Standing for Weirdo

Chapter 21

I wanted my alternative to include the park and the pond again, but lugged as we were with school stuff and practice stuff, we ended up going to his place after saying good-bye to Stella and Alex.

I didn’t complain.

When we arrived, his father was off at work and he headed straight for his room, replacing the guitar in its stand, checking the rack before setting it down, and finally taking off his jacket to hang inside the closet. I watched him move around, leaving my own bag propped against his table and the jacket hanging behind his door.

“You are so organized,” I commented when he finally turned to me. “And you don’t even look like it.”

He snorted. “Because I dye my hair?”

“Nope, it’s because of the nails.”

“I don’t like to leave stuff in the way, that’s all,” he said with a smile, acknowledging my attempt at a joke.

“Mind if I don’t play today?” he asked suddenly.

I blinked. “I thought you weren’t going to.”

He looked surprised for a split second, but his recovery time was spectacular. He had that beautiful smirk that made him look like a boy who was up to no good.

“Mmmhmm.”

The perfectly innocent issue became anything but such. Hyperaware that we were alone, at a scant three feet from his bed and that I had just made clear that today music was out of the picture, my mind started coming up with other reasons for me to be where I was.

Every single one of them made me blush.

“I mean, you’ve been playing at practice. Besides, you were getting frustrated with that one song, so I thought…” I was not only stammering, but also babbling. I needed to shut up before I made a total idiot out of myself. He looked more amused by my words, but I just couldn’t bite them off.

“Breathe,” he said. My tirade stopped because of his soft, affectionate tone and he smiled. “That’s a good girl.”

Then, he took two steps right into my personal space, slowly, as if he didn’t want to spook me. Before I realized it, his fingertips were against my lips. It was his right hand, soft and tender, and it felt like the most intimate thing I’d ever done with a guy, way beyond kissing and making out.

He slid his fingers over my lips, feather light. His eyes fell half closed and I heard him take a deep breath

“You’re precious,” he whispered, his hand dragging toward my chin to tilt my head to the side.

“But you hardly know me.”

“I know who I am when I’m with you like this.”

“You didn’t trust me much just a couple days ago.” I knew I was just being contrary. My sudden nerves were to blame.

“Kiss me.”

In spite of the simple way he’d phrased it, his tone was all but commanding. Aching, which I could relate to, and a little bit imploring, which melted me into a puddle of goo. There were other nuances I could not identify.

I leaned in the couple inches or so that kept us apart and, just like the previous night, the feeling of rightness that swept through me was overwhelming. The kiss might have been simple, even chaste by my adolescent hormones’ standard, since tongues were kept inside their respective mouths, but still, it touched me all the way to my soul.

I could spend the rest of my life like this, just kissing him. It was like a puzzle piece of who I was had just found its place, even though I had not realized that it was missing to begin with.

Intoxicating.

I wouldn’t have been able to pull back if the deep meow of the stupid cat hadn’t startled me, breaking the contact.

I stared down at the huge, black animal, who regarded me with contempt and a certain lack of interest, and Trevor took a deep, shaky breath, pulling himself out of the reverie.

“Alice,” he said, his voice so husky it was almost a growl. “You really need to make friends with Sparrow.”

“I’m sorry, the other day he wasn’t around and I guess I had allowed myself to forget that he existed.” And had a thing against me, I thought.

Trevor frowned a little.

“That’s right. He’s not around while I play, lately. But he’s still my cat.”

“Didn’t you say he liked your music?”

“He used to. But for the past couple of days, he keeps huffing and hightailing it.”

“You must be losing your touch,” I teased him.

“Am I?” His voice made my heart somersault in my chest, and then his left hand was in my waist, his right one sweeping my bangs to the side and lingering while cupping the side of my face, and Sparrow was thoroughly forgotten.

He knew which buttons to push.

“I used to think you were kind of innocent,” I found myself saying, still staring into his darkened blue eyes.

He laughed. “Because I’m a loner at school?”

“Well, yes… I mean, you tended to be alone, stay out of gossip, that sort of thing. Couples make it to the radar, even if they are unpopular, you know?”

A smirk. Silence.

“How many girlfriends have you had anyway?” I blurted out, my thoughts bypassing any kind of filter on the way to my mouth.

“Does it matter?” he asked, taking a step back that made me feel the cold from his absence.

“Yes. I mean, no. Of course not.” He raised his eyebrow, not buying my denial and enjoying my embarrassment. “Okay, so I might be a little jealous,” I admitted, biting my lip.

“No reason to be.” He pulled me to him again, holding me close and nudging my head to bend and rest against the side of his neck. “You were right; I’m a loner after all.”

“You don’t act like one,” I mumbled against his skin, too comfortable to move any time within this century. “You know just what to say and how to act. Like you’re…”

“Experienced?”

“Yeah.”

I felt his shoulder shrugging. “It’s because of you. You and I, we fit.”

His words echoed my thoughts of previous moments together, and I wondered whether we were right. I’d always written off the perfect moments and the love at first sight and the alignment of the stars when finally together, assuming it to be the product of the overactive imagination of writers, hip rock stars, and whatever else.

Right then, in Trevor's arms?

It made sense.

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