The Story of Us (20 page)

“Yeah. Your mom’s really nice. I like
her a lot.”

“I’m glad. Now, come here,” he
gestures for me to come closer.

“Craig, stop. I’m trying to talk to
you.”

He takes a deep breath.
“About?”

“About your family. That’s why you
brought me here, right? To meet your family?”

“My family wanted you to meet my
family.”

“You didn’t want me to meet them?”
Before I can even finish that sentence, I can feel the sting of the
possible answer deep in my chest. The hurt must register on my
face, because I see Craig’s eyes soften.

“It’s not that. It’s just hard for me
to talk about them.”

“Even with me?”

“Okay, let’s turn the tables. Tell me
all about your parents. Tell me about your relationship with them,
the good and the bad parts of it.”

I know he has a point. I’m really not
that close with my parents. Therefore, analyzing my relationship
with them would be the last thing on my to-do list, especially in
front of Craig. But his family seems so much different than mine;
so much more loving.

When I don’t say anything in return,
Craig tugs at the front of my sweater and playfully pulls me closer
to him. With our lips only inches away from each other, he speaks
so softly it’s barely above a whisper, coarse and crackly, “Come
on, princess, can’t I just enjoy the fact that the girl of my
dreams is standing in the middle of my bedroom right
now?”

I can’t help it. I can’t resist him.
Maybe it’s because I fought the attraction between us for so long,
that I just don’t have any more fight left in me. I want to tell
him that I feel like I should know about the stuff his mom was
telling me, that I should know about it from him. I want to tell
him that I want to know everything about him, including his family
and his past. But I can’t muster the words when his tongue is
gently outlining my bottom lip and I can feel his breathe hot
against my skin.

“Girl of your dreams, huh?” I’m able
to whisper back.

“Definitely
the girl of my dreams,” he responds in a hoarse,
serious voice.

Suddenly I can’t remember why I wanted
to talk at all.

Until the door opens.

“Lexie, what the hell?

“Bad word!” she yells at
him.

Craig hangs his head, shaking it back
and forth. Then he takes a deep breath and responds nicer, “Did you
need something, Lexie Bean?

“I don’t need anything. But I’d like
to ask Valerie a question.”

“Sure, Lexie, ask me anything,” I tell
her.

“How do you get your hair to look like
that?”

“To look like what?” I ask, unsure
what she means.

“Smooth and not wavy like
mine.”

“Oh. I use a straightener.”

“Thank you.”

“Can we have some alone time now,
Lex?”

“I’d like to ask one more
question.”

I smile at her. “Go ahead.”

“What’s a straightener?”

“It’s a device that heats up, like a
curling iron, but instead of round, it’s flat.” She just looks at
me for a moment, lost in thought. So I add, “Would you like to come
over to my house and try it out?”

She smiles wide. “I would love
that.”

So Craig takes Lexie and I
back to my house. From the moment we step inside my house, Lexie
starts to ask me a million questions. “How tall is that ceiling?”,
“How many square feet is this room?”, “How do you wash windows that
high up?”, “Why do you need two sinks in one bathroom?”, “What’s
that?” referring to the towel warmer. I don’t mind the questions
though. She’s not annoying about it, just curious. I tell her ‘I
don’t know’ more times than I can count and she always moves right
on, instead of asking
why
I don’t know, like a little kid would. I sit her
in front of the mirror in the bathroom and I show and explain my
hair straightener to her. To be honest, she makes me feel a little
stupid because her questions seem so logical and the fact that, not
only do I not know the answer, but that I’ve never even thought to
ask the question myself, baffles me. Like when she asks how the
straightener doesn’t burn right through the tiny fibers of hair. I
thought about it for a second and then answered, “I guess hair is,
like, really strong.” And then she asked, “But then why does it
break so easily?” And then I was back to ‘I don’t know.’

The next hour of sectioning her hair
and running the straightener through each section is actually
really pleasant. It almost feels like I have a little sister of my
own. I imagine what that would feel like, to have someone looking
up to you all the time, wanting to be just like you. When I finish,
I have her look in the big mirror and I find a smaller mirror with
a handle for her to hold behind her head so she can see the
back.

“My hair looks so pretty,” she says,
“just like yours.” I smile at her and she must have thought it was
a huggable moment because she says, “Don’t hug me. You can’t hug
me.” And I just nod my head and say “okay.”

When I look over at Craig, he’s
smiling too. He’s been extremely quiet for the past hour and I
wonder what he’s been thinking. Is he mad that I invited her over
here, consequently interrupting our alone time? He doesn’t look mad
though. He looks kind of in awe, which is weird, because neither I
nor Lexie did anything that unusual, at least I don’t
think.

“C’mon, Lex, let’s get you home so
Santa doesn’t fly right past our house,” Craig tells
her.

“Santa is a mythological creature,”
she tells him in return.

“Maybe. But just in case he’s not, I
don’t want you to risk it.”

She looks at him skeptically, but then
obliges.

I walk them both out and Craig stops
in the doorway to lean down and give me a quick kiss. Then he moves
his lips to my ear and whispers, “Can I come back?”

I nod yes and watch them leave before
turning back to my empty house. I rush upstairs and change into the
cutest, not too childish but not too sexy pajamas I can find. I
brush out my hair and re-brush my teeth. I clean up a little and
then I hear Craig open the front door and walk up the
steps.

“You broke into my house again?” I
call out.

“I told you, it’s not breaking in when
you leave the door unlocked,” he states as he walks up the stairs.
He raises an eyebrow when he sees me. “No. Go change.”

“Excuse me?” I try not to smile but I
can’t help it.

“Princess, are you trying to torture
me? Because you know that I have a hard enough time trying to
control myself around you and now you’re seriously going to stand
there in… that… and expect me to be good?”

“I’m in my pajamas. I didn’t put
lingerie on. Just pajamas.”

“You look sexy as hell and I don’t
believe for one minute that you’re not fully aware of
it.”

I just roll my eyes at him. “Since its
Christmas Eve, do you want your present?”

He raises an eyebrow, and although
it’s incredible sexy, I know what he’s thinking.

I roll my eyes again. “Not
that.”

He nods once in
understanding.

I walk over to my closet and pull out
the watch I got him. “I didn’t have time to wrap it,” I tell him as
I hand the box over. I watch intently as he opens it. He looks at
the watch in awe, but when I tell him that it’s inscribed, that’s
when I see his eyes soften to molten liquid. “Val…”

“Actually, I know this is gonna sound
weird, but I really hate when you call me by my name now. It feels
like you’re mad at me.”

He laughs a little. “Princess,” he
says deliberately, “I am, in no way mad at you. This is the best
gift I’ve ever received.”

He glides his fingers over the
inscription that reads, “You’re my Friday night.” It won’t mean
much to anyone who doesn’t know our story, but I know he gets it
instantly. It was the song that was playing the night he carried me
back to his dorm when I had too much to drink. I only remember bits
and pieces, but I remember that. And he surprised me with the
concert the night before my birthday. And the lyrics describe him
perfectly. He’s always been the one person who could break up the
mundane for me. He brought me to get a tattoo for crying out loud.
He’s my good time, my Friday night.

Even though I told him this wasn’t his
present, I walk towards him slowly and deliberately. When our
bodies are only centimeters apart, I reach for the hem of his shirt
and slowly pull it up. I hear his breath catch and it encourages me
to go on. I bend down until my lips are just above the buckle of
his belt and I let my lips linger there for a moment before I lick
them and then kiss his stomach, just below his belly
button.

“What are you doing?” he manages to
croak out.

I don’t answer. I travel up higher,
kissing his abs as I go. I travel up his chest. I struggle with his
shirt until he rips it off up over his head with little effort. I
continue on with my path up his chest and then reach his neck. I
press my body hard against his as I kiss his neck. I hear him groan
quietly and I know I have his full attention. I skim his jaw line
with small, lingering kisses until I reach his mouth. I hesitate,
wanting him to open his eyes and look at me. He does. “I want you,”
I whisper to him. “All of you.”

I see the expression on his face
change. I see the desire smoldering in his eyes. Still, he asks,
“Are you sure?”

I nod once, and that’s all the
reassurance he needs.

He kisses me so hungrily, I lose my
breath. And just when I think I might pass out rather than pull
away, he breaks the kiss and travels down my neck. He brushes the
strap of my tank top down and kisses my bare shoulder. Then he
travels across my collar bone and over to my other shoulder,
letting that strap fall down too. Then he travels straight down the
middle, kissing my chest. I let my head fall back and I arch my
back, giving him full access to my breasts. He holds the small of
my back while taking my right nipple in his mouth. He sucks, then
licks, then sucks again. Then he moves onto the left side with the
same delightful torture. He pulls my tank top over my head and
kneads my breasts as he kisses my stomach. Then he cups the bottom
of my backside and lifts my thighs up onto him. I straddle him
easily as he supports my weight. I run my hands through his hair
before he gently lays me down on my bed, placing himself on top of
me.

I have a moment of clarity where I
think I can’t do this. I wonder about how many girls he’s been with
and how much experience he has. I’ll pale in comparison.

“You okay?” he asks in a husky voice,
bringing his face up to mine.

I pause for a moment.

“We don’t have to…” he
starts.

But my moment of clarity is over and I
pull him down on me.

When I wake up in the morning, I’m
tangled up in Craig, my legs and his intertwined. My head is
against his chest and I lay there, listening to his steady
heartbeat. I turn my head and start to kiss his chest. I feel his
arms tighten around me.

“Good morning, princess,” he says in a
sleepy voice. I know he’s smiling without looking up at him. I can
hear it in his voice.

I just keep kissing him. I kiss his
chest, his neck.

“God damn woman, I’m not a machine,”
he jokes, making me laugh out loud.

In a swift, sudden motion, he’s on top
of me. He pins my hands up above my head, but to my surprise, he
keeps his distance.

“You’re gonna be sore today. I don’t
want to hurt you any more than I already have.”

It’s not until he says it that I start
to feel the dull pain between my legs; the soreness that can only
come from losing my virginity. I get a fleeting moment of bravery
and I ask, albeit shyly, “Is it really that or do you just not want
to because I was bad at it? Because, you can tell me if I was bad
at it. I’d want to know so I can, you know, fix it.”

Confusion crosses his face for a
moment. “Princess, trust me when I say that you were perfect last
night. And if you think I don’t want to, that’s the furthest thing
from the truth. I was trying to be a nice guy. I guess it doesn’t
suit me,” he states, his lips turning up in a mischievous smirk.
“Bad guy it is,” he says before lifting me up on top of
him.

That’s when we hear the front door
open and shut. We both freeze for a moment, as if trying to make
sure we heard right. When we hear more commotion downstairs, I
panic. Who the hell would be here? The only answer I can come up
with is my parents, even though they’re supposed to be away. I jump
off of Craig and scramble around trying to find pieces of clothing.
I throw his at him when I come across it and I hurriedly put mine
on. I have my panties and pajama pants on when I look over at
Craig, who is fully dressed – boxers, jeans, shirt, socks and
shoes. “How much practice have you had at this?” I whisper to him.
He just smirks. I find a sweatshirt and throw it on while I listen
to my parents climbing up the stairs.