All Broke Down

I hadn’t even bothered asking him to come because I figured he needed to rest more. And I was still feeling guilty about getting him hurt in the first place.

Lo and behold, the next morning I was standing toward the back of the group, far away from Henry, when he drove up in his rusty old pickup.

It didn’t make me feel like the butterflies in my stomach took acid. I swear it didn’t.

But something I’ve learned about Silas . . . when he sets his mind to something, he goes all out.

And oh God, I throw myself on my bed and cover my face with my hands because I can’t help but make that dirty in my head.

He’s ruined me.

Doesn’t help that I’m a huge, hormonal mess because despite turning me on every eight seconds or so . . . we’ve not done anything but kiss this week. And I’m just about ready to beg for more.

And now I have to decide what to wear for this party with his friends, and nothing I own looks good enough.

I groan and lay back on the bed, probably wrinkling several of my wardrobe possibilities in the process. I take a deep breath and stare at my ceiling.

I should put something on my ceiling. Glow-in-the-dark stars or posters or paper cranes. That’s something teenagers do, right? To make their rooms their own? I never did that, but it could be cool. Especially the paper cranes.

I’ll do that. Just as soon as I learn origami.

I sit up and look at myself in the mirror. My hair is loose and wavy, and I’m just wearing a plain V-neck tee and some jeans.

“You’re being silly, Dylan. It’s a baseball game on television at his apartment. It’s not a date. Not dinner or a movie or anything that requires this much thought. Just pick something.”

God, I’ve resorted to actually talking to myself. In a mirror.

Who’s the craziest of them all?

On a whim, I pick up a pair of shorts that are a little similar to the ones I wore the night Silas and I met. They come up high on my waist and show a good amount of leg. This pair is a bright kelly green. I pick a cute but comfy sheer top and pull it on over a white camisole. I look in the mirror and decide it’s just sexy enough with the sheer fabric, but not trying too hard since it’s loose and covers a decent amount of skin. That decided, I check the time on my phone. It’s half past seven, and I think the game starts at eight.

I debate trying to kill half an hour so I can show up fashionably late, but I’ve never really been a fashionably late kind of person, and if I don’t get out of this room now I might start freaking out about my wardrobe again.

I flip off my light as I head back down the hall.

Nell’s head is still down when I enter the living room, but she looks up when I pass. She’s exasperated, probably with Matt, but when she sees me, she puts a hold on whatever she’d been planning to say and mimes holding a gun to her head.

I swallow a laugh and head for the door.

She says, “Where are you going? You’ve barely been home at all this week.”

Matt cocks one eyebrow. “Barely been home all week, you don’t say?”

Then he makes an obscene gesture with his tongue and his cheek, and it’s me pretending to shoot him with my fingers this time.

“For your information, I’ve been doing that stuff with Renew. And I went to my parents’ place a few times.”

“And . . . ?”

“And I hung out with Silas once or twice.”

Matt jumps up from the couch. “Dingdingding! We have a winner, ladies and . . . ladies.”

I ignore him and focus on my roommate. “Okay, then. Nell, I’ll be back later tonight. Sorry to leave you with this guy. Feel free to kick him out whenever he starts annoying you.”

I pick up my purse by the door and Matt says, “You know, a true friend would give me details. Let me live vicariously through you.”

“Goodbye, Rash.”

“Cruel and heartless, Pickle! Cruel and heartless!”

I’m smiling despite my aggravation with Matt’s obsession. He’s a good friend, and I vow to fill him in on everything just as soon as I wrap my own head around it.

A number of cars are already parked around Silas’s place when I arrive. I pull mine up across the street and one house down. I’m relieved to know it won’t be weird that I’m here before the game starts. Little pebbles get stuck between my foot and the sole of my sandal on my way up his driveway. I ring the doorbell, and am trying to shake one of the pebbles out when the door opens.

It’s Brookes. And behind him is the pretty girl, Stella, that I met my first night here. The girl Silas hooked up with last year.

It shouldn’t bother me. It really shouldn’t.

But between her surprised expression and her quiet “Oh,” I can’t help it. It does bother me.

“Silas is in his room,” Isaiah says. “You can go up if you want.”

Torres passes by, carrying two bowls of chips from the kitchen. “Yeah, tell him to quit being antisocial and get his ass down here.”

I feel weird going up the stairs, especially because Stella and Brookes are watching me and whispering. I put them out of my mind and jog the final distance to Silas’s door and knock. No one answers, but there’s music playing inside, so I figure maybe he didn’t hear me. I knock one more time, and when nothing changes, I turn the knob and push the door open a few inches.

For one sinking moment, I cast my eyes toward his bed, afraid I’ll see something there that I don’t want to, but his bed is neatly made just like the last time I saw it. I push the door a little farther, music spilling out into the hall, and then I see him. He’s by the foot of his bed, shirtless and doing push-up after push-up. There’s a faint sheen of sweat across his muscled back, and I swear watching the way his muscles move could give reality TV a run for its money as far as entertainment goes.

Why isn’t there a reality TV show filled with hot guys doing sweaty, mouthwatering tasks?

Oh, right. That’s called sports.

I step over to the dock where he has his phone plugged in to play music. I turn down the volume, and he plants a knee on the floor to turn and look at me.

I suddenly feel weird about intruding on him here in his bedroom. I’ve only been in here the once, and that was really out of necessity. And he wasn’t in here with me.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” he replies. He grabs his discarded T-shirt off the foot of the bed, but instead of slipping it on, he uses it to wipe at his face. “I didn’t expect you this early.”