Better Late Than Never Page 7

  But who’s keeping track?

  I haven’t tried to contact him since his last text. I wish it were pride or malice keeping me from reaching out to him; wish it were truly the end of our friendship. Sadly, I haven’t been able to formulate an answer his question, and every time I think of responding in the affirmative – that yes, our friendship is over – I want to burst into tears. It’s as if the fact that this could really be over – this friendship I have come to rely on, this boy I have come to love, this ‘us’ I’ve gotten used to – fills me up with so much anxiety that it cripples me.

  He doesn’t deserve my radio silence, hell, maybe he does; but not seeing him is killing me. I’m ready to end this cold war between us.

  After a long day of not paying attention in my classes yet again, and doodling Harley hearts – graphic hearts with Harley Quinn riding a Harley – I shove through the doors to my freedom. Kids mill around me, noise and chaos following them as they go. I’m thankful I’ve had no more run-ins with Boobs McGhee. Detention is not a place I’d want to visit again any time soon, even if I had repeat offender Grayson there as company.

  Distracted, I make a beeline for my bicycle and end up bumping into a wall of defined pecs.

  “Aw, crap,” I moan, rubbing my nose that took the brunt of the collision.

  Hands steady me and I look up right away and meet the amused blues of Patrick Devereaux. He’s a Louisiana native who transferred here a year ago. Average intelligence, easy on the eyes, tall, and not overly muscular, with all the Southern charm that can be contained in a hunk of a boy. He is also captain of our school’s baseball team and is one of the reasons our team doesn’t suck so much in the past year. The other reason is my best friend.

  “Well, I’m luckier’n a gamblin’ man on a winnin’ streak,” he purrs, laying his Southern accent on thick.

  Rolling my eyes at his attempt to woo me, I sigh. I am on a mission and him and his charm is making me waste precious time.

  “Hey, Dev,” I acknowledge, using the name everyone calls him around school.

  “I was actually comin’ to find you,” he states, falling into step alongside me.

  I’d started walking as soon as he let go of my shoulders. If he wants to talk, he’ll just have to multitask. I know it is unfair to expect that of a jock, but I don’t have the patience today.

  “Yeah? What for?” I get to my bicycle and bend to unlock the chain securing it to the bike rack.

  “Well, since Kyle’s lifted that datin’ ban on you, I thought I’d take my chance before everyone started comin’ outta the woodwork to get their hands on you,” he explains, smiling that charming smile of his that most girls go crazy over.

  Yet, all I want to do is smack it off his face and bury that smile where no one would ever find it. Because…

  “Excuse me? A dating what?”

  My inner Savi begins to panic: I’m calm. Why am I calm? Something is wrong with me. I think I’m going to die!

  “Yeah,” he drawls, sounding confused, as if I knew this. “Kyle practically told every guy at school that you were off limits. I had my eyes on you when I just came here and the guys on the team warned me against it. Somethin’ about him breakin’ my golden arm…”

  Patrick’s talking – I know he is – but I’ve zoned out. He’s smiling, twirling a lock of my purple hair, probably saying all the right things that would make me weak in the knees. Me, though? My mind is vividly enacting the death of someone who will be sadly missed. Yes, by me, but he’d deserve it for being a little bitch about his feelings for me.

  Hell, if I’d known proverbially peeing on someone you loved was an option…I’d have peed on his car last year!

  I’ve never ridden my bicycle so fast or hard before. If I had enough time to think about that, I’d have snickered at the fact that my first experience at riding something hard and fast wasn’t at all sexual.

  I arrive at Kyle’s house, out of breath and ragier than Harley Quinn when bimbos touch her Puddin’. The nerve of that boy! He had the balls to basically call me a ‘ho’ last week, but can’t tell me how he really feels; because, really, why else would he impose a freaking ban on guys dating me?

  Wuss!

  After Patrick tried to woo me out of my panties for three more minutes, he realized that they were still intact and decided to move on. I’d turned him down for a date, but he still insisted he could change my mind.

  “I like my guys crazy enough to come up with sinister plans to keep me single for the rest of my life, Dev,” I’d said gently, a revelation blooming in my heart like a field of roses.

  I wasn’t mad at Kyle for imposing a ban on me. I was impressed.

  And it made me wet just thinking about the lengths he’d gone to…to…I wasn’t sure yet, but now at his front door, banging it like a damn Congo drum, I sure am gonna find out.

  “Jesus, hold on!” comes the barely-there, but distinctly male voice.

  Oh God, is his father home? That would definitely throw a wrench in my plans to kick my best friend’s butt.

  The door flies open as I attempt to make my hasty retreat and hide in the Moxam’s fern bed. Pretty stupid since I’m wearing a bright green and pink dress and I stick out like a hard-on in a leotard.

  “Savi?”

  Wait, is that…?

  A phlegmy cough follows his question and it sounds so horrible that I bolt from the garden, sure he is hacking up a lung. I stop short when I take him in and a whisper of a crack slices through my heart. Kyle looks awful.

  He’s wrapped in a large grey blanket. His hair is matted, the luster sucked out of it. His face is pale and he looks weak. The life he would normally exude is taken over by a paltry demeanor that I just can’t associate with my best friend.

  The worst immediately flashes to mind.

  “Jesus,” I rush out, quickly approaching him. “You should get inside.”

  Wrapping my arm around his waist, we walk back inside and I close the door behind us. His room is on the top floor and I stop at the bottom of the stairs wondering how I’ll heft him up the longish flight.

  “My parents set me up in the guest bedroom for the time being,” he says, as if reading my mind.

  We take our time getting to the guest bedroom and when I get in, I have to take a breath. It smells like moldy boy and vomit. My moldy boy and his vomit.

  Laying him down, the blanket comes loose, and I take in his naked torso. My tummy does a somersault as I remember what his skin felt like. Still fresh and vivid in my mind, my fingers twitch to touch him again as I tuck him in.

  “You’re burning up,” I observe aloud when my fingers brush against his forehead.

  Racing to the en suite bathroom, I run a clean washcloth under cold water and wring it out with enough moisture left in it. When I re-enter the bedroom, Kyle is watching me and that’s when I notice something. He’s sick…dying, yet his eyes carry all the life that he may be missing.

  And it makes me love him even more.

  I sit next to him and place the damp cloth on his forehead and his eyes close at contact. He sighs deeply and my heart cracks that much further.

  “Give it to me straight,” I ask softly, sadly. “How long do you have?”

  He opens his eyes, confusion written in them. “Huh?”

  His voice is so weak and thin, yet ripe with the illness that will take him away from me.

  “I’ve got the flu, Savi,” he answers…lies.

  “Stop trying to spare my feelings, Kyle,” I demand, tears blinding me as they now fall rivulet by rivulet. “I know that’s why you lifted that stupid ban. You’re dying!”

  “Jesus,” he curses before making two failed attempts at getting up.

  “Save your strength. What’re you doing?” I hastily say as he finally shifts next to me.

  “Savannah, look at me,” he insists, his overly warm hand touching my cheek. “I have the flu. That’s all.”

  I open my mouth to tell him he’s lying again, when I sear
ch his eyes. If it were cancer, he wouldn’t be looking at me the way he did that first time when the masquerade ball finally came together. I still don’t know what that look was called, but it was so intense that it made me weak in the knees.

  Relief fills me to know that my best friend isn’t dying, around the same time I remember why I’m here.

  “Oh, okay,” I tell him in a chipper voice. “In that case…”

  Roughly shoving him backward, I punch him in the stomach, hoping he doesn’t chuck up his guts. While he’s writhing and coughing, I get up and go back to the bathroom and fill the cup I see on the counter with cold water from the tap. Whistling as I take it back to the room, I notice he’s still holding his stomach, but that he’s stopped coughing.

  Good.

  He watches me warily as I approach his bed and doesn’t get a moment’s protest before I am dousing him with the cold water.

  “Motherfucker!” he shrieks, grabbing for his blanket. That’s when I get in his face.

  “The next time you fuck around with a dating ban, make sure you mean it,” I threaten.

  I’m tired of his games – the whiplash, the circles. It’s either he wants me, or he lets me go.

  A growl is the only warning I get before his lips find mine. He’s kissing me with the same fever that is consuming his body and grabbing the back of my neck with a kind of force that tells me to “stay put and let me fuck your mouth”.

  Oohh, yes please!

  My body falls against him; finally where it’s yearned to be since he’d touched me last. We’ve got an opportunity – his parents and sister aren’t here as they’d gone to her soccer match that Joy had begged me to come to – and because of this, we have time. All we need is us – in the right mood and in sync.

  Check!

  My lips eagerly travel down his neck where they seem to singe from the heat coming from him. I pull away and stare down at him, feeling my lips.

  He misunderstands my pulling away when he rasps, “I’m not going to stop this time. I promise.”

  Slow smiles fill the space between us as both our hearts seem to swell at the same time. He sits upright and then I feel his fingers brush my cheek gently. It’s my turn to close my eyes. I love when he touches me. He balances my crazy world and I don’t know how he does it.

  “I’ve missed you,” I confess in a quiet voice, looking away at nothing in particular.

  He nudges my chin so that I face him. “Don’t be ashamed that you do,” he whispers. “I’ve missed you too. You’re all I think about, all I’ve thought about since I’ve met you.”

  I suck in a breath, waiting for him to tell me those three tiny words that will be huger than Anna Nicole Smith’s boobs. But they never come.

  His heavy eyes drop to my lips and then he’s kissing me again. This time, slow. Steady.

  It makes my toes curl.

  And my panties, wet.

  Or is it because I’m sitting on his wet bed, courtesy of me?

  Either way, I’m liking this. Loving it.

  “Pookie?” a tentative voice calls out from what seems like the living room.

  We pull apart like we’ve been burned and stare at each other with saucer-like eyes.

  “Babe?” the female calls again, this time sniffling. Her voice trails away.

  “Shit!” he curses. “She thinks I’m still upstairs.”

  Becky. Ugh.

  “If she finds you down here, she is going to throw a fit, and I’m too weak to handle two separate doses of crazy.”

  I jump up and start straightening my clothes and smooth out my hair. I’m about to slip through the door that leads to the backyard when Kyle whistles softly to get my attention.

  “Hey,” he says. “This isn’t over.”

  And I hope it wasn’t.

  Chapter Six – Hello, Heartbreak, My Old Friend

  Savi – Present

  IT DIDN’T HAPPEN, did it?” Boyd asks knowingly.

  “Yeah, no, it didn’t,” I answer, shaking my head with a sad smile on my face.

  I look up at the clock above Boyd’s head, noting that it is after twelve in the morning. Closing time is approaching, I’m sure, yet Boyd is looking at me expectantly as though he expects to hear every detail of the saga that is Kyle and me.

  “Don’t you have to close up? It’s a weekday,” I observe, taking a sip of my water.

  “My bar,” he grunts, settling on a stool in front of me, silent as he waits on me to continue.

  To give myself a breather from his watchful gaze, I peruse the rest of the bar. My eyes land on the last two patrons in the corner who are obviously a couple – if them sucking each other’s face is anything to go by.

  I sigh wistfully, imagining what it would have been like if I had just let go of Kyle completely and opened myself to someone…anyone else. I had lit a candle in my heart for my best friend, and for years it burned strong. Until it didn’t anymore. Not because I did not want it to burn.

  I had just run out of candles.

  Savi – Past

  I’d waited for him to come back to me, to pick up where we left off. It has just been a few days and he’s sick, but dang! Today makes two whole days since we last saw each other and nothing. No call, no text, no pebble on my window, no sneaking in like the creepy stalker he was last week.

  Dammit, Wednesday was supposed to be the start of something…I dunno, old, I guess? The first time we ever spoke to each other, sparks flew. We knew it, felt it, but were just too cowardly to explore it.

  And look where it has gotten us.

  I am trying to give him space. Maybe he’s not better yet. Maybe he wants to sort through his feelings some more. It’s really overwhelming what we feel but I can’t say I’m not antsy to just get to the lovin’ part of things. He’s the beat of my heart and the thump in my vagina. Or whatever romantic shit couples say to each other.

  The thought of being in love with my best friend and him returning my feelings gives me butterflies overload. I haven’t told anyone yet – meaning Grayson, since he’s my only other friend. I know they still have this little rivalry going on and, as much as I want the two boys in my life to get along, I also don’t want Grayson to be himself and ruin things before they start.

  We know how that went the last time.

  I’ve sent him texts twice a day just so he knows that I’m thinking of him. That’s what girlfriends do, right? Damn, I’ve never been someone’s girlfriend. Things are about to change!

  Riding into school, I have hope in my heart. Passing a red, beat-up Honda blasting its misery business, I smile. It immediately falls, however, when I see Kyle’s car, and Becky stepping out of it. He rushes around to her side and takes her hand. I think I see her mouth that she’s okay, but I can’t be sure because…

  Hell, my mind must be playing tricks on me!

  It can’t be.

  I look away from the painful image, a tear cascading down my cheek. When I face forward, I gasp as I collide straight into a car. I am thrown to the ground and my bag gets thrust into the air with the force of the collision, only to land heavily on my stomach, knocking the wind right out of me.

  I ache all over. I feel the cuts and bruises, but the only thing that stands out more than anything is the crack in my heart. I stay on the ground with my dress up to my thighs and mini destruction around me and bawl my eyes out.

  Hello, heartbreak, my old friend…

  I lay there and cry until a crowd forms. No one tries to help, and I know it is because they don’t know how to approach me. I’m the weirdo, the anti-popular girl that one of the most popular guys in school calls best friend. That is all I would ever be to Kyle: his best friend.

  So, this is the infamous friend zone. Pleasure to make your acquaintance.

  After a few minutes, when it looks much too pitiful I guess, Grayson breaks through the crowd and stares down at me with his hands on his hips.

  “Well, aren’t you attention seeking,” he quips with a smirk on hi
s lips. “If you wanted a date to the Summer Fling, all you had to do was ask.”

  I know what he’s doing, and I play along. My voice cracks a little when I reply, “There were too many girls vying for your attention, so grand gesture it was.”

  He chuckles, while some students murmur angrily and walk away. The majority still stands around, already whispering, greedy for the gossip.

  “Did it work?” I ask as he helps me up, avoiding eye contact with the ravenous teenagers.

  “Yeah,” he answers tenderly, brushing the hair from my face. “Yeah, it did.”

  A commotion starts and I look up to see Kyle barreling through the throng of students, panic in his eyes.

  “Move!” he demands as he shoves, my heart caving in on itself at the sound of his voice.

  I grip Grayson’s hand tighter and his eyes flash, figuring out the cause of my spill and uncharacteristic emotional meltdown. He is so perceptive. His eyes flit behind his cousin to where Becky stands by herself, looking worried and worn. She regards Grayson, sadness pouring out of her stare. Grayson’s jaw hardens at her and I wonder why, knowing there’s a story there. He holds her terrified gaze before she breaks whatever force tethers them, turning her head away.

  Hmm…

  Kyle inches closer to me, but Grayson tucks me behind him protectively, making my best friend pause. His eyes turn to angry slits as he observes the scene before him.

  “Let her go, Grayson,” he growls, reaching after me.

  “I don’t think so, pretty boy,” Grayson argues, moving a step back, causing me to move too.

  “She’s my best friend, Gray,” he asserts, puffing his chest out as if he’s ready for a fight. “She’s my concern.”

  Grayson’s eyes flit to Becky then back to Kyle. “It doesn’t look that way to me,” he observes with a self-satisfied smirk.

  Kyle advances on his cousin, fists balled, and I pull Grayson on instinct. Embarrassment crawls up my face, heating it, as students widen the circle, anticipating a fight between the two. I hate being the center of attention, so this right here is absolute torture. I bet now it looks like some kind of weird love triangle, or a love square – since Becky is still in the picture.