“Did you like any of the girls you slept with?”
His eyes popped wide open. “How did we get from Lord of the Flies to this?”
My hand was on his jaw. I slipped it off of his face and picked at a loose thread on my comforter instead. “We didn’t really. I just wanted to know. That’s all.”
He swallowed hard, avoided eye contact, and nodded slightly, like he was about to face a firing squad. “They weren’t bad girls,” he said finally. “They weren’t sluts or whatever people would say. They were just looking for a good time the wrong way.”
“Because sex isn’t a good time?”
He took my hand in his and linked ours together, closing his fingers over my hand. “No.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Not when you don’t love the person.”
“Have you ever had sex with anyone you loved?” I tried to push away the sting of jealousy that poured through me.
“No.” Jake’s eyes held mine. “I can’t wait for it to happen,” he said, his voice husky, the words almost whispered and a little shaky. “I know it’s going to happen one day, and it will make all the other times seem even more insignificant than they do now.”
It occurred to me that Jake really wanted to be right about this. Maybe sex hadn’t been all it was cracked up to be for Jake. Maybe he was going to pin all his hopes for sex on his true love’s shoulders. Maybe Jake thought that I was his true love. Excitement and nervous fear clawed and twisted in my heart.
“Not that it wasn’t fun.” In one sentence, he dashed my warm excitement. Fun? “It just didn’t mean anything,” he added.
“That doesn’t seem possible.” I tried to pull my hand away from his, but he held tight.
“What do you mean?”
“If you were willing to do something that, I don’t know, intimate with someone, wouldn’t you have to feel something first?” I pressed. I couldn’t imagine that I would like any honest answer he gave, and I realized it was a tiny bit masochistic of me to ask.
“Sometimes it just happens. In the exact moment I guess it feels pretty good, but afterwards you just regret it completely, you know? And you think you won’t do it again, but it’s like you physically can’t stop it.” He looked at me hard, willing me to understand.
I turned my eyes down, out of the direct line of his gaze. Wasn’t that exactly what happened between me and Saxon? Given a few drinks, mood lighting, and an available bed, I might have been in a heap of trouble with more regret than my already tortured soul could sanely handle.
In the cold light of day the idea of taking my clothes off in front of someone, pressing against them, and not being freaked out by the wet, hard, messy aspects of it seemed crazy. But then so might sticking your tongue in someone’s mouth, or falling into their arms and kissing them crazy. Yet I had done that with someone who I never had any intention of doing it with. Maybe it wasn’t all that different at the core.
His voice interrupted my thoughts. “I know you can’t really understand.”
“I might better than you think. Listen, I was with…”
Just then my cell phone buzzed and almost fell off my desktop. As I flipped it open, I thought about warning Jake to be quiet, but I could see from the panic in his eyes that he was ready to bolt through the window.
“Hey, sweetie,” Mom said, and my guts twisted.
“Hey Mom!” I practically yelled, then wondered if she would hear something in my voice that would let her know what I was up to. Paranoia flooded over me.
“Thorsten and I just got out of the movie. I’m going to grab a Dairy Queen for him. You know Fa, he’s always starving! Do you want something?”
My churning stomach settled down. Dairy Queen was a good fifteen minutes away from our house. “Thanks, Mom, but I ate most of that pizza, and I’m stuffed.”
“Okay. Love you, baby. See you soon.”
“Love you.” I clicked off.
“I should go.” Jake stood up like a shot. “I don’t want to get you in any trouble.”
I already hated the idea of him leaving. My bed even looked overly big and empty without him in it. I dragged my feet all the way to the door, then pulled him down on the steps next to me.
“Five minutes? Please?” I shamelessly bit my lip and pulled my eyebrows down. It was the best sad face I could muster.
“If I get caught here, your parents will hate me even more than they’re already going to.” But he sat next to me anyway and slid his arm around my waist.
“Why would they hate you?” I asked, even though I could think of a hundred reasons without thinking too hard. I leaned my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes against all the doubts and possible problems.
“If I were your parents, I wouldn’t let you date anyone. I’d keep you locked up in your room.” He pressed his lips to my hair.
“Why?” I tried not to concentrate too hard on his fingers, moving absently over my hip. This was also similar to something Saxon had said to me. It was strange how the two of them could be so different, but say so many similar things.
“Because you’re smart and awesome and really beautiful,” he said, and my heart thumped all over the place. I turned to look into his eyes, darker in the twilight and hungry on my face. “Just the things I’m thinking about you would get me killed if your parents knew.”
“What are you thinking?” I dared, nervous to know his secret thoughts about me.
Instead of answering, he kissed me, and his mouth licked and pressed at my mouth in a way that made little moans come out of my throat and answered some of the questions I had about his innermost thoughts.
He ripped his mouth from mine with a groan. My hand flew to my lips, which felt puffy and stung from all the kissing. “I’m going now.” His voice sounded a little choked. “Can I call you tonight?”
“Yes.” I didn’t want to let his hand go.
“Take care.”
I knew there was a lot more he wanted to say but didn’t. He pressed his lips to mine one more time, and then, way too quickly, he was on his dirt bike and rushing through the woods and fields behind my house.
I went back to my room, and it felt strangely empty without him in it. I wondered if we were technically going out now. I was sure that Jake would say we were, but he hadn’t come out and asked.
I put my Kingsolver aside and dutifully took out my Golding. I read and took notes, trying to keep the smell and feel of Jake out of my mind, but it wasn’t easy. It was like my entire brain was dying to think about him and nothing else. I wanted to do other things, but he kept cropping up in my head. I’d wonder if he’d gotten as far as I had in the book, what he thought of Jack’s maniacal take over, what he thought of my room, what he thought of kissing me.