There is absolutely nothing wrong with me."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
He leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. For a second, he looked exactly like Daniel: cynical, bored, and liable to bite. "Well,that's funny," he drawled. "I think you're lying through your teeth."
My stomach clenched. "Why?"
"Because," he said calmly, "in all the time I've known you,you have never once said those words."
"What words?"
"'There is nothing wrong with me.'"
"Oh,don't-"
"Never. You are a walking litany of imaginary flaws.So." Frankie unfolded himself and rested his elbows on the table. It wobbled. He didn't. He studied me over his tented fingers. "Truth or Dare?"
"It's Sadie's turn to ask."
"She passed," he snapped.
"Hey," I protested.
"Hey." Sadie actually waved a hand between us. "Maybe we can talk about this tomorrow."
"We could," Frankie replied with suspicious agreeability. "Except I want to do it now. So,here's the question, Marino. What-"
"Dare."
"Sorry?" he said.
"Dare. I'll take a dare/"
"Really?" he demanded.
"As long as it takes ten minutes or less. I have to go." All I wanted, really, was to leave.
Frankie didn't say anything-or move-for the longest time. He just stared at me. Then, finally, he blinked, lowered his hands, and shrugged. "Sing."
"Oh,come on-"
"Sing," he repeated. "You know how. Or concede."
That, I thought, would be so easy. It would also break something precious. In all out time together, none of us had ever conceded a dare. "Sadie. Sing with me?"
She nodded,but Frankie shook a finger at her. "You will not. Marino, you're on your own here."
I pretty much stomped way may to the stage. Stavros's son Nic was manning the karaoke machine. His brows shot up when he saw me. "A first.
Frankie,I noticed as I flipped the mic up to its normal position, was staring at me through narrowed eyes, clapping so slowly that I could actually measure the silence in between beats.
I felt about three inches tall as I stepped off the stage.
~~~
"...and went down like a rock.Bam."
"Oh,man. What did you do?"
"What could I do?" I shrugged. "I hopped up, took a bow, and ran. I was late to meet you."
Alex was gently rubbing my bare knee. I'd rolled up my jeans to show him the bruise already blossoming there. "I would have caught you," he said, fingers sliding to the inside of my leg and making my insides feel like jelly.
"Not likely, O Gallant One.The stage is only a foot high."
"I gotta see this place sometime.
You are an enigma wrapped in a mystery," he teased me once. "And you're failing French.
Melissa JensenMystery is good."
He drummed his fingertips on my thigh. "Maybe.Maybe not. But I'll let it go. How about this: If I were to open the top drawer of your dresser, what would I find?"
"Are we back to discussing my underwear again?"
"Only in graphic detail..." He flicked my sore knee, but not where the bruise was. "I keep loose change and my oldest comic books in mine. Some people have journals or photographs or awards..."
"Okay,okay." I sighed. "Underwear," I said. "Two ancient swimsuits, and a magazine file."
"Of...?"
"Pictures I've pulled out of magazines."
"Yes,thank you. I gathered that. What's in it?"
I squirmed a little and contemplated lying. Travel pix, shoes, hints on getting glue off of Ultrasuede... "Mostly pictures of models with short hair," I confessed finally. "It's sort of a goal of mine."
Alex reached up and wrapped a strand around his finger. "I like your hair," he said quietly, "but I think you'd look great whatever you did with it.
I like your hair," he said quietly, "but I think you'd look good whatever you did with it."
Here's the thing.He looked like he meant it, and like it had been the most natural thing in the world to say. I blinked at him.
"Okay," I said. "You want to know something about me that I don't really want to tell you? How about this. I dont get it.This.I hate that I don't. I wish I were the kind of girl who took guys like you as my sovereign right in life. But I don't."
"Yeah,I've sorta figured that out,too." He let go of my hair and put his hand on my waist, so his thumb was against my skin. I shivered. "Here's my first reveal for the night. One day, not so long ago, I'm just sitting in the dining room, digesting, minding my own business-literally. Trying to decide whether the second hamburger had been such a good idea and whether to break up with my girlfriend of a year and a half. Then I try to stand up, and suddenly there's this really pretty girl doubled over and looking at my book like it was covered with crap-"
"I wasn't."
"Yeah.You were. So there you were, with that amazing face and a yard of hair that smelled like flowers, and all this stuff drawn on your jeans. I really liked that."
"You liked my jeans."
"Among other things.But, jeez, Ella. After that, if you weren't making me feel like I had the IQ of a stone, your friends were looking at me like I'd crawled out from under one. I won't even go into what you obviously think of my friends."
"Chase Vere is a reptile.
Whatever you want," he said. "Will you please come here now?"
I slipped a piece of protective tissue over my drawing and flipped the book closed. A piece of blue scratch paper slid out, the line I'd copied from Edward;s poetry book. "Hey. Translate for me, Monsieur Bainbridge."
I set the sketchbook on my stool and joined him on the chaise. He tugged me onto his lap and read over his head. "'Qu'ieu sui avinen, leu lo sai.' 'That I am handsome, I know."
"Verry funny."
"Very true." He grinned. "The translation. That's what it says. Old-fashionedly."
I thought of Edward's notation on the page, the reminder to read the poem to Diana in bed, and rolled my eyes. You're so vain.I bet you think this song is about you..."Boy and their egos."
Alex cupped my face in his hands. "Que tu est belle, tu le sais."
"Oh,I am not-"
"Shh," he shushed me, and leaned in.
The first bell came way too soon. I reluctantly loosened my grip on his shirt and ran my hands over my hair. He prompty thrust both hands in and messed it up again. "Stop," I scolded, but without much force.
"I have physics," he told me. "We're studying weak interaction."
I sandwiched his open hand between mine. "You know absolutely nothing about that."
"Don't be so quick to accept the obvious," he mock-scolded me. "Weak interaction can actually change the flavor of quarks."
The flavor of quirks, I thought, and vaguely remembered something about being charmed. I'd sat through a term of introductory physics before switching to basic biology. I'd forgotten most of that as soon as I'd been tested on it,too.
"I gotta go." Alex pushed me to my feet and followed. "Last person to get to class always gets the first question, and I didn't do the reading."
"Go," I told him. "I have history. By definition, we get to history late."
"Ha-ha. I'll talk to you later." He kissed me again, then walked out, closing the door quietly behind him.
I never thought I would see you armed." I was trying for levity. It worked like a lead balloon.
Melissa JensenFor the last couple of years, I've always started in the same place. It's a little room, more like a little hallway, off one of the Impressionist galleries. That always bothered me. I mean, even in my most Edward-centric moments, I knew he didn't merit a big room of his own.But to tack his work onto the wrong era, not to mention any conceivable style, always chafed.
Melissa JensenIn a long line of good exits, that was one of his best.
Melissa JensenDo you have any friends who aren't Phillites?"
He scowled at me. "I hate that word. I really hate it."
"Why?" I asked, genuinely confused. I gestured around the room, with its leather furniture and slick electronics. "It fits."
"So do Speedos, but I don't want to wear those, either." He stared at me through narrowed eyes. "Let's try this: You tell me something you actually like about me."
I snuggled into his lap. "I like everything about you."
"Except my friends and socioeconomic status."
I looked up at him. "Are you mad?"
"No,Ella,I'm not mad."
I wasn't entirely sure I believed him. He looked a little grim. I felt a tug of worry. "I like your mouth," I whispered, tracing his lips with my fingertip, coaxing them up at the corner. "Among many,many other things."
The mouth was a good start. I especially liked what he did with it.So much that I didn't realize what his hands were doing until I felt cool air.
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