A Summer Like No Other

Chapter 11 - Em

I can't get enough of him, of the way his arms tighten around me before one of his hands caresses my cheek, of the way he's kissing like it's inevitable, impossible to resist, incredible, of the way his lips trail down my neck while he whispers my name.

I never want it to end.

I know it needs to stop, otherwise I'm not sure my heart will ever recover.

I slowly pull away and then take his hand in mind. "Thumb war?" I ask and he laughs.

"Thumb war," he replies. It used to be my way of helping him when his parents fought all the time or when he had a bad grade at school, or when he thought his dad would never let him dance.

His eyes smile almost as much as his lips, and the butterflies in my stomach are not only flapping their wings, they're doing pirouettes after pirouettes.

Our thumbs intertwine and we spend the next ten minutes laughing, talking about everything but that sizzling kiss.

"You have no idea how much I want to kiss you again," he says out of nowhere.

"I kissed you," I reply, tilting my head. "Technically, I was the kisser and you, my friend, were the kiss-ee."

"You have a point," he replies and then rubs the back of his neck. My stomach drops to my ankles because that's his tell he's about to do something he doesn't like, something he feels obliged to do. I don't want to hear him tell me what it is. I don't want to hear him tell me that we shouldn't kiss again, so I say it first.

"I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. And I mean, I get it, but it was not grandiose. Nothing to lose my sleep over."

He furrows his eyebrows. "So this kiss meant nothing, right?"

"Nope. Nothing at all." I lean back on the cold studio's floor again. "One way to distract myself."

"I was your distraction?"

"Hurts, no? Imagine all the girls you said that to before; they probably didn't want to only be your flavor of the hour."

"I have an understanding with them—they know what they're getting into," he says and sits next to me. "What was I distracting you from?"

I bite the inside of my cheek and raise my arms above my head, relaxing my body completely, my lips still tingling from our kiss. I turn my head to look at him. He knows almost everything about me, and he's always been there for me: he showed me the ropes when I first got into the School, he covered for me the one time I got drunk at a party and made sure I got home okay, he spent hours rehearsing with me when I asked him to, and even when I didn't. He doesn't say a word, waits for me to be ready to talk again. "I told you. It's hard to see people in the streets, at the movies, in Central Park and wonder... Sometimes, I wonder if they're even still alive, what their stories were, why they left me like this. I could have died, I could have stopped breathing and they wouldn't have known. Why didn't they want me?" I pause. "And I love my family. I do. I don't want any other one, but am I enough for them? Roberto could be on his way to win a Nobel Prize in Physics—he makes them proud. I can't even make it to the top of my class. And part of me thinks it's because I can never clear my mind of all the questions I have. I can never let go, because I don't know what I'm supposed to let go of."

He clears his throat, shifts next to me. I sit up and our arms touch. They're aligned. He clears his throat again—I've never heard him this nervous. I tilt my head. "What's wrong?"

"What if I could help you?"

"What?" I stand up so fast my head gets as dizzy as if I didn't use an anchor point for a pirouette.

"What if I could help you find your mom?" Nick asks, rubbing the back of his neck and then glancing at the door. "What if I told you that my father knows something?"

"What do you mean?"

"I overheard my father arguing with my mom last night. He was yelling at her, and telling her not to leave him."

My heart aches for him, at the way his voice turns all robotic as it does when he tries to protect himself. But before I can say anything, he continues. "He said something about your adoption, about your mom not knowing about whatever it is he's hiding and telling my mom not to contact Claire Carter."

My body shifts back and my heart hammers. "Wh-what are you saying?" I shake my head without saying another word. Claire Carter? That's not possible—it doesn't make any sense.

"That's what he said. And I tried to find more information yesterday, but I couldn't. The name sounds familiar." His voice turns into a noisy background. Claire Carter—I remember that name. It's fuzzy, but I remember it. I've only seen her once years ago at one of Dad's and Nick's Dad's office parties. I remember Mom laughing with her at the party. I was maybe eight. Mom told her she talked to her more than she talked to Dad because he was always busy in meetings.

She was Dad's assistant.

Author's note:

Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're enjoying getting to know Em & Nick! I'll be publishing two new chapters every Friday and would love to hear from you, so don't hesitate to leave a comment. The full novella is already published/available on all e-retailers for only $0.99 in case you don't want to wait for the next chapter :) More information on www.elodienowodazkij.com :)