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  “Lame,” I told myself.

  It didn’t feel lame. Watching them together, it felt the way I had in eighth grade when the boy I had a crush on asked someone else to dance. I wanted to fast-forward through the movie, or at least through this scene. Even Johnny’s naked ass wasn’t enough to get me past the sick, twisty feeling in my gut.

  My ice cream had melted and the heat had kicked on, making the comforter too heavy. I kicked it off and lifted the remote to scan ahead, when it happened again.

  I went dark.

  Chapter 11

  “Hey.” Johnny’s voice turned me from the hedgerow I found myself in front of. “Where’d you run off to this time?”

  If I opened my mouth, I’d babble, so I pressed my lips closed on a smile I hoped looked real. Johnny’s hair, slicked back and wet, looked familiar, as did the jeans and tank top. He came toward me with a slight grin.

  “You missed Paul,” he said. “He just left. He’ll be back tomorrow sometime, says he has more to shoot.”

  I couldn’t speak. I let him pull me closer and kiss me. I let him twirl a strand of my hair around his finger and tug. But I couldn’t speak.

  “What? You mad about something? You ain’t mad about that stuff by the pool, are you? That wasn’t anything. That was just for the movie.”

  The movie. The pool. I’d just watched Sandy put her hands all over him.

  I found my voice. “With Sandy?”

  “Yeah. But it was just…look, she’s still got a thing going on for me, but it doesn’t matter. It’s just at thing, you know?”

  “I know.” I did know. I had a thing for Johnny myself.

  “Anyway, it was just something they wanted us to do for the movie, that’s all. She wanted to make it more, make it real, but I told her and I told Paul, I’m not into that scene, you know? Not with her, anyway. But you weren’t around. Too bad, huh?” He grinned. “I coulda helped make you famous.”

  “How…how long was I gone?”

  Johnny shrugged. “Coupla hours? I gotta tell you, Emm, I figured you’d disappeared again, just run off. But you left your stuff behind. How’d you do that?”

  He looked me over, a frown tipping his mouth for the first time since he’d seen me. “What are you wearing?”

  I had on a pair of fuzzy sleep pants with Batman on them and a baby-doll T-shirt. Sick-day clothes. I’d showered but done nothing with my hair, and it hung in still-damp sheaves, heavy down my back.

  “Kiss me,” I said instead of answering him. “Just kiss me.”

  And he did. Long, and soft and slow and sweet, just the way I wanted it and the way I needed it. The way I knew he would kiss me in my real life, if only I could ever convince him to try. I pulled away, knowing I must look tousled and glazed. Love drunk.

  Johnny cocked his head, eyes narrowed. “Emm?”

  The world was shifting under my feet again. Slip-sliding away, as Paul Simon said, but I doubted he’d ever had something like this happen to him. Fuck. Had that song even been written yet? I didn’t know.

  “Kiss me, Johnny,” I said.

  He did again, over and over, while the world spun so fast I was sure I’d fly right off. His hands caressed me, slid up under my T-shirt to cup my bare breasts and tweak my nipples. We kissed in that garden, in the bushes, like a pair of lovers trying hard not to get caught.

  I could smell the chlorine on his skin and something tropical, maybe tanning oil. I smelled the broken branches and leaves from where we’d crushed against the bush. I smelled all of this and, under it, the sick-making scent of oranges. It made bitter saliva squirt into my mouth.

  “I have to go,” I told him when I could no longer fight it off.

  “But you’ll come back, right? Promise me you’ll come back.” Johnny took a fistful of my hair and held me tight, leashed. “I’m not letting you go unless you promise.”

  “I promise!” The words spun out of me on a gasp. “I do. I’ll be back.”

  “Good,” Johnny said, and kissed me again. “So, I’ll see you?”

  “Yes,” I told him. “Yes, yes, yes, Johnny.”

  I let him go, even though he was all that kept me standing. I smiled and waved. I turned and walked through the garden and out to the sidewalk in front of his house. I blinked.

  My bed. TV still on, movie still playing, still showing the same scene. My nipples were still tight, my clit throbbing. My breath caught in my throat as I fell back on the pillows.

  I cupped my breasts, but there was no warmth there from any touch but mine. I’d imagined him kissing me, touching me. My body had reacted and still was.

  I slid my hand under my waistband and found my cunt, aching and empty and slick. My clit pulsed as I circled it with my fingertip. My hips shifted, pushing upward as I stroked myself. I stopped, staring up at the ceiling that should’ve been blocked by Johnny’s face but wasn’t. And wouldn’t ever be.

  “Dammit, brain. Not fair.”

  I slid my tongue across my lips and imagined the taste of him. I looked at the screen, where Johnny was now lying on his stomach, naked, on a bed with his eyes closed. Sleeping. Dreaming, it looked like, by the way his lids twitched, and he let out a moan.

  Fuck. It went right through me. It was full of sex and longing, that moan, much like the one slipping from between my lips. On the TV, Johnny was dreaming, but I was awake. Not dark. This, my hand on my clit, was real. The orgasm building inside me, my belly muscles getting tight, that was real. The bed beneath me, my own slick heat coating my fingers as I fucked myself, all of that was real. And my orgasm, finally, that was real, too.

  I ventured out just after five o’clock, when it no longer felt so scandalous to be up and about when I was supposed to be home in bed. The walk to the Morningstar Mocha was just long enough in the cold air to get my blood pumping, and the exercise had me feeling better after my comfort-food overload. I was going to destroy all that good effort with a piece of cake and a sugary latte, but I didn’t care. I needed the sugar and the caffeine.

  “Hey.” I tossed a glance at Carlos. “Are you always here?”

  “Free internet,” Carlos said with a shrug. “Saves me close to fifty bucks a month. That’s more than enough to cover the cost of my coffee and doughnuts.”

  “You obviously don’t drink enough coffee and eat enough doughnuts.”

  He shrugged again and pointed at the laptop. “When I sell my novel, I’ll treat you all to lattes.”

  “It’s a deal.” I peeled off my gloves and shoved them into the pocket of my jacket, which was not the right weight for this weather but…well, I’d lost my coat along with my favorite pair of jeans. I looked around the almost-empty coffee shop. “Who’s been in today?”

  “Not your boyfriend, if that’s what you’re hoping.” Carlos gave me a smug grin.

  I ignored it. “How about Jen?”

  “Haven’t seen her. You’re her bestie, not me.”

  I pulled out my phone with a flourish and tapped out a text asking her if she planned on stopping by. “Do you have any friends?”

  “Good one.” Carlos’s grin was nicer this time.

  I gave him a smug grin of my own and went to the counter for a double white-chocolate peppermint-stick latte with full-fat milk and a slice of coffee cake. I could practically hear the buttons on my fat pants screaming in protest, but I didn’t care. Sugar and caffeine had helped in the past with the fugues. Indulging was worth a few extra hours on the treadmill.

  I took my coffee and cake to a table toward the back just as my phone buzzed from my pocket. I sent up a prayer to thank whoever was the patron saint of phones that my precious iPhone hadn’t been in my pocket when I lost my clothes, and thumbed the screen to read the message from Jen. She was on her way. I wasn’t sure what I planned to tell her about Night of a Hundred Moons. I wasn’t sure I could watch it again. Maybe I could just lend it to her.

  I sipped the hot, sweet coffee and picked a lump of cinnamon sugar from the top of my coffee cake. I people