“Well, I must have broken a mirror.” My jaw clenches as I channel my anger right into her eyes. “I’m leaving now.”
Jennifer gets in my face. Her eyelids glow purple and green in alternating stripes, and it’s so cool I want to cry because I wasn’t there to help her with it.
“The only thing that’s going to get broken is your heart.” She glares at Joel a moment before speeding back to the gym, and the silence left in her wake crushes every bone in my body.
Joel helps me to his truck.
We don’t say much all the way to his house.
* * *
“Do you think it’s a coincidence that I took a punch bath?” I ask after changing into Joel’s sweats and an old practice jersey of his that dangles off my shoulder, giving it that Flashdance vibe. Everything is loose on me, but comfy. It feels weird wearing boys’ clothes, but sexy in a strange way. Joel still looks hotter than heck. He took his jacket off and untucked his shirt. I happen to be a very big fan of the after prom look that guys devolve to at the end of a formal night, so I very much approve.
“I don’t know.” He pauses to frown at the idea. “If you didn’t see anyone, I guess it was an accident.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
He pulls the second controller toward me as I plop down next to him on the couch. He’s already eating it on the first level of Dig Dug just trying to help me get set up. This is one game we haven’t played together before.
“Look out for the Pookas. They’re the red guys. The Fygars are the little green dragons that can kill you with fire—and look out for the falling rocks. You can inflate the monsters until they explode.”
“Good to know. I seem to be really good at inflating people until they explode.”
“Sorry about that. I’m sure you and Jennifer will work it out.” He scoots in until our thighs touch and offers a partial hug. We play for the next half hour, moving on to Pac-Man.
“Do you still go to Nell’s Liquor Store to play? I used to see you there all the time, but I really didn’t know you, so I didn’t say hi or anything.” Truthfully, I stalked Nell’s for its frequent Joel Miller appearances. He used to come in with Russell, and they would play video games for hours. Jen and I knew they had to be from the Heights. San Ramos kids ran out of quarters after fifteen minutes.
“Oh, yeah.” His dimples go off as he delves into the memory. No one has dimples as deep as Joel Miller’s. “Russell’s mom used to pay us to babysit her clothes at the Laundromat next door. We’d hang out for the day, and then she’d pick us up. You should have said hi.” He rocks into me just as he’s eaten on screen by a pack of wild ghosts. “You would have spared me a lot of trauma.”
“Oh, right—with my leg. But in all fairness, you probably would have hit me, even if you knew me. I was in your blind spot.”
He casually tosses down his controller and turns to me fully. His eyes are so vibrantly blue, like those postcards you see from tropical beaches. They make everything else in the room look monochromatic, and my stomach pinches with fire. Mr. Sardona was a very big fan of contrast. I believe the word monochromatic alone would have given him a literary-gasm. Not that I want to imagine my old creative writing teacher lost in ecstasy over anything, especially not a word I might be throwing out there to describe my boyfriend’s eyes. Wait. Joel isn’t my anything. I swallow hard because I’m not so sure I believe it.
“That’s actually not what I meant.” His finger rises to my cheek, and he strokes it. There’s a sadness in his eyes. His lips curve with a dull smile. Joel is just as handsome when he’s serious as he is when he’s not. “I think if I knew you back then, things could have been different for us.”
Us. My subconscious gloms onto that word and hijacks it to the land of unicorns, fairy tales, and happily-ever-afters. But then, Kelly the Wicked Witch rears her ugly green head and zaps me right back to reality.
“Like, you would know how lame I was in advance?” I tease.
“No.” He winces. “You shouldn’t put yourself down like that. You’re the smartest, prettiest, coolest chick I know.”
“Ha!” I try to laugh, but it defuses rather quickly. “My dad says when people say nice things you should just say thank you.” My face heats. I’m not big on having any attention thrust on me. “So, thank you.”
“Your dad is a smart guy, too.”
“Right.” I roll my eyes. “Not as smart as yours. He’s not sending rockets into space.”
“No, he’s sending cars onto the streets. Believe me, more lives rely on your father than they do on mine. Anyway, mine is sort of an asshole.”
“Really? I haven’t met him, but I’m sure if I did, I’d think he was a great guy. We’re just harder on our parents than we would be with other people.”
“I think he’s cheating on my mom.”
“What?” I pull my good leg up onto the couch as I scoot just shy of landing on his lap. “What happened?”
Joel relaxes his head back against the sofa for a moment as if rethinking the words that just flew out of his mouth. “I overheard something a few months back. At first, I thought he was talking to my mom. It was pretty gross.” He gives several hard blinks at the ceiling. “I mean, you got to figure your parents are still doing it, but to hear this crap was a little fucked up. He didn’t think I was home—practice was canceled, and so I walked into the kitchen before they started to get wild and embarrassed the hell out of all of us. Only my mom wasn’t in the room at the time. It turned out that he was on the phone talking that way to some other woman. I don’t know who the hell he was talking to, but I didn’t stick around to find out. I took off. We never bring it up. It’s like it never even happened.” He plucks at a stray fiber on the bottom of his dress shirt. “The other night, he took off and said he had an emergency at work. But I’m pretty sure he just wanted to get laid by someone who wasn’t my mother.” He digs his palm into his eye and stretches. “Anyway, I don’t want to talk about that. Let’s talk about you.” His arm falls over my shoulder.
“God, I’m so sorry about all that.” I take a ragged breath. “But I’m as plain as a pancake. Nothing exciting here.”
“There you go putting yourself down again. I think I need to kiss you each time you do that just to show you how amazing you are.” A smile twitches on his lips before he plants one on me.
“I think I might like where this is going. I’m pretty terrible you know.”
“Really?” His brows do that sexy deep V formation that makes his eyes glow ten times brighter. Joel lands another soft kiss to my lips. “You’re not terrible. Don’t even joke like that.”
“Are you kidding? I’m a total bitch. You should see the things I do when you’re not around.”
He shakes his head. His mouth covers mine as he offers up a tongue-lashing I can’t resist.
“You know what I was going to say?” He pulls back and takes a chest-expanding breath. His gaze sweeps over my face as if seeing me for the first time. “I wish I knew you way back when, Mel.” He swallows hard. “I don’t think I’d be sitting here tonight struggling to tell you how I feel. I think you’d know by now.”
“What are you talking about?” My stomach surges with acid, unsure if this is a good thing or a bad thing.
“I know that we haven’t really known each other for that long. But in a weird way, I feel like I know you better than I know anyone.”
“I feel the same.” I reach for his hand and clasp onto his warm, thick fingers. My heart starts to race as if we’re sprinting toward a cliff, about to take a flying leap together.
He glances down a moment, his hand stroking the back of my neck. “I guess what I’m trying to tell you is that I’m already gone.”
Gone? My heart thuds to a halt.
“I’m in love with you, Mel.”
It kick-starts again with a vengeance.
“Knock, knock!” a high-pitched voice emits from behind as a young girl races down the stairs two at a time. “Is
this her?” She comes over to the front of the sofa and examines me as if I were an alien. “Like ohmigod!” She’s adorable. Her braces catch the light, and I instantly warm to her. I don’t need a road map to tell she’s Joel’s little sister. They’re wearing the exact same face. “Like fer sure you’re totally pretty. I can’t believe I like finally get to meet you! This is totally bitchin’!” She bounces when she says it, and her ponytail wallops her over the face.
“Mel, this is Tracy, my kid sister—who happens to have very lousy timing.” He pegs her with a throw pillow.
“I’m so sure.” She rolls her eyes. “Were you kissing?” She covers her mouth with her hands, bopping up and down like a spaz, but a cute spaz. Her hair is teased out in a perfect bridge over her head, and her makeup looks outrageous as if she were in her room just now experimenting with every cosmetic in the house. She has a Patty Smyth, Scandal vibe going, and it’s actually a really cute look on her.
“We were whispering.” I bite down on a smile. “Really, really close. Hi—I’m Melissa.” I extend my hand, and she shakes it. “It’s so nice to finally meet you. I was beginning to think he made you up.”
Joel lets out a heavy sigh. “Right about now, I’m wishing that I did.”
Tracy shakes her head with that grin of hers still plastered ear-to-ear. “Don’t listen to him. He’s nuts about me. And he’s like totally lost his mind about you. All I hear is Melissa this—Melissa that!” She mimics him and sways her hips to the rhythm.
“Get lost.” Joel pelts her in the leg with a video game, and she laughs hysterically all the way up the stairs.
“Joel and Melissa sitting in a tree!” she chants as her voice fades long after she slams the door.
“She’s like seriously too cute for words.” It’s true. I’m instantly in love with her. I’ve always wanted a little sister. “What grade is she in?”
“The most annoying grade of them all—seventh.”
“I hear you. My brother is in seventh.”
I twist into him, my breathing already picking up pace once again. “So—you were saying…”
Joel gives a slight nod. That blooming grin of his starts up slowly once again.
“Mel.” He pulls me in and buries his lips on my neck a moment before pulling back just inches from my face. “I can’t stop thinking about you. I want to spend every minute of every day just hanging out with you like this. I don’t care what other people think or say—I want this with you.” He pushes out a warm smile. “I am totally and fully happily lost in you. I’m in love with you, Mel.”
Oh my God. I didn’t imagine those words. I thought for a moment maybe I had. It all feels too good to be true. Me, Melissa Malinowski, with my arms around Joel Effing Miller while he tells me that he loves me? When did this become my life?
“I love you, too,” I blurt out. “I’m embarrassed to tell you how long I’ve felt this way.” I wrap my arms around his neck and touch my lips to his. Our mouths move slowly at first, then with the speed of a wildfire. Joel offers up hard, aggressive, soul-melting kisses. He moves inside my mouth with an aching desperation that we have never shared before. Those words, those three simple words, have the power to transform the legacy of who we are from this point forward. This moment right here is redefining us, reinvigorating, and sculpting out a future I hope we share forever.
My hands slip up his dress shirt, and I run my fingers over his hard as concrete abs, his solid wall of a chest. Joel does the same, slipping his hands up my back, the feel of his bare flesh over mine forces me to take a quick breath. His fingers massage tiny circles over my back before drifting to the front. Joel runs his hands over my bra, and every muscle in me weakens into a puddle—a cheap descriptor, I know. But Mr. Sardona better back the hell off because this is my moment, puddle and all.
It feels amazing. It feels necessary to have Joel touching me this way. His thumbs roll over the fabric of my bra, and I feel him right there, touching the girls, lingering over them for so long it elicits a groan of satisfaction from me. I swallow hard right through our kisses, my mind laser-focused on where his hands are firmly planted.
Joel gently pushes me back until I’m lying on the couch with his weighted body over mine. He’s hiked up on his elbows just enough not to suffocate me, and I pant through a smile looking up at him.
“Are you okay with this?” he whispers the words right over my lips. I give a careful nod, although I have no idea what this might actually entail. Right now, it’s safe to say I’d do just about anything with Joel’s hot, hard as iron body.
Joel slips his fingers over my back and unhooks my bra with a quick twisting maneuver.
A soft laugh comes from me. “That was an expert move.”
His eyes close with remorse. “It was all leading up to you.” He dots my lips with another kiss as his hands glide to the front. Joel groans as his fingers move over my bare skin, and I suck in a breath between my teeth. He pulls back, that smile of his expanding. “I want it to feel good for you.” He lands a wet kiss over my lips. “I promise I won’t go too far.”
Something about his reassurance floods me with relief. I didn’t think I minded being with Joel—I know that I don’t. It’s just that I want more time to prepare for the main event. I have no idea what that might entail other than shaving my legs—leg as it were—and painting my toenails, and both of those things have essentially been done for homecoming. I guess I need a minute to think about it. There aren’t too many things in this world I like getting caught off guard with, and sex is definitely panning out to be one of them.
Joel loves me with his mouth as his heated kisses ignite ten times hotter than before. He peppers his lips all over my face. He hikes up my T-shirt, and his mouth falls to the hollow of my neck, down lower to my chest, pushing aside my bra until he’s kissing me right there on that tender part of me. My body writhes and grinds into the sofa as his hot mouth works its magic.
Oh my, heck. I hold back the nervous laughter trying to evict itself from my throat. I force myself to lie back and enjoy the ever-living shit out of this. This is Joel Fucking Miller. And I do believe this moment actually warrants the expletive—with his mouth on my boob. My freaking boob! It’s like I’m living out some revenge scheme against Kelly in the very best way possible. Or, better yet, simply living out one of my deepest, darkest fantasies right here in Joel Miller’s game room. Honest to God, if I died tomorrow, I would croak with a stupid frozen—perfectly perverted—grin on my face.
His mouth moves over to the other side and repeats his efforts. Obviously, Joel is an equal opportunity nipple grazer, and it feels alarmingly delicious. It feels wild, in an otherworldly ecstasy kind of a way, and that tender spot between my thighs begins to quiver. I’ve had an orgasm before, by my own hand, of course—at least that’s what I’ve categorized those pleasure quakes as being—but this feels altogether way more powerful than anything I’ve been able to gift myself. I was either doing it wrong or Joel is immeasurably better. I’m going with the latter.
His lips find their way back to mine as his hands glide lower down toward my hips. His fingers find their way into my panties, and I want this. I move my hips to his to let him know how bad I need him there.
His mouth moves across my cheek before dipping to my ear. “Still okay?”
“Yes.” I grind my hips into his. Adrenaline courses through me as my excitement hits an all-time crescendo. His fingers dip down lower until he’s feeling me, touching me right there. My entire body jumps as it electrifies with his touch. It’s as if I were dead, and the lighting bolt of his finger jolted me back to life.
“You’re wet.” He takes a gentle bite of my ear.
“Sorry.”
“That’s a good thing.” His finger finds its way inside me, and I start to lose it. He flexes his hand in and out, and a hurricane-like explosion begs to rip from me. I have no idea what I should be doing or if I should be doing anything at all. A soft moan comes from me, and Joel seals his mouth
over mine. His hard-on brushes over my leg through his pants, and my heart jumps into my throat, into my ears, deafening me with its roar.
“Joel?” The overhead lights flick on near the top of the stairs as a women’s voice calls out for him.
“Shit!” I push him off so fast he goes flying.
Joel pulls me upright with him, stuffing a controller into my hand and his.
“Oh, hi!” A beautiful woman with her hair in rollers, her makeup still artfully in place descends the stairs. “I didn’t know you had company. Who is this cute little thing?”
“This is Mel—Melissa.” He clears his throat. “Mel, this is my mom. She’s the girl—you know, that I accidently backed into. I mean, Mel is the girl I ran into. Obviously, I didn’t back into you, Mom. You’re standing there. In front of us. With two perfectly good legs.”
I’m sure he’s wishing she’d use those two perfectly good legs to traipse right back upstairs. I think it’s beyond cute the way Joel is flustered and nervous. Of course, he has every right to be—as am I.
“Oh.” She says it long and drawn out. I’m sure I was a topic for at least one dinner conversation. “Well, Melissa”—she says my name so slow it borders on an insult—“just know that you are always welcome in this home anytime you like.” She nods repetitively as if to reinstate the fact. “I’ll just be going now.” She begins her ascent backward. “You two get back to whatever it was you were doing. It was very nice to meet you!” It takes a few seconds before she kills the lights, and the door clicks shut.
Strange. It’s like she was on pins and needles with me.
“Your mom is really pretty—and nice, too.” Like nice in an odd way, but nice nevertheless.
“Thanks. She is nice when she’s not barging in on me.” His hands float over my sides, and he gives a playful squeeze. “I’d better get you home. If we do anything else tonight, I won’t want to stop.”
“What about—” I glance down at the sizeable bulge in his pants. “Are you going to be okay?” I’ve heard all kinds of crazy things about blue balls. I’d hate for Joel to lose his ability to procreate because he was left to fester.