Ellie is Cool Now

Chapter 18

I don't know how or when I ended up half naked on a steel gray IKEA couch with Mark Wright, but here I am. Just a minute ago, Mark's lips hit mine and shook my world like an eight-magnitude California quake.

It's the Big One.

L-O-V-E.

Cut to — his shirt is off. My shirt is off. He's on top of me. I'm underneath him. It's all surreal, living out this adolescent fantasy in real time.

His lips trail down my neck and I have a moment of clarity.

He isn't mine.

"Mark," I say, then the tip of his tongue flicks the tender skin where my jaw meets my ear and my knees squeeze together, pushing back the flood of ache surging through my hips. He breathes my name into my collar bone and continues his downward spiral of kisses. Before I lose it completely, I touch his shoulder and push him away from my body so I can look into his eyes.

"Liz," I say, pointing to a picture of them together in a silver frame on their mantle. She flashes her sparkly rock at the camera and grins at me with every last pearly white tooth.

He looks behind me at the silver frame in question before hanging his head, his hair tickling my chest. He swears at my highly practical flesh-colored T-shirt bra.

I pull myself out from underneath him. "We were just gonna be friends," I say, breathless and dazed. "We made a pact."

Mark sits up on the couch and massages his face in frustration. "I know, I know."

When did my jeans come undone? I zip up the fly and finger comb the snarls out of my hair. Mark takes a cue from me and runs a hand through his hair before plucking his shirt off the ground.

"Why can't you be engaged to someone evil?" I pull my wrinkled pink top over my head. "This would still be wrong, but I might enjoy it more."

A small smile plays on his lips as he watches me try to smooth the creases in my shirt before putting it back on. "In The Parent Trap," I say, "we don't care when their dad gets back together with his ex-wife, because his fiancée is a gold-digging C-U-next-Tuesday."

"Why can't real life be just like the movies?" He's being sarcastic, but he scoots closer to me and touches my silky pink shoulder. I pull my shirt over my head and begin tucking it in my jeans as another line of defense. "But you – you have to pick out the syrupy-sweetest fiancée in the history of engagements."

"I don't know about that."

I give him an are-you-serious look. "She's like a gummy bear personified."

He leans, fingers running along my shirt collar to gingerly trace my collar bone. A shiver runs down my spine. I want to melt into him like ice cream. Like warm hot fudge. With whipped cream and a cherry on top. Come to think of it—

"Do you have ice cream?" I ask him.

Mark cocks an eyebrow. "We just ate."

"Your point is?"

I freeze my complicated feelings with a bowl of vanilla bean ice cream drizzled with chocolate syrup and continue to lament the wonderfulness of Liz. While sitting on her couch. Eating from her bowl. Licking creamy vanilla goodness from her spoon — and also her fiancé's lips.

"You are a horrible human being," I say to Mark finally. "You were always kind of a dick, but now you've crossed the line and you are definitely going to hell."

He laughs outright.

"What about you?" he asks before he picks up my spoon and scoops a melty bite into his mouth. "You keep saying all these nice things about Liz, but you definitely kissed me back."