Falling into You (Falling #1)(2)

I had a memory of watching Kyle turn away as he shoved his boxers off and feeling a tingle in my belly at the sight of his naked backside. I’d attributed the feeling to being buzzed, at the time. Of course, I’d stripped too, and Kyle’s gaze had taken in my body in a way that had made the tingle even worse. At the time, I’d yelled at him to stop ogling me, and he’d turned away. He’d been in water up to his waist, but now I couldn’t help wondering if he’d been hiding a reaction to seeing me naked. He’d been very careful to keep his distance while we swam, when normally we were very physical, hugging, teasing each other, getting in tickle wars, which Kyle always won.

I was starting to look at everything differently, all of a sudden.

Kyle? He was my best friend. I had girlfriends, obviously. Jill and Becca and I got mani-pedis together every week and then went for milkshakes at Big Boy. But when I was upset or pissed off, when I got in a fight with Mom and Dad or got a bad grade or anything, I went to Kyle. We’d sit on my dock or his and he’d talk me out my funk. Hug me and hold me until I felt better. I’d fallen asleep on the dock with him a thousand times, fallen asleep on his couch watching a movie. On his couch, on his lap. Against his chest, his arm around me.

That’s not BFF kind of affection, is it? We’d never kissed, never held hands like boyfriend/girlfriend, though. And if anyone asked, which happened a lot, we were always like no, we’re not going out, we’re best friends.

But were we more?

God, what a mess.

I got out of the car and followed after Kyle. He was long out of sight, but I knew where he was going. There was a spot on ridge on the other side of Mr. Ennis’s cornfield where we hung out a lot. You could see our town from that ridge, as well the silver string of the creek and the dark swath of the forest.

Kyle was halfway up the huge lightning-blasted pine that crowned the ridge. There was a long, thick branch about twenty feet up, easy to climb to, and we frequently sat on that branch together, his back to the trunk, my back to his chest. I stood on the branch beneath Kyle, waiting. He hooked his foot around the branch, reached down lifted me like a doll and set me in front of him. This position took on a new significance, suddenly. I could feel his heart hammering in his chest. He was breathing hard and smelled of sweat. He must have run up the ridge.

I leaned my head back on his shoulder and looked at him, his profile chiseled and gorgeous, bathed golden in the late afternoon sun. His brows were knitted together, his jaw clenched hard. He was pissed, still.

“Kyle…talk to me. I don’t—”

“Don’t what? Understand? Yes you do.” He glanced at me, then slid his eyes closed and turned away. As if it hurt to look at me.

“We’re best friends, Kyle. If there’s something else, for you, tell me.”

“For me?” Kyle’s head thumped back against the tree. “I don’t know, Nell. I—yeah, I mean we’re best friends, by default I guess. I mean, we grew up together, right? We spend all this time together, and we tell people that’s all we are, but…”

“But what?” I felt my heart pounding in my chest. This could change everything.

He took a lock of my strawberry blond hair in his fingers and twisted it. “What if there was more? Between us?”

“More? Like, together?”

“Why not?”

I felt a rush of anger. “Why not? Are you fucking serious, Kyle? That’s the answer you give me?” I slid forward on the branch, swung my leg over and lowered myself to the next branch down.

In seconds, I was out of the tree and running through the cornfield. I could hear Kyle behind me, calling for me to wait, but I didn’t. Home was only a mile away at that point, so I ran. I threw open my front door so hard it shook the house, startling my mother so bad she dropped a glass. I heard the smash of the glass hitting the floor, my mother’s curse, and then I was slamming my bedroom door and falling onto my bed, sobbing. I’d held it together that long, but in the sanctuary of my room, I could let go.

“Nell? What’s wrong, sweetie?” My mom’s voice on the other side of the door, concerned and sweet.

“I don’t…I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Nell, open up and talk to me.”

“No!”

I heard Kyle’s deep male voice behind my mother’s. “Nell? Kyle’s here.”

“I don’t want to see him. Make him go away.”

I heard my my mom talking to Kyle, telling him she’d talk to me, telling him it would be okay. It wouldn’t, though. Why exactly I was crying so hard I couldn’t quite figure out. I was a hundred different kinds of confused.

I was excited to go out with Jason. Or at least, I had been. I tried to picture Jason’s hand in mine, his arm around my waist. I tried to picture myself kissing Jason. I shuddered and had to push the image away, almost nauseous. So why had I been so happy? Just because I’d been asked out by a cute boy? Maybe. I mean, it was pretty common knowledge that Nell Hawthorne was off-limits for anyone and everyone. I’d been asked out before, when I was fifteen, last year, around homecoming. Aaron Swarnicki. Cute-ish, but boring. Dad had flipped out and told me I couldn’t go out. I could go to homecoming, but that was it. It had kind of just spread, unspoken but understood: Nell is off-limits. No one asked me out again after that. Dad was a pretty influential figure in our town. Only Kyle’s dad was more important, and that was just because he was a congressman. Daddy owned several of the strip mall buildings in town, and several more in the surrounding counties. He was on the city board, had the ear of the mayor, the state governor too. Through Mr. Calloway, he also had access to national political figures. Meaning, no one wanted to cross Jim Hawthorne. It was all strange, now that I thought about it. Maybe Daddy had said something to the boy that had asked me out.