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  But none of her attempts to prove it had ever been as blatant as this.

  Lauren turned toward Michael, ready to tell him to ignore Jenn, but before she could speak, Michael silenced her, leaning down with ease as he brought his mouth to hers.

  Instantly she froze, her lips pressed tightly together, too stunned to react or respond in any way to what was happening.

  But then his lips parted gently and he leaned into her, taking her bottom lip between his with a tenderness even Lauren would never have given him credit for. Instinctively, she felt the tension melt away from her mouth as she tentatively kissed him back.

  His mouth opened one more time, and hers responded automatically, their lips brushing against each other’s. Again, he captured her lip between his, holding it for a second before gently releasing it. He lifted his chin, brushing his full bottom lip over her top one before he finally pulled away from her.

  It took her a few seconds to open her eyes, and when she did, she saw Michael looking over her head, smiling triumphantly at Jenn.

  She couldn’t breathe.

  It felt like something had ignited inside of her. Her chest was burning, sending little heated sparks down through her stomach and out through her fingertips.

  With an embarrassingly sharp intake of breath, she finally started breathing again, but neither Jenn nor Michael seemed to notice. Lauren was vaguely aware of the bantering going on over her head—something about how Jenn should have known better than to dare Michael to do anything—but she couldn’t focus on their conversation.

  Her lips felt warm and tingly, and she fought the urge to touch them with her fingertips.

  She noticed Michael look down at her then, and she lifted her eyes just in time to see him smile at her; he tugged a piece of her hair and winked, and then he picked up his drink and walked away as casually as if he’d just said a passing hello to them.

  Lauren stared after him, watching him walk away, still unable to form a coherent thought.

  “Well, shit,” Jenn said from beside her, although her voice seemed far away. “I gotta give him credit; it certainly looked like the boy has skills.”

  “I can’t believe you did that,” Lauren mumbled, staring straight ahead. Now that Michael was out of sight, she timidly brought her fingers to her lips; the second she touched them, they tingled with sensitivity, like she’d been burned.

  “I know, right?” Jenn laughed. “You’re welcome,” she sing-songed, hopping up and grabbing Lauren’s wrist. “Vamos, chica. I need a refill.”

  And Lauren allowed her body to be towed further into the wilderness in search of the keg, although her mind was still back on the fallen tree, kissing Michael.

  Oddly enough, as the night went on, Jenn seemed perfectly content to move past the little incident on the log; to Lauren’s surprise, she never even brought it up again. But as the hours passed, no matter how many conversations Lauren tried to get into, no matter how many times she filled her five-dollar plastic cup at the keg, no matter how many times she scolded herself for going back to that moment, she couldn’t stop thinking about it.

  Maybe Jenn had been right? Lauren thought as she stood with a group of people who were laughing and talking, completely oblivious to her zombie-like state. She sipped her beer, her eyes on the floor.

  She’d never been kissed like that in her life.

  The gentleness, the tenderness, it had to mean something, didn’t it? Suddenly it didn’t seem that farfetched that Jenn could have been right in her assumption. After all, she had been right about one thing—one thing Lauren couldn’t deny anymore if her life depended on it.

  She was hopelessly in love with Michael Delaney.

  By the time Lauren had finished her third beer and Jenn had disappeared somewhere, cozying up to some senior, Lauren had convinced herself she needed to find Michael. She needed to know what he thought of that kiss.

  She needed to know if it changed anything for him.

  It took her a while, but she finally found two of Michael’s friends leaning up against a tree with a couple of girls, passing around what appeared to be a cigarette, although Lauren knew better.

  “Hey,” she said when she reached them. “Have you seen Michael?”

  The one she knew was named Phil turned toward her, looking bored. “Michael?”

  “Del,” she clarified, and Phil smirked.

  “What do you want with Del?”

  “To talk to him,” she said, folding her arms and looking up at him. For as long as she’d known Michael, she never really warmed to his friends. They embodied the persona that Michael portrayed to other people, except with these guys, there was nothing else underneath.

  “Well then you’re out of luck, little girl,” Phil said, pausing to take a long pull of the joint at his lips. He exhaled, and most of the smoke wafted into Lauren’s face. She jerked her head back and coughed, and he smiled. “I don’t think Del’s much in the mood for talking right now. But he’s over there somewhere,” he said, gesturing toward a cluster of trees.

  Lauren turned from them, ignoring the giggles from the girls as she walked in the direction Phil had indicated. She found herself having to focus against the darkness as the trees became more dense.

  Lauren stopped walking, allowing her sight to adjust to the deepening shadows, and for a second, she thought maybe Phil had sent her on a wild goose chase for his own amusement. Just as she was about to turn and walk back out toward the crowd, she heard a rustling and snapping of twigs, and she looked over her shoulder to see Michael walking out from behind a tree, sipping his beer.

  “Hey,” she said, and Michael glanced up, catching sight of her.

  “Hey Red,” he said with a smile. “Where’s your other half?”

  “She disappeared with Trevor McLaine a little while ago,” Lauren said with a shrug, and Michael threw his head back and laughed.

  “Well, I’m glad she took my advice, even if Dennis didn’t get to reap the benefits. Hopefully this will mellow her out a bit.”

  Lauren half smiled. “Listen,” she said, the alcohol in her system making her bold. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

  “Sure. What’s up?”

  “I just…,” she said, faltering now that the moment was upon her. “I just…I wanted to talk about…what happened before.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She looked up at him; his expression was completely relaxed.

  “I mean,” she cleared her throat. “I mean before. On the tree.”

  Lauren watched as his expression changed; he pulled his brow together and tilted his head, a small smile on his lips. “Oh, come on. You’re not mad at me, are you? It was just a dare.”

  Before she could even respond, there was a crunching sound, and Lauren looked up to see a girl approaching them, coming from the same direction Michael had just appeared from only moments before.

  She was giggling, one hand adjusting the straps of her tank top and bra while the other tried unsuccessfully to make her disheveled skirt presentable.

  She walked right up to Michael’s side, wrapping her arms around his waist, still giggling as she planted open-mouthed kisses along the side of his neck.

  Lauren swallowed, her eyes pinned on the girl. For some reason, the only coherent thought she could come up with was that she was wearing too much makeup. Her eyeliner and lipstick were both heavy and dark, making her look harsh instead of feminine. Her name was Tanya. Or Tina. Something like that. But despite not knowing her name, her reputation was something Lauren knew well.

  She watched her lavish Michael’s throat with attention, and she couldn’t help but notice how her lipstick was smudged around her mouth.

  She didn’t want to think about how it had gotten that way.

  Lauren ripped her eyes away from the girl, looking back up at Michael. He seemed completely oblivious to the person at his side, sucking on the skin just below his ear. His eyes were on Lauren, his expression gentle.

  Concern
ed.

  “Hey,” he said softly. “You’re cool, right?”

  It took every ounce of strength in Lauren’s body to pull a smile, but she managed a shaky one. “Yeah, I’m cool,” she said, hoping her voice didn’t falter. “I just meant that…I wanted to ask you to take it easy with Jenn. Quit instigating her, okay?”

  Michael grinned then, a combination of relief and mischief chasing the concern from his eyes. “No promises,” he said. He walked the few steps over to her with Tanya/Tina in tow and planted a kiss on the top of her head.

  And then he turned and walked back toward his friends with another girl’s lips all over his skin.

  Del sat on the floor up against the side of his bed, his head bobbing slightly to the song thumping out of his stereo.

  And then he grit his teeth and took a swig from the bottle in his hand as his mind went back to that afternoon.

  To the moment Tanya had smacked him across his face.

  In front of the entire cafeteria.

  Del shook his head, swallowing his mouthful of whiskey. That fucking bitch. He could not believe he spent the last month of his life with that girl. And he had an even harder time believing that the slap she bestowed on him wasn’t just a ploy for attention.

  He knew she didn’t really care about him, just the way he didn’t really care about her. They never even pretended to care about each other. So honestly, how upset could she have been that he had grown bored with her? After all, their entire relationship was a joke. In fact, even referring to it as a relationship was a joke in itself; anything that began with a girl on her knees in the middle of the woods could hardly be constituted as anything meaningful, at least not in his eyes.

  But they had used each other to satisfy a need for the past few weeks. And then he had ended it.

  And she slapped him. As if he had wronged her. As if she didn’t know exactly what their situation had been about. As if she didn’t basically set the terms of it herself.

  Michael grit his teeth again. It took everything he had in him not to knock her on her ass. Who did she think she was? How dare she put her hands on him, in front of a room full of people, no less? He didn’t take that shit from anyone.

  But she was a girl, and so he had to satisfy himself by grabbing a bottle of Jack from his mother’s stash downstairs and drinking the afternoon away.

  A few minutes later, Del heard the faint sounds of a car pulling up outside, followed by the sound of a door closing gently, and he smiled.

  Of course she’d come.

  She was there in the cafeteria. She saw it all unfold.

  Michael laughed humorlessly, shaking his head as he took another swig from the bottle.

  By the time the track on his CD player changed to the next song, he heard the light footsteps on the stairs, and then his door cracked open slowly as she peeked her head in.

  “There she is,” he said with a grin, his voice tinged with alcohol. “I knew you’d come.”

  She opened the door with a sad smile. “And I knew you’d be drunk,” she sighed, closing the door softly behind her.

  “Well, I guess we’re pretty predictable, aren’t we, Red,” he said, swirling the contents of the bottle in his hand.

  “Well, we have done this dance a few times,” she said, nudging him with her knee as she reached him. “Don’t you ever get tired of dating girls like that? You know how it ends.”

  Del rested his head back on the bed, looking up at her as he shrugged indifferently.

  She sighed, folding her arms over her chest. “So, do I officially have my friend back?”

  Del pulled his brow together. “What does that mean?” he asked, and Lauren shrugged.

  “It’s just…this was a bad one. I hardly got to see you or talk to you when you were with her.”

  “Oh,” Del said, looking down at the bottle and suddenly feeling like shit. He hadn’t meant to neglect her at all, but now that she pointed it out, he had been spending most of his time with Tanya. Not that he preferred her company, but what she offered him was always enough to draw him away. “Sorry about that.”

  “The other girls you hung out with…they just kind of ignored me. But she really didn’t like me, did she?”

  Del shrugged dismissively. “Of course she didn’t.”

  For a second, Lauren almost looked hurt. “But she doesn’t even know me.”

  “She didn’t have to. She was insecure. And a bitch,” he added as an afterthought, taking another swig from the bottle.

  “But you dated her.”

  “Yeah,” Del said after he had swallowed. “I guess you can say that.”

  A beat of silence passed before he heard her soft voice. “Why?”

  Del smiled acerbically. “Come on, Red.”

  Lauren rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Well, whatever,” she said as she dropped down onto the floor beside him and leaned back against his bed, and Del felt himself move toward her automatically, drawn to her warmth and the familiar, soothing scent of her hair. “Let that be a lesson to you,” she said. “You should start dating girls for other reasons besides the fact that they put out.”

  He laughed out loud as he rested his head on her shoulder and closed his eyes. This was exactly what he needed.

  “Yeah, I know. Because all the nice girls are just lining up to be with a guy like me.”

  For a second, he thought he felt her stiffen beside him, but he couldn’t be sure.

  “I still don’t get what I ever did to her,” Lauren mumbled, and Del smiled. For some reason, he found it amusing that she would be bothered by what someone like Tanya thought of her, since Tanya wasn’t even worthy of breathing the same air as Lauren.

  “You didn’t do anything to her. You’re female, and you’re the most important person in my life. Girls like her aren’t used to feeling like they have competition, that’s all.”

  This time Del was sure he felt her stiffen next to him, although he wasn’t sure why. He brought the bottle to his lips, taking another sip. Did she really not understand why another girl might see her as a threat? “And I mean…look at you,” he added nonchalantly, the alcohol in his system making him cavalier.

  “Look at me?” she echoed with genuine confusion.

  “Come on, Red. We’ve gone over this. You’re not as invisible as you think you are. Do you think guys don’t notice you? That their girls don’t notice them noticing you?”

  “Stop it.”

  “Stop what?” he asked.

  “Patronizing me,” she said, her voice soft.

  Del lifted his head slightly, looking at her. “I’m being serious.”

  “You’re drunk.”

  “And you’re intimidating.”

  Lauren scoffed before she pushed him off her shoulder with a roll of her eyes. “Now I know you’re drunk.”

  “Hey,” he said, his expression taken aback. “I’m serious.” He reached for her and pulled her back so he could rest his head on her shoulder again. He hated that she didn’t see herself clearly, and he was suddenly overcome with the need for her to hear what he was saying, to believe it. “You’re smart, you’re beautiful, you’re classy… that in itself is intimidating as hell, but then you’re incredibly sweet on top of that. It’s sort of like the ‘girl next door’ fantasy. But it’s more than that.”

  Del turned his head slightly, looking up at her profile. She was staring straight ahead, blinking quickly, and he watched her throat bob as she swallowed. It was obvious that what he was saying was making her uncomfortable, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop.

  “Because as nice as you are, a guy still knows he’ll have to work to win you over, you know? He knows he’ll have to impress you…he’ll have to earn your respect. It’s intimidating as hell,” he added with a laugh. “Even after being friends with you all this time, sometimes you still intimidate me.”

  She turned her head to look at him, and Del heard her breath catch at his proximity. He watched her eyes flicker back and forth be
tween his, and then her lips parted as if she were about to speak, but seconds passed and no words came.

  Before he could think about consequences, before he could even think about what he was doing, he lifted his chin, closing the small distance between them and pressing his lips to hers.

  Part of him expected her to freeze up. Another part of him expected her to pull away from him in shock or disapproval. Or maybe perhaps she’d follow Tanya’s example and give him his second slap of the day.

  But instead she leaned into him, instantly shaping her mouth around his.

  Del felt his heart quicken in his chest at her reaction, and he reached behind him, blindly putting the bottle on the floor before he brought his hand back up and slid it beneath her hair. The way she was kissing him only served to provoke him, and he cupped his hand around the back of her neck and pulled her further into the kiss.

  As soon as he did, he felt her lips part as her tongue entered his mouth, and all sense of restraint or coherency left him in a rush. Somewhere in the back of his hazy mind, he knew he shouldn’t be doing this, knew he had just crossed a line, yet he deepened the kiss with a sense of urgency, shifting his body closer to hers.

  Suddenly he felt her leg come over his hips as she moved to straddle his lap, and Del forced himself to stifle a groan.

  She brought her hands to his face then, tilting it up so she could kiss him more freely, and he allowed her to, relishing the way her tongue felt against his; gentle but determined, and mind-numbingly sensual.

  His head started to spin with the taste of her, with the feeling of her weight on his lap, and he couldn’t think anymore. He didn’t want to. He just wanted to lose himself in what was suddenly happening.

  Del brought his hands to her sides, gripping her waist, trying to keep himself grounded. She felt so tiny in his hands, and suddenly he was grazing them up her sides, stopping on her ribs before sliding them back down to her hips.

  Lauren nipped his bottom lip then, igniting a visceral reaction in him, and he gripped her hips and pulled her firmly against his own.

  She gasped against his mouth, followed by a soft, throaty moan that nearly caused him to lose his mind. He jerked back and stared up at her, wide-eyed and breathless.