Awkwardly Ever After (8 page)

D
ylan had told me to give him a call when I figured out what I wanted, but I didn't think he meant that literally.

I didn't think I could handle having that conversation any other way than face-to-face. Although I couldn't help imagining his reaction if I tweeted him.

 

HEY @DYLANWELLESLEY, I LIKE YOU. WANT TO BE SEEN IN PUBLIC WITH ME? ON A DATE? #SORRYABOUTYESTERDAY #MYBAD

 

Yeah, that wouldn't be uncomfortable at all.

Especially if his response didn't require anywhere near the 140 allotted characters.

 

NO THANKS, @MELMORRIS
.

 

And, okay, it wasn't like a private phone call would have any chance of turning into a public humiliation. But it also wasn't exactly romantic. I mean, best-case scenario? He would forgive me and then we would have to awkwardly discuss our schedules in an attempt to seal it with a kiss.

My pulse raced so quickly at the thought of
finally
feeling his lips against mine, I very nearly backed out of my own plans.

In some ways a rejection from Dylan would be worse than having my dad pretend his drinking wasn't a problem. My dad was a permanent fixture in my life and for all his flaws, I knew he loved me unconditionally. But Dylan?

It was entirely possible that I had already used up his patience.

I was already sick of dealing with myself.

But hey, he had managed to like me even after I shut him down right after the party. He had even tried to chat with me—twice—at his house. So maybe it wasn't a total lost cause.

Then again, all of that had happened before I had pointed out that I didn't want to be seen in public with him. Hard to imagine him just shrugging that one off. In fact, it was hard to see him wanting to speak to me at all. Ever.

It wasn't like he would have any trouble finding someone to replace me in his affections either. There was probably a whole host of girls in his class who'd be perfectly willing to stand in the bleachers during his soccer games so they could see him flash a wild grin beneath a coat of mud.

I had to keep repeating to myself that if he wanted someone else, I would be happy for him. I would back off gracefully. I wouldn't be as selfish as he had accused me of being yesterday. If he didn't want me back, well, that might not be the worst thing to happen to him, considering that I was a mess.

And I wasn't trying to hide that fact from myself anymore.

I kept my head down at school the next day and avoided Mackenzie at all costs so that I wouldn't be tempted to dig into how Dylan was doing in the wake of all the dad drama that had just gone down at their house.

I couldn't avoid Isobel, though.

“You have no idea what you got me into,” she hissed as she dragged me away from my locker and the prying ears of a small group of wannabe Notables who might try to climb their way into the in crowd by shoving us further down the social ladder.

“Yeah, about yesterday . . . I owe you an apology.”

Isobel's eyes were frantic. “An apology?!” she choked. “Oh, you owe me a whole lot more than that! You talked me into going to Mackenzie's house only to ditch me with
Spencer King
!”

Ouch. Yeah, I definitely wasn't going to be getting a best friend of the year mug.

“Any chance the two of you got along brilliantly?”

Isobel shoved her glasses up her nose, but the lens did nothing to obscure the withering glare she shot me. “You also didn't take any of my phone calls!”

I was tempted to tell her why. To explain that I had spent the night grieving for a father I would never have. That I'd been busy trying to tamp down the brutal, gnawing ache in my heart while simultaneously working up the courage to face my fears. To start making the kinds of decisions I'd look back on without regret.

But I still should have answered my phone.

Ignoring my best friend in her time of need wasn't exactly a source of pride. No doubt about it, I had dropped the ball.

“So what did the two of you talk about in the car?”

Isobel glanced furtively around us and then apparently decided that it still wasn't safe enough to disclose such top-secret information.

“Something that will probably lead to my death,” she mumbled.

I rolled my eyes. “A bit dramatic, don't you think?”

“Not really. Steffani Larson never struck me as particularly bright, but Ashley McGrady might be able to poison me. She's probably got access to chemicals at whatever salon turns her orange on a regular basis.”

“You're being paranoid, Izzie. You didn't make the best impression with them yesterday, but I hardly think they're out for your blood.”

“You have no idea what's going on, Melanie,” she snarled. “No. Freaking. Clue. I'm going to have to join witness protection and
then
where will you be, huh? Riddle me
that,
Batman!”

I stared at her in confusion. “Are you sure you're feeling okay, Iz? Seriously. I don't think I've ever seen you act this way.”

She breathed out a long gust of air that succeeded only in flapping her bangs and mumbled something that sounded like,
“Doctor Who, this would be a really great time for you to show up in the TARDIS!”
before her eyes locked on to something behind me.

Or maybe I should have said someone.

Spencer King.

And he was headed right toward us.

“Crap!” Izzie squeaked. “Cover for me!”

Then she bolted. It wasn't a particularly impressive physical display. Izzie isn't exactly athletic, and her heavy footsteps resounded in the hallways as she sprinted away. Then again, I think the only thing she cared about was putting as much space as humanly possible between herself and the King of the Notables.

I turned on Spencer, ready to slice him to ribbons if I didn't like the answer to one simple question. “What did you say to her?”

“Oh hey, Melanie.”

I moved closer, not caring who caught sight of me stalking toward Spencer. “If you hurt my best friend—”

“Relax. Instagram and I get along just fine.”

“Isobel.”

“Right. We're fine.”

I shot him a disbelieving look. “Then do you want to explain to me why exactly she ran out of here as if Fake and Bake planned on using her for a makeup demonstration?”

“I have no idea what you're talking about,” Spencer said easily. “But I'll be sure to ask her. She usually goes to the library after school, right?”

I found myself nodding instinctively. Then my brain caught up with my body. “Uh, no. She goes—”

Spencer grinned. “You're a terrible liar, Melanie.”

“I really hate you right now.”

His smirk only widened. “Like I said, a terrible liar. Don't feel bad; you look pretty cute when you try to pull a fast one. I've always liked that about you. It's probably for the best that I changed my plans, though.”

And without bothering to explain that cryptic comment, he whistled as he walked away.

I had no idea what to make of any of it.

Maybe it was wrong of me to shrug it off and let Izzie sort it out on her own, but she seemed perfectly capable of keeping Spencer King at a distance.

Okay, and maybe a part of me was a tad curious to see how things would play out between the two of them without anyone's interference.

Then again, if I hadn't been so wrapped up trying to find the right words for my next conversation with Dylan, maybe I would have focused more of my energy on what was going on with my best friend. Once again, I was letting a boy keep me from my best friend duties. Except this time I didn't regret it, because I was finally going after what I wanted.

And even though I was pretty sure Izzie had every reason to complain about the way I'd been bailing on her recently, I also knew she'd be proud of me too.

Eventually.

Truthfully, I probably could have obsessed for hours about whatever weird thing was going on between Izzie and Spencer, and not have been any more prepared to talk to Dylan later that day. I couldn't come up with anything particularly witty or smart to say during my English class, or during my freshman history class, or at any time during my walk to his house. I was still coming up blank when I sat down on the front steps of the Wellesley house and waited. Dylan's scuffed-up soccer ball rested only two feet away from me and I idly wondered if I kept kicking it against the side of the house, would I be able to come up with something better than, “Heyyy, Dylan. Um . . . fancy seeing you here. At your house. What were the chances, right?”

Instead, I nervously twisted one of the silver rings on my left hand and tried to use willpower to make time speed up.

It felt like hours before I saw him approaching the house, his gait loose and easy. For a second I allowed myself to imagine that none of the events of yesterday had taken place. I hadn't shown up with his older sister and her friends. I hadn't tried to push him away. And his dad
definitely
hadn't showed up.

Once more Dylan was streaked with mud, undoubtedly the result of an intense soccer practice, and his eyes glinted with something extra when he caught sight of me.

Something that had my palms sweating nervously before he banked it and glanced around. “I thought Mackenzie was tutoring Logan today.”

I stood up, hoping that the additional height would bolster my quickly fleeting sense of confidence. “Uh, yeah. I'm not—well, I was waiting for you.”

Dylan never slowed and I battled a wave of panic as the distance between us shrank. Five feet. Two feet.

Six inches.

But instead of stopping when he reached me, Dylan reached into the pocket of his jeans, fished out the house key, and unlocked the front door as if he had high school girls waiting on his porch every day. As if this was such a regular occurrence, he would've been more surprised to find the steps totally vacant.

“You want to come in?” Dylan asked, his lips tilting up into a grin at my startled expression.

“Uh . . . sure?” I winced as it came out more like a question than a statement; he was totally unnerving me. I couldn't get a read on his emotions. If he was still mad at me over the things that I'd said the day before, he didn't let on.

I almost would've preferred it if he were pissed off. If he had seen me on the porch and told me to leave him the hell alone.

At least then I would have known where I stood.

But this whole
nothing bothers me
act he had going on only succeeded in rattling my nerves.

“Great. Why don't you make yourself at home while I clean up?” He wrinkled his nose as if he caught a good whiff of
eau de soccer.

Without waiting for a response, he headed right down the hall toward his bedroom, leaving me standing by the door looking in—fighting the urge to turn tail and run.

Crossing the threshold was enough to have the hairs on my neck prickling into the full upright position, but I forced myself to shut the door behind me.

No turning back now.

I
t felt like an eternity before I heard the shower turn off.

And then another millennium or so passed as I waited in the kitchen for Dylan to change. I felt every single tick of the clock above the sink as if I had swallowed it just like the alligator from
Peter Pan.
The fact that I was now thinking in terms of Disney movies didn't sit well with me either. I wanted to blame Mackenzie for the
Pocahontas
invite, except that was what had led to this upcoming talk with her little brother.

I couldn't quite decide if that was a good thing or a really,
really
bad one.

Probably because it all depended on this discussion with Dylan.

I began pacing in nervous circles around the room, trying to decide how exactly I should pick up the thread of the conversation. I couldn't exactly say, “So . . . nice shower?” or “Wow, you smell amazing. Want to have that talk?” even if I couldn't think of any other way to break the ice.

“You look serious. Do you want to take a seat or do you want to prowl around some more?”

I jumped. It was a ridiculous reaction given that I was in
his
kitchen, waiting for
his
arrival, and listening to
his
kitchen clock until I thought I was about to lose my freaking mind, but he had somehow managed to catch me off guard.

“I . . . uh . . . hi.”

Dylan grinned and this time the expression reached his eyes. Suddenly, I felt . . . lighter. He was willing to hear me out—all the way—and I knew that he would actually listen.

It was all I could ask of him.

“My dad's an alcoholic.”

Dylan stared at me mutely for a second, clearly trying to process what I expected him to do with that information. “So . . . you can't sit?”

My knees turned to jelly and I sank into one of the chairs that surrounded the kitchen table. “No! Yes! Of course I can. I just . . . I thought you should know.”

“Okay,” Dylan said slowly. Then he waited, probably because he didn't think I would just blurt out something so personal and then turn mute. But I couldn't seem to speak past all the emotions twisting and roiling inside of me.

Hurt. Fear. Shame. Guilt.

Anger.

So much anger that I thought I might choke on all the years' worth of unexpressed rage that I had kept to myself.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

They were my words from the day before, the ones I had used when I'd hoped a simple question might help Dylan find some kind of closure with his dad. Now I knew firsthand just how much it sucked to be on the receiving end of that question.

“Not much to say,” I said stiffly. “He's an alcoholic.”

“I'm familiar with the condition, Melanie. What kind of an alcoholic is he?”

I shot up from the chair and glared at him as adrenaline raced through my system. “He's not a violent drunk if that's what you're getting at!”

Dylan's chocolate brown eyes never wavered from mine. “I'm glad to hear it, but that wasn't what I meant.”

I slowly eased back into the chair, my cheeks flushing hot with embarrassment. I was supposed to be explaining to Dylan that I wanted to try
dating,
not going for the jugular at the first mention of my father. Which was why I never should have brought him up in the first place.

“Does he expect you to cover for him?” The words were spoken so gently, I wanted to squeeze my eyes shut. It was so much easier to answer when I could pretend that Dylan was asking because he truly, genuinely cared about me in a way that went way beyond friendship.

“I . . . I guess,” I muttered. “He's never asked me to do it or anything. It's just—someone has to, right?”

Dylan didn't say anything and I found words suddenly tumbling out of my mouth in a free fall. “Somebody has to make sure he doesn't die in his own vomit. Somebody has to make sure that he's okay, and my mom can't do it all. She tries, but it hurts her and I can't stand to see it hurt her, so . . . somebody has to step in.”

“And that somebody has to be you?”

“Do you see anybody else around?” My voice cracked horribly on the question and suddenly I was crying again. It was as if my tear glands had somehow forgotten that they were supposed to be all tapped out after last night and had come back with a vengeance. I couldn't even
see
Dylan; my eyes were so full of tears that they obscured my vision.

Then I gave up even pretending I had everything under control.

Really gave it up.

I rested my forehead against the table, used my arm to pillow my nose, and sobbed for everything I knew wasn't going to happen. Saying it out loud, using the word “alcoholic” in conjunction with “my dad” made it real somehow in a way that it hadn't been before. It was like I had been living under a spell of silence, and all those years of tiptoeing around the issue had made me hope that as long as nobody applied that term to my dad, it wouldn't be real.

But it was painfully, excruciatingly real, and now I looked like a pathetic mess who started bawling at the drop of a hat.

I jerked my head up, and I knew I had to get the hell out of there before I somehow made this embarrassing breakdown even worse. I wasn't sure exactly how I'd even go about accomplishing that—maybe by blurting out that I
liked
him while he was trying to shuttle me out the door—but I didn't trust myself not to find
some
way to screw it up even worse.

“Sorry,” I choked. “I didn't mean . . . I . . . sorry.”

His face was right there. At some point while I was sobbing he must have moved closer because now he was only inches away. I could feel his arm stroking my back in a comforting motion that had nothing whatsoever to do with flirting and everything to do with silent support.

I barely managed a weak chuckle when he brushed away one of my tears. “Great timing, right? You see your dad for the first time in years yesterday and the very next day I show up here and have a meltdown over mine.”

The pad of Dylan's finger lingered against my cheek and I almost wanted to keep crying just so he would have a reason to leave it there.

“It's okay, Melanie. I'm glad you're here.” His mouth twitched upward into a smile that was every bit as soft as his words. “I'm always glad to see you.”

“You weren't yesterday,” I mumbled.

“Of course I was.” Dylan's finger moved away from my cheek and a wave of disappointment crashed through me until he reached up and carefully tucked a long strand of my hair behind my ear. “That doesn't mean you can't annoy the hell out of me too.”

That startled a laugh out of me. “So . . . you're not mad at me?”

Dylan dropped his hand and leaned back in his chair thoughtfully as I cursed myself for asking the question. Things had been going so freaking well, all things considered, before I had opened up my big mouth.

“I was more frustrated than angry with you, Mel,” he said slowly, measuring each word. “I don't know what you want and I don't enjoy guessing, so . . .”

It was as good an opening as I was ever going to get.

“You,” I said hoarsely. “I want you.”

Dylan didn't move, and for one horrible moment I wanted to look over my shoulder just to make sure his dad hadn't entered the room again, because he was just as tense now as he had been when he'd found that unexpected visitor the day before.

“Do you mean it?” There was no sign of the cocky soccer player now, the one who had no trouble crashing a high school party, or flirting with a girl who was close to his older sister. And I wouldn't have wanted it any other way, because the anxiety in his voice, the fear and the hope all jumbled together, I felt it too.

But it felt right that we were scared together.

“Yeah, I mean it. I want
you,
Dylan.”

A shutter fell over his eyes and he glanced away. “But not in public, right? You still want to pretend there's nothing going on between us.”

This time it was my turn to advance.

So I leaned forward and kissed him.

It began awkwardly, partly because I didn't have the best angle to work from and partly because I knew he could taste my tears on my lips. I wanted our first kiss to be sweet, not salty. I pulled back just enough to look into Dylan's eyes and breathe the one word that had resonated in my mind,
“You. ”

That's when Dylan pulled me back in and gave it his all.

And he showed me just how very sweet a first kiss could be.