It’s getting weird now, so I force myself to look up at Dean. Our eyes lock. I feel a shot of electricity at the contact, almost as if it were a physical touch. He smiles and raises his hand to his forehead in a quick army salute. His hair is rumpled and I can’t help but flash back to when I was running my hands through it. All I want is to run my hands through it again and again.
“Hey,” I say, raising an arm up to army salute him back. My voice comes out scratchy and I have to clear my throat. Somehow I don’t sound like me.
“Long time no see.” He breaks out into a full smile, and his dimples melt me into a puddle on the floor. I wonder if Tim can see me down there, if he can tell I’m no longer solid but pure liquid.
“Store is closed today,” Dean says. “Roth wanted us all in to do some spring cleaning. Heavy overhaul. We’re supposed to have it all cleaned and ready to open back up tomorrow.”
I groan, heading back to the break room to dump my bag. The room is in disarray. The guys have pulled the couch away from the wall for better cleaning access, and the linoleum floor is covered in dust. There’s a mop and a broom leaning against the cutout of Legolas, placed in such a way that it looks like he’s holding them both.
“Is Legolas helping us?” I call out to the front of the store.
“Yeah. He’s got the break room covered,” Dean calls back.
“I hope he knows what he’s doing,” I say, placing my stuff down on the lumpy old couch. “This place is a disaster.”
“He’s thousands of years old.” Dean’s voice is suddenly right behind me and I jump. “I’m sure he’s cleaned the elf kingdom a time or two.”
“Mirkwood,” I say automatically, and then want to die.
“What?”
“Huh? Nothing.” I turn and see him leaning casually against the door frame. “Hey,” I say again, flustered, feeling like an idiot.
“Hey,” he says, full grin.
Then he walks toward me and wraps a hand gently around my lower back. The other slides through my hair, curling around the back of my neck, and suddenly he’s kissing me; kissing me like we aren’t at work, like Tim isn’t a few steps away in the other room, like he isn’t scared of being interrupted. No, he’s kissing me like we’re back in our galaxy, the only two people in a sea of stars. It doesn’t matter that we’re in the dirty break room, surrounded by dust bunnies. Nothing matters but James Dean.
He pulls back from me, smiling.
“Wow,” I whisper before I can help it. I don’t know why I was ever nervous.
He lets go of me. “I just needed to do that. Now let’s get back to work.” He winks and then turns around and walks back out of the break room like he hasn’t just kissed me into oblivion. I realize that I’m smiling. My face feels stuck that way.
FOURTEEN
IT BECOMES A regular thing, making out with Dean. We claim the old green couch as our own, turning Legolas around so he won’t witness our sins. We kiss sometimes out in the store too, when we’re feeling daring, when customers are scarce; me sitting up on the counter with my legs wrapped around him so we’re eye to eye. I dream about coming to work, wishing it were more than two days a week, wishing I could live here, could inject it into my veins, let it fill me up from the inside. My heartbeat has a rhythm, has a name: James Dean James Dean James Dean.
“So what are you guys?” Hannah asks, the inevitable question, the question no high school girl can ever resist because we crave labels, need to keep organized when we feel like pieces of ourselves are flying apart.
“Who says we have to be anything?”
We’re in study hall and we’re supposed to be doing French homework, but I have work after school today, so obviously the topic has turned to Dean.
“Well, do you want it to be something?” she asks.
“He hasn’t asked me to hang out again.” I lower my voice to a whisper, like it’s embarrassing to admit to her. “We only ever make out in the store.”
“If he asked you on a date, would you go?”
Truthfully, I’m not sure. A date feels too real. What if he asks me about past relationships? I can’t admit to him I’ve never had a boyfriend, and I obviously can’t tell him I’ve never had sex. Making out in the break room is perfect because we can never go all the way, not at work—it’s wonderful and easy and safe.
Until one day it’s not. We’re on the green couch, my back pressed into the cushions, his body over mine. His hand is tangled in my hair and he nips at my ear, at my neck, at my lips, and then pulls back to look at me.
“I can get used to working like this,” he says, his voice husky.
“Me too,” I say.
There hasn’t been a customer for about fifteen minutes, so we’ve been taking advantage of the extra time in the best way we know how. Thank God for the bell above the door.
He leans in to kiss me again and I melt into it, feeling his body sink into mine on the couch as he settles all of his weight on me. He runs a hand through my hair and then trails it down the side of my face, down my neck, and rests it on my chest. Then he moves it lower, running his fingertips lightly over the skin at my waist, and then his hands are undoing his belt and snapping open the button of his pants. I hear the sound of a zipper and am shocked out of my stupor. I push him away, looking around frantically. He jumps off me and raises his arms up as if in surrender. I notice his unzipped pants, half hanging off his hips.
“We can’t do that here.” My voice sounds shrill.
“What difference does it make?” he asks. “We’re already breaking the rules.”
“Someone could come in!”
“C’mon, it’ll be fun. We won’t get caught.”
It doesn’t sound fun to me, having sex here where someone might walk in. He’s probably used to adventurous girls, girls who get off on having sex in public, who do it in their cars, on the beach, in bathrooms at the back of a bar. I’ve never even been in a bar.
I’m such a kid.
“I don’t want to lose my job,” I say, which is true, but is actually about number 5 on my list of worries behind (1) I can’t have sex for the first time on the gross green couch in the break room, (2) I hope Dean likes me, (3) If he wants to have sex on the gross green couch though, he probably doesn’t like me—just wants to have sex with me, (4) I wish I knew what the hell I was doing.
“Just touch me.” His voice is achingly low. I can feel its vibration in my stomach, can feel excitement and anxiety pooling there and spreading across my chest. He’s still standing in front of me with his pants unzipped, and he pulls them down so he’s just in his boxers. “You’ve never even touched me.”