Casey
It starts in my toes. A stinging chill that quickly claws up my legs. The fabric of my prom dress balloons around me as the car fills with black water and the dashboard lights flicker. The rearview mirror glows red, and I struggle against the strangling seat belt. Even before the rushing water reaches my lips, my chest is tight. I can’t suck in a breath. Panic clenches my throat. Even my fingers are terrified as they flail helplessly to free me.
Then a thump. A thud against the door.
Fenn.
He’s here. Fully submerged, floating outside the window that for now protects a small, rapidly decreasing pocket of air inside the car. I scream for him. Fumble with the latch, trying to push my way out. I manage to force the slightest movement that invites a violent rush of water that overtakes the interior. But I can’t push my way free. The door’s too heavy.
My eyes meet Fenn’s in silent desperation to pull harder. Get me out of here.
Until I realize he’s the one holding the door shut. Trapping me inside. Watching me fall deeper into the black. My limbs grow too cold to fight, and his vacant expression grows more distant.
Until finally the light leaves me and the water washes into my lungs.
I wake up coughing. I thrust upright with great, heaving, gagging gulps of air. Tangled and pinned by the sheets like I’m tied up in ropes. Heart pounding, I furiously thrash to untangle myself. I just need to be uncovered. Free. Space. I’ve never been claustrophobic, but even my room feels too small as I throw myself out of bed to tear open the window and look out at the deep forest behind the house. Miles of openness. The infinity of night.
My first instinct, once I’ve regained a semiregular heartbeat, is to reach for my phone. I find his name in my recent missed calls list and tap it without a real intention. It’s reflex. One I should probably try harder to resist, but which I fall back on regardless.
“Casey?” Fenn answers after the first ring. His voice is hoarse, and my name comes out a little slurred. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
“Why is that your first question?”
“At three a.m. I kinda just assumed.”
“I’m fine. Sorry.” I sit on the windowsill to listen to the noise the night makes in our yard. “Honestly, I don’t think I expected you to answer.”
“I’ll always pick up for you.”
Tears sting my eyes. It’s unfair that I retreat to him when I need something. That I crave the comfort of his voice. The ways he understands me where others can’t.
“Nightmares again?” he asks.
“You were in it.”
“I’m afraid to ask.”
“It wasn’t good.”
There’s a pause. “Do you want me to come over?”
The offer makes me falter. For months when the nightmares came, Fenn stayed up with me on the phone, sometimes till breakfast the next morning, to talk me through it. We usually spoke about my mom, how her death triggered so many of my fears after the accident. The fixation on drowning. Somehow, he’d find a way to make me feel like happiness was possible.
But this is the first time he’s asked if I want him to be here. Physically here with me.
And even when the better part of me still prefers to hate him, I find myself saying, “Yes. Can you?”
“I’ll be there in ten.”
Not long after, he tumbles in through the window, and we both wince when he lands on his knees with a thud. Freezing on the spot, I glance toward the door, but I don’t hear the dogs out in the hall. Honestly, at this point, I really need to stop worrying about those two. Bo and Penny are sweet as pie, but they’re terrible guard dogs.
“Sorry.” His voice is hushed. “Lost my balance.”
“It’s okay,” I whisper back.
We stand there for a moment, watching each other. It’s three thirty in the morning and I’m in my pajamas: little pink shorts and a paper-thin T-shirt.
“You look cold,” Fenn says, gaze darting to my chest before returning to my face. His lips twitch slightly.
I feel a blush form when I realize my nipples are hard and straining against my top. “I am.” I kneel to gather the bedsheets I’d flung onto the floor. “Help me with these?”
Silently, we remake my bed, and I don’t question myself too hard as I slide under the covers and lift one corner of the blanket for Fenn.
He hesitates for a few seconds, then removes his jacket and drapes it over the back of my desk chair. His shoes come off next, but he leaves his sweatpants and T-shirt on as he crawls in beside me. He starts to reach for me, then seems to second-guess himself, rolling onto his back instead.
We lie in the darkness, staring at the ceiling. Until finally he speaks.
“Do you want to tell me about it?”
“Not yet.”
There’s still too much adrenaline in my blood, the chemical flood that makes my skin hurt and my brain numb. Until the residual trauma wears off, I just want to be distracted, like watching a TV screen above the dentist’s chair.
“I need a distraction.” I roll onto my side and rest my head against my arm. “How’s life? Anything cool happen lately?”
“Not cool, necessarily, but apparently RJ and Silas got into it at practice a couple days ago. Lawson had to break up some pushy-shovies in the locker room.”
We speak in soft murmurs, both painfully aware of the late hour and the fact that Fenn will be murdered if he’s caught in my bed.
“Oh, wow. Tensions in the region are escalating, then?”
“I don’t know. Silas seems like he’s imploding, and I think RJ’s just lost his patience for Silas’s total refusal to contain his attitude.”
“And Silas thinks he’s fighting over Sloane?” If so, it’s a futile fight. I’m sure Sloane’s told him in more ways than one that she’s not into it. And my sister’s generally not a person who changes her mind.
“I think it’s more about principle at this point,” Fenn says. “Well, jealousy. But in Silas’s head, he’s the injured party.”
“Sounds like you’ve come down squarely on Team RJ.”
He snorts a muffled laugh. “Silas is on my shit list for different reasons. Like I said, he’s imploding.”
I know the feeling. I haven’t felt super on the ball lately either. Fighting with Sloane and my dad, on top of this thing with Fenn and the people at school. It’s a lot, and I’m certain the recent stream of nightmares is related to that.
To make matters worse, having Fenn lying so close to me is absolute torture. His familiar scent, soap and citrus, wafts toward me, and I can’t help from taking a deep inhale, needing to fill my senses with him. I watch the way his broad chest rises and falls with each breath. The way the long fingers of one hand play with the edge of the blanket.
It’s not fair how much I still want him. How badly I’m craving his lips. My heart starts pounding again, not from the nightmare, but from need. Before I can stop myself, I scoot closer and rise on one elbow, peering down at him.
He bites his lip. “What?”
“I don’t know. I…”
I kiss him, my hair falling like a curtain over our faces. Fenn threads his fingers through it and smooths the messy tresses away from my cheek. His mouth moves over mine in an infinitely sweet kiss.
“I missed you,” he mumbles before sliding his tongue through my parted lips.
We can’t stop kissing. I climb onto his body, and he wraps his arms around me, his hands caressing my back, my hips, my ass, as we kiss in the darkness. I feel the hard ridge of his erection trapped between us, and a shiver dances through me. As far as distractions go, this one is really, really good. Sometimes it’s hard to believe that Fenn Bishop is attracted to me. Of the hundreds and hundreds of boys who attend Sandover and its neighboring prep schools, Fenn is hands down one of the best-looking. Drop-dead gorgeous. Which means he can have any girl he wants.
For some inexplicable reason, he wants me.
I bury my face in his neck and explore his flesh with my lips. We’re both breathing heavily. And I’m about to combust from the heat. It’s boiling hot beneath the covers, but I don’t push them off us. Here in this warm cocoon, with our bodies wrapped up in each other, it’s like a perfect secret between us, a shield that nothing can penetrate. No doubts. No anger or bitterness. It’s just me and him, the way it used to be.
Fenn tries to protest when I kiss my way down his body. I didn’t plan on it, but my lips are in control, coaxing me lower and lower, until I’m between his legs and my fingers are pulling on his waistband.
My mouth fills with moisture when his erection springs up.
He attempts another objection, his hand sliding in my hair to still me. “What are you doing?”
I shush him and wrap my fingers around his shaft. Then I lick a wet, teasing stripe from his base to his tip, and Fenn jerks on the bed. Before he can protest again, I take him in my mouth.
My pulse quickens, thudding in my ears as arousal builds inside me. I’ve never done this before. I didn’t think I’d enjoy it this much.
A fragment of light irritates my closed eyelids. I raise my head to see Fenn lifted the blanket over his head so now we’re both under it. His hazy, heavy-lidded eyes find mine in the shadows.
“Hi.”
“Hi.” A faint smile tickles the corners of my mouth.
“You’re driving me crazy down there, you know that?”
“I know.” Without breaking eye contact, I wrap my lips around him again.
The moan he chokes out is the most satisfying sound I’ve ever heard.
“You have no idea how many times I got myself off thinking about this,” he says.
My heart thumps harder. I suck faster.
His hips move restlessly as he starts thrusting into my mouth, trying to go deeper. When he goes a bit too deep, I cough and release him, my eyes watering.
“Sorry,” he says weakly.
“S’okay.” I lick my lips and resume what I was doing, laying one hand on his thigh. His muscles quiver beneath my palm.
It doesn’t take long before he mumbles, “Casey…I’m gonna come,” and then slides out of my mouth and takes his dick in hand.
My throat goes dry and my pussy throbs as I watch him stroke himself to climax, spilling onto his stomach. I don’t think I’ve seen anything hotter.
Satisfied with myself, I crawl back up his body. Cool, fresh air fills my nostrils when I emerge from our cocoon, and I suck in a deep breath. I reach for the box on the nightstand to grab a handful of tissues, which Fenn uses to clean up before he throws the wad in the wastebasket next to my desk in an impressive toss that meets its target. Then he curls his arm around me and captures my lips in a blistering kiss. His hand skims down my body and inside my panties. When he feels how wet I am, he opens his eyes and grins at me.
“That turned you on,” he murmurs.
“Uh-huh.” In fact, I’m wound so tight that it takes him less than a minute to bring me to orgasm with his fingers. I bite into his shoulder and rock into his hand as release washes over me in sweet ripples of pleasure.
Once my heart has settled in my chest, I straighten out my rumpled PJs. “Do you want to meet Silver?” I ask, feeling oddly shy. “I rescued her from a fox last week.”
I see him smiling in the darkness. “Love to.”
Gently, I set the shoebox on the bed and remove the lid. Inside, Silver is sound asleep in her snug nest, her tiny body burrowed in her towel.
Fenn sits up to take a peek, his features softening. “Damn. That’s adorable.”
Smiling, I rub my index finger over her grayish-brown fur. My gal is no longer blind, deaf, and furless. She’s starting to look more like a rabbit and less like an alien.
“She opened her eyes a few days ago. And her ears have perked up.” I bite my lip, worry gnawing at me. “She still seems so weak, though. I called this wildlife place the other day, and they said she shouldn’t really be moving around until she’s two and a half, three weeks old. But it seems like she hardly moves at all.”
“How long do you plan on keeping her?”
“If she lives, I’ll probably release her in a couple weeks. They usually leave the nest at three or four weeks. But I’ll need to wean her first. I plan to do that soon.”
“But if you release her, won’t another fox just eat her up? She’s so tiny.” With considerable care, he strokes Silver’s head.
“She might look small and helpless, but if she’s healthy and can hop, she’s meant to be out there on her own.” I shrug. “The world is scary, but you can’t avoid living in it.”
“Are we talking about bunnies or humans?”
“Both.”
I close the lid and place the box back on the nightstand. I scoot closer to Fenn, resting my head against his shoulder. He tucks the blanket around our lower bodies, and we sit there for a while. Silent. Pensive. It’s four in the morning and the house is eerily quiet.
“You wouldn’t let me out of the car.”
He tenses. “What?”
“In my nightmare.”
There’s a long silence. Then, “Oh.”
“I’m stuck in the seat, the water’s getting higher, and when I see you, I’m relieved. Then I realize you’ve got me trapped and there’s nothing I can do.”
“Yeah, that’s not great.” His voice is strained. “But I understand. I think.”
“I don’t blame you for the accident.”
“Right, but you do blame me.”
I suppose we’ve never acknowledged it in those terms.
“And that’s totally fine,” he says. “Understandable. I’m not mad at it.” He sighs, flustered. “You know what I mean.”
“Everyone kept telling me that if I could remember more about that night, it would help. I could start to move on. Then I find out about you and…”
“It only made it worse.”
Cataclysmically worse. The foundation of months of recovery shattered by the most profound betrayal anyone could have inflicted on me.
“Because now I’m stuck. I can’t forget and I can’t move on.” I hesitate. “I went back to my shrink the other day. She helped me remember something.”
Fenn inhales sharply. “Are you serious? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I didn’t want to. I’m tired of you being the first person I call whenever I need to talk.”
Which is exactly what I did tonight.
I shake my head at myself. Clearly I haven’t learned any lessons.
“Tell me what you remembered,” he urges.
“I offered someone a ride, and they may have been wearing pink. Lucas thinks it could’ve been a girl.”
His breath hitches again. “Fuck. Who could it be, though?” He pauses for a few beats. “I’m trying to think who was wearing pink that night, but it’s all a huge blank. I didn’t pay much attention to what anyone wore except for—what’s her name? Hallie? The chick who showed up in that weird plastic wrap dress where you could see her tits and pussy. Headmaster Fournette made her leave and every dude there cried.”
I snicker before going serious. “I don’t remember what people were wearing either. Anyway. That’s it. Sounds like I willingly got in the car with whoever it was, so that’s something, I guess. I wasn’t coerced as far as I know. But there’s no way I would have willingly taken a Rohypnol cocktail, or whatever the doctors called it.” I’m firm about this point. Nodding as if to punctate it. “Even if I did choose to do drugs that night, I would’ve picked something a lot milder. Gillian and I had been talking about trying molly sometime, so if anything, that’s probably what I would’ve done.”
“Was Gillian at prom?”
“No. The sophomore cheerleaders were at a dance competition in Boston that weekend. I couldn’t go because I bruised my ankle the week before and our coach didn’t want to risk it. So I convinced Sloane to take me to the junior prom.” I make a dejected noise. “I should’ve just gone to Boston and cheered my friends on.”
He wraps his arm around my shoulder to draw me closer. When I hesitate, he mumbles, “Don’t pull away from me. Let me have tonight.”
He laces our fingers together, then brings our joined hands to his lips, brushing a kiss over my knuckles before pressing my hand against his chest. A stinging sensation pricks my closed eyelids. I feel his heart beating fast beneath my fingertips, a reminder that we’re both alive. I’m alive, and largely because of him.
I let out a slow breath. “I’m trying to remember that.”
“Remember what?”
“That I would have drowned if you hadn’t rescued me. If I just keep focusing on that…” I blink and a teardrop slides down my cheek.
“Case?”
“Why did you lie?” I whisper in the darkness.
“I…” He curses under his breath.
“I want to forgive you, Fenn. Please help me do that. Please.”
I’m hit with instant regret over raising my voice because the mistake causes a chain reaction of disastrous events. The dogs finally decide to be useful, mistaking my frustrated cry for one of distress. Loud, incessant barking breaks out through the house, Bo and Penny’s footsteps crashing up the stairs as they barrel toward my room. My door is closed, so the dogs smash into it with a deafening bang that is certain to wake up the entire house.
“Shit,” I hiss, my face paling. “Get up. You need to go.”
He’s two steps ahead of me. Hoodie on, shoes in his hands as he lunges toward the window.
“Casey?” Dad’s muffled voice echoes from the hallway. “Casey!” He’s getting closer. “What’s wrong?”
As Fenn wrenches the window open, it occurs to me I forgot to lock my door after I invited him over. My dad’s hand now rattles the knob.
“Go,” I plead.
Fenn throws his shoes out the window, then starts to heave himself over.
He doesn’t make it in time. The bedroom door flies open, and a second later Dad’s enraged voice blasts from the doorway.
“Bishop! Get your ass back in here!”
Shit.