Page 3 of Fifty First Times (Sharing You 0.40)
Her gaze drifted from me and paused on something over my shoulder. “Good, because he’s coming this way,” she announced.
I shot to my feet. “I need to go to the bathroom.” But as I turned to scurry inside, I came face to face with Wes.
No, that wasn’t quite right. I had to look up to Wes, which was a first. He must have grown half a foot since I saw him last. I didn’t even know growth spurts were possible at our age.
“What they got in that New York water?” Tasha struggled onto her feet, looking more pregnant than she had five minutes ago. Or was I that oblivious?
“God knows,” Wes drawled. Half a year in New York and he still sounded like a South Texas boy. I bet that drove the girls up there nuts. That and the fact that his new height had lengthened his torso, and if I wasn’t mistaken, he’d clearly been working out. A set of nicely chiseled abs were visible under his tight, gray V-neck. Gone were the baggy, plaid shirts of high school; Wes looked every bit the New Yorker from his artfully tousled dark hair to his tight jeans. The boy who took me to prom last year was all legs and arms—a tangle of awkward, skinny limbs. The man standing in front of me now was anything but a boy.
His brown eyes skimmed over me, but his face remained passive. “Jac, it’s nice to see you.” Cold. Informal. There was no hint of friendliness in his tone, even though up until seven months ago we’d been best friends. Could I blame him for avoiding me after that awful night? I hadn’t even tried to see him before I left town.
Wes turned his attention back to Tasha, and as he did I noticed faint stubble peppering his jawline. It was dark black like his hair. “I hear there are congratulations in order.”
“Someone has to stay in Beauford and have babies.” Tasha smiled as she patted her belly. “With you two gone, we were going to have to redo the population sign.”
“I only went to college. I haven’t left forever,” Wes said, but I heard the lie in his words. He’d take Texas with him wherever he went. I knew that, but I also understood that there was no going back to a town like Beauford after you’d escaped it.
Just the thought of leaving school had made the air around me feel heavy and too hot. I was too far from the ocean here, and the world of Beauford felt dry and beige, each piece of its landscape a muted shade of brown. I didn’t know how Wes felt about New York, but I already ached for the vibrant sprawl of LA and its tall, yawning palm trees. I even missed the billboards pressuring you to see the latest Hollywood release or watch the newest fall television show. Soft, sandy beaches and the Santa Monica pier.
“Yeah, you have,” Tasha said in a soft voice, but before he could deny it, she held her hands up to stop her. “I don’t blame you. I just wish you’d gone together.”
I wished the ground would crack open and swallow me up. We were never together.
Wes and I had made a pact to lose our V-cards on prom night, which other than being a bit cliché was the perfect solution to our predicament. There was no way in hell either of us was sticking around for the other person, and that meant no chance of getting trapped in Beauford.
No one in Beauford’s 2013 graduating class was a virgin—except Wes and me. And if everyone in a podunk town in Texas had done it, sure as shit everyone in two of the largest colleges in the country had, except for maybe the super-religious types. Plus I’d known Wes forever. If I couldn’t strip down and let him stick me with it, how would I ever expect to lose it in LA among my vastly more experienced classmates? After all, my roommate, Jen, had already done it with three different guys.
“Now y’all are on the opposite sides of the Earth.” Tasha interrupted my thoughts. New York and LA were hardly the other sides of the world, but I bet it felt that way standing in Beauford.
“I’m not really a California kinda guy.” But his face said something else: I’m not really a Jacqueline kinda guy.
He had made that clear on prom night when he’d failed to follow up on our plan and reinforced his rejection by dropping me off the next morning and avoiding me for the last seven months.
“Excuse me.” I held my cup upside down. “Empty.”
“When did you start drinking?” Wes asked, frowning as I pushed past him.
About the same time you became a dick. I wanted to say it out loud, but I couldn’t, and I knew if I did, I would cry. In the kitchen, a group had gathered to play quarters and I jumped in, pretending like I knew how to play. Before long I’d lost track of how many beers I’d had to chug. A guy from my graduating class stood behind me, hovering close to my ear and urging me to drink more. I was just about to start on a line of shots when Wes yanked me away.
“What are you doing?” I yelled at him, trying to pull free.
“I’m getting you out of here before you make a fool out of yourself.” He led me toward the front door, past Tasha and Jesse, who were saying their good-byes to a few people. Tasha reached to hug Wes, giving me the chance to run. But all I did was take a few shaky steps back.
“I don’t need you to take care of me.”
From the look on Tasha’s face, I realized that my words had sounded clearer in my head, but I put a hand on my hip, hoping to look assertive.
“This is not you.” Wes’s voice was calm and even. I bet he hadn’t had a drop tonight.
“How would you know? You haven’t talked to me in seven months.”
“Why are you drinking like this?” Wes challenged me.
“I’m drinking like this because you didn’t fuck me!” I was pretty wasted, but even I knew that everyone was staring. So much for my goddess status.
And then Wes did the last thing I would have ever expected. He walked over, grabbed me around the waist, and threw me over his shoulder, carting me out the front door to the cheers of the crowd.
I tried to kick at him, but my coordination had been undermined by the drinking games.
