Racing Outside the Line: A Love Story at 190 Mph (12 page)

I smiled, knowing he was jealous and enjoying it, "Why? You didn’t like what you read?"

He cocked an eyebrow at me as he grabbed onto my waist possessively, "No, I didn’t."

"Well you know what they say about snooping? You’re likely to find something you didn’t want to know about." With that, I swam away from him.

Just as I heard Seth swim up beside me, a flash of lightning lit up the sky. I stopped swimming and put my feet down on the bottom of the pool. Looking up at the sky, my mind suddenly wandered, remembering a moment from my childhood when Desmond, my parents, and I sat out on the porch watching a thunderstorm. My mother had the most beautiful smile and my father was teasing Desmond about something I couldn’t remember. The memory of their faces and that I couldn’t just go home and see them there made the smile fall from my face. Like a ton of bricks, the sadness hit me, the loss I felt over moments like that, how much I missed my parents. It often hit me like this, sudden overwhelming grief brought on by nothing in particular. Despite my consistent inability to hide my feelings, I was usually pretty good at hiding my grief. I could, at least, recover from it quickly enough to make it hardly noticeable.

I felt Seth come up behind me tugging me toward the steps, "I’d prefer not to have you burnt to a crisp."

I had a seductive comment ready to go, but I just didn’t have the desire to say it. Climbing the steps out of the pool, Seth wrapped me in a soft, large, white towel. I rubbed my arms absent-mindedly and looked over at Seth. He glanced back at the kitchen again before stepping closer to me. He placed his hands on my cheeks and tilted my head up to the light coming from within the house. "What can I do, baby?"

When I would get depressed about my parents, people always said things like, "I’m sorry," or "are you okay?" or my personal favorite "they’re in a better place now." These things always felt as though they just said it to make themselves feel as if they had done something to help me. No one wanted to hear me talk about them, they didn’t want to allow me to be sad, they wanted to mumble a few seldom sincere words and be done with it. But, not Seth, Seth had always asked me what he could do to help me. Sometimes my answer was nothing, and he would accept that and just sit with me. But knowing he now reciprocated my feelings, I was finally able to say what I had always wanted to say: "kiss me." He pulled me close to the house, so that Desmond wouldn’t be able to see us from the window or doorway if he happened to peek outside and kissed me softly and tenderly.

Standing there with his ridiculously strong arms wrapped around me, my cheek against his muscular bare chest, I felt remarkably safe. "I wish I could stay in your arms forever."

"Mmmm, me too, baby," he hugged me tighter rubbing his chin on the top of my head.

"You really think Des would flip out if he knew about us?" I could feel him tense the moment the question left my lips. He pulled away from me and adjusted the towel around my arms.

"Yes," he was firm and his jaw was clenched. I bit my lower lip, suddenly feeling alone again, like my question had pushed him away. I wanted to reach back out to him and wrap his arms around me, but I suddenly felt as though I didn’t know how he would react. Trying to hide the worry on my face, I dropped my eyes to my feet.

"Hey," his voice was full of warmth and concern. "Hey, come on now, it’ll be okay." He bent his knees and crouched down to look at my face, then hooked his finger under my chin. "If we told him right now and he was beyond pissed at me, I couldn’t blame him. I have to take care of some things first. Then when I know I’m at least a bit more worthy of you, we’ll tell him and if he’s mad, oh well, he’ll get over it." He pulled me back into his arms and I sighed loudly, trying to let go of the tension in my shoulders.

"I wish I could hold you all night," he kissed the top of my head before pulling away from me entirely.

Another flash of lightning made me jump. I pulled on my dress and Seth grabbed my hand to pull me inside the sunroom. Just as we were sitting down, Desmond came out and handed me a margarita. "How’s this?" he asked as I took the drink from his hand.

"It’s perfect, you know how I like my margaritas…"

"All Tequila with a splash of margarita, I remember," he chuckled, "although I still can’t believe how many of these you made it through when you were home last Spring Break."

"What I’m wondering is how many of these tasty beverages
you guys
can drink and still function." My eyes wandered over to the pool table behind us. "For example, can I kick your butts at pool with that much Tequila feeding into your body?"

"Aww, that’s so sweet, baby sister," he was condescending as he pinched my cheek. "But you couldn’t beat me even if there were an I.V. of Tequila feeding straight into my arm."

Both Desmond and Seth thought this was hilarious. I hadn’t played pool with either of them since before I went away to college. I think Desmond went out to a pool hall once with my friends and me when he visited me at school, but I hadn’t been playing that night. They clearly didn’t have a clue that I had greatly increased my skills. My boyfriend sophomore year was Pablo, and he had been an extremely good pool player. Pablo and I could be found hanging at the pool hall around the corner from campus nearly every night.

Rule number one: overconfidence is your death in pool. "You’re probably right, Des, you’ve always been really good at pool. I’m sure you could down a couple more of those Tequilaritas and still win against me by a long shot, but I’d still like to play, if you would." I did my best to smile innocently at him. "Maybe we could even make a little bet?"

"I don’t really think a bet would be fair, Lex, considering the advantage I have over you."

He was so cocky—I was really hoping that would be his downfall. "Well, you’ve always been good at pool, you’re a natural and I’m certainly not." No, I certainly wasn’t a natural, I had had to really work at it, but I was certainly good now. "How about a small bet, then?" I got up and went toward the pool table.

Seth was watching me carefully and I wondered if he had figured out that I had something up my sleeve.

Desmond got up from the loveseat and followed me to the pool table. He picked up a pool cue and started testing its weight, "Whatdya have in mind?"

"If you win, I’ll never again consider moving back to California," he smiled. I knew he had wanted me to stick around more than he wished to let on. "If I win, though, you have to promise you’ll stop interfering in my love life and just accept all the decisions I make in that area of my life." Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Seth roll his eyes. I knew he didn’t think it would make much of a difference in the larger scheme of Desmond’s anger over our "dating," but, every little edge we could get would help. Either way, the bet was stacked in my favor.

"You’re on. You want the break, or would you like me to do it?"

"Oh, you can go ahead. I’m sure you’re better at it than I am."

"Don’t sell yourself short, sis, you used to be decent at a good break, why don’t you go ahead." I decided this was as good a time as any to pull out my awesome skills, so I picked up my pool cue, aimed, and sent the balls scurrying off around the table and two into pockets.

It only took three more balls for Desmond’s face to change. He lost all of his arrogance and could have caught flies, his jaw was dropped so low. "Who are you and what have you done with my sister?"

"Oh, didn’t I mention that a friend taught me to play pool, and we practiced a little."

"A little? Who taught you? Some sort of hustler?" I laughed, happy over the idea that Des was impressed with my skills.

Seth sat on a stool watching our game with his arms folded the entire time. I didn’t miss this of course, but I did miss those arms wrapped around me. When I finished cleaning up on the pool table, Desmond started claiming he had been set up. Both he and Seth had downed another Tequilarita during the exhibition of my pool prowess, so Desmond brought me another margarita to help me catch up to them.

Desmond played a game of nine ball against Seth as we all found ourselves polishing off a few more drinks. The laughter definitely increased. Desmond hooked his iPod up to the sound system and played songs from their high school days that made them laugh hysterically.

A few margaritas later, I was having difficulty restraining my flirtatious behavior toward Seth. He was sitting on the loveseat when I walked over and flopped down next to him, leaning up against his side. He had his arm up on the back of the loveseat and was leaning into me. Desmond was pretty toasted, so he didn’t really seem to notice anything out of the ordinary.

"So, what I really want to know," Desmond began in semi-slurred speech, "is who taught you to play pool like that. You hardly knew how to hold a cue before you left for college and here you are just waltzing in here," his exaggerated hand movements were hilariously tipsy, "like some sort of a… a… pro. ‘Sup with that?" He took that moment to do an imitation of me playing pool before I left for college holding the cue backwards and completely incorrectly. We all laughed hysterically. I leaned back letting myself fall across Seth’s lap laughing hard. Seth, who had tears in his eyes, fell forward across me, taking a moment to hug me close to him.

When we had recovered ourselves, I picked myself up out of Seth’s lap and answered the question, "Des, I told you, a friend of mine taught me."

"Oh, a
friend
, really, now that’s specific. Seth, wasn’t that just a
shit
-load of information?"

"Yeah, a bit vague, Lex," Seth joined in.

"Come on, Lex, was it one of your hot sorority sisters?" He turned to Seth, "you should have seen some of these babes she was living with in that sorority house, it was a ‘Girls Gone Wild’ in the making, I swear!"

"I would have liked to have seen that," Seth responded, sounding entirely too enthusiastic for my taste.

"Oh, man, there were blondes everywhere I looked when I visited her and so hot. What was that one chick’s name, that one I hooked up with? Monique was it?"

"You showed me her picture," Seth interjected, "she
was
hot! Didn’t you say she was crazy in bed?"

"Oh, yeah, she was something else and a true blond, you should have seen her in person."

"It’s a shame I didn’t. Hell, if her standards were low enough to sleep with you, it would have been no problem for me to get her into bed."

"Hey, now," I waved my hands in the air trying to prevent this conversation from heading in a direction I didn’t want it to go.

"I still have her number; I’ll give it to you now that it looks like you’re back to bachelorhood. Not that you need it, since you’ve always had plenty of hot chicks throwing their selves at you. How
was
that redhead in bed?"

I elbowed Seth in the ribs as inconspicuously as possible, thinking he would get the hint that I didn’t want to hear it, but he continued on the topic. I could feel the anger bubbling inside me. "Well, she wasn’t a natural redhead, if you catch my meaning," he chuckled under his breath. I decided it was time to get up and grab another drink.

When I walked back with the bottle of Tequila in my hand and a shot glass in the other, they were still reminiscing about sleeping with other women.

"Shit, I still can’t believe you are giving up a fine piece of ass like Alexandria, you’re an idiot. Make me feel better and tell me she was crap in bed."

Seth chuckled again, not seeming to have noticed that I walked back into the room.

"I can’t lie to you like that, Des, she’s a freaking turn-on and damn, you should see her naked… I" I chose that moment to make my presence completely noticeable because I just couldn’t handle hearing anymore. I walked directly in front of Seth and leaned against the pool table pouring myself a shot and downing it quickly. Thankfully, Seth noticed enough to shut up. He looked contrite. "Uh, how did we get on this topic anyway?"

"Well, I asked Miss no-details to talk about the hot sorority sister that taught her to play pool, but she didn’t want to share." I smiled evilly at Desmond for having given me an opportunity to exact some revenge.

"You want the sexy details about me and my friend?" I looked Seth straight in the eye. He looked a little suspicious, but was nodding along with Desmond like a couple of morons. "Well, I hate to disappoint you, but it was actually my ex-boyfriend, Pablo, you remember, Des," I prompted turning to him, "the gorgeous Latin guy I was with that had more muscles than you two combined? He called his lessons 'pool stick skills 101,' and I have to say," I turned from Desmond to look directly at Seth, raising my eyebrow, "He sure knows where to put his pool stick, if you catch my meaning." Seth propelled himself out of the loveseat and walked over to the sound system with clenched fists.
HA! Gotcha!

"Aww, man, Lex, I so didn’t want to hear that about my sister."

"You asked for it," I laughed.

"Fine, I did ask for it. I’ve learned my lesson," he got up from the chair he was sprawled over and came closer to me. "He taught you well, sis… about the game that is… and that’s the only reference I want to hear about this guy again." He kissed my cheek and added, "gotta pee." I let out a small laugh as he walked quickly toward the bathroom.

The second he was out of the room, Seth was in front of me with his left arm encircling my waist and his right hand threaded through my hair pulling my lips to his. He kissed me forcefully and glued himself to me, grinding his lower body into mine. Despite the decent amount of alcohol I had ingested, I still couldn’t let myself live in the moment. I remembered his comment about Alexandria and pulled away from his kiss bitterly. I was only slightly resentful at Seth, but I was suddenly furious with myself at feeling self-conscious over his comments. How did I compare to her? Was she better in bed? Did she look better naked than me?

"Pablo?" Seth asked in a tone that was very reproachful. I looked up at him, letting him freely see that I was hurt and angry. Regret filled his face. "I don’t care about him, you’re mine now, and I’m not going to let you go." He tried to pull me to him again, but I turned and walked away. I didn’t feel very in control of my feelings at the moment. I needed space. I paced back and forth for a second, and then came back next to him to grab the Tequila bottle.