It took a lot to keep from rolling my eyes. I hated when my mom tried to talk about girls.
“We actually see her parents at church every now and then. She seems like she wouldn’t be as . . . wild as Gwen was.” She picked over her words. My mother would never say anything mean about anyone. But she always saw how openly affectionate Gwen was, and I knew it bothered her. She was a cool mom, but definitely more conservative. I couldn’t imagine what she would say if she found out her son wanted to force a girl down when he was having sex with her. “She seems like a lady.”
“Give the boy a break, Allison,” my dad grumbled. “Maybe he wants a little wild.”
Nothing could hold back the cringe on my face at my parents openly discussing the type of girl I would like and why.
“Liam,” she gasped. “Our son is a gentleman.” My dad laughed, and I couldn’t help but join in. “What? What is so funny?”
“Do you need me to get you a pearl necklace to clutch for when you act so shocked?”
“Oh, stop it,” she said, waving her hand. But she started laughing too at how ridiculous she sounded. “It’s not nice to laugh at an old lady.”
“Hardly old, honey.” My dad looked over and winked at her. “Still enough wild for me.”
And that was my cue to leave. “Night, guys.”
Opening my bedroom door, my eyes shot to my window. Seeing Ana’s light was on, I headed to the window and saw her sitting on her bed looking at her phone.
I tugged mine out of my back packet and called her. It rang once and she looked over at me and answered. “Hey.”
“Did he kiss you?”
It spilled out. I didn’t even know where it came from. Sure, it was floating around in my head, wondering if he would walk her to her door and kiss her goodnight, but I sure as hell hadn’t planned on asking. I stood at the window and could see from across the space between our houses that her face was screwed up in confusion. I didn’t blame her. I was confused too.
“What? Why do you want to know?”
My brain flew through a thousand responses, trying to cover my gaffe. “Because I bet it was gross.”
She laughed and asked, “You think you’d be better?”
“Hell yeah,” I said, intending to continue with the banter.
But something about the day and the way I watched her give so much attention to Sean, made me want to pull it back on me.
We stood at our windows, facing each other, the darkness of the night stretching between us and our bedroom lights illuminating our bodies. These were my nights and maybe that was why I pushed the limits.
Maybe it was because I was comfortable with Ana, and she accepted me for me. Maybe because I thought she’d shift away from me for Sean, I wanted to share a secret with only her that would bring us closer. Maybe I wanted to be a little honest with her just to see her reaction. “I would kiss you so hard. I would press my lips to yours and shove you against a wall so you had nowhere to go, nowhere to hide.” I did my best to keep my tone light, to hopefully play it off as joking if things went wrong, but I visualized my words and my voice deepened as want coursed through me. “I’d grip your wrists and pin them above your head so you couldn’t shove me away and I would own your lips. Own you.”
The silence stretched, and I began to panic. My mind scrambled to turn the conversation back to jokes, but another part of my mind urged me to let it be; let my honesty settle where it may.
I couldn’t see the details of her face, but I could tell that it wasn’t scrunched in revulsion, and she hadn’t hung up on me. I wished she was standing in front of me without all the space between us, so I could watch her eyes and be able to read her honest reaction. The silence stretched too long. I needed to say something. But I just stood there, waiting for her to make the next move.
However, it seemed she was going to ignore what I’d said. She spoke with soft hesitance as she changed the subject.
“You ready for school next week?”
Swallowing the fear that she might’ve called me disgusting, I let it go. “I guess. I mean I’ve gone school shopping and have all my supplies. I’m just going to miss summer and hanging out with everyone by the pool.”
I couldn’t even hear her breathing, and I imagined she was holding her breath, wondering if I would drop any more bold statements. “Me too. But just look forward to our seventeenth birthdays in October.”