Page 28

“Grab some napkins, too,” Paul calls out from the living room.

“Okay,” I say, walking into the kitchen to get a few cans of pop for Paul, Samuel, and me.

The smell of hot pizza fills the house. Ma is out playing bridge with some of her friends. It’s just the boys and me tonight. Except we’re missing Danny, which is nothing new. I know later he’ll come to my window, though, and I’ll let him climb up the ladder he hides at the back of the house.

We’ve been doing this for the last year now. It just started one day and it hasn’t stopped. Danny’s visits keep my mind off the fact my mom’s dying and soon everything will change for me. He tells me about the men he hangs out with, but he always seems to leave out certain things. I know the people he puts himself around aren’t good men. I tell him that; however, he says they just have a different way of living. But when I rub my hand over his busted knuckles, I think maybe Danny’s one of those men now.

I open the fridge door, looking for the drinks when I feel someone press against me from behind. I smell him, all boy and rough streets.

“Hey, Little Girl,” he whispers in my ear, sending chills down my spine. Danny doesn’t know it, but he’s the reason I had my first orgasm. One night after he left my room, I lay on my bed smelling the pillow he’d just been on.

I don’t know why his scent turned me on so much, but it did. My clit started throbbing and my hand had a mind of its on. I kept the pillow near my face and unbuttoned my jeans. Sliding my hand into my panties, I felt how wet I was, and as soon as my fingers rubbed over my clit, I felt a sensation that made tingles run down my thighs.

I kept rubbing until my toes curled and a rush of wetness filled my underwear, all the while thinking of Danny and his boyish smirk, his dark, unruly hair, and tan skin. For some reason, even the cuts on his damaged knuckles turned me on. I fantasized about his fingers rubbing me, his eyes focused on me and only me.

I shiver when he reaches around to move the milk, revealing the drinks. He grabs one and I turn around to face him.

“Where have you been?” I ask.

He shrugs. “Out.” I look at his neck, seeing a hickey.

It hurts.

It literally causes my heart to shred a layer of skin, falling to the pit of my stomach like a drifting feather.

He smirks, noticing what I’m looking at. “Don’t be jealous, Bexley.”

Jealous? This isn’t jealousy, you idiot. This is pain.

“Whatever,” I reply with an eye roll. I always play it cool when it comes to Danny. I make him think I couldn’t give a crap about him and his many girlfriends, but inside, I care enough to fill craters in the moon. Sometimes I wish I could just push him up against a wall and slap him and then kiss him crazy, but rejection is a hard pill to swallow and I just know he’d look at me like I was a little girl.

I turn back around, grabbing some drinks and a stack of napkins Ma keeps on the counter before I go back into the living room. I feel him follow behind me.

Samuel looks from me to him. “What?” I ask, giving him his drink.

“Nothing,” Samuel says, his eyes going back to the TV. I sit down in the middle of the couch and Danny flops down beside me.

“Can I press play now?” Paul says, annoyed that I took so long.

“Sorry,” I mutter. With my heart in my stomach now, I don’t want any pizza. Instead, I grab the blanket from the back of the couch and cover my legs before folding them so my feet dig into the cushion. I lay my head back as we start the movie, and only moments later Danny slides his hand under the throw, linking his fingers with mine.

I don’t look his way, and I don’t change my facial expression, but on the inside, I’m burning up and the happiest girl on the planet because Danny is holding my hand. Instinctively, I run my thumb over his knuckle, feeling the scab of a scar, and it brings me comfort.

I don’t know why he held my hand that night. Maybe he felt bad for flaunting his hickey in my face. Maybe he just wanted to make sure I wasn’t mad at him. Either way, I loved it, but he never did it again…not until much later, of course.

Danny stayed out more and more after that. He even stopped coming to my window, and when Mama died in the late summer of 1999, we shared one last moment together. He climbed into Paul’s bed with me, he held me while I cried and after that I left Danny behind. We didn’t speak again until Thanksgiving 2003. God, the time we had together. It was a hard rush. Every moment with him was electrifying and scary, and wild.

But it ended on a sad note.

And I know now that Danny and I are on two different paths. I’m supposed to be with Samuel.

He cherishes me. He spoils me and he makes me feel like I’m the most important person in his life.

I am completely content, and I might even say I’m happy.

There’s just one thing missing.

I never can figure out what—I just know that there is. It wakes me up at night. Sometimes I watch the man I choose to live my life with sleep and I question things I shouldn’t.