He gave a shrug, meaning he would try anything once. He put the earbuds in. I started the recording.
He laughed. The meditation lady had a British accent. I smiled at him.
He sank down on one forearm on the bed, watching me. I remembered that the program’s first instruction was to lie down. I patted my thigh.
He rolled over with his head in my lap. His hair was a lot softer than I’d imagined. Half the time I saw him, his locks hung in clumps, wet from sweat or a shower or the ocean. His hair was clean and dry now, and baby fine, only a whisper against my skin.
Brody Larson’s head was in my lap.
Something told me we were not just friends anymore.
But even as I thought this and felt my face flush hot, Brody seemed oblivious. Relaxed, even. He crossed his ankles—the meditation lady was telling him to make sure all parts of his body were comfortable. He rotated his throwing shoulder—the lady said he should work out kinks in any joint that hurt.
I lowered my hand to his shoulder and circled my fingers on his shirt, rubbing gently. This was not part of the relaxation technique, having his not-just-friend-anymore rub his kink. I was probably unrelaxing him.
Maybe I didn’t care.
He lifted his opposite hand and put it over mine, as if to tell me he approved.
His breathing deepened. He’d moved on to the part of the program in which he inhaled slowly and visualized his body growing heavy and sinking into the mattress. So I wouldn’t distract him, I stopped rubbing his shoulder. He kept his hand on mine.
I gazed down his long body stretched to the end of my bed in the dim lamplight. When I looked at him from this angle, free to let my eyes roam across the whole of him, he seemed taller, but thinner, as he had when I photographed him at the 5K without his football shoulder pads. His crossed ankles were slender, and his feet were long, not wide, almost elegant.
After listening to a few more of his slow breaths, I started to feel ridiculous that I was still so tense, hovering over him like a buzzard about to swoop down on dead meat. I eased my shoulders back against the pillows, careful not to disturb him, and tried to practice what I’d been preaching, letting myself relax.
Without warning, the door opened. Mom was silhouetted in the bright light from the hallway.
It was like her to walk into my room without knocking. She wasn’t trying to catch me doing something wrong—she just thought of herself rather than me. It didn’t occur to her that she might startle me. I went out of my way not to startle her, but she didn’t do the same.
Now, though, her unannounced entrance felt like an intrusion. I wanted to snatch my hand off Brody’s, but that would alarm him and ruin everything. I left my hand where it was and lifted my chin.
Taking just enough steps into the room for her face to appear in the lamplight, Mom mouthed, “Thank you.” She knew why I’d called Brody, and she wasn’t mad. She was grateful.
I gave her the smallest nod.
She walked her fingers in the air and pointed behind her. She meant my dad had left and she was going over to the B & B for a while. She backed out of the room and closed the door as silently as she’d come in.
Brody moved anyway. We’d disturbed him. But no, he was rolling on his side, as the meditation lady told him. Sitting up was next, and a stretch and a yawn.
Then he pulled out the earbuds and scooted up to sit beside me against the pillows again.
I raised my eyebrows. “Well? Do you feel calmer?”
“I did,” he said softly, looking at my lips. “But not now.”
Our eyes locked. He moved toward me. We’d shared a moment like this before, with my face on fire and my heart speeding, but it had ended in disappointment. This one would likely end the same way. I waited for Mom to burst back in or for Brody to tell me he’d been kidding.
He reached up to cradle my cheek. His thumb traced my lower lip, sending chills shooting up my arms.
His lips met mine.
He kissed me hard for a second, then opened his mouth. This was a kiss. Quinn and then Noah had faked it pretty well with me in crowded movie theaters when lots of our classmates were around to see. But Kennedy, despite all his sarcasm directed at people who were less worldly than him, had zero idea how to kiss. I kept trying to show him. He obstinately refused to learn.
I didn’t need to teach Brody anything. As we kissed, his hand crept across my waist and circled my hip like he wanted to hold me steady forever. When I took a turn at kissing along his jawline, he lifted his head to give me better access to his neck, then gasped as if he’d never felt so good. This couldn’t be true, but he made me feel like I was giving him the sexy experience of a lifetime.
I kept expecting him to touch my breast, which made me nervous with my mom around. But he didn’t try—maybe for the same reason. After we’d made out for a good half hour, though, I wanted something more. I slipped my hands underneath his shirt. That’s when he slid his hands under my shirt and fingered the hook of my bra.
But in the end, he decided against unhooking it. He broke our kiss and backed a few inches away from me, panting. Between breaths, he grinned at me and said, “You have to know what you can get away with.”
“Yeah.” I smiled, showing him I understood. But I had something more I needed to say to him, something I was afraid I would regret. “I . . . ,” I said, and sighed. I couldn’t catch my breath. “Um . . .”
Kennedy would have interrupted by now, asking me if I spoke English. Brody only raised his eyebrows and watched my mouth like I was beautiful.
“I . . . don’t want to do this anymore,” I said in a rush. “I don’t like sneaking around, cheating.”
He chuckled. “Yes you do.”
He must have been referring to the head rush I got every time he came anywhere near me. Was I that obvious? I clarified, “It’s not right.”
“Well, why don’t you break up with Kennedy, then?” he asked. “I’ve been waiting for you to do that.”
“Me!” I exclaimed. “Why don’t you break up with Grace?”
“I’m not with Grace,” he said. “I told you, she spent half of Monday with that jerk from Florida State.”
“But when she came back,” I pointed out, “you sandwiched her between your legs and massaged her shoulders.”
He pursed his lips and shook his head. This was the first time since Ms. Patel’s homeroom that I’d seen his green eyes look angry. “I did it because you were in the ocean with Kennedy—right after we made out in the pavilion. Like that meant nothing to you. Like you didn’t care.”
“Brody!” I said, exasperated. “I stayed out there with Kennedy because the second Grace came back from getting drunk with those college dudes, you had your hand on her ass.”
He tilted his head to one side, looking genuinely perplexed. “I had my hand on her ass?”
“Yes!”
“I don’t even remember that, Harper. I was probably just holding her up because she was falling-down drunk.”
“How can you not remember putting your hand on a girl’s ass?” I insisted.
“I dated her on and off all summer. I’m sure I’ve put my hand on her ass plenty of times. This one instance doesn’t stand out.”
“I’ve dated Kennedy for six weeks and he’s never put his hand on my ass.”
“Kennedy is from another planet. That’s my only explanation for why he doesn’t see you’re hot.”
I frowned hard. When Mom caught me making that face, she warned me, only half-jokingly, that I’d better lighten up or I’d get wrinkles. I smoothed my brow and relaxed my jaw, then sighed. “You know I don’t have a lot of experience with this, Brody. If you’re lying to me, I wouldn’t get it.”
“You think I’d mislead you for fun?”
“For a little thrill, yeah.”
He gave me a slow, clear-eyed, disappointed look.
Then he picked up my hand and placed it on his shirt. His heart raced under my fingertips.
“Th
at could be excitement from misleading you,” he acknowledged. “Or, just possibly, you turn me on.” He held my gaze as he leaned toward me.
I met him more than halfway. I kissed him. He uttered a soft groan and put his hands in my hair. His mouth was soft and warm and sweet. My whole body glowed so brightly that I decided Kaye and Tia had sold this making-out business a little short. It wasn’t just the addictive physical sensations, but also something that shifted inside me, in my heart.
He let me go, panting again. He rubbed his rough thumb back and forth across my bottom lip. “My God, Harper.”
“I’ll break up with Kennedy at school tomorrow,” I said hoarsely.
“Do you want me to be there?” Brody asked.
“Oh, no,” I said. “Kennedy’s never been into me. I doubt he’ll mind. He’ll probably feel relieved.”
“I seriously doubt that.” With a final sigh, Brody said, “I’d better go. Calculus calls, and if I’m out too late, my mom will call too.”
I scooted off the bed, then held out both hands to help him off—which was a joke. He probably weighed almost twice as much as me. I led him by the hand through the house and out to his truck behind the B & B.
“Now that I think about it,” I said, “how’d you know I live in the house out back instead of the big Victorian?”
“I didn’t,” he said. “I knocked at the B & B first. One of your guests came down in a bathrobe and told me where you live.”
“Great,” I said. “I’ll hear about how cute you are at the guests’ breakfast tomorrow.”
“Aw, shucks.” He laughed. “Speaking of tomorrow, will you come with me to Quarterback Club for dinner? It’s a bunch of old people who raise money for the team and invite someone from the community to speak about how violent sports enrich our lives.”
“Fun!”
“Yeah. The football players go, and their girlfriends, and the cheerleaders, so Kaye will be there.”
“And Grace,” I guessed.
“And Grace,” he agreed, “but I’m not with Grace.”
He didn’t add, I’m with you. But he didn’t have to. It was finally sinking in that I was the star quarterback’s girlfriend.
“By the way,” he said, opening the door of his truck, “do we still need to take a new Superlatives picture, or was that just a ploy to go out with me?”
“Both,” I admitted. “I wanted an excuse to see you again. But we do need to take another picture. The one from the Crab Lab doesn’t go with the others I’ve taken. We don’t have to do it tonight, though. We have time.”
And when I said this, I believed it was true.
12
THE NEXT MORNING, THE LOCAL TV news was tracking a hurricane headed for central Florida. Two rooms of guests in the B & B announced at breakfast that they were leaving. Mom explained that the hurricane wouldn’t hit us just because it was moving in our general direction. The storm was still five days away. Anything could happen before it made landfall. It could peter out, or stay strong but veer toward Alabama. If Floridians packed up and left every time a hurricane headed our way, we’d be gone from August to October.
The tourists weren’t convinced. The TV news had really done a number on them, pointing out that the Tampa Bay area was way overdue for a direct hit from some kind of Hurrigeddon. They packed their cars and hit the road right after breakfast, determined to make it out of town before everyone else got the same idea and the hurricane escape routes were immobilized with gridlock. Whatever.
The terror was infectious, though. At school, people were tense, talking about the coming storm and the Yankee transplants in town who’d decided to drive inland for a long weekend, just to play it safe. Maybe the charged atmosphere affected me, too, and that’s why I sounded so on edge when I told Kennedy during journalism class that I didn’t want to see him anymore. He sensed my weakness, and that’s why he said what he said next.
He crossed his arms and demanded, “Is it because of Brody?”
I glanced around the room. Mr. Oakley was out of town. His son played for the Gators, and he and his wife had driven to an away game up in Georgia. We had a sub who babysat for the school a lot. Her agenda was to spend the whole period texting on her phone unless someone actually started shouting, in which case she sent the offenders to Ms. Chen’s office.
Therefore, the class was even more disorganized than usual. Instead of working on our projects for the newspaper or the yearbook or journalism independent study, everyone was goofing off like it was study hall—except Kennedy and me, of course. They weren’t paying attention to us. The room was so loud with conversations and laughter that nobody could hear us when we talked in a normal tone. I’d thought it was safe to sit with Kennedy and break up with him between assembling the layouts for two Superlatives pages. It never occurred to me that he would care enough to get mad—much less raise his voice.
Quinn and a few other guys eyed us, then turned back to their own computers. I kept my voice quiet, hoping Kennedy would follow my lead and calm down. “You and I have dated for six weeks,” I said, “and we’ve argued for probably five of them. We got along better when we were just friends, remember? Some couples don’t work out.”
Kennedy nodded. “Some couples aren’t perfect like you and Brody. You know he only wants down your pants, right?”
At least somebody does, I thought. “If he did,” I said carefully, “it’s none of your b—”
“He never would have noticed you if you hadn’t started following him around like some rock-star groupie after that stupid vote. And dressing like you wanted it.” Kennedy waved at my fitted V-neck T-shirt (no cleavage), chunky necklace, Bermuda shorts, and high-heeled wedges.
What?
“Everybody says you’re trying to get Brody by dressing and acting like Grace,” Kennedy sneered.
“Oh, really?” I tried to sound scathing, but I didn’t feel very scathing. What Kennedy was saying hit too close to home.
Until he said this: “I thought you were a nice girl.”
“You thought I was a nice girl,” I repeated. “You thought I was a nice girl? What the fuck does that mean?” Now everybody from the surrounding computers was staring at us. I lowered my voice. “I can’t be a nice girl anymore because I don’t wear glasses, or I don’t wear high-necked dresses? Or is it because I don’t do what you tell me?”
“You know what it means,” Kennedy said darkly.
“No, I honestly don’t,” I said. “But I know it’s sexist. Like girls are supposed to be vessels of purity, and I’ve sprung a leak. Boys, meanwhile, can do whatever they want.
“You know what?” My voice was rising again. I’d stopped caring. “You’ve never treated me like you genuinely wanted to be with me. You wanted the appearance of dating without caring about me or my feelings. I deserve better. I should have broken up with you the first time you gave me the silent treatment.”
I got up then, taking my bag and moving toward the back of the room. When I’d brought up the subject, I’d intended to break up with him gently and then listen carefully to his response. But I didn’t care what he had to say anymore.
I didn’t look forward to sitting at the back of the room for the rest of the period either. Everyone who’d been in earshot of our breakup was still staring at me. But before I’d even sat down, Kennedy was standing close, towering over me.
“I need all of the Superlatives photos tomorrow,” he said smugly.
“Tomorrow!” I exclaimed. “My deadline is a week from tomorrow.”
“No, my deadline is a week from tomorrow,” he corrected me. “For the whole section. Your deadline is whenever I say it is. I’ve given you as many breaks as I could, but I’ve told you I need those photos on a rolling basis so I have time to lay out everything. You haven’t been turning many in. So I want them all tomorrow.”
I looked slowly around the room. All conversations had hushed when Kennedy followed me to the back. Now everyone—not just the people who’d overheard
us before, but everyone—stared at us like we were a reality show. Only the sub wasn’t paying attention. She had her earphones plugged into her phone.
“Kennedy,” I whispered hoarsely, “I know you’re mad at me, but I can’t do that. There’s no way. I haven’t even taken all the photos yet. And once I did, I’d have to stay up all night to format them.”
He shrugged, as if to say, Serves you right. “You’d have the section photographed and turned in by now if you hadn’t spent the last week creating an after-school job for yourself with that 5K. Maybe we need a different yearbook photographer.”
I’d felt myself blushing under everyone’s attention before. Now I felt the blood drain out of my face, and my fingers tingled. Photography was what I loved most in the world. I’d busted my ass to get this position. Kennedy couldn’t do this to me.
Yes he could. Mr. Oakley had told us to handle our problems like the yearbook was a business and we were employees. That meant Kennedy could fire me.
I gaped at him, wishing away the tears in my eyes. “That makes zero sense! I’m busy, but I’m turning everything in on time. If you’d set my deadline for tomorrow in the first place, instead of a week from tomorrow, I wouldn’t have asked for the 5K job.”
He smiled. “If you turn all the Superlatives photos in tomorrow during class, I’ll consider letting you keep your position.”
I wasn’t sure whether it was his patronizing tone, or the fact that he’d chosen to make a scene in front of the whole class, or the entire six weeks of him acting like I wasn’t good enough for him. But something made me snap. I shouted, “You know what? Don’t bother. I quit.”
His face fell. His eyes were wide, looking around at the staring class for the first time. “You can’t quit! This section is due. Nobody in our class will get a yearbook on time!”
“Oh, I’ll make your stupid deadline tomorrow,” I said. “The section and the yearbooks won’t be late because of me. After that, as long as I can get into journalism independent study and Mr. Oakley promises not to flunk me, I’m quitting. I’m not going to work for a boss like you.”