A Pocket Full of Panic

The din of the hallway was a million miles away from Joey's consciousness as he walked out of the classroom. His right jean pocket held a key. Her key. Joey could feel it against his skin through the thin cotton lining. It weighed practically nothing. It was heavier than anything he'd ever lifted before.

The door clicked shut behind him, a thin layer of wood between himself and his teacher. He realized, as his legs carried him unsteadily away from the classroom, that teacher might no longer be the right word for Miss Matthews. Eliza. It might not be the right word for Eliza. What to call her, though, was beyond him. He had no framework for what he was going through, and so he felt exposed, uncertain.

And aroused.

There was no denying it. Eliza Matthews was hot. He had always thought so. And now, thanks to a magical mishap, Joey was the target of her affection. He shouldn't love it. The moral, upstanding part of his psychological makeup kept telling him that he should avoid her, do anything he could to try to change things back to the way they were. But the more he thought about it, how good were things for him before?

Life had never been great for Joey Granger. Consistently overshadowed, overlooked, underappreciated. He had a hard time keeping up in class, making friends, and thinking about the future. The amount of positive attention he'd received from women in the past two days was more than he'd ever had in his entire life. Joey knew he didn’t want to be the kind of guy who used his new power recklessly, taking without thinking about those he affected. But he also knew that he absolutely didn't want to go back to the way things were.

And besides, with the women he'd already changed, what was done was done, right?

The thought came suddenly, unbidden. Was that who he was becoming? His stomach churned, surging with anxiety. He paused at a pillar and leaned against it, hands on his knees, trying to steady his breathing. Images flashed through his mind. Bianca, the waitress, leaning in to kiss him. His mother's hand on his knee as they drove. Madison showing off her body for him in the morning light. Eliza, her finger hooked on his belt, pulling him in...

A rush of heat flooded through his body.

No.

He needed to breathe. To think. To stop picturing her lips so close, her voice in his ear, the warmth of her body, her breasts pressed against his chest. He needed to...

“Joey?”

He turned too fast, his stomach flipping as Madison’s familiar voice broke through the storm in his head. She stood a few feet away, her brows knit together in concern, her brown eyes scanning his face.

“You okay?”

Was he okay? He stared at the beautiful young woman before him, this incredible creation that shouldn't even be giving him the time of day, and yet her whole worldview had been rewritten to have him at the centre. Joey had stolen Madison Ashford's future. He wasn't sure he was even in the neighbourhood of okay.

And then she reached out and took his hand, lacing her fingers through his, and pulled him down the hallway.

“You need air.”

The cool breeze hit Joey’s face as he staggered after Madison, aware of the looks and whispers of other students at they watched the unlikely couple leave the school. Weaving past the clusters of students, Madison led him to the far edge of the schoolyard, where it was quieter. Under the shade of an old oak tree, she pulled him down onto the grass. His back rested against the trunk as she knelt in front of him, eyes studying his expression.

"I have a cousin with an anxiety disorder," Madison said quietly after they had sat together in silence for a few minutes, "Her name is Beatrice, but we call her Bea. Sometimes she hyperventilates, sometimes she feels dizzy, sometimes she has chest pains," Madison bent low so that her face was close to Joey's, "sometimes she says the world is moving too fast and she can't keep up."

Joey looked at Madison, a girl who had been so emotionally unavailable as long as he'd known her, who held herself apart from others, above others. Madison Ashford didn't have time for deep connections, for being ****, for drawing close. She had places to be and things to accomplish.

But this Madison Ashford, the one that Joey had had a hand in shaping, was different. This Madison Ashford seemed to care about him.

"I don't..."

"It's okay," she took his head in her hands, leaned in and gave him a small, gentle kiss on the lips, then, "This feeling isn't going to kill you. When Bea feels this way, it only lasts for a bit. It'll pass."

Joey was awash in sensation: the rough bark against his back, the warmth of the sun on his skin, the softness of Madison's hands on his face. But it all felt distant, like background noise. Joey was hopelessly lost in the depth of her brown eyes.

This.

This was what he wanted.

Joey knew that it wasn't real, or that it hadn't begun that way. But under that tree, on that grass, it felt real. It had to be real! He could feel her hands, he had felt her lips. Joey had been alone for eighteen years and now Madison Ashford had found him. Did it matter terribly how she found him? Perhaps, but maybe that was irrelevant. Joey couldn't change her back even if he tried. So what was the point in trying? Maybe he was asking the wrong questions. Maybe rather than worrying about whether he had broken something, stolen something, maybe he should accept that things were the way they were and worry about how he can make things better. He had an amazing power at his command. What Joey needed to do was to start thinking about the future, start looking at where he and Madison were then and there, and do whatever he could to shape the future for both of them.

His heart slowed. His breathing steadied.

He leaned in.

It was just a kiss.

And then, as if the ice had melted around him, it wasn’t just a kiss.

Madison responded immediately, her hands sliding down from his face to his back, curling around the fabric of his t-shirt. Madison shifted toward him, her knees ending up on either side of his legs, straddling his lap. One hand slid up and nested in his hair, the other held him tightly against herself. She moaned into his mouth as their lips and tongues explored, deeper and deeper, closer and closer.

It was not a kiss. It was so much more.

The world around them disappeared. The only thing that remained was Joey and Madison, Madison and Joey, together.

What had started as slow, sweet warmth gave way to something hungrier. Joey couldn't tell who was driving it forward, whether Madison's magically informed desperation or Joey's own years of neglect, but he didn't care. The current of passion had carried him far beyond the reach of rational thought. Madison’s lips parted against his, and his whole body went hot as her tongue flicked against his. His pulse pounded as she pressed even closer, one of her hands slipping under his t-shirt and scratching his back, all while she subtly ground against him, giving Joey's nether regions feelings he had never felt before.

Joey lost track of time. Lost track of everything. Except Madison.

The way she tasted. The way her fingers tugged lightly at his hair. The soft little noise she made when he tentatively slid a hand to her waist.

This was real.

And he wanted it to never stop.