for a little time delay on all that truth telling.
“Are you . . . are you . . . we’re . . . together?” Jesse asked.
My cheeks burned, and I stared at the ground.
“Do you want to be together?” he asked quietly, taking a tiny step closer to me so our boots were touching toe to toe.
“Y-yes. Do you?” I sneaked a look up to read the expression on his face.
He smiled his Christmas tree smile. “Yes. But only if you—”
And then I kissed him. And his lips were soft, but sure. And it was slow and gentle. And then he broke away, our foreheads touching, and whispered, “Are you sure?”
And I took his face in my hands and nodded and we kissed and kissed, and I finally figured out what everyone had been talking about.
?
It took much longer to meander back to camp now that we . . . had other things to keep us occupied.
It was nearly three o’clock before Jesse and I made it back to the parking area in front of the Lodge.
“Please let me come with you,” he said again, his forehead worry lines back. “What is Ben going to do when he sees how late you are? What if you get kicked off Varsity?”
Even though I would have been worried about the same things a day earlier, today I felt totally free from Ben’s orbit. “So, that’s the thing. Maybe . . . Maybe Ben isn’t the improv gate-keeper. He thinks he is. He made me believe he was. But . . . I don’t know—what happens if I don’t perform in the showcase? It’s not like I can’t audition or take classes at Second City or UCB or iO or someplace myself. Later. And maybe showing Ben he can’t control every woman he sees is what I can do for women now.” I shook my head. “Please kiss me. Then, somehow, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I closed my eyes and slid my arms around Jesse’s waist. He pulled me closer, and I kissed him, knowing it might be a while before that happened again, and thunder boomed in the background.
It wasn’t until Jesse was ripped away from me that I realized that the thunder was actually footsteps.
And it wasn’t until Ben bellowed, “WHORE!” that I realized those footsteps were Ben’s.
But it took a cracking sound, blood pouring out of Jesse’s nose, and Ben shaking out the hand that had punched Jesse to set off a bomb inside my body.
“How dare you!” I bellowed, rage vibrating my every cell. Ben charged at me, and I barreled toward the steps. All I could think was to distance Ben from Jesse and make it to the Pauls.
“How dare I?” He caught up with me in two strides and grabbed my arms. “How dare you?” He spun me to him. Fury contorted his face. “I let you onto Varsity and this is how you repay me?” His hands dug into my upper arms, and he shook my body. “By skipping rehearsal? By throwing a fit when I fixed your cold open?”
Then I saw faces in the screen door of the Lodge, but Ben’s eyes were accusing daggers focused only on me. Desperately, I watched from my periphery as Cade and both of the Jakes crept silently onto the porch. I almost called out to them, but I clamped my mouth shut. The Pauls had to see this with their own eyes, or they wouldn’t believe my word against Ben’s. And I wasn’t confident in Cade or the Jakes standing up for me . . . except for maybe High Ropes Jake. Go get the Pauls, Go get the Pauls, I begged him in my mind.
“The whole time, leading me on,” Ben continued, spitting out his words like they were food that had turned. “The whole time, sleeping with him.”
“Hey—I’m not sleeping with anybody,” I insisted, another bomb going off inside me.
I tried to break out of his grasp, but he growled, “Shut up!” and shook me again.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched High Ropes Jake turn tail and run inside. Yes! Get the Pauls!
“Ben, let her go.” Jesse’s voice sounded thick coming up from behind me.
I twisted around, but still gripping my arms, Ben kicked Jesse in the knee as he lurched toward us, which sent him stumbling back down into the gravel. Jesse’s nose was bleeding so freely, the front of his shirt was a lake of blood.
“Jesse!” I hollered. I tried to go