Fall

by Sara Taylor Woods

  “So,” I said, then cleared my throat when he looked over at me, “your defense?”

  He nodded and ate a chip before he answered. “My dissertation is on the assimilation of communities of color in the Southeast during the first hundred years after European contact.”

  “Shit,” I said, and he laughed. “I mean, that’s”—ugh, find something to say that doesn’t sound extremely undergraduate—“intense.”

  Fail.

  “Yeah,” he said, and looked away.

  No. I was not going to be That Girl.

  “Are you including the Spanish settlements in Florida?”

  He met my eyes again, but there was some new tilt to his head that told me I had done the right thing. “No, I’m mostly focusing on the British and Scots-Irish in the Carolinas and Georgia. The Spanish cultural influence was so hugely different than it deserves its own paper.”

  “So your timeline is more like, 1650-1750?”

  He nodded, then raised one eyebrow conspiratorially. “Truth be told, including Spanish and Portuguese colonization would make me have to change the title, and honestly, that is just so much work at this point.”

  I laughed, and he grinned back. “Got it. I understand priorities.”

  For the rest of the meal, every time Sean looked at me—and he kept fucking looking at me—I got flustered, self-conscious. I couldn’t sit still. I kept touching my hair, my face, my neck. I covered my mouth when I laughed in case I had refried-bean breath or cilantro in my teeth.

  And when he reached down for his wallet to pay his bill, his arm brushed mine. I looked down at where he’d bumped me, and when I looked up, those deep-sea eyes were waiting for me. They dropped to my mouth for a second, just a moment, just long enough to know I hadn’t imagined it.

  He licked his lips and murmured, “Sorry.”

  My body reacted to that little flicker of pink tongue, to that utterly insincere apology, as if he had actually touched me.

  “It’s fine.” The words came out all whispery and loose, like I’d just finished a marathon. My breath too shallow, my pulse high and hard in my throat, my cheeks hot as fire. Running, even though I wanted nothing more than to be caught.

  It happened again when he put his wallet away. And when he stood up to go to the restroom. And when he sat down.

  He didn’t apologize again.

  The boys tumbled out of the door the same way they’d come in, bouncing, bumping fists, talking about how Carolina was gonna beat the shit out of ECU. For my part, I tried not to be too obvious about matching my pace to Sean’s.

  Talk to me, look at me, anything. Anything.

  “This you?” he asked as I pulled my keys out of my pocket. He gave my car a quirked-eyebrow once-over, which, to be fair, it deserved: it was a hand-me-down Volvo station wagon we’d used as a family car since I was in elementary school.

  “Yep,” I said, rising up on my toes and patting her side. “Good ole Bea Arthur.”

  He blinked. “You named your car Bea Arthur?”

  “You should hear when I start her up,” I said. “Sounds exactly like you’d imagine.”

  He laughed, and—well, he’d laughed before, in the restaurant, if you get down to the technical, physiological point of it. But out here, he lit up like the summer sky. He didn’t laugh because that was the appropriate social reaction, he laughed because I made him laugh.

  Pride surged high in me, made me brave. I made Sean Poole laugh.

  He said, “Star Wars Christmas Special.”

  “Oh my God,” I groaned.

  “I can pull it up right now,” he said, reaching into his back pocket.

  “Do not.”

  He was looking down at his phone, typing. “I’m doing it.”

  “Has anyone ever told you you’re a sadist?”

  “It’s part of my aesthetic.”

  “Your aesthetic sucks, you monster.”

  “I want to take you out.”

  I opened my mouth but nothing came out, the rhythm of the conversation broken by this unexpected announcement. Finally, I said, “Okay?”

  “Okay. How about tomorrow?”

  “No,” I said. “I mean, wait. Okay, like, okay, I believe you. Not, okay, I’ll go out with you. I mean, I will, but that isn’t what I meant. I mean—Jesus.” I put my hand over my eyes.

  “So…tomorrow then?”

  “Friday,” I said, removing my hand from my eyes, “I can’t Friday. Well, Friday night. I can’t do Friday nights. I mean, I shouldn’t, so I don’t.”

  He’d tilted his head at some point and was watching me make a complete fool of myself. Maybe the ground would show mercy and swallow me whole.

  “Saturday will be hard,” he said. “I’m going to the game.”

  “Right,” I said. “Well. I—”

  “Tell me your phone number.”

  I was halfway through the number before I stopped myself. “Hold on. Just—hold on. This is nuts. I don’t even know you. I can’t just—”

  “You can say no,” he said. “I'm a grown-up. I can take rejection.”

  “It isn’t that,” I said. “I’m not saying no.”

  “So what is it?”

  I studied him. “How old are you?”

  “Moot,” he said. “You said yes already, so my age can’t have affected your decision.”

  I looked up at him. He still had his phone out, thumb poised over the screen, waiting for me to give him the last four digits. “Son of a bitch,” I muttered, and rattled off the rest of the number. “Are you sure you’re not a used car salesman?”

  He pocketed his phone and pulled his car keys out. “No, I’m worse than that,” he said, and winked at me. “I’m charming.”

  ***

  It’s not like I didn’t know how to deal with attention from men. I’ve had enough curves for enough years to know what that looks like. But Sean was different: he had edges. And this sharp intensity when he’d looked at me, like he could get to know me without asking any questions, like he already knew too much. It had run me through like a bayonet, skewered me and split me right open.

  Now, my brain said, here’s someone who might indulge you.

  That kind of attention? I had no idea how to deal with that.

  I imagined what his face might tell me if I confessed my desires to him—my real desires, the ones that had ended my last relationship, the ones that had kept any others from starting. I imagined his easy grin turning into something wicked.

  I imagined him acting on them.

  Nope, gotta let that one go. Lunch had not driven me to masturbation yet, and I was not about to start.

  My best friend and I shared a dorm suite, and the door was open, like virtually every other door on the hall this early in the year. I was a junior, but this was my first year living on campus; since my folks lived here in town, spending money on university housing had seemed a little silly to them. Financially, I couldn’t argue. Socially, it was the worst.

  I walked in and dropped my bag on the couch. “Mal,” I called. “Mallory, you here, darlin’?”

  The reply came through the half-shut door of her bedroom. “Yeah! Hang on, I—” Her thought died out, and was quickly followed by a grunt of frustration. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  I chuckled and opened the refrigerator. Only one Diet Coke left. I had had zero of these so far. No wonder she couldn’t sleep for shit.

  “Hey!” Mal’s perky voice startled me so bad I slammed the back of my head into the freezer door. “Oh, shit, are you okay?”

  I retreated from the fridge, rubbing the back of my head. “Fine,” I said, then held up the can. “Really? Last one?”

  “Shut up,” she said as she slunk back out into the common room. “Could be worse. Could be Mountain Dew.”

  “Have you tried water? Ever? In your life?”

  She flopped into the armchair closest to the window. “I’ll let my dad know you’re concerned.”

  I snorted and cracked
the can open. “You going to the game this weekend?”

  “Duh,” she said. She’d already pulled out her phone, thumbs going nuts on the screen. “Why? You hate football.”

  “I don’t hate it,” I said, settling onto the couch on the other side of the little room. “I just don’t worship at the altar of the SEC like everybody else.”

  “Are you at least going to tailgate with us?”

  “Maybe after synagogue.”

  She finally looked up at me. “You can’t take one week off? I only go to church like, five times a year.”

  “I’m sorry, have we met?” I half-stood up from the couch and stuck my hand out to her. “I’m Talia.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I don’t think you’ve missed a service since you were twelve.”

  “You are full of lies and evil.”

  “I know what it is.” She snapped her fingers. “You’ve met a boy there.”

  “Mallory.”

  “A girl?”

  I sighed.

  “What was the last one’s name? Simeon?”

  “Simon,” I said, laughing. “No one is named Simeon. And he was cute, whatever. I just wasn’t into him. Besides, you heathen, Hillel is not about getting laid.”

  “All things are about getting laid, Talia.”

  I snorted. “I don’t give you crap about not dating the boys you’ve met in that game of yours.”

  “Gross,” she said, stretching the word out. “Dating a guild-mate would be like dating my cousin.”

  “Which I think is legal in South Carolina.”

  “Talia.”

  I snorted and set my can on the floor so I could lie down, my legs draped over the arm of the couch. “Rocky Horror tomorrow night,” I said. “You in?”

  “Yeah. I’m bringing Dustin.”

  “Mal.” I dragged out the syllable, as if every second spent on her name would emphasize my annoyance. I rolled my head to the side so I could look at her. “Really? I thought you and I had something. I thought we were friends.”

  “Excuse you. I hear he’s crazy good in the sack.”

  “So am I, and I don’t see you sniffing around my tail.”

  She cocked an eyebrow at me. “Don’t be gross.”

  “I have not yet begun to gross.”

  “Okay.” She launched out of her chair. “Break’s over. Back to raiding.”

  I grabbed the can and stood up. “Okay, well, don’t crank it up to eleven, because I’m going to take a nap, and you know how thin these walls are.”

  She shuddered. “Oh, I know exactly how thin they are. You weren’t here trying to sleep when Jess was in there fucking her meth-head boyfriend last year. Jesus, thanks a lot. I’d almost blocked that out.”

  I blew her a kiss. “Love you.”

  She grumbled, but she was fighting a smile. I retreated to my room and lay down, lacing my fingers under my head and staring at the ceiling. Good thing Mal couldn’t read my mind, because she’d have given me the third degree about this boy from lunch, no question. And what would I have said? “He seems kinda bossy and I’m really into that”? Who’s into bossy guys? Lord. The last thing I needed was some dude who thought he knew what was best for me. Like I didn’t get enough of that at home.

  Let it go, Benson.

  Except when I closed my eyes, all I could see were those dark blues. Those painted tattoos.

  Shit.

  ——————————————————————

  HOLD ME DOWN is available now through Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

  Other short stories by Sara Taylor Woods

  “Well Lit,” DIRTY DATES, ed. Rachel Kramer Bussel

  “Into the Wilderness,” GUNS & ROMANCES, ed. Nerine Dorman and Carrie Clevenger

  “Overkill,” THE BIG BAD II, ed. John Hartness and Emily Lavin Leverett

  “A Girl’s Gotta Eat,” THE BIG BAD, ed. John Hartness and Emily Lavin Leverett

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Sara writes erotic romance and dark contemporary fantasy. Her stories have been included in romance, erotica, and horror anthologies. When she’s not writing, she’s wrangling her two bouncing dogs, mainlining coffee, or working out. She lives in South Carolina with her husband.

  Sara is represented by Lana Popović of Chalberg & Sussman.

  Follow Sara to stay up-to-date on all the latest book news!

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  sarataylorwoods@gmail.com

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1