Meet Me at Midnight - Jessica Pennington Page 0,66

He brushes my lip with his tongue, and I bite his. He’s still beside the bed with me twisted toward him, and as he pushes himself up, closer to me, one arm snakes behind my back. The other plants alongside me on the mattress. I shift a little, making room for him. My shirt has shifted up, and his hand is on the bare skin of my back, his fingertips pressing into my skin there.

As one knee pushes into the mattress beside me, a loud squeak cuts through the silence so thoroughly, I’m sure my parents have heard it two rooms down. It’s a bucket of ice water spilling over me, and I still. Over me, Asher is frozen as well, but he doesn’t take his eyes off of me; they’re roaming over me like he’s never seen me before. Or like he’s about to dive in for a second round.

What the hell are we doing? We are in my bedroom, at four o’clock in the morning, making out just a few doors down from our parents. On my bed. This is the most un-Sidney-like thing I have ever done, and my face flushes thinking of how ridiculous I am. Right place, right time. That’s all I am, convenient summer fun in an adjoining room. I try to push the thought away, but it keeps popping back up.

Asher pushes himself off of the bed with another soft squeak, and squats beside me again. He opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, but instead he stands up, looming over me at his full height. “Good night, Sid.” He turns to the bathroom door—his escape back to his own room—and he’s halfway there when my voice finally breaks free.

“I…” I’m dying to cut the tension in the room, the heaviness. “I thought you were going to ask for pancakes,” I admit, wishing I had something more eloquent to say, or that I had just kept my mouth shut and let him leave. Wishing I had the headspace to determine if I was giddy, or confused, or mad. But all I can let myself think about right now is pancakes. One kiss, and his lips have completely warped my mind.

Asher’s mouth tips up into a smile. “I was.” He’s walking backward toward the door, not taking his eyes off of me for a single second. He shrugs as he says, “But then you kissed me.”

A defiant little huff of air escapes me.

“I’m still open to pancakes, though.” He grins.

I can’t remember the last time I was lacking a witty comeback for Asher. What do I want to say? You shouldn’t have kissed me? I shouldn’t have kissed you? Come back here, so I can kiss you again? I fear it would be the last one. Only seconds pass before he’s slipping through the bathroom door, a whispered “good night” gliding into my room as he glides out.

What the hell happened tonight?

DAY 25

Sidney

It’s one o’clock before I finally decide that starving in my room would not be a great life choice. Even if it would teach Asher a lesson. I bet most girls don’t complain about being kissed by Asher; letting myself starve would be some next-level payback. But I don’t have the dedication to starve myself, or the luxury of avoiding Asher indefinitely, when we live in the same house. Controlling when I see him is probably the best scenario I can ask for.

Asher is always sticking his clothes into random loads of laundry, so there’s always a pile of his miscellaneous clean clothing sitting in the little laundry room between his room and Sylvie and Greg’s. Maybe he does his laundry like that on purpose—if each of us thinks it’s a mistake, we just fold the few pieces, and by the end of the week Asher has a full load of clean laundry. I wouldn’t put it past him, it’s sort of brilliant. So I’m not surprised to see a little stack of his T-shirts when I open the laundry room doors.

I suppose I don’t need an excuse to talk to Asher—kissing me with no warning last night seems like excuse enough—but it wouldn’t hurt to have one. Just in case he has no intention of addressing the elephant in the room. Sigh. I still miss Edith. If I have to, I’m not above throwing his laundry at him and claiming that’s the only reason I came. As I make the harrowing six-foot journey to his bedroom, I hope I