Marianna Baer - Frost

her to date some artistic, emo guy.”

“I don’t need you to tell me about my sister,” David said.

“Then why do you ask me about her all the time?” I pushed

by him and opened the bar door, my eyes burning. Before going

inside, I said one last thing in his direction. “Do what you want.

Go down there and beat him up. That should help things.”

“So you think I should just do nothing?” he said. He sounded

not mad, but genuinely upset.

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“David,” I said. “You know that Celeste survived three years

at Barcroft without you. I think the best thing you can do is to

leave her alone and concentrate on your own life.”

He stared out at the low clang-clang-clang of the bell. The

neon sign cast a soft, red glow on his face.

“What happened to all of that energy?” I said. “The energy

that was going to go toward something other than worrying

about her?”

“The energy?” he said, looking back at me.

“Yeah. In the car, remember? Where’d it go?” I tilted my

head. “If you find it, I’ll be inside.”

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Chapter 23

WE ALL STUMBLED INTO the Parker-Whites’ town house

sometime after two a.m. Celeste disappeared up the elevator

immediately, alone. Whip had gone back to Manhattan.

“Hungry, hungry, hungry,” Abby said. “How can I be so

hungry?”

We moved en masse to the kitchen. Usually, I’d have been

psyched to raid the pantry, but my stomach was too tied up to eat

much. After our little . . . conversation outside the bar, David

hadn’t gone to find Celeste and Whip; he’d come inside right after

me, and had sat close and apologized and touched me in the ways

that are socially acceptable in public—hand on knee, arm across

shoulders, foot on foot. It had all been suggestive of more to

come, and now here I was, confronted with a whole night in front

of us, and nothing stopping us from spending it together.

Eventually, Viv and Cameron went upstairs.

“Want to watch a movie?” Abby said.

“Nah,” I said. “I think I’ll go to bed.”

David stood up and stretched his arms over his head,

showing his stomach. “Me too.”

“Your loss,” Abby said.

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Should I follow David to his room? I wanted to just as badly

as I didn’t want to. We padded up the stairs next to each other.

When he turned off to go to his room on the third floor, I

hesitated a minute.

“So,” I said. “It’s late.”

“Yeah,” he said. “But it is New York. Right? City that never

sleeps?” He raised his eyebrows in an expectant look. An

adorable, expectant look.

“I’ll be right down,” I said, sounding more sure than I felt.

I was sure about one thing, though. I wasn’t going to his

bedroom wearing his mother’s dress.

I stopped in the bathroom first, and Celeste was asleep—or

pretending to be asleep—by the time I went in the bedroom to

change. As I slipped into my tank and boxers (Would he expect

lingerie?) the words I’d tried to banish from my mind nagged at

me: he’ll hurt you; he’ll hurt you. By the time I tiptoed down the

carpeted stairs, the Indian food and beer and those stupid words

churned in my stomach.

David had left the door to his room ajar. He lay on the bed—

a full size—propped up against pillows, reading. He only had a

small table lamp on, so the room was mercifully dark. I was

embarrassed not to be wearing a bra, and I knew I looked tired

and not especially pretty. And I should have showered. He was

probably expecting a clean girl in a nightie.

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Walking toward the bed was like walking into a final exam I

hadn’t studied for. Not a final, I told myself. A mini-quiz. Because

it’s not like we were going to go all the way or anything. He

wouldn’t assume that. Right? I wasn’t planning on waiting until

marriage, but I wasn’t planning on doing it tonight either.

“Hey.” I perched on the opposite side from where he lay.

“Hey.” David put the book on the bedside table. He was

wearing striped boxers and a white T-shirt.

I placed my hands on the bedspread to wipe off some of the

clamminess.

“Why don’t you sit up here?” He patted the pillows next to

him.

I slid over. I could feel a deep seismic rumbling in my body.

Shaking on the molecular level. I’d never been in a bed with a guy

before. Not like this, at least.

I swallowed to try and get some wetness in my mouth. “I’m

kind of . . . kind of nervous,” I said, figuring he’d notice anyway.

“That’s okay,” he said. “So am I.”

“You are?”

“Sure.”

But I knew he wasn’t, at least, not nervous like I was. So

nervous that all I could think about was being at home, safe in my

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room, or better yet, safe in a deep, dark closet. I started thinking

of what excuse I could possibly make—cramps, my period,

demonic possession—to get out of there. I swallowed again.

He reached over and gently took off my glasses, placed them

on the table. He brushed the hair away from my face. I moistened

my dry lips. I could feel my pulse throbbing even in my palms.

Then David’s lips were on mine. Soft, sweet, fuller than they

looked. Gentle but insistent as they moved. Oh, kissing! It had

been so long, I’d forgotten the intensity. Warmth poured through

every cell of my body. His hand held the back of my head. I

touched his shoulder, firm and alive under the soft T-shirt. I

slipped my fingers up inside the sleeve, touching his smooth,

smooth skin. He must have showered; he smelled like citrus and

grass and . . . boy.

Kissing harder, now. I recognized the flavor of natural

cinnamon toothpaste. And then his tongue. Darting. Tasting. The

bright green toothpaste I used probably caused cancer. What?

Don’t think about that now! I tried to stop thinking and let myself

enjoy the kissing, as I had been a minute ago. But then I felt

David’s hand inching its way closer to my breast. And then it was

on my breast, the side of my breast, pressing against it, moving

slowly. And I lost track of the kissing and wondered how hard he

would have to be touching me to leave bruises like the ones on

Celeste.

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Stop it! Think about the kissing. Or the touching. Not about

his sister. But then I didn’t want to think about the touching

either, because he’d moved the hand underneath my tank top

and was playing with my breast, swirling his fingers around it,

cupping it, kneading, needing. I was glad we were on our sides so

that his second arm was trapped underneath him. It was so

intense, his hand, like it couldn’t get enough of what it was doing.

Images of Celeste with someone’s hands kneading into her darted

into my brain. Hands pressing too, too hard. Hurting. David was

going to hurt me.

“Relax,” he said. “Is this too much?”

I realized that I was shaking, quite noticeably. Like a stray

kitten out in the cold.

“Um, yeah. Maybe. Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.” He reached down and pulled the covers up

over me. “Turn on your side.”

“I am on my side.” Even my voice was shaking. I didn’t know

what was wrong with me. I’d never had a reaction like this before,

had always loved fooling around. If anything, I’d had to force

myself to stop before I’d gone further than I wanted, because it

felt so good.

“Other way,” he said.

I turned the other way and felt him spoon his body behind

mine. His arm held me close. I tried to just breathe easily and

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calm down. I tried to ignore his hard-on, firm against me. I was so

embarrassed. He’d never want to do this with me again. Who

would?

“I’m sorry,” I repeated.

“Shhh . . .” he said as he ran his hand up and down my arm.

“We can just lie here.”

“Really? You’re . . . you’re okay with that?”

I felt him kiss the back of my head and snuggle even closer,

his arm wrapped around, protectively. Was there something

wrong with me, I wondered, that I liked this so much better than

the actual fooling around? He’ll hurt you.

“You don’t know,” I whispered.

“Huh?” David sleepy-grunted into the back of my neck.

“Nothing,” I said. “Just . . . good night.”

His arm squeezed me more tightly. I pressed against him and

wished that, like Dorothy, I had a pair of ruby slippers to click,

click, click. . . .

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Chapter 24

IN THE MORNING, I didn’t have time to be anxious. My body

and David’s body had found each other before I’d even really

woken up. When I swam to total consciousness, we were kissing

with a heat that my nerves had made impossible the night before.

I was on top, straddling his hips, pressing against him, only the

thin layers of our clothes between us, now kissing his neck and

inhaling his gorgeous morning skin, which smelled like sun even

though the blinds were drawn. The way I felt—it was as if while

I’d been asleep, someone else had entered my body.

The minute I had that thought, though—the minute I was

aware enough to analyze—a switch was flipped. Just like that, my

muscles tightened. My nerves rebelled. And the shaking started

again. Jesus. What was wrong with me?

“You okay?” he said when we broke away for a moment.

“You seemed okay with it. I didn’t mean . . .”

What was I supposed to say? That I’d been okay until I

actually woke up? “I . . . I’m fine,” I said. “I just have to get up for

a minute.” When I said it, I realized it was true—I needed to pee.

Bad.

I sat on the toilet seat and wrapped my arms around myself.

I was conscious of the sound of pee hitting water and hoped

David couldn’t hear it. After flushing, I looked at myself in the

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mirror. I stared into my pupils and tried to hypnotize myself into a

state of calm. You chose this. You want this.

“You’re incredibly sexy,” David said as I walked back across

the room. He’d opened the blinds; the morning was gray and

blustery.

“No I’m not,” I said reflexively. I sat on the edge of the

mattress.

“Hey. Tattoo.” His fingers lifted up the hem of my tank top.

“Nice.”

“Thanks.” I smiled down at the top of his head as he inched

forward and then placed his lips against my tatt. I shivered. He

pulled back, rested his head on my thigh, stared up at me.

“The way you looked last night, in that dress?” he said.

The way I looked in that dress. His mother’s dress. The dress

his sister loaned me. His sister, who was in a bedroom in this very

house. His sister, who was jealous of the way I looked in their

mother’s dress. Stop it, Leena!

“What time do you think it is?” I asked. “We should probably

get up.”

David propped himself up on one arm and grabbed his phone

off the night table. “Ten fifteen,” he said. “I guess we should.”

“Can you hand me my glasses?” He did. I slipped them on

and stood up. “See you downstairs?”

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Back on the fourth floor, Celeste’s bed was already made and

there was no sign of her. Thankfully. I took a steaminghot shower.

My body still felt jarred from the physical intensity of being with

David. With a clearer mind, I considered the strangeness of having

woken up in the midst of it. It real y was like my body had made a

decision, bypassing my conscious brain. I rubbed lather over my

skin and tried to imagine my hands were David’s. Tried to imagine

enjoying it. I had to get over my nervousness. That shaking thing

couldn’t happen again.

Before getting dressed, I put on my glasses and stared at my

naked body in the full-length mirror. It wasn’t a dislike of my

figure that made me nervous about being with David. Sure, I had

my issues, but whatever. So what was it?

I turned around and looked at my butt, my back—my eyes

stopped scanning and focused. My tattoo. I turned my gaze from

the mirror to my actual body. Normally, I didn’t see myself naked

with my glasses on—in the tub or shower I was half blind. So I

couldn’t remember the last time I’d given the tatt a clear-eyed

appraisal. It had changed. The colors didn’t glow with that depth

of pigment that had made it really look like stained glass. Now

they were washed out. And the black lines had thickened and

bled. As if David’s kiss had reacted with the ink.

Damn. It wasn’t the most expensive tattoo, but it wasn’t

cheap either. And I’d taken such good care of it. I kept staring, as

if it was going to change back before my eyes.

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When I was sufficiently sure it wasn’t going to, I dressed and

followed the smell of bacon downstairs, into the kitchen.

Viv stood at the marble countertop island, cracking an egg

into a bowl. At the table, Abby sat hunched over a mug of coffee

and Cameron leaned back in his chair, reading the paper.

“Morning, sunshine,” Viv said. “Eggs? Veggie bacon? Home

fries?”

“Mmm.” I got myself some grapefruit juice from the fridge

then sat down next to Abby. “Hungover?” I said to her.

She nodded. “A little. Need food.”

“Hey,” I said, “have either of your guys’ tatts faded or bled?”

“Nope,” Abby said.

Viv turned from the stove. “Cam? You see my butt more than

I do.”

“Looks good to me, baby,” he said.

I swirled the juice around in my glass. “Mine looks like hell.”

“Go back to the place,” Abby said. “They can fix some stuff.”

“I will. Where’s Celeste? Did she eat already?”

“Haven’t seen her or David,” Viv said.

“David’s getting up.” I tried to keep any suspicious notes out