Red Velvet Crush by Christina Meredith Page B

friction of skin will ever be.
    Still, I can’t wait to taste him.
    We hurry up the slope and push through the front door.
    His house is quiet again. We drop our shoes on the rug and slip down the stairs without a sound.
    â€œWhere should we start this time?” Ty asks, standing in front of the bookshelf full of records. He is almost talkingto himself, running his fingers across the tops of the album covers one after another. He reaches over and flicks a switch. The front of the stereo lights up, electric and blue.
    â€œHow about with: Where are your parents?” I ask.
    Ty glances at me over his shoulder. “Where they always are, working.” He holds out an album like a pointer and turns to face the room. “How else could we afford all this stuff?”
    Sinking down to the floor, I study the soft leather sofa and chairs; the matching seashells, large and small; the framed photos and state-of-the-art electronics gleaming in the warm light. They all go together, like a picture from an interior design magazine.
    Most of our stuff comes from dead relatives or Winston’s suspicious trips downtown, or we find it curbside under a sign that says FREE ! TAKE ME. Ask any poor person—eclectic is overrated.
    I lay back and run my fingers along the carpet. It is bouncy and soft.
    I want to escape into Ty’s world of tree-lined streets and tall houses made from two-by-fours, squared and true and painted in the dark green shades of deep summer, where the furniture comes in sets and the power never goes out because somebody forgot to pay the bill.
    The record player clicks quietly as an album drops onto the spinning platter below. Ty lies down next to me. The music is atmospheric, hypnotic.
    He reaches for my hand, listening, waiting.
    I wait, too.
    One song. Two songs.
    Finally I say, “I kissed you first last time, remember.”
    â€œI remember,” he says, rolling toward me. “You skipped ahead.”
    Propped up on one elbow, Ty reaches down and traces a line across my stomach with his finger.
    He leans down, close enough to smell and touch and feel.
    â€œFirst things first,” he says as he slides one hand under the hair at the back of my neck and kisses me. We roll across the rug until we end up with my back pressing against the soft carpet.
    His hair comes to a small shaved point on his forehead that I trace with my fingertips. He closes his eyes.
    His mouth slides down my neck in a rush; his lips are soft and warm.
    Kissing him takes away the whirl that is Winston and the sink full of dirty dishes that is never not there, waiting for me. It all disappears, swirling down the drain with the dried noodles and bits of soggy bread.
    It doesn’t smell like smoke or grease here.
    The TV isn’t forever on, filling up the background with noise. Books are lined up, spines out, actually having been read at least once. There is always milk in the fridge.
    I grab his shoulders. They are solid and strong, a perfectplace for getting lost, for letting go and making a choice that is finally just for me.
    We knit ourselves together, tight and warm, closer and closer, until my body and my breath move along with his and my thoughts of home and everything else in this world slip into the background, like overflow.
    His weight shifts. I feel the cool slip of clothing, a shirt, some jeans. I push my underwear down around my ankles, then over the tips of my toes.
    Ty slides his head past mine, short breaths over my shoulder. And when it hurts, when a sharp pain stabs in a place I never thought possible because it is so deep and private, he slows, and I arch my back, pulling him to me until he surrounds me and swallows me whole.
    When he shudders and stops, I kiss him. He tastes sweet, like always, with honey warm breath and just the tiniest bit of tongue.

9
    T here must be a secret romance conspiracy just for boys. A special class they take that teaches them how to lure us in. The forehead