“Don’t talk.” Kissing him again, I straddle his hips. His faded jeans are soft against my thighs.
His hands hang in midair for a moment, as if he’s uncertain where to put them. He decides on my lower back, right above where my T-shirt rides up, but I can feel some of his fingers against my bare skin. Again, he doesn’t move his hands, doesn’t reach under my shirt to unhook my bra. It’s like all but his lips are frozen.
Connor baffles me. He doesn’t act like any boy I’ve ever met. I pull my mouth away from his and reach for the hem of my shirt.
“I was thinking maybe we could—” Connor’s words die an instant death as my shirt slides up over my head. His eyes flicker to my half-naked chest before he looks away. “What, um—” His gaze is fixed on something over my shoulder. Almost as if he’s talking to someone else, as if I’m not even here. “Are we—?”
My face goes hot as it hits me. I’ve read this wrong. “I thought—” How could he not want me? He’s a boy. This makes no sense at all. “Forget it.”
I can’t get off his lap fast enough.
“Callie, wait.”
I don’t wait. I shove myself into my shirt and run. It takes me a couple of tries, but I locate the GREG speed-dial icon on my cell phone. As it rings, I hear Connor calling my name. Not wanting to face him, I duck behind a thick shock of sea grass that decorates a neighbor’s front yard.
“Can you come get me?” I keep my voice low when Greg answers. “Please?”
“Is everything all right?”
“I just—I want to come home.”
“Okay.” I hear his keys jingle through the phone. The immediacy of his response is reassuring. “You’re at Nick’s house, right?”
“No, um, I’m at a place called Pointe Alexis.”
“I’m not even going to ask right now,” he says. “I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes.”
After giving him the address of my sea grass hiding spot, I work out a text message to Kat, telling her I went home. I don’t want her to worry. She texts a reply, but I don’t look or answer. I slide the phone in my pocket and wait for Greg.
“Callie?” Connor’s voice is closer now. I hug my knees against my chest and make myself as small as possible so he won’t see me. It reminds me of the way I’d curl myself up, hoping Frank would mistake me for a pillow—even though nothing about this night is the same as back then—and I press the heels of my hands hard against my eyes to keep from crying. Connor’s phone chimes, and I imagine him looking at the screen—probably at a message from Kat, calling off the search. He swears softly, and his footsteps fade away as he returns to the party.
The scene between us plays on a continuous loop in my head, the humiliation catching flame on my face over and over until I’m scorched. I don’t understand what happened, why Connor didn’t want me. And I don’t understand why I still feel every bit as worthless as I felt after Danny, after Matt. After Frank.
I stay hidden until I see a pair of headlights coming up the street and Greg’s SUV pulls into the driveway beside me.
“Are you okay?” he asks, and the concern in his voice undoes me.
I shake my head, tears creeping down my cheeks. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Callie—” Greg blows out a frustrated breath. “At least tell me if there’s some idiot up at that party I need to kill.”
“There isn’t.” The only idiot at the party was me, but I don’t tell him that. “Am I in trouble?”
“The short answer is yes.” Greg puts the SUV in reverse and backs down the driveway. “But we’ll talk about that tomorrow.”
Chapter 6
“Relax,” Greg says the next afternoon, as we cross the front porch of an old house with faded gray shingles. It belongs to his mother, Georgia, and my stomach is wound yarn-tight at the prospect of meeting her—and apparently every member of Greg’s extended family. My homecoming and Thanksgiving combined in one belated feast. “As soon as they start eating and drinking, they’ll forget all about you.”
I smooth my palms down the skirt of the green sundress Phoebe let me borrow. I’m not used to wearing dresses and it exposes more of my legs than makes me comfortable, but it has flowers embroidered around the hem that remind me of the shirt Ancilla bought me. Phoebe also gave me a pair of sandals embellished with wooden bits and said I could keep them.
“We should go shopping tomorrow,” she said. “Living with three guys, it would be a fun change to go with another girl.”
Even though Phoebe has always known I exist, it can’t be easy to have a new person who doesn’t belong to her in her household, so I said I’d think about it. I didn’t tell her Kat has already appointed herself my personal stylist.
The age-scarred wooden front door opens and a woman with wiry dark-gray hair pushes Greg aside to get to me, enveloping me in a hug so tight I feel as if my ribs might crack. Her hair tickles my nose, but her scent—the rose soap smell—reminds me of making oatmeal raisin cookies and singing a song about the moon.
“Oh, my little Callista,” she croons softly in my ear and rocks me from side to side in a way that feels familiar. I recognize her voice. She’s my yiayoúla, my grandma. And while I don’t exactly remember her, bits and pieces of memories are sprinkled through my mind. Even more than Greg. “We’ve missed you so much.”
Georgia stands back to look at me—her hands clutching my shoulders—and I see my face in her wrinkles, my eyes behind her red-rimmed glasses. It’s strange to go your whole life thinking your DNA is all your own, and then see yourself in someone else.
“Come.” She drags me inside, into a living room overstuffed with people—on couches, perched on the arms of chairs, standing in every available space—and shoves me into a circle of eyes. More people than I’ve met in my whole life are packed in this house. A baby whimpers from some other room, and a little girl about Tucker’s age says, “But I don’t want to meet her, Mommy.”
“Everyone,” Georgia says. “Here is our Callista, home at last.”
They all start clapping, except for the little girl, who puts her hands over her ears and sticks her tongue out at me. I try to feel as if I’m part of this, but they’re all strangers. Some of the elderly women begin to converge, but my grandmother fends them off as if she’s my personal bodyguard.
“Let the poor girl breathe,” she scolds, as if she didn’t just squeeze the wind out of me herself. Behind me Greg snickers and she shoots him a stern look, which makes me smile.
Georgia keeps her arm wrapped firmly around my waist as she introduces me to more aunts, uncles, and cousins than I’ll ever be able to remember. Some of the old ones have accents so thick they sound as if they arrived from Greece this morning. They touch my face with papery fingers. Verifying I’m really me, maybe? I’m not sure. It creeps me out, but I don’t say anything. I smile and nod and say “thank you” a lot.
“Ma.” Greg comes up with Kat at his side. I’m glad to see both of them. “Maybe it’s time to give Callie a break.”
“You’re right,” Georgia says. “And I should check on the dolmades. Ekaterina, you have such a pretty face. Why do you cover it up with so much makeup?”
Kat rolls her eyes, but before she can say anything, my grandmother is pushing her way through the crowd to the kitchen. My cousin links her arm through mine, and I let her lead me out the front door to sit on the porch.
“I am so hungover.” She drops onto the wooden swing, making the chain shake. “Did you get in trouble?”
“I’m grounded for a week.”
“Ouch.” She winces. “I’m sorry. My mom didn’t say anything so I assume Greg didn’t tell her.”
“He was thinking about it,” I say. “But I talked him out of it.”
“You are the best. I owe you.” She bumps her shoulder against mine. “So what happened with Connor? He came back to the party looking kind of freaked out.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
Her eyes narrow. “He told Nick the same thing. Did you—?”
“No.”