The Attraction Read Free Page B

on his scalp, and it emphasized his high cheekbones and his pool-blue eyes and the way his nose was the slightest of ski-slopes. She couldn’t help herself—she looked down at his chest, developed from football and wrestling, and then along his abs, the striation of muscle prominent, his pale skin slick with water.
    The millisecond passed. He didn’t notice her watching, and passed by the stairs, heading back to his room.
    Bronwyn caught her breath and sat down on the stairs. Another cigarette, this time for several long, drawn-out puffs.
    The doorway at the top of the stairs went to one of the upperclassman’s rooms. It was open, and she got up and walked through it to the balcony. She went out to the edge of the balcony and looked up at the stars that were just fading as morning came up along the horizon in a new day that was still too distant from the night.
    When she glanced down at the murky front lawn, she saw a guy she was pretty sure was Josh.
    4
    “You’re drunk,” she said. She crouched down in the dew-wet grass beside his prone body. “I hate drunks.”
    “No, I’m not,” he said. “I’m star-gazing.”
    “You didn’t touch any booze?” She kicked at the empty bottle of Jack Daniels at his side.
    “Okay. Busted. Just a little.”
    “Damn it. We go in three hours. Why do you boys get so drunk? What was so awful in your cushy little lives that you have to screw it up by becoming instant alcoholics once you leave Mommy and Daddy behind?”
    He opened his mouth, about to answer, but she said, “No, I don’t want to know. Really. Drunk or stoned, it’s like all of you are getting anaesthetized to the pain of being upper-middle class.”
    “I’m on scholarship.”
    “That doesn’t make you poor. You own a car. None of you lives in the real world. Good God,” she said, shaking her head. “Good God.” She glanced at her watch. “We’re never getting on the road at this rate.”
    “I’m ready.”
    “We’re never getting to L.A.”
    “We’ll get there. I drove from Chicago to Atlanta in one night once. We can get to L.A. in three days. At the most, four. I promise. How many people are coming?”
    “Total, five. I think. You, me, Griff, Tammy, and maybe Ziggy if he doesn’t get too messed up tonight. Everybody chips in, so it’s a free trip for you. You’re the scholarship boy. Packed in like sardines in that junk-heap you call a car.”
    “That’ll be cozy,” he said, laughing.
    “You need to sleep this off before we go. Damn it,” she said. “God, drinking is stupid.”
    “Hey, you smoke.”
    She nodded, and as if this had reminded her, reached over and opened the small leather pouch that served as her purse, and drew out a fresh pack of cigarettes. When she finally tapped one out, lighting it, she said, “Smoking is different.”
    “It’s a nasty habit.”
    “Maybe,” she said, seriously considering this as she took a long drag off the cigarette. “You may be on to something there.”
    “You want to see Orion?” he asked. He pointed to a group of white specks in the dark sky. “Come on. Lie down. Here, use my jacket. There. Now, look.”
    “That’s not Orion.”
    “Okay, it’s something else. It’s the unnamed star. Let’s connect the dots and make them into somebody.”
    “Like who?”
    “There’s Ziggy,” Josh said, drawing an invisible line with his finger, swooping it in the air from a cluster of stars to a single bright one. “See, he’s got his bong.”
    “I see it,” she said. “And there’s Tammy. See the boobs?”
    5
    Josh made a wish on the last star, just before it extinguished.
    Bronywn drifted to sleep beside him, her last cigarette falling on the wet grass as morning arrived.
    They both woke up at the same time, hours later, in the afternoon on Saturday with Josh’s arm slipped beneath Bronwyn’s neck. He opened his eyes and knew, instinctively, that she had also just woken. She sat up, drawing away from him. Glanced at her watch.