Forever Innocent

by Deanna Roy

  I knelt on the hard tile, trying to pull myself together. But my body was used to this, and as soon as my mind wandered, I realized I was holding my breath again and my vision dissolved into black and white.

  I sucked in a fast breath. I didn’t need to hit the floor here at Gavin’s. I was done with that, totally finished. I had crossed the line, and I didn’t need this anymore.

  The bed squeaked. Gavin. He might come in here, see me. I scrambled to my feet, wavering when the sudden movement made the spots come. I turned on the water and splashed my face. Control. I had to get in control.

  Gavin’s head poked into the doorway. “You okay, baby?”

  “Yes. All good.” The towel was rough against my skin. “Time to teach you about fabric softener.”

  “That’s an extra fifty cents at the laundromat.” He wrapped his arm around my shoulders. “But I guess you’re worth it.”

  I turned in to him, accepting the comfort of his arms. I’d bring up the subject of condoms tomorrow.

  Chapter 31: Corabelle

  The week settled into a pattern. On my late work nights, we stayed at Gavin’s and he made dinner. On his late nights, we stayed at my apartment and I made something for him. We went to astronomy class together since it was our only class that day and we had time to get home and go to work separately. Tuesdays and Thursdays were my longer class days, and I stayed on campus since I was taking more coursework than him.

  I started to recognize what he’d already seen that night of the ruined lasagna. We were back to where we were meant to be.

  Friday morning, the astronomy professor gave us a star assignment to do over the weekend. “You will use the two pointer stars, Dubhe and Merak, to locate Polaris, the North Star,” he said and leaned forward on his podium to stare at us intently, as if imparting some great truth. “You may think you know where the star is, but I trust you will find in this assignment that you do not yet know your place on this earth.”

  “He sounds like Dumbledore,” the boy next to me said, and I clapped my hand over my mouth to avoid laughing out loud.

  Gavin looked down the row at me, scowling, and I sat back to keep him from staring. He hadn’t shown any jealousy back in high school, but he definitely seemed sensitive to it after the incident with Austin. I focused my attention back on the professor.

  “You will use your hands and fingers according to this diagram.” The professor laser-pointed to the screen. “Which you will find on the class website. You will use the altitude of Polaris above the horizon to determine your own location on this planet.”

  He killed the overhead. “If you have questions, see your TA. Good day, see you Monday.”

  Gavin headed straight for me, glaring at the guy in the next chair. He picked up my backpack from the floor. “Ready?”

  “Just a minute,” I said. “I need to pack that. Give it here.”

  My neighbor walked away and Gavin settled into his seat. “Maybe I can get the TA to move me next to you.”

  I ignored him and shoved my iPad in my bag. “You want to do this Polaris lab together this weekend?”

  “Definitely. We should drive out of town a bit Saturday night and find a good place.”

  “Sure.”

  “You think you’ll be ready for the bike? You’ll love it, I promise.”

  I slung my backpack on my shoulder. “Okay.”

  “Perfect.” He held out his elbow. “To your chariot?”

  I slid my hand through his arm. “Lead the way.”

  “You two are just too cute,” Jenny said, falling in beside us. “Set a date yet?”

  I nudged her. “Don’t be snarky.”

  “It’s an honest question. I expect to be maid of honor. And Lumberjack can be my escort, since he was the one who got you both at the same star party.” She dropped behind us as we headed for the stairwell. “When are we going to double date?”

  “Whenever you want,” I said.

  “Oooh, I know!” Jenny said. “We should do the star thing together. He’s the TA. We’ll obviously get it right.”

  “Corabelle and I already have plans for that.” Gavin held the door open for us.

  “Party poopers,” Jenny said. “Well, maybe something Sunday? We have to stay away from campus. Robert isn’t supposed to fraternize with his students.”

  Gavin coughed. “I’m guessing there is a bit more than fraternizing going on.”

  Jenny laughed, a tinkling sound. “You bet there is. Ta-ta, you totes adorbs two.” She dashed ahead of us. “I have to meet my lumberjack at an undisclosed location!”

  “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!” I called after her.

  She turned back. “I have a feeling that doesn’t leave much out.” Her pink hair streamed behind her as she raced out of the building.

  I turned to Gavin. “So, your scowl could have peeled paint off the walls earlier,” I said. “You’re not seriously going to be upset every time I talk to some other guy.”

  Gavin’s jaw started working and I squeezed his hand. “We’ve got this, right?”

  He nodded.

  “Shoot, I just remembered something.” I stopped walking. “I have to pick up a book on reserve for my lit class. Do we have a minute?”

  Gavin checked his watch. “Sure. Even if it takes a bit, I can call Bud.”

  We doubled back toward the center of campus and the looming Geisel Library. I had only been inside once, taking a cursory look at the Dr. Seuss memorabilia. Gavin walked along the clear cases of drawings and war posters as I collected my book. “Have you been on the top floor?” he asked when I came up beside him.

  “Nope. Are there stacks up there?”

  “Not many. I think they use it for storage. It’s a mess. You want to see?”

  I glanced at the clock. We still had a half-hour before we really needed to head to work. “Okay.”

  When we stepped out of the elevator, I saw what Gavin meant. Most of the library shelves were empty. Shrink-wrapped crates blocked some of the aisles. But the view through to the windows was unobstructed, and I wandered in a daze over to the giant panes of glass. “It’s beautiful,” I breathed.

  “You can get a full panoramic of campus,” Gavin said.

  Students worked at small tables facing the windows. A sign above their heads read “Silent study area.”

  This would be an incredible place to write papers. The side facing the ocean was inspirational all on its own, even if partially blocked by other buildings, including the dorm where we had our star parties. Between the towering buildings, the vast white-blue of the Pacific expanded out forever like an empty canvas. Craggy bluffs bordered the shore, leading to houses, and eventually back to campus.

  “This is interesting,” Gavin said.

  I turned around. He’d discovered a cache of huge crates among the empty stacks. These were upended to rest on their sides, forming a circle almost as tall as he was. I turned my head to read the black numbers spray-painted on the wood. Dewey decimal numbers, maybe. Between two of the crates was a gap filled in with the heavy-duty plastic that had been cut away.

  He pushed aside the plastic and ducked in among the crates. At first I could see the top of his head, but then he disappeared.

  “Gavin!” I whispered. “What are you doing?”

  His hand snaked out from the opening. When I grasped it, he pulled me through.

  “It was a trap,” he said, his voice raspy and low. He pushed the plastic over the gap, obscuring the opening.

  The crates surrounded us, but the empty space in the middle was plenty large enough to stand in. “What are we doing?” I asked.

  He slid his hand beneath my shirt and moved up to cup a breast. “This.” He lowered his head to kiss me.

  My heart pounded, but I relaxed into his mouth. His free hand tugged the backpack off my shoulder to rest on the carpet. “Are you sure this is a good idea?” I asked.

  “This is always a good idea.” He unsnapped my jeans. “We’ll see if you
can control yourself enough to be quiet.”

  His hand slipped inside my panties and searched out the spot he was looking for. My mouth opened, but he closed his lips over mine before I could cry out. “Easy, girl,” he said against me, his fingers spreading me so he could get better access. “How’s this for a new challenge?”

  I gripped his shoulders, breathing into his ear.

  “That’s it,” he whispered. He grew frustrated trying to work inside the jeans, so he jerked them down past my hips. I leaned forward to bite his shoulder as sensations splintered through me.

  He worked me carefully, using all the new knowledge he’d gained in the last few days. When I was writhing against him pretty hard, he withdrew, silencing my protest with a kiss.

  His hands on my waist guided me in a circle to face away from him. He pushed on a crate to make sure it was heavy and steady. It tilted a little, but braced against one of the stacks. He moved my hands to grasp the corners of the box, and I heard the jingle of his belt.

  Heat flashed through me. We were going to do this, here, in the library, with students a few yards away. Gavin steadied me with one hand on my hip and pushed me down a little with a firm press on the back. “Just a little more.”

  I bent over and felt him seeking me, getting the angle right, then he was in, and I clutched the crate, still worried we could tip all the empty stacks in a domino crash worthy of a sitcom. He held both my hips, rocking into me, and just the idea that we were here, doing this, made everything so much more intense.

  He reached around, finding his favorite spot again, and even though I couldn’t spread my legs in the jeans, he was close enough. I was soaring, up, the fluttering building into a cascade. He felt me start to go and thrust faster, harder, so that I totally forgot where we were. I pressed backward, taking him in deeper, and everything tightened at once, letting go in a shuddering release that set him off immediately, emptying into me with a force I’d never felt in him.

  He exhaled against my hair, and I shifted my weight so that I wasn’t leaning on the crate, which had mercifully held. The image of it falling, and all the startled students seeing us, our jeans around our ankles, struck me as so hilarious that I started giggling.

  “Uh-oh,” Gavin said, pulling out and yanking up his jeans. “This isn’t going to be one of those epic never-ending Corabelle giggle fits, is it?”

  I had forgotten they existed. I couldn’t even remember the last one. Before I got pregnant? Had I exploded into one at any point with Finn? I bent to pull up my pants but everything was so funny. Me, my butt in the air, holding on to a crate of books. Gavin, plowing into me, rustling the plastic. I held my belly, trying to stay silent, my laughter so intense that my ab muscles were starting to hurt.

  Gavin bent and jerked up my pants, because I was doubling over, the giggles coming so fast now that there was no stopping them. I managed to grab my waistband and snap it closed, but still, images of us surrounded by downed crates, the loose plastic floating down in the aftermath, was just…so funny.

  “How did I used to get you to stop?” Gavin asked, although he was on the cusp of cracking up himself.

  I shook my head. “I…don’t…remember…” I gasped for air. My stomach was aching. I tried to think of serious things like librarians and their stern expressions. The astronomy professor, leaning on his podium — no, that was even funnier. I burst into a fresh batch of giggles.

  “Is somebody in there?” A voice outside the ring of crates made me clap my hand over my mouth.

  “Now we’ve done it,” Gavin whispered, but he was already laughing.

  The plastic began rustling. “You should come out now.”

  Gavin put his finger over his lips.

  I was heaving with effort and trying to stop, sucking air in. I should have been appalled, worried, but no, I couldn’t bring it down.

  A head peeked through the gap, a guy not much older than us with square black glasses. “I knew it!”

  Gavin held up his hands. “We’re busted.”

  The face disappeared and resumed as just a voice. “I’m the TA in charge of the graduate study area up here. This is a silent study floor.”

  “We’re coming,” Gavin said. He turned back to me and handed me my backpack. “You ready for the great escape?” he whispered. “I’ll go left, you go right, and we’ll meet in the stairwell.”

  I nodded, only just now able to get my giggles under control.

  “I’ll go first, distract him, then you bolt.”

  “Got it.”

  Gavin pushed through the plastic. “Hey there. I don’t think we were making any noise.”

  “You’re not supposed to be in there.”

  I waited a second, not sure when to leave.

  “What’s in these crates anyway?” Gavin asked, and I could tell he’d moved away from the opening.

  I took a deep breath, then pushed on the plastic and wormed my way out. As soon as I was free of the crates, I took off to the right, barreling along the interior wall that held the elevator shaft and stairwell. I didn’t look back, not even when the TA said, “Hey!”

  I saw the exit sign and snatched at the door. I went down one flight, then looked up, waiting.

  Gavin burst through it and said, “Go!”

  I began running down the stairs, holding on to the rail. Gavin caught up. “Let’s not go to the bottom, in case he’s waiting there for us. We’ll kill time on one of the middle floors.”

  We leaped out at the fourth floor, a busy area with full stacks and tons of students. Once we were safely away from the elevator and stairwell, we collapsed at a study desk.

  “That was nuts,” I said.

  “That was awesome!” Gavin’s smile was as wide as his face. “We never were troublemakers in high school. We have to make up for our well-spent youth.”

  I swallowed, trying not to wreck the moment. I’d done enough bad stuff for both of us. All three of us, I amended.

  “Hey.” Gavin reached over and squeezed my arm. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think about how worried you’d be about getting in trouble.”

  “No, no, it’s fine. It was fun.” I faked a smile. “I just had forgotten about the giggle spells. It’s been too long.”

  “I’ll say.”

  “How long do you think we should wait?”

  Gavin checked his phone. “It’s 10:30. I’m guessing he’ll go to the ground floor, wait a couple minutes, then he’ll have to get back to his duties.”

  “When do you have to be at work?”

  “11, but it’s not a big deal. I’ll call Bud if we get stuck. Meanwhile,” he reached for my hand, “I’ll just sit here and gaze at you lecherously.”

  I felt a trickle in my jeans and realized that once again we’d gone without a condom. Might as well bring it up now. “So. I was thinking.”

  “About doing me again in the elevator?”

  I smiled. “Maybe. But also about how the shot failed us before.”

  His expression sobered.

  “So maybe we should do something extra?” My fingers gripped his. “Like condoms?”

  He let go and sat back. “You think it will happen again?”

  “Statistics seem to indicate that if you have a hormone birth control failure, you have a higher incidence of another. I might not be a good fit for it.”

  His face was looking angrier as I talked, and I couldn’t understand it.

  “You want to keep me at risk? You want it to happen again?” I stood up, ready to walk away.

  Gavin jumped from his chair. “No! No. Of course not. I just don’t think it will happen again.”

  “But it might. Are condoms that big of a deal?” A couple of students were looking at us, so I sat back down.

  I could see him relent. “No, no they aren’t. I’ll buy some.” He walked around the desk and bent down to wrap his arms around me. “I’ll do whatever you ask on this.”

  My shoulders relaxed. We would be all right. Surely lightning wouldn’t
strike twice.

  Chapter 32: Corabelle

  The Harley’s engine was so loud I could barely hear myself think as Gavin handed me an extra helmet. “I’m not so sure about this!” I yelled.

  “You’ll love it!” he shouted.

  “It looks like a red bowling ball!”

  Gavin laughed. “You’ll rock the look.”

  I stuck the helmet on my head. “Now what?”

  “Get on behind me.” He pointed to a footrest. “Your feet go here.”

  I held on to his shoulders as I threw a leg over the seat. He revved the motor and I could feel the vibrations in my girl parts. “Hey, this is like a sex toy!” I said in his ear.

  “Now you’re getting it.”

  I found the footrests and clasped my arms around his waist. “Aren’t there any seat belts on this thing?’

  “I’m all you’ve got,” he said, and he backed us away from the curb in front of my apartment.

  The butterflies still twinkled in the trees. I got a notice from the management yesterday that they had to come down, but I’d ignored it. I kept Finn’s blue butterfly inside the house for safekeeping, but the others would stay. The apartments were cheap. The overworked maintenance guy would probably be too busy to take them down. I couldn’t imagine Lorna, the stuffy and perpetually stiletto-heeled office manager, sinking into the damp ground to yank them out of the trees herself.

  We lurched forward, and I screamed in Gavin’s ear. I could feel his laughter in his ribs, even though the motor drowned out the sound. When we paused at the exit to the complex, he turned his head. “You’ll be fine.”

  Maybe. So far we’d only been going five miles per hour. I wasn’t sure I could hang on at sixty.

  We jetted onto the street, and I screamed again. I felt like I might rocket off the bike at any moment.

  Thankfully, we hit a red light almost immediately. “I don’t think I can do this,” I said.

  “Sure you can. Just relax into it. Sink into me a little rather than being so stiff.”