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“I was going to get in the shower, care to join me?” he says.
“I’d love to.”
The bathroom attached to his room is similar to the one in my own room. Our homes—and all the rest of the houses on the block—are all very similar to each other in design. He turns on the water and we climb under the showerhead. Doesn’t take long for the room to steam up.
He runs his hands across my slippery wet body. Just being near him makes everything better. I’m far less stressed about my fight with Nathan now that I’m with Mac. I want to be with him like this forever. Every love song and sappy poem I’ve ever hated makes sense for the first time in my life. I know that if I can’t be with him, it will destroy me.
“What are you thinking about?” he asks me. That’s when I realize he’s studying me the same way I’m studying him.
“It feels like a dream being here with you. Growing up, you were untouchable. You were so far out of my reach that you might as well have lived on the moon.”
He smiles at that. Each time he smiles, I feel him take a piece of my heart. It’s a piece I’ll never get back.
“You know when I mentioned you winning the design contest in high school?”
“Yeah …” I say, wondering where he’s going with this.
“I watched you too. It started the moment you became a freshman when I was a sophomore. I thought you were beautiful. That’s how I knew you were following me around. If it were anyone else, I might not have noticed. But I always noticed you. I wanted to ask you out so bad, but you were Nathan’s little sister and off limits. He was my teammate and I couldn’t do that to him—even if he was always a dick to me.”
My eyes widen. “Are you being serious right now?”
He nods and I can see in his expression that he’s telling the truth. This whole time I thought I was invisible to him and that my feelings were one-sided. It makes sense now how he knew my name.
“Since I’m confessing,” he says with a sheepish smile, “I might as well tell you something else.”
My heart hammers in my chest. The water is a little too hot on my back, but I hardly notice it. There could be an earthquake or tornado and I probably wouldn’t notice that either. Right now, all I can focus on are his lips and the words coming out of them.
“What is it?” I ask.
“You know how your senior year, the day after prom, how you got all those flowers? They were from me.”
My mouth falls open and I’m rendered speechless. I still remember that day like it was yesterday. Prom night I was supposed to go out to dinner and to the dance with a guy who asked me at the last minute. I had no intension of going because the only person I ever wanted to go with was Mac. I was perfectly content to stay home with Nathan and watch horror movies all night. My friends all wanted to go as a group, but they had dates and I didn’t want to be a third wheel.
But then Roy Cruz asked me to go with him and I felt bad saying no because he seemed to really want to go, but didn’t want to go solo. So I said yes. That same night, my mom took me to get a dress. She wanted the night to be perfect so she bought me a five-hundred-dollar dress with equally expensive shoes and jewelry. I looked like a wedding cake topper, and I hated everything about it, but I got really excited to spend all night out with my friends.
When the time arrived for Roy to pick me up, he didn’t show. I waited for an hour, thinking he was just late, but as the night wore on, it never happened. Eventually I got a bunch of texts from my friends saying that Roy had showed up, but with a different date. I was his backup plan if the girl he really wanted to go with said no. Apparently she said yes. And he didn’t have the balls to call me and tell me he wouldn’t be able to make it.
I was so pissed because I never wanted to go in the first place, and then he stood me up. I was humiliated. To make matters worse, my mom wasn’t able to get her money back on any of the items she bought. It was all a waste of time and money. We ended up donating all of it to a charity that helped under privileged teens who couldn’t afford to go to prom. At least something good came out of that horrible night.
The day after, ten dozen roses showed up at my house. It took two delivery vans to get them there. The note on the flowers read: You are too good for him. You are too good for everyone.
I broke down and cried when I saw that note. I still have it in one of my boxes as well as one of the roses that I’d pressed and dried. I even had it laminated and made into a bookmark so it would never be destroyed. I thought my parents has sent them to make me feel better, but they never fessed up to it.
I can’t believe it had been Mac all along.
“How did you know I was stood up for prom?” I ask him. He had been playing for the Whalers a year by then. I figured he’d left our little town and everyone in it behind. He was on the verge of superstardom and had thousands of fans by then.
“That dickhead, Roy Cruz, was my friend’s younger brother. My friend knew I’d had a crush on you and told me what happened. He’d texted me that night. If I hadn’t been in Europe at an away game, I would’ve taken you to your prom myself.”
I touch his chest, trace his freckles with the tips of my fingers. “I don’t want to scare you away, but I think I’m falling for you,” I tell him, continuing to stare at his chest, afraid to make eye contact until I know his feelings as well.
“You can’t scare me away. I fell for you a long time ago.”
He lifts my chin so that I’m looking into his eyes. He lowers his lips onto mine. His kiss is velvet soft and sweet as candy. This kiss feels different after our confessions. It feels more real. More true. As if with his lips he’s making a promise.
He closes the gap between us, pressing his body against mine. We fit together perfectly. My face rests in the space between his chin and shoulder blades. I kiss his Adam’s apple, feel it bob when he swallows. His chin is prickly with stubble, grating against my forehead. I kiss it too. Eventually I’ll kiss every part of him until I’m familiar with every inch of his beautiful, perfect body. I’m already getting used to the feel of his skin, his touch, his scent. If I were blind-folded, I’d know him immediately. He feels like home.
His hands caress my back. His fingers turn my long hair into a twist. He rubs my shoulders. I like this, the way we touch each other. Explore each other’s bodies in a way that we haven’t before. In a way that’s more sensual than sexual. I close my eyes and run my hand along the dip of his lower back and across the smooth muscle of his backside, and up again. His hardness rests against my stomach, but he has yet to do anything with it. He seems content with touching for now.
He reaches over and grabs a bottle of shampoo, pours a glob of it in his hands and starts washing my hair.
“What’s your favorite food,” he asks.
That’s not a question I was expecting, but I roll with it. “Sushi, why?”
“I want to know everything about you. Down to the smallest detail.”
I close my eyes while he massages my scalp and smile. “What’s yours?”
“Street tacos.”
“Yum,” I say.
“Where is your favorite place to visit?” he asks.
“Ireland. I’ve only been once, but it was beautiful.”
“That’s where your family is from, right?” he asks.
“How did you know that?”
“I heard Nathan mention it a lot. It seemed to be a source of pride, and the few times your dad spoke to me, I noticed he still has a little bit of an accent.”
“You’ve been there too, haven’t you?” I ask. I remember him playing a soccer game there once, but it wasn’t televised, so I wasn’t able to watch it.
“Once. It reminded me of you,” he says.
I laugh. “Why, because of all the pasty-skinned red heads running around?”
He chuckles. “There’s that, and also it’s beautiful, and a little untamed. We should go some day.”
I’m afraid to open my eyes in case there’s soap in t
hem, so I keep them closed and try to absorb his words. He wants to travel with me, and he cares what my favorite food is. He wants to get to know me in a way that’s not superficial. And, of course, there’s that little part where he admitted that he’s had a crush on me since high school. All of this information cascades around me like a comforting blanket.
“I would like that,” I say.
He rinses my hair, and the soap from my eyes, then does the same process with the conditioner. Then he washes my entire body with soap. He has seen and touched every inch of me. Everything about me that makes me insecure is on display for him, and yet I feel flawless when I’m with him. He looks at me the way someone would marvel at a perfect diamond. I’ve never had someone make me feel so whole before.
Once I’m all rinsed off, I open my eyes and I see is the W and the four leaf clover tattooed on his neck. I trace a finger across it.
