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He snickers. “You were on such a mission that day. Still can’t believe you had the nerve to pull that off.”
“Not my finest moment, but that was a lifetime ago. She needs to move on already and leave me alone.” Maybe then I’ll shake my unrelenting attraction to her. My body’s draw to Naomi is likely hate induced. The kind of dark passion fanned by anger and long-suffering indignation.
“Maybeyouneed to get over the campaign incident,” Ricky says. “That’s not even why she torments you.” He checks his phone and frowns. “Gotta head out, but I’m looking forward to watching you two murder each other with your eyes tomorrow.”
He trades another charged glance with Aaron as he leaves.
My name’s called to gather my coffee.
I don’t move.
For the life of me I can’t compute Ricky’s words. While I only returned to Windfall a year ago, after finishing college, I visited often enough before then. I ran into Naomi at Duke’s Market and the library and Windfall’s many festivals. For those seven years of run-ins, she’s been nothing but abrupt or outwardly challenging. I assumed my ambush of her campaign ignited her hatred for me.
Before that we were friends. Before that idiotic move, I even tried to flex my pathetic flirting muscles with her. Then I sabotaged her campaign, took the popular vote to victory, and she turned into the Wicked Witch of Windfall.
If losing the election isn’t why she hates me, what the hell am I missing?
chaptertwo
Avett
Naomi is once again infecting my life. She hasn’t been lurking around, goading me with her infantile antics since this morning. I’ve gone about my work as usual—vaccinating Yoda, removing porcupine quills from Peanut Butter’s face, neutering Captain Hook and Barkley—but every free moment has been spent dissecting our storied history. I’ve even gone so far as to analyze our earlier interactions before I ruined her campaign.
As much as it pains me to admit my weakness, I had a thing for Naomi.Pasttense. My body may still react to her physically, but as an impressionable teen I crushed on her. Hard.
Or maybe I was just lonely.
My best friend, Edgar—or as everyone called him back then, E—had recently vanished. I don’t say that with any hint of irony or sarcasm. The dude literally dropped off the planet in the span of one night. His whole family of five boys was suddenly gone. A For Sale sign was slapped on their property. No word, no note, no text or call or any fucking word. He was my closest friend, best bud for eight years, and I didn’t take his disappearance well.
I wasn’t hovering on a knife’s edge of depression, but I was pretty confused. Lonely and pissed off.
Then Naomi James, who had never given me the time of day, walked up to me in the cafeteria and put her hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry about E,” she said softly. “It’s all so messed up. If you need to talk, I’m here.”
I didn’t reply. I was seventeen and shouldn’t have had any issues talking with girls, but my throat felt like it was solidifying—a constant trickle of cement hardening until I couldn’t breathe.
Most people in school avoided me after E left. Kids either didn’t know what to say or they were unnerved by the way I’d shut down and skulked around. Not that I minded. Speaking to people about E’s disappearance would mean thinking about me and my best friend pulling stupid pranks together, slingshotting rocks in Windfall’s abandoned rock quarry, getting drunk for our first time until he puked on his mom’s azaleas.
Opening my mouth would have meant cracking that thickening cement, letting the pain leak through. I knew I’d fucking cry.
So I looked at Naomi, the first person to approach me and offer kindness in weeks, and I couldn’t swallow or speak. All I managed was a small nod.
Her eyes turned glassy, and she bit her lip.
Back then, Naomi didn’t smell like a tropical beach. She didn’t wear flirty dresses that cinched her waist and flared around her calves. She wore baggy T-shirts and jeans, her thick brown hair obscuring her face as she hunched under the weight of her backpack. She was a periphery person in a bustling school full of people, then she squeezed my shoulder, gave me those soft eyes, and I was a goner.
Slowly, each night, despondence over losing my best friend was replaced with Naomi Fascination. She enjoyed science, like me. I even spied her reading one of my favorite graphic novels. I’d wait near her locker, then pretend I just got to school so I could say hi to her as I passed her in the hall. I traded seats with Ricky for the sheer pleasure of sitting beside her in calculus.
One morning, as the teacher droned on about equations and formulas, I leaned toward her and nudged her elbow. “Can I borrow a pencil?”
Her dark eyes darted to my lips, then down to her desk. “Sure.”
Sneaking another look at me, she dipped her hand into her pencil case. When I reached to grab her sharpened 2B, our fingers grazed.
Her lips parted. My dick thickened behind my fly.
That was all it took. One barely-there graze and my body was on fire for her.
I spent the next week reliving her light touch while stroking myself blind, but I didn’t ask her out. Naomi stole occasional glances at me at lunch and in class. I’d linger at my locker down the hall, hoping we’d interact.
