I lean forward, wanting to kiss him, knowing instinctively that he can make the pain go away, but I lose my balance and topple into him, my face smacking into his chest.
“Easy, girl. I’ve got you.”
Heat curls over the back of my neck, but not the pleasant kind. My face feels clammy, and sweat gathers at my brow.
“I need some air,” I choke.
“Okay. I’ve got you,” he says again. He tries to draw one of my arms over his shoulder, but he’s too tall. Or I’m too short. Or we’re both too something. Instead he settles for wrapping his arm around my waist, and I do the same, leaning into his solid side. He’s hot, too, and I feel like I’m suffocating in a sauna, but I’m not sure I can walk without leaning on him. Or maybe I just don’t want to.
He shouts something in the direction of the kitchen, but my ears have gone a little fuzzy. All I can do is stare at the door, willing it to move closer so that I can feel the cool night air against my damp skin.
I manage a few steps, but when I whimper into Torres’s shoulder, he pulls me up and close, so that my feet are just barely skimming the floor. In three long strides, he’s opening the door, and I release him to throw myself against the railing of our porch balcony.
It’s too high for me to topple over, but even so, I feel Torres’s big hands settle on my hips, holding me in place.
“You know, I’ve never realized how stressful drunk people are,” he says. “I suppose that’s because I’m never the sober one.”
Too many words. I can’t process anything beyond the need to gulp down air and the cool touch of wind on my face.
I wish I were naked. Then the brilliant sensation of sweat turning cool against my skin could happen all over. Or I wish I were skinny-dipping again. The thought of that cold water sliding over my bare skin draws a small moan from my mouth. There’s a pool in the center of our apartment complex. I wonder if I could convince him to take me there. It’s poorly maintained and usually filled with a bunch of drunk college students, but hey . . . that’s me right now.
Chalk one up for being normal.
“I wish we were in a pool again,” I tell him.
He leans beside me on the railing, pushing some hair off my face and then lifting the thick mass of it off the back of my neck like he knows how hot I am.
“That was a lot of fun,” he says. “But I wasn’t sure you had fun. After the way you ran off.”
I close my eyes, enjoying the lightness of my head and the air flowing over my neck. I hum my approval, and list to one side, leaning my head against Mateo’s hand. “I had fun,” I tell him. More fun than I’ve ever had.
“Then why did you leave? I realize things might have been moving fast—”
Because I’m a virgin and you terrify me.
He drops my hair, and I have to jerk myself upright to keep from falling when his hand disappears. “Hey,” I whine. “Why did you—”
I look up at him, and I can tell that he’s trying to keep a blank expression, but his eyes are wild and dark and just a bit too wide. I frown, trying to puzzle out the change in him. I think back, and when I do, I hear my last thoughts not as if they were in my head, but said in my currently too loud, slightly slurred voice.
Oh God. Oh my God.
And that’s right about the time a few more of his friends arrive, calling up at us from the bottom of the stairs. Brookes. Dallas and Carson, too.
It’s also right about the time I throw myself against the railing and lose the contents of my stomach over the side.
THE PRIMARY ADJECTIVE people use to describe me has always been “nerdy.” Despite this, there’s been a surprising lack of mortification in my life so far. I avoid it at all costs because me and embarrassment don’t work well together. I blush at the drop of the hat, and it’s rarely the pretty kind of blush that makes you look as if you went just a little heavy on your makeup. No, for me, it’s the full-bodied, so-red-it’s-almost-purple kind of blush. And it always takes forever to fade.
I’ve always gone out of my way to avoid situations that might stir up that kind of reaction. When I was getting picked on in middle school, I found a teacher willing to let me eat lunch in her classroom during her off period. I didn’t really do much dating in high school, because the few times I tried, I couldn’t handle the stress of not knowing what would happen next. The mere possibility of embarrassing myself was always enough to make me run in the other direction. I didn’t take any chances. Not that kind at least. And now it seems as if my social life is not the only department where I’m playing catch-up.
Welcome to Humiliation. Population: Me.
Thankfully, I’m so miserable that the next few minutes only occur in bursts and patches for me. When I next lift my eyes, Dylan is there, and we’re inside the apartment. I blink, and I’m in my room. It’s dark, only the lamp by my bed providing light, and she’s dabbing at my forehead with a damp cloth that feels like heaven.
“Why did I do this?” I groan. “Why does anyone do this?”
She doesn’t laugh, though I can tell she wants to.
“Hindsight is twenty-twenty.”
“I hate that saying.”
“But it’s the truth.”
“I hate the truth.”
She does laugh then.
“Why did you do it?” she asks. “I tried to ask Matt, but he sounds like a yeti when he’s this drunk. I couldn’t make out anything he said.”
“I hate yetis,” I mumble.
“Yes, well, before you say you hate water, drink this.”
She tilts my head up to meet a glass, and half the water ends up running down my neck. And I do, indeed, hate water.
The only thing I don’t hate is sleep. Sleep will take away the churning in my stomach, and the awful taste in my mouth, and the flushed heat I know is still marring my skin.
Maybe I’ll wake up, and this will all have been a dream. I won’t have thrown up in front of the people I’m trying to make my new friends. I wouldn’t have told the most attractive guy to ever show any interest in me that I’m a virgin.
Maybe I’ll wake up to find that this whole list thing was a long, elaborate dream, and I can go back to being blissfully weird and antisocial and . . .
Alone.
Somewhere between one forced sip of water and the next, I must fall asleep, because I wake up after what feels like hours to the sound of my door closing. Probably just Dylan checking on me, but I’m struggling to find the motivation to move my head the six inches it will take to confirm this suspicion.
Eventually, my bed shifts, slanting to one side, and my head ends up turning of its own volition. I decide I’m dreaming when I see who’s seated beside me, because there’s no way Torres would be in my room after everything that just happened. I’m sure Dylan wouldn’t even let him in. I decide that this must be my subconscious, trying to give me one last good-bye, unreal though it may be.
“I brought you some food,” he says.
I groan. My dream can’t even do me the courtesy of giving me a pleasant last memory. Or is it normal to be drunk in your dreams when you’re drunk in real life?
He breaks the corner off a bread stick and holds it up to my lips. I don’t open.
“Trust me,” he says. “I know you’re tired and probably miserable, but this will help. And the more food and water we get into you now, the less you’ll hate yourself in the morning.”
“Already hate myself,” I say, but I take a bite of the bread stick he’s offering. It takes me forever to chew it, and when I’m done, he holds up another. Grudgingly, I eat it.
“That’s my girl.” And now I know it’s a dream.
He offers me water, and I take it, if only to wash down the bread.
“What happened to our deal?” he asks, and he sounds almost angry. “If you’d waited for me, I could’ve taken care of you. Made sure you didn’t drink too much.”
Since it’s a dream, I don’t see the point in being dishonest.
“I don’t want you to help me with the list.”
“Why not?” Yeah. He’s definitely angry.
“Because I don’t want you to think I’m a loser.”
“Damn it. I think a lot of things about you, Nell. Some of them are certainly not nice, but trust me, they’re all complimentary.” I shake my head, too tired to pick out the meaning of his words. “You’re not a loser, Nell. And I’m going to help you with that list whether you like it or not. I didn’t like coming into your apartment and seeing you with that guy. I don’t like that he’s the one who you shared this first with. I want your firsts.”
I force my eyes open, and try to look at him with as clear a mind as I can manage. Is this the part where my dream stops being miserable and starts being wish fulfillment? Is that what I wish? That Torres would be my first?
But I can’t read anything in his expression, and he doesn’t say anything else. No sweet words. No assurances. He doesn’t even touch me. He just feeds me a few more bread sticks and some water, and then leaves what’s left of the food beside my bed before he turns off my lamp and plunges us both into darkness.
Chapter 14
Mateo
I want your firsts.