Little Battles Page 13

  He finished throwing all of my cardboard boxes into the large brown container, slammed the cage door closed, pushed the button, and suddenly the back room was filled with noise. “I’ve been known to.”

  “I have some bud. We could go burn one. I can get an apple from Produce and make a little pipe out of it.”

  Brody smiled, swiveled his stocking cart around, and came to stand next to me. Leaning down a little, he said, “You’re a bad girl, aren’t you, Sophie?” I bit my lip. I did say I was trying to be good. “You should work harder on the reforming thing before you claim to be reformed, yeah?”

  Like I needed this hot guy to tell me that I was a screw-up at trying to be good. “So is that a no, Brody, or are you just…?”

  “Maybe after work, but I need this job and I can’t lose it because I went and smoked weed during my break.”

  Fine. I didn’t need him to get high with me. “Whatever, but I’m going, so I’ll see you in fifteen.”

  When I got back, we stocked the baking aisle. I was covered in flour and had I not been high, it would’ve pissed me off. We talked on and off about random things. He told me he was a surfer, and was only stocking shelves to save money to move to California where he wanted to surf professionally.

  He rolled his eyes when I asked if there was such a thing as a professional surfer, or if he’d really just be a waiter at some crappy restaurant who surfs on his off days.

  “Who the hell surfs in Maryland?”

  “I do.”

  “Where?” I asked incredulously, thinking that he was clearly delusional. People in Maryland did not surf. People in Florida surfed.

  “Ocean City.” He gave me a smirk.

  I shook my head. “Don’t look so pleased with yourself, Stock Boy.”

  His smirk grew. “I’ll try, Girl-Who-Puts-Things-On-Shelves.”

  He was fun and funny, easygoing, and natural. It was safe to say that I liked Brody.

  The rest of work was boring and despite sexy Brody for company, I was excited to get back to Tom’s. I took a quick shower and did some food prep before Elliott came over. I’d taken another one of those pills that I lifted from Elliott’s medicine cabinet. I really just wanted pot, but it was freezing outside and Tom would have thought it was weird if I just decided to go for a walk in the twenty-degree weather.

  The meds kicked in right before Elliott knocked on the door. It was a good thing, actually, because the second I saw Elliott, the night before came crashing in around me. He had touched my face and I had flipped out. I could see the ramifications in his eyes. They seemed to gut me with their intensity.

  I couldn’t just stand there with the door open, staring at him all night, so I grabbed his hand and pulled him inside without verbally greeting him. His fingers were cold. He reached up and pulled off the stocking cap that had been covering his dark rusty hair.

  Dear god, he was beautiful.

  He was tense and I looked around and found Tom standing there just looking at him. I glared at my father, figuring that even if he wasn’t meaning to, he was intimidating the shit out of Elliott.

  I huffed and then heard Elliott try to push out a hello. It was painful to listen to, and I could only imagine what it felt like for him. Like I’d said before, his stuttering didn’t define him, but it certainly wasn’t comfortable to listen to him stumble over such simple words as “hello, Mr. Young.”

  Tom was focused on where my hand was still connected to Elliott’s and I immediately felt self-conscious and let go. I mumbled a “come on,” and walked toward the stairs, fully intending on enjoying Elliott’s company in my room with less of Tom’s stare to make me feel weird.

  “Make sure you keep your door open,” Tom said as I led Elliott away. He wanted to be a parent now. I supposed he’d heard that shit on TV one time and thought that was what he needed to say in order to be a good father.

  Once inside my room, I closed and locked the door. “B-b-but your d-d-d, f-fffather said—”

  “It’s my room, Elliott,” I said, cutting him off a bit more sharply than I’d intended. I always shut and locked my door and I would continue doing so whether or not I had Elliott in there. I contemplated shoving my computer chair under the knob like usual, but figured my guest might think it was strange.

  He sat down in the rocking chair like last time, and I sat down on my bed. There was too much physical distance between us and I wondered if he’d panic if I asked him to sit on the bed with me. If he did panic, I could run my hands through his hair and breathe in his amazing scent.

  I subtly pressed my thighs together. It had been too long since I’d had sex to start thinking about what Elliott would look like with sex hair. The smell of soil and oranges had to be an aphrodisiac.

  “Hhhhhow w-was w-work?”

  I smiled at him and ran my hands through my hair, wishing they were his. “It was good.”

  “D-do you lllliiiike it?”

  “Yeah, it’s all right.” Although I didn’t really want to talk about working at the grocery store, I also didn’t know what else to talk about. I mimicked something Brody had said today. “I put shit on shelves.”

  I felt tense as I warred within myself. I enjoyed Elliott far more than was safe. I wanted to put my hands all over him and feel him, but I also wanted to do all of the things I had never allowed myself to do before, like kiss him.

  Yes. I wanted to kiss him. Not just kiss him because he was sexy as hell and I wanted to do a laundry list of things to him, but because he was sweet and smelled good, and was quite possibly the only person in the world worth spending time with.

  It wasn’t that I’d never kissed anyone before, because I’d kissed too many people too many times, but it all led to sex and I hadn’t actually ever wanted to just kiss someone. I wanted Elliott like that too, but there was a part of me that wanted to know him in the most innocent of ways. I’d kissed him before, but I wanted to do it for the right reasons this time. I wanted to kiss him to know what the inside of his mouth felt like and whether the chemical exchange between us was heightened when it was our tongues touching and not just our hands.

  Innocent things scared me. What was it like to kiss someone delicately and then go eat dinner? What was it like to hold someone’s hand for hours while watching a lame movie? What was it like to feel the tingling, nervous sensation in my gut and not turn it into a sweeping, tingling sensation lower in my body? What was it like to just simply like a boy?

  I wanted to kiss him again. His lips were so beautiful. They felt nice. I knew they were capable of unleashing amazing things within me. I wanted our lips pressed together as I closed my eyes and got swept away. I wanted to feel what all of those books and movies and television shows had sold me when I was a kid.

  Kissing could be enough, right? Wallace said that small intimate moments like a hug or a kiss could be even better than sex. I didn’t know if I believed her, but I was willing to do some scientific research to figure it all out.

  Kissing Jason or Ian, or whoever, was different. With them it was a lead-up to doing it, to feeling good, to having some kind of physical release to mask my mental chaos.

  But with Elliott, my physical need for him was overshadowed by my emotional need for him.

  I wasn’t sure how much I liked that.

  I feared it.

  I knew it was stupid for me to like him as much as I did. It broke almost all of the carefully constructed rules I had placed upon myself a long time ago. It undermined my entire mission in life, which was to just slide through the cracks unnoticed. He knew shit he shouldn’t know about me, and I was the idiot who had handed it to him.

  But I couldn’t deny the way my entire being ached for him.

  I needed him in ways that I probably shouldn’t have.

  I was overcome by the desire to suck his lower lip int
o my mouth and test its fleshiness. “Can I kiss you?” I asked before I was even aware I opened my mouth. “Please?”

  His breath caught for a moment before he looked at the door. Was he scared of me? Should I not have asked? Was he scared of Tom?

  “He’s not going to come in,” I assured him. Tom never came into my room. “I just want to kiss you,” I admitted quietly. “It’s…” I paused and said the next word a little too breathily, “innocent.”

  I sat perched on the edge of my bed, just waiting for him to give me some kind of answer. If it was a yes, I’d fly to him, but if he said no, I didn’t know what I would do. It would be uncharted territory, since I’d never asked a guy if I could kiss him before and who knew what I’d do if this guy said no.

  Then I wondered if he was panicking right now and just disguising it really well, so I stood up and walked over to him. His breathing increased. When I was near enough, I gave in and threaded my fingers through his hair, closing my eyes as the silky perfection tickled my palms.

  “You have to answer, Elliott,” I whispered. “Otherwise I’m going to assume that the answer is yes.” He nodded. “Is that yes I can kiss you, or yes you’ll answer?” I was pushing him and I knew it, but he relied on head nods and shakes far too much, and I enjoyed his voice, regardless of his stutter.

  “Y-yesssssssssssssss,” he dragged out the word, his voice shaking.

  He said I could kiss him, but he was sitting and I was standing, and any way it went down, it would be awkward.

  So I took awkward and ran with it.

  I sat down on his lap, my body angled away from his, my hand never leaving his hair. He was freaking out. I could tell by his rapid breathing. I felt a crazy amount of tension in myself as well. I’d kissed him before. Three times in fact, although that first time shouldn’t count.

  I leaned in and breathed deeply, savoring him before I would taste him again. I brushed my lips lightly against his at first, and I couldn’t help the involuntary shiver. Our lips moved together and eventually my bottom lip was between his. Opening my mouth a little wider, I slipped my tongue out and traced the bottom of his top lip until he took in a deep gasp of air.

  The kiss clouded my mind, making it hum with intensity.

  The hum swiftly transformed into a pulsating drum and the beat of it spurred me to want more of him.

  I shifted until I was basically straddling him. He smelled so good and tasted like an orange cupcake. Then both of my hands were running through his hair and I pressed myself closer to him as if his body could just open up and swallow me whole.

  I needed his warmth.

  He grew hard beneath me and the thought played in my head that he was probably a quiet lay and Tom would never know. I could be a silent rider. I would be careful with him. I wouldn’t make him scream or shout. Moan, maybe, but I’d be good and keep his mouth busy.

  His whole body went stiff as his grip on my hips tightened. It felt wonderful. His hands were strong, and that made me want him all the more.

  Before we went any further, he stopped and pulled away, moving his neck until his lips were no longer accessible.

  “What?” I asked in between pants of breath.

  “W-w-w-w-we sssssshould sssstop, SSSSSSSSSoph-ph-phie.”

  No, I was pretty sure we should continue and progress. “Why?” Couldn’t he see that I wanted him? Couldn’t he feel that I needed him?

  “B-b-bec-c-cause yyyyyyyour f-f-f-f-faaa…”

  I immediately rubbed his scalp with the tips of my fingers as he closed his eyes and I sighed, my brain finally working. I was still very aware that his hard-on was pressing up against the places that I wanted it to, but I forced myself not to rock on top of him. He was upset and I had been the one to make him that way.

  “Tom’s downstairs.” Shit. That wasn’t what I wanted to say. I didn’t want to make him feel like I was pushing him on this, but I really wanted to do him and my mouth was speaking automatically. Control was not something I did well. “He won’t know.”

  “B-b-b-but I-I-I c-c-can’t.”

  I tried to lean back into him and kiss him again, even though the logical side of me told me that it wasn’t going to happen. “But I want you,” I whined when he stopped me again. “And I know you want me too.”

  “I-I d-d-do, S-S-SSSSophie.” He sounded out of breath and I knew that I needed to get off of him so he could be comfortable, but the pouty little girl in me wanted to stomp my feet and hold my breath until I turned blue and he gave in to me.

  I thought about Megan. He could bang her, but could barely kiss me.

  I moved off of him quickly, ready to be done with the entire confusing thing. “Are you staying for dinner?”

  He didn’t answer as I walked over to the door.

  I had my hand on the doorknob.

  “D-d-don’t b-b-be mmmmad.”

  “I’m not mad,” I answered after a momentary pause. I wasn’t. I was incredibly disappointed and felt foolish, but I wasn’t angry at him. I needed another pill to chill out. Everything that just happened zapped the buzz away. “Are you staying for dinner?” I asked, and again he took the easy way out and nodded. “I worked all day, so it’s not going to be awesome or anything.”

  Chris was incredibly annoying. He was singing at the library table about his dick in a box and I wondered, not for the first time, why the hell I sat at this table. Yeah, Andrea sat here and so did Megan, but I could take or leave Megan, and I was about to leave Andrea on her own. Before I could grab my bag, someone asked Chris a question, to which his reply was, “I’ll be doing a lot better once my balls are resting on Sophia’s chin.”

  There were a few “oh’s” and a couple of stifled giggles. I turned to look at him, and he had one eyebrow raised as his disgusting tongue licked his disgusting lips. His ridiculous hair was so artfully crafted into a disorganized mess and it pissed me off even more. I wanted to tell him exactly how much that would never happen, but since he wanted to play public games of sexual harassment, I smiled at him

  “Why would they…?” I pretended that I had no idea what he was talking about. “Oh, you want my mouth wrapped around…” I took the faux-shocked look off my face and steeled it. “Actually, Chris, I have a six inch minimum,” I glanced to Megan and then back to him, “and from what I hear, you’re about four inches off the mark. Sorry.”

  Everyone snickered at that, even Cierra, who was usually too big of a bitch to even smile.

  The smirk was completely wiped from his face and was replaced with anger. “Well, I guess I forgot that I had to be a fucking thug or a retard to get time with you, so…consider me not interested.”

  I ignored his hateful names, knowing that they were directed at Jason and Elliott. “Thank god for small favors.”

  Chris’s smile reappeared. “One day you’ll beg me, Sophia.”

  “I thought you weren’t interested,” I countered. “And what would I beg you for, Chris? To do the world a favor and slit your wrists? To finally get that nipple rot checked out by a doctor?”

  His face reddened and his jaw tensed, and I didn’t want to wait around for him to say anything else. I mumbled a goodbye to Andrea and then headed out to the woods early to meet Jason. If ever there was a time I needed to burn, it was in this moment when I could’ve killed that idiot motherfucker.

  Two days ago, Megan had invited me to a party at Cierra’s. I’d been weighing the pros and cons since then, and finally decided to go. I had no idea what a party in this little town would entail, but typically, parties made it easy to score free bud.

  I brought it up to Elliott at the Friday Night Screw-Up Club. The night had been fairly uneventful, aside from Wallace pissing me off in my individual session - but that wasn’t new - and trying not to listen as Jamie Collins told everyone about how much he missed his dad.”


  “Did you hear that Cierra’s throwing a party tomorrow?” I asked after he’d set his iPod down on the dock and turned the music on.

  I knew that whether he’d heard about it or not, he wouldn’t go, but I really wanted him to. He could use some fun and it would be nice to spend the evening with him. Elliott’s brow creased as he came to sit next to me on the couch, and my body tingled from his nearness. “Will you go with me?”

  He shook his head and I frowned. I hated that shit. I wanted him to use his voice. “Why not?”

  “SSSSophie…” he said quietly, as if the answer should’ve been so clear to me. It was. He had anxiety issues and wasn’t comfortable around even small groups of people, but I still wanted him to go.

  “Th-there’s t-too many p-people.”

  “But you could keep me out of trouble.”

  “I w-would llllove t-to go, b-but I c-can’t.”

  I pouted, sticking out my lower lip a little.

  “You c-could ssstay w-with me,” he offered

  Dammit! I didn’t want to stay in, but I wanted to be with Elliott as much as possible. Jace was bringing Chronic. That shit tasted like blueberries - fucking blueberries! It had gotten me so fucking high from just a few hits off his water bong. It didn’t come around that often, and he was just going to smoke people out with it.

  “I want to go to the party,” I whined. “Please come with me.”

  Elliott looked down and shook his head as he squeezed my hand, which he’d been holding since he sat down. “P-please stay w-with me.”

  I stood up, slipping my hand out from his, and walked over to study his books. He needed some new ones. I’d already memorized each and every title on his shelf.

  I tried to focus on the spines of the books again, reaching up to touch the worn spots of a few. It was impossible to focus on anything other than Elliott as he got up and came closer to me again.

  No matter where I went, he seemed to follow. Except to Cierra’s party.

  His very presence next to me set my body alight, but it wasn’t just a physical response to his nearness; it was a warming in my mind, a softening of my thoughts. It was beautiful and real and terrifying all at once, and I felt like my head wasn’t attached to my body as thoughts swam through my brain.