Chapter Seventeen

Today

We sit in the living room, at the large round coffee table. I'm the only one sitting on the floor, everyone else is relaxed in the soft couches, the fish-shaped pillows on the ground.

"Uno!" I shout, holding my card in the air.

Wyatt doubles over in laughter, his cheeks pink from alcohol. "Ells, we're playing Gin Rummy! That's not even an Uno card!"

"I'm not good at card games," I say. "I want to play Uno."

"You can't play Uno with a normal deck."

"Don't hold me back, Wyatt," I grumble, digging into the boxes of games stacked under the coffee table. I whip out a bag. "Dominoes?"

He asks, "Where are all of your cards?"

I shrug. "I don't know, I think I left some in the kitchen."

I rub my hands along the sides of my arms, feeling the chill of the air conditioner on my exposed skin. After I changed from my bathing suit, I put on a shorts and cropped tank lounge set. In my excitement to get out of the cold, I didn't pack anything cozy or warm.

Ritchie sets his beer back on the table. "Where's Tuck?"

I fan myself with the Ace of Hearts. I'm determined not to care about him or give thought to our past. After he apologized - if that's even the right word - I changed my clothes and kept my distance. I bumped his arm on purpose in passing. I stole his beer. I picked the avocado off his tacos. I've avoided him before, I can do it again, but I'd like to piss him off a little in the process. He's been invisible to me for seven years, what's a lifetime more?

"Probably going through my things," I answer. "Like a stalker."

Johnny calls out, "Ella, if we open this bottle of red wine, do you want some?"

"Yes." I glance at my liquor and beer-drinking friends. "Who drinks red -" I gasp. I call out, "Jen, do you drink red wine?"

She comes into the room with a glass for both of us.

"We're going to be such good friends," I say with a smile.

She looks tentatively at my bare midriff, still in her sundress, and perches politely on the couch. She's probably thinking of how I described my past interactions with Tucker as graphic .

I have a fair bit of winning her over to do.

Callie drops her cards on the table. "I'm bored of this game, too, let's play Bullshit." She collects everyone's cards as we play, and Johnny comes back in with the collection I lost when I was hovering over a box of cookies.

"Ella doesn't want to play that game with me," Tucker says, shuffling into the room. "Because I can read her like a book."

We lock eyes as he peels off his gray Clemson sweatshirt. He tosses it into my lap, sitting on the ground next to me. He leans back on a straight arm and reaches out to touch my elbow, adding, "In braille ."

"Don't touch me," I snap. I hold out his sweatshirt. "And what's this for? Do you want me to cover my body up again? Hm? Am I making you uncomfortable, again ?"

He blinks. "You're cold."

I hold the worn sweatshirt, tugged into a silent exchange. His eyes stare at me, telling me exactly what he just said: he knows me too well. I wonder how long he spent watching me run my hands down my arms, or if I had some other tell-tale sign of being cold.

Wordlessly, I tug the sweatshirt over my head. It's warm, it smells like him. I pull my hair out from the collar and sweep all of it to my right shoulder. Serena divides up the cards and everyone explains the rules to Jen. I see Tucker still looking at me.

"What?" I demand.

He shakes his head.

Wyatt goes back to the kitchen and says, "Tuck, you need another drink, man?"

"No," he replies. "I've met my quota for the day."

"You think you're better than us?" I take a sip of my wine.

His eyes land on my face, but I notice they're specifically focused on a scar above my left eyebrow. Most people rarely notice it, but it's from my car accident, so it would be new to him. He answers, "I just don't drink much anymore."

"Ella, you know how to play, right?" Serena asks.

I take my stack of cards and say, "Sure. I've been shouting bullshit to Tucker for my entire life."

"That's not the game."

"That's how I intend to play it."

We play two rounds and Tucker wins both of them.

"I bet you can't win a third," I say.

He snorts. "And what do I get when I win? You sleep on the couch?"

" If , jackass, and I'm never sleeping on the couch. You are."

"You clearly don't believe I won't win another game or else you would make that bet."

"Well, you cheat, so I don't trust you."

While Serena picks up the cards again, Callie says, "Oh my gosh, Ella – Johnny told us in the pool that you're going to San Francisco! Congrats! Why didn't you say anything?"

I respond, "I didn't know how the audition would go, and then it all happened kind of fast."

Jen looks back and forth. "What are you doing there?"

"I'm going to start with a new ballet company this June," I tell her. "The San Francisco Ballet. It's been my lifelong dream, I just finally had the right timing for it. Even though I'm old and washed up now -"

"You're going to be so close to us." She smiles.

Thank God. I might not have lost her completely.

I hold out my glass of wine. "Yes, I will."

I am excited to get to know Jen and excited about being close to Johnny. We'll be practically in the same city for the first time since we left high school.

He chimes in, "Yeah, I told her we will scout out some apartments while she's still in Atlanta."

I sip my wine. "And we can all go to the outdoor orchestra together sometime."

Johnny tries to read that statement. He doesn't know that I know he's become more refined and broader in his interests. If I find out he writes her poetry, he'll never live it down.

"Wait, you're really doing it?" Tucker asks. He rests his arm on the coffee table and grabs my ankle with his other hand. "You finally auditioned?"

I look at his touch.

"Way to go, Ells," he murmurs. "I knew you could do it."

It's genuine. He's truly happy for me. I want to say something mean and pointed, but I'm absorbed by his praise. He murmurs, "And there's nothing washed-up about you, Beautiful."

I lift my eyebrow, catching his focus on my legs, prepared to make a snarky comment about our ongoing bet, when Jen says, "I forgot that Johnny said you were a professional ballerina. I always wished I was a dancer."

Serena adds, "Me too. What is it about us women wanting to be ballerinas? Do men wish they were racecar drivers and professional baseball players and blame their parents for not making them stick with their childhood activities?"

"Trust me, it's not all it's cracked up to be," I grumble. I almost sit up on my knees but I remember Tucker's still touching me. "Ballet it not all about flowy tutus and ethereal dancing, it's way rougher around the edges than it looks on stage."

Jen squints up her nose. "I always imagined ballerinas were always so ladylike and graceful and…demure."

Ritchie chokes back a laugh and the rest of my friends fight to keep their expressions neutral.

Her jaw drops. "No, no, I didn't mean it like that!"

Tucker runs his hand up my leg and pinches the back of my knee. "Ella's only in it for the gratuitous touching."

I scoot away from him. "There is no groping in ballet, Tucker, I've told you this." I address Jen, "I'm very ladylike in the right setting."

"Grace Kelly over here," Callie jokes.

Serena covers a hiccup. "I've watched you shotgun a burrito."

Tucker ignores them and argues, "You can't tell me that the straight men you dance with aren't in it to cop a feel."

"Will you let that go?" I say. "We've been having this conversation since we were teenagers. Not everyone is as perverted as you ."

Tucker jumps to his feet. "Stand up," he orders.

"Why?"

"Because I'm going to show you."

"I know what it feels like to be groped by you."

"I'm going to demonstrate what a straight man is thinking with you in his arms," he says. "Come on, stand up."

I climb to my feet. "These people are professionals , Tucker." He takes his sweatshirt and peels it off my body. My hair flies up, staticky. I insist, "That is not a ballet move."

He spins me around in front of our amused friends. His hands settle on my waist, and I try not to think about it. I've felt him touch me there a million times, fleeting and antagonistic, except for the few times it wasn't. Those times when I wanted his hand to become a permanent fixture on my skin.

I blink away those thoughts and say, "I don't know what he's doing but if he gets an erection, you guys put a stop to it fast ."

He puts his mouth beside my ear. "If I get an erection, then I've made my point." He straightens up. "Do your little spinny thing."

I look over my shoulder. "A pirouette?"

"Yeah, I guess, I don't know."

"And what are you going to do?"

"What you taught me."

A smile sneaks onto my face. "Stop it. You remember that?"

His fingers move along my exposed stomach. "Sure. I remember a lot of things."

The insinuation makes my insides float. There are a lot of moments between Tucker and I to remember. His eyes glide down my face, making me think he's remembering something very specific.

Johnny laughs. "Ella used to make Tuck practice her ballet lifts and partnering stuff."

Tucker slides his hands off my body and says, "Serena, hair clip, please." She gives it to him, and he says, "I will get a boner if your hair whips in my face and I have to smell it."

He gathers my hair in a ponytail, and I snort a laugh, nearly falling backward, when he clips it in place.

Serena says, "Why don't you just let her put up her own hair?"

"Because he's all about the gratuitous touching," I explain.

Tucker steadies me. "Okay." He smacks my butt. "Come on, Beautiful. You've got all the attention, your favorite thing in the world."

I roll my eyes and place my feet in fourth position. Tucker's hands lightly settle on either side of my torso. I push off the ground, my right leg raising, my toes touching the crook under my left knee. Tucker's hands spin me, until I run out of momentum. He keeps trying to spin me on my foot, but it's not possible without the propulsion and I lose the position. Still, our audience claps.

I lose my balance and tip forward. My hands palm the ground, and he keeps his hands tight on my waist. Upside down, I see his eyebrows raise.

"See what I mean," he says, looking down at my raised butt.

"You didn't do it right," I argue.

Wyatt leans sideways. "No boners yet, Ell."

"Five out of ten," Callie says.

"Do another one!" Serena shouts.

Tucker's hands move to my rib cage, and he sets me upright.

"Whoa," I say, falling into his back.

"I remember this one," he says, scooping me before I have a chance to get my bearings. He wraps one arm around my waist and the other around my leg, tilting me at an angle. "The dolphin one, or whatever."

"Oh! A fish dive." I laugh and move my hands and feet in the appropriate position.

Tucker says, "Note the hand on her inner thigh. Dangerously close to the lady region." He snakes his other hand higher until it's resting on my boob.

Jen gasps.

"And there's the boob grab," Tucker concludes.

Ritchie says, "Boom goes the dynamite."

I sigh, dangling my hands to the ground. "Have you had your fun?"

"Maybe." He lets me go, and I stand up straight, tugging on my top. His mouth twitches.

I sigh. "No professional ballet dancer is doing any of that. They are artists. They're focused on their craft. Everything is sexual in your twisted little mind."

He nods slowly. "That's true ." Quickly, he wraps one of my arms around his neck, put his other between my legs and hoists me up to his shoulders.

"Elijah!" I scream. "Put me down!"

"Is this sexual?"

"It is the way you're doing it!"

He hoists me higher and explains, "Do you remember your WWE moves?"

"You almost broke my rib once," I growl.

He booms, "Can you smell what The Rock is cooking?!"

" Eli !"

He walks toward the couch, and Serena scrambles out of the way. He flips me over his head, and I land on the cushions. He chuckles and jumps back when I kick at him.

Tucker picks his sweatshirt from the ground and pops it over my head. He glances down at the front of his pants and pulls a face. "Looks like you've lost your touch, Beautiful."

Serena giggles, "I forgot how fun it is watching you two."

I flash my eyes to Tucker.

"It's like a mating ritual," Wyatt says.

Jen raises her hand. "Um, why do you call him Elijah?"

"That's my name." He plops himself back on the wood floor.

"We call him Tucker," Johnny explains, "Because Eli sounded too similar to Ella when we were kids. I had speech problems and I kept getting tongue-tied. No one knew who I was talking to. Too many l's."

"We have the same middle name, too," Tucker adds. "Francis with an i."

I say, "Frances with an e." I push up the sleeves and tuck my feet underneath me.

Jen understands, "So you're the only one who calls him Eli?"

Ritchie leans forward with a playful smirk on his face. "Yeah, that's what she calls him when they're -"

"Arguing."

" Fighting !"

Tucker and I quickly finish his sentence with two words that might mean the same thing but are not what Ritchie had in mind. He tips his beer back, humor twinkling in his eyes.

I finger-comb the ends of my hair. Tucker scratches at his knee.

Callie blurts out, "Have any of us secretly fucked?"

Ritchie spits out his beer.

My face burns. I wouldn't have pegged her for the psychic one, but it looks like I'm wrong. Tucker coughs and stands up. "I'm going to get some water."

Relaxed into the crook of Serena's arm, Callie continues, "Statistically speaking, the trio must have. You guys have to have kissed at least. Two straight men best friends with a straight woman - come on. It has to have happened."

Wyatt questions, "What statistic did that study come from?"

"The one I made up for this question."

Johnny crosses his leg, leaning back in the couch. "Well, Ella and I have kissed before."

" What ?" Tucker's voice echoes in the kitchen.

"Ryan's Rice's twelfth birthday, do you remember, Ell? Seven minutes in heaven." He laughs.

Tucker marches back with a water bottle in hand. He stares at me. "You told me you didn't kiss him that night."

I turn my palms up. "That's what you wanted to hear."

"I wanted to hear the truth!"

"I didn't want you to be weird about it." I rub my nose. "We had to do something in that closet."

"You could have done what you said you did - just sit in silence."

Johnny admits, "It was mostly silence. We kissed for, like, one hot second before we both got grossed out."

Jen bites her lip. Her short, clean nails run along her wine glass stem. "You told me you never kissed her."

"Yes!" Tucker points to Jen. He points to me. "There's lying going on. We would like the truth . We deserve the truth."

I hinge forward. "I just told you the truth, jackass."

Johnny waves his hand. "Babe, it was like…eighteen years ago. I forgot about it completely until right now."

Serena sits up. "Oh!" She claps her hands. "Let's play spin the bottle!"

"Yay!" Callie cheers and " No ," Wyatt groans.

Ritchie shakes his bottle and finishes the last drop. "Here. I'm game."

Johnny laughs, "When did we go back in time and become twelve years old? This is ridiculous."

"Hidden secrets are like time machines," Tucker grits.

Jen is visually uncomfortable. As am I, with Tucker still standing in front of me, staring.

I demand, "Sit down."

"Any more secrets you'd like to spill?" he seethes.

I know what he's asking, and it's ridiculous. The fact that he thinks Johnny and I have done more than share a chaste one-second kiss as preteens makes me sick. Especially considering the heavy secrets Tucker and I have kept hidden from our best friend.

"No," I say quietly, pointedly.

He searches my face.

"I'll go first," Serena says, spinning the beer bottle on the table. It lands on Ritchie, and she claps. They lean across the table and kiss.

Tucker finally sits back on the ground when Ritchie takes his turn. The neck of the bottle points to me.

Callie announces, "Oh, I've been waiting for you two to get it on."

Ritchie smiles wide, his straight, white teeth coming toward me. I'm aware of the eyes on the right side of my face. I shift forward, pressing my hands on the table, and meet Ritchie's mouth. His lips are salty from the beer, and I'm hit with surprise when he opens his mouth and the tiniest bit of tongue sneaks out to touch mine.

I sit back in my seat. My lips rub together.

"All right hot stuff, your turn," Ritchie instructs.

I give the bottle a light spin. Eight of us surround the table. The odds are low that I'll be expected to kiss the one person I shouldn't. Which, of course, means that I do. The bottle stops, pointed at the lounging man on my right. I can't look at him.

"Go ahead, Ella," Wyatt says. "Give Tuck a kiss."

I swallow.

The panic starts to rise, but I fight to push it down. I focus on the table and stammer, "I can't - I'm not gonna - I can't kiss him."

Wyatt throws his head back and his pink hair flies in the air. "He just had his hands all over you and you can't give him a little peck?"

My insides feel like a shaken soda bottle, bubbly and combustible. I'm afraid to kiss him. I'm afraid of how my body will react, how badly I'll want it, if I'll be able to move forward with the week after having tasted him. Kissing Tucker felt like drinking from the most delicious well. Like I'd been starved and could finally feast. If I kiss him, I might show my cards to the table. Everyone would finally see what we've done with each other, and I wouldn't be able to get control back.

Seven years. For seven years he didn't call me or check on me. This person is not the boy who kissed me once, twice, I'm not sure, I've lost count. That boy wanted me more than sunshine and this man couldn't be bothered to pick up his phone.

"You can have the bed," Tucker says, his voice heady. "Kiss me and you can have the bed."

I force myself to meet his eyes.

I hope my friends don't see it. I see it on him, the mirror of my feelings, and his eyes flutter, begging. He mutters, " I dare you ."

I inhale and pinch forward, tightening my lips. He watches me come toward him. My hands stay on the couch. His eyes stare at my mouth. In a quick second, I barely touch my lips to his before snapping back.

"Boo!" Callie shouts.

"That doesn't count," Serena says.

My jaw goes slack. "I kissed him. That counts!"

"That was not a kiss." Serena crosses her arms. "It looked like you accidentally bumped your face into his."

Wyatt insists, "Thirty seconds! With tongue."

"What?" I growl.

"If he's going to sleep on this couch, that's the better bet. Thirty seconds. Tongue."

I look at Tucker for help. He leans down to his elbows and shrugs.

"Ugh. Fine." I slide to the floor beside him.

The side of his mouth lifts.

I turn back to our friends and order, "Everyone turn around."

"What?" Wyatt laughs.

"I can't do this with you all watching."

"How's this?" Serena covers her eyes with her face.

I add, "And someone time it."

They grumble and laugh, covering their eyes and I turn back to Tucker. His chest heaves.

"I'll tell you when to start the clock," he says.

I'm sitting on my left butt cheek. My ears ring with anticipation. I make a motion to lower myself to him when his hand reaches for my neck.

"Now," he says, and his mouth captures mine. I expect it soft and gentle, but he pulls me to him with the fervor of someone looking for an oxygen source.

Thirty seconds .

My hand rests on his leg and I let Tucker ravish my mouth as if he knows every nook and cranny of it.

Twenty-five seconds.

There's nothing slow or tender in his touch. He's holding me, consuming me, so intensely that I don't have the chance or willpower to pull away from him.

Twenty seconds.

It's as if Tucker's trying to shut my brain off. He's skipping steps, taking me to that place where I'm nothing but a puddle of want. He knows he can do it. He's done it before.

I whimper, a rush of need in my core, my tongue darting past his lips. The hand on my neck slides down my shoulders. He cradles me to him, and I'm pressed to the cold, hard floor. I breathe into him as his right hand slides up my left thigh. It sneaks under the fabric of my shorts, massaging my skin. He lifts my leg to his hip.

I don't hear anything but the sound of his breath. I don't feel anything but his wet mouth, the rough pads of his fingertips, the muscle of his bicep holding my head. I'm not sure what my arms are doing until I feel his hair with one hand and his stomach with the other.

His hand moves higher still, dipping into my underwear and palming my butt cheek. I press my hips into his.

Ritchie says, "We're not the kind of friends who have sex in front of each other."

Tucker pulls his head up. His face hovers an inch from mine, eyes darting around my face. He continues to hold me tight.

Locked into his gaze, I breathe, "Was that thirty seconds?"

"That was five days," Wyatt awes.

I shut my eyes closed and push Tucker's shoulder. "Get off of me."

He leans back and I scramble upright, bushing my hair back, fixing the sweatshirt. Half of my butt hangs out of my shorts.

Jen has her eyes covered, but she must have pulled them down at some point. Her mouth hangs open in shock. Johnny's eyes are narrowed, something possibly like anger, drilled into Tucker's face. Serena drops her hand from her mouth. "Well," she mumbles. "Looks like she finally got her seven minutes in Heaven ."

I inhale, adjusting my clothes. Tucker watches me. He's cool and collected.

"You sleep on the couch," I pant. "I win ."

Ritchie smirks. "Are you sure that's where you want him?"

"Shut up." I swallow. "Deal?"

Tucker nods, silently.

"Good." I stand and my feet feel like jelly. His hand touches my leg when it buckles unsteadily. "I'm fine! I'm fine." There's chuckling on the couches. My empty wine glass sings when I scrape it off the table.

Wyatt says, "She's like a baby deer."

"I'm gonna get another drink."

"Look at her try to walk, she doesn't know what dimension she's in."

I reach my arm back and offer him my middle finger.

Wyatt gasps, " And we've got a boner!"