Night Owls (18 page)

He closed his eyes. “That was one time and, no, I don’t think it counts.”

I disagreed, but then, I wasn’t a blow job expert.

He sighed heavily. “And, no, I haven’t really had a girlfriend. A couple of girls came and went before the incident.” The break-in? Or his sister being shipped off to Europe? I
wanted to ask for details, but he kept talking. “There was one other girl. I guess we started seeing each other around Christmas. She’s the one I sort of mentioned to you in the park.
Pretty early on, she found out about my family’s so-called dirty little secret, as Lala put it, and got freaked out.”

“And Sierra,” I reminded him.

“Sierra was a mistake.”

“Not to hear her talk about it,” I said, toying with a comic inking pen on his desk.

“I’m not saying it wasn’t fun—”

I glanced up at his face.

“Wrong word,” he muttered. “And it was the absolute wrong person.”

“Oh.” But what I meant was “good.”

After a long moment, he said, “It’s not like I’m saving myself or anything.”

“It’s not a Zen thing?”

“No. The only rule about sex is not to misuse it, which basically means that you shouldn’t do something that will harm yourself or someone else—like, literally, of course, but
emotionally, too. It’s pretty broad, and you’re supposed to figure out what works for you. But that doesn’t mean . . . it’s not because—”

“Look, you don’t have to explain.”

“I just don’t want you to look at me like you did out there.”

“Like how?”

“Like you pitied me.”

I stared at his inked alphabets for a long moment, not knowing what to say. It’s not like I cared one way or the other about his experience or lack thereof, and he could’ve just lied
and I never would’ve guessed differently; he certainly
seemed
much more experienced than I was. But he didn’t lie. He told me the truth, and I had to think it took a lot of
guts for him to admit it, which made me like him even more. It also made me want to be up-front in return. “I’m not, you know—a virgin, I mean. Is that weird for you?”

“How many?” he asked in a low voice.

“Four.”

“Four guys?”

“Four
times
! One guy. Well, one and one-half guys, if you count Lauren’s anti-prom party, but we didn’t actually, uh, you know, and”—I shook my head,
secretly wishing lightning would strike me down—“it really wasn’t anything.” Definitely not a blow job, but I didn’t say that.

“Oh.” He looked greatly relieved.

“Would it have been an issue if it was four guys?” After all, I’d known plenty of guys our age who’d slept with twice as many girls. Double standards were the worst.

“Intimidating, maybe. But, no, it wouldn’t matter. Were things serious? With the one guy—not the half guy,” he clarified, one side of his mouth quirking up.

“With Howard Hooper? God, no. I didn’t even like him toward the end. He was kind of an ass. And the sex was disappointing, if you want to know the truth. At least, it was for me. He
seemed to enjoy it, and that really pissed me off.” Talking too much again. What was wrong with me? Was I trying to out-honest him with the embarrassing confessions? “Anyway, I
overheard him calling Heath a fag, which was a deal breaker.”

“I hate this Howard Hooper already.”

I laughed a little. Things got quiet again.

“I’m not screwed up,” he insisted.

“I’ve never thought that.”

More silence.

“I’m not a monk, either,” he said. “And I don’t just want to be friends with you.”

Well then.

“What
do
you want?” My voice sounded strange. I wished my heart would slow down. It was hard to breathe through my nostrils.

“What do I want?” His fingers brushed over loose strands of hair near my temple. “I want to call you every five minutes. I want to text you good night every night. I want to
make you laugh. And I want you to look at me like you did that first night on the bus.”

Oh.

My pulse was out of control. I was so overwhelmed, I couldn’t meet his eyes. Couldn’t even respond. His head dropped until our cheeks were touching. I turned my face to his, and his
mouth hovered over mine—just for a moment. Long enough for me to feel his arm circle my waist, and one warm hand slide up my back. Long enough for chills to bloom across my forearms.

And then he kissed me. Slowly, softly. He tasted like he smelled, sunny and warm, but the sweetness lasted all of five seconds.

My hands snaked around his back, and he pulled me closer. And then he was kissing me like we were both on fire and he was trying to put the flames out, and I kissed him back like an arsonist
with a pocketful of matches.

We were both frantic and fevered, and it was the first kiss I’d ever had that felt like a fight. And the way he made my body ache made me think I’d been doing it all wrong until
now.

We broke apart for air, but our hands didn’t stop moving.

“Jack,” I whispered against his lips. I wasn’t sure whether I was thanking him or begging. But before I could figure it out, my back was against the door, and I could feel
every hard line of his body pressing into me, including what pressed against my stomach. When I pushed back, he picked me up until my toes left the floor and he didn’t have to bend to fit his
mouth to mine. And then my legs were around his hips and he was pulling me against him in exactly the right spot.

Maybe he was trying to prove something—I wasn’t sure. And frankly, I didn’t care, because it was the best kiss I’d ever had in my life. And the way he looked at me when
he broke away for air, with his eyelids all heavy and those double lashes fanning . . . damn. It almost made me moan.

And I might’ve done exactly that if someone hadn’t pounded against my shoulder blades. “Yo, Vincent. Let me in, man,” a muffled male voice complained from the other side
of the door. “Nature’s calling. And it’s time for the movie.”

“Dammit,” Jack mumbled against my neck before letting me slowly slide between the door and his hard body until my tiptoes reached the ground. I tried to pull away, but he
wouldn’t let me. Not until he’d dropped another kiss on my lips and a couple more on my eyelids. And this just made me want to start up all over again.

More pounding. “Vincent! You hear me in there?”

“I hear you,” he answered in a rough voice. “Give me a sec.”

He held me at arm’s length, fingers gripping my shoulders, and he blew out a long, dramatic breath.

“Are you sure you are?” I whispered. Because, virgin or not, hell’s bells, that was
good.

He grinned. “Pretty sure.”

Could’ve fooled me.

WHEN WE WALKED OUTSIDE, RINKY-DINK BACKYARD
fireworks were popping and whistling around the neighborhood. Most of the party had gathered on the main
deck to watch the movie, and as Jack made some final adjustments to the projector, I ignored the stares and found a space at the back of Sierra’s cushion mountain. I leaned one striped pillow
against the stone bench seating and watched a couple of the boys light an entire box of sparklers at once. I was pretty sure Jack and I were the only sober people there, but I couldn’t have
cared less.

I don’t think he cared, either, because he was all smiles as he announced “one of the greatest cinema treasures of all time”—a martial arts flick from 1973,
Enter the
Dragon
, which I’d never heard of, starring Bruce Lee, whom I had. But when the deck lights were turned off and the movie raced across the white sheet, I couldn’t tell you a single
thing about the plot. I was too busy being ridiculously happy inside the circle of Jack’s arm, which curled over my shoulders, and too busy memorizing how his chest felt under my cheek. And
every time I tried to steal a glance at the movie’s white glow reflected in his face, he was smiling down at me.

But after the movie was over, instead of our retreating into his room—which is what I was hoping for, in all honestly—the party came to an abrupt end.

“Car out front!” Andy called out. “Hide everything!”

Everyone scurried around the decks, tossing drinks overboard, putting out cigarettes, and hiding the last bottle of Fernet inside the grill. As the madness subsided, the side gate creaked, and a
couple walked around the side of the house.

“Might as well get this over with,” Jack mumbled, taking my hand.

“This” turned out to be one person I vaguely recognized: Mayor Vincent, who looked a lot less in a hurry than the first time I’d seen him, at the hospital. And walking at his
side was a dark-haired woman in a lavender summer dress.

“You’re home early,” Jack said.

“And on first sight, nothing appears to be on fire,” the woman said, elbowing the mayor.

“Well, not
now
,” Jack said. “An hour ago, this place was a raging inferno.”

The mayor, who was a touch shorter than his son and wearing khakis and a button-up shirt one shade darker than the woman’s lavender dress, peered hard at Jack’s face. “You been
drinking?”

“Tonight?”

“Jackson—”

“Kidding!” Jack said. “Jeez. Lighten up.”

The mayor did not care for this suggestion, like, at all. “I’ll lighten up when one of your friends wrecks his car and says he got drunk at our house. How’s that going to look
in front of a judge, huh?”

“No one’s driving, Dad. You can relax. Your reputation remains sterling.”

“We’ll talk about this later. In the meantime, why don’t you make sure everyone gets to the Muni stop without waking the whole damn neighborhood.”

Yikes. His father was kind of scary—definitely not the smooth and friendly Mayor McDreamy I knew from the news. Not like I’d ever really paid much attention to him before Jack walked
into my life. But still. Kind of a jackass, just like he was when I first saw him that afternoon at the hospital. And he had barely even looked my way, unlike the woman at his side, who was
studying every stitch in my clothing. Who was this? Did the mayor have a girlfriend? Some sort of escort while his wife was institutionalized? When the woman’s gaze met mine, I expected to
see the same kind of dismissive vibe the mayor was giving off. Instead, she smiled like she knew me.

“Hi,” she said, one oddly familiar dimple making an appearance as she extended a hand. “You must be Beatrix. I’m Marlena Vincent, Jackson’s mother.”

I shook her hand robotically, suddenly seeing how much more Jack looked like his mother than like the mayor. But if this was Jack’s mother, and Jack’s sister was overseas, who was in
the hospital?

TWO NIGHTS LATER, I GOT THE ANSWER TO THAT
question when I walked outside the anatomy lab. Jack was leaning against a tree, one foot up, hands in
pockets. My heart leaped. I hadn’t seen him since he dropped me off at my house after the party, after which he apologized for his father’s lack of charisma and his mother’s
surplus of it. She was excessively nice. She knew not only my name but my age and what school I went to, and that my mom was a nurse at the hospital. She’d even seen some of my drawings
online, and she was “so very glad” Jack had found a “friend” with whom he had something in common.

I didn’t bother correcting that we were no longer “just friends,” since he’d all but melted my pan ties off when he pushed me against the door of his bedroom. And she was
so polite, it was difficult to do anything much but be polite right back, especially when King Mayor was there, lording over everyone.

“Hey,” Jack said, pushing off the tree.

“Hi.” I stopped in front of him, feeling a little awkward. He’d kissed me good night when he dropped me off after the party, but it was a tiny, tender kiss, and that had been
two days ago. And even though we’d texted and talked on the phone since, both of us had been busy, and now it felt a little like the morning after. What were we supposed to do? Were we
together? Could I just jump him right here in front of the premed students strolling up and down the sidewalk? Because I wanted to, but at the same time I was also nervous to touch him. And it
didn’t help that he’d called yesterday, sounding all mysterious and saying he wanted to show me something after my drawing session.

“How did it go?” His hands were still in his pockets, which made me feel guarded.

“Fine.” Drawing Minnie was never
really fine,
but I certainly wasn’t going to provide gruesome details or whip out my sketches. Ever again. “So, what’s on
tonight’s agenda?”

“Walk with me?” he asked, extending his hand.

I took it, and he twined his fingers around mine, which instantly made me feel more relaxed. Him too, I guess, because he leaned down and quickly kissed my forehead in front of some professors.
And that made my stomach flutter.

After a brisk walk in the twilight, we ended up at a four-story building. The psychiatric hospital. Jack didn’t say anything, just looked down at me like he was asking for approval. And
when I nodded, he opened the door and ushered me inside.

The person at the desk recognized him. “I called Dr. Kapoor and got approval for a guest,” Jack said.

After a couple of phone calls, a muscle-bound orderly in green scrubs met us at a locked door, and we headed up in an elevator with him to the third floor. After Jack made introductions, Rupert
told him, “Gotta be quick. Don’t want to get her wound up this late, and you know how she is about new people.”