Foes & Cons by Carrie Aarons (i am malala young readers edition .txt) 📗

It all clicks into place now. He is the one who has been pilfering the apple pie and hiding it in our take-home bag. But why?

Sawyer doesn’t answer me, just dumbly stands there with the pie in his hand as if he’s unsure what to do with it now.

“Why would you do that?” My heart is thumping too quickly. “Are you the one who has done it in past years?”

His green eyes regard me intensely, and I’m aware of every inch of my body.

“Apple pie reminds you of your mom.” He shrugs.

The cracks in my heart, the ones that have always existed but I’ve tried to superglue over, widen like chasms. The entire Grand Canyon exists in my chest, and I feel the ache of unreturned love heavy on my soul.

“It’s the only dessert she ever used to make for me, before she left,” I whisper, trying to keep the tears, making my eyes glassy, from falling.

He remembers that. Even after all the bad blood between us, he remembers my one sincere connection with the woman who is supposed to love me unconditionally, but just can’t. Even in all the years he’s hated me, Sawyer has given me this small gesture of love, of comfort on a day when my mother should have been present.

“You deserve the whole thing because of that, I’d say.” His voice is low, and it makes me want to cry even more.

“But … why? How did I never know?” I shake my head, trying to make sense of the shifting universe transforming before me.

Sawyer walks slowly to me, his feet seeming to move in slow motion. But one second he’s across the room, holding that godforsaken pie, and the next he’s in front of me.

“What do you want me to say, Blair? That even after everything, I can’t give you up?”

I swear, I must dream him saying that. I also must dream him putting his palms to my cheeks, and the way my chin tips up and my tongue darts out to wet my lips.

But it’s not a dream. Neither is his hungry stare, fixated on my lips, one I see only for a moment before his head dips and then …

Our mouths meet, a cautious touch. Sensation blooms in me from the inside out, and it seems ridiculous that I’ve waited so long to do this. Shivers wrack my body, heat plunges to my core, and I feel like I’m shaking as Sawyer’s hands move from my cheeks to my neck to my waist.

I press against him, forgetting anything that isn’t his touch, his smell, his lips. My eyes are closed and yet I feel like my senses are more heightened than ever. My nipples harden against the hard plane of his chest, even with all of the layers of clothing between us.

Sawyer groans, or maybe grunts, as he deepens the kiss, moving it from a testing of the waters to a true, passionate lip lock. Before I realize what I’m doing, I’ve let my tongue roll into his mouth, doing an erotic dance with his that makes my knees tremble.

I’ve not kissed a lot of boys, admittedly. Maybe one or two up until this point. I’ve never had a boy’s hands anywhere but halfway up my shirt. And yet, right now, I would let Sawyer pick me up and take me, take my body, wherever he wants it to go.

He pulls back, panting. Somewhere, far in the depths of my brain, I realize that we’re standing in his kitchen, all of our parents on the other side of the door.

“Was that like kissing your brother? Do I need to go brush my teeth?” His voice could cut glass, it’s so harsh, and the expression he wears is lethal, but that boyish dimple still pops out.

I want to sob, that was so perfect. I don’t think I’ve ever felt something so right, so singularly flawless, in my life. The kiss seems to complete me; it clears my vision and makes the world spin correctly after it hasn’t for so long. Sawyer is using my own words against me, the ones I told everyone at that basement party years ago, but I’m too flushed and bothered to fully grasp his ire.

Sawyer’s hand is still pressed to the back of my neck, his other arm wrapped around my waist. I can’t speak, and my head seems to move of its own volition. My nose is inches from his as I move back in, because it might be shameful, but I need to feel his mouth on mine again.

But he ducks away, swerving my advance. I blink, dazed and reeling. “What?”

“I can’t … I don’t … my head is fucking upside down.” He releases me, seeming to curse himself, and runs two frustrated hands through his chocolate brown hair.

Slowly, the world comes back into view. The rose-colored hue fades from the corner of my vision. I realize what he’s done, what we just did. It may have taken me a minute or two longer than Sawyer to begin freaking out, but once I can breathe normally again, my internal alarms start blaring.

“The pie … it’s …” I can’t even complete a sentence, much less a thought.

My dad calls me from the dining room, and I stare at Sawyer, my eyes round as headlights. He can’t even look at me, and my cheeks burn with shame, confusion, and something else I can’t name.

Neither of us says another word, but as I back out of the kitchen to respond to my father, I do it with my gaze still pinned on him.

He just changed the entire game. And now I have no idea what it is we’re playing at.

18

Sawyer

The same obnoxious pop song keeps blasting over and over again, the wood of the basketball court reverberating the annoying beat throughout the gym.

“I can’t believe we volunteered to do this. Again. As if soccer practice isn’t enough.” Glavin huffs out an annoyed