Sway (21 page)

“You sound so sure,” she almost whispers.

I reach up to pluck the penny from her mouth, then run my thumb across her lower lip. “Like I said, one-hundred percent.”

She exhales, long and slow. “I’ve never been that certain about anything.”

“Well, maybe it’s time you look for something different to believe in.” I let that sentence hang, thinking that she can draw her own conclusions. I’ve never been one to force my beliefs on another person or beat them over the head with spiritual lingo, but I have been one to pray. And now I start. Kate needs prayer. Kate needs hope. Kate needs God, but I keep that to myself. For now.

Again she gets quiet. I don’t know what to do and I don’t want to leave, but I need to get to work. I was supposed to be there ten minutes ago. Not that I’m on a strict schedule, but I said I’d be back at noon and my word is generally important to me. But Kate isn’t finished talking.

“What you said earlier…” She turns toward me, and I expect a bunch of questions about my time as a convict, but she doesn’t go there. In the weirdest way, it’s like she didn’t even give it a second thought. Like my criminal past—a past that hardly justified my imprisonment in the first place—doesn’t even matter. “I’ve never heard those kinds of prayers, Caleb. The judgmental kind, I mean. My father has told me about them, cautioned me against them, but I’ve never actually heard them.” Her hand falls to her lap and her voice sounds far away and in awe, the way a person might sound after recovering from a long bout of amnesia and all of a sudden remembering their forgotten family members. “Caleb, I’ve never actually heard them. I just assumed…”

Her words roll around in my mind, and I respond in the only way I know how. “Assumptions aren’t usually pretty, and they’re hardly ever right. Kind of like thinking a girl is shallow just because she likes the color pink.”

She catches her smile, but not before I see her mouth twitch at the corners. “I’m the unshallowist person you’ll ever meet.”

“With the worst grammar. Pretty sure that wasn’t a word.” A smile forces its way across my mouth. And then we’re just looking at each other. Sitting there side by side in front of her apartment, with neither of us able to look away. I’m staring at her and she’s staring at me and all I can think about is the girl I met just two weeks ago. The girl with the cool record collection and the gorgeous hair. The girl who deals with drinking and being drugged in the nastiest way possible. The girl who’s as competitive as I am, even when playing a kid’s peg game. The girl I still happen to like, way more than I should. And it’s like we’re back at that place—in the middle of the easy familiarity I felt when we shopped for Christmas trees and bought the ugliest pink princess stocking that’s now hanging from my bedroom doorway.

Christmas. It’s only two weeks away.

Maybe it’s nostalgia messing with my mind. Maybe it’s the thought of new beginnings and the opportunity that comes along once a year to start over. Maybe it’s the random snowflake that lands on the windshield, putting me in a brighter mood. Maybe it’s the fact that work will be there tomorrow, but she might not be. Or maybe it’s just that Kate is Kate, and I’m just not ready to let go of her.

So I kiss her. Lean across the seat before I can talk myself out of it, and kiss her, the feel of her soft lips underneath mine nearly undoing me for the brief seconds it lasts. When she moans into my mouth and my pulse skyrockets and plummets at the same time, I pull away. There are only so many things I can take without completely losing my mind, and right now that isn’t one of them.

But I can’t leave her, of that I’m certain. Forgetting my earlier vow to keep my distance, to take her home right away, I open my mouth and say this.

“You interested in spending the afternoon together, or do you have someplace you need to be?”

Kate

“I’m Only Me When I’m With You”

—Taylor Swift

I
have fourteen places I’m supposed to be right now, and standing in a vintage record store in downtown Oklahoma City isn’t one of them. Yet with one invitation from Caleb, with one
kiss
from Caleb, I’m flipping through musty-smelling vinyl at two o’clock in the afternoon without a care in the world.

School fell by the wayside again, but sometimes life works that way.

“This one?” he asks, holding one up.

“Yep. For my eighteenth birthday from my cousin.” It’s the fifth one he’s asked about, and so far I own them all.

He gives me a look. “Your cousin bought you a two-hundred dollar James Taylor record for your birthday?”

I shrug like it’s no big deal even though I know exactly how stupid it sounds. “She knew I didn’t have it, so…yes. I think she found it in Dallas, though it might have been Houston. I can’t remember.” Her family lived in Dallas for two years before they moved to Houston, where they still live, but I can’t remember if the move happened before or after my birthday. It might have been before, because—

“Well, la di da,” Caleb says before dropping the record back into place and making a face at me like a kid who’s just been told he can’t have candy before dinner. I blink at him, because the fact that he said it is cute.
Really
cute. But not a phrase a twenty-four-year-old guy who looks like him should ever utter out loud.

“You did not just say that. What are you, a four-year-old girl?”

His eyes narrow. “I got a thirteen dollar iPod case from Scott for my last birthday. So yes, I did just say that. And no,” he looks down and gestures to himself, “pretty sure I’m not a girl.” I blush. Darn right he’s not a girl. Not in those faded-just-right jeans and fitted white tee that shows just enough of his tattoo to make me think bad thoughts. If Caleb notices my red face, he says nothing about it. “You, on the other hand, are a spoiled rich girl, and I’m not sure we should hang out anymore. Not with your expensive taste in music and who knows what else. I can’t afford you. Next thing I know, you’ll be telling me you only buy three-hundred dollars jeans and fly to New York City to get your hair cut.”

“Only once a month,” I say with a straight face. “And I think we both know these jeans cost more than three hundred dollars. I mean, look at them. They’ve got upscale written on the back pocket.” I look down at the old Levi’s I pulled on in my rush to get dressed this morning and shrug. I don’t look great, but I won’t apologize for it. It’s not my fault Caleb helped me with my car in the rain and then decided to forgive me.

I’m still in awe that he’s here talking to me.

I still can’t get over that kiss.

“I’m surprised they’re not pink.”

“You’re not going to let go of that are you? One pink coat—”

“And robe. And comforter. And—”

“I get your point. As soon as I get home, I’m burning all of it.”

He laughs. “Don’t do that. Everyone knows princesses wear pink.” And just like that, he’s back to looking at albums, flipping through them like he didn’t just make my heart leap three feet in the air and land in my stomach. Other guys have given me nicknames. My father called me Sugar Bear the day I was born, and the name has stuck through skinned knees, a particularly painful molar extraction two days before my twelfth birthday, and my first broken heart. My first boyfriend called me Katie-pie even though I repeatedly told him not to and broke up with him just to get away from the sickening moniker. My date for senior prom called me baby after midnight when I told him payment for the wrist corsage he bought wouldn’t come in the form of sex in the back seat of his Fiat, or any other place he had in mind, even if he were the last man on Earth, and for heaven sakes get your groping hands off me.

Funny how Princess is a whole lot sweeter than Katie-pie, but Caleb could christen me with it a hundred times a day and I doubt I’ll ever get sick of hearing it.

“Take a look at this.” He gives a little laugh and scans the cover of an album closely before flipping it over to read the back, and I gasp so fast that something catches in my throat and I cough. The sound is obnoxious and I can’t seem to quit, but I don’t care because if I’m seeing it right, Caleb has just stumbled across the one album that I’ve tried to find for three years with zero success. And he’s gone and found it in a record store with green shag carpet and a broken light bulb on 5
^th
and Lewis. I dart around to his side of the isle and inch in close to his side. He pats my back as I strain on tiptoe to read the album’s title over his shoulder. I would swat his hand away because I’m not a baby who needs help to quit choking, but I like the way it feels there.

I like it even more when I stop coughing and he makes no move to drop his arm. I lean in a little closer.

“I can’t believe you found it.” The words come out on a squeal and I’m almost certain a tear or two might fall if I don’t pull myself together, but Caleb has just found
my Precious
and I need a moment to come to grips with it. I sniff and press shaking fingertips to my lips, overcome with pent-up emotion.

But then Caleb has to ruin the moment because he’s a guy, and that’s what guys do.

“You can’t be serious. This thing?” His arm falls and he’s looking at me like I have two heads, but I ignore him and carefully take the album from his hands. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen—even prettier than the pink cashmere scarf my mother bought me last month that I’m sure as heck never going to tell Caleb about.

“That is the most ridiculous album I’ve ever seen in my life,” he says.

“It is not!”

“Donny and Marie’s Osmond’s greatest hits? You’re crying over Donny and Marie’s greatest hits, sung by what is quite possibly the cheesiest act in musical history? The fact that you’re the only person I’ve ever met who owns Dylan’s
Freewheelin’
doesn’t even make up for the shame you ought to feel for wanting this.”

“You wouldn’t understand. My grandfather bought me this album when I was a kid, but I lost it when we moved. He died of cancer three years ago and I guess I thought if I could just get my hands on one—”

“Oh, cut the crap. Are you going to use that fake cancer excuse for every dumb decision you make? I suppose you’re going to tell me he died of breast cancer like your aunt?”

I suck in some air, and a tear finally slips down my cheek. He has to be the most insensitive person in the entire world. I clutch the album to my chest and breathe deeply, telling myself to remain calm. After all, he’s not
trying
to be a jerk.

He looks at me, and his whole face falls. “Hey, Kate, I didn’t mean—I thought you were kidding. That you were just making up an excuse for your bad taste in music.” I think it’s supposed to be an apology, albeit a bad one. He makes up for it when he gently slides the record from my hands and tucks it under his arm. With his other hand, he pulls me to him and folds me into his chest. He smells so good, like mint soap and leather, like musk and man and everything right in the world. I close my eyes and inhale, and quite possibly bury myself a little deeper into him. “I have an idea,” he whispers into my hair, “It isn’t that expensive, so I’ll buy the album for you. That way, you’ll have something to remember him by. Is that okay?”

I nod without raising my head, and nearly die when his lips brush against my forehead. He holds them there for a moment and the feeling is heaven, but then he breaks away and exhales long and slow, like he can’t decide if all this kissing is a good idea or not. I’m not sure, either, but I want it to happen again and again. Of course that’s when I start to feel guilty, and because fate has a way of kicking me in the teeth, when he finally releases me and I swipe under my eyes and turn away to scan the racks and racks of vinyl, it happens. I’m an idiot, and it happens. And if I’d waited one second longer, I might have been home free.

“Did you just smile?” Caleb asks.

Forcing my face into a neutral expression, I turn back around blink up at him. “Excuse me?”

His eyes narrow. “You smiled. I saw you.”

I feel my stupid lip twitch, which doesn’t help me at all. “Well—I mean, you
did
kind of kiss me and—um…it
was
kind of nice, and…well…” I run my finger along a row of forty-fives and think about whistling, but decide it might not be the best move.

He shakes his head. “You are the biggest con artist I’ve ever met in my life, and I spent forty-eight hours in jail. Cancer, my butt. You probably don’t even have a grandfather. Buy your own stupid album.” In one swift movement, Donny and Marie land back in my hands.

“Are you seriously accusing me of lying just to cover my embarrassment over this?” I hug the record and try to muster up some genuine outrage. All that materializes is fake outrage, but that’ll work, too. “I do too have a grandfather!”

A hand goes on his hip. “Did he die of cancer?”

“Not technically, but—”

“Is he dead at all?”

I tilt my head. “Dead in what sense?”

“Dead in the dead sense.” He rolls his eyes. “Donny and Marie. What a joke.” He snatches the album back from me and begins to read the titles out loud.
I’m A Little Bit Country
,
‘A’ My Name is Alice
—is that actually a song? That’s the dumbest title in the entire world. Now, let’s see—” Okay, now I’m a little embarrassed and I grab it from him before he can shout out anything else.

“Stop it! There’s nothing wrong with wanting this record. Just because you’re an album snob—”

“Says the woman who has a forty thousand dollar one tucked away inside a cheap Wal-Mart bookcase at home.”

“I’m buying the album, Caleb. Because despite what you might think, I did have it as a kid and I did lose it in a move.” I head for the register, secretly hoping he’ll follow. He does. “I’ve been trying to find it for three years, but funny enough no one seems to have it—”

“Because they were all wisely destroyed in a church album burning,” he interrupts.

That stops me cold, and I wheel on him. “Churches do that?” The idea is preposterous. Outrageous. Wrong on every level. What if something was burned that I don’t have yet?