Foreign Exchange (22 page)

“So you just let her push you around?” I try for a teasing tone, but I
wonder if it just sounds snarky.

He laughs a little and I feel the movement
under my cheek. “Well, it didn’t seem like you liked me anyway, so there wasn’t much point in defying my sister for someone who didn’t want anything to do with me.”

It’s true. I had treated Sawyer like he was a
n annoyance. It always made Tristan happy, and secure, to know I wasn’t in danger of being taken in by Sawyer’s charms. But secretly I had been. Taken in.

“Sometimes I got little gli
mpses that I thought meant you felt something too. But then you’d snub me and go off making fun of me with Tris.”

I swallow. “And so you
flirted with everyone else in the state of Michigan instead?” I can’t help it from coming out. I’m thinking this is definitely going to make him pull away, but surprisingly, he rubs my shoulder and pulls me closer.

“I…” he trails off, like he rethinks what he was going to say. “None of that was anything,” he finally decides on. “
I’ll admit, I liked the attention, but it was more, well…you know how my mom is all about her image? Our image?”

“So you’re saying your mom
was trying to make you into a male slut?” I cock an eyebrow and look up at him.

“There’s more to it than that.” He rolls a shoulder like he’s uncomfortable. “
Remember when that rumor went around the school that I was gay?” I nod and he goes on. “It’s no coincidence that I brought Carmen to the next week’s basketball game and kissed her in front of everyone.”

I feel myself bristle when he calls her by name. Sawyer kissing other girls was something I could deal with if I didn’t have to hear about it. Probably.

He runs a hand through the back of my hair, along my neck and it makes me shiver. “Yes, I’ve gone out with some other girls, but probably not nearly as many as Tristan’s led you to believe. She always wanted to play up my reputation as a playboy.”

Really, I’d only heard about the three girls who were on the bathroom wall at school, but it’s true, Tristan did go into a lot of detail about how into them Sawyer was. And now I wonder if I can
trust anything she’d said.

“The girls I went out with knew it
wasn’t serious, wouldn’t be serious, and most of them I didn’t even kiss.”

I can’t help it. I get stuck on the “most of them.” Which means, some of them he did kiss. And what about more? I’m not sure why this
annoys me so much. It’s not like this is new information.

“But
with me it’s different?” I ask, and immediately want to swat myself for it. What’s he going to say?

He brings his mouth to my hair, like he’s going to kiss me on the forehead
. Like a big brother. But then he doesn’t. He takes a deep breath, smelling my hair. His fingers move under his shirt again and lace through mine.

It’s such a contradiction:
All these feelings that are so amazing I can barely believe they’re happening to me, but at the same time, he hasn’t really said anything that makes me seem like anything more than just another girl on his tally.

“Jamie…” he trails off. He’s
flustered again, and I can’t help it, I like seeing him like this. “At first I thought maybe it was because you were off limits that I couldn’t get you out of my mind.”

That makes
a lot of sense. It’s the same thing I’ve thought about him many,
many
times.

“But when Tristan was gone, and you weren’t so off limits anymore…everything just…it escalated for me. I thought about you all the time. I wanted to hang out with you—even if it was with your brother or your
mom, for crying out loud. I longed for an accidental touch or something we’d share a laugh over.”

I’m staring wide-eyed across his chest. I don’t want to move a muscle for fear he’ll stop. Could this be real?

“But most of all, if you want to know, besides how beautiful and smart and sexy you are—especially speaking those multiple foreign languages—I guess I’d have to say it’s this: When you look at me, it’s like you know there’s something more there. Something deeper, and better. Most people don’t want to see that. Or they don’t care.”

I pull my head away
and look up at him. His face is flushed, like he’s embarrassed.

“I’m sorry if that’s not enough, but it’s the truth, and if there’s one thing I want to be with you, Jamie, it’s
completely honest.”

My mouth curves up into something between a smile and a smirk and I think it puts him at ease. He lets his lips curl up slightly too. “It’s enough,” I say, nodding slowly.

I look at his lips. I want to kiss him again, but at the same time, I wonder if I should tell him how I feel about him—and for how long I’ve felt this way.

He interrupts my thoughts. “I can’t even believe…” he trails off and I feel his swallow
go all the way through him. “I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to know you’re in love with me too, Jamie.”

I fall into him, into his lips, and we’re kissing again,
the word “too” resonating in me over and over again. If he’d said, “I love you, Jamie,” I don’t know, it might have seemed too fast, too sudden. But us both being in love with each other, him knowing I’m in love with him without me even saying it? It’s like we’ve been this way forever, our whole lives, and have just been suppressing it. Suddenly this doesn’t seem too quick at all.

His hand releases mine so
his can wind around to my back. It takes all of about half a second for my free hand to snake its way back up to his chest and run wild along every surface of his upper body.

When we come up for air, I keep my eyes on him and shift my body until I’m on top of him.

Now he moans.

Most of his chest and stomach are exposed underneath me, and his hands
move around my back and pull my shirt—the one of his I haven’t taken off—upward so our bare stomachs are against each other. We kiss again, small kisses that don’t stay on the lips. They wander all over each other’s faces and necks. Our whole bodies start to move together and my skin ignites in tingles in response. I pull my shirt up and over my head and throw it aside.

His bare chest feels
extraordinary against me. His hands are made of fire as they roam my back, pause on my bra closure, but then wander away from it, around my shoulders, down to my bare lower back. I can feel how much every inch of him wants this, too.

Too.

He’s in love with me,
too
.

All I want is to be closer to him. To show him I completely trust him. To show him just how much I love him.

He rolls me over until his whole weight is on top of me. “I’ve never been like this with anyone before,” he whispers. “Never.” The ends of his long hair tickle my skin with each kiss, shooting shockwaves all down my body. We keep trying to get closer, every part of us closer, but I still want more of him.

I pull away and meet his eyes.
I can’t believe I’m even thinking this. I always thought it would take months, years, to even consider this with someone. But then again, it kind of has been years.

“Do you…”
Breathe, Jamie.
“Do you have some...protection?” It takes all my effort not to think of the condoms in Tristan’s desk drawer. I focus on Sawyer’s face, because this is so much different.

He stares
at me, his eyes flitting back and forth over mine. “Oh,” he says, realizing what I mean. He glances to his backpack, so I’m pretty sure he does have something, but then hesitation crosses his face and the pained look from before we started kissing returns. “I—we—”

I don’t want him to say that we shouldn’t or we can’t, because we should and we can. “Yes, Sawyer.” I keep my eyes on his and nod
slowly. “I want this with you.”

“Oh, Jamie. Are you sure?” His voice is throaty
.

“I’m sure,” I say. I lean in and kiss him deeper
, and at first it feels like he’s holding back, but not for long. I can tell in his kiss the moment he realizes this is really going to happen with us.

O
ur movements together become slower, more intoxicating. His hands no longer hesitate but move all over me and mine move all over him. There’s a sound, I think, but I ignore it. I kiss his neck and murmur again into him that yes, I’m sure. So sure. We’re both so lost in each other, it takes us a few seconds to process the ring. It sounds again, and we clue in. I dive for my phone on the bedside table.

Tristan!

But it’s not my phone ringing.

It’s Sawyer’s.

Chapter Twenty

I toss the phone to Sawyer like it’s a hot potato. He’s sitting up now, but breathing hard through his nose.

His phone only rings one more time before he answers it, but it feels like a lifetime. I’m desperate to know if it’s Tristan, so I shuffle over beside him on the bed as he says hello.

I hear a deep voice through the phone that is definitely not Tristan’s.

“
Uh, yeah. She's right here.” Sawyer’s voice still sounds throaty. He passes the phone to me. “It's Matt.” I glance at the time on the phone. It’s after midnight.

I close my eyes for a long second, then open them and take
the phone from him. Sawyer gets up and heads for the bathroom. I grab my T-shirt and hold it to me as I pull the phone to my ear.

“
Matt, hi.” My voice is deep, serious, and my breathing has still not completely evened out. I swallow, feeling guilty all over again.

“
Jamie, where are you? I've been making up stories all evening to Mr. Echols, but Amelia says you’re not with her group either. Mr. Echols says if he hasn't heard from both of you by morning, he's calling your parents. You could get expelled for this!”

“
Okay, yeah, I understand,” I say. I know this should upset me, but my whole body is still abuzz and it’s just not fully hitting me. My voice reflects how not-worried I am.

“
What's wrong with you, Jamie? What's going on? Did you find Tristan?” When I don't answer right away, he asks, “Or were you even really looking for her?” There's a strong note of distrust in Matt's voice, and I'm sure he's caught on. I mean, what are Sawyer and I doing in the same room together in the middle of the night? Another wave of guilt washes over me.

“
Look, Matt ... Yes, we are trying to find Tristan, and yeah, I think we might have found her. But Matt, I...we...Sawyer and I...” I trail off, not knowing quite how to say it. Thankfully, Matt doesn't let me.

“
Yeah, well, glad I could help you out, Jamie.” His voice sounds anything but glad. I don't blame him. “Deal with your own alibi next time.” He hangs up.

I slip the shirt over my head and
lean back against the headboard, my whole body still tingling from being with Sawyer. And just then, he comes out of the bathroom.

I swallow down one more gulp of guilt over Matt
. I wish I hadn't hurt him. Maybe Tristan can do this sort of thing without feeling bad or looking back, but I can’t.

“
He hung up on me,” I say, standing. “I’m sorry, I completely forgot to call him again and—”

“
Me too,” Sawyer says, meeting me halfway between the bathroom and the bed. He looks stressed again, and I just want to wrap my arms around him, breathe into him.

“
He'll probably tell Mr. Echols now. He knows about us,” I say in a quieter voice, stepping closer, but not touching him. The truth is, I don’t really care about Mr. Echols or the class trip. I know I should care more about the possibility of getting expelled—both of us getting expelled—but I’m just so glad Sawyer and I are in this together. I care about him and I care about finding his sister and my dad. I feel like I’ve taken a humongous perspective pill and now I’m drugged into focusing only on what’s most important.

He runs a hand through his long bangs. He still looks worried
.

“
It'll be okay,” I tell him for probably the hundredth time. I step in closer and slip my arms around his waist. “Maybe Tristan will still call tonight and we could get back by morning and explain everything to Mr. Echols—even if it means taking a roundabout train route.”

“It’s
the middle of the night, Jamie. She should have been back by now.”

He’s right.
It’s late enough that she should have tried to dig out her pajamas and seen my note by now. “What do we do?” I whisper into Sawyer’s chest.

He wraps his arms around me
. “I don’t know.” He breathes in my hair again. I wish it could be clean and fresh for him, but he doesn’t seem to mind. Our breathing starts to align with one another’s. “That was moving kind of fast before, huh?” he says, and the throaty voice is back, at least a little.

I nod into his chest, but then realize what he said. “No,” I say, changing my head to a shake. “I mean, it was amazing.” I look up at him so he knows I mean it,
even if I am still a little jittery from the whole thing. I’m ready to focus on Tristan now, but I want him to know first that what was happening between us was exactly what I wanted to happen.

H
is small smile looks sad. “I want us to be ready for this,” he says. I try to cut him off but he won’t let me. “I don’t want us to be thinking about anything else.” He strokes my hair. “But there’s lots of time, Jamie.”

I know he’s right, but I
still feel frustrated that we'd gotten interrupted.

“I should call Amelia, and probably my parents
, but I really think you should try and rest.”

Even though I nod, and watch him head for the door, I know I won’t be getting any sleep.

***

When Sawyer returns, I’m on his laptop rereading all the emails Tristan and I had sent back and forth. There’s nothing here. Nothing to tell me why she’s still not answering her phone—
in the middle of the night—and why she’s not emailing or texting me.

Sawyer
sits a few inches away on the bed and stares down at his two cell phones.

“What happened?”

He shakes his head. “Amelia was livid. Matt told her we’re together.” He meets my eye. “Together-together,” he says. “I’m sure they’ve told Mr. Echols by now. I’ll call him in the morning, when he’s awake, and tell him we’re safe, but I’m betting there will be severe consequences.”

I take a deep breath. Let it out.
It all seems more real now that it’s had some time to sink in. I’ve never been in this kind of trouble before. Will he really expel us?

“
I called my parents, too. I figured if Tristan hadn’t shown up, which she hasn’t, I couldn’t just go back to Barcelona. And you need to stay to see your dad tomorrow night. I wanted to give them a story before Mr. Echols calls them.”

“So what did you tell them?”

He
shifts a little closer and takes my hand. “I made something up.” I keep watching him until he says more. “I told them you were missing Tristan something awful, so we took a quick trip to Milan to say hi, but we hadn’t gotten their message that she had gone to Rome.”

I nod. “Did they believe
you?” I lace my fingers into his, so he knows I’m not upset about him using me as an excuse. Of course I’m not upset. He could tell them I’d killed a kitten and hidden the body in his backpack if it would help us find Tristan.

Sawyer nods. “I think so, but they want me to call as soon as I get to
Rome. I said I’d leave on the next train. I think you're right. I think she's at that fitness festival. They also got that text, telling them how she’s really busy.”

The text she didn’t send to me.
I glance over the rejection letter, lying open on Tristan’s luggage. “But what if she was making up another story? Maybe she was talkative and excited with your mom because she’d just had some success at the fitness festival in Venice? What if she actually—”

He stands, breaking contact between our hands.
He leaves his phones on the bed beside me. “I don’t think so.” I’m surprised at his clipped voice. He’s already made up his mind to go to Rome. And, okay, maybe I’m overreacting a little because I’m feeling shirked by Tristan, but still––I feel it in my gut. She’s not in Rome. If she went away to compete, it was to Venice. I’m certain she planned to be back by the sixteenth.

“Look, if that’s what you
really
believe, I guess that’s where you need to go.” I’m hoping he’ll change his mind. She’s always talked about wanting to go and see the canals of Venice. She’d gone to the last fitness festival, found an agency, and has been so busy she hasn’t made it back here to get her stuff. The more I think it through, the more confident I am.

Sawyer’s not hear
ing any of my arguments. His parents have given him an order, and if there’s one fault Sawyer has, it’s that he can’t seem to go against his family. Even when they’re wrong. “You go check out Rome,” I tell him. “And I’ll try Venice.”

An hour later
, I’ve taken a shower, checked all the rooms in the hostel once more for Tristan, and I’m waiting for Sawyer to finish washing up. All four of our cell phones lie on the bed and I keep turning each one on and looking for missed calls and texts. I keep trying Tristan’s number, but even at two a.m., there’s still no answer. I still can’t believe that Tristan would text Sawyer and his parents and not me.

I look back over the text, as if I’ll find some explanation in it.

I’m really busy this week. I will talk to you all soon.

Sawyer comes back into the room, but doesn’t say a word.
I’m bothered by our separating too, but we need to do this, if we have any chance of finding her before we have to get back to Mr. Echols. Sawyer comes over to retrieve his cell phones, but I’m reading the text one more time, this time out loud.

“You all,” I repeat. I look up at Sawyer and his face is scrunched with worry.

“Y’all,” we both say in almost a whisper, like we’re not sure how to process it. Tristan always makes fun of people when they say “you all.” When we first met, I’d said it many times, out of habit, and she’d always laugh and say, “Y’all,” with this over-exaggerated Southern drawl.

“This doesn’t sound like her,” I say, but I can tell Sawyer’s thinking it too. “So is she
putting up an act to everyone about everything now?” I can’t help but think—hope—the reason she didn’t send the text to me is because she didn’t want to lie to me, too. Or did someone else text it for her? She said she’d be busy for this week. Maybe she’s figured out that Sawyer’s in Europe and she’s buying herself some time until he leaves. Maybe her plan is to contact me just before I go, and then try to get me to stay with her.

Every time I think about her succeeding at a fitness festival, I feel a little buzz go all the way through me
, though. I’ll find her in Venice. I know I will.

We
pay for another two nights in our double room so we can store Tristan’s heavy bag and meet back here later tonight before going in search of my dad. I’ve slipped into the only clothes of hers that don’t dangle past my toes. The tight leggings and low-cut green top are flashier than something I’d normally wear, but at least they’re clean.

I leave armed with just my purse, including my cell phone, passport, and the rejection letter of Tristan’s.
I don’t have a lot of confidence in my directional abilities to find the fitness festival office, but Sawyer will get me on the train to Venice, and at least I’ll have all day. I’m not afraid to ask for directions.

Sawyer and I don’t talk all the way to the train station. When we get in line to buy tickets, he pulls out his Italian/English dictionary, like he’s not willing to ask for
my help anymore. But when we get to the front of the line, I tell the girl to get my friend a ticket to
Roma
and a ticket to
Venezia
for me. Sawyer pays, but he doesn’t say a word to me, even after he’s gotten his ticket.

“Look, I un
derstand that you feel you have to try Rome,” I say finally. I don’t want to leave things like this. “Why can’t you understand that I have to follow what I believe is right, too?”

But as I say the words, I see on his face that’s not the problem.
He can probably sense my assurance.

“I’ll be here later
, Sawyer. Even if I find her, I promise you, I’ll meet you back at the hostel. Even if she won’t.”

He looks away.
I hit the nail on the head.

“I’ll call you as soon as I find anything, but…” This is the difficult part to say
. Tristan’s my best friend, and even after everything she’s lied about, I
will
protect her dreams no matter what. “Sawyer, you have to promise me that if I’m honest with you, you won’t ruin things for Tristan. If she wants to stay and she’s being safe, she can stay. I’m going to try to convince her to tell the truth to everyone, but she’s her own person and gets to make decisions for herself.”

“You can be honest with me,” he says
, looking back at my eyes for a long second. “You can.”

We haven’t been holding hands or touching since our room at the hostel, but he reaches over and takes my hand now. “
I should get to my platform.” His train is leaving much sooner than mine. He says it, but he doesn’t let go. “Jamie…I meant everything I said to you last night.”

He’s
scared he’ll never see me again, and terrified he won’t see his sister, either. Tristan has a way of convincing people to do what she wants, but I know she won’t convince me to stay with her. Besides Sawyer, who I’m in love with and just had the most amazing time of my life with, I have Eddy to think about.