I watched him watching me, drank in the details of that moment, the way his eyes were focused wholly and completely on mine, the way his tongue brushed against his lower lip, the way his newest tattoo – a girl with a wolf skin draped over her shining brown curls – gleamed with lotion and a dabbling of sweat.
"Why do you get to have all the fun?" I asked, and I knew I sounded exactly the way I didn't want to sound – like I really was fifteen. "Why do you get to bring girls over to the house when Dad and River are at work? Why do you get to go to parties on school nights and disappear over spring break, long enough that your mom actually thinks about calling the cops?" I wrapped my arms around myself and took another step back as Florian's eyes narrowed.
"You're fifteen, Abi," he said, confirming my worst fear. Eighteen year old Florian knew everything and here I was, his whiny younger sister who played the cello and had just had her first kiss with some stranger. He probably thought I was crazy. "Get in the car and let's go home."
"No," I said and he growled low under his breath, sending a chill straight up my spine. A cool breeze drifted down between the houses on either side of us, teasing my skirt and bringing goose bumps up on my exposed thighs. Florian's school blazer was hanging loosely from my shoulders, but not because he'd given it to me. Because I had decided to go to the party in my school uniform the way the rest of the girls did and wanted to wear burgundy – the color of the senior class.
"Why are you being so goddamn stubborn?" he snarled at me, running a hand through his sweaty hair. I wondered briefly how long he'd been at the party before he'd found me. "Do you want me to call your dad and tell him you're here?"
"Do whatever you want," I snapped back, taking a step towards him this time. I needed him to know I wasn't going to back down without an answer. I watched as he scowled and shoved his hands in his front pockets, looking down at me as he sucked in a deep breath. I could tell he was pissed but trying not to show it. His eyes, green and sharp as thorns, took me in from head to toe, pausing at the black and white skull patterned socks I'd pulled up to my knees. Those definitely weren't regulation for Mercy High School students, but I'd worn them anyway and scraped by without detention for it. I'd even rolled the waistband of my skirt up a few times, hiding the bunched fabric by pulling my white dress shirt out and letting it hang loose – another fashion statement I'd never participated in before today. I could tell Florian noticed. "I'm not going home, Flor. I want to stay." He looked up at my face then and took his own step forward, the toes of our shoes just this side of touching.
I tried not to meet his eyes, keeping my gaze on the bleeding rose pattern that decorated his shirt, convinced that I could see every muscle in his chest and belly through the tight fabric.
"You're my sister," he said, and this time, when I cringed, he noticed. "I'm not leaving you at some second-rate, shitty party to get taken advantage of."
"It's not your decision," I whispered as his hands came up and touched my elbows, sliding to my shoulders and pulling the blazer down my arms. Flor's face was ridiculously close to mine when he leaned in and tossed the jacket onto the front seat. I could feel the warm brush of his breath against my lips, like an indirect kiss, a ghost of a wish that would never come true. "And I'm not your sister."
Then I did look up at him, meeting his green eyes with my blue ones and trying not to let him see how nervous I felt, how his nearness and his touch undid me. The things I felt for him, that I didn't feel for any other guy, they were wrong. I knew that. I knew that. Still, it didn't matter. He wasn't my brother and I was about three-fifths sure I was in love with him.
"I know."
I thought for one brief second there that Flor was really going to kiss me. I could practically taste his mouth, smell the scent of his shampoo, could practically feel that cinder on my tongue burning against his, igniting some sort of … blaze between us that would burn us both to ashes.
But he didn't.
He didn't kiss me, just took a step back and went around to the driver's side of the car, opening his door and leaning on the roof with his arms crossed. His face was smooth-shaven, but the shadows from the trees looming above us played tricks on my mind and made it look like he had stubble across his jaw, rough and untamed. My eyes managed to find the single scar on his chin, the one he'd gotten from a bike ride gone wrong, even in the dim lighting. I focused on that instead of his eyes.
"Up to you," he said, and his voice was easy to hear, even with the pulsing thump of music radiating from the old Craftsman. Flor always had a sharp, clear voice and a tone that brooked no argument, not even from his own mother. It was like he just knew everything, and that annoyed me. "Come with me now or I'll follow you back inside and tell everyone that you're fifteen. Then they can kick you out themselves and you can wait on the street corner for your dad to pick you up."
"I hate you," I whispered, even though that wasn't true.
Flor nodded like the know-it-all jerk he was and climbed into the car.
I followed after him, slamming my door to let him know I didn't like this and that I was pissed.
"I really hate you," I said again, brushing away a slight swell of tears with an angry hand.
"Yeah, I'm a real piece of shit," he told me as I slammed my foot on the dashboard and left it there, resting my cheek against my thigh as I gazed out the window. There was a long pause before Flor started the car and when I glanced over, I caught him staring at me. I narrowed my eyes and looked away again before he could see how hurt I was, how desperate I was for his attention.
Then the engine started and we were whizzing through the city and towards South Hills, towards the four bedroom house that I spent most of my free time in, reading and doing massive amounts of AP homework. Neither of us spoke as Flor drove me home.
When we got there, I shoved open my door before Flor had even put the car in park and stormed up to the front porch, tugging down the hem of my skirt as I went. Even if Flor didn't rat me out – which I wasn't at all sure about – my outfit might give me away.
I raced up the cement steps to the dark green door and pushed it open, hearing my stepmom's laughter ring down the staircase. She and Dad were probably upstairs snuggling and watching their evening movie. They always made time for it, no matter what happened. I sort of envied them their relationship. Must be nice to have someone to hang out with all the time. All I had was a best friend who'd just moved nine hundred miles away and a stepbrother that hated me.
"Hey," Flor said, reaching out and grabbing at my arm again. The front door shut softly behind him as I turned, looking down at his fingers curled around my bicep. He licked his lips again and for a split second there, he looked almost nervous. "I meant what I said, you know. I won't tell your dad a thing." I didn't respond. "But that doesn't mean I like what I saw."
"Like I enjoy finding you with your hands up girls' shirts on the living room couch." I started to pull away again, but Flor pulled me back. I spun around, intending to give him a piece of my mind and found him way too close to me, smelling too good, breathing too hard, eyes even sharper than normal.
"You never said anything before," was all he said, and since I didn't know how to respond to that, I decided to be flippant.
"Why should I? It should be obvious. What sister likes to see her brother going at it with a different girl every weekend?"
Flor stared at me for a good long moment, fingers still curled around my arm and then suddenly, he was pushing me against the wall, pinning my arms above my head with his right hand, and molding our bodies together in a way that brought a small moan tumbling unbidden from my lips.
"I thought you said you weren't my sister," he whispered, and then he really did press his lips to mine, slide his tongue into my mouth. I wanted to slap him or scream for joy or run upstairs and call Addison or knee him in the balls or … I found myself arching my breasts against his chest, my mouth moving against his. I melted into Flor as he leaned into me, one knee between my legs, barely keeping me from sliding to the floor in a puddle of surprise and … pleasure. It really, really shouldn't feel this good to be touched, I thought, echoing my earlier feelings. But if Flor's fingers around my wrist had been like a flame, his body pressed into mine was like the sun.