by LJ Evans
“Like what?” she asked.
“Like I’m leaving the day after tomorrow.”
She shrugged. “Haven’t you ever had a one-night stand?”
“No, I haven’t.” That kind of thing wasn’t me, but even if it was me, I was pretty sure it wouldn’t be me with her. “That’s not what you want either, Ginny.”
“You think you know me, but remember, I keep surprising you.”
“You really think you’d be okay with that? Sleeping with me and then just walking away?”
She looked away. “It’s on my bucket list.”
“Your bucket list has a one-night stand on it?” I was dense, like the night before, trying to catch up. She left me, dug through her bag, and came back with a journal that had seen better days. She turned to the beginning—not the first page that anyone would automatically see if they happened to open it, but a few pages in. She handed it to me, and I read:
Things to do before I graduate:
Get drunk
Dance on a table
Be kissed in public
Feel a kiss
Lose my virginity
Have a one-night stand
Do something no one expects
Take a salsa class
Enter a Krav Maga competition
Go to Europe
Skydive
“These are just the things I want to do before I graduate. I think you should have several bucket lists in one lifetime, don’t you?” she asked.
I was still dumbfounded by the list and the things that were crossed off.
“I haven’t ever really thought about it…when did you take salsa?”
She did a sexy little dance step that made every part of me wake up. I moved to the edge of the bed, reached out, and pulled her to me. She sat on my lap, and then I was kissing her like I had the night before. Like I wanted it to last forever. Days. Months. Years. Like I wanted to make sure she never forgot it, and yet, I knew she’d have to.
She ran her hands through my hair, over my shoulders, and then kept going down until she was rubbing against my jeans and the erection inside. I pulled back, grabbed her hands, and lay back on the bed, bringing her with me.
“I feel like there are a bunch of items on your list that could go together,” I said.
She nodded. “I mean, I didn’t think I’d lose my virginity and have a one-night stand all in one fell swoop, but it works.”
“Ginny, I’m not sleeping with you. Making out with you? Sure. Touching you? Damn straight. Watching you fall apart in my hands? Absolutely. But I am not having sex with you.”
She froze.
“Why not?” she asked, her voice a little sad.
“Like I already said, I’m not that person, and you’re not either. I think we’d both regret it.”
She lifted her chin. Defiant. Daring me to dare her.
“Besides,” I continued, “the whole point of a one-night stand is to not see the person ever again. I kinda think we’re going to bump into each other now and again with Mayson and Grace together.”
She was silent. I ran my hand over her hair and down her shoulder to her waist where my fingers found her bare skin. “Can I ask you something?”
She nodded.
“You didn’t mark off ‘feel a kiss.’ Did you not feel it?”
She kissed me, tongue swiping at my lips, hands tugging me so that our bodies were folded and molded together.
She pulled away and asked, “Did you feel it?”
“God, yes. Every single second of it.”
She smiled. “Me, too!”
She was happy again. The momentary frustration at me telling her I wouldn’t sleep with her was gone. I wanted to sleep with her. It was obvious to her that my body was aching to do just that.
“But you didn’t cross it off.”
“Not yet. I was kind of busy today. Plus, I thought I’d be able to cross a few things off at once.”
I didn’t go there. I’d already said what I had to say on the matter. Instead, I asked, “Where in Europe do you want to go?”
“Ireland, like we talked about. But also Paris. I want to see Big Ben and take a boat ride on the Rhine. I’d love to explore the ruins of Pompeii. I thought I might have been able to take a foreign exchange class for the spring semester next year, but it didn’t work out.”
“Why not?”
“The class I wanted was full before I could sign up.”
“So why haven’t you just gone?”
I hardly thought money was the issue. They were swimming in it. She shook her head. “No, I told you, I’m needed here when school isn’t in session.”
I had to imagine her parents, who were both highly successful people, didn’t need their college-aged daughter to keep their worlds running.
“I bet you like to think that,” I said softly, trying to take the bite out of the words.
“What?”
“You know what I mean. You let the fear of doing the unexpected stop you, but you hide it under the excuse of being needed.” She was glaring at me again. “I mean, I think your family adores you—who wouldn’t—but I don’t think any of their worlds would stop if you took off for a couple of months.
A plan was formulating in my head even as I spoke. A plan that meant I’d get to keep her near me for a little longer. A plan that meant I might just be able to cross that virginity off her list at some point. It still didn’t solve the problem of our worlds being in different places, but it allowed us to be together for longer.
“Come with me. Come with me to Ireland, and we won’t stop there. We’ll take a couple of months and go see all the things in Europe you want to see.”
“That’s crazy. Haha,” she laughed, and when I didn’t laugh with her, her smile fell away. “Wait, you’re serious?”
“I am. Just think of all the things we could cross off your list…together.”
“What about your movie? The casting calls?” she asked, her voice getting quieter and quieter. I understood it. The more I made it real, the scarier it got.
“Grace and Mayson can handle it. It’s not like we have to stop talking. I have a phone and a laptop. There’s WiFi everywhere.” I shrugged, the idea morphing in my head. Ginny and I exploring more than Ireland. Exploring France and Germany and Italy. Swimming in the bright-blue Mediterranean Sea off a Greek isle somewhere. Me writing. Writing my own words not sharpened by Grace’s wit and personality. Writing that meandered and twisted before getting to the point in a way Grace’s words never did.
“You’d give up a piece of your dream to make mine come true?” The words ached as they came out of her, like I was torturing her, and I realized I was torturing myself, because it was a beautiful dream that I wasn’t sure could become a reality. I didn’t think it was enough to make her jump. To do the “something” so unexpected her family would wonder what the heck had gotten into her so she could mark that off her list as well.
“When I go to Ireland, it’s just me. Me and my brain and my words and my ideas. When I talk to people, it’s me they react to. When I write, it’s all mine. Sometimes, with Grace—who I love more than almost anything in this world—I get hidden behind her huge personality. She’s so small and yet so big all at the same time.”
She was nodding at my words.
“It’s like Ty and I. He’s my twin. But he’s the larger twin, and I don’t mean physically.”
I completely understood every word she was saying. I’d joked with her the first day about her relationship with Ty being like Grace and mine, but it had only been a half-joke. I did feel, sometimes, that Grace overshadowed me. Not enough to make me bitter, or sad, or to even stop hanging out with her. It just made me long to be by myself at times. Ireland had been good for me every time I’d gone. It allowed me to get back to myself before I rejoined her.
“New deal,” I said quietly.
She smiled. “We’ve had a lot of deals in the
few days we’ve known each other.”
I nodded. “You consider coming with me, and I’ll agree to take you all the way to the edge of third base.”
I smiled at her, my hand already wandering back to her bare skin, caressing.
She closed her eyes. “Every time you touch me, I feel it, deep within me, all over my bones and muscles and nerve endings, and I think I’m dreaming.”
I leaned in and kissed the tip of her nose, her cheek, her eyelids, and down, taking her gorgeous, full bottom lip between my teeth, nipping at it before kissing her. I pulled her tight up against me once more.
“Make the deal, Ginny,” I said, a husky whisper in her ear, a demand in my voice that I’d never felt before.
“All I have to do is say I’m considering it?” she asked, her voice raspy with a desire I wanted to fan into a flame the size of the Great Wall.
“You have to truly consider it.” I grabbed her chin, tilting it up. She opened her eyes, staring at me with her mixed-color ones.
“I’ll consider it,” she said and then reached down and pulled her top off to show me a black lace bra that hid nothing. Showed everything. I groaned and bent my head, pushing the gauzy fabric aside and taking her full round breast into my mouth.
She gasped and moaned and ran her fingers through my hair.
It felt like I’d journeyed to a different plane. A different place entirely. It wasn’t Tennessee. It wasn’t Earth. It was somewhere above. I knew she’d agree. I knew it like I knew my own name, because I had found out the truth about Ginny. She loved to do the things no one thought she was capable of: Krav Maga, salsa dancing, skydiving, snowball fights, and sports cars. But she loved it, even more, when someone goaded her into it. When they issued a dare.
Tonight, I was going to dare her to do many things. Many things but one, and I had no doubt she would meet every single demand with a fierceness I might have been the only one ever to see. I was going to have to be okay with that. We’d have moments…days…months together.
We’d already had them. Each kiss felt that way. Like a lifetime. Like the beginning and the end all tied together. Like she really was a witch. Messing with time and space and my future. And I gladly went along.
Ginny
LOVE IS EVERYTHING
“Let your heart believe,
That love is everything.”
Performed by Ariana Grande
Written by Thomas / Dixon / Edmonds / Riddick-Tynes
The sun was trying to peek up from behind the mountains as I turned Mama’s SUV down the drive to the house. I was tired and awake at the same time. Just like my body was sated and yet desired more.
Finding my nerve endings suddenly awake was a gloriously painful experience. Having Cole take me over the edge into a bliss I never knew was real was life-changing. It was like I’d been living with a sheer curtain in front of my eyes my whole life, and now it was gone.
Everything was brighter. Clearer. Stronger.
I got out of the truck, wiping at my face that I was sure was a smudged mess of makeup. I turned to watch the sky change from black and gray to a mix of pinks and oranges and purples. The few clouds that were left behind as the storm moved on were billowy and light instead of dark and threatening. The snow was already melting, the temperature already in the upper thirties instead of the teens that had originally been predicted for New Year’s Eve.
I stared at the colors one more moment before quietly entering the house through the back door. Hanging my coat and leaving my wet shoes in the mudroom, I intended to go take a shower before anyone realized I had been gone all night, but when I rounded the corner to the kitchen, Ty was sitting at the island.
He looked up, down, and then back up at me, eyes narrowing.
“Where were you all night?”
I moved into the kitchen and grabbed a mug to fill with the coffee he’d made.
“What’s it to you?” I asked back.
“Jesus, just don’t let Mama see you. She’s already had one too many shocks this holiday,” he said, rubbing his face.
My happiness popped like a bubble because he was right. Our family had been hit with surprise after surprise after surprise. They didn’t need me adding one more. So, while I’d truthfully promised Cole I’d think about going to Europe with him, the reality punched me hard in the gut.
Ty seemed to see the change come over me, because he stopped whatever he was scribbling on the paper and gave me his full attention. “I didn’t mean it. You know I talk before I think sometimes.”
“No, you’re right. Mama’s dealing with enough. What are you working on?”
“My draft declaration.”
He had to do it soon. With the college football season ending, there was a clock running down on his window of opportunity. He’d been working with agents and Maleena to juggle it all over the last few days. It was more work than I’d expected it to be.
I sat down on a stool next to him.
“You sure about this?” I asked him. He couldn’t go back to playing college ball if he declared, whether or not he got an offer. Whether or not he played at all. Football was his whole world. I wasn’t sure what he’d do if it didn’t work out.
“I am,” he said. “What about you?”
I looked up, surprised. “What do you mean?”
“What’s your plan?”
I looked away, took a sip of coffee, and then looked back. “You know my plan.”
“I know the plan you’ve convinced yourself you want.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I said, my back instantly up. I was so tired of people making assumptions. Thinking they knew what I wanted. I was pretty sure Cole finally understood that I was more than what people saw.
“Don’t get all pissy. It’s just that you think getting your business degree and then coming back here to work at the dealership with Mama is some kind of requirement. I just want to make sure you aren’t doing it because you think you have to.”
“I don’t,” I told him. I knew I didn’t have to do any of it. I knew Mama wouldn’t care if I followed in her footsteps, but I kind of liked the idea of doing just that. At least, I had until some tall, lanky man had put thoughts in my head of traveling the world. Even that didn’t mean I couldn’t eventually finish my degree and come back to the dealership.
But somehow, with my eyes suddenly filled with the colors of the sky, my plan sounded trivial. Exchanging the whole world for a lifetime at a car dealership in a small town in Tennessee.
“See, right there, that makes me worry about you,” Ty said.
“I didn’t say anything,” I told him.
“We’re twins, Ginny. I see your face and know exactly what you’re thinking behind it.”
“Please, we haven’t been that way in a long time,” I said.
“I know. I’ve been kind of self-focused for a few years, but I’m trying to be the better man.”
This twisted my gut. “You’ve never been a bad man, Ty. You’ve got a heart the size of the state.”
He looked like he was considering my words. “Still, the better man is the one Maleena deserves. The one a pro team deserves. That I deserve.”
I put my coffee down and hugged him. “They’re all lucky to have you.”
“Don’t go getting all mushy on me.”
“You started it.”
We sat there for a minute in comfortable silence.
“Back to you,” he said. “You do know you’re not the only one who can take over the dealership, right?”
I laughed.
His eyes narrowed. “Don’t laugh. What the hell do you think I’m going to do when I’m too beat up to play? Plus, having an NFL celebrity running it would only be an asset.”
“You want to run the dealership?” Shock ran through me. It had always been my thing. The one thing my big, bright star of a brother couldn’t take away.
“That’s not exactly what I said. What
I’m trying to say is, live the life you want, and let the other things take care of themselves.”
“Where is all this worry about me coming from?” I asked.
“Something Dad said.”
“Daddy was talking about me?” It surprised me. I’d definitely never done anything to make our parents worry about me. They didn’t even know I’d gone skydiving.
“He said he worries about you more than Eliza or me.”
I laughed again, thinking it was a joke, but when he didn’t join me, my smile died. “Why?”
“You know Dad, he said it way better than me, but basically, he’s afraid you’ll give up what you want so everyone else will be happy. So we all get what we want.”
I took in his serious face for a second and then looked away because I was afraid he’d see that the me who’d come alive in Cole’s arms was afraid of the same thing. Afraid I’d go back to living behind the sheer curtain. A half-life. Without feeling. I hadn’t known I was living that way. I’d known I didn’t feel attracted to guys. I’d known I was feeling left behind as my siblings and cousins all found these incredible paths to journey down, but I hadn’t known it was my own choices that were keeping me there.
“Cole wants me to go to Europe with him,” I said quietly, letting it burst out of me.
“Cole, as in Mayson’s roommate, Cole?” he asked with a puzzled expression. And when I nodded, realization dawned. “Is that who you were with last night?”
I didn’t answer, and Ty started chuckling. I hit him on the shoulder.
“I’m not laughing at you, I swear.” But he was still laughing, and I hit him several more times before he gripped my hand and stopped me. “I’m just thinking about how Mayson is going to react to that. Cousin-for-a-cousin, eye-for-an-eye kind of thing.”
“God, you really are immature sometimes.”
His laughter died, and I felt like an ass because of his whole “I’m trying to be the better man” thing, which had started the whole discussion.
“When does Cole leave for Europe? I thought he had the whole movie thing going on?” Ty asked.
“He does. But he’s going to Ireland for a few weeks. He says he’ll skip over some of the movie stuff and take me wherever I want to go.”