In Too Deep (8 page)

We made love for the first time since the truth came out. And I pretended it didn’t feel different.

Eleven

Noah fell asleep with his body as close to me as it could get, but I wasn’t thinking about him touching me, my brain was on overdrive. A flash of Joel and I laying on the hood of his car looking for shooting stars sped through my mind. Breaking up with Joel was the hardest thing I ever had to do. He was so sad, and all I could say was, “I just need to see what this is I am feeling for Noah.” I couldn’t ignore the feelings I had for him any longer. The gentle vibrations he inflicted on me when we were together began to surge through my veins even when I was alone and just thinking of him.

That feeling of pure electricity became my drug. My skin hummed when he touched me. Palpable energy ran in waves under my skin when he kissed me. My breath quickened when he’d just show up and surprise me on nights we weren’t scheduled together. Sometimes I couldn’t speak when he drove me home from work—I would just smile. My body almost burst with anticipation when I would wait for him to pick me up for a date. Now I lay next to Noah wondering where that electricity was and what my future held. And if I was honest, I had to admit a small part of me was starting to wonder if breaking up with Joel for Noah was a mistake.

Part of me felt hopeless, like everything around me was crumbling, and I could do nothing to stop it. The other part of me was hopeful that maybe I could rebuild what was broken to ensure that Noah and I would be stronger than ever. As I lay under his body, I felt as though the fire we once had between us was only burning embers. They were still lit but dim. This broke my heart even further.

I rolled to my side and pushed my back into Noah’s chest. He sighed, nuzzled his face into my neck and squeezed my naked body even closer. I closed my eyes but knew I was nowhere near sleep. I floated between the past and the present with sweet memories of the Noah who wanted me so badly he would change who he was to get me. I got a glimpse of that Noah the day after the formal when he pulled open his heart for me and let all his feelings pour out. I tucked that memory away for the times when I doubted I was enough to breathe life back into the embers that were not far from being cold dust.

Mid-August, Summer before Sophomore year

It had been two weeks since I broke up with Joel. Noah and I were on our way home from the movies when he pulled onto a wide shoulder of the windy back road and put his car in park. He turned and took my face in his hands. Without a word, he kissed me like only he could.

“I have something for you.”

“What is it? A surprise?” I had no idea what to expect. Our relationship was still in the early infancy stages when everything feels new and exciting.

“A song. I want you to listen to a song.”

“All right.” My stomach started to churn. I was so glad I didn’t have popcorn at the movies. I could control my nerves since I didn’t have to worry about puking.

“I have a hard time saying what I feel, so I thought he could say it for me.”

With that, he scanned the songs on his iPod and hit play. I listened as the song began. I knew this song but couldn’t place it. Then it hit me, it was Jack Johnson’s “Better Together.” I giggled softly. I never thought I’d see this romantic side to Noah. I sat and watched him fidget. He was so nervous, and I couldn’t figure out why. I was the unlikely match for him. He could have anyone he wanted. Yet
he
was nervous to tell me he wanted us to be together.

After the first verse, I didn’t know what to say. Was it stupid to say, “I think it’s better when we’re together, too?” Would he burst out laughing and I would wish I burst into flames? I looked down at my hands as I listened to the chorus. I didn’t know where Noah was looking. I was too nervous to look up to find out.

After the second verse, Noah reached over and took my face in his hands. He lifted my chin and aligned our eyes.

He smiled the boyish grin that made my stomach fill with butterflies, and he leaned in and kissed me again. Slow and gentle as Jack played on. Where did the bad boy go? I couldn’t believe he was being so thoughtful and had planned this whole thing to tell me he was falling for me. What happened to being a pussy? Marie would die if I told her how beautiful his heart really was. But I would keep that little secret all to myself. Holding it deep in my heart, all for me, seemed to make it even more precious. I was in awe of him at that moment.

His kiss became stronger and deeper as a wave of warmth and dizziness came over me. This had to be love. Real love. I had never had my body react to someone like it did when he kissed me. He pulled away and looked into my eyes, his hands still holding my face. He leaned back in and started the sultry dance with his tongue. Without missing a beat, he reached for my hand.

Jack Johnson swooned about his love sleeping next to him. Noah took my hand and pressed it onto the top of his thigh with his. My hand was dangerously close to a part of him I had never touched. What did he expect me to do? Or did he expect anything? My heart raced. I wasn’t ready for our touching to go beyond the innocent touching we were already doing.

Jack Johnson must’ve said the word
together
a hundred times in the song. Noah and I together. I didn’t even know what that would look like. My hand shook a little on his thigh, and I worried about having to tell him I wasn’t ready. The good-girl guilt set in. I pulled away and looked around, very aware that at any moment we could be caught “parking” and my parents would kill me. Then I remembered they were gone for two weeks. I looked at the clock on the dashboard. I had an hour before my grandfather would be at our house. He was supposed to be staying with Hannah and I while they were out of town. I had just had my nineteenth birthday and Hannah was sixteen, and we were still babysat when our parents had to go out of town. Suddenly, a thought crossed my mind, but it wasn’t like any thought I’d ever had before. It was deceitful and risky. I could lie and tell my grandfather I was staying at a friend’s. He knew Hannah had overnight plans so this way he didn’t need to come over at all. Noah could spend the night with me.

Where the hell did that come from?

Noah must’ve subliminally sent that message to me. I wouldn’t have thought of that on my own. I had only slept overnight with a boy once. Joel. I had gone to his house once when his parents were away. It was safe, though. He knew I wasn’t ready for sex so there was no pressure. Some roaming hands, but nothing threatening my virginity.

If I asked Noah to spend the night, it could give him the wrong idea. What if he thought I was ready? What if he didn’t take “no” as easily as Joel did? My mind quickly rewound to the night he forcefully held the steel door of Murphy’s closed. A shiver ran through me.

Twelve

Finally it was light, the house was coming to life. I hadn’t slept all night. Noah was still sleeping. I could hear the brothers on the other side of Noah’s door. They were all talking about the party the night before. I looked at the clock, 9:30. I watched Noah sleep as I strained to hear what they were saying.

“Dude, I bagged that hot chick in the short black skirt.”

“No way. I think Jonesy tapped that last weekend at the social.”

“Shut up, asshole.”

“You might wanna wash your pecker, man, she’s been around half this house.”

Their laughter faded away soon after I heard the side door slam shut. Noah was right, this
was
a tough scene for him to be immersed in. He used to be one of those kind of guys. I remembered Marie describing Noah to me, and those kinds of comments were what she was referring to. I was sure he used to talk that way and brag with his friends but he didn’t anymore. He had a tender side no one saw but me. Sure, it made my close friends question what my attraction was to him, besides his obvious physical flawlessness. They didn’t need to know all of our details of how we were together. Those details were like our own little secret, and I loved having that secret with him.

Noah rolled over to his stomach and let out a big sigh. I lifted the covers and got a clear view of his beautiful backside. Another one of my beautiful secrets.

But apparently that secret was also shared with a few other women on this campus.

I was startled by the side door slamming again. I couldn’t tell who, but someone was in a hurry to leave, that much I knew. There was something sinister about the Sigma Chi house that I couldn’t put my finger on. It was like everyone had a secret they wouldn’t tell. And I had no desire to hear about them. Regardless, I enjoyed being at the Sigma Chi house. I thought I was pretty lucky to have access to the brothers all the time and not just during parties. Some of them accepted me quickly and some wouldn’t give me the time of day. I got the feeling some felt I was a threat to the tough, emotionless façade they protected so dearly. The brothers of Sigma Chi had the reputation of being beautiful, and most of them came from family money, but not more than a handful of them had girlfriends. I almost felt like they looked at steady relationships as a weakness they needed to make sure they didn’t cave to.

Noah lifted half his body onto mine and draped his arm over my chest. His breath was still deep and steady so I knew he was still sleeping.

I always did my best thinking while Noah slept. I lay next to him, and ran my fingers across his back as I ran through the events of the night before in my mind. I picked apart Noah’s every move and all the things I shouldn’t have said or done. I needed to be careful because I almost lost him once. I knew making the wrong move could push him a little further away, and the last thing I wanted was for him to start looking at the single brothers and wanting that freedom.

I wrapped an arm and a leg around him and pressed our naked bodies together. He didn’t budge.

I kissed his pouty stale beer scented lips. That got his attention. His eyes popped open at the same time I felt the attention of something else growing against me.

“Morning,” I whispered.

“And a good one it will be,” he answered.

He kissed me deeply. I wrapped my arms around his neck and held him as close as I could get him. Soon his whole body pressed me into the mattress, and he made a move that definitely made us as close as we could get to each other. He felt good. Powerful and in charge. Somehow surrendering to him made him even sexier. I enjoyed still being deemed the “innocent” one. I wanted him to teach me, show me how to love him.

Noah and I had a chemistry I couldn’t explain. Stacy said it was the Dom/Sub relationship because I just followed his lead. I did follow his lead but mainly because I was so inexperienced. Sure, sometimes it felt a little like sex was what he did
to
me and not what we did
together
. This was one of those times. He finished with a low groan and a shiver. Just one time it would be nice if he’d wait for me to be
finished
, too.

“What are you thinking about?” His voice was hoarse and quiet as he rolled off of my body.

“You.”

“What about me?”

“How much I love the way you make love to me.” I lied. I knew he hadn’t just made love to me. He fucked me. But, I guess there was a part of me that thought dropping those kinds of hints would be less confrontational and therefore more tolerated by Noah. It made me sad that we had lost some of our connection. Our connection was so much less than what it used to be and what I craved the most.

“Oh. Hey, do you want to go get breakfast?”

Way to change the subject.

“You don’t want to just hang here a little bit?” I hoped we could try to connect again.

He sat up, threw the covers off, uncovering my very naked body, and grabbed some sweats off the back of the door and slipped them on.

“I gotta piss.” He headed out into the hallway, leaving the door partially open. I frantically gathered all of the covers and piled them on top of me, feeling very vulnerable. Nice of him to leave the door open. He knew I was lying naked in a house filled with horny guys. I wished he still made me feel protected, like he valued what I was only offering
him
. He used to…I think. Didn’t he?

I wrapped myself in all the covers and moved to the edge of the bed just as he walked back in.

“Noah!”

He froze and looked at me like I slapped him.

“The door? Can you please shut it? Someone could walk…”

“Oh good Lord,
Re
.
Lax
!” he snapped as he reached over and pushed the door shut with a slam. “You think these guys have never seen a naked girl before?”

“They’ve never seen
this
naked girl. I thought you’d want to keep it that way.” My voice trailed off, disappointment evident in my whisper.

That beer I drank the night before was begging its way out. I stood and tried to find all my clothes so I could quickly dress and run down the hall to pee. He was being so insensitive. This Noah scared me.

I usually felt lucky for all the behind-the-scenes stuff I was privy to as a Sigma Chi girlfriend. However, “lucky” was not the word I would use to describe a post-party girls’ bathroom. It was horrible. I chose the stall with the least amount of mess after turning down three clogged toilets and one filled with puke.

When I walked back down the hall to Noah’s room, I heard his music. I loved that he liked music as much as I did. We’d been to quite a few concerts over the last year. Music was my lifeline. It spoke the things I couldn’t find the words for. I remembered Noah’s collaboration with Jack Johnson and was sure Noah felt the same way.

I slowed when I got to Noah’s door.
Breathe. Happy Gracie.
I bopped into his room singing along with the Violent Femmes, ready to start our day.

He flipped off the music, which was okay because the next verse of that song made me cringe. He was dressed in jeans and a faded concert T-shirt of a band even I had never heard of. Blazing Buttholes. Weird.

“Ya know, they ruin that song with that verse.” He tucked his wallet into his back pocket and grabbed his backpack, which was odd, but I was more curious about his comment than I was about the backpack so I started with that as we walked out the door and into the morning sunshine.

“Which verse? The next one that says the f-word?” I agreed. I hated that line.

“Nah, the ML-thing.”

What the freak was he talking about? The Violent Femmes were known for songs with shock value. Their lyrics were quick and to the point. Why was he being so cryptic? “Add it Up” was definitely not cryptic. I ran through the verses in my head. I tilted my head and looked up at him when it hit me.

“ML-thing? Make love?” The sun was so bright, I had to squint to look up at him.

His body jolted like something shocked him, and his face curled into a strange expression as we reached the sidewalk. I wanted so badly to believe he was making love to me before we got out of bed
.
Was this a roundabout way of making sure I knew how he felt about the sensitivity of that act? I felt a different kind of distance between us. One I didn’t recognize. My heart called out to his.
Please answer.