Tryst Six Venom

MY HANDS TREMBLE , a light sweat covering my forehead as my heart thuds.

Just one more time…

I can’t stop hearing her whisper or feeling her mouth since I left her this morning. God, I’m exhausted. A fog sits in my head, and I can’t seem to get my eyes open all the way yet, but I’m floating. Blissfully floating.

As soon as I’d woken up, I’d rolled over and needed her. I didn’t want to leave Liv’s bed until I’d tasted every inch of her, and I couldn’t believe I’d had any energy left to go yet again after that, or that I’d gotten laid twice this morning and already wanted more.

I’m on fire, and I can’t wait to see her.

I dig my books out of my locker, taking deep breaths to calm myself down, but it’s not working.

“Clay,” someone says.

I turn my head, a couple guys shouting down the hall.

The new girl from my math class stands next to me, holding a folder and a book. Her blonde hair ends just above the shoulders, straightened with layers. She carries a Hermès backpack that even my mom probably wouldn’t treat herself to.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to ambush you,” she says, smiling, and I notice the subtle pink gloss that plumps her lips. “My name’s Chloe. We have calculus together.”

She holds out her hand, and she stands so close the hair on my arm touches the hair on hers. Awareness rises.

“Right.” I put my practice clothes in my duffel bag to take home and wash. “You’re from Texas. How are you liking it here?”

She shrugs, her navy-blue Marymount sweater vest not something we really wear anymore, but I like her retro style. “Still getting used to it.”

“Yeah, I know people in Texas are maniacal.”

“Maniacal?” she broaches. “About what?”

I pull out my pencil bag. “About being Texan.”

She smiles big and nods. “Can’t argue there. Texan first. American second.”

She doesn’t sound southern, though, so she’s definitely from the city. A bigger city than St. Carmen probably.

I close my locker and finally meet her eyes, seeing her watch me. I straighten, not sure if I’m imagining a signal or not. I look around for Liv.

“Anyway,” she finally goes on, “I just wanted to introduce myself. And see if you need a study partner? Maybe some help with derivatives and integration?”

A study partner? Are those still a thing since Google?

She laughs. “Okay, I need help with derivatives and integration.”

Ah. “Well, I’m no genius,” I add, “but two heads are better than one, I guess.”

But time with a new friend means time I won’t have with Liv, and I can’t do that right now.

I search my brain for an excuse to get out of it, but then I catch sight of Liv approaching behind Chloe.

She stops at my side, her hair in the two French braids I did this morning. She leans her shoulder into the lockers and pins Chloe with a look. “Excuse us.”

Her words are flat, commanding, and void of patience, and I bite back my smile even as a flush rises up to my cheeks.

Chloe’s eyes flash to me and then to Liv again, and I turn, spinning the dial on my locker. Awkward.

“See you around,” I hear her say, and when I turn around again, she’s gone.

Facing Liv, I give her a scolding look, but I’m sure she can see my amusement. “She was just saying hi.”

“She can wave.”

And that look and tone—possessive and jealous and all for me—sets me on fire again.

“Get in the bathroom, Clay,” she mumbles as she rubs an imaginary itch on her chin, trying to look covert in the school hallway.

Butterflies swarm my stomach, and slowly, I make my way past the special committees’ bulletin board and the couple making out. I push through the locker room door and head for the restroom.

I think Liv likes our secret, and although I’m grateful, because I just want her to myself, I have to wonder why she’s not putting up more of a fight to go public. I know she said in the hotel that this probably wouldn’t turn into a relationship, given that we’re both leaving for college in a few months, but something is eating at me. I told her I loved her last night. I don’t know if she forgot, is ignoring it, or she thinks I was lying, but when she said it back, she said she was kidding, so that doesn’t count.

She hasn’t said it back yet—not really—and I don’t know why it hurts a little.

Part of me wants her to fight me on this. To demand we walk down the school hallway hand in hand.

Liv checks the stalls to make sure we’re alone and then follows me into one, the door locking and my books dropping to the floor in a flurry right before she grabs me into her arms.

Slipping my hand under her skirt, I press my body into her as she holds my face, and we kiss. I moan, taking advantage of however many seconds we have alone to let her know how good she feels.

Her tongue caresses mine, and I inhale her scent and the taste of her watermelon-flavored lip tint.

“Mine.” She pants, rubbing her thumb across my lips. “Until graduation. Okay?”

“Yeah.”

She tips my chin back and kisses slowly down my neck. “No one has to know, but you better.”

“I know.” I nod. “Don’t worry, I know.”

I’m yours. Just don’t stop.

We grind on each other, but whenever I try to go faster, she slows us down, and I’m going insane, because it’ll be hours before we can be alone again.

I lift my leg, setting my foot on the toilet seat, and she slips a hand inside her black bandana that she tied around my thigh. Hidden underneath my skirt and from everyone except her who tied it there this morning.

I look down, lifting her wrist and turning it over to see the octopus I drew on the inside, hidden from everyone but me. I drew it there this morning.

We weren’t going to get to talk much at school, but we wanted a constant reminder of each other.

“I know why you like octopi,” she teases.

“Octopuses,” I correct her, moving in for her mouth again. “And there are so many reasons to love them.” We nibble and bite. “You know they can detach limbs at will? Like not rip it off but detach it when they’re in danger?” I keep kissing her, her warm body making chills spread across my arms. “They all have venom, even just a little, and they have nine brains, each arm can act independently from the others. Isn’t that wild?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“And they use tools,” I tell her. “They have three hearts. They eat their arms when they’re bored.”

“They can slap eight people at the same time,” she adds and then cuts off my laugh with a kiss that grows deeper and deeper until I’m breathless.

And I can’t take it anymore. I wrap my arms around her and bury my face in her neck, just holding her.

Just hugging her.

She stills, and I know she’s probably wondering what I’m doing, but I just need to memorize this. I don’t know if I really love her, but it’s going to hurt to lose her. I know that.

Finally, I pull away and kiss her again, knowing we’re pressing our luck.

“Let’s go,” I tell her.

I pick up my stuff, and we head into the locker room, clearing out our gear for the day. Only a few people remain, and I’m due at my grandmother’s in the next fifteen minutes.

I really should put in an appearance at Wind House soon too. I’ve only been doing what I absolutely have to if it doesn’t involve Olivia. But…I don’t want to lose Mrs. Gates, either. I know I help her, and it feels good.

“What time are you home tonight?” I ask quietly, keeping my eyes peeled despite our row being empty.

She passes me, tosses something into the trash can, and then grazes her hand under my skirt as she comes back.

“I’ll be in the theater until at least seven,” she whispers. “You?”

“I’m free by then,” I tell her. “Can I come over?”

She tosses discarded towels into the laundry basket and walks over, stopping behind me and pretending to be interested in something in my locker.

“Or my house?” I ask instead.

My mom knows the Jaegers and she might know about Liv, but she’d never suspect.

“You need sleep,” she murmurs. “I need sleep.”

“We don’t have to do that ,” I clarify, even though she’s pressing her body into mine and sending me completely different signals. “We can sleep. We can do anything. I don’t care. I just want to be somewhere where I can touch you.”

We both look around, seeing the coast is clear, and her nose brushes my cheek, her warm, fantastic breath sending chills down my spine.

“Pick me up from here at seven thirty,” she says.

“I’ll be here.”

Her eyes meet mine as her hand slips under my shirt, caressing my stomach. I can see the war going on in her head. The hesitation.

“I’ll be here,” I say again.

I won’t let her down again.

She dives in again, inhales me, and then kisses my temple. “Okay.”

Something moves behind us, and we both jerk our heads, seeing Coomer frozen mid-step between the rows of lockers, her clipboard about to spill out of her hand.

Her mouth hangs open, gaping at us, and Liv backs up, heat seeping out of every pore on my body. How long has she been standing there?

But our coach just blinks, clears her throat, and purses her lips to hide her smile. “Well, that makes a lot more sense now,” she mumbles and keeps walking.

I close my eyes, mortified, not so much out of fear, but because she’s well aware I’ve acted like I hated Liv for nearly the past four years.

Jesus.

“She won’t say anything,” Liv tells me.

“I know.”

But that was close. It could’ve easily been another student.

Liv takes her things and walks past me. “See you later. And if you stand me up again, I’m going to kill you, okay?”

“Understood.”

She leaves, and I bite my bottom lip, because there’s just something about how even her threats are a turn on.

I shake my head clear. But yeah, I won’t stand her up. She’ll really kill me.

• • •

“Clay?”

I twist my head, seeing my mom through the open passenger side window of her white Rover. Her huge, cat-eye sunglasses make her look like a movie star sunbathing on a yacht in Monaco.

Or a big bug. I’m still not sure.

I move toward her, away from my car. “What are you doing here?” I ask. “I have my car.”

School let out eight minutes ago, and the parking lot swarms with students trying to make their getaway.

But my mother tells me, “I’ll bring you back for it.”

I shift on my feet, releasing a sigh. I want my car, because I want to leave Mimi’s when I’m ready.

Mom cocks her head. “I haven’t seen you in almost two days. Get in.”

I click the key fob, locking my car again as I walk to the Rover. Opening the door, I climb in and drop my bag to the floor. We’d be back way before seven thirty. My mom will probably be ready to escape Mimi long before I am.

She pulls out of the parking lot, taking a left onto the quiet street, and I take out my sunglasses, shielding myself against the afternoon sun.

The silence consumes the car, and I can almost hear her breathing it’s so quiet. I glance at the radio, wishing she’d turn it on, but I know if I turned it on it will be playing The Giver audiobook she and my brother were listening to before he died. My mother can’t bear to hear it, but she won’t listen to anything else. That would be like moving on.

“So, I spoke to Cara,” she finally says. “She’s quite concerned because Krisjen didn’t come home last night.”

I turn my eyes out of the window.

“She probably wasn’t worried,” my mom adds, “just that Krisjen wasn’t there to make breakfast for Marshall and Paisleigh this morning.”

Krisjen’s dad left them for another woman about a year ago, and her mom is in a rut she can’t seem to pull herself out of. Not that the marriage had been faithful on either side, but Cara enjoyed her position through the marriage and maintained it for appearances. Without her husband and being Mrs. Lachlan Conroy III anymore, she’s now stuck with a family she no longer wants.

Krisjen is the oldest, and while she never talks about it, I know she’s raising her siblings while her mother tries to chase down another husband.

“I was also concerned,” my mother says, “considering you were supposed to be sleeping over at her house last night.”

I don’t reply.

The silence stretches, and I hear my mother exhale. “You know, you scare me, Clay.”

Her tone is soft. She’s not yelling.

“I admire how you don’t rush to cover your tracks when caught,” she tells me, “and I appreciate you not wasting my time with another lie, but it’s also off-putting.” She hesitates. “It means you don’t care if I find out.”

I am scared, and I do care if she finds out. I won’t tell her the truth, though. I just won’t say anything.

“It’s frightening when you realize you’ve lost control of your child.”

But it’s not like that. If I tell her about Liv, she’ll ruin it. I just want to enjoy it for a while before the stress.

“Some days I still feel your age,” she tells me. “And I know even less about what I’m doing than I did the day before. You think you’ll reach an age where you finally know your place in the world, but nothing ever gets easier.”

I look at her out of the corner of my eye, her lips pursed as she stares at the road, her beautiful clothes and jewelry the image of perfection. Not a blemish. Barely a wrinkle. Not a single dry patch on her hands or a pore on her face visible from where I sit. I want to ask her about the pregnancy. I want to know if it was my father’s. I want the stalemate in our lives to end.

But I don’t want the unknown, either. Not all change is good.

So, I stay quiet.

She clears her throat. “You’re being safe, right?” she asks, seemingly resolved to the fact that I’m sleeping with someone and now wants to make sure I’m not an embarrassment. “We’ve had this talk. I’m not raising any more babies. Don’t be careless.”

“I know.”

I don’t know if I’m relieved that she hasn’t caught my scent yet or disappointed. She thinks I’m sleeping with Callum. I wish I could tell her the truth. I want to tell someone about this excitement I feel every time I look at Liv. I want to share it with someone.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she broaches all of a sudden.

I squeeze my eyes shut behind my glasses, almost breaking into a laugh because the words are on the tip of my tongue.

When I don’t respond, she slows the car, and I turn, watching her pull over to the curb on quiet Levinson Lane, under the canopy of some Spanish moss.

God, just go. Please.

She puts the car in Park , and I feel her twist her body toward me to speak. “Sex is a big deal,” she says, “no matter all the images you see on TV and in movies that try to prove otherwise.”

Yes, yes. We’ve had this talk. Years ago. Just go.

“Sex isn’t just two people being physical, Clay. Young women, especially, can get attached and emotionally invested very quickly. It’s important we feel connected to the people we’re physical with.”

Mm-hmm. I nod.

“And it’s very easy to be hurt when we believe they feel the same and we find out they don’t,” she continues.

“You don’t need to worry,” I tell her, gesturing to the road ahead. “Can we go now?”

I don’t look at her, but I can tell she’s studying me. “I want to know things, okay? If you’re excited and falling in love, I want you to know you can talk to me and share it with me.”

My jaw flexes, my throat swelling.

“Is he making you happy?” she asks.

I draw in a breath. Jesus.

“Is he gentle? Does he make it special?”

I bite the corner of my mouth. I want to tell her how good Olivia Jaeger feels. Yes, Mom. She’s gentle. And I love it when she’s not gentle, too. She makes it special. I don’t want to be anywhere else when I’m with her.

She threads a lock of my hair through her fingers. “You’re stunning, you know? Anyone would be lucky to have you.”

As long as it’s a young man, right?

I open my mouth to say it. To tell her it’s a girl and not a boy, and maybe I’ll lie and tell her I’m just experimenting. I mean, maybe I am.

I could tell her Liv means nothing and we don’t date, but I like what she does to my body and it’s nothing to worry about. But I catch sight of my brother’s picture hanging on the rearview mirror, and I close my mouth again.

One kid dead. Another who’s… Not normal.

Yeah, her whole world will fall apart. She’s hanging on by a thread as it is. My family is hanging on by a thread. I don’t want to put something out there that I can’t take back.

“It’s okay, Mom,” I whisper. “Just go.”

She stares at me.

“I’m not going to get pregnant,” I blurt out. “I promise.”

I know she’s hurt I won’t talk to her, but if she knew, she’d wish she didn’t.

After a moment, she sits back in her seat and pulls away from the curb, driving us to my grandmother’s.

My mother won’t eat after five o’clock, so these dinners with my grandmother happen early in the afternoon and every week now, given that I’m so close to the ball and getting my ducks in a row for college. Mimi likes to be kept abreast of everything .

Tucker opens the front door before my mother has a chance to and steps aside for us to enter. I swipe my phone from my school bag before he has a chance to take it for me, and then I follow my mom into the foyer.

“Good afternoon,” I hear Mimi say.

My mom embraces her, their lips not quite touching each other’s skin as I shiver in the cold marble room. I look around, inhaling the scent of talcum powder and lavender that always pervaded this house, like my grandmother was ninety when she’s only sixty-five.

The white walls are only discernible from the white floors by the streaks of gray in the stone under my feet. I like white, but this house is like 1980s white—white wood with gold fixtures, splashes of yellow, and beveled mirrors where the frames are also mirrors. I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to look art deco, but it just looks stupid.

“Hi, Mimi.” I smile, mimicking my mother and embracing her with a kissing sound.

“Oh, you’re getting so pretty,” she coos.

She says that every time. Getting pretty. Not quite there, but getting there.

We walk toward the dining room, down a long hallway, interrupted sporadically with doors on one side and a wall of photos on the other. Black and white portraits from years ago, childhood photos, some of my brother and me, my cousins, Easter Sundays, family picnics on the lawn, and my mother—at sixteen at her ball, on the arm of my father as he stands next to her in a tux, his chin high and a loaded smile on his lips. I pause as my mom and grandmother head into supper.

My parents looked so young.

They were young, I guess. I can’t help but wonder what was going through their heads back then. How ready they were to live. How excited they were to dream about the future—vacations, their home, laughing, family, holding each other… The years spread out before them, and it was only going to be gold, right?

Did they know they were going to do bad things to each other?

Would they go back and do it again?

I walk into the dining room, Tucker holding my chair out for me.

“Thank you.” I sit down.

Taking my napkin, I pull it off the ring, but my mother stops me. “Clay.”

I stop, realizing myself. I set my napkin down and look to my grandmother. She gives me a look, but it has a hint of a smile. Rookie mistake, Clay. When a guest at dinner, take your cues from your host. I wasn’t supposed to lay my napkin in my lap until she’d done it.

She holds out her hand, and I know what she wants. I set my phone in her palm, and she places it on the small tray Tucker holds out next to her.

We start with salad, a citrusy vinaigrette dressing gleaming over the arugula.

“The Senior sleepover is happening soon, right?” Mimi asks. “Have you RSVP’d with Omega Chi at Wake Forest?”

I sip my water, setting it back down. “Mm, yes.”

I feel my mom’s eyes, and I look at her, getting the signal. I straighten and smile, giving Mimi my full attention.

“Yes, Mimi,” I say more clearly. “Dues are paid, and I’ve already reached out to some of the other attendees via social media to get a rapport going.”

“Social media…”

“It’s the standard of the times,” I tease, finishing up the small serving of greens.

But she waves me off, picking up her glass. “Oh, I know. I just lament the days of privacy and being able to make mistakes without an audience.”

I hold back my eye roll and smile wider. Old people say things like that a lot, as if the downfall of society started with Facebook.

“That reminds me,” Mimi pipes up again, eyeing my mother, “she needs to delete her Twitter history, and I want access to any other secret accounts, Clay.” She pins me with a look. “Don’t think we’re not aware they exist.”

My shoulders slump, but I put them back again, recovering. I’m not giving her my hidden profiles. She’s the one who told me I could have secrets.

“I’ve been reading articles,” she tells my mom as Tucker brings the next course. “And the experts suggest deleting your history every once in a while to spare any embarrassment down the road. People get fired over a bad tweet from eight years ago.”

I groan inwardly. I wish my grandmother wasn’t so proactive.

“You need to think of your future,” she points out to me. “Your husband and children who could be caught in the crossfire of something stupid you said at this age.”

My mother nods, but Mimi cuts her off. “I would suggest it for you, as well.”

My mom stills, swallowing her retort with her glass of water. I almost snort. One of the reasons I love coming to these dinners is just to see my mom still under her own mother’s thumb just like I’m under hers.

But then I see myself twenty years from now in my mom’s seat and her in her mother’s, my daughter sitting where I am. Every woman at this table is carrying a secret. What will my daughter be hiding?

“The foie gras,” my mom says to Tucker. “Amazing.”

“I’ll tell Peggy.”

His wife is the chef, but I haven’t eaten a bite. This dish is inhumane, and I know my grandmother is challenging me on purpose.

“I have dresses in the den for you to try on for the ball,” she says, cutting into the duck.

My mom coughs, swallowing a sip of water to clear her throat. “Mama, we have her dress.”

But Mimi just looks at me.

Fuuuuuuuuuck.

My mom sighs. “What did you do to it, Clay?”

How did my grandmother find out? I’m tempted to throw Liv under the bus here, but I’m filled with a sudden desire to protect her at all costs.

I simply remain silent, knowing there’s nothing my mother will do to hold me accountable.

A smirk curls Mimi’s mouth as she lifts her glass to her lips and locks eyes with my mother again. “I never would’ve guessed one child would be harder than four,” she taunts.

My mother’s jaw flexes, she and her three siblings far less trouble than one little ol’ me, and I can feel every muscle in her body tighten from here.

Reaching my hand under the table, I slide it under my skirt and wrap my fist around the bandana, exhaling.

Three hours and fourteen minutes later, I grab my phone off the tray in the dining room and pull my saddle shoes back on as I hop out the front door. My shoelaces drag on the ground, and I open up the Uber app to escape here while they think I’m off getting something from my mom’s car. The dinner lasted a full hour more with the dessert and the practice interview questions for Omega Chi. Then we tried on dresses, and I just let my mother—through the approval of Mimi, of course—choose the strapless, A-line charmeuse with the chiffon draping. Actually, quite pretty, but I still felt like a moron in it.

Spotting Mimi’s rose bushes, I quickly bend a stem back and forth, breaking it off as I avoid the thorns.

“Young man?” I hear Peggy call out.

I lift my head, realizing the cook is on the balcony over top of me. I slink back so she can’t see and look out into the driveway where Trace Jaeger loads up a rusty Ford truck. He’s in jeans and covered in sweat, even though the sun set an hour ago.

“Put your shirt on!” she scolds him.

“Aw, baby,” he whines, and my eyes go wide.

“Now, I said!”

“But you’re so hot, it’s making me hot.” He holds out his hands, looking like Romeo serenading Juliet. “Look at this, I’m drenched!”

I cover my mouth to quiet my laugh. The butler’s wife not only cooks, but she practically raised my mom, aunts, and uncles. She also served as a nurse in the Navy for five years. She isn’t about the bullshit.

“You rascal!” she chides.

“Sugar plum,” he coos, feigning a condescending tone but smiling as he does it.

“Caveman!”

“Love bug!”

“Gorilla!”

“Sweetie, honey pie!”

I snort, nearly dying.

“Ape!” she cries.

“Buttercup.”

“Ugh!”

Then, I hear a door slam, and I let a laugh escape. I’ve never seen anyone handle her like that.

“You know…” I head out from under the balcony and across the driveway toward him. “One of these days she’s going to decide your hedge sculptures aren’t worth it and have you fired.”

“And quickly realize her mistake.” He pulls out his shirt but uses it to wipe his back dry. “She loves me.”

Sure. I look over the load of tools in his truck bed, everything he needed for landscaping today. The rest of the crew is already gone.

“Can you give me a ride back to school?” I ask, glancing over my shoulder at the house. “Like quickly?”

Before I’m caught and before I’m late. It’s after seven already.

He opens the door for me, and I hop in, the smell of rust and dirt immediately hitting me.

But I pull the door closed and wait for him to round the truck to the driver’s side.

The ripped imitation leather pinches the backs of my thighs, and I find some footing through the takeout bags and empty soda cans on the floor.

Trace gets in, starts the truck and turns up the radio, peeling out of the driveway like he’s unaware he has to stop and wait for the gate to open.

As soon as we’re through, he rolls down the window, and I do the same, the wind blowing through the cab.

“So you want me to put my shirt on, too?” he asks.

I turn my eyes on him, not seeing a shirt in sight, so I don’t know how he’s going to do that.

“Didn’t even notice, did you?” he teases, lighting a cigarette. “I guess I don’t have to worry that you’re faking it with my sister.”

Smoke puffs up as the end burns orange, and I kind of want to ask him for one.

“I notice men.” I wave the air, clearing the smoke. “Your sweat and stench, however, trumps any attraction.”

“I can shower.” He eyes me. “Wanna help?”

Help him shower? “What are you doing?” I ask. My ire perks up that he’d make a pass when he knows I’m seeing Liv. I didn’t peg him for a shitty brother.

“I don’t trust you,” he tells me, turning down the music and speeding down the road. “I think you’ll hurt her. I think you’ll get her into a situation that will devastate her.”

He thinks he knows me.

“She acts tough, but everyone’s the same,” he goes on. “They just want someone to love, and when a Jaeger gets attached, it’s as quick as flipping a switch, Clay. It’ll be sudden, and she won’t be able to turn it off.”

A flutter hits my heart, and I’m surprised at myself. I don’t feel that from Liv, but the way he describes it, I really want to.

“I don’t want to hurt her,” I say.

“But you hide her.”

I frown. Everyone gets hurt by love at some point. It’s not my intention, but who knows where the next few weeks will take us. I just want to be here. Today. Now. With her. The future is uncertain. Why worry about it?

“We’re none of your business,” I tell him.

“If I decide it’s my business, it’s my business.” His tone is deep and suddenly biting. “And I’m the nice one, so it would be wise to have this conversation with me and not one of the others.”

“We’re keeping it quiet,” I explain as if he’s entitled to that. “We’re going off to different schools in the fall, and we don’t want others distracting us from what time we have together. Liv agreed.”

“Well, what was she supposed to say? The alternative was demanding you out yourself, which you never would have agreed to, so she took the scraps she could get.” He takes a drag of his cigarette. “She’s used to that.”

That’s not true. Why would he say that? When the choice was either being with someone else—Megan or that ex at the lighthouse—she chose to be with me, knowing I could be using her and I might end up hurting her? It doesn’t make sense.

“Liv is very outspoken,” I point out. “She would’ve raised her concerns. She wouldn’t have sacrificed her pride to be a booty call, if it was a problem.”

“A booty call is better than a long time of nothing,” he fires back. “You get tired of being alone.”

So he’s saying she chose sneaking around with me over a solid relationship because…

Because she likes me. A lot.

That’s what he’s worried about. How much she’s going to tolerate from me just to have a piece.

Liv… While guilt tugs at me that I’m not broadcasting her to the world, I’m a little happy. She really likes me.

“You should take her on a date,” Trace adds. “You should hold her hand.”

I’d love to go anywhere with her. Go everywhere.

But when Callum touches me in public, no one bats an eye. We could be standing on the sidewalk in front of the movie theater, but I can’t stand on the sidewalk in front of the movie theater with my hands on Liv’s waist or my body pressed to hers. It would be a scene. A statement.

And every minute I was out with her, I’d be worrying about everyone looking at us, judging us, talking about us, and I wouldn’t be thinking about her or us. I would only be thinking about that.

“I hate the way things are,” I tell him, “but I’m afraid everything will change. I can’t tell my parents I’m bi…bisexual. I can barely even say the word. And what if I’m not? What if it’s just Liv? There would be no going back. What if I’m confused? What if I’m wrong? I…”

I trail off, my panic evident, but it feels kind of good to let it out. To talk to someone about it other than Liv.

Trace nods. “You shouldn’t tell them you’re bisexual, Clay,” he says. “You’re not.”

Huh?

“I mean, some people are,” he assures. “But I’ve also learned that some people will simply say they’re bisexual rather than gay, because they feel it’s easier on their families.”

I stare at him, his words tumbling around in my head.

“It softens the blow,” he explains. “‘Look, Mom and Dad. Part of me is still normal. I might still marry a guy, have babies, and not completely fucking embarrass you someday.’” He turns to me. “You strike me as the type of person who would give up as little as possible about themselves to maintain the status quo,” he says. “The one who will sacrifice the bare minimum to get what she wants but nothing more.”

I open my mouth to retort, but I clamp it shut again and turn my eyes out the window.

We don’t speak again, and he drops me off at the school a little after seven thirty. I see my truck still in the parking lot, and I head up the stairs in a kind of daze, my head still back in the cab of the truck with him.

He’s wrong. I’ll sacrifice what I have to in order to keep her mouth on mine. The alternative is too hard to consider.

I run my fingers through my hair, untangling what the wind did to it and dig in my bag for some lip gloss. Smoothing out my hair and brushing my hands down my clothes, I enter the theater, hearing voices immediately.

“Let me be taken, let me be put to death!” someone cries.

I stand at the back of the theater, in the dark, and I can’t help but smile at the scene on the stage. The set looks like a wintery New York evening if New York had royalty and a strictly black option for clothing. Cathedral arches adorn the backdrop along with silver skyscrapers reaching up into the night. Clouds float past the full moon, and a stone mansion in ruins sits in the middle.

Liv is dressed in a long, black coat, fitted at the waist, her face chalk white and her hair in a wild ponytail. Smoky black surrounds her eyes, and I grip the back of a chair, because she’s so beautiful my knees feel weak.

“I am content, so thou wilt have it so, I’ll say yon grey is not the morning’s eye, ‘Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia’s brow,” Romeo drones on, played by Clarke Tillerson in a way that I know I’d be asleep if I didn’t have Liv to look at.

Snow falls from above, and this must be one of the final dress rehearsals. Or they’re working on a scene that needs extra time, because I’m pretty sure Mercutio’s understudy isn’t in the bedroom scene.

“Nor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat.”

“Stop!”

Lambert comes up, the actors turning to receive direction, and Liv turns my way. I raise my hand to wave, but she keeps turning, not seeing me.

I put my hand down as she crosses her arms, and I don’t like the tension I see in her body. What’s wrong?

Ms. Lambert speaks quietly and closely to Clarke as Juliet sits on the bed, hugging her knees to her body and inspecting her fingernails. Everyone looks worn out. Some pace, some look bored as hell, and some are slouched in the theater seats, passed out.

Voices rise between Lambert and Romeo, and they’re starting to talk with their hands, their body language aggravated.

“Let me be taken,” someone calls out.

I find Liv as everyone turns toward her voice, and I see her stare at Juliet.

She runs and jumps up on the bed, Juliet falling back onto her hands, a shocked smile on her face.

“Let me be put to death!” Liv shouts, standing over her. “I am content, so thou wilt have it so.”

My heart creeps up my throat, and slowly, I move down the aisle, taking her in.

Liv crouches down, one black boot over Juliet’s body, her black coat spilling around them as she holds her beloved’s face. For once, Lizbeth Mercier, who plays Juliet, looks actually speechless as she’s carried away in Liv’s gaze.

“I’ll say yon grey is not the morning’s eye,” Liv tells her, caressing the girl’s cheeks, her words so gentle and her eyes searching her love’s. “‘Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia’s brow.”

She doesn’t take her eyes off Juliet, so close, and I feel like she’s holding me. Everyone watches. “Nor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat, the vaulty heaven so high above our heads.”

Liv whispers into her temple, her microphone brushing the girl’s skin, “I have more care to stay than will to go.”

And my heart shudders, feeling the words, because I know what her breath feels like.

And her mouth dips close, taunting the corner of Lizbeth’s. I don’t think the girl breathes.

In one fell swoop, Romeo comes down on top of the girl, sending them both to the bed, and Lizbeth yelps, letting out an excited laugh, while Romeo smiles devilishly. “Come, death, and welcome!” Liv taunts playfully. “Juliet wills it so. How is’t, my soul?” She presses their foreheads together. “Let’s talk; it is not day.”

And the girl smiles, captivated and wanting to be nowhere but with her Romeo.

Olivia’s perfect. Why have they not given her the lead in anything all these years?

Everyone stands quiet, and after a moment, the curtain over Liv’s mind seems to close again, and she sits up, her demeanor serious once again.

“See, Clarke?” Lizbeth props herself up on her elbows, looking around Liv. “Just like that.”

I laugh to myself, seeing him shifting uneasily.

Lambert claps. “Okay, everyone! Tomorrow. Be here at three!”

Everyone starts to gather their things, chatter filling the room, and I watch as Liv doesn’t come down to me but disappears backstage.

She had to have seen me. I check my phone, seeing I’m twenty minutes late.

I carry the rose, climbing the stairs and veer behind the curtain and down another small set of stairs. I find Liv in a dressing room with the door open as she sits on a stool.

I hover at the door. “I brought you something to remind you of me.”

I hold the rose, and she doesn’t look right away, but after a moment, she glances up.

She eyes the rose, looking sad, and my heart pounds. “Pink?” she asks.

I step into the room, closing the door and stopping in front of her. I lower myself to the floor and to my knees. “Thorns.”

I set the flower on her dressing table and lie my head on her lap, hoping she forgives me. I’m late, and I promised her I wouldn’t be.

“I’m full of thorns,” I say softly. “But there are things about me that I hope are worth it.”

After a few seconds, I feel her hand in my hair. “I hate Romeo,” she says, stroking my scalp. “But I’m starting to understand him. Fuck you for that, Clay.”

I half-smile, because I know she’s bitter, because she’s cracking, and I want that. I want what Trace promised. That the switch would flip, and she’d be mine.

I peel up her sleeve and gaze at the octopus on the inside of her wrist. “This is mine.” I smooth my thumb over the ink. “Forever mine. My piece of you.” And then in a murmur, “‘Within this inch…I’m free.’”

This patch of skin won’t be anyone else’s ever. It’ll be mine when she marries someone else. When she’s eighty. It’s all I really have of her.

I kiss her wrist and tip my head up as she puts one of the costume hats on my head, a top hat like the one in her room.

She regards me, the wheels turning in her head, but before I can ask what she’s thinking, she pinches my chin and leans down.

Her breath brushes my lips, and I can almost taste her.

“Let’s go get you naked,” she whispers.