Better Late Than Never Read online

  We formed an easy bond over Pop-Tarts and purple soda – the thing of diabetes. Pop-Tarts became the way we de-stressed; clearing our minds when decorating became too stressful…or when I broke my ass trying to climb up a ladder with my less than graceful self.

  Note to self: don’t climb ladders.

  Even when I thought that after the formal, he’d go back to his friends and I’d go back to being invisible to him, he always found me. Sitting with me at lunch, walking me to my next class knowing he’d be late to his, finding me at the end of school just to walk me home.

  The friendship was not one-sided either. From going with him to his parents’ anniversary party; leaving good luck notes in his locker whenever he had a game or a test; being his listening ear whenever he and his dad got into it. We were always there for each other no matter what.

  I’d spent this Summer volunteering at the homeless shelter and the hospital. He’d made it his point of duty to always be there. Until one day, Nurse McKittrick slapped him with a candy striper top and said, “You’re here enough, kid. May as well put your handsome face to work.”

  It was like he always tried to find ways to talk to me, to keep me in his life.

  And if that wasn’t something a husband did for his wife, I didn’t know what was!

  The more time we spent together, the closer we got. The closer we got, the more we found out about each other. And the more we found out about each other, the stronger our bond.

  We are from two different worlds, opposite in so many obvious ways, yet so similar when the layers are peeled away. I am the expression of who he wishes he could be – someone vibrant, unapologetic, comfortable in their skin, not afraid to march to my own rhythm against the lockstep of society. I am the rebel, whereas he is Mr. Nice Guy.

  He is the calm to my crazy, the conscience to my impulsivity, the reason to my whim.

  And look at my reason by the bleachers, flirting with Becky Gunterson with her long blonde hair and fake…everything.

  Ugh.

  Becky’s not the only one with good hair, Kyle.

  Our baseball team had just won their fifth practice game of the pre-season. We were on fire…and so am I.

  Fuming doesn’t begin to explain what’s going on with me. Steaming ears and Superman’s heat vision eyes: check. Clenching teeth and curled fists: check. I am two seconds away from stomping over to them and staking my claim when a voice startles me.

  “They make you sick, don’t they?” the distinctly-male voice comments from behind me.

  “Oh, my shit!” I startle, grabbing my chest.

  “Shit, sorry,” he quickly apologizes. “Thought you’d smelled me before I spoke.”

  I almost laugh but scrunch my nose up in confusion. “I don’t follow.”

  “Girls usually run in the next direction when they see me coming,” he explains. “I’m guessing I stink.”

  He doesn’t, and as I take him in, I realize he’s not so bad looking either. To be honest, the guy I’m looking at is smoking hot in a bad-for-you, not-the-type-you-bring-home-to-daddy, knock-you-up-just-by-looking-at-you-but-go-back-for-seconds-even-though-you-know-he-is-a-deadbeat-piece-of-shit kinda way.

  My stomach does a flip as my eyes flash to the scar above his eye and down to his crooked nose. Because I’m the nut job who is turned on by the bad boy who fights. His eyes are stormy gray and he stares at me with an intensity that would make my grandma drop her granny panties just before walking into church. I get why girls run away when they see him. He is dangerous with a capital D.

  I wonder how big that D really is…

  “Hm, maybe they’re just pussies,” I dismiss, clearing my wayward, hormonal thoughts.

  He widens his eyes at my foul mouth; but then knits them in confusion. “I don’t follow.”

  I laugh a humorless laugh, because surely this guy cannot be serious. “Hello? Do you see yourself? I bet the reason they all run in the next direction when they see you is because you make them instantly wet. Hell, you’re probably the reason lady boners exist!”

  An evil smirk crosses his lips that makes me want to stab him in his devastatingly handsome face. I’m sure somewhere in Timbuktu it’s a crime to be this ungodly handsome. It’s witchcraft, I tell ya, and he deserves to be burned at the stakes!

  “So, you think I’m hot?” he questions mischievously, waggling his eyebrows.

  Despite the fluttering butterflies in my belly, I’m no punk. He might be able to use his wiles on the idiots of this school, but he’s met his match in Savi Carpenter.

  “Oh, sweetie, you’ve got low self-esteem,” I mockingly sympathize before quickly embracing him.

  I get a good whiff, and hot damn, he smells good! Like the best part of sin: decadent. He stiffens in my embrace and I quickly let him go.

  You’re being weird again, Savi!

  Once again, he is confused. “I don’t follow.”

  “Well, you were fishing for compliments, so I assumed…” I trail off, trying to contain my laughter when it dawns on him that I’ve just insulted him.

  His mouth falls open and it stays that way for a few seconds before he recovers, shaking his head in disbelief.

  “Who are you?” A rhetorical question that I feel the need to answer anyway.

  “Savi Carpenter, nice to meet ya,” I tell him, extending my hand for him to shake. “And you?”

  He takes my hand and a warmth spreads across my palm, my fingers tingling at contact. At sixteen, almost all hot guys give me the same reaction, but I never show it…not until now.

  This boy looks down at our hands and moments pass as he examines our connection, like he feels the warmth and comfort too. Finally, he looks up at me and smiles, and sparks go off around us. I forget everything and everyone. Only this moment exists, him and I.

  His teeth are white, slightly crooked, but perfect for his mouth. His lips look firm, but I feel as though they would be soft against mine, or rough depending on the intensity of the moment.

  “I’m intrigued,” he replies, his blinding smile still in place.

  “Well, Mr. Intrigued, very nice to meet you.”

  Knowing I’m being an asshole doesn’t put him off. If anything it makes him even more fascinated. We stand there like Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb’s distant cousins, silence soaking the atmosphere between us, yet saying so much.

  “I want you.”

  “Not more than I want you.”

  “Let’s ditch this joint.”

  “And get hitched? I’m down!”

  Obviously that last one is my inner voice…

  “What’s going on here?”

  Wait a minute…

  Shaking out of my trance-like state, I blink up at a curious-looking Kyle with his arms folded, crashing our exchange. Party pooper. He’s expecting an answer and I’m expecting privacy. What a conundrum!

  Thank you, English class!

  “We’re just watching the view,” is Intrigued’s answer to Kyle’s obviously asked question, hitching an eyebrow up in challenge as he stares at him.

  “Looks like more than that to me,” Kyle replies coolly looking down at our still-interlocked hands.

  My ears perk up like a dog when his master comes home. Is that jealousy I detect? Well, I’ll be…

  “Wasn’t sure you noticed anything else since your face was so far up Becky’s ass, preppy,” Intrigued comments, his calm and cool front still in place. He releases my hand and I all but stomp my foot in protest at the loss.

  Intrigued steps closer to Kyle and pushes, “Tell me, prepster, what color were her panties? Or, lemme guess, she doesn’t wear them, does she?”

  “You’d know,” Kyle throws back. “Isn’t she one of the fifty?”

  “And yet you’re still barkin’ up that tree,” Intrigued says.

  He shakes his head and walks away from us, bumping into Kyle’s shoulder as he passes. I grab on to Kyle, who reaches for the mysterious and sexy as sin guy I don’t know, effectively saving my
friend from an ass-whooping that I am certain Intrigued could dole out with his eyes closed and hands tied behind his back.

  The guy turns back to us, smirking at Kyle and me, and I have a sudden vision of me giving up my butt for him to whoop. Lord, have mercy, but the boy is fine! And I need to douse these damn teenage hormones, pronto!

  “And, uh, it’s fifty-one,” Intrigued corrects Kyle before his stormy gray gaze lands on me. “Soon to be fifty-two.”

  Um, yes, please!

  “You won’t touch her!” Kyle snarls, stepping in front of me to protect my honor.

  My honor. I would laugh, but it is certainly not the time.

  “Oh, but, Preppy, I already have,” he shoots back, ominously.

  Finally finding my voice, I go to give this cocky, beautiful, piece of shit my mind. But all that comes out is a cross between a scoff and a snort.

  Face, meet palm.

  I had the words to say, knew exactly what needed to be said to this smug, offhand, son-of-a-hot-bitch – because, let’s face it, the boy is purty! He should have been told that he couldn’t touch me with a twenty-foot pole attached to a ten-foot stick; that I wouldn’t let him touch me even if it was mating season; that there was no way I would let him put his stinking paws on me ’cause he’s a damned, dirty ape…

  But instead, I just snorted.

  Classy.

  Intrigued leaves us with a self-assured wink that gives me a sudden urge to poke him in the eye…with my tongue, and I chalk my less than stellar performance to an over-abundance of soft-core porn watching late at night.

  For research purposes.

  Because, in a few short months, I turn seventeen. And it’s out with the hymen and in with the heyyy, men! Or so I plan, since I don’t want to save it for prom like normal teenagers do.

  “Seriously, Savi? Him?” Kyle blasts into my thoughts like a bomb, and when I look at him, he has his hands perched on his sides and he’s scowling.

  This is a serious moment, like, sooo serious. Yet I find myself laughing. Gut-busting laughter spills from my lips and I double over, clutching my stomach.

  “I can’t take you seriously when you look at me like I peed in your milk, Kyle,” I tell him when he stares at me even more pissed than before.

  Kyle throws his hands up in the air, makes a growling sound in the back of his throat before spinning on his heel and leaving me where I stand, laughing like the fourth Stooge.

  Sen-sa-tive!

  “Okay, okay, okay,” I resign, running after him and pulling him back to me. “I’m sorry, Kyle.”

  He doesn’t turn around and I wonder if I messed up royally this time. He sighs heavily and his head falls forward. Still, he doesn’t turn around. Panicking, I step around to face him.

  “Hey, I’m sorry. Did you hear me?” I ask, forcing him to look at me.

  “Was he telling the truth? Did he touch you?” he questions, brown eyes tortured.

  “No, I promise you he didn’t,” I answer honestly, and I hate that that guy has put us in such a precarious spot.

  It’s obvious that the two are rivals, or at the very least they hate each other. Intrigued wants to dangle me like bait between the two of them, but if I were to choose between Kyle and him, my best friend would win any day.

  Searching my eyes, Kyle’s shoulders sag and he nods, seemingly satisfied. He starts walking again and I am forced to follow behind him like a lost puppy. Catching up to his long strides, I hook my arm through his and we walk in silence, both of us lost in thought.

  I don’t know what just happened at the bleachers, but I feel like something has changed between us in that short space of time. I hate that our friendship is so fragile that someone can come between us so easily, and now I feel like I’m grasping at his out-of-reach fingers.

  Determined for the emotional distance to close between us, I bump into him, catching his attention. He looks down at me.

  “You’re my best friend, you know that?” I confess to him.

  Kyle stumbles at that and his face falls slightly before he schools it into a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. I groan silently, rolling my eyes inwardly at my stupid, childish sentiment. The guy probably thinks I’m a nuisance, pulling him away from his potential conquest to save my ass from throwing myself at his arch nemesis.

  Loosening my arm from his, I fold my hands to my back, grabbing on to the ends of my purple hair, intending space. But Kyle pulls me into a hug that throws me for a loop yet makes me feel so grounded.

  “You’re my best friend, too,” he murmurs into my hair, and I breathe a sigh of relief, tamping down the slight hurt I feel at his declaration.

  Did I expect him to confess his love for me? I scoff silently at my stupidity. Yeah, right.

  I return his hug, squeezing tightly to his solid back. We stand holding onto each other for what feels like minutes, each comfortable in the other’s arms. Gradually, we let go of each other, stepping back.

  Something shifts in the air then. A cosmic pull electrifies the atmosphere, causing our eyes to find each other. Our fingers lock and we stay that way for another few seconds, the air charged between us. I know he feels it, too.

  His nostrils flare and butterflies take flight in my belly. I feel a flush creeping up my cheeks like vines. I wet my lips and his eyes dart to them. His pools of brown go darker, the black of his pupils almost full. This is what hunger and desire looks like. This is what I saw in all those books I’d read and…special movies I’d watched on Skin-e-max.

  Like magnets, our heads move to each other, not of our own will. Or is it? I don’t know, but all I know is that my heart is beating out of my chest, and this oddly feels right. Best friends shouldn’t be leaning their heads in to kiss each other, are they? But who am I to question this?

  Bring on the tongue-wrastlin’!

  “Go, Bulldogs!” someone cheers loudly, breaking the spell and forcing us to jerk apart. “Moxam, great game!”

  The person drives on, cheers echoing from the passing car. They were cheering my best friend on a game well played. My best friend. Was I about to kiss him? Oh my God…

  Kyle clears his throat before scratching the back of his head with a hand and sniffing his armpit discreetly.

  Smooth.

  “Uh, you need a ride home?” he asks nervously.

  Biting my trembling, un-kissed lip, I shake my head. When I have found my voice, I tell him, “My Dad should be here already. He’s taking my mom and me to dinner.”

  “Oh,” and for a second there he sounds disappointed. “Cool, I’ll just catch up with you later then.”

  “Yeah,” I reply, and for a second there, I wanted him to be disappointed.

  We walk the rest of the way to the parking lot with him talking about Becky. Every mention he makes of liking her is like a sharp stab to the gut. Three minutes. Three agonizing minutes is what it takes for him to finally get to his car and shut up about her. From all indications, she is right for him in every way possible: right family, right shade of blonde, right upbringing, right kinda future Stepford. She’s everything I’m not and will never be.

  And I just have to live with that.

  It would never work between us anyway. We’re too different. Intrigued is more the kind of guy I would end up with. Speaking of…

  “Who was that guy back there at the bleachers? What’s the damage between you two, anyway?” I question as he opens his dark blue Subaru – God, I love that car.

  “Who, Grayson?” His brows knit and he sinks into his leather seats. I think he won’t answer when he starts his car, and I give up on expecting one until, “He’s my cousin.”

  Two boys who are complete opposites and related. What is it with the Moxam men? Must be something in the water that makes them so hot. Cousins, huh?

  And the plot thickens!

  Chapter Three – Besties: The Point Of No Return

  Savi – Present

  “HEY, MAN, I’M not done yet,” I slur to my new bestie, with my head
heavy with regretfully unsaid feelings and a shitload of alcohol.

  He’s just packed away the whiskey I’ve been downing all night, placing a bottle of water in front of me. I eye the offending drink with disdain, not wishing to experience an ounce of sobriety for the next hour or ever. I’ve got Uber on speed dial as well as my parents, and if all else fails…

  Oh no. He who shall not be named is definitely not an option right now. I’d prefer to choke on my tongue or drown in a pool of alcohol than to speak to him tonight. He’s in best friend time out.

  “Don’t you think that you should go home now, doll?” Guy…? Buddy…? …the bartender says, breaking me out of my internal dialogue.

  “Great suggestion,” I concur, hedging when I realize that I don’t remember his name. “Guy…? Buddy…?”

  “Boyd,” he assists, shaking his head with a smile.

  “Ah! Great suggestion, Boyd, my man,” I continue as if I’ve known him for more than an hour – and as if he didn’t have to remind me of his name just now. “But I want to drink until I can’t feel feelings. Until today never exists.”

  I pause thoughtfully and level him with a serious stare. “Until the Patriots lose a Super Bowl.”

  Fucking Tom Brady with his fine ass…

  Boyd laughs and produces the magic potion and pours me a shot. He looks at the bottle and, making a decision in his mind, shrugs and pours a shot for himself before throwing it back in one gulp.

  “So, his cousin, eh?” my newfound Bestie prods.

  “Yup, his cousin,” I answer, gulping down my whiskey and shaking off the scorching heat. “And lemme tell ya, I blame him for all of this.”

  Savi – Past

  February 2006

  I’m running late. Dammit.

  As I race to the ballfield, I can hear the deafening cheers from our home crowd. I’d had an English tutoring session with some freshmen run a half hour longer than it usually does; and now I’m winded and sweaty, hauling ass. I usually try not to do any sessions when there’s a game, but this one had been unavoidable. I would be damned, though, if I missed one of Kyle’s home games. I’m his good luck charm. Well, I’d like to think that I am.