Frost

I took my hand off his arm. “Don’t be such a jerk. I’m just trying to help. If you want to know the truth, I don’t really feel like being in the middle of this sibling drama. But I don’t want to see you getting all upset at each other, either, especially when you might just be being overly protective.”

David looked out toward a bell clanging in the fog on the water.

“She likes to do the unexpected,” I said. “It’s too obvious for her to date some artistic, emo guy.”

“I don’t need you to tell me about my sister,” David said.

“Then why do you ask me about her all the time?” I pushed by him and opened the bar door, my eyes burning. Before going inside, I said one last thing in his direction. “Do what you want. Go down there and beat him up. That should help things.”

“So you think I should just do nothing?” he said. He sounded not mad, but genuinely upset.

“David,” I said. “You know that Celeste survived three years at Barcroft without you. I think the best thing you can do is to leave her alone and concentrate on your own life.”

He stared out at the low clang-clang-clang of the bell. The neon sign cast a soft, red glow on his face.

“What happened to all of that energy?” I said. “The energy that was going to go toward something other than worrying about her?”

“The energy?” he said, looking back at me.

“Yeah. In the car, remember? Where’d it go?” I tilted my head. “If you find it, I’ll be inside.”

Chapter 23

WE ALL STUMBLED INTO the Parker-Whites’ town house sometime after two a.m. Celeste disappeared up the elevator immediately, alone. Whip had gone back to Manhattan.

“Hungry, hungry, hungry,” Abby said. “How can I be so hungry?”

We moved en masse to the kitchen. Usually, I’d have been psyched to raid the pantry, but my stomach was too tied up to eat much. After our little . . . conversation outside the bar, David hadn’t gone to find Celeste and Whip; he’d come inside right after me, and had sat close and apologized and touched me in the ways that are socially acceptable in public—hand on knee, arm across shoulders, foot on foot. It had all been suggestive of more to come, and now here I was, confronted with a whole night in front of us, and nothing stopping us from spending it together.

Eventually, Viv and Cameron went upstairs.

“Want to watch a movie?” Abby said.

“Nah,” I said. “I think I’ll go to bed.”

David stood up and stretched his arms over his head, showing his stomach. “Me too.”

“Your loss,” Abby said.

Should I follow David to his room? I wanted to just as badly as I didn’t want to. We padded up the stairs next to each other. When he turned off to go to his room on the third floor, I hesitated a minute.

“So,” I said. “It’s late.”

“Yeah,” he said. “But it is New York. Right? City that never sleeps?” He raised his eyebrows in an expectant look. An adorable, expectant look.

“I’ll be right down,” I said, sounding more sure than I felt.

I was sure about one thing, though. I wasn’t going to his bedroom wearing his mother’s dress.

I stopped in the bathroom first, and Celeste was asleep—or pretending to be asleep—by the time I went in the bedroom to change. As I slipped into my tank and boxers (Would he expect lingerie?) the words I’d tried to banish from my mind nagged at me: he’ll hurt you; he’ll hurt you. By the time I tiptoed down the carpeted stairs, the Indian food and beer and those stupid words churned in my stomach.

David had left the door to his room ajar. He lay on the bed—a full size—propped up against pillows, reading. He only had a small table lamp on, so the room was mercifully dark. I was embarrassed not to be wearing a bra, and I knew I looked tired and not especially pretty. And I should have showered. He was probably expecting a clean girl in a nightie.

Walking toward the bed was like walking into a final exam I hadn’t studied for. Not a final, I told myself. A mini-quiz. Because it’s not like we were going to go all the way or anything. He wouldn’t assume that. Right? I wasn’t planning on waiting until marriage, but I wasn’t planning on doing it tonight either.

“Hey.” I perched on the opposite side from where he lay.

“Hey.” David put the book on the bedside table. He was wearing striped boxers and a white T-shirt.

I placed my hands on the bedspread to wipe off some of the clamminess.

“Why don’t you sit up here?” He patted the pillows next to him.

I slid over. I could feel a deep seismic rumbling in my body. Shaking on the molecular level. I’d never been in a bed with a guy before. Not like this, at least.

I swallowed to try and get some wetness in my mouth. “I’m kind of . . . kind of nervous,” I said, figuring he’d notice anyway.

“That’s okay,” he said. “So am I.”

“You are?”

“Sure.”