Читать книгу Don't Let Me Go - J.H. Trumble - Страница 15

Chapter 10

Last November 10

Making up and making out

The cast party was held in the Black Room behind the stage, the small room packed with family and friends who waved flowers and shared hugs and kisses with the heavily made-up cast members. Juliet dragged me around and introduced me to everyone. I discreetly tried to keep my eye on Adam, but he was always surrounded by friends I’d never even met, especially girls.

The atmosphere was charged with both excitement and relief. Juliet held on to my hand, letting go only briefly to give a hug or accept one. I don’t know how many of her friends I met before I realized she was carrying out her own subterfuge. While she wasn’t actually introducing me as her boyfriend, she was providing me that cover. I felt guilty that I appreciated it so much. She’d been doing that a lot in the five weeks since we’d let her, and only her, in—playing girlfriend to me in public, while I played kissy-face with Adam in private, of which there had been precious little.

We finally joined Adam’s group. Juliet flung her arms around his neck. He dipped and grabbed her below the butt and hoisted her into the air, her belt catching the edge of his shirt, flashing some skin. Juliet beamed at the sudden attention, but for me the moment was all about that flash of tanned, smooth, bare skin. I looked away and forced myself to think about oil-covered pelicans.

He put her down and reached out to bump my fist. “Hey, man. I’m glad you came.” He looked at me for a brief moment until someone called his name, and he was off to be adored by someone else.

Hey, man? I’m glad you came?

Juliet had been swallowed up by the crowd, so I found a soda and sat in a plastic chair against the wall. I read Adam’s text again—Stay for the cast party. Pls? GGLA. It taken only minutes to break the code: Gotta Go Love Adam. I nibbled on a cookie and checked the time. When the party finally wound down and parents headed home and cast members headed off to change, Adam made his way over to me. I handed him my soda and he took a sip. “Is that all I get?” he asked.

“What do you want?” I challenged him.

Before he could answer, his leading lady, Chloe, slid up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist, her hands flat against his stomach. “Hey, we’re all going out for burgers to celebrate,” she said into his shoulder. Then she deftly slipped her hand under the edge of his T-shirt, an indiscretion that annoyed the hell out of me. “Coming?”

“Sure.” He looked at me with his crazy blue eyes. “Nate’s coming too.”

Nine of us crammed ourselves into a large booth at the restaurant. I was hoping to sit next to Adam, but Chloe dragged him in next to her and I found myself on other the other side of the table, sandwiched between Juliet and a girl named Amanda. I don’t think Amanda had gotten the message that I was “with” Juliet judging for the way she kept leaning into me and twirling her hair.

I inched closer to Juliet and she squeezed my thigh, understanding.

Adam was focused on Chloe and that was pissing me off. I knew when he listened to people, he listened all the way. He made you feel like you were the only person in the world, that what you had to say was more important than any other words uttered since the dawn of time. And I loved that about him, but right now, I didn’t give a shit because Chloe had what was mine, and he was giving it to her, and I didn’t appreciate it one damn bit. He’d hardly glanced my way since we’d sat down. I hadn’t even told him yet how great his performance was.

Amanda said something, but I missed it.

“What?” I said.

Juliet nudged me and I realized how rude I’d sounded.

Amanda repeated her question and I responded with a “Hmph.” Finally she gave up and turned to talk to whoever was sitting on her other side.

“You’re staring,” Juliet whispered in my ear.

Adam looked up and caught my eyes, held them for a moment, then excused himself and headed to the bathroom. I toyed with the idea of following him, but Juliet must have read my mind. She would have had to move for me to get out, and a quick shake of her head made it very clear that was not going to happen.

Moments later my cell phone vibrated.

You’re leaving with me!

In the parking lot, Juliet offered to drive back to school with everyone who needed to pick up their cars. Adam would drop the rest—Mike and Natalie—at their homes. Amanda seemed pretty disappointed about the whole arrangement but went peacefully enough. Not so Chloe. She pouted and clung to Adam’s elbow until Juliet gunned the engine and put the car in drive and let it roll a few feet.

It was nearing eleven by the time we’d dropped everyone off.

Adam pulled away from Natalie’s house and reached for my hand. I folded my arms and looked out the window. He put his hand back on the steering wheel.

“What time do you have to be home?” he asked.

“Midnight.”

“What happens if you miss curfew?”

I shrugged.

He pulled up to a traffic light and looked over at me. “Nate, what’s going on?”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?”

“You’re mad?”

“You think?”

“Don’t play games with me. Just tell me what’s wrong.”

“Maybe you should ask Chloe.”

“Chloe?”

I finally turned to look at him. “You had quite the little party going there tonight. Too bad she had her car at school. You could have dropped me off first and made her your last stop.”

He stared at me for a long moment like I’d lost my mind. “You cannot be serious.”

“The light’s green. Go.”

He took his foot off the brake and made a left turn. “Nate—”

“You practically ignored me the entire evening.”

“I thought that’s what you wanted. You flinch every time I get anywhere near you when other people are around.” He made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. “I don’t know what you want.”

“I want you.”

“You’ve got me.”

“Chloe thinks she’s got you. Do you know how that makes me feel?”

He glanced over at me. “How does that make you feel?”

I couldn’t answer. I picked at my cuticles. Up ahead, a deer darted across the road. I watched it disappear into the dark. “Can we go to your house for a while?”

“Mom and Ben invited some friends over after the play. I don’t want to get caught up in all that adult-adoration crap tonight.” He glanced at me. “I want to be alone with you. Unless you don’t want to—”

“No,” I interrupted him. “I mean, yeah. I want that too.”

He turned into a small parking lot in a wooded area and pulled the car far up under a stand of trees. He cut the engine and turned off the lights without waiting for the auto shutoff. The quiet was sudden. I used my sleeve to wipe the condensation off the window.

“Where are we?”

“Ridgewood Park. There’s a pool and tennis courts and a basketball court right over there.” He pointed, but it was too dark to see anything.

He shifted in his seat to look at me. I could hear his breathing and my breathing, unnaturally loud in the quiet car.

“It makes me feel like it’s not real,” I said, looking out my window at the blackness, “like we’re not real. Everybody looks at you and Chloe, and they think she’s what you want.”

He reached across the console and found my hand and pulled it to his lips. “What I want is right here. What’s real is right here.”

“Sometimes it doesn’t feel that way.”

“What do you want me to do? You can’t have it both ways. You want me to act like there’s nothing going on between us when we’re in public, and then you’re mad when that’s what you get. What do you really want, Nate?”

“You can’t always get what you want,” I mumbled.

“But if you try ... you might get what you need.”

I sniffed. “You’re quoting The Rolling Stones to me?”

“Mick Jagger must have known something. The Stones stayed together for decades.”

“I always thought he had a thing for Keith Richards.”

“He wasn’t singing ‘I can’t get no satisfaction’ for nothing.”

I laughed a little. It faded quickly. He pulled me to him. “Oh, Nate. I don’t know how to make this right. I don’t like pretending around our friends. I wanted to be celebrating with you tonight. I wanted you running your hands under my shirt and sitting next to me and squeezing my leg under the table.”

“She was squeezing your leg under the table?”

“Stop.” He pressed his forehead against mine. “Look. Either we go on pretending we’re something we’re not, something we’ve never been, and keep on getting hurt and angry and frustrated, or we ...” He stopped.

“We what?”

He didn’t answer. He closed his eyes and looked away from me for the first time.

“Is that what you want?” I asked.

“What I want is you. All of you. All the time.”

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, an image of Chloe leaning against him, giggling, touching him sharp in my mind. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“No more pretending.”

“Do you know what you’re saying?”

“I know. And if that bitch Chloe ever lays another hand on you, I’m going to break her fingers.”

He chuckled. “I’ll hold them out for you.”

A silence descended upon us as we tried to figure out where to go from here.

“You know,” I said, “I think we just had our first fight.”

He laughed a little and said, “Hmm.”

“I think this means we get to have makeup sex now,” I said, my voice slightly hoarse.

“I thought you were playing hard to get?”

“Yeah, well, I got over it.”

“Does that mean I can do this now?” He slipped his hand up under my shirt and flattened it across my chest. My heart pounded against the warmth of his palm. I watched his face watching mine. “How about this?” His dropped his hand and grazed it across the strained zipper of my jeans.

I swallowed hard. “I have a curfew, you know.”

He grinned, and then we were all over each other. Our mouths, our hands. I wanted him, and I had no patience with buttons and zippers and things. And we didn’t let the console keep us from pressing our bodies together, his on mine and mine on his.

Suddenly, Adam pushed against me with his hands. “Nate. Nate. Nate. Slow down.”

“What?”

He was breathless. “Damn, you know, you really should come with a black-box warning. You’re going to hurt yourself... or me.”

“You lit the fuse, so don’t complain if you get a little gunpowder on your fingers.”

“Gunpowder?” He laughed and pulled me back to him. “I’ll show you gunpowder.” He released the seat and it flopped back, then he twisted me around in a maneuver I thought impossible in such a small space.

Suddenly, a beam of light. My eyes snapped open.

“Shit.” I scrambled to get my jeans up and zipped.

The light shone through the fogged-up window, and then a fist pounded the glass. “Step out of the car, please.”

“Dammit.” I groped around for my shirt. “Where’s my fucking shirt?”

“Here, I’ve got it.” I grabbed for it, but he held it behind him, just out of my reach. “Nate, calm down. Kids get busted messing around in cars all the time. It’s not that big a deal.” He handed me the shirt and I yanked it over my head.

“You know this isn’t the same thing,” I whispered.

More pounding on the window, this time heavier, more demanding. “Step out of the car now, please.”

“Okay?” Adam made me look at him until I nodded my head.

“Okay.” He zipped up his jeans and calmly opened the door and got out, throwing his shirt casually over his shoulder. “Can I help you, sir?” I heard him say.

“I need your girlfriend out too.” The cop shone his flashlight back into the car, peering through the open door, probably hoping for a peek at some sexy teenage girl huddled half naked in the front seat. “Well, well, well,” he said when he got a good look at me.

I got out and walked around the car to join Adam, my fists shoved deep into my pockets. He was leaning against the hood of the car and winked at me when I shuffled up next to him.

The cop played his flashlight down and back up, taking in our disheveled look and Adam’s bare chest and makeup that he hadn’t bothered to remove after the show. Adam had to be cold.

“Uh, uh, uh. Do your parents know you’re out here diddlin’ each other?”

“Diddling?” Adam said.

I shot him a look. He seemed amused by the whole thing.

Adam smiled. “We hadn’t exactly gotten to diddling yet. We were just warming up to that.”

The cop eyed Adam, looking a little more pissed than he had at first. He shook his head slowly. “I don’t know what this world is coming to.” He let that sit there for a moment before continuing. “Listen, you’re a couple of good-lookin’ boys. Why don’t you find some nice girls to screw and keep your hands off of each other’s dicks?”

Adam furrowed his brow. “I don’t think I can do that, sir.”

Jeez. Why didn’t he shut up? He was gonna get us shot, or worse, hauled into jail, where they were sure to call our parents. As if reading my mind, he glanced at me and winked again.

The cop examined Adam’s driver’s license with his flashlight. With the light off us, Adam found my hand and gave it a squeeze. “You boys are pretty lucky I’m the one who interrupted your little party,” the cop said as he handed the license back to Adam and shone the light in our faces again. “Another officer, or even some of these kids who run around causing trouble, might have busted you up a bit.” He stared at us to make sure we understood the point he was making. “This is a family community, boys. Go home.”

“A family community. Right,” Adam said, slipping his wallet back into his pocket. There was no longer an ounce of humor in his voice.

I hadn’t spoken a word and didn’t even realize I’d been holding my breath until I got back in the car. As soon as Adam closed his door, I hit the locks and sucked in a deep breath. My heart was still racing from the adrenaline. If I survived this evening without a coronary, it would be a miracle.

I couldn’t believe it when Adam leaned over and kissed me passionately on the lips. “Have you fucking lost your mind?”

He laughed, turned the key, and pulled on his shirt; then he adjusted the heater before he put the car in drive. “He was totally checking you out. Didn’t you see?”

“No, he wasn’t.” I glanced uneasily at the cop car still idling at the edge of the parking lot.

He stroked the stubble on my chin. “Are you kidding me? I thought I was totally going to have to defend your honor.” He backed the car out into the parking lot. “All right, Clyde,” he said, putting the car in drive and turning the wheel sharply, “let’s get you home before our man in blue there gets carried away by the green-eyed monster. Because I’m not sharing.”