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Chapter 15

Kitty

“You did what?” I seethed. I was on the phone with my mother.

“Yeah, Guy said he’d love to come! He’s looking forward to the road trip with you,” Mom said. “I told him it was your idea.”

I rubbed my forehead. “Mom!”

“What? Are y’all not friends anymore or something?”

I really didn’t want to get into it. Well, Mom, he came over when I was on my period and rubbed my clit until I came, but not until after he felt me up, dry humped me a little bit, and let me feel his mostly-naked body and seemingly monstrous cock. But then he ran off like the room was on fire and acted like I was the weird one for thinking that was a bad response .

“No, we are. I just wish you’d asked me first.”

The following Wednesday morning Guy waited for me on the bench outside my dorm. I busted out the door, wrestling my too-big suitcase in the snow.

“Let me get it,” he said cheerfully. “Wanna get a Dunkin? My treat!”

So this was how he was going to play it. The “nothing happened” card.

We rode the bus to the car rental place, and somehow got the car without incident despite us both being under twenty-five. God only knows what sorcery Mark Gatto worked to make sure we could get home. We ended up with a cheap four-door sedan with a suspicious odor to it.

“Really fresh smell.” Guy’s eyes danced with mirth. He knew I was weird about smells. “Hey, there’s a Dunkin right before the highway. Pull over.”

I did, and as promised, Guy went in and got my Dunkin order. I may or may not have added extra words to my order so he would have to work hard for it. He returned with my drink, exactly to spec, plus a giant iced coffee for himself and a big box of Munchkins to share. He put the goodies down and shuffled around in his backpack.

“I can’t believe you’re drinking iced coffee,” I grumbled.

“My life is on the ice, ma puce . May as well be in my drink, too,” he said with a wink.

I guffawed. “You’re such a nerd.”

“I made us a playlist,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Can it wait until I’ve had at least half of this coffee, Frenchie? You’re killing me with the endless optimism this morning.”

“Sure, grumpypants.” He busied himself with staring out the window and reading every road sign and billboard. He added commentary like, “Oh, that’s interesting!”

I knew what he was doing. He was trying to make me break. I was determined to stay grouchy. He had wronged me, again. And tried to act like he didn’t. He wasn’t getting off that easy.

But I loosened up about an hour outside of Boston. The caffeine and sugar hit my bloodstream, and his unrelenting goofiness broke through the tiny cracks in my heart of stone. I let him turn on his playlist. There was all kinds of nostalgic stuff, like songs our moms liked. Prince. Jewel. Some One Direction that I knew he put on to appease me. He did his best high-pitched Prince voice to go with his awful off-key singing. He changed lyrics to have my name in them.

How was I supposed to stay mad when I had the silliest pile of lean muscle and brawn in my passenger seat? I admired his profile: full lips and his many-times-busted nose. Dark eyes and floppy, wavy dark hair. Randomly perfect eyebrows that I knew for a fact he didn’t groom. They were just like that. Lucky bastard.

About a half hour out of the New York City bypass, a light snow started to fall. It quickly developed into a full-on snowstorm. I was only eighteen, and though Dad had done his best to train me on driving in mountain snow, I was still inexperienced. The snowflakes dashing at the windshield were dizzying, like watching stars go by when jumping to hyper speed. The roads were pretty packed, being the day before Thanksgiving. It seemed like a good portion of my fellow drivers were tractor-trailer drivers, adding to my tension. My whole body was rigid from concentrating. I did that thing where you turn down the music to be able to see better.

“You okay?” Guy asked, noting my death grip on the steering wheel.

“Fine.”

“You’ll let me know if you need a break from driving, right?”

“Do you even have a driver’s license?” I asked, wrinkling my brow further.

“Not an American one, but I know how to drive. And especially in the snow,” he rebutted.

“Right. Because you always know better than me,” I snarled.

Guy went still, in motion and sound.

“Kitty,” he said, putting a hand on my leg. He watched me, taking in air like he was going to speak a few times, but not saying anything. “You’re my best friend. We’re better than this. Talk to me.”

“Sorry. It’s true, though. You do know what’s best for me sometimes. You were right about that douche from the party,” I admitted, briefly lifting my hand from the steering wheel to show my exasperation.

“I’m sorry,” Guy said quietly. “I wish I wasn’t right about that. Did he hurt you?”

I thought back to that night a few days prior. The guy I’d met at the party after my standup set wasn’t outwardly bad. I consented to everything we did, but he really didn’t seem to respect me. It was just a shit hookup. He could have cared less if I got off. He all but shoved me in an Uber immediately after he was done with me. An Uber that he made me order and pay for.

“No,” I sighed. “He was just a dick.”

Guy winced. “You’re going to kill me, but you were wrong about something else that night.”

I flashed him a quick look before locking my eyes back on the road. Guy went on.

“You said I think you’re disgusting. That’s just not true, Kitty.” He paused, drawing a shaky breath before going on. “I think you’re the most beautiful girl in the world. I always have, Kitty. I’m sorry I’ve ever made you feel anything less. It’s been eating away at me.”

“Then why did you do it, Guy? Why didn’t you want me to touch you when we messed around?” I panted, having just spit all that out. “Why didn’t you say something, all these years?”

“I was scared, okay?” he snapped. “I have always wanted you, Kitty. From that first day. I told you that at the beach! It’s always been you! You were so sweet to me when I was so lost, so far from home. You called me by my real name. You kept me laughing when everything was falling apart for me. We were just kids, but you saw me, Kitty. And I saw you, too. You were smart, and funny, and so much more than that awful reputation you had. I don’t want to fuck this up with you.”

“Well, you kinda did fuck it up. You were the reason I had that awful reputation in high school. You repeated high school shit and made me feel like some kind of cheap favor,” I said, getting more wound up with each part I admitted. “ You pushed me away, Guy! You just disappeared after you got me off. You didn’t kiss me after you made me tell you my pussy belonged to you. What the fuck is that, Guy? You’re allowed to say no to sex, but that fucking hurt!”

“I didn’t want you getting me off when you’d just been in so much pain. I didn’t want you to feel like you owed me anything. You’re worth it all on your own.”

Tears blurred my vision. Fourteen-year-old me would have heard Guy’s words and been screaming and crying like I was front row at a One Direction concert. Eighteen-year-old me wasn’t buying it.

“Why would you think I don’t want you, Kitty?”

My next words were brittle. “I was practically begging you to let me touch you.”

“We were entering new territory. I didn’t want to rush after we spent years dancing around it, Kitty. I loved touching you.”

Silence rang through the car. The only sound was the grind of snow on the tires and the wind whipping by. I couldn’t fully comprehend what he was saying.

“Because you love women. I was just another woman,” I argued.

“No, it was because it was you, Kitty!” Guy burst out, staring at me. “What are you not getting here? Why is it so hard for you to believe that I want to be with you?”

“Because you’ve always hidden me away!” I shouted. “You’ve never been willing to say that I’m yours. I’ve always been your dirty little secret.”

Another tense silence crackled between us. Guy removed his hand from my thigh. “I’m sorry.”

The tears that had been threatening their arrival started to spill. My hands wobbled on the steering wheel. I sniffed. “I need to focus on the road.”

“Let me drive, Birdy,” he said. “Pull over.”

The roads had become so white that it was hard to see the lanes, much less where the shoulder might be. “I can’t see the side of the road,” I said, panic tinging my tone.

“Right,” Guy agreed, looking around. “Fuck, Kitty, look out!”

Guy barely got the sentence out before I had to swerve.