Cream of the Crop (Hudson Valley, #2)(50)

But traffic that day had slowed everything to an almost standstill, and as I waited around the corner, I saw him across the street, coming out of the park.

Tall, and a little bit on the gangly side, he was dressed in that simple carefree way that guys can get away with sometimes, open button-down, white undershirt, jeans that sat low on his hips, scuffed sneakers. It was the hipster beanie that got me. I had a soft spot for guys in those knit caps, their hair all messy and casual and sticking out from under like they’d just come from a warm bed.

He stood on one corner, and I on the other, and just like in the movies, our eyes met. And I couldn’t pull away, even though everything about me at that time in my life was looking down, or looking away, or pulling my hair lower across my face. I rarely made eye contact with anyone for long, unless I knew them well, and even then I tended to duck and cover. But there was something about this guy; I couldn’t take my eyes off him.

And then, wonder of all wonders, he actually crossed the street. Toward me! One foot in front of the other, eyes still locked with mine, and all I was aware of was that face and my heart, which was pounding in my ears. Sometime between him crossing the street at arriving at my figurative doorstep, a furtive grin crept across his face, as though he could hardly believe it himself, that this was happening, that this was occurring, that this moment was real.

“Hi,” he said.

I gulped. He grinned and made it okay, made it seem perfectly natural that someone that looked like him would be talking to someone who looked like me. I tugged at my shirt, pulling at it in that way I was always forever tugging at it, to cover, to hide, to somehow trick myself into thinking that if I had an extra half inch of cotton Lycra blend pulled down lower on my hips I’d magically be pretty, instantly be thinner, finally be less than. Because I was always more than enough, and not in the good way.

He started to walk with me, not away from me, and I started to walk with him, somehow sensing that I was supposed to do that, that this beautiful guy actually wanted to walk with me.

We walked a block. Another block. By the third block, I’d said hello. By the fourth block, I knew his name. Thomas. By the sixth block, I knew he was a student at NYU, had just come from meeting some friends in the park, and did I want a Frappuccino? He knew my name, that I was a senior, that I didn’t live in the neighborhood but lived downtown, and that yes, I’d love a Frappuccino.

By the time my driver called my phone for the fourth time, in a panic over what my father would do to him if he didn’t pick me up immediately, I was over the moon.

As I climbed into my town car, he’d caught the edge of my shirt, tugging me back slightly. “I’d really love to call you sometime. Would that be okay? Natalie?”

He’d said my name like he was happy to know it. And as I nodded, still not quite believing this was happening, he slipped my phone out of my back pocket and quickly dialed his own number.

“Save that number, okay? That way, you’ll know it’s me calling.” And he pushed my phone back into my pocket, slowly and deliberately, as though it was his hand caressing my too-big behind. Too big for pretty clothes, too big for the old wooden desks in the oldest part of the school, too big for anything other than ridicule and shame . . . Never a part of my body that was beautiful, or desirable.

“Bye,” I whispered, and into that one word, that one whisper, I put all of my young love angst, my “never been considered, much less kissed,” my “if I can make them laugh they’ll hopefully never notice that I’m red-eyed and lower-lip trembly when it’s prom and homecoming time”—all of that, squashed into one terribly hopeful “Bye . . . Thomas.”

“Oh my,” Chad said, and I blinked in surprise, brought back to the present, where Chad and Logan were clasping hands and biting their lips, dying to know what happened next.

My heart racing the way it had that day, and without even thinking, I began tugging at my sweater, pulling it down farther on my hips, shrinking inward. “Sorry,” I said, shocked to hear how shaky my voice sounded even to my own ears. “I don’t talk about this very often.” I went to slurp my drink, and found it just ice and melted water, with the saddest little red rim around the lip.

“Another?” Logan asked, and I nodded gratefully. “For the record, I can relate to the never-been-kissed. Casanova over there was super-popular in high school, was covered in tits and * from the moment he hit puberty—”

“It’s true. I knew I wasn’t a hundred percent sure I liked guys, but I also knew that anything hot, wet, and warm felt pretty f*cking great,” Chad said.

I could easily imagine what a big swinging dick he was back then.

Then he looked toward the kitchen, where his equally handsome partner was fixing another round. “I’ve seen your high school yearbook, and you were smoking hot. The only reason you weren’t covered in tits and * as well is—”

“—because I was scared to death of it. Though to be fair, I was scared of dicks, too. But I got over that pretty quickly at lifeguard camp, the summer before senior year. Stephen Tyler . . . mmmm.” Logan trailed off, his eyes going all faraway.

“From Aerosmith?” I asked.

“From Appleton, Wisconsin. I spent the summer up there, and holy shit, could that guy use his mouth.”

Chad waved him over with the drinks. “No more ‘blow jobs from Stephen Tyler’ stories right now—but feel free to tell me about it later, with more details. Right now I want to hear more about Natalie, and her very own Sex and the City stories.”