Riding the Universe (10 page)

“Ow!” he cries. “Nice rant, and you're right. Lowering your standards can be a good thing, which in essence, is what your parents have done. We could also live off the land
like naturists. So then, why are you with me? You could be with any one of these guys.” He gestures at Amber and Vincent's friends.

“I could ask you the same thing, Brain Boy.” I turn and look him straight in the eye. “If high standards equal happiness, then why are you with me, here, in this cesspool of substandard people?” I wait for the spectacular retort that is sure to come. For the
malevoly
side of him to take over and defend his integrity.

“I didn't mean to piss you off, Chloé.” Gordon takes my hand and puts it around his waist, a bold move in unfamiliar territory. I love this side of him. “It was just conversation.”

If this is how typical conversations go at Gordon's parties, no wonder he's always stressed.

I'd keep thinking about this some more, but a very familiar person with green eyes and beautiful lips has just appeared to our left. Behind Rock Nuñez, Amber's friends watch him, all worried as though there will be some serious ass-kicking any moment. But Rock's preoccupation is not with Amber and Vince.

Rock looks at me and then at Gordon, and I feel as if time slows down ever so slightly. There's something barely visible in his face—hurt or jealousy—as if Gordon is seriously messing with his property. Then, as quickly as I see it, it's gone.

“Chloeeeeeee,” he cheers over-happily, raising his hand for a high-five.

“Fancy meeting you here.” I clasp hands with him and lean in for a hug.

“Yeah, well, I had to see it for myself.”

“See what?” I think he means Vince and Amber, but then I immediately regret asking.

“Nothing. Nothing,” he says. The atmosphere is loaded with tension. “The party, of course. The beautiful people!” He gestures with wide arms at the room around him.

“Rock, this is Gordon. Gordon, my best friend, Rock.” I make sure to add the best friend part to calm Rock down, in case he's thinking of making a fool of himself. I also check the kitchen to see what Amber and Vince are doing. They're pretending not to notice Rock, but it's obvious they're super-aware of him by how blatantly they're avoiding eye contact.

“Bro.” Rock takes Gordon's hand in both of his, shakes like they're best buds. Then he pulls out a folded piece of paper from his pocket and hands it to me. “I was saving this for you.”

“What it is?” I open it up. It's a page from a magazine. On one side, there's an advertisement on telescopes. On the other is a short article, “Demoting Pluto.”

“Saw it in one of my dad's magazines,” Rock says. “Thought you'd want to read it.”

“This is great. Thanks.” I give him my best smile.

Gordon leans in to take a look.

“The de-planetization of Pluto,” I tell him.

“De-planetization?”

“Yeah.” I don't bother explaining my made-up-word thing. Either he gets it or he doesn't.

“De-planetization.” Rock laughs. “Good one.” He comes around my other side to reach for peanuts on the counter behind me.

“What's wrong with you?” I whisper. His smile is party
perfect, but his eyes are lackluster. He's not still hung up on all that soul-mate stuff we talked about, is he? As if I'd fall for my best friend, the cliché of all love clichés. Come on, Rock!

“Nothing, baby doll. Why would anything be wrong?” He smiles another fake smile and plants a kiss on my cheek.

“I don't know. Maybe because this is Amber's house, and you guys are off again, and you're nervous that in two point two seconds, you're going to see her and Vince making out.” I see Vince nuzzling Amber's neck in the kitchen.

“Hey, what are you gonna do?” He shrugs so casually, I can't quite figure out if he really doesn't care or if this is Rock onstage again. “'Scuse me.” He slides past Gordon, laying a hand on his shoulder. “You kids have fun.” Then he struts off.

He's overdoing the happy act. Is he mad? I knew coming with Gordon would weird him out, but he has no right to actually be
mad
. Does he ever stop to think about how I feel when he's with a hundred different girls? No, he does not. So he'd just better get over this, quick.

On the counter is a bowl of candy bars. I grab a mini Caramello. “You all right?” Gordon asks, grabbing a Reese's for himself. “You said he's your best friend, but he's not also an ex-boyfriend, is he?”

I laugh a little too loud. “Rock? Oh, God, no, no, no. Rock and I aren't like that. Hell no!” I laugh again.

“You sure? He didn't seem too keen on me being here.”

“
Pfft
, please. Rock is never keen on me being with anyone else that makes me happy. I think that's an unspoken rule of best friendship. You know, you never want to see your best
friend completely happy without you for fear that he or she won't need you anymore.”

“Are you saying I make you happy?”

“Sure, Gordon. Can't you tell?” I give him a sexy smile.

I watch Rock disappear into the party outside, hooting and yelling. The way people respond to him always amazes me. Like the front man of a hot band, he works the crowd and even has his own groupies.

“Let's go outside for a while.” I get off my stool and pull Gordon by the hand. “It's getting hot in here.”

He follows me outside across the patio, past a human pyramid forming among six people, past the keg and tiki torches, out to a big tree in Amber's backyard. I sit against the tree and start unwrapping my caramel bar. Gordon leans into me, and I stop, chocolate melting between my fingertips, to let him kiss me.

“I've been wanting to do that for days.”

“Me too.” I feed him a piece of the chocolate. His lips touch my finger and it makes my stomach quiver.

We stay out there for almost an hour, and I forget about everything else except Gordon's words, laugh, and lips against mine. Finally, during one of our long kisses, he reaches a hand around my waist and kneads my lower back. A very primal part of me wants him to reach even further and grab more, but for that, we will have to leave this party. And as if he's heard my every thought, Gordon leans in and whispers in my ear. “Ready to go?”

T
he road through the Florida Keys is as treacherous as it is lovely. There are a lot more tourists now than when the road was first built, so speed demons used to driving ninety miles per hour on the interstates get frustrated with the slower pace once they hit the islands. It's the silent local welcome.
You're in the Keys now. Slow down.

Seth saw quite a few accidents along these roads when I was little, mostly involving three-and four-car pileups, with the occasional crushed bike or vehicle careening off a bridge, back when it was one lane each way. The Poker Run, a yearly pilgrimage of thousands of motorcycles through the Keys, always leads to at least a couple of deadly accidents.

So even though the odds are still more in favor of
my getting hit by lightning than having an accident, my parents have always asked that I stay away from the Keys while riding Lolita. But since Gordon's BMW and Lolita are two different species, we head down the island chain on US-1.

Gordon's car is exceptionally tidy inside, except for a few textbooks tossed in the backseat. Between his seat and the center console is a mail package, probably another college application to a ridiculously difficult-to-get-into school. His iPhone is neatly held to the dashboard with an elastic band, as is his GPS. One might psychoanalyze that it suggests a very boring person behind the wheel, but I've noticed it takes a very neurotic person to be so neat. Neurotic people amaze me.

“What do you care about more than anything?” I ask him.

His gaze flits back and forth between the road and the rearview mirror. The reflection of headlights in the mirror outline an eye mask on his face, like a reverse raccoon. “That seems to be changing every day.”

“What is it today?”

Five whole seconds of silence.

“You.”

“Why?”

His fingers dance on the steering wheel. “I'm not sure.”

He's not sure.
I stare ahead. We leave the dim lights of Key Largo behind and turn left onto a side road that leads to a private beach. I came here one time with Seth and his friends to catch and release.

Was that unfair of me to ask? Do I even know why I care
about him myself? I don't push it any further, but he goes on. “I didn't mean that the way it sounded. What I mean is, every day for the last three weeks, all I've been able to think about is you. Not that I don't have good reason to. You're…amazing.” His fingers fly off the steering wheel emphatically. “But I have all these other things that need attention too, and they've been taking a backseat lately.”

I pick some lint off my jeans. “I know what you mean. I should be studying for Rooney's test, but instead I went to a party. Now I'm driving around with you.”

He raises his eyebrows. “Then I'm a bad influence on you. I should take you home.”

I laugh softly. “Gordon, you can't possibly be a bad influence on me, and I don't want to go home.” There, I said it. I gulp as quietly as possible. “Where are we going, anyway?”

“Somewhere.”

There's nothing down this road except some houses and a bait stand. Other than that, it's all mangroves and fishing spots.

“A place you'll appreciate.” He grins playfully.

As we drive in total silence, I realize that if I were in Rock's car, we'd have music on full blast, and we'd be yelling over the noise. But with Gordon, the silence opens up a whole new plane of concentration, allowing me to think about things, like the way we left the party tonight.

He had pulled away from our kiss and pressed his forehead onto mine. And even though I found myself loving the way his voice dropped a couple notches when he said, “Ready to go?,” I said, “Not if you have better things to do,” because
if he thought hanging out at home was more important than being with me, then no. I'd rather stay and hang with Rock. Gordon's eyes were soft, his words, definite: “Then let's go.”

I'm really into Gordon, more than I ever have been with anybody, even though I've only known him for a few weeks. But some people just click like that. I could completely fall for him in no time. The truth is, I've been needing to feel crazy-happy for some time now, and he does have some kind of crazy-happy power over me.

Gordon pulls onto a gravelly shoulder and drives slowly until he finds an opening in the mangroves. There's a stretch of beach big enough for two or three cars, end to end. There are lots of stretches like these, where people pull up during the day to fish straight off the beach, jeans rolled up to their knees. But tonight, there's no one.

Gordon parks the car, turns the engine off, and opens his door.
Breathe, Chloé.
I open mine too, the intoxicating salty air hitting my senses. Gordon closes his door and walks around to the front of the car. He jumps onto the hood, which jars me at first. But if he doesn't mind scratching his paint job, then neither will I. I come around and slide up next to him, hugging my knees.

The engine ticks as it cools, but the hood is still hot. Waves creep up, break, and retreat back into the dark ocean. Miami's glow lightens the sky to the northeast. Ahead and to the south…black, then even blacker black. The stars are way brighter here than at home. I didn't think that was possible. Orion is super clear. So is Taurus, and of course Cassiopeia, way behind us. Gordon's right, this
is
a place I
appreciate. The moon of the other night is nowhere to be found. I miss her smiling reassurance. I look at Gordon's face, nervous and resigned, and realize that he might actually need more reassurance than I do.

I lean back and grab his hand, taking him with me. It's easier to relax when we have something to watch, and the stars put on a pretty good show. “Gordon?”

“Yes?”

“Why are we here?” I know why, but I love hearing Gordon profess, over and over, how he's weakening. I love that I'm responsible for that, that I've broken him down. Everyone needs someone in their life who can tear them away from the mundane. My mom is capable of tearing my dad's eyes away from prime-time TV. I'd like to think that I'm tearing Gordon's eyes away from some textbook right now.

“We're here because…” He stares up at the sky for a minute, then turns on his side, propping his head up with his hand. “You love torturing me, don't you?”

I turn to mirror him. His body is way bigger than mine, a nice thing, considering my height. “Yes, but seriously…don't you think it's weird? You and me?”

He puts a hand on my hip, and in one steady move, pulls me toward him until our bodies touch. My breathing shallows, my foot shakes nervously. “Not really,” he says. “The more I think about it, the more I feel like we should be here. Like fate put us here.”

He doesn't blink or flinch or do anything that might indicate he's messing with me. He's serious. I don't know what to say. I didn't take Gordon to be a fate kind of guy.

His forehead touches mine, and his eyes close. I close mine too. “And you believe in fate like that, Gordon?” Rock's million-dollar question.

I can feel his warm breath softly on my face. “Don't you?”

“Yes.”

It's true. I do. And a huge part of me wants to dive in and not be afraid of loving him. Maybe I can drown out the sadness of the last few months with something new and powerful. But another part of me says it's too much to think about just yet, to think about it later.

There might not be a later,
I can almost hear Seth saying.
Now is what matters.

But if I get hurt, Sethie? Who do I blame?

“So let's let fate handle this then,” Gordon says. I take a deep breath and let his lips touch mine. And it begins.

A very controlled, yet uncontrolled dance, as if some other force is controlling us. It's slow, all hands and mouth, soft tongue and reeling thoughts. Tugging shirts, feeling muscles underneath, his stomach, mine, his hands down my back and up again, in my hair. Beautiful, beautiful, is how I feel. The waves echo our motions, rhythmic, overpowering, but calm, controlled by the tides. I feel the stars pulsing above us even though my eyes are closed. Down, down, we spiral, down a path paved by our instincts, but it doesn't matter anymore.

Because I want this. We are not two different people tonight. We are not Motor Girl and Brain Boy. We are Us. And I don't feel like I just met him anymore. I feel like I've known him my entire life, but that's impossible. Or maybe
not. Maybe I have. I'll never know until my time comes and I learn all the answers to this universe. But right now, I want to share myself with him. I want to learn from him, as much as I want to teach him. I want to feel a connection.

I deserve to.

And whether or not those are pheromones talking, whether or not that's the right way to feel, it's the truth.

I deserve to feel happy again.

I never asked for hurt.

Gordon stops and pulls back, his eyes questioning mine. “Are you okay?” He runs his thumb over my lashes, squeezing away tears I didn't even know were there.

“Yeah.”

His fingers comb my long bangs away from my face.
It's okay,
his eyes seem to say. And then his warm mouth is back on mine, and the world around us washes into the sea.