Breathless (96 page)

As I watched him, I swore I felt Ethan beside me. Everything was starting to tingle inside of me and I could smell his cologne. I swallowed thickly when I felt tears start to swell up. As I continued to sit through the first game, my brother’s presence was so strong. I couldn’t hold the tears anymore. After the last inning when Jesse’s team scored their last home run, I couldn’t watch him run the bases for home plate and I left the bleachers.

“Alex!” Angie called after me, but I kept going.

I brushed some of the tears away and hid in her car until the crowd had started to leave. It was twenty minutes later when I saw members of their team going towards their cars. As I hunkered down and waited for Angie, I looked up and gasped. Jesse stood in front of the car. His dark eyes held mine captive. Then he blinked and the small spell was broken. I held my breath and waited. A part of me knew he would leave and not care about me, but the other part of me thought he’d come to the window.

He did nothing. He stood there and stared at me.

I realized he was waiting for me to decide, so I opened the door and crawled out. My legs were unsteady as I leaned back against the car and he came around to my side.

He smelled of sweat and dirt. The front of his softball uniform was covered in the field’s sand from when he had slid to the bases. Beads of sweat glistened on his forehead; his hair was drenched from it. Then he ran a hand through it and I saw it was water instead.

“What are you doing here?” he asked in a low voice. He had no emotion, as always.

I took a deep breath to calm my nerves. “Angie wanted to watch Justin. I came for support.”

His jaw clenched, he rubbed a hand over his chin.

Everything in me was chaos, but I rasped out, “I didn’t know you were on the team.”

“Why would that matter?”

My eyes jerked to his and I saw the question was real. I couldn’t stop a snort in disbelief. “Are you kidding? You hate me.”

“Oh.” Then he looked away.

My nerves were stretched to the max as I waited for him to talk. I needed something, anything. I wanted to hear that he didn’t hate me, but after another minute of silence I knew it wasn’t coming. My gut had been right.

When he turned back, his eyes were piercing. A dark emotion was there, but he held it back. “Come over tonight.”

“What?”

“Come over tonight.”

“Why? It’s not Ethan’s—”

But I was stopped as he stepped close. His body heat radiated off of him in waves and I held my breath. His fingers touched the side of my hip and he lowered his lips so they were an inch from mine. He said again, “Come over tonight.”

I closed my eyes when his hand touched the side of my face and I nodded. I would’ve given him anything in that moment. His lips touched my forehead in a soft kiss and then he ran his thumb over my cheek before he left.

“See ya, Hunt!” Justin hollered and I was jerked back to reality.

It was sweltering outside. I gasped for breath. As I fanned myself, I knew my entire face was red, but I couldn’t ignore Angie’s silence. I knew she had witnessed that and I knew she was biding her time until we were alone. And because I didn’t want to undergo an interrogation, I did something I hadn’t done in a year and a half.

I twisted around and shouted, “Jesse!”

He stopped and looked back, waiting.

“Alex?” Angie asked in a soft voice.

My heart was racing, but I took a deep breath. “Can I get a ride with you?”

He had pulled his black shades back on so his eyes were blocked, but he didn’t respond for a moment. And then his shoulder jerked up in a shrug and relief exploded inside of me. I trembled from the onslaught of it, but grabbed my purse and bolted around the car.

“Wha—huh?” Justin glanced at his girlfriend. “Ang?”

Her mouth snapped shut and she folded her arms.

I ignored it all and picked up my pace as Jesse had started for his car again. He didn’t wait for me until he got into the Ferrari. My fingers fumbled for the door handle. I cursed after the sixth try. It still wouldn’t open. He leaned across and opened it from the inside for me. When I climbed in, the air conditioner was already working and blasted me with cool air, but I glanced at him. I expected some scathing joke at my clumsiness, but there was nothing. His shades were in place and his lips were flat as he gunned the engine and we soared out of the parking lot.

When he went past my street, I looked over in surprise. “Where are we going?”

He didn’t answer. He kept driving.

Then we went past his street. I sat forward. “Seriously, Jesse. Where are we going?”

The corner of his lip twitched, but he asked in a low voice, “How are your folks?”

“What?”

“Don and Shelby. Your mom and dad. How are they?”

He hadn’t asked about my parents since…I blinked. It’d been before Ethan’s death. A different tension filled my body and I was rigid from my eyeballs to my toenails. “Why are you asking?” I couldn’t keep out the anger and I grimaced against it. I hadn’t wanted him to hear that.

He looked over this time, but didn’t say anything for a second. When he returned to the street, I caught the slight frown on his face. “Is something wrong at home?”

That got a laugh out of me. “Are you kidding?”

The frown vanished. There was nothing again.

I couldn’t stop another laugh and the sound was ugly to my own ears. “No, Jesse. My family’s great. Don and Shelby have mourned the loss of their son in their own way, and me, I’ll be just fine. I’m just screwing his best friend at times.”

And then I stopped. I had so much more to say, but I held it back. What good would it do? It’d only scare him away. At that confession, my heart shifted a bit. I felt it shrink or move or slip further away. I was with Jesse with the hopes that he’d give me anything, even a crumb of his touch. I was that girl. I sat back and stared straight ahead. I was that girl, just hoping for anything.

Shame filled me.

Jesse didn’t say anything more until the car started to slow down. I saw that we were at the ocean. When we got out, the salt in the air stung my eyes. That was why I was crying again. It had to be the reason. But I didn’t have time to continue my own lie as Jesse was already down a hill. I followed behind on the path and slowed as I watched where he was leading us. When he sat on the sand where there was no one around, I stopped in my tracks.

Why there? Why then? What was he—?

“Would you stop thinking and sit beside me?” Jesse patted the space beside him and I obliged. Of course I would oblige. Where else was I going to go?

We sat in silence for awhile, longer than I could handle. My heart kept pounding. It got louder the longer we sat until I thought I was going to burst.

Then he sighed. He had his arms draped over his knees as he stared out at the ocean. “Your brother and I were supposed to go surfing here last year after graduation. We made the plans that day. It was our stupid way of celebrating together, even though Sarah wanted me to have that damn dinner with her parents. I didn’t go to the party that night.”

I looked down. I’d forgotten that fact.

He took a deep breath and shook his head. “I’m going to Grant West, you know.”

“I know.”

“I won’t be here anymore.”

Tears filled my eyes. He hadn’t been here for a long time, but I bit my tongue.

He sounded apologetic. “I don’t want to talk about you and me, about—whatever. It’s done. It’s fine. We’ll deal with it, but you’ve got some good friends. Angie’s a good friend to you, so is Marissa. They both care about you, in their ways. So you should be okay, right?”

“Uh, what?”

He looked at me this time, but he never took the sunglasses off. The wall was so pretty and perfect. “You have friends that’ll look out for you next year. I won’t be here and your folks…they’re good parents. Hell, they raised me most of the time.”

But that was when he had lost his mother and when his father became an absent one. And that was when Ethan was alive, when my parents could function as normal parents and when they still cared about the little things in life like their other child. That wasn’t now and that hadn’t been for a long time.

I said none of that. Instead, I gave him a small smile. “You’re right. I’ll be just fine.”

“Your brother would want that.”

Ethan would want a lot more, but I didn’t say that either. I sighed. “What are you doing, Jesse?”

The wind shifted and he went with it. The cold Jesse was back in place. I was startled to realize that he had opened up to me, just a bit, but it was gone. I couldn’t see through his sunglasses, but I knew his eyes were dead again. “We should go back.”

It had slipped through my fingers and I hadn’t even realized I had the chance to grasp something. When he dropped me off at home, I hesitated to ask if he still wanted me to come over that night. I didn’t think I could take more of his rejection, so I waited the rest of the day at home, ignored Angie and Marissa’s text messages, and dressed in something sexy.

I shouldn’t have. I knew that, but as my heart pounded, I knew I couldn’t stay away. He had asked. It was enough for me, so I wore a slinky black dress. It was simple, something that I could’ve worn to a party or to a girl’s night out. I drove to his house.

My heart wouldn’t stop pounding. That was my normal heart rate now. My palms were sweaty and as I knocked on his door, I didn’t know what I was going to face.

When it opened, I held my breath. His housekeeper answered. Before I could open my mouth, she held an arm out and pointed inside. When she turned and waddled away, I heard her mumble under her breath, “Always Alex, he says. Always Alex, he says.”

As I walked through the mansion, the same cold feeling came to me. Goosebumps ran up and down my arms as I turned down the last hallway. His room was the last door, but when I opened it, I knew he wasn’t there.

I took a shuddering breath. It rattled in my lungs and I didn’t know what else to do.

Leave?

But then I couldn’t look away from his bed. It was a king size. The sheets were rumpled from when he had gotten up that morning. I knew how they felt. I shivered from the need I had to curl up among them. The nights I had spent in there had been the best sleep I’d gotten. Before I had fully made my decision, I slipped off my sandals and crawled underneath his sheets. They were so soft to the touch. I nestled under them.

My body started to relax and the fatigue started to slip in. My eyelids grew heavy, but before I drifted off to sleep, I thought I saw a black shape in the doorway. But then it didn’t matter and I was asleep.

“What? What is she doing here?!”

A shrill voice snapped me out of my sleep and I jerked upright.

“Shut up.” It was a low command.

“I won’t shut up! Look at her! What’s she doing there, Jesse? I thought you wanted me tonight and we find her in your bed!”

I rubbed my eyes and tried to make sense of what woke me up.

Then I heard a curse and he snapped, “Leave then.”

“What?” The girl calmed down and whimpered. “But I thought—”

“I don’t give a shit. Go.”

And then the door shut behind them and I lay back down, exhausted once again. It wasn’t long before it opened again and I sat back up. As I yawned, Jesse stood inside the door, frowning at me.

I continued my yawn. “You told me to come over last night.”

Then he yawned and rubbed a hand over his face. There were lines of exhaustion around his eyes and for a moment, they were sad. My heart skipped a beat. I resisted the urge to pull him into my arms. But then the look vanished and he grimaced at me. “I didn’t think you’d still come.”

I looked away, gathering the bedcovers around me. “You hoped I wouldn’t still come.”

Then he sighed. The bed sank underneath his weight and he sat against the headboard beside me. “Do you blame me?”

I swung around and searched him. The fatigue was back on his face, but the wall had fallen. Hope sparked inside of me. It leapt like a flame in a fire that’d been smoldering. It was hungry and wanted more, but I contained it. I kept my voice under control as I asked, “Why didn’t you want me to come?”

“Because I goddamn feel everything.” His voice was gruff. “I’m sick of feeling, Alex. Only you. No other girl makes me feel this shit I don’t want to.”

And without thinking, I reached out and took his hand in mine. Our fingers slid against each other and then I nestled back underneath the covers. It wasn’t long before he sighed again and scooted behind me. His arm came over my waist and one of his legs slipped between mine. When his chest started to rise and fall in a deep slumber, I allowed a small smile.

I didn’t know what was in store for the future, but I didn’t want to be anywhere else except in his arms. But then my gut kicked and I knew this temporary shelter would be ripped away once more.

Jesse was always ripped away from me.

Four

When we woke up, it was the afternoon. Normally we would be intimate the night before and go our separate ways the next day, but this time we went backwards. I woke up when Jesse nudged me onto my back and then moved above me. When my eyes opened, I knew what was happening and I wanted it. As his lips touched my neck, I wound my legs around his. Soon we were both groaning.

An hour later, after we were done and Jesse had collapsed on top of me, he groaned and got up. He padded barefoot into his bathroom. His shower turned on and I took that as my cue. Instead of my dress, I nabbed one of his larger shirts and shorts. I knew they weren’t Ethan’s so I knew Jesse wouldn’t care. As soon as I was dressed, I hurried out of there.

When I got home, I had an hour to shower and get to my shift at the mall. The house was empty as I rushed upstairs, but I was used to it. It seemed that my dad lived at his offices and my mother was usually in bed at all hours of the day. It wasn’t until I pulled into the mall’s parking lot that I realized I hadn’t heard the television in my parents’ bedroom. Mom always fell asleep to the news. For some reason, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up, but I tried to shake the uneasy feeling. I’m sure my mother was okay. She was always okay, distant but okay.