You'd Be Mine(41)

Everything in me aches for this girl.

But she doesn’t stop kissing me. Her fingers wind themselves in my hair and yank gently, pulling me closer and closer. I take her face in between my hands and slow things down. Tasting her. Savoring her. Memorizing her. I don’t usually try so hard, but hell if I don’t want to make this count.

I’ve kissed a lot of girls. I’ve slept with a few of them. But I’ve never in my life kissed someone like this. Felt like this. Wanted like this. It’s as though we’re one person. Like my soul found its fucking other half and I don’t even know what to do with that except I can’t ever stop this. I will die happily with her on my lips.

The water rushes over our feet, and it’s like a shock to my system. I hadn’t realized we traveled so close to the lake. We pull away from each other, and Annie laughs, smiling all the way to her eyes, aglow in moonlight and hormones, and I feel a stirring of pride in my gut that I had something to do with that.

“Maybe this beach is a little romantic,” she concedes.





15



Annie


The morning after the beach, I wake up too early with a song in my head. Kacey’s and Jason’s snores echo around me, and so, after brushing my teeth and making a cup of coffee, I grab my guitar and head out into the summer sunshine.

I don’t know what I’m doing.

I mean, this isn’t for real. This thing between Clay, or Jefferson, and me. He’s beautiful and dangerous and not at all committed.

So, like, I’d be stupid to believe any of it meant anything. He’s 100 percent playing me, and that’s cool. I’m here, and Lora isn’t.

I’ll just take this for what it is. Temptation in blue jeans and all that. Nothing to it. People have casual relationships all the time. I mean, that’s basically what college is all about, right?

Except my summer fling is a gorgeous megastar country singer. And last night didn’t feel casual.

But no big deal. Totally cool. I can do this.

Even if I might be a teeny-tiny bit at risk of falling for him.

It’s fine. I might get hurt, but … I think of his calloused hands dragging along my rib cage slipping north … and whatever. Worth it.

I’m not my mom. I can do “no strings attached.” He’s not gonna derail me.

Clay’s trouble, but who’s to say I have to walk away? I can handle it.

The silent question of what if he’s not—what if he’s more?—well, that’s not something I care to think on right now.

Because, seriously, we’re only eighteen.

I sing about playing casual and heat and passion and need, and it’s all so foreign and gorgeous and thrilling, but it also rings a little … I don’t know … hollow.

As though it’s not … me. It’s someone else.

And I want to throw up because it has to be me. That’s what this has to be. I can do this. People do this every day all over the world.

I can’t fall for him.



* * *



After lunch, he finds me. Sheepish and almost shy, he knocks on my door. I’m sitting on my bunk with a book that I’m not reading. That I couldn’t possibly read because all I can think about is him, him, him.

“Wanna go for a walk?”

“Right now?” I ask dumbly.

“It’s gorgeous out, and we hit the road again in a few hours. Come on.”

As if I could resist him. Like ever.

We’re trekking down a pretty little river walk toward downtown. He’s in his ball cap and jeans and is holding my hand.

Holding hands doesn’t feel super-conducive to my “casual” MO, but damn if it doesn’t feel really nice. Like warm chocolate cookies and knit cashmere and hot tea during a snowstorm.

I’m so super-screwed.

“My brother used to call me Jefferson. My grandpa, too,” he says after we cross a busy street into the entrance of a city park. We end up settling on a picnic table.

I don’t play dumb. I remember how he easily evaded my question last night. “Used to?”

“They both died. First grandpa when I was fifteen and then my brother a year later.”

I suddenly remember Fitz mentioning them dying. Damn. “I’m so sorry—”

He cuts me off. “Anyway, whatever, it’s why I go by Clay.”

I scramble, trying to think of something to say. The closed expression on his face doesn’t really offer more. I can’t decide if I’m supposed to press for details—give him the chance to open up—or share something of my own? A give-and-take? I’m not great at this kind of thing. After a pause, I blurt, “I won’t sing her songs.”

He turns to face me, dark eyes burrowing into mine. He doesn’t ask who I mean. Just says, “I wondered about that.”

I sigh, tracing some graffiti long ago carved into the table with my fingernail. “It’s not like I can pretend to not be connected to them. Everyone knows. But it’s this tiny bit of control I can maintain. I can’t change my DNA, but I can change my set list. I refuse to honor them after what they did to me.”

“They didn’t die to hurt you, though. You know that, right?”

“Actually, I don’t. And anyway, they certainly didn’t live for me.”