Excerpt Monday: FLAWED

From my dark YA novel, FLAWED…

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Stepping onto the porch, Sam and I skirt around a group of guys wrapping entire packs of sparklers in duct tape. Alex, standing in the center of them all, gives me a there’s-nothing-to-see-here smirk that puts me on edge. Third period Algebra last year ago passed in a flurry of pranks which usually resulted in Alex being sent to the principal’s office, and our teacher, frumpy spinster-in-training Miss Rabidon, sobbing to the counselor about mean-spirited children.

If he’s plotting something, I don’t want to be around to see it.

“Homemade bombs,” Sam tells me when we reach his car where, sadly, he lets go of my hand to grab a big flashlight and a something warmer for us to wear. “Leslie will kick Alex’s ass if he sets those off out here. The county is dying for a reason to bust her.”

I’m all for Leslie getting busted—James can’t do what he can’t buy—but then I realize my brother would get hauled off to jail right along with her.

As soon as Sam turns away, I press my nose into the black hooded sweatshirt he helped me put on. God, it smells good. Like fabric softener, pine trees, and something spicy. He pulls on an older navy blue sweatshirt. I pretend to be fixing the hood of mine when he turns back around so he doesn’t catch me inhaling his scent. “The Dodgers?” I say, thinking of James’ Mariners pennant. “I’m surprised James hangs out with you.”

“When it comes to sports, your brother and I agree to disagree. Mainly because he doesn’t know a damn thing about them.” With the thick white beam of the flashlight, he points in the opposite direction the girl and two guys headed. Complete blackness shrouds the trees where he’s looking. “I was thinking we’d head this way.”

“You’re not afraid we’ll get lost?” Maybe Leslie has some crackers. I can leave a trail of crumbs to follow back if his flashlight holds out.

“No.” He gives me a please-don’t-think-I’m-a-loser smile. “My only function at these parties is to hang out in case James or someone needs a ride home, so I walk around a lot.”

As if I’m going to think a guy who wastes his evenings making sure his stoned friends don’t wrap their truck around a tree is a loser. “Okay.”

The stillness of the forest is stifling after being inside Leslie’s loud trailer. Even though we’re walking close enough to brush arms from time to time, he doesn’t reach for my hand again. This would be disappointing if it wasn’t obvious he’s purposely bumping into me.

After we’ve gone fairly deep into the woods, he says, “Selfish as this sounds, I meant what I said earlier.”

“Which part?” I know what he’s talking about, but I really want to hear him say it.

“The ‘I’m glad you came tonight’ part.”

“Mmm. Well in that case, I meant what I said, too.”

Frowning, he kicks a rock I’m two steps from tripping over out of my path. “You said the potholes in Leslie’s driveway suck.”

I swallow my laughter, loving the disappointment in his voice. It means I’m not imagining the nudging or the sparks or what I could have sworn was his thumb tracing circles on the back of my hand while we walked to his car. “I also said it’s pretty out here.”

“I remember,” he says. We reach the end of the trail, a secluded place with an ancient, moss-infested log lying on the ground. He gestures to it with the flashlight. “You want to sit?”

I detest moss, which is ironic seeing as how moss and mildew are practically Oregon’s state flowers. And there are probably millions of bugs crawling on that log. Just because I don’t see any doesn’t mean they’re not there.

“It looks like it’s wet,” I lie. “You know, from all the mist and stuff.”

“Oh.” He points the flashlight at the log and peers at it like he’s never seen it before. “You could sit on my sweatshirt, I guess. I’m not cold.”

The flashlight is on the ground at his feet and he’s grabbing the hem of his sweatshirt before I can tell him it’s not a wet spot on my pants that I’m worried about, but slimy slugs and giant centipedes. The words die in my throat. Sam’s gray t-shirt bunches up around his shoulders for the five glorious seconds it takes him to tug the sweatshirt off and smooth the thin fabric back down. I’m so stunned by the slice of his incredible body I see in the flashlight beam, my skin phobia forgets to kick in. Maybe only pasty skin triggers it?

“What?”

I rack my brain for any mortifying thoughts that might have slipped out while I drooled over his tan abs, but draw a blank. “I didn’t say anything,” I tell him. “Did I?”

“No, but you’re looking at me funny.”

Only because you’re gorgeous. “I’m sorry.”

“Why? You didn’t do anything wrong.” He drapes his sweatshirt over a particularly offensive patch of moss and sits on it. “This okay?”

Eying the remaining fabric, I realize there’s only enough sweatshirt left to protect me if I’m halfway on his lap. This is Sam, though. I don’t believe for a second he expects me to curl up in his lap like a purring kitten.

I’d like to, though.

Instead, I gingerly settle on the very edge of his sweatshirt, more balanced on my toes than actually sitting. If something wriggles too close, I’m ready to run like hell.

“If you’d rather we go back to the house, I’ll understand.”

I look at him—rather, I try to look at him. I can’t turn enough to see his face because, if I do, I’ll wind up touching the moss. Still, I know what he’s thinking. The insecurity in his voice says everything.

“Oh, no,” I say quickly. “No, I just don’t like bugs. Or moss, actually. It’s slimy.”

Sam doesn’t say anything. Even his fingertips which I’ve been able to feel fiddling with the edge of his sweatshirt by my hip have gone still.

Then he bursts into laughter.

I groan. “Don’t make fun of me!”

“Sorry. It’s just the whole time we were walking, I was worried you only came out here with me because James ditched you,” he says. “And then when you got really uncomfortable about the log… I’m just relieved it’s the bugs you’re scared of and not me.”

“Yeah, well, you’re not very scary,” I say. “Scary people don’t typically hold hands with the person they’re about to kill in the middle of the forest.”

He laughs again. No matter how many times I’ve heard it tonight, I still can’t get over how giddy Sam’s laugh makes me. He’s contagious or something, because I laugh, too.

When our laughing finally dies down, neither of us says anything for a long time. It’s a comfortable silence, though. A gritty techno-rock song wafts up to us from further down the hill and mixes offbeat with the swarm of crickets chirping in the ferns. We’re not far from Leslie’s, despite the winding, ten minute long walk uphill. The lights on her trailer blink through the branches shifting in the light breeze.

“So you’re a senior now,” he says. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks, but all I care about is graduating so I can get out of here.”

“Where are you going?”

“I don’t know, but hopefully far, far away from Granite Falls.”

Something flutters against my cheek. I nearly jump out of my skin swatting at the air around us. Sam laughs and rests his hand on my hip, not-so-subtly pulling me against his side. The same calming effect from inside Leslie’s comes back full force, or maybe it’s the lack of oxygen in the forest now that he’s so close.

“What about you?” I manage.

“Not sure,” he says. “I’ve been working nights loading freight for a couple years and took some classes at GFCC, but I’m not getting much out of either. Maybe I’ll follow you guys around for awhile, keep James out of trouble.”

“I’d like that.”

I’d also like him to kiss me. The sleepy way he’s looking down at me and the way his fingers trace the seam of my front pocket feels so intimate. It wouldn’t take anything for him to close the small distance between us, or to reach up and touch my face. He shifts closer and, for a second, I think he’s going to do it.

Before anything happens, he clears his throat and looks up at the night sky. “Sorry.”

“For what?”

“I have no idea,” he says, chuckling. “You make me nervous.”

I make him nervous? Somewhere along the winding path, we must have crossed into the Twilight Zone. “Is that why tonight is the first time we talked?” I ask. I’m pretty sure being this close to him is making me drunk, otherwise I’d never be this bold. “We’ve known each other forever, but you’ve never given me the time of day.”

He doesn’t say anything for a long time. Maybe I’ve made his nerves worse.

“I’ve wanted to talk to you for years,” he finally says. His voice is quiet, barely audible over the thumping beat pouring out of Leslie’s. “James isn’t big on the idea of us being friends. On you being friends with anyone, for that matter.”

Friends. The word sits in my gut like a jagged piece of lava rock. “He doesn’t own me. If you wanted to be my friend, you could have been.”

“Have you seen what your brother does to people who piss him off?”

There have been a few guys who limped into class on Monday mornings after fighting my brother behind the Armory over the weekend. Stitched up lips, swollen eyes, mottled blue and purple bruises blooming on their cheekbones… James swears up and down they’re only messing around, but somehow I don’t think the other guys felt the same way when they stumbled back into their cars and drove home.

“So, why are you talking to me now?” I ask. “What changed?”

“I’m tired of your brother telling me what I can and can’t do.” The crooked smile he gives me turns my brain to scrambled eggs. “And I don’t want to be your friend anymore.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

I feel his intense gaze skimming my face and force myself to look him in the eye. This time, when he leans closer, I know what he wants. He traces my jaw with his fingertips, then moves lower to my chin. My eyelids flutter closed when he tips my face up.

Oh my God. Sam Donovan is going to kiss me.

The forest holds its breath.

I hold my breath.

Our lips brush, light as eyelashes. His fingers trail back into my hair, tilting my head, opening me up to him so he can deepen the kiss.

I’m drowning.

And then my name, roared at the top of familiar lungs, cracks the silent night.

(© Heather Howland 2010 – All Rights Reserved)