Heat of the Moment (14 page)

A couple goes strolling by, holding hands. They look at my bleeding ankle.

“Are you okay?” the man asks. “Do you need help?”

“No, I'm okay,” I say. “My friend just went to get me some water.”

“Okay.” They glance over their shoulders once they're past me, like they're not quite sure they should be leaving. Honestly,
I'm
not quite sure they should be leaving. I'm not doing so good on my own. I mean, I smashed my phone.

I smashed my phone! Oh my god. I am so not a violent person. Smashing your phone is what you do when you have anger problems, like the girls at school who get super upset at teachers when they get sent to the office and push their books and papers onto the floor on their way out. Or the boys who get into fistfights, the ones who caused them to implement that meditation class.

Beckett reappears, holding two bottles of expensive-looking water, a stack of napkins, and three Band-Aids.

“This was the only water they had,” he said. “But I'm sure it's better to use bottled, anyway. You don't want your leg getting infected.” He uncaps one of the bottles and hands it to me. “Drink,” he commands.

“I'm not thirsty.” I push my chin up into the air angrily. It's one thing to give in to him making me walk, it's quite another for him to make me drink something.

“I don't care. Drink.”

I take a sip of the water. It's the best water I've ever had—cool, crisp, and delicious. I'm not sure if it's because it's expensive, or if it's because I've been in the sweaty club for so long. I don't think the Shirley Temples I was drinking were doing that much to hydrate me.

Beckett pours water onto one of the napkins, then uses it to clean the blood off my leg. “Does it sting?”

I shake my head.

He finishes cleaning my wounds, then expertly applies the Band-Aids. “There,” he says. “All better. You should probably get some Neosporin when you get back to the hotel, though.”

“I once read that your phone has more disease-causing bacteria on it than a toilet seat,” I say. As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I realize how ridiculously stupid they are, and I'm totally mortified. Who
says
something like that?

But Beckett just grins. “Even more reason to get some Neosporin.”

I nod.

“So where's Derrick?” he asks.

Jesus. Derrick. I forgot all about him. Definitely not a good sign that I've forgotten about my boyfriend. “He's inside,” I say. “He's waiting for me. He's probably going to come out here any second.” I can't call him because I smashed my phone. I could ask to borrow Beckett's. But that would be weird—me using Beckett's phone to call my boyfriend.

I expect Becket to leave then, but instead he moves a little closer to me on the curb. “Lyla—” he starts.

“No,” I say, shaking my head emphatically, and look down at the street. There's a tiny seashell laying against the curb, and I pick it up and move it back and forth between my fingers. “Please don't.”

“Please don't what?”

“Say whatever it is you're about to say.”

“How do you know what I'm about to say?”

“Because I've watched a lot of movies.”

He frowns. “I don't get it.”

“I've watched a lot of movies where the hot guy is about to let the girl down gently, when really he's just being a complete asshole. So I know what you're going to say. And I really don't want to hear it.” It feels scary letting my guard down, just putting it all out there like that. But I don't care. It's the truth—I
don't
want to hear what Beckett has to say. Until now, I didn't want him to know the effect he was having on me. But the sting of the rejection speech he's about to give is going to hurt more than letting him know I care.

The side of his mouth twitches into a grin. “You think I'm hot?”

“No!” Yes. “That's not . . . the point is I know you're about to give me some big explanation about why you kissed me and then showed up here with Katie.” I'm struggling to keep my voice calm. Because the truth is, I
do
want to hear
what he has to say. Even though I know that whatever comes out of his mouth is certain to be full of lies and half-truths and things I can't trust, and even though just a second ago I was so mad I could hardly take it, right now I want to hear what he has to say. I want to keep him here with me as long as possible. Once he gives me his bullshit explanation, he's going to leave. And I'm probably never going to talk to him again.

“Are you going to give me some big explanation as to why you kissed me and showed up here with Derrick?” he asks.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because Derrick's my boyfriend.”

“Semantics.”

“And besides, I didn't kiss you—you kissed me.”

“You kissed me back.”

“No, I didn't.”

“Lyla.” He says my name as a statement, not a question, and there's not even any annoyance behind it. It's like he's just saying,
Come on, we were both there, let's not play games
. Which is confusing. If he doesn't want to play games, then why does he act like such a game player?

“I have a boyfriend,” I say. “I shouldn't have been on the beach with you this morning in the first place. And you shouldn't have told Katie we kissed.”

“I told Katie we kissed because I wanted her to know that I'm not interested in her like that.” He reaches out and fingers one of the beads on my tigereye bracelet, the same way he did back at the hotel. His touch feels familiar and exciting all at once. My arms break out in goose bumps. “Did you mean what you said about how you shouldn't have been on the beach with me this morning?”

“Yes,” I say. But my voice sounds tinny and weird and far away, almost like I'm in an echoey hallway or a movie with bad sound.

“Say it again.”

“What?”

“Look at me and tell me you want nothing to do with me.”

“That's ridiculous.” I look away and down the alley toward the beach. If you look very closely, you can see a slip of ocean in between the buildings, can hear the sound of the waves crashing up against the shore.

“If it's so ridiculous, then do it.” I feel him shift slightly forward on the curb, so that his elbows are on his knees. I know that if I look at him, his face is going to be right there, and I'm going to be reminded of kissing him and how amazing it felt.
I'm here with Derrick
, I tell myself. I wonder if I should get a rubber band to keep around my wrist. Then every time I saw Beckett I could snap it. Eventually, I would start to equate the pain with Beckett's face, and I would
start avoiding him. It's called aversion therapy. We learned all about it in psychology.

“Why did you come here with Katie?” I blurt.

“Why did you come here with Derrick?”

“Derrick is my boyfriend.”

“So? You still showed up here with him, even after you kissed me this morning.”

I don't say anything.

“You really see things in black and white, don't you, Lyla?”

“What?”

“You think that because you have a boyfriend, it means kissing me was wrong. You think because I came here with Katie after kissing you, I must be a total jerk. You never stop to think about the whys, do you?”

I shake my head. “I have no idea what you're talking about.”

Before graduation, I will . . . learn to trust
. That stupid email pops into my head again. I feel like balling my fists up against my head and screaming. I smashed my phone. That email should be gone forever.

“What I'm talking about is that—”

And that's the moment Derrick picks to walk outside and find me sitting there with Beckett.

“Lyla,” Derrick says when he sees me. “Are you okay? Where were you? I was getting worried.” Then he notices
Beckett sitting next to me. “What is he doing here?”

“He was just leaving,” I say.

But Beckett doesn't move.

“Oookaay,” Derrick says. “But what is he doing out here?”

“I'm right here, dude,” Beckett says, rolling his eyes. “You don't have to talk through me.”

Derrick's shoulders stiffen and his back gets straight. Uh-oh. “Fine,” he says. “What the fuck are you doing with my girlfriend?”

“Your girlfriend was out here all alone, and she cut her foot. So I was helping her,” Beckett says. He stands up. “And if you really gave a shit about her, you would have been out here, too.”

“I didn't know where she was!” Derrick says. Then he turns to me. “What are you
doing
out here?”

Good question. What excuse could I possibly have for being out here in a back alley after telling him I was going to the bathroom? Telling him I ran out here because I saw Katie in the bathroom definitely isn't going to go over well. “I got confused,” I say. “I opened the wrong door and then I dropped my phone.”

I point to where the remnants of my phone are still littering the sidewalk, sparkling under the moonlight that is now shining down into the alley. “And I cut myself,” I add.

“Are you okay?” Derrick rushes over and looks at my ankle.

“I'm fine.” I don't like the three of us being out here together. It's giving me all kinds of anxiety. Beckett is a complete loose cannon, and who knows if he's going to say something about what really happened. “I just don't really want to be here anymore,” I say. “I want to go home.”

I mean back to the hotel, or I guess the hotel Derrick got us. But now that I think about it, home
home
wouldn't be that bad either. My room at home is nice—I have thousand-thread-count sheets that I bought with my own money, and a comfy bedspread and a soft chenille throw. I have a TV mounted on my wall and candles on my nightstand and my own bathroom with a huge (albeit outdated) tub. Suddenly I'm so homesick I almost can't stand it.

“Can we please leave?” I ask Derrick. “Please?”

“Lyla—” Beckett starts.

“Beckett, please,” I say, shaking my head. “Please, just . . . just go.”

He stands there for a second, watching me.

“Please,” I say, looking him in the eye. “I mean it, just go.”

Something passes over his face, and then he nods slowly before turning and walking away.

“I'm sorry you had to deal with that asshole,” Derrick says. “I can't believe he would think it was okay to be out
here alone with you like that.” He shakes his head. “He has no sense of boundaries.”

You have no idea
. “Can we please go back to the hotel?” I plead.

“Of course. Do you still . . . . I mean, are we going back to the first hotel? Or the, you know, cuddle and bubble?”

“The second one.”

Derrick nods, looking excited. “Okay, good. Um, not that I want to pressure you or anything.”

He's not pressuring me. But now that I'm sitting here, looking at him, the boy I'm about to lose my virginity to, the boy I'm supposedly in love with, it's more clear than ever that I have to tell him the truth. Forget about whether Juliana is going to tell him. I can't sleep with Derrick unless he knows about me and Beckett.

It'll be fine, I'm sure. He'll just . . . be okay with the whole thing. I mean, it was just one kiss. How can you be upset about one kiss? And if I tell him the truth—that Beckett kissed me—then Derrick should be fine with it. Won't he? I mean, he probably won't even be thinking about Beckett once he knows we're definitely about to have sex.

“I hate that douche bag,” Derrick mumbles as we walk down the street. Well,
he's
walking. I'm hobbling. My ankle is really hurting. Like, bad. I glance down at it and notice that
the Band-Aid Beckett put on is starting to soak through. Great. Oh my god! I have an open wound! How am I supposed to get into a Jacuzzi that has . . . all kinds of bodily fluids in it with an open wound?

There's probably a sign on the wall that tells you to shower before you get into the Jacuzzi, but honestly, who's really going to do that? I know I wasn't planning to. What would be the point? You know everyone else isn't, so it would be a total waste of time to get yourself all clean and then hop into the gross Jacuzzi. Plus, I need my body's own bacteria to fight off the stranger bacteria that are going to be floating around in there. I picture my immune system fighting off other people's germs. My bacteria soldiers are dressed in pink, and the other ones are all gross, like little balls of gray fluff disgustingness. Like dryer lint.

Anyway. It doesn't matter, because there's no way I can get into a Jacuzzi when I have an open wound. That would just be irresponsible. No matter. I wasn't looking forward to the Jacuzzi part anyway.

We can just use the room.

“So listen,” I say. “Something kind of . . . you know, weird happened earlier.”

“If I see him on the street, I'm going to knock him out.”

I frown. “You just saw him on the street.”

Derrick looks startled, like he somehow forgot I was there. “Obviously I wasn't going to punch him in front of
you,” he says. “You think I would get into a fight in front of my girlfriend? Besides, I would probably end up really hurting him. And it would be disturbing for you to see that kind of anger coming from me.”

“Yeah, because you're not an angry person,” I say firmly.

“Yes, I am,” he says. “I'm an angry person tonight. I don't like people messing with my girlfriend.”

Yikes. Well then. “Okay,” I say. I clear my throat and try again. “I think . . . I mean, I think we should probably maybe talk about something. I mean, I have to tell you something.”

“Okay.” Derrick turns around and looks at me. “What is it?” He must see the look on my face, because his eyes instantly soften. “Are you okay? What's wrong? Is it your leg?” He looks down at my leg and his eyes widen. “Oh, god,” he says. “What a mess.”