Callie closed her eyes. Water from the shower head fell against her skin, a steady thrum that she felt right to her core. Steam clouded her mind and water fell against her skin. In that moment, she was nothing but skin. Heat and steam and skin.
There was a knock on the bathroom door.
It was followed immediately by more knocking, insistent and impossible to ignore. Callie's eyes flew open.
"Come on, Brandon," Jesus's voice called through the door. "I know you're in there."
More knocking.
"Yeah, I'm in here," Brandon called back at last. "Go away."
"I need my deodorant, man," Jesus said. "The good stuff. I got wrestling today. And a date. Come on, man."
"I'm in the shower," Brandon said.
"So? I don't care about your junk, dude. Just let me grab my deodorant."
Jesus knocked again, for emphasis.
"He's not going away," Brandon said to Callie in an undertone.
The water had turned his hair jet black. His eyes seemed darker, too, framed by wet lashes, although perhaps it was just desire she saw there. Callie still felt the thrum of her own desire deep in her core. Reality, however, was seeping back into the moment, setting her off balance. She gripped Brandon's arms hard, her fingers pressing into his shower-slick skin.
"You can't let him in!" she murmured.
There was no way the skimpy, see-through shower curtain could hide her.
"He probably won't even notice you're in here," Brandon whispered. "He's Jesus."
There was a trace of amusement in Brandon's voice, which contrasted sharply with the rising panic that Callie felt.
"Brandon!" Callie exclaimed.
It was a whisper-shout, rather than a real shout, and it was covered by the white noise of the running shower – but only just. Callie's tone of voice seemed to snap Brandon back to seriousness.
Jesus knocked again. "Come onnn," he whined through the door.
Brandon stepped out of the shower and grabbed a towel, wrapping it around his waist. He handed a second towel to Callie.
"You go out that door"—Brandon gestured to the door that opened into the hallway—"and I'll let Jesus in through this door"—he jabbed at the door that opened into Jesus and Jude's room.
Callie could feel her heart beating in her throat. "What if someone sees me?"
"It'll be, like, two seconds," Brandon said. "And everyone's probably downstairs by now."
Callie mouthed the word probably?! at him, but as Jesus continued to hammer on the door, she couldn't come up with any alternative plan. She wrapped the towel around herself and moved to stand by the door that led to the hallway. Brandon positioned himself at the other door. He mouthed three, two, one and then—
Callie opened her door at the same moment that Brandon opened his. She slipped out into the hallway, which was mercifully empty. Her heart continued to thud in her chest, too fast and (to her ears) too loud. Still wet and now beginning to shiver, she was dripping a puddle onto the hardwood floor – a puddle of water and embarrassment and guilt.
Through the door, she heard the muffled exchange between Jesus and Brandon.
"Fi-nally," Jesus exclaimed.
"I'm trying to take a shower, man," Brandon replied, "so get what you need and get out."
"You been taking some looong showers lately, dude," said Jesus. "You need to find a girlfriend."
The sound of Jesus's laughter was accompanied by a door slamming. Seconds later, the door in front of Callie opened and Brandon pulled her back inside the bathroom.
The bathroom smelled overwhelmingly like Axe body spray.
Callie stumbled toward the sink, leaning heavily against the porcelain, limp as a ragdoll.
"I feel like I'm having a heart attack," she said, as her heart threatened to beat right out of her chest.
Brandon moved closer, pulling her into a hug, which she was barely able to return.
"You're fine… we're fine," he murmured, although she heard a note of uncertainty in his voice.
She closed her eyes and leaned into him. His body was still warm from the shower's steam, while hers was prickled with gooseflesh. He used his hand to rub a slow circle against her back. Then he unhooked her towel from under her arm, his hands moving lower, stroking, rubbing. Wet skin against wet skin.
"You need to calm down," he said.
She did need to calm down. She needed to get out of there. She needed to join her family for breakfast. She needed to go to school. She needed to stop taking chances. She needed to stop giving in to the carnal pull of Brandon's hands, Brandon's mouth—
Brandon's mouth.
She watched with hungry eyes as Brandon dropped to his knees in front of her. She leaned back against the porcelain of the sink. Her heart was beating faster than ever, loud in her ears, as Brandon spread her open, fingers and then mouth coaxing at the heat between her legs.
In the music room at lunchtime, Callie played the piano, her fingers skimming the keys gracefully, notes rising up into the room like smoke lifted on the breeze.
Beside her on the piano bench, Brandon shifted. He leaned in close. His lips brushed the skin of her shoulder, his head falling in the hollow of her neck, like he was breathing her in. She felt his hand against her leg as she played on: palm flat against her thigh, fingers pushing between her legs.
"You're distracting me…" she murmured.
"Play through it, Mozart," Brandon said and she could hear the smile in his voice. "The Grim Reaper used to play lawn mower sounds at top volume and make me play through it."
Callie spluttered out a laugh. "Why?"
"Because he was crazy. A crazy genius."
Brandon's hand moved between her legs.
"You should be able to play through distractions," he said.
Finally, she couldn't resist turning her head, catching his lips in a kiss. It was a long kiss, greedy, full of memories of the shower this morning. Brandon's hand moved up her thigh, rubbing at the V of her legs. As his thumb grazed her clit through her jeans, she bloomed for him.
She wanted to slam the piano lid shut. Let his hands lift her up onto it, grind her hips against his. Let him spread her open against the worn wood. She wanted to have sex right there in the music room. The door was closed. No one would have to know. No one would have to know…
She forced herself to pull away, breaking the kiss. Her hands returned to the keys. She played with desperation, with passion, with recklessness surging inside her. Her route to orgasm hummed at the surface of her skin, as it had done all day. She knew she was seconds from letting him draw her into another kiss.
The door to the music room banged open.
Callie and Brandon sprang apart, Brandon pulling his hands back into his lap. Callie's fingers tensed against the keys, playing a few discordant notes before she recovered herself. She looked over at the door.
Talya paused in the doorway, watching the two of them intently. Then she lifted her chin and walked into the room.
"What are you doing here?" Brandon asked, not bothering to mask his rude tone of voice.
"Uh, I need to practice? You're not, like, the only two people in the whole school who play music," said Talya.
Callie recalled suddenly that Talya played the flute. She'd learned, during the five minutes that Talya had pretended to be her friend, this and other assorted things. Talya's dream was to go to Tisch. She ate her fries unsalted because she said it was healthier. She liked yellow roses and Brandon had given her 16 for her birthday the previous year.
The random facts about Talya came back to Callie in a deluge, making her feel inadequate and a little guilty. Callie didn't have a favorite flower or a dream school or a romantic birthday memory. But she had given Talya a good reason to hate her.
Without looking at either Brandon or Talya, Callie stood up. She stooped to grab clumsily at her backpack and then walked out of the room. She willed Brandon to stay behind and keep up the pretence of an innocent practice session. But when she reached the corridor, he was right there, behind her.
"She didn't see anything," Brandon said in an undertone.
"She could've done," said Callie.
Together, they hastened down the corridor away from the music room, the sound of Debussy on the flute chasing after them.
"…Even if she did, who cares? Who is there for her to tell? She has zero credibility. She'd just look bitter."
Callie wanted to believe Brandon. It was tempting to underestimate Talya, but every instinct in Callie's body screamed that it was a bad idea to do so. Talya could make a lot of trouble for them if she chose to.
The quiet corridor that led away from the music room had flowed into one of the school's main arteries, now clogged with a post-lunch crush of bodies. There was no way for Callie and Brandon to talk more. Caught up in the crowds, they fell out of step. A natural parting. Brandon reached out and squeezed her hand for just a second before a surge of people separated them.
In her bedroom, as the shadows of afternoon stretched, Callie watched the motes of dust collect in a single shaft of sunlight.
Her phone was gripped limply in one hand as she stared down at her floorboards. She'd tried to photograph it – that rectangle of light; the texture of the dust against the wood – but she'd found she couldn't capture it. She stood and stared at it, thinking vaguely that she could try and find some paint. She hadn't painted since she was 9 years old – a different lifetime – but for some reason she really wanted to be able to render the look of that rectangle of dust and sunlight. Render it and keep it forever.
"Hey, what are you doing?"
Callie looked up and saw Brandon at her bedroom door. She realized she was standing in the middle of the room, staring at nothing. Like a crazy person.
"Trying to… take a picture?" Callie said, scrunching up her face into an embarrassed smile. "The light is really beautiful right here." She hesitated and then beckoned him closer. "Come see."
Brandon took a few steps in the room.
"What am I looking at?" Brandon asked, confused.
"The… light. And the… dust. And the… floorboards."
Callie gestured emphatically, but Brandon still looked confused. Finally, she sighed.
"Don't worry, it doesn't matter," she said. "I look at floorboards and they drive me nuts. That's all."
"Okay…" Brandon said softly, smiling at her.
"That's what it'll say on my tombstone. Callie Foster: who stared at floorboards." She paused and then corrected herself: "Callie Jacob."
Brandon looked at her for a long moment and then said:
"It's cool… that you can look at things that way. See things other people don't."
Hearing the admiration in his voice, Callie forgot where she was for a moment. She couldn't resist stealing a kiss. Then another. Then Brandon's hands were at her hips. Then—
The footsteps on the stairs were stomping, angry footsteps. The sound was just loud enough to bring Callie back to reality.
"I cannot. Believe. That I've had. Mustard. On my. Sweater. The entire. Afternoon."
Each of Mariana's words was accompanied by a heavy stomp of her feet. The moment that she reached the bedroom doorway, Callie's hands were just shoving Brandon behind the door.
"And no one told me!" Mariana continued. "It's so embarrassing. I must have looked like a complete hobo the whole way through math."
Mariana flounced into the room and began digging in the closet. Callie, meanwhile, hovered near the door, paranoid that perhaps Brandon was not adequately covered by it.
"I mean, it's only math, but it's so boring that probably more people noticed. Because it was so boring! Oh my goddd."
Mariana flung the objectionable, mustard-stained sweater on the floor and squeezed into a new one that she'd found in the closet.
Callie waited for Mariana to look in her direction—
—to spy Brandon behind the door—
—to settle on her bed and ask Callie to close the door—
—to catch them—
However, her rant over, Mariana simply flounced out of the room, barely glancing at Callie.
As a shell-shocked Callie listened to the sound of Mariana's footsteps descending the stairs, Brandon slipped out from behind the door, laughing softly.
"Mustard," he said. "On her sweater. In math class. I literally can't think of anything worse."
Brandon leaned in to Callie, stealing one last kiss. Then he bounded away, tilting his head to indicate that she should follow him.
"Come on," he said, "let's go outside."
"Why do you keep climbing that tree?" Jude asked quietly.
In the lull that followed dinner, the kitchen was empty except for Callie and Jude. Callie stood at the sink, washing dishes that she then passed to Jude for drying. Out the window, it was still light enough to see the outline of the big tree in the yard. Jude glanced at it and then looked back at Callie.
"What?" she asked.
His question set Callie off balance, yanking her out of her hazy headspace. Her mind had been miles away. Or, to be accurate, her mind had been upstairs, with the boy who sat in his bedroom playing the piano, notes drifting down to the kitchen.
"You've climbed that tree three times this week."
She bit back the urge to say, I haven't. Jude's tone was matter of fact. He wouldn't have brought it up unless he was certain – not unless he'd been watching; noticing every detail; calculating what was going on.
"…I like climbing trees," Callie said at last.
"Right," Jude said.
Jude's small-voiced Right troubled her more than if he'd yelled at her.
Was it a warning? Was he telling her that he knew about her and Brandon, giving her a chance to end it and make things right before he spoke up?
Or was he washing his hands of her? Was this his way of telling her that she was on her own? That their days of being a package deal were now over and she was free to do as she liked? Free to screw up her life however she pleased?
The questions accumulated in Callie's mind as the night wore on. She couldn't figure out any of the answers, but she knew one thing for certain: she'd been stupid all day; she needed to stop breaking her own rules.
"We're being reckless," she said to Brandon, urgency making her voice ragged. "I can't deal with almost getting caught every day. When you kiss me, it needs to be behind a closed door."
In the dark of Brandon's bedroom, his naked body moved against hers.
"Look," he murmured. "The door is closed."
As he inclined his head toward the door, his neck strained upward. She kissed the sinews that twisted there, and drew him down on top of her.
"Okay," she said, "okay…"
Whether she was mollified by his words or simply sedated by the reassuring weight of his body, she couldn't say. Either way, she let her worries drift away – for the time being, at least. She allowed feeling to replace thought; passion to replace reason.
By design, they were always quiet when they had sex. So quiet. Orgasms were accompanied by bitten lips and fingernails digging into flesh, not by cries or moans. In the deepest moments of orgasm, they inhabited their own little world, far away from the rest of the house. It felt safer that way, to mentally remove themselves from their surroundings.
It also made them almost completely deaf to what was going on outside of Brandon's bedroom door. As Callie rocked against Brandon, her fingernails biting into his shoulder hard enough to break the skin, she was aware of nothing but her coming orgasm.
She did not hear the footsteps running up and down the stairs.
She did not hear the muffled rise and fall of voices drifting through the house.
She didn't even hear the two-finger tap on the bedroom door or the way the hinges sighed as it was pushed open.
The first thing she heard was Stef's voice saying, "Get dressed."
Next chapter: is the final chapter.