“Stop complaining. You’ll feel better.”
“Nag,” he said, a playful tone to his voice.
“Hardheaded beast,” I said.
He looked up and I looked down. We both smiled.
“Go on with your story,” he said. “The picture.”
“I don’t think I want to tell you now.”
He moved his head down and his teeth came between my legs. He bit hard enough to make me breathless, to send tingles of pleasure, but not to hurt me. He’d go harder if no confession came.
“Tell me,” he said, almost breathless.
I had no idea how he did it, but he did. He could still send me back in time, to the first night I realized who he was and what he looked like, a fifteen-year-old girl more than infatuated with the beautiful man who had a reputation. Not much had changed.
“Ah, I see. You’re embarrassed. You had some kind of ritualistic ceremony with my picture. Probably put a spell on it. Or set it on the pillow next to yours. Maybe both.”
I became quiet. My cheeks rushed with scalding blood. At my silence he looked up, curiosity replaced by the truth I couldn’t hide. It wasn’t his fault. I had brought it up. Still, it was humiliating.
“Baby,” he said, his face now stuffed against my stomach, his body shaking with laughter. “Tell me. Did you sleep with picture-me next to you? Did you talk to picture-me?Brando. Hello.” He tried to make his voice go soft, but it was only raspy and low. “You are so hot.I will love you forever and ever and we’ll have sex for as long as we both shall live.”
“Hmph!” I turned my face away, looking in the opposite direction, wishing I could cross my arms.
He laughed even harder. What the hell did Uncle Tito put in that medicine?
“I have to stop,” he said, his humor slowing down, “or I’m going to be sick again.”
I felt his head. His fever had lessened some after the medicine and the vinegar cloths. I flipped the one on his forehead over to the cooler side. He gave a hard shiver, but it didn’t last long.
He sighed, his breath hot against the wool. The medicine had started working. His body was more relaxed, his weight heavier against mine. After a few minutes, I thought he had fallen asleep, but he cleared his throat.
“Tell me why you did it.”
I sighed, resigned. “You were the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. I liked to look at your picture.” Well, it was more like I was obsessed with staring at his picture, but no need to give him a big head. “It gave me butterflies. Made my heart do things I still can’t even explain.”
“For what it’s worth, I’m glad you kept me close, Ballerina Girl. I was safe there, next to you.”
I smiled and stroked his head again. He seemed lost in thought, his eyes still glazed but more focused since the fever was coming down.
“Remember Jackson Labbie and Briar McAvoy?”
My fingers stilled in his hair while I thought. “Older than me? She has black hair and blue eyes? He was on the baseball team?”
“You remember him.”
“Only because he got Briar pregnant. Charlotte cried for three weeks because she claimed he was her soul mate. My mom took pity on her and sent her to Spain as consolation.”
“Huh,” he said.
It wasn’t the “huh” that alerted me to something on his mind. It was the thoughtful pause afterward.
“She told you the same thing, didn’t she?” I ventured. If I didn’t guess and get it right, he wouldn’t confirm it.
Charlotte was popular. She had a few close friends, plenty of enemies who pretended to be friends with her, and a lot of boyfriends. Brando was one of the few guys who refused to go out with her. He didn’t want to ruin his friendship with my brother, though Elliott had given him his blessing.
I think Brando knew that Charlotte wasn’t his type and didn’t want a problem with Elliott to spring up if Charlotte complained that she had been used. She wasn’t worth it to him. Not when he had hundreds of women to choose from—womenbeing the operative word.
