It was no wonder he hated me.
His mouth parted, and as if by instinct, I dropped my finger to his bottom lip. Hardness nudged the soft inside of my thigh, but I was too afraid to look down. I used his solid body as leverage to slide forward on the tile and bring him between my knees. I couldn’t believe I was just touching him. Just like that.
“Was I there? In your nightmare?” I asked. I ran my fingertip along his mouth. My other hand played with the soft ends of his hair.
He nodded.
“I’m still here.”
He fisted my top in one hand, and spanned his big hand along the back of my head. The tips of his middle finger and thumb grazed each of my earlobes. He pulled me toward him, gripping my camisole so tightly that one of the thin straps snapped. My heart hammered in my chest. Manning and I were going to kiss. He had an erection, I was pretty sure. We’d have sex. On prom night. Just like I’d dreamed about. It was larger and more life-changing than anything I’d done up until then—and terrifying enough that I almost stopped him. I almost couldn’t bear the weight of it.
“Manning?” I heard from a distance.
He stopped short.
It took me a moment to remember where I was, and that we weren’t alone. That I had a sister who’d probably sat in this same spot. I looked over Manning’s shoulder. Until then, I hadn’t noticed the open bedroom door. Tiffany’s bare legs were tangled in the sheets on the right side of the bed. For some reason, that shocked me. Like she should be in the middle the way she’d slept at home. It was the first evidence I’d seen of Manning and my sister sleeping in the same bed.
He let go of my top, and it uncrinkled like a piece of paper. He fixed it quickly, then stepped back over to the sink. “In the kitchen,” he called. “Your sister’s here.” To me, he said, “Get down.”
I slid off the counter just before Tiffany shuffled out in panties and nothing else, rubbing her eyes. “Lake?”
“Tiff.” Manning jutted his chin behind her. “You’re naked.”
She rolled her eyes. “Lake’s seen my boobs a hundred times.”
It was true, I had, but never like this. Never in front of Manning. Not with the knowledge that Tiffany had come straight out here from bed, which meant she slept next to Manning every night like that. Naked. When I’d called earlier, he’d been in bed with her. When he left me now, that was where he’d go. To her bed.
“Why are you here?” Tiffany asked me.
I cupped my right shoulder, trying to hide that my strap had broken. “I . . .”
“Never mind,” she said. “Tell me in the morning. Manning, come to bed. I need you for something.”
Something? I looked between the two of them, my vision going fuzzy. Had it been this dark and hazy a minute ago? Had the clock glared this hard, green lasers cutting through my euphoria?
Tiffany plodded back into the bedroom. Manning picked up his glass, filling it under the faucet as he stared out the window over the sink.
“Manning?”
He shut off the water and turned away.
“Where are you going?” I asked, following him with my eyes.
“Bed.”
“You can’t.” It came out softly, but I wanted to shout at him. Shake him. You can’t go in there. You can’t! He and Tiffany were going to have sex. They’d already had sex. Of course I knew it, but I’d never actually known it. Not until this moment.
He checked over his shoulder, then came back to stand in front of me. “You asked what I thought about in there,” he said quietly. “A lot. Everything. You, and Tiffany, too. But mostly, I thought about my dad. All the awful things he did. The coward he was. And how I would never become him. Not even for you.”
He returned to the bedroom. I had no idea what he’d meant, or why he thought I could possibly turn him, the man I loved, into his dad, the man he hated. I was the one who was helpless in all this. I got that same panicky feeling I had when I’d opened my college acceptance packet. My future had been set, but which, if any, of these choices had I made?
16
Manning
I woke up next to my girlfriend, and there was nothing strange about that. Except that the night before, I’d just about lost my control to the urge to taste watermelon again, just once before I died.
Dried sweat made my hairline stiff. Last night I’d dreamed of Lake. She’d needed me and I’d been helpless. It’d shaken me even more than usual knowing Lake slept under my roof. She was close. Safe.
Except that she wasn’t.