When we both finally get to the point where we need air she breaks off and sighs into my neck. “Ben, I thought about you all day yesterday.”
“I thought about you too.” I kiss her jawline. I inhale the fruity scent of her hair. I’m about to move to her neck and suck the skin until I leave a mark when I see movement and realize we have an audience.
Mrs. Copella is gawking at us with her mouth open. No wonder. She’s here at the bus stop nearly every day and probably hasn’t seen me and Camden exchange two words with one another. Now here we are, ready to start banging on the street corner before her very eyes.
Luckily there’s no reason to explain this because the bus shows up.
“WE’RE WALKING IN A WINTER WONDERLAND!” shouts Rita the bus driver and Camden giggles as I pull her with me onto the bus after Mrs. Copella has huffed and puffed her way up the steps.
We take a seat in the back and Rita swivels around to ogle us in surprise. Then she grins, turns up the Christmas music and begins moving the bus.
I curl my arm around Camden, a move that clearly pleases her. She snuggles closer and we look outside to see the snowflakes begin to stick to the smudged window glass. It’s like a scene out of a damn Hallmark Christmas movie and, to my surprise, I’m into it.
She wants to hear about what I did yesterday and I entertain her with tales of the worthless Brian, who clogged up the soda machine with coffee grounds and took seventeen smoking breaks.
“I wished you were there,” I tell her and tug playfully on a few strands of her hair.
“You mean because I can tell the difference between coffee and soda?”
“Yup, that’s exactly what I mean.”
“Did Brian mess up my immaculate stockroom?”
I put my free hand on her knee. She’s wearing thick wool tights today and I run my palm over her thigh, pushing the hem of her skirt up just enough to get my point across. “I like to think of it as our stockroom, Camden.”
Her breath hitches and she squirms. She’s remembering the stockroom and the way she got off in my hand. I’m remembering it too. And holy fuck, I’m so hard. This Hallmark movie needs to take an X-rated turn. I wish we weren’t on our way to a long school day. I wish we were alone.
We’re almost in Black Mountain when Camden removes a notebook from her backpack and scribbles furiously.
“You taking notes?”
She wrinkles her nose and clicks her pen. “Just a reminder to follow up with my sports writer about the hockey team article. Looks like they might win the state championship.”
“With Kent and Corby King on the team they’ve got a shot.”
“I forgot that Corby used to live in Devil Valley.”
“Yeah, he did live there for a while. But I don’t see him much since he moved to Black Mountain.”
Camden is chewing on her lip. She’s got something on her mind and it has nothing to do with Corby King and the hockey team. “Ben, I need to ask you something important.”
I feel my muscles tensing. I thought she understood that we wouldn’t be conducting an in depth interview. “What is it you want to know, Camden?”
She clutches her notebook more tightly to her chest and takes a deep breath. “Nothing. But can you please avoid broadcasting to the Black Mountain crowd that we hooked up?”
I look out the window, slightly hurt that she’d jump to that conclusion. “I wasn’t planning to broadcast jack shit. So don’t worry. Your pristine reputation is safe.”
“Oh, please don’t get mad.” She touches my arm. “Ben, look at me. I’m not ashamed and I’m not sorry. But you know how people are at school. They can be mean and they can be gossipy. And we haven’t had a chance to really talk and sort this out. So can we just keep this for us? Just for now? Please?”
I soften and take her hand. When she puts it that way her request is actually very cute and sincere and I keep hearing the word ‘us’ echo in my head. I like the sound of it. I like to think that there’s an ‘us’ that includes me and her.
“It is just us, Camden.”
She pulls my large hand into her lap and clasps it between her smaller gloved hands. The bus is slowing down and the gothic outline of Black Mountain Academy looms straight ahead. The snow is falling more thickly here and sticking to the ground.
Camden squeezes my hand. “I have to stay after school for a Bulletin meeting. But I’ll be on the late bus and then I’m scheduled to work from five thirty until nine.”
“I’ll already be there.”
She frowns as Black Mountain Academy closes in. “So many hours from now.”
“Just so you know, I’ll be staring at you all day long and flashing back to filthy naked memories.”
She elbows me and hisses under her breath. “I wasn’t naked.”
“Doesn’t matter. In my head you’re naked right now.”
She can’t keep herself from smiling even as she teases. “Is that all you want from me?”
I push her hair aside and whisper in her ear. “I want everything, Camden. Everything.”
She’s turned on as hell. I can tell by the flush in her cheeks and the way she breathes. The bus brakes squeal and the vehicle quakes to a stop. This will be my last chance to kiss her until much later and I don’t hesitate to take advantage. I lean in and slide my tongue between her lips. I almost lose it when she sinks into me with a moan and touches my belt. It’s going to be torture getting through the day and seeing her right there in front me, just out of reach. But we’re going to try this. We’re going to have something real. We’re going to trust each other.
Camden heads straight for the building. She turns around once, catches my eye and smiles before disappearing through the massive double doors. The courtyard is full of people exclaiming over the snow, posing for selfies and trying to pack the white dust on the ground into snowballs. Snow isn’t exactly a rare sight here in the winter but there’s something special about snow a week before Christmas so I can’t fault them for being excited. Once the holidays are over nobody will be excited for bleak winter weather any longer.
Kent catches up with me in the hallway and throws something over my head.
“Fuckface. You dropped this on the floor of the locker room on Friday.”
I’m glad to see my jacket. I thought I’d be spending time between classes trying to hunt it down. “Thanks, man.”
The first bell rings. Some girl calls out Kent’s name but he pays no attention to her. He pauses in the middle of the hallway and shoots an odd look in my direction. “I was gonna call you this weekend but I knew you were working so I figured I’d just tell you today.”
“Tell me what?”
He’s distracted now because Trina has appeared. She hugs him around the waist and he snakes a possessive arm around her. “We’ll talk at lunch,” he says and then vanishes with his girl, probably off to do something quick and pornographic.
Today I don’t really mind sitting in class, mostly because I’m not paying the slightest bit of attention to what’s going on. I’m busy staring at Camden and having such insane daydreams that I’m in danger of creaming my pants. I’m not missing much in the classroom. The teachers are going through the motions, already in vacation mode with this being the next to last day of school before holiday break.