The Real Thing (13 page)

“Please forget it,” I say, dropping my hands back to the edge of the tub. I push off, dripping tomato sauce all over him. He still doesn’t move. “I was temporarily possessed by someone else who thought that was a good idea.” Ugh, I can’t even joke about it, my voice is coming out too wobbly, and he’s still
just sitting there.

I splash my way out of the tub, wrapping a towel around my tomato-soaked body. I slip and slide to my room, then shut the door behind me. Once I’m stripped to nothing but the towel, I pull out my computer. Maybe Scott or Eve or Rachel or someone is online. I probably have a loaded inbox. Or a bunch of tweets or notifications. There has to be
something
to take my mind off this.

I wipe my hair from my face, open the laptop to the full inbox I thought would’ve been there, but it isn’t. No email. No notifications. No damn distractions—no way to deal with what I just did.

Scott’s the only one online, and I type a
Hey
, but after ten minutes of no response I close the chat window. Biting the inside of my bottom lip, I shut off every source of light—the computer screen, the overhead, my phone charger, leaving me with nothing but the darkness. I wait in my towel, hearing the water pipes fill up as Eric turns the bath into a shower.

Sliding down the back of the door to the floor, I let loose the tears I’ve been keeping at bay. Does he not feel the same things I do when we’re together? The way he touches me, teases me, looks at me … I swear it wasn’t one-sided.

But it is. He would’ve kissed me back if it wasn’t.

If I could just drift away into sleep and forget, maybe it’d be a good eraser. Tomorrow we’ll be friends again, like normal. There’ll be nothing else but two good buddies and roommates.

Another rush of tears cascade down my cheeks because even the thought of that hurts my chest.

I
want
him to be something else.

Eric Matua is offline

I breathe deep, watching the tomato-red droplets pour from my face into the bottom of the tub as I shower the juice from my hair. My lips freaking tingle and my body’s so jolted I can’t even see straight. I put my hand on the tile to hold myself steady and wring out the bottom of my shirt with the other, even though there’s no point.

Her lips were perfect. Her hands and body and everything that is Emmy … all of it.
Perfect
. And I sat there with my eyes wide open, not moving a damn muscle.

What the hell is wrong with me?

The water runs clear, and I turn the shower off and get out of the bathroom as fast as I can. Em bolted before she had a chance to rinse, and sure enough once I shut the door to my bedroom I hear her pad down the hallway and turn the shower back on.

My pills are on my nightstand. I want to take one because I’m pretty sure I’m about to take a leap—that leap Doc said I need to, but maybe my mind isn’t ready for it.

“Damn it, this is
Em
,” I growl into my hands. Saying it out loud eases some of the tension out of my gut so I keep going. “It’s not Ali. She’s not going to pull the same shit. Man up, Eric.”

Great. Now
I
sound like my ex.

I rip off my soaked clothes and towel down, breathing and shooting looks at my medication. Maybe I’ll only take a dose. Just enough to calm down and talk to Em, but not so much that I’ll become dependent on them like last time.

One pill. It’s smaller than a tic tac. No big deal.

I yank on gym shorts and one of my bigger T-shirts, then pop the pill before I lose my damn mind.

And I breathe.

The shower goes off.

I breathe some more.

Em’s door opens and shuts.

Out and in, like I’ve been taught for the past three years.

Shit … it’s been
three years
since Ali. Am I really so weak that I let a girl mess with my head like that? A girl who didn’t even come close to meaning as much to me as Em did?

It’s on inhale thirty-four that I feel everything loosen. The knot in my gut disappears, the tight fist around my heart unclenches, and my brow smoothes.

Em kissed me. My Emmy
kissed
me, and I didn’t kiss her back. My lack of response was mostly out of shock. But maybe … maybe it was a little bit deeper than that.

I want to know
why.

When Ali first kissed me, I thought it was because she was into me. But the way she talked to me, scolded me, called me worthless and awkward and inexperienced … she wanted to help me or something. And I took what I could, because I believed her. Sometimes, I still believe her.

So why would Em want to kiss me? I’m a damn mess.

I push myself to my feet, cross the room, the hall, open her door, moving like a robot, almost not aware of it until I’m standing in her dark room. Everything feels different. There’s not even the usual glow of her computer. Her breathing suggests that she’s not asleep, but she’s turned from me, toward the wall, her face buried in her pillow.

“You kissed me,” I say like a moron. My hand twitches in my pocket, wanting to smack myself in the head.

Em doesn’t respond, and yeah, I don’t blame her. Taking cautious steps toward the bed, my mouth opens and I say it again, because I already broke the ice with it, may as well keep saying it till she says something back. “You kissed me.”

My lips are still freaking tingling.

I sit on the edge of the bed, and she’s still quiet, but her breathing has quickened. Body heat comes off her in waves, and even though it’s already hot in here, I want to be closer to it. I want to taste it, touch it, feel every damn thing about it because it’s her. Right now, I’m not panicking. I’m nervous as hell, but it’s because of that leap I see ahead of me. And damn it, I’m gonna jump.

I stretch out next to her, setting my head on her pillow and pressing my stomach against her back. It’s intimate, and my heart rate kicks up a notch, and I shift my lower half so I don’t jab her in the ass. She’s tense beside me, so I take my shaking hand and wrap it around her waist, anchoring myself to her because I need it. I need to make this move and stay here … and breathe.

We lie in the dark, her back pressed against my front, and say nothing. I don’t know if I want to break the silence. Suddenly I’m wondering if it was a fluke—some “in the moment” shit. If that’s true, I wish I’d taken advantage of it instead of panicking.

It hits me again—her lips on mine … like she’d wanted them there for a long time.

“You kissed me,” I say again. It’s still not computing.

Em pushes her face into the pillow and I squeeze her tighter around her waist, silently pleading with her not to move away from me.

“Yeah.” Her voice is muffled, but I catch it.

I close my eyes and press my nose into her feather-soft hair. All the questions I worry about when a girl touches me push into my thoughts.

Does Em want to fix me? Or does she want me for who I am? Who I was? It crashes into my chest and gut, and I wrap her closer to me, afraid I’m about to find out, and terrified of what a relationship might mean … or could do to us. If I’ll freak out like I did before. My heart starts to pound a little harder, and I focus on the sound of the ocean outside Em’s window, anchoring myself not only to her now, but to the calming ocean.

“You …” My voice trembles, and I breathe out the rest of my sentence into her hair. “You kissed me.”

A muffled growl shoots from her mouth into the pillow. “Yes, I did. And I’m sorry. I get that it’s not what you wanted and I pushed our relationship too far, but I couldn’t help it anymore. You were looking so sexy, and not only that, but I just … I
needed
you close to me. I’ve been fighting the urge since freaking high school. And there was always some excuse
not
to kiss you. Well, tonight, I got tired of all the lame excuses and just did it.”

“Wait …” I pull away from her hair and turn her so she faces me. I can’t make out much in the dark, but the moon lights enough of her features for me to see how sorry and embarrassed she feels. And she shouldn’t feel either of those things.

My eyes are fastened on hers so I can see the truth when I ask her. “High school?”

She licks her lips. “I told you already. That night at the beach when we talked about attraction, I’ve wanted to kiss you, but …”

“Ali.”

She nods and drops her gaze. But I need her to look at me.

I tilt her chin up, gently, and her eyes come back to mine. “You never said you wanted to kiss me.”

“What?”

“When we talked that night, you said you saw me as attractive, but you never said you wanted to kiss me.”

“Eric …” She sighs, but doesn’t look away. “I’ve wanted to kiss you way too many times to count. When I was fifteen and you told Jake Peters to shut his damn mouth after he called me a slut. When you took me to my mom’s grave and talked to her like she was your best friend. When your coach finally took you off the bench your senior year. That time in the quad when Ali refused to kiss you in front of everybody. And yes, just recently at the beach.” Her eyes drop, but only to my lips. “I know you feel like you weren’t attractive back then. But you were to me. And you still are because you’re still … well, you’re still my Eric.”

Her words crash into me like waves. Maybe I am enough for her. If she could find me desirable then, she’ll find me that way now.

I gaze at her face, her round cheeks and soft moonlit features, and do what
I’ve
wanted to do since high school. Weaving my fingers through her wet hair, I pull her to my lips, but stop before I kiss her.

“I need to be close to you, too, Em. But … we … we have to go slow.” Ali flits through my mind for a brief second before I push her far back. “Can we do that?”

Her breath hits my mouth hard and fast, and she says, “You mean, you want this. With me?”

My lips turn up in a half smile. “Hell, yes.”

“Then take me at any speed you want to take me.”

A warm flood rushes through my body as I finally press my lips against Em’s. She tastes like her toothpaste, and my breath comes out in the form of a grunt because I’ve never been able to notice things like that when I’ve kissed a girl. Suddenly I’m noticing everything—her wet hair wrapped between my fingers, her nose hitting my cheekbone, our rhythm slow and explorative. Her leg creeps up mine, landing near my hip. I don’t know if what I’m doing is right, but it feels right when I hook my fingers under her knee and pull her tighter. She’s so soft that I can’t help running my hand over her leg, down to her ankle, then slowly back up to her knee. But I don’t stop there.

I try to read her body language to make sure my hand won’t get smacked as I run it up her thigh until reaching the material on her night shorts. I break from her lips for a moment to breathe. It’s been so long since I’ve touched someone like this, and the last time I did, I was told I did it wrong.

But I don’t think I ever really have touched someone like
this.
Because it sure as hell feels different.

Em catches her breath with me. She smells like coconut—and tomato juice, to be honest, but more like coconut. I move my hand back down to her knee and my lips meet hers again. I adjust without thinking, half on top of her. And for once while I’m kissing a girl I don’t think about my weight crushing her body. I hold myself on my forearms and move from Em’s gorgeous mouth to her neck, down along her jaw to her chin, then back up. She seems to like that, going by her subtle moans and satisfied smiles.

I’m tempted to continue my exploration, heart rate pulsing in my neck. I’m doing this without any panic attacks—but Ali pushes at the edge of my thoughts.

“You’re doing it wrong, Eric.”

It’s only for a second, but it’s enough to make me pause at the hollow of Em’s neck, and instead of moving my lips down, I travel back up.

I gotta take it slow.

So I keep in the comfort zone of her neck and cheeks and lips, and with Em’s response drowning out my brief flashes of doubt, I enjoy every other damn moment of it.

Something’s rumbling the room. Every two or three minutes it blasts through my sleep and makes me think we’re in the midst of an earthquake, even though Florida isn’t really notorious for those.

“Em, get in the doorway.”

She laughs next to me, and I feel a small kiss on the bottom of my chin. “Any reason why?”

“Earthquake,” I mumble, then sort of drift in and out of semisleep.

“Eric, wake up.” A shove to my shoulder pushes me to the edge of the bed, and I feel a lurch in my stomach that says I’m about to fall on my ass, right before I yank myself into a sitting position.

“Good morning,” Em says as I rub my eyes. Her laptop is propped against her legs, and she tilts the lid down enough to look at me. She’s wearing her glasses, hair a mess, half in, half out of a ponytail, and her tank-top straps are falling off her shoulders. I run a hand over my face and adjust the blanket on my lap because it’s not enough that it’s morning, but seeing Em like this is the sexiest thing I’ve ever woken up to.

“Hey.” Seriously,
that’s
the first thing I say to my girlfriend after the night we just had? Damn, I better make up for it, but as soon as I decide to make a move, she tilts the screen back up and starts typing. There’s a hint of a smile on her lips, and I can see Facebook chat windows reflected in her glasses.

“Who you talking to?” I ask, then wonder if I’m allowed to be curious. Last time she dodged the question.

“A friend. He said last year he hit a skunk and didn’t tell anyone, but he parked his car in the garage and closed it up overnight. The whole house woke up to the smell.”

Several things stand out to me in that sentence, but the biggest one is “he.” It shouldn’t bother me. Em had several guy friends growing up. Hell, I was one of them.

But it
does
bother me.

“You told him about getting sprayed?”

“Posted it on my wall. Along with this.” She swivels the laptop to face me, and I look for the chat windows, but she’s closed them all.

“Do you see it?” she asks, and I force my eyes away from all the guys on her chat list to her wall.