Sweet Cheeks(14)

And yet despite all of that, the nerves I don’t understand are there.

I concentrate on the sky above. Try to draw lines from star to star and make them any shape I want them to be. It’s so much easier to focus on that than the funny way my blood rushes in my ears. Or the chills that suddenly blanket my bare skin despite the warm night.

“Have you?”

His question pulls me from my thoughts. Makes me realize he asked something. I wipe my sweaty palms on my shorts. Swallow over the words tying up my throat. “Have I what?” It’s barely a whisper and I wonder if he even heard me with the party’s music and laughter carrying up here.

I turn my head and startle when I find his face turned toward mine, our noses inches apart. The heat of his breath hits my lips. My heart feels like it somersaults in my chest and lands somewhere in the pit of my belly. I meet the dark brown of his eyes and avert my gaze immediately, way too uncomfortable and at the same time wanting to look right back at them.

He waits. It feels like forever in the tiny space of the tree house, but I know it’s only seconds. Seconds where I neglect to breathe. Forget to think. And it’s only when I bring my eyes back to his, suddenly leery that I might have boogers in my nose or leaves in my hair, that he answers my question.

“Have you seen any shooting stars?”

My breath hitches as he moves his arm and the back of his hand brushes against mine.

Is this how a boy tries to hold your hand?

I don’t want him to.

I do want him to.

This is Hayes. Just Hayes. Don’t be stupid. He’s not going to hold your hand.

The question. Answer the question.

I clear my throat, trying to make my tongue, that feels like three times its normal size, work. “Yeah.”

I can’t see his mouth but know he smiles because the corners of his eyes bunch up as his hair, wet from swimming, falls onto his forehead. “What did you wish for?”

You to kiss me.

My eyes fling open, and the familiar shadows on my bedroom ceiling do nothing to slow the rapid beat of my heart in my chest. The dream, reliving the memory, feels like just yesterday and so very long ago at the same time.

That first longing to be kissed by a boy. The smell of summer around us, and those first moments in my teenage life where Hayes Whitley became so much more than my big brother’s best friend.

He became my first crush.

Then later my first love.

And later again my first heartbreak.

I sigh, snuggle back down into the covers of my big, empty bed, and hate how seeing Hayes yesterday caused forgotten memories to resurface. Like those first flutters of how I felt that night in the tree house when something shifted between us. Such a contrast to the regret that’s been eating at me since I jumped to conclusions. My temper. The twist of my gut as he drove away without allowing me to explain my actions, even though I couldn’t really explain them anyway without feeling more pathetic.

Damn you, Hayes Whitley.

Damn him for always popping back into my life somehow: his movie trailer on constant repeat during television commercials, running into his mom in the grocery store, sitting at a Starbucks in town and seeing him from afar on the very few occasions he’s bothered to venture back home. They’ve all caused those feelings of rejection and hurt to rile back up when all I had wanted was for them to be dead and buried.

Even when I was engaged to Mitch. That spark, the one that had been missing, it was Hayes Whitley’s fault it wasn’t there in the first place. Why can’t I be free of him? It has been ten years. I was going to marry another man, for God’s sake. Shit. I don’t want this. Don’t have time for this churned-up memory. Don’t want this unsettled feeling.

But it’s not like Hayes even cares. He most likely chalked up what we had to teenage love with his best friend’s little sister. A blip on the radar before he was swallowed whole by the flashes of the cameras that constantly follow him around to document his every move. So why would I assume he’d even think twice about me, a ghost of a memory from his past?

It’s not like I thought of him much either. Once I met Mitch, he was the patient one earning my trust. The trust I never gave anyone after the job Hayes did on it. Because yes, while I can admit that what Hayes and I had was most likely puppy love, it was also the first time my heart was broken, and you don’t forget either of those occurrences very easily.

But if it was puppy love, why did seeing him yesterday affect me so strongly?

It’s ironic. I’m lying in bed thinking about Hayes all these years later and not questioning why it’s not Mitch I’m thinking of.

It’s only been eight months. Not ten years. And yet, Hayes’s pull on me dominates without question.

Mitch was gentle and patient and the man I was going to marry. Hayes was brash and assertive and left me with a battered and bruised heart.

Maybe it’s just because Hayes is the one I couldn’t have. Maybe it’s an inherent thing to feel that way even though I was young without a clue about life or love. Regardless, it doesn’t matter.

There will be no seeing Hayes again other than on his larger-than-life billboard ads. Or on one of the bazillion magazine covers that adorn the checkout stands, accusing him of cheating on Jenna Dixon: his girlfriend or ex-girlfriend or who knows what she is to him because they are tabloids after all. Or if I don’t flip the channel quick enough when he makes a promotional appearance on Ellen or Jimmy Fallon. Because I screwed up. I assumed Hayes had shown up because Ryder called him. And maybe he felt bad about what had happened a long time ago, thought I was pathetic and pitied my situation with Mitch so he came to save the day. Or laugh at me. Both would have made me feel the same way.