Oh, Dusty. You have no idea about my baggage. In a weird way, my baggage was his. I understood now why he’d been so closed off. He’d lost his brother, and that had probably hit him really hard. That was easy baggage. Simple. One suitcase that you could fit in any overhead compartment. Mine was a trunk. A huge, heavy trunk with about forty different locks on it. With chains wrapped around it. Like pirate’s treasure.
He interrupted my baggage-picturing.
“So let me help you. Let me help you carry it. We can do this together, Jos. I want to be with you.”
I looked into his green eyes that were so bright next to the whiteness of the snow, and said the words that cut me like a knife.
“I don’t want to be with you. I’m sorry. I don’t see you that way.” I’d told him once that I thought his pants were smoking, but this time mine were definitely on fire.
I waited for his reaction. For him to be shocked and to get mad and storm off.
He didn’t. Instead, he made one swift move and threw himself forward and kissed me. I realized a second too late what was happening, and by then it was much, much too late.
My lips betrayed me.
They knew Dusty’s lips, and they were happy they were meeting again. It was a glorious reunion, at least for my lips. They were rejoicing and attacking Dusty’s lips with a desperation that I didn’t know I was capable of. My brain fought for supremacy over my lips, but really, the lips had the upper...hand?
I stopped thinking as Dusty held my face and I tasted the melted snow on his mouth, and even though snow was creeping down my neck and under my jacket, I didn’t give a shit.
A sound made us jump apart as if someone had fired a gun into the air.
“What the hell!” Renee’s voice was right above us. Dusty and I both looked up, our faces still close enough to kiss. Or continue to kiss. Or make out, which is what we were really doing.
“Are you f**king serious, right now?” Dusty recovered first, getting to his feet, and I scrambled up behind him.
“It’s not what you think—” Dusty said at the same time I said, “It’s not his fault.”
“Get inside, Joscelyn. I will talk with you later.” She jabbed her finger to the house like I was a kid who had ruined the flower bed. Yeah, I wasn’t, and I’d had enough of her lecturing me and telling me what to do and treating me like I wasn’t in control of my own life anymore.
“No. I will not get inside. I am not five, and you are not my mother. I am nearly nineteen years old and I am in control of my own life. If I want to make out with Dusty on the front lawn, I can. I’m not getting drunk or high or cutting class or breaking curfew. Yes, I did those things, but I’m not doing them anymore. I respect you and I respect your house and your rules. So stop judging me on my past mistakes.”
I wasn’t really talking about Dusty. In fact, Renee being pissed at catching me kissing him gave me the perfect reason to push him away, but I would be damned if she was going to talk to me like that in front of everyone.
“Joscelyn, just get in the house and we can discuss this.” She wasn’t backing down. We were going to have this out, but I’d take doing it with just her rather than in front of everyone. So I stomped as much as you can while wading through the snow, up the porch steps and into the house. I heard Dusty trying to say something to me and then to Renee, but I didn’t hear what her answer was. I didn’t really need to. I could imagine.
I pulled off my boots and my jacket and left them to dry near the door so I wouldn’t track water all over the house. I was rushing to get back down to my cave when the door opened and I was met with Renee’s seriously pissed face. This was one threat level above her normal pissed face. In fact, it was close to the face she’d given me when I accidentally told Paul she thought she was pregnant that one time. She wasn’t, but I never forgot the look she gave me when she found out I’d told him.
“You are not running away from me, Joscelyn Meridith Archer. We are going to sit and talk, and I’m not letting you do anything until we have this out and get everything out in the open. Sit. NOW.”
She pointed at the couch and I had no option but to park my butt on it. Renee wasn’t messing around.
“Okay, how about we start with the obvious. What are you doing kissing Dusty?”
“Is there some rule against me kissing him? Because I never agreed to that when I moved in.”
“Don’t you dare get sassy with me. I’m so not in the mood for it.”
She sat down in the recliner and waited.
“Fine. I was kissing him because he kissed me. Have you ever tried to avoid a kiss once it’s started? Not that easy.”
“Did you want to kiss him?”
The answer was both yes and no. More yes than no, but I really needed Renee to believe in the no. If she thought he’d forced me, in any way, he would be gone for good. But could I really do that to him? Let her think that he’d somehow taken advantage of me? The outcome would be better in the long run, but for who? Dusty would never be allowed in a ten-mile radius of the house. If he and Hunter wanted to hang out, they’d have to hide it better than an illicit affair. And if Renee found out?
No, I could definitely not do that. I didn’t hate Dusty. I didn’t want him to suffer, which was why I needed to get him out of my life.
“Yes,” I said quietly.
“How long has this been going on?” The real answer? Since he helped me with that damn vending machine. If I could go back in time, I would have stayed down the hallway and not given in to my candy craving. But that might cause a nuclear war or something, according to the butterfly effect, so maybe that wouldn’t be such a good idea. My life had been altered by a damn vending machine.
What I told her was “not that long.”
“What were you thinking, Jos?” My intention had been to play ignorant about the whole Dusty-babysitting-me thing, but my resolve crumbled pretty damn quick.
“What did you expect to happen when you told him to ‘watch over’ me like some creepy stalker slash protector? What were you thinking?” My words had the desired effect of making Renee blanch.
“How did you know?”
I threw my hands up in frustration. “Because he told me. If anyone has the right to be pissed and yell and scream here, it’s me. Why in the hell would you do that, Renee?” I didn’t mean to, but I stood up and the volume of my voice rose until I was yelling. I was just so mad at her.