“What if I’m just a walking disaster?” I said, feeling wild and out of control. On the verge of tears. On the verge of stripping off all my clothes in front of him. “I tried to make a spectacle of myself in the dam two years ago, and that was a flop, so I’m doing my best to take you with me now. I’m not Cinderella. I’m probably, I don’t know—your witch with the oven.”
He shook his head. “You can’t out-disaster me. Told you, I’ve already got ghosts. Let’s go down together, Bonnie and Clyde style. Rob some banks. Run through the night. Build some cottages with ovens and be witches. You and me.”
And Eddie. Where did Eddie fit into this?
Eddie wouldn’t promise me bank robbery and cottage witchery. Eddie was golden and good, quick with the big smile, always positive.
Only hewasn’t, was he? Golden Eddie was just someone I invented in my head. The real Eddie was hiding a drug addiction and disappeared off the map the first chance he got to party on a beautiful island. The real Eddie clearly didn’t care that I’d met his brother.
The real Eddie lied about rescuing me from the dam.
As I settled my forehead against Fen’s, he closed his eyes.
“If you’ll have me,” he said, “I’m yours. And if you want me to stop talking to you because of Eddie, I’ll do that, too. Tell me what you want, Jane.”
I didn’t answer him. I just pressed my mouth to his. I’d never done anything like that—ever. But he made me feel reckless and bold. And when he kissed me back and his hands cupped the back of my head to hold me, I sank against his chest, propped on my hands, and my body melted into a pool of lava. His tongue moved against mine, and I moaned.
He touched me, and I was wax beneath his hands.
This time, our kissing wasn’t frantic. We weren’t in any rush. Not at first. But it was so much more serious.
And it was different because we definitely weren’t strangers anymore. So what if we bumped teeth or my tongue went this way when it should’ve gone that way?
We just chuckled—my God, the sound of his dark, low laugh!—and then tried again.
Plus, it didn’t matter, because everything felt good—his soft lips, and the way his open mouth brushed over my jaw on a path to my ear. The way his flexible fingers molded in the curve of my back beneath my shirt. The way he whispered and groaned when my hand reached down to touch what I could feel between us.…
“Jane?”
“Huh?”
“We have to take a break,” he said, out of breath, “or I can’t.”
He was right to stop things. I felt too out of control, and we weren’t thinking. Or prepared. I didn’t know where Frida was, and we needed to go find her before she got too far away. But as we forced ourselves to separate, still holding hands, all I could think was how happy I was.
Everything felt good.
So how could it be wrong?
I didn’t think it was. I was done with Golden. I knew that now. Maybe I’d known it all along. It was just so shiny and bright that I’d been momentarily distracted. Like a cat wearing itself out chasing a pinpoint of laser light until it realizes it’s pawing at nothing.
Keep your laser lights.
Give me the boy with the axe.
Track [21] “Family Is Family”/Kacey Musgraves
Jane
When Jasmine texted me aninvitation to lunch at their house three days later, I must have stared at it for a solid minute like a dummy, because that’s how long the screen shutoff function on my phone was set for. It’s just that I’d been so busy, sneaking off with Fen every chance I got, I guess I forgot all about her asking me about lunch. Or about her.
Or about the fact that she just might not appreciate that I was putting my hands all over the wrong son. And if things didn’t slow down, it was going to be more than hands.
Not that it mattered. It was wrong any way you looked at it. I knew from the escalating feelings of guilt. The more we saw each other, the more I imagined Eddie finding out and how it would hurt him. And that was the last thing I wanted.
If we could just talk on the phone or text, it would change so much. That’s how I felt, anyway. Either he’d explain all the stuff Fen had told me, and the feelings I used to have for him would come back—or they wouldn’t. But I couldn’t have that conversation with dead air.
Some part of my brain was still reminding me that Eddie hadghosted me plenty of times before. Like… lots. He’d disappear for a couple of weeks and then be super friendly. But I guess if Jasmine had heard anything from him, she would have told me. And it didn’t excuse the fact that Eddie had not texted me back. He knew I was coming to the lake for the summer. He had to know I’d run into Fen sooner or later—he specifically told me to avoid him, so of course he knew. In a way, shouldn’t he have prepared me for this?
