Until You (Fall Away #1.5)(28)
Author: Penelope Douglas

But someday she’d want them. Most people did.

And I swallowed the baseball-size lump that it wasn’t going to be me in her future.

Chapter 24

It was Monday morning, and I was breaking and entering for the first time in my life. Of my own free will, anyway.

My hands weren’t even shaking as I loaded the key into the lock and walked into the Brandts’ empty house. Tate had left for school a half hour ago, and I was a little aggravated that I was late for school, too. I’d hoped she’d be off early this morning, doing whatever she did in the chemistry lab, but not today. She’d left late, and now I was behind.

Tate’s dad wanted me to find out what she wanted for her birthday like we were friends or some shit, and he knew better. The only way I was going to find out the answer was to ask her, and our relationship wasn’t on good foundations.

So…I decided to snoop.

Yep, that’s what I thought was a good idea.

Check the history on her laptop, sift through her f**king journal, maybe look through her drawers for open boxes of condoms…

My leg tingled, and I took out my vibrating phone.

Where r u?

Madoc.

Late, I typed.

Closing the back door and slipping my keys back into my pocket, I walked through the kitchen and over to the stairs.

She was everywhere. The smell of her shampoo—like warm strawberries—made my mouth water.

I hadn’t seen or heard a thing from Tate all weekend. The truck had been in the driveway, but she seemed to be in hiding since Friday night.

I sucked in a long breath before I entered her room. Not sure why.

All I knew was that I felt turned on and perverted all at the same time.

I decided to be quick about it and get out.

I wasn’t a p**sy. I had the guts to sneak through someone’s shit.

Clothes were strewn throughout the otherwise neat room, and she’d added some more pictures and posters to the walls since I’d been in it.

My eyes roamed the space as I slowly walked around, and I saw her laptop but bypassed it and sat down on her bed instead.

My throat was dry.

Fuck.

I picked this moment to develop a conscience?

Her computer history might reveal exactly what I needed, or it may show me shit I didn’t need to know. She could be Googling face creams and designer umbrellas. Or she could be emailing some jerk she’d met in France or admissions offices for colleges far away.

I decided to start slow and opened her bedside table drawer instead.

There was some hand lotion, a small bowl full of rubber bands, some candy, and…a book.

I pinched my eyebrows and picked up the tattered, faded paperback that I hadn’t seen in years, but it seemed like just yesterday.

Memories poured in all at once.

Tate stuffing it in her backpack on her first day of junior high.

Tate trying to read some poem about Abraham Lincoln to me after swimming at the lake.

Tate’s dad taping the binding when Madman had run off with it.

The book—Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman—was older. Like twenty years. It had belonged to her mom, and Tate always kept it close. She used to take it with her anytime she left town for a trip.

Flipping through the pages, I searched for the poem—the only poem—that I liked. I couldn’t remember the name, but I remember she’d underlined the passage.

No sooner had I started flipping through when some pictures spilled out. I forgot the book and picked up the photos off my lap instead.

My heart pounded in the back of my throat.

Jesus.

It was us.

The pictures were of her and me. There were two, both when we were twelve or thirteen, and a ton of f**king emotions fell on me at once.

Tate kept pictures of me?

They were in her mother’s book that she treasured.

And she’d most likely taken these to France with her along with the book that held them.

I shook my head, my feet feeling like they were stuck in a bucket of cement.

She kept pictures of us like I kept pictures of us, and I smiled, feeling like I’d just won something.

And then the tiptoeing-through-the-f**king-tulips feeling that I was enjoying crashed to the ground as soon as I spied a black lace bra lying on her dresser. The tingling sensation of someone roller skating across my heart moved south, and now, I wanted to leave here in search of her.

My jaw moved, and I almost bit my tongue to keep my dick in check.

Well, well, well…Tate wore lingerie.

Her sleek body dressed in black lace blanketed my brain, and then I blinked.

Wait.

Realization dawned.

Tate wore lingerie.

Tate. Wore. Fucking. Lingerie!

What the hell for? And for who?

I ran a rough hand through my hair and felt the sweat on my forehead.

Fuck it.

Let her dad give her some money. That’s what every other teenager wants for their birthday, isn’t it?

I threw the book back into the drawer, stalked out of the room and down the stairs, and out the front door.

I don’t even remember driving to school.

The images of Tate wearing lingerie for some needledick asswipe were the only things I saw for a while.

My morning classes passed in a fog. I either sat there with my arms crossed and my eyes on my desk top, ignoring those around me. By fourth period, I gripped my desk, chair, or anything else to keep my ass from storming into her French class and picking a fight.

Teachers didn’t call on me, so I didn’t worry about paying attention. My grades stayed up, and I smarted off when they did ask me questions, so they ended up saving themselves the trouble of engaging me.

I took my time getting to lunch.

She would be there, and I didn’t want to sit back and watch us both try to ignore each other when I just wanted her next to me.

“Tatum Brandt!”

What the…?

I halted in the lunchroom at the sound of someone calling her name.

I had spied Sam and his friend Gunnar at our usual table, and I’d just gotten done grabbing a drink and sandwich when I’d heard a low voice yelling very loudly.

I zoned in on Madoc, facing away from me, f**king kneeling in the middle of the room!

“Will you please go to the Homecoming dance with me?” he shouted, and when I followed where he was looking, I clenched my fingers, destroying the sandwich in my hand.

Shiiiit.

A very surprised Tate had turned around, her shoulders tensed and eyes avoiding everyone else’s like she was more annoyed than embarrassed.

Tate couldn’t stand Madoc.

Oh, what the hell was he doing now?

The packed cafeteria hushed to a silence.

Madoc walked on his knees up to Tate and took her hand.

A few giggles sounded around the room, and a push and pull force was battling in my limbs.

Move! He’s pursuing her. He’s always wanted her.

No, stay put. He’s your friend. He wouldn’t do that.

“Please, please! Don’t say no. I need you,” he yelled, more to the audience than Tate, and everyone erupted in laughs and cheers, egging him on.

“Please, let’s make this work. I’m sorry for everything,” he continued, and I could see Tate looking down at him, wide-eyed and flushed, like she was sick.

Sick and pissed.

She mumbled something to him I couldn’t hear, and then he shouted, “But the baby needs a father!”

WHAT. THE. FUCK?

My stomach dropped, and everything in the room turned red.

Tate’s face fell, and the crowd hollered their enjoyment of Madoc’s spectacle.

Her lips moved, but only just barely.

What the hell was she saying to him?

He seemed f**king pleased, because he stood up and enveloped her in his arms, swinging her around to the delight of the audience.

Everyone whistled and applauded, and I threw my lunch in the trash without even looking.

She’d said yes?

I turned around and stalked out before he’d even put her down.

Chapter 25

“Goddammit!” Madoc howled as his hand shot up to his face, and he crashed backwards to the row of lockers behind him.

We shared P.E. together, and I hadn’t even waited for him to make eye contact before I’d run up and clocked him right in the eye.

The class in the locker room got out of the way, and I stepped over the bench to sit down in front of my best friend who’d slid to the floor.

I rested my elbows on top of my knees and looked down at him.

“I’m sorry,” I breathed out, and it was the truth. “But you do know you’re pushing me, right?”

“Yeah,” he nodded, squinting with one hand over his eye.

He always pushed me, and it pissed me off, but I knew why he was doing it. He wanted me to act. To grovel at Tate’s feet and make her want me.

But she’d said yes.

That pissed me off, too.

Me not even thinking to ask her to the dance myself pissed me off.

I hated dances.

I hated dancing.

But thanks to me, Tate didn’t go to things like that in the past, and she obviously wanted to.

A bitter taste settled in my mouth.

It’s the taste you get right before your choke down a mouthful of pride.

“Hey, Dr. Porter.” I ran into my sophomore year Chemistry teacher in the hallway after school. “Is Tatum Brandt working in the lab today?” I gestured to the door behind him.

“Yes,” he blurted out, wide-eyed and looking oddly relieved to see me. “She is. But it just occurred to me that she’s alone. Are you free? Would you mind spotting her? I’m usually there, but I have a meeting.”

“Alone?” My jaw twitched with a pent-up smile. “No problem.”

He kept walking, and I opened the lab door, my heart already rushing with the promise of the kind of trouble I wanted to drown in.

The room was empty, but I heard shuffling and clattering coming from the supply closet, so I took the seat at the teacher’s table and propped my feet up, waiting for her.

The lab was on the larger side of the classrooms at the school. It held about twelve tables with two to three seats per table. The tops were lined with beakers and flasks, burners and sinks.

I liked the tables.

They were a good height.

I half-laughed, half-sighed at the images floating through my head.

Jesus Christ.

I’d never fantasized about a girl the way I did with Tate, but I was getting ahead of myself. She may never let me get to second base again, let alone third.

Running my hands through my hair, I hooked my fingers behind my head and tried thinking about the Lifetime Movie Channel to keep my dick in check.

The closet door swung open, and Tate stepped out with a crate of supplies in her arms.

Her hair was parted in the middle today, and it flowed around her face and body, partially obscuring her eyes.

But she saw me.

Even through the blonde wisps, I could pick out the storm.

Her legs stilled, and she looked surprised, unnerved, and a little pissed.

We had the same effect on each other.

“Not now, Jared. I’m busy,” she warned as she carried her crate to a table off to my right. Her tone was steady and curt.

She was putting me in my place.

“I know. I came to help you.”

It was a lie, but I guess I could help her. I knew my shit in Chemistry as well as Math. It was the touchy feely subjects like English and Psychology that bit my ass.