Be My Reason Read online

  He takes me for ice cream and pays. Is this a date? Then he asks if it is okay if we head down towards The Bend. The Bend is a secluded place where kids sometimes hang out late at night. It is along the Little Black River, just this side of the South Carolina border. There is a place where the river curves around like a hairpin, thus it earned the name The Bend. I’m not even sure it is officially named that or if some kids just made it up. All I know is that legendary things have happened there and I’m about to go there with none other than the gorgeous captain of the baseball team.

  We pull into the small makeshift gravel lot to see the place devoid of other cars. He looks around at the empty lot. “We can leave if you aren’t comfortable being out here alone.”

  What, is he crazy? That’s why I want to stay! “No, it’s okay, we can stay.”

  “Good.” He smiles. “Because I’ve been dying to kiss you all night.” He slides closer to me on the bench seat of his pickup truck. He puts a hand behind my neck and another on my knee. He slowly closes the gap between us, eyes locked onto mine and I’m certain that even in the relative darkness I can see those deep blue eyes of his burning into mine. He shifts his eyes down to see my tongue come out, wetting my lips in an invitation. I can smell him as he inches closer. He smells of clean, fresh laundry and something else that is pure Nate. My heart is pounding out of my chest and I swear I can hear the blood flowing in my ears. His hot breath mingles with mine as he draws even closer, with a slight hesitation, asking me with his eyes if he can continue on this journey.

  Oh, yes, please.

  I’m not sure what to do with my hands so I just let them fall onto his legs. As our lips touch for the first time, it is like magic the way they connect—like they are two parts of a puzzle finally put into place. His lips gently caress mine in a seemingly never-ending dance of soft touches before I feel his tongue glide across my bottom lip asking for me to give him more. I part my lips for him and his tongue enters my mouth, mingling with my own as heat rises through me along with a wanting that I never knew existed. He tastes of mint chocolate chip ice cream and I silently vow to never again eat any other flavor.

  This, right here, is the best moment of my life. We kiss for . . . seconds? Minutes? My lips feel swollen and I struggle to get my breathing under control. I need to know what is going on in his head. I need to know what is going on in my head. I pull away slightly and ask, “Why haven’t you ever asked me out before?” Then I feel my face heat up. “I mean, not that this is a date.” Oh my God, now he thinks that I think this is a date.

  “I’ve wanted to all year but baseball takes up so much time and energy. I couldn’t blow my chances of getting recruited by a top school,” he explains. “But now that the season is over, I have more time to do other things and get to know other people.” He smiles down at me. “And, yes, Brooklyn, I’d say this qualifies as a date.” He squeezes my knee. “Our first date.” He looks at me sweetly.

  I’m still stuck on I’ve wanted to all year . . . and then I realize he’s said we are on a date. Holy crap. A date, a first date, that implies there will be more. I want to twirl around, scream with delight and high-five someone. I catch myself looking around to see if anyone else is witness to me, Brooklyn Vaughn, ordinary band girl and baker wanna-be, on a date with the Nathan Riley.

  I remember that we are alone and that I’ve just experienced what I can only describe as the best, most unbelievable, earth-shattering kiss of all time. “Okay then,” I say with a small voice because I can’t believe what I’m about to tell him. “I guess I wouldn’t mind if you did that some more.”

  He smiles down at me, takes my face in his hands and kisses me again and again until I not only can’t feel my lips, but I’m pretty much sure I don’t care about anything except his hands on me and what I want those hands to do to me. I think back to the few kisses and over-the-clothes encounters I had with Chris Wright, the lead alto sax player in the band. Those experiences did nothing to prepare me for what I feel when Nate’s hands are on me. He pushes up my shirt a little and as he touches my side at my ribs and starts to run his hands upwards, I think I’m going to melt into a pool of hot lava if he continues what he is doing.

  Please . . . please continue what you are doing.

  He reaches my nothing special, didn’t-know-anyone-was-going-to-see-it, bra and breaks our kiss long enough to ask if he can undo it. I don’t think I can speak so I simply nod my head and reach down to help him maneuver the clip at the front.

  Thank goodness it is so dark outside because I can only picture what I must look like with my top disheveled, my bra hanging off my arms and what I can only imagine must be a look of shock on my face that he wants to do such things with me. Grateful that he leaves my top in place, because I really don’t want to look naked if someone pulls up next to us, I lean in and kiss his neck under his ear in a bold move that surprises me but feels so right. “Ah, Brooklyn, that feels so good.” I feel him shift around in the seat, trying to arrange himself in his jeans. I’m silently exploding with joy over the fact that I’m affecting him the same way he is affecting me.

  His hands caress my meager breasts. The sensation is incredible, sending waves of electricity straight to that bundle of nerves between my legs. I let out an involuntary moan of pleasure which only makes him take in a sharp breath and mutter, “Oh, God.”

  He takes my hand and places it on his jeans and slowly moves it up his thigh. I can’t believe I’m doing this. I’m scared to death but relieved that he is helping me along because I’m not sure I would know what to do. In a leap of faith and certain I may die of embarrassment, I look away shyly and tell him, “Um, Nate, I haven’t done this before.”

  Oh, gods of all virgins that don’t know what they are doing, strike me dead now.

  He keeps his hand on top of mine and runs his other hand quickly through his hair before placing it under my chin, turning my head so that we are eye to eye. “Would it surprise you to know that I haven’t done this before either?” he says. Even through the darkness he notices the shock displayed on my face and he laughs nervously. “Well, I’ve done this before.” He squeezes my hand that still rests very close to his hardness. “But I haven’t done what I think we are about to do.”

  I shut my gaping mouth and try to form another coherent sentence. “Are you sure?” I ask. Yeah, not what I was going for. God, I’m stupid.

  “Am I sure I’m still a virgin, Brooklyn?” he asks with raised eyebrows. “Yes, I’m sure.”

  All of a sudden the question in the back of my mind—will I or won’t I—is answered. Although I’m still nervous as hell, the fear is gone. Hearing that we could do this together, something unknown to both of us, somehow seems even more intimate and exciting.

  I start to think about what we are going to do. Will it hurt? I wonder what I will feel like after. Will I have an orgasm and will it feel different than the ones I’ve had by myself? Oh, God, will he watch me? Will I bleed? I wish Emma had prepared me for this.

  He thankfully interrupts my silent freak out. “I mean, if you were thinking of doing the same thing, that is.”

  “Um, Nate . . .” I think carefully about how to ask him this. “If we do this, does it mean, uh . . .” I’m so flustered. “Are we, um—”

  “Brooklyn,” he cuts me off, “will you go out with me? Like—walk you to class, eat lunch with you and drive you home—out with me?” He grins over at me and I’m still so fully aware of where he has kept my hand during this entire conversation. I’m even more aware of what is lurking underneath it.

  If I wasn’t completely sure a minute ago, I am now. This boy already owns my heart. He might as well own my body, too. “Yes, I would like that,” I say. That makes him smile a smile I’ve never seen before—one that reaches his eyes. I thought I knew all of them. This one, I think, is reserved just for me.

  He moves my hand up to the buttons on his jeans and the intention is clear, he wants me to unbutton them. I do so with trembling finge
rs but then I’m not sure what should happen next.

  Do I reach inside and grab him? Does he take off his pants? How am I supposed to touch him?

  He saves me from my dilemma by taking my hands in his, and then using his mouth he trails kisses from my lips down to my neck. Then he follows a path along my jaw up to my ear making me shiver and producing goose bumps up and down my arms. I feel his smile against my skin before he gently sucks on a place behind my ear that has me practically panting. He pulls back, breathing heavily, locks his eyes with mine and puts a hand on my knee, sliding it up my leg and under my skirt, all the way up to the apex of my thighs. I think I am about to combust and, then, because I know he is silently asking my permission, I let out the breath I was holding and nod my head slightly.

  I can already feel the wetness in my panties and when he touches me there I let out a moan. “Shit, Brooklyn,” he murmurs. “If you keep doing that this will be over before we get started.”

  Really? Note to self: throaty noises drive Nate wild.

  He moves my panties aside and slips a finger inside me. I’m so wet now that it just glides in and out easily. He puts a second finger in and I start to feel a burning down deep inside. He again trails feather-like kisses up my neck and around my ears, blowing on the places he just kissed. His hot breath, heavy breathing and soft kisses are only sending me higher and higher. Then he starts circling his thumb around my sensitive nub while keeping up the movement with his fingers still inside me. Soon my thighs tighten and my insides start to quiver.

  Oh my God, I’m going to come. “Oh, Nate. Oh, God,” I say breathlessly.

  “Oh baby, that’s it,” he whispers. Hearing his voice along with the endearment he uses pushes me over the edge and I’m floating then falling as rapid waves are slithering down my body and I dig my nails into Nate’s arm. As I come down from the high, my throat is dry, my lip aches from biting it and even my fingers are tingling.

  Before I fully enter reality again, he has pulled down his jeans past his thighs and is pulling me on top of him so that I’m facing him, straddling him and sitting on his knees. He stops to get something from his wallet. It’s a condom. Oh my God, I completely forgot. What if—

  “Brooklyn, are you sure about this?” He pulls me from the thought. “I’ll stop right now if this isn’t what you want.” He looks up at me and I know for certain that he would stop if I asked. I also know for certain that I don’t want him to.

  “No, Nate. Please don’t stop. I’m ready,” I beg.

  With my panties still pushed to the side, he grabs my hips and oh, so slowly, eases me down onto him. “Jesus, Brooklyn! That feels . . .” His eyes close and his breathing speeds up as he fills me like nothing and no one ever has before.

  “Oh, God,” I hear myself mutter as I get used to this foreign feeling of being stretched from the inside. It doesn’t hurt like I thought it would, a little uncomfortable maybe, but it isn’t painful. He starts to move and I feel the fullness and the friction and think that, yes, I could get used to this.

  He opens his eyes and watches me as he moves faster and faster. In the moonlight, I can see his mouth open, his eyes glaze over, and his brows scrunch together. Then he shuts his eyes tight and shouts, “Brooke . . . aaaah!” He grabs my hips, holding me still as he finds his release.

  We stay together for just a minute and then he helps me climb off him. I wrinkle my nose and wince as we come apart.

  “Are you okay? Was that okay?” he asks with concern.

  “Yes, I’m okay,” I say shyly, not really knowing how to act or what to do at this moment. I pull my skirt down and adjust my panties but it’s too dark to see anything clearly. Oh, please, gods of recently deflowered virgins, let there not be blood all over my skirt.

  He gets rid of the condom and fixes his jeans then reaches over to grab my hand. We sit like this for a little while listening to Nickelback sing ‘Someday’. I wonder if the radio has been on this entire time.

  Headlights blind me as a car pulls into the lot. The incredible timing of this is not lost on me. I check my watch and see that I’ve got only twenty minutes until curfew. “I need to be home by eleven,” I remind him.

  “Right. We better get going then.” He leans over, still holding my hand and places a chaste kiss on my lips before briefly letting go of my hand to start the engine and back out of the lot. He turns the truck around and drives out of the one place that I will remember for as long as I walk this Earth.

  We make the short drive to my house in comfortable silence while holding hands and listening to the radio. I smile when he turns into my neighborhood and asks, “Which way?” Then he shrugs because he knows that I know that he knows what neighborhood I live in and that is pretty cool. I direct him to my house and when he pulls up to the curb the first thing I notice is Emma’s face peeking out from behind the curtain of her second floor window. I roll my eyes, but smile, knowing I’m in for the Spanish Inquisition.

  Nate turns off the engine. “Wait here,” he says. He quickly hops out and runs around the front of the truck over to my door and opens it.

  Sigh. I could totally get used to this. I get out and he walks me up to the door.

  “I have to spend the entire day helping my dad tomorrow, but can I meet you at your locker Monday before school?” he asks me.

  Hmm, let me think . . . YES, YES, YES!

  “Okay, sure.”

  “Good. Tonight was really great, Brooklyn.” He smiles, leans in and kisses me lightly on the lips and then turns to walk away, looking back at me. “I’ll see you Monday then.” I watch him walk down the sidewalk to his car, get in and drive away waving a hand out the window as he does.

  ~ ~ ~

  As I sit on the bus to school, courtesy of Emma’s early morning dentist appointment, I think about spending yesterday holed up with Emma, re-living the entire night I spent with Nate down to every minute little detail. Nothing less would satisfy her curiosity. We both cried a little, laughed a lot and there may have even been a high five or two mixed in.

  As I glance around, I wonder if I look different because I seem to be getting some strange stares. Can they tell I’m not a virgin anymore? Maybe it is just this huge smile I’m wearing this morning.

  I hear bits and pieces of conversation through the regular commotion that ensues on the very loud bus. “. . . they just up and left?”, “. . . mom was arrested . . .”, “. . . my dad said it was prostitution . . .”, “. . . Nate say anything?” Nate? This gets my attention and I stretch in vain to try and hear more as we pull up to my school.

  When I get off the bus, my friend and fellow flautist, Abby, grabs me by the elbow and practically runs me to the nearest bathroom, shooing out everyone that was in there. “What happened with you and Nate this weekend and have you heard anything yet?” she asks, with a worried look on her face that more than concerns me.

  I give her the abbreviated version of my Saturday night. Then I ask, “What do you mean have I heard anything yet?”

  “Oh, Lyn.” She closes her eyes and sighs big. I mean big. “I don’t know how to tell you this.”

  “Oh my God, did something happen? Did he get in an accident? Is he dead?” I’m seriously freaking out right now. My hands are getting shaky and she had better start talking or I’m going to beat it out of her.

  “Um, his dad took off yesterday with him and his sister. They just up and left. Apparently his mom and some other women were arrested Saturday night. Something to do with running a prostitution ring out of her spa.” She looks like she is about to cry as she says, “Nobody seems to know where they went but my friend who lives down the street from Nate said a moving truck showed up late yesterday and totally cleaned out their house.”

  “What?” I’m trying to process this information. He said he had to help his dad all day yesterday but he didn’t say anything about moving. I’m so confused. “He said he would meet me at my locker today.” I look up at her like she will have all the answers.


  “I’m so sorry, Lyn.” She looks at me with a helpless look on her face. “He’s gone. Not even his teammates know where he is. I don’t think he is coming back.” Her voice cracks a little.

  My shirt feels wet and I look down at it when it dawns on me that I am crying. I’m crying and I can’t breathe. I drop my books, spilling loose papers over the dirty linoleum. I lean over and put my hands on my knees and try to take in a breath, but all I’m getting are short little puffs in and out.

  “Lyn, are you okay?” I shake my head at her, unable to talk, barely able to breathe. “I think you are hyperventilating. I’m going to get the nurse.” She runs out of the bathroom and I’m alone. Alone, just like he has left me. I back up until I hit the cold, hard concrete wall and I sink slowly down to the floor, struggling to breathe, trying to figure out if my heart is still beating. I know it’s not, because it is no longer within me. He took it with him.

  Chapter One

  Eight years later . . .

  “Again, Michael?” I ask through the wave of exhaustion that has taken over my body. “You know I love you, but aren’t you worn out yet?”

  “Well, you know what they say. If at first you don’t succeed—”

  Swat. I hit him playfully on the chest.

  “What?” he says. “I really want to get you there and if we keep going, I think I can.”

  I think men are brainwashed by the movies. I mean, in real life, we don’t always come. And we definitely don’t always come at the exact same time. In fact, I think I could knock on wood and cross my fingers while hopping on one foot at the precise moment that all the stars align and that still wouldn’t happen. But, hey, I guess all this trying doesn’t exactly hurt my chances.