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“Don’t be an ass,” North said. “This is stupid.”
“It’s the only way. Silas did his initiation. You’ve got to do yours.”
“You made Silas drink an Icee until he got brain freeze. That’s not the same thing.”
“Yeah, well, everyone’s is different. I don’t know what you're complaining about. Yours is way more fun.”
“I’ll go,” I said, my voice an octave higher than usual. I swallowed as eyes shifted to me. I placed my red cup on top of one of the dressers. I avoided their stares and focused on North. “It’s just a couple of minutes, right?”
“You’d rather go with me though, wouldn’t you?” the girl, Jade, said next to him. She stroked a red painted fingernail across his chest. “Me or the Ice Queen?”
A rippling wave shattered through me. Ice Queen? Was that the rumor going around? Was it because I didn’t talk?
“Take them both,” someone said.
The guys laughed.
North grunted. He lunged through the crowd, grasping my arm, tugging me toward the closet. “Two minutes.”
“Take your time,” one of the guys said. “We’re not in a hurry.”
North shoved me into the walk-in closet. The door closed behind us. The last look I got was from Jade, her raven hair falling across her cheek. She glared in after us with her arms crossed over her chest.
CLOSET
With the door closed, North spun around, staring down the door with his arms folded.
“North?” I asked quietly.
“You shouldn’t have come in here,” he said, his tone lower than I was used to. He talked to me with his back turned. “You should have went back to Silas.”
The coldness caused me to step back. Was he angry with me? I thought I was helping. He didn’t seem to want to go in the closet but he had to if he wanted to do what Mr. Blackbourne said. Was it the girl? He didn’t seem to want to go in with her.
Or maybe he did. She was very pretty. I wouldn’t have picked her, but who was I to pick anyone for any of them?
Only he felt he needed to protect me, so he chose me to avoid problems?
I cowered into myself, my shoulders slumping forward and I stared at the tidily vacuumed beige carpet. Memories of my mother locking me in her closet swept through me but I bit them back. At least we weren’t in the shower.
I wanted to slip back to Nathan. I wanted to lie and say I wasn’t feeling well. I wanted to go back to my house with him, or his house, or Kota’s. I didn’t care. Parties were stupid. I wanted to be with them somewhere else. I didn’t want to see North going into closets with other girls.
“Why did you want to come?” North said, grumbling. “What in the world made you want to go to some shit party like this?”
I trembled where I stood. “I’m sorry,” I said softly.
I sensed him moving, turning to face me. I couldn’t get myself to look at him. I didn’t want to see the anger in his eyes. I messed up. Kota was right to warn me about this. I should have listened to him.
North sighed. “Sang Baby, don’t look like that,” he said in a gentler tone. “This isn’t your fault.”
My cheeks felt hot. “If you wanted to come in with the Jade girl, you should have picked her. I could have gone and looked for the other guys.”
North snatched at me by the arms, shaking me enough that my head rolled back and I was looking up at him. “What the fuck are you talking about? I didn’t want to go in here with her. I picked you.”
“I thought you picked me just so I wouldn’t be alone. That’s why you said I should have gone back to Silas, right? I would have been fine if you wanted her. If you didn’t want me to come to the party, I wish you would have said something before.”
North’s mouth fell open. He let me go and took a step back. “Sang Sorenson,” he bellowed, pointing a finger at me. “If I ever hear you talk about yourself like that, or assume what I want again, I’m going to kick your ass.”
“But you just said ...”
“That’s not what I meant,” he barked at me. “I’ll go out with who I want, when I please. And not when and where some shit-faced teenagers tell me.”
I stared up at his dark eyes, fixated by the fury, awestruck by his power. “I ...” I stammered. “I don’t ...”
“If Silas hadn’t insisted we had to go to this party, I would have made good on my promise to take you to the beach tonight instead.”
My eyes widened. “North ...” I said, trembling now out of something warmer than before.
“I don’t do anything half-assed,” he said. He stepped closer, nearly hovering over me. “Sang, I’ll take you out if you want, but you’ve got to tell me that’s what you want, too. I’m not doing it to babysit you or protect you. I mean I’ll do that but that’s not what I mean when I ask you out. And I’m not going to let anyone peer pressure me into a closet with some skank who wants to take whatever party drug is on tap and fuck her after. I wouldn’t do that to you.”
I took another step back away from him, mostly out of the ferocity of his voice.
He captured me, grasping me by the arms with his coarse hands. His handsome, gruff face closed in on mine until he was a breath away. “Are you going to tell me you don’t want to now? Is that what you were saying?”
My heart thundered and I rattled in his grasp. “No! I mean, yes. I mean ... I do want to be with you.” The words sounded better in my head, and meant something different before I spoke. I couldn’t find words to say how I felt. I did want to go out to the beach with him. I was glad that I was in the closet with him and not with Jade.
I was especially happy he had never wanted her in the first place.
North’s gaze fell over my face, tracing a line with his eyes from my forehead to my mouth. His face softened. “Sang,” he breathed out. His eyes lowered, falling on my mouth again.
A trembling started in my spine. The sensation cut through me exactly as it had with Kota. North wanted to kiss me. I was going to let him.
A rattling noise cut through and North grunted, let go of me and turned around.
The door swung open. It was the same group, but the girl was gone. A couple of the guys shook their heads.
“Boo,” one of them called.
“Yeah, you’re not even kissing her,” another cried out.
“Two more minutes!”
The door closed again. There was a click, and the lights over our heads shut off.
“God damn it,” North said. “I knew this was going to happen.”
My heart thundered in my chest. I took a step forward. Feeling through the dark for him. My hand made contact with his back. He jumped out of my reach.
“What are they doing?” I asked in a quiet voice. I felt braver since I couldn’t see his face.
“They’re waiting for a show.”
“What show?”
“Us,” he said. His hand found my arm, and he traced it to my hand, holding it. “They’re waiting to see us make out or something before they let us out.”
I harrumphed.
“Yeah. My thoughts exactly.”
“Should we get Silas to help?”
North grumbled. “It’s my fault. I haven’t been doing my job. I should have downed an Icee, too. They’re doing it because I haven’t been talking to them. They want to see me do something stupid. Stupid people like it when others do stupid things with them. Welcome to high school.”
I sighed. “What do we do?”
“Wait for them to get bored,” he said, squeezing my hand. “I’m not going to let our first kiss be at some drunk ass party, in some godforsaken closet in the middle of nowhere.”
I floated where I stood. He thought about kissing me. It brought a smile to my face, despite his complaining.
It also gave me an idea. “North.”
“Yeah, Baby?”
“Maybe we should give them what they want.”
He squeezed my hand. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“
Do you remember the slumber party we had? Do you remember Luke and me in the closet?”
He paused. “You want to trick them?”
“If you want to get out of this closet and be accepted, we can just pretend for now. It wouldn’t be a real kiss. It’s not like they need to know.”
He shifted closer. I could feel the heat of his body near mine. His breath fell across my forehead. He stood in silence for a minute as if contemplating. “I don’t think I want to do that. I don’t want kids talking all week about us fucking at some party.”
I didn’t want that, either, but I also didn’t want to be in the closet any more. I wanted to go home.
I trembled, but lifted my free hand. I found his face in the dark. I thought he would stop me but he was stock still. I traced his jaw, finding his mouth with my fingertips.
I stood on my toes.
He lowered his head.
With my fingers covering his mouth, I kissed my fingernails. His lips puckered against my fingertips. He’d kissed me back.
