose belt, I let it sit on an angle over my hips, just tight enough to make my shirt look like something other than a paper sack hanging from my shoulders. I looked in the mirror and groaned. My hair was flat on one side and a frizzy mess on the other. Quickly pulling it into a knot at the base of my neck, I tried to fix what little makeup I still had on. As I grabbed my purse and phone, I saw headlights shine through my window. I shot off a text to Jenna.

Me: Cover for me. We’re at the mall. Going out for a while.

Jenna: Brody?

Me: Yeah.

Jenna. K. Be Careful.

Me. Love ya.

Jenna: Love ya back.

I hurried to my mom’s bedroom and knocked before sticking my head inside. “Mom?”

“What?” she answered, her voice hoarse. It sounded as if she’d been crying.

“Um, Jenna asked me to go to the mall with her.”

“Have fun.”

“Are you okay? I don’t have to go if you need me here.”

“I’m fine. Go,” she said. “Just remember curfew.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

I hurried out the front door and down the walk. Brody pulled up when he saw me. For once, he didn’t get out of the Jeep to open the door for me—thank God—and he had the interior lighting turned off. He drove away as soon as I was in the Jeep.

“Hey.” He looked at me and smiled.

“Hey back. So, what are we doing?”

“It’s a surprise.”

“Okay.” I settled back into the plush leather seats.

“You aren’t going to try to get it out of me? Beg, plead, whine, until I tell you?” he teased.

“Nope. I told you, I trust you. But I’ll beg, plead, and whine if it makes you feel better,” I offered.

“No. Please don’t start whining.” Brody chuckled. How could just a small rumbling in his chest affect me so much?

“Okay. I’ll stay whine free.” I smiled and watched him drive.

“Let me ask you a question. If I was Jaden, and I didn’t tell you where we were going, would you go with me with no questions asked?” Brody coasted to a stop at a red light. He turned to me, his eyes catching mine and holding them.

I bit my lip, trying to decide how best to answer the question. “Honestly, probably not. But that’s because Jaden would most likely take me to some football game, football museum, football hall of fame, or something else football related, in which case, I’d have to fake an illness and skip out on him.”

Brody laughed hard and loud, making me laugh with him. “Well, now I know if I ever ask you out and you tell me you’re sick, that you’re blowing me off.”

“Somehow, I don’t think that would be a problem,” I said, and then immediately wanted to slap my hand over my mouth. Brody just gave me a crooked grin that melted my heart, but he didn’t say anything.

“We’re here.” He pulled into a small driveway surrounded by trees. After he drove a few hundred yards, the trees fell away. We were in the middle of a field surrounded by trees on all sides. Completely secluded.

“Where’s here?”

“It’s my aunt’s property. She plans to build a house here one day. No one will bother us. Wait there.” Brody got out of the Jeep, walked around to my door, and opened it for me.

“Where are we going?”

“The backseat.”

“Huh?”

Brody grinned. “Not for that. Although, I wouldn’t be opposed to it.” I rolled my eyes. “Okay, okay, you’ll see when you get back there. It’s a surprise, remember?”

I sighed and climbed into the backseat. “It’s nice back here. Roomy. Is this yours or your mom’s?”

“It’s mine. Well, actually, it was my aunt’s until she got a new one. Then she sold me this one at an enormous discount,” Brody said as he grabbed a pillow out of the back and slipped it behind me. “There’s no way I could afford a Jeep Grand Cherokee otherwise. I work at her place washing dishes and stuff like that to pay her.”

“That’s nice of her.”

“Yeah, she’s great.” Brody grabbed a bag from the very back of the Jeep before sliding next to me. He took a blanket out of the bag and settled it over us. Next, he brought out a large bowl sealed with a plastic lid, sliding closer to me, until our thighs touched—oh, holy hotness!—and then he balanced the bowl on our thighs.

“Okay, what’s up, Ace?”

He held up a finger for me to wait. Reaching into the bag once more, he pulled out a case. When Brody opened it, it folded back to reveal a video screen. “I hope you haven’t seen this one.” He handed me a DVD before he pulled the lid off the bowl and the smell of buttered popcorn filled the Jeep’s interior. “I brought you Coke since that’s what you order every time I’ve been with you.” He reached in a cooler and gave me a can. “I know how much you hate for people to order for you, but I didn’t know what else you liked.”

I held the Coke by the tips of my fingers and stared at him. My voice stalled in my throat, and my gaze held his for a few beats. I mapped the striations of blues in his eyes before my gaze skimmed over his face, committing every feature, every curve, every line, to memory. I didn’t want to forget how he looked at that moment. The very moment I knew he’d taken all there was of me.

Oh, shiznit. I’m falling in love with him. No, no, I can’t be. I hardly know him. So it can’t be love. It must be lust, then. He has a body hotter than Hades itself, but that’s not it either. I don’t know what it is. It’s more than lust, but not quite love. What comes in between lust and love? Whatever it is, that’s what I am. I’m in between lust and love with Brody
.

“What?” Brody asked, looking at me with his head tilted to the side.

“I just can’t believe you went to so much trouble for me just so I didn’t have to sit alone on a Friday night,” I whispered. I laid the Coke can in my lap and raised my hand to his face, hovering just a millimeter away from his skin, but not touching him. My fingers trembled, whether from nerves or the need to touch him, I wasn’t sure. Maybe both.

“I told you the next time we watched a movie, I wanted you with me. Technically, I said in my bed, but since that isn’t possible, this will have to do.”

“Thank you.” My hand skimmed over his jaw to the back of his neck. I leaned to him and hugged him tightly, laying my head on his shoulder.

Brody wrapped his arms around me, resting his head on top of mine. When I ended the hug and pulled back, Brody cupped my face in his hands. I froze, and we looked in each other’s eyes. I could feel Brody’s breath against my lips. It came in fast puffs, matching mine. I wondered if his heart was beating as hard as mine. If he’d leaned in for a kiss, I wouldn’t have moved. I’d have let him kiss me—I’d have kissed him back.

He pulled me toward him. My tongue darted out to moisten my lips, and Brody groaned. Just before his lips touched mine, he pulled my head down and placed his mouth against my forehead. I sighed, partly from the feel of his lips on my skin and partly from the disappointment that it wasn’t on my lips.

“You’re welcome. It wasn’t a big deal. A few bags of microwave popcorn and a cooler full of Cokes, no biggie.” Brody shrugged a shoulder, pushing a lock of my hair behind my ear. “Have you seen this movie?”

“Nope.” I wanted to forget the movie and pull him to me. Brody made me feel things I’d never felt with Jaden. And it wasn’t just physical, although he was hot as Hell. It was everything. Brody made me feel wanted, cared for, special, respected, all things that a girl could wish for from a boy.

“Good. Let’s pop this sucker in and fill our faces with popcorn dripping in butter.”

“Sounds good.” I leaned back against the pillow and got comfortable.

We sat in Brody’s Jeep in the dark field watching a horror movie. I jumped at every little sound, and Brody laughed at me.

“Come here,” he said, putting his arm around me and pulling me into the crook of his arm. “I’ll keep the monsters away.” An amused grinned pulled on his lips.

“You couldn’t pick a comedy to watch while we’re out in the middle of nowhere in the dark?”

“That’s no fun.” He squeezed me tighter to him and tickled my side.

I giggled and squirmed against him. “Yeah, if you say so.”

I stayed snuggled against Brody’s side. His hand gently grazed up and down my arm, and I wished I could have worn short sleeves so I would’ve felt his skin sliding against mine. Since I’d started noticing the effects Brody was having on me, I’d wondered if I was having the same on him. Yes, he’d tried to kiss me, but he was known for his steady stream of romances. And no matter how hard I tried to put that out of my mind, I couldn’t get past him dating Sarah, Tanya, and then Kara right after school started. But every time I moved against him as the movie played, I heard his heart rate speed up under my ear, or his breathing change… and I knew. Brody Victor was not immune to the effects of our attraction to each other. He was feeling it as strongly as I was. That made me happy, and a little scared.

“That was pretty good,” I said when the movie was over.

“How would you know? You had the blanket over your eyes most of the time.” Brody grinned.

I moved to sit up so he could take care of the video, but his arm tightened around me. I settled back against him.

“I did not.”

“Okay, whatever you say.” Brody pulled the blanket around me. “Are you getting cold?”

Ha! If he only knew how
not
cold I was. “No.”

“So…” He drummed the thumb of one hand on his knee.

“What?” I pushed the strands of hair that had worked their way out of the knot at the base of my neck behind my ear and looked up at Brody.

“Jaden. He’s quite a piece of work, that one.”

I sighed and pulled away from him. This time, he let me go. “I was hoping we were going to avoid this conversation.”

“What? Just sit, watch the movie, and never bring up the thousand-pound elephant dangling over our heads?”

I glared at him. “I was hoping.”

Brody nodded. “Okay. Sure, if that’s what you want. I just don’t get you. You seem so self-assured in everything you do. So independent… until it comes to him. And then it’s like all your common sense and intelligence flies out the window. You roll over and just let him treat you like dirt. It doesn’t make sense.”

“I know. What time is it?”

“It’s after ten.”

“I need to get home. My curfew is eleven.”

Brody sighed and sat up. We were silent as we folded the blanket and picked up the empty pop cans and popcorn bowl, putting everything back in the bag in the rear of the Jeep.

It wasn’t until we were driving home that Brody spoke. “I overheard you saying to Jenna that you’d tried to break up with Jaden before. What happened?”

“I’ve tried more than once. He made my life a living hell. He’d follow me from class to class when I was at school, and I’d catch him following me even outside of school, at the mall, the movies, and places like that. He threatened any guy who came within ten feet of me. And forget asking me out, no guy would dare do that. They’d barely speak to me. That’s why I sat alone in all my classes before you came along. No one would risk getting on Jaden’s bad side. So they stayed away.”

“So he bullied you into getting back together,” Brody said, his voice hard.

“I guess so.”

“You’re home.” He stopped in front of my neighbor’s house and turned out the lights.

“Thanks so much for tonight. I had a lot of fun.” I looked at Brody and smiled. “It sure beat sitting at home all night.”

Brody grabbed my hand, laced his fingers with mine, and squeezed. “Anytime.”

I slipped out of the Jeep, our fingers sliding slowly away from each other’s. Shutting the door, I walked home. I saw Brody flip on his lights and slowly pull away from the curb as I closed the door behind me.

“You made it home before curfew tonight. There’s a first time for everything, I guess.” I jumped at the sound of Ralph’s voice behind me.

Ralph owned two successful car lots and was on the Cassidy Independent School Board. He was highly respected in the social circles in Middleton. My mother, however, was not. She was white trash from the wrong side of the tracks. Everyone assumed she was nothing more than a gold-digging hussy. If they knew the real Ralph McKenna—not the front he put on when he was around other people—they’d know there were easier ways to dig for gold. They’d also know gold digging went both ways.

Ralph and my mother married just six months after meeting. Six months after my stepdad died in a car accident. She was working as a waitress, trying to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table until the life insurance benefits and the inheritance from my stepdad’s will was finally distributed. She planned to go back to school and finish the degree she started before her surprise pregnancy with me caused her to drop out. But she met Ralph, and it was love at first sight. A whirlwind romance, an elopement in Vegas, and they’ve been happy ever since. Or that was the story they told everyone.