I grinned down at her. “It’s scary how smart you are. You sounded like a damn professor, all lecturing me and shit.”
She ducked her head. “S-sorry. I didn’t mean to le-lecture you.”
I swung my backpack around to my front, ducked down into a squat in front of her, and swept her onto my back in a piggyback ride, bursting into a full-out sprint down the hallway. She squealed and wrapped her arms around my neck, burying her face in my shoulder and laughing, demanding that I put her down. I just wanted to get her mind off being nervous so she wouldn’t stutter, not that it bothered me, but because it did her.
“Put me down, you lunatic!” She slapped my chest. “This is scary!” The fact that she didn’t stutter and said it laughing told me was having fun, so I kept running down the empty front hallway, past the main office, where Mrs. Jones, the secretary, looked up and peered at us over her glasses in disapproval.
We approached the doors that led to the parking lot, and I slowed enough to kick the crash bar and open the door, ducking through and skipping down the steps. My backpack jounced against my stomach, my books hitting my bruises painfully, but I didn’t care. I had her legs wrapped around my waist, her arms around my neck, her breath in my hair, and her sweet laughter in my ear.
I made it halfway across the parking lot before she started wiggling in my grip, so I slowed to a stop and let her down. There were no cars in the parking lot, so I looked around in confusion. “Where’s your car?”
She twisted a lock of hair around her finger. “I don’t have one.” She said it carefully, clearly upset by the admission but determined not to show it.
“So how are you getting home?” I asked.
“Ben is probably waiting for me at the circle. He picks me up after school since Mom and Dad are both working.”
“Well, shit, that’s on the other side of the school. Why didn’t you say something?”
She gave me an incredulous look. “I tried! You were carting me through the school like a caveman dragging his woman to his cave!”
I laughed. “So you admit it! You’re my woman.” I grabbed her wrist and jerked her against me, and faked a deep, gruff voice. “Me Jason. You mine.”
She seemed to melt, just a bit. Her eyes widened and wavered, dark and luminous like black coffee glinting in the rays of sunshine. “Fine. Me Becca. You mine.” She said it barely above a whisper, as if she couldn’t believe her own words.
I felt my stomach flipping, my heart rabbiting. Her lips were parted, waiting. Shit. I was gonna kiss her, wasn’t I?
Yep.
I slowly, carefully lowered my lips to hers, giving her plenty of time to back away. She tasted like vanilla lip stuff and smelled like citrus and melons and cleanliness and an indefinable, intoxicating something else. Her lips were soft and wet against mine, still at first, but then as moments passed and the kiss continued, her lips began to move, tilting to gain a better fit. I lost my breath, lost track of everything except her body flush and soft against mine, her hands sliding slowly up my spine to rub against my close-cropped spiky blond hair.
A car horn blared from a few feet away, and we both jumped guiltily.
“Becca! Whoo-hoo! That’s how you break the rules, girl!” It was Ben, Becca’s brother, skidding his battered red Trans Am to a stop next to us. “I’ve been waiting for you for ten minutes, Beck. I guess I see why.”
“I wasn’t breaking the rules, Ben. Shut up.” Becca had my hand in hers, a kind of declaration to her brother. Clearly she trusted him not to say anything to their parents.
Ben just laughed, black hair hanging loose around his shoulders in a glossy, messy tangle. “Sure you weren’t. I wouldn’t rat you out, but you know you wouldn’t want Father to know I caught you making out with this punk in the school parking lot.”
I watched Becca’s eyes narrow at her brother. “You wouldn’t dare. Don’t forget I know about your little dryer-sheet trick. I bet Dad would be interested to know about that.”
They were both emphasizing the different words they used for their dad, which made me think even her brother thought it was odd that she called him “Father.” I was curious about the dryer sheet trick, though.
Ben ran his fingers through his hair, flipping it back over his scalp. “I just said I wouldn’t tell, didn’t I? And wasn’t I the one who offered to help you sneak out so you could see this kid?” He pointed at me with his thumb.
I knew of Ben de Rosa. He was kind of a legend around our high school, notorious for skipping classes, getting into fights, cursing out teachers, and playing high-profile but ultimately harmless pranks around the school, but then always able to talk himself out of the punishment he deserved. He was our town’s stoner, the kid you always knew had pot, and was probably high every time you saw him. No one ever ratted him out, though, and he’d never been arrested somehow, despite the common knowledge of his activities. I’d never been able to figure out how he did it, and now that I’d come to understand more about Becca’s life, it was even harder to comprehend how Ben could do anything he wanted and get away with it, when Becca couldn’t even go out on a date with me without getting grounded for a month.
Becca just shook her head at her brother, then turned to me. “I’ve gotta go. I’m supposed to be home by four-thirty.”
I glanced at my phone and cursed when I saw the time. “Shit! It’s after four already! Coach is gonna rip me a new ass**le. I better go dress out before I spend the entire practice doing down-ups.” I hesitated, then bent down and touched her lips quickly with mine. “Midnight? Right?”
She pulled away with a self-conscious glance at her brother, then nodded. “Yeah. Midnight. If I don’t show up, it’s because I couldn’t make it, not because I didn’t want to.” She slid gracefully into her brother’s car and waved out the open window at me, holding her hair in a temporary ponytail with the other hand.
Coach made me run two miles at full speed with a sandbag across each shoulder, then do down-ups for twenty minutes before letting me run scrimmage with the guys.
Totally worth it for my first kiss.
FOUR: Midnight in the Garden
Becca
Later that night
I clung to the drainpipe, frozen in fear. “It’s going to break, Ben,” I whispered, my voice a raspy whimper.
He just stuck his head out the window above me and grinned. “I know it seems like it, but it won’t, I promise. I climbed up on a ladder last summer and nailed that f**ker to the wall real good.”