“First round to Caymen,” Skye says, and Xander snaps his head up to look at me. He growls.
“Okay, second item. Cereal bowl.”
I give a grunt of indignation. “So not fair. You knew he’d know where that is.” And of course he does. Cupboard beside the pantry.
“Tiebreaker,” Skye calls out. “Find me a strainer.”
I laugh at the look on Xander’s face. It’s a look that says, I don’t even know what that is. I race toward the sink. It will be underneath one of the cupboards there. When I reach for the cupboard a pair of hands grab my waist and pull me back. Then he cuts around me and yanks open the cupboard I was going for. I jolt forward and settle in next to him, trying to push him aside with my body.
“Cheater,” he says.
“Me? You’re the cheater.” He’s standing firm. I can’t push him over and he’s searching the shelves.
“It’s like a bowl with holes in it,” Skye calls out.
“My own best friend is against me.” I wrap my arms around Xander’s waist and try to pull him back. The kettle on the stove whistles and Skye removes it from the burner.
“Got it!” Xander holds the strainer in the air. I jump up and try to grab it and he keeps it just out of my reach. When I try to pull his arm down, he puts his free arm around my shoulder, pinning me against his chest. “And the winner is Xander.”
“Cheaters! The both of you!”
He clears his throat. “I’d like to dedicate this win to my supreme knowledge of the kitchen layout and tools therein that I have used on many occasions. If it wasn’t for—” He stops mid-sentence and then says, “Oh, hi, Mom.”
I immediately drop my hands that are pushing against Xander’s chest and try to twist out of his hold. He sets the strainer on the counter and secures me with both arms. “Mom, this is Caymen Meyers and her friend Skye.”
I turn my head toward her because my body is still trapped in Xander’s grip. I’m afraid of what I’ll see on her face. Afraid this will be the moment when I finally meet the resistance to this relationship on his end. But she has a pleasant look on her way-too-young-to-be-Xander’s-mother face. Her hair is blond. Her eyes are blue. Now I see where Lucas gets his looks from. Xander didn’t inherit a thing from his mother. But then she smiles, perhaps because I start struggling against Xander, and I see that he inherited his best feature from her.
“Good to meet you, girls. Caymen, I’ve heard so much about you.”
“Hello, Mrs. Spence. Your son won’t let me go because he’s a cheater, but it’s good to meet you.”
Xander releases me, and I back away from him a few steps, trying to keep my explosion of giddiness to myself.
Mrs. Spence picks up a roll of toilet paper from the counter and scrunches her nose.
“Ask Caymen about that,” Xander says.
Great, now I have to explain to his mother about my vandalism? “Your son called me with a toilet paper emergency. I rushed right over.”
She looks confused so Xander says, “She’s kidding, Mom.”
“Ah, yes. The dry humor you were telling me about.”
Jeez, how much did they talk about me?
“Well, I’m glad you’ve gotten my serious boy laughing.” She squeezes my arm and then pats Xander’s cheek. “I’m off to bed. Don’t be a stranger, Caymen.”
“Night, Mom.” After his mom leaves, Xander moves to the mugs and scoops a few spoonfuls of powdered chocolate into each then pours the hot water. “This isn’t as good as Eddie’s but I hope it’ll do.”
“Do you have a bathroom somewhere?” Skye asks. “Or ten?”
He smiles. “The closest one is through that arch. First door on your right.”
“Thanks.”
She leaves and it’s just Xander and me standing side by side at the counter. His hip presses against my side as he reaches for a spoon. Then our hands brush as we reach for the same mug. We both pull back from it.
“Go ahead,” we say at the same time and then laugh. He takes a sip of the hot chocolate and then slides the mug to me.
The entire sides of our bodies are touching—shoulders, elbows, hips, thighs—all the way down to our feet. I can feel every tiny movement he makes.
“You’re killing me,” he says breathlessly.
“I’m sorry.” I take one step away, and he grabs me by the elbow and swings me to face him. Now the entire fronts of our bodies are touching. I take a sharp breath as heat pours down me. He backs me up against the counter. His palm pressing into my lower back feels like it could singe a handprint onto my skin.
I’m staring as hard as I can at the collar of his T-shirt.
“Caymen?”
“Yes?”
“You look terrified. Does this scare you?”
“More than anything.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t bring my mints.”
“And now the real answer . . .”
“Because I’m afraid that once you catch me, the game’s over.” I don’t believe I admitted that out loud to him when I hadn’t even admitted it to myself. But he called me out. He always calls me out.
His finger traces my cheekbone and my heart slams into my rib cage as the nerves from my cheek all the way down my arms buzz to life.
“I didn’t realize we were playing a game,” he says.
I smile. That was the same line he had used during our second meeting. I look at him, and as if that’s all he’d been waiting for, his lips meet mine. When they touch I feel electrified. He kisses me gently, his lips as warm as his hand.
Just when I’m about to go into attack mode, I hear Skye clear her throat and say, “I’m just going to take my hot chocolate to go, then. I’ll bring your mug back another time.”
I pull back and try to push Xander away, not wanting to be rude, but he doesn’t budge. Skye gives me the way to go smile and I realize she’s not offended at all.
“I’ll give her a ride home,” Xander says without looking away from me. His eyes are on fire. We both listen as Skye leaves the kitchen. Then he takes me by the waist and lifts me onto the counter. I wrap my legs and arms around him and press my lips to his. The action is more intense this time. My need more obvious.
He answers back, his tongue finding mine, his hands pulling me as close as possible. He tastes good, like salty chocolate. I let my hands explore his back through his T-shirt. I find his spine and outline each vertebra. A rush of emotions courses through my body, and I’m surprised when the one that overwhelms me is intense sadness, the one emotion I’ve been successfully repressing all night.
I am moments away from tears so I bury my head in his neck, hoping to suppress them. He freezes. He tries to back up, probably so he can look at me, but I cling tightly to him. He rubs a hand up and down my back.
“Caymen? What is it? I’m sorry. Was that too fast?” He takes me by the waist and slides me off the counter.
“No. It’s not that.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“No, you didn’t do anything. This is really bad timing for my denial to lift.” I’m not sure if he understood what I said because my emotions are making my speech thick.
“Talk to me. What happened?”
“Will you just hold me for a minute?” I’m trying to get my emotions in check before I try to explain.
He must realize he had dropped his hands to his sides because he takes a deep breath and then wraps them back around me. There is not a millimeter of space between us. His presence is the only thing keeping me together while the thoughts I should’ve been thinking all night finally surface.
What if my mom is pregnant? Having a baby is going to ruin us. We can’t afford it. And what kind of guy is Matthew? Is he going to run when he finds out? How can my mom have made the same mistake twice? If I thought I had a tiny bit of hope of leaving the doll store and starting a life of my own, this would make that almost impossible.
A single tear escapes and I swipe it away quickly with the back of my hand.
“You’re scaring me, Caymen. What is it?”
“My mom.”
“Is she okay?” He sounds alarmed.
“She might be pregnant.”
Chapter 32
Xander curses under his breath. “Man, Caymen, I’m sorry.” That’s all he says for a while. His fingers create a trail on my back: across, down, over, up. They repeat the pattern over and over. “When did you find out?”
“Tonight.” I sigh. “Or maybe she’s not. And I’m wishing so bad she’s not. But if she isn’t that means something else is wrong with her and that I’m a horrible daughter for thinking even for a split second that I’d rather her be anything but pregnant.”
He pushes me out by the shoulders and I let him. When we meet eyes he says, “What can I do?”
“Make this all a dream that I can wake up from tomorrow.”
He pulls on his bottom lip. “I feel like I took advantage of you tonight. I’m sorry. Had I known I would have never—”
“Stop,” I interrupt. “Don’t say that. I’ve been wanting to kiss you for weeks. Way before I found out about my mom, back when you used to walk me to school.”
His eyes flicker to my lips then back to my eyes. “You wanted to kiss me?”
“‘Want’ is the correct word. I want to kiss you.” I lean forward and brush my lips against his.
He pulls back a little. “Now I’d really be a jerk if we kissed. Come on. Let’s talk.” He leads me down the hall by my hand to a large theater room. Several overstuffed recliners set on different levels face a big white screen.
“Wow,” I say, spinning in a circle. “This is where we need to watch The Shining.”
He lifts one side of his mouth into a half-smile then goes to a bookshelf full of DVDs and pulls out the one with Jack Nicholson sticking his creepy face through a gap in a door.
“You got it?”
“I did. You said we were going to watch it so I got it.”
I plop down in a recliner. “Well, put it on, then.”
He shakes his head. “Not tonight. Tonight we talk.” He replaces the movie and settles into the recliner next to mine.
“What were you doing before I got here?”
“Let me rephrase that: tonight we talk about you.”
“Can we just work up to it first? I’m not good at things like this.”
He nods. “Okay, before you got here? Let’s see, I was working on a history assignment.”
“Do you go to Dalton Academy or Oceanside?” They’re both private schools. I’m sure he goes to one or the other.
“Dalton.”
“Dalton . . . that’s your grandma’s last name.” Before I even finish the sentence I feel stupid for saying it. “Duh. That’s not a coincidence.”
He laughs. “Thanks, by the way.”
“For what?”
“For reminding me what it’s like to be treated like a normal person. It’s been a long time since I’ve been around someone who didn’t know who I was.”