Ever After Drake (4 page)

Drake has looked back up at me and his
eyebrows are slightly drawn together and I can already see he feels
bad for bringing any of this up.

But I continue.

“
It was just the two of us
for a really long time. I mean, we lived with my grandparents for a
few years, but then they decided to be one of those retired couples
who drives around in a motorhome all over the country. Grandpa had
a heart attack five years ago and grandma followed him soon after.”
Mom didn’t handle all that very well.

“
My eighth grade year Mom
married Dick Campbell. They stayed married for two years and during
that time, Mom got pregnant with my little brother Skyler. He’s
seven now. We’re sixteen years apart.”

“
Yeah, I guess yours is a
little more complicated than usual,” Drake chuckles
awkwardly.

“
You know the sad part?” I
say, bumping his shoulder with mine. “Even though my mom was only
married to Dick for two years, I’m closer to him than I am my mom.
She started working with this insurance company while she was
pregnant with Skyler and she travels constantly. She’s almost never
around. Skyler lives with Dick. He’s a good guy. We’ve stayed
close.”

Drake looks at me for a long moment
and I am suddenly aware of how close we are. The breeze blowing
around us is warm and it pushes his scent toward me. He smells of
summer and comfort. His arm and my arm, his thigh and my thigh are
side to side, touching, and everything about it feels so natural
and easy.

“
I’m glad you have someone
you can count on,” he says, his eyes still locked on mine.
“Everyone needs someone who supports them in life.”

I give him a little smile.
“Well, there
is
Armando.”

And Drake’s expression
falls.

His eyes grow wide and his lips turn
down, his shoulders slump.

And I smile.

“
I thought you said you
got dumped yesterday?” he blurts before he can catch
himself.

I burst out in a quick,
harsh laugh, but cover it with my hand. “You
are
flirting with me!” I say,
pointing a finger at him as I stand from the car. “You’re flirting
with me
bad
!”

“
Who’s Armando?” he says,
his expression warring for a distinct emotion. Humor, horror,
embarrassment.

It takes me a moment to get my
laughter under control. I clutch my stomach and turn away from him
for a second. I’m having trouble breathing.

“
Arm…” I suck in a huge
breath and try to keep from laughing as I finally turn back toward
him. “Armando is my best friend. He’s also super in to
men.”

The relief on Drake’s face is
immediate and immense. Finally, a smile spreads on his face and he
rolls his eyes as he stands.

“
You’re horrible,” he says
as he takes two steps away from me. I’m still fighting laughter.
But I must not be in too much trouble because when he stops and
looks back at me, he’s got a smile on his face. “You’re bad. That
was just…that was just mean.”

“
I am not mean,” I say,
mock defending myself. “I don’t know how to be mean!”

“
You knew what you were
doing,” he says as he glares at me. He shakes his head and starts
walking away. “I’ll see you tomorrow, mean girl.”

CHAPTER
THREE

It must be a good sign that I wake
with a smile on my face.

Soft light makes its way through the
foggy windows. It’s warm in my bed and cozy and comfy. My dreams
have already slipped away, but there is the slight reflection of a
lopsided smile in them.

I smile up at the ceiling, my eyes
sleepily drifting open and closed.

Alan
who?

A soft snoring pulls my eyes from the
white ceiling to the beat up couch just a few feet from the foot of
my bed.

Armando’s head is half hanging off the
couch, kinking his neck. He’s got one knee bent up and the other
leg is propped up over the arm of the couch.

I can lay down on it just fine, but
Armando is six foot one.

He showed up at my
apartment last night just as I was going to bed. He reeked of
alcohol. Armando is extremely bubbly and happy when he’s drunk. He
started going on and on about some guy he’d met at the bar named
Tod. I didn’t think he even realized he was at
my
apartment. He’d caught a cab and
rattled off whatever address came to mind.

But a few minutes after his arrival,
he crashed on my couch and didn’t wake up.

I smile at him and watch for a moment
as he sleeps.

He’d be horrified if I told him he was
snoring.

I’m careful and quiet as I get ready
for the day. It’s Friday and I am extremely relieved and at once
disappointed by that fact. The weekend means days off.

And I know I’m in trouble when I’m sad
that it means I won’t see Drake again until Monday.

I leave a note for Armando that he can
stay as long as he needs and that there’s a clean towel for him in
the cabinet in the bathroom.

The morning air outside is warm and
soft, summer hanging on for just a few more days. My car wines and
sputters when I start it and then I am headed for
school.

The first period bell rings and
students start filtering in slowly over the next five minutes. Just
before the tardy bell rings, Lake swaggers in, that coy smile on
his face again.

“
So my brother came over
to the house for dinner last night,” he says, raising his eyebrow
at me. Apparently he has the same talent Drake does. “The guy was
grinning like a fool all night. Any idea why he was in such a good
mood?”

I have to fight back the smile that
instantly wants to form on my face. I’m pretty sure I utterly fail.
“I have no idea, Mr. McCain. If you’ll take your seat?”

Lake smiles again and gives me a wink
before walking toward the back of the classroom.

We spend the rest of the class
familiarizing ourselves with our pathetic excuse for a textbook.
Ancient World History doesn’t get priority when it comes to
expensive books. We’ll start with Mesopotamia, move onto the
Egyptians, then focus on the Greeks, and wrap up with the Romans at
the end of the semester.

The sleepy eyes that stare back at me
make me pretty sure this is going to be a challenging class. Lake
and his two buddies at the back chatting away don’t help
either.

But I do appreciate when I meet Lake’s
eyes that he elbows his buddies for them to shut up.

Second period follows and as the
minutes tick by, my heart rate picks up, faster and
faster.

I have to fight from grinning like an
idiot as we close in on the last few minutes of class.

Finally. Finally, the bell rings and
students start filing out of the classroom.

I pull out my planning binder, trying
to convince myself that I need to focus on getting my lessons for
next week planned out when there’s a sudden scratching, static
sound.

“
Miss Ray, please report
to the library for a paramount meeting,” a voice suddenly cuts
through the room.

My brows furrow and I start looking
around for the source of the noise. It hadn’t come from the
intercom system. And there’s not another soul in the
room.

“
Make haste, Miss Ray,”
the voice comes again. Since I’m more prepared for it this time, it
is unmistakable. Drake.

I lean down and find a walkie-talkie
taped to the underside of my desk with what must be half a roll of
scotch tape. A loony grin breaks out on my face as I free it and
hold it up to my lips.

“
What is this urgent
meeting you speak of?” I say into it.

“
I repeat, Miss Ray,
please report to the library. Andale!”

“
What are you up to,
Drake?” I say with a laugh in my voice as I get up and head for the
door.

“
The Eagle checking out,”
he comes over the radio. “Uh, over and out.”

I look down at the radio and find his
line has been turned off.

I bite my lower lip and turn the
corner toward the library.

The large space is quiet and smells
like a library should: of old paper and wisdom. The librarian
stands behind her desk, looking intently at something on the
computer. There are two students at a table, looking at a few books
and taking notes.

I don’t see any sign of Drake
anywhere.

I clasp my hands behind my back and
start walking between aisles.

No one in biographies. No one in
plants, or writing reference. The encyclopedias are lonely. I start
passing fiction rows. A through D are vacant. E through H have
nothing to yield.

I’ve just reached the last
row of the library when I hear a
psst
.

I double take to the previous row and
see Drake peeking out from behind the shelf. He crooks a finger at
me, beckoning me to come.

I’m pretty sure I haven’t stopped
smiling from the first moment I met Drake. I can’t stop it now,
even if I wanted to.

I halt in front of him. Close. So both
of our bodies are hidden behind the row of books.

Drake looks down at me, his eyes
intense and bright and dancing. He licks his bottom lip
absentmindedly. His thumbs are hooked in his belt loops.

“
What?” I say after a
minute when he doesn’t breathe a word.

He gnaws on his lower lip for a moment
and I can see there’s some kind of conflict going on behind his
eyes.

“
You know, I’ve been
trying to tell myself that you just got broken up with and that you
probably need some space,” he says, his eyes searching mine. “But
you keep having that smile whenever I see you and it’s kind of hard
to keep telling myself that.”

I take half a step closer to him,
which is a trick, considering how close we were to begin with. “You
know, I keep trying to tell myself that I should be feeling really
awful and depressed, because, you know, I just got dumped a few
days ago,” I say. “But I keep getting this ridiculous smile on my
face every time you’re around and it’s kind of hard to keep telling
myself that.”

I bite my lower lip and loop my arms
behind his neck. I don’t know what I’m doing. The action is more
daring than I am, yet here I am, doing it. Drake’s eyes dance and
he puts his hands on my hips. They’re hot and I swear he pulls my
hips just a fraction of an inch closer toward his.

“
You don’t seem very
depressed,” he whispers.

“
I don’t feel very
depressed,” I breathe back.

“
I think I wanna’ see just
how ridiculous I can make that smile get.” He’s leaned in and his
lips are just a fraction of a breath away.

“
I think that’s a good
idea.”

Now his hands do yank my hips toward
him, at the same moment his lips consume mine.

Everything in me explodes, most
especially something down in my lower belly, with electricity and
fireworks. My fingers knot in his hair and my lips part and his
tongue says hello to mine.

Drake turns us and my back is pressed
to the bookcase and his body is exactly the right shape to mold to
mine.

I bite his lower lip and feel a smile
form on his face. His hands tighten on my hips. My back arches and
all those female parts in me strain toward him.

What is happening and
how
amazing
is
it?

Drake’s lips move from mine to my
jawline, and work their way down to my throat. I’m eternally
grateful that I wore heels today so that he can actually reach it
without having to do a half-squat.

Suddenly Drake’s hands slip lower and
inward and he is lifting me. My legs part and wrap around his waist
as he turns and sets me on the ledge of the tiny window that looks
out to the parking lot.

Drake smiles down at me and presses a
kiss to the space just below my ear.

“
Yeah, I think we should
make out,” I say through a smile.

“
That smile is edging
toward preposterous,” he says with his own as he looks at
me.

I don’t reply, I simply pull his face
back toward mine.

My legs squeeze tighter around him and
he moves his pelvis closer, igniting an electric storm in my blood.
My hands move to his chest, letting them slide under his vest. His
muscles tighten and strain. Drake lets one hand slide around to my
back, pulling me closer, even though there is no more physical
space between us to do so.

“
Making out was a really,
really good idea,” Drake pants into my throat.

“
Well, it
was
my idea,” I
tease.

“
What other good ideas do
you have?” he asks as his lips trail along my collar
bone.

“
Um,” I struggle to think
straight. “A weekend that isn’t missing you?”