Fifty First Times

by Molly McAdams

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I say, my fingers curling around his tie to keep him close.

  His fingers roam my face. “I was going to. That first week back. But I wanted to take it slow. I didn’t think you’d go out with a guy who’d just broken up with his girlfriend, so I thought I’d try to be friends first.”

  “The party,” I say.

  “The party,” he says with a rueful smile. “I thought I had a honest-to-God chance when you told me that first day back that you didn’t have a boyfriend. But then you showed up that night with Zach.”

  I press my lips together and look away, but he puts his thumbs beneath my chin so I’m forced to meet his eyes. “What happened with you and Zach, Annie?”

  “Didn’t work out,” I whisper softly.

  “Why?”

  “You know why,” I say, giving his shoulder a little punch.

  “Tell me anyway,” he says a little desperately, grabbing my hand and holding it still.

  “I like you,” I say plainly. “A lot.”

  His smile is small at first, just a slow curving of his lips, but then it turns into the full, cocky Garrett-grin. How have I not always loved that grin? Or maybe I have, but I was just too dumb and careful to see it.

  This time when he moves in, he does so slowly . . . purposefully, and I’m more than ready for it.

  I don’t want to miss a single moment.

  Not the way my breath catches, or the way his gaze drops from my eyes to my mouth in that very last second before his lips meet mine.

  The kiss is perfect. My fingers curl into the shirt around his shoulders as his mouth opens over mine, his tongue touching mine shyly at first, and then more confidently when I open my mouth wider.

  Holy crap.

  There are no words to describe kissing Garrett Reed in the snow.

  I don’t know how long we stand there, making out against a brick wall, and my body seems to keep getting hotter and hotter despite the cold weather. And as wonderful as kissing him is, it’s starting to feel like enough, and the clothes that are keeping us from freezing our asses off are increasingly starting to feel like annoying barriers. I want to be chest to chest, hip to hip, mouth to mouth. I want to feel his skin warm against mine.

  Garrett’s hands move restlessly over my back before they slide forward to rest against my rib cage, moving upward over my breasts just briefly, and we both moan. He mutters an oath as he pulls his hands back to safer territory since we’re outside where anyone could see us, but it’s too late. Now I want his hands everywhere.

  I want to know Garrett’s body as well as I know his laugh and his shoulder roll and the kindness he tries so hard to hide behind his cocky grin.

  I just want Garrett.

  I frown in protest when he pulls back, both of our breaths visible in the cold night air. For a split second I’m terrified that I’m no good at this kissing thing, but then he smiles. “I want to do this all night, Annie, but damn it . . . it’s cold.”

  I laugh a little, my hand reaching behind me for the doorknob, even as I lift on my toes to give him one last kiss.

  “We could go back to your place,” I say softly, my mouth pressed against his. “Make out.”

  His teeth nip my lip. “And here I thought you were a good girl.”

  “Oh I am,” I say, a little breathless as his lips find my neck. “But I could use a night off.”

  “Annie,” he says, grabbing my hand before I move away. “Does this mean Operation Get-a-Boyfriend was successful?”

  My heart flips over. “Depends. You applying for the job?”

  “Yes. Now offer me the position.”

  I let out a pretend sigh and drag him back into the warm hallway. “Garrett Reed, will you be my boyfriend?”

  He grins, and I melt. “Hell yes. Anners.”

  About the Author

  LAUREN LAYNE writes contemporary romance for Grand Central Publishing (Forever) and Random House (Loveswept), as well as new adult for Random House’s Flirt line.

  Lauren graduated from Santa Clara University with B.S. in political science that she has yet to put to good use. After dabbling in an e-commerce career, she decided to quit talking about writing and actually do it.

  A Seattle native, Lauren’s also tried on the Bay Area, Orange County, and Manhattan for size. She’s currently writing from the Pacific Northwest, but is always looking for the next place to call home. Texas? The South? New England? Suggestions welcome.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

  Two in the Morning

  RONI LOREN

  One

  THERE WERE THREE things I knew for sure as I lay in the dark of my cinder-block cell of a dorm room.

  One: I shouldn’t be awake.

  Two: I definitely should not be listening to my roommate round second base with Cami/Cassie/Chloe, or whatever her C-name was.

  And, three: I should not be sporting the monster of all hard-ons from all those deep, growly sounds Malcolm kept making.

  Goddamn it.

  I needed to turn over. I needed to face the window and my desk and the stack of physics textbooks instead of the wall with the closet and the narrow full-length mirror that was giving me just enough view of movement to make me feel like some creeper. But I was afraid if I flipped over, I’d alert them that I was awake. I closed my eyes and tried to block it all out, but the girl’s muffled giggle and then kissing sounds made it hard to ignore.

  My gaze flicked over to the mirror again, and there was a flash of Malcolm’s bare shoulders as he shifted what’s-her-name beneath him. It wasn’t an unfamiliar sight. Hell, I’d seen Malcolm in the locker room every damn day during soccer season in high school, but something about seeing him like this was altogether different. It made me want things I shouldn’t. It made me want to tell him.

  Who was I kidding? It made me want him.

  Screw it. I couldn’t keep watching. I needed to move. I rolled over, wishing I could fall into some portal that would take me anywhere but here in this moment. It wouldn’t hurt if the portal could also transform me into a guy who’d be turned on by C-girl’s sighing girly sounds instead of my best friend’s caveman ones. My pillow shifted with me as I rolled, and the corner caught the wire from my phone charger. Horror streaked through me as my phone launched off the crates I used as a bedside table. I grabbed for it, the scene morphing into slow motion, but my fingers only grazed the wire. The phone clattered onto the ugly linoleum floor, making a noise that sounded like a bomb going off in the muffled quiet of the room.

  I froze, my lips clamped together to keep the string of colorful profanities from escaping. Please God, please God, please. . .

  Whispered sounds, then Malcolm’s sleepy, lust-drunk Southern accent drifting over from across the room. “You awake, Bates?”

  That’s it, God, I’m going atheist.

  I debated whether or not to open my mouth. What the hell was I supposed to say? Yeah, man, just hanging out over here listening to you get it on with your girl of the week. Soldier on. Don’t mind the tented sheets. Nothing to see here. Move along.

  Fuck.

  “Hmm?” I said, a lame attempt to sound like I was coming out of a deep sleep.

  The girl let out a whispered “Ohmigod,” and there was a hurried rustling of sheets or clothes. Her voice was urgent and low but I could hear everything. “Malcolm, where’s my bra? Find it. I don’t want him to see anything.”

  Malcolm chuckled at her obvious panic. “Bates, if you’re really awake, close your eyes for a minute. Chrissy’s got to get herself together.”

  Chrissy. That was it. I knew it was something like that, but Mal went through hookups so quickly I’d need a spreadsheet and a flow chart to keep them straight. And dear Chrissy had no need to freak out. As much as I wished it weren’t the case, I had about as much interest in seeing her naked as I did in seeing my seventy-year-old astronomy professor do a striptease. I’d tried the
boob thing in high school. Saw them. Touched them. Even tasted one. Well, two, I guess. It wasn’t something you could just do one of, apparently, but the whole experience had been clumsy and uncomfortable.

  “Um, you don’t have to leave because of me,” I said into the dark. “I can, you know, go hang out in the lounge until y’all are, uh, done or whatever.”

  Awkward, aisle one. But what else was I supposed to do? It was a high bullet point on the bro code that one should not cock-block a friend. I’d learned this freshman year from our dorm neighbors Howie and Jun. Apparently, Howie could never remember the sock tied around the doorknob signal and interrupted Jun and his girlfriend regularly.

  “Dude, it’s two in the morning,” Malcolm said. “What the hell are you going to do in the lounge?”

  Not listen to you. Not think about you in completely non–best friend ways. Not wonder what’s she’s doing to get you to make those sounds. “They have cable out there.”

  “No, it’s okay,” Chrissy said. “I need to get out of here anyway. I’m leaving early to drive home for Thanksgiving break, so I better get some sleep.”

  “Baby, you don’t have to go so soon,” Malcolm said in that voice that I was convinced channeled the Force because it was so damn effective. Chrissy could probably feel her underwear being tugged down by invisible hands.

  “Aww, you’re sweet,” she said, and the click of heels hit the linoleum as she apparently slipped on her shoes. “But I really shouldn’t have stayed this late anyway. Call me when you get back into town, okay?”

  “Definitely,” Malcolm said, all Alabama charm and promises. But I knew definitely probably meant never. Mal was good at finding girls to make out with but rarely hung out with any of them more than once or twice. This was Chrissy’s second rotation, so her library card was about to expire.

  There was a quick smooch sound, more clicking of heels, and then a shaft of light cut across the room as she opened the door to the hall. She gave a little finger wave to us both and then slipped out.

  I blew out a breath, thankful that my body was finally calming down and cooperating, but still feeling like a dick for interrupting. “I’m sorry, man. I didn’t meant to—”

  “Nah,” Malcolm said, cutting him off and flicking on his desk lamp. “I knew you were awake the whole time.”

  “What?” I pushed up on my elbows.

  He grinned, a flash of white teeth in the lamplight, as he climbed out of his bed. He grabbed a rubber band off his desk and tied his hair back, somehow making wavy shoulder-length hair look masculine. “Dude, you snore like a fucking lumberjack when you sleep, and you were quiet as a mouse tonight. Perv.”

  My face went hot. “Y’all were noisy.”

  He waggled his eyebrows. “I have that effect on women.”

  I snorted. “If you knew I was up, why didn’t you say something sooner? You know I would’ve made myself scarce.”

  He stretched his arms above his head, causing his pants to sink lower on his hips and his abs to flex in their full glory. God, did he have to preen? I was having a hard enough time focusing as it was. The talk I gave myself on a daily basis lately ran through my head on loop. He’s your best friend. He’s straight. He thinks you are, too. Ruin this and you have nothing.

  “I was kind of over it anyway. She’s hot and all, but I just wasn’t feeling it tonight.”

  “Didn’t sound that way.”

  The corner of his mouth lifted. “Listening pretty closely there, Bates.”

  “Shut up. I was trapped.”

  “Uh-huh.” His attention flicked down to the comforter covering my lower half and terror stabbed through me.

  But when I followed his gaze, I could see the bunched-up covers made it impossible to see what I was hiding beneath them. I scooted farther up my headboard anyway, shifting the comforter with me.

  Malcolm crossed the invisible line that separated my half of the room from his and grabbed my desk chair. The air shifted with him, bringing his scent with him—Irish Spring soap and the lingering smell of that chick’s perfume. I wanted to wipe her flowery crap off him. He swung a leg over the chair and straddled it, leaning his forearms along the back of it. “So now I’m wide awake.”

  I rolled onto my side. “Sounds like a personal problem.”

  “No, the only personal problem I have is that I’m leaving for Thanksgiving break tomorrow and you’re being a douche and refusing to come with.”

  “I’ve got stuff to catch up on here.” And I have no reason to go home and be thankful. “And my dad is going to be working eighteen-hour shifts all week.” Trying to forget what Thanksgiving used to be like at our house when my mom and sister were still here. “It’d be useless to go home.”

  “Screw that. Your dad is . . . being your dad. You don’t even have to tell him you’re in town if you don’t want. Just come with me and hang out at the farm. You know my mom is going to be pissed if I leave you here. And I’ve already got a bunch of people from high school coming over tomorrow night for a bonfire party.”

  “Fun,” I said dryly. I could already imagine how that would go. Malcolm would find some girl to bring to the barn, and I’d end up fielding all the sympathetic looks from people who knew too much about my family. At least here I was just another student, a face in the crowd. Not that kid who lost half his family when their car careened off a road and into a creek last winter.

  “Come on, what the hell are you going to do around here with everyone gone? Study and jerk off?”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  Malcolm reached to smack the back of my head, but I ducked in time. We’d known each other too long. I could anticipate his moves.

  “Sorry,” Malcolm said with a shrug. “Not gonna happen. I don’t care if I have to tackle, hog tie, and throw you in the back of my truck. You’re coming with me.”

  He had no idea that made me want to resist even more. God, I was pathetic. I rolled over, putting my back to him. “I need to get some sleep.”

  Malcolm gave a heavy sigh, and I could feel him staring at me. “Fine. But I’m taking that as a yes. Wake-up call is at seven A.M. I want to get on the road early.”

  “Still not going,” I mumbled as I pulled the covers over my ears, blocking out any further attempts at conversation.

  No way was I trapping himself with Malcolm for the next week, sharing his bed in his old room. I’d done it a hundred times before. But that had been when we were kids, staying up late and talking about Nintendo versus Xbox, when things were simple and easy and normal. Everything was different now. I was different. And I’d rather sit in this damn dorm room alone, eating microwaved turkey pot pie, and watching Netflix for the week than subject myself to the torture that awaited me back in that Alabama bedroom. Our friendship wouldn’t survive it.

  I wouldn’t survive it. Our friendship was the only thing I had left in my life that meant something to me. If that went to shit, I’d have nothing left.

  I closed my eyes, planning to sleep until noon. Maybe if I slept long enough, I wouldn’t even have to say good-bye.

  Two

  SO MUCH FOR best-laid plans.

  I wasn’t sure what had finally done it—what had marked my utter defeat. Maybe it was the seven A.M. wake-up call of having my sheets ripped off and a bottle of icy water dumped on me, or maybe it was my roommate putting me in a neck lock and tossing me into the shower, or perhaps it was when he stole my key to our room and left me in the hallway in only my towel until I agreed to get dressed and get in his truck. But whatever it was, somehow I found myself cruising down the I–10 in the passenger seat of Malcolm’s F–150 with country music blaring through the speakers and a McMuffin sitting in my lap.

  Epic. Fail.

  “So everybody’s coming over tonight,” Malcolm said between bites of biscuit. “Mom said there’s no family stuff to worry about until Wednesday, so we can do what we want.”

  “Great,” I said with zero enthusiasm.

  Malcolm gave me
the side eye. “Come on, time to get the stick out of your ass. You’re here. I won. Get over it.”

  I grunted and took a sip of my Dr Pepper.

  “And, good news, I invited Colette Stanley. She asked specifically if you were going to be there. Guess her crush hasn’t worn off.”

  I leaned my head against the headrest while I chewed. This was getting better by the freaking minute.

  “Have you seen her Facebook pics lately? Sophomore year has been very nice to her.”

  “I noticed,” I said, trying to sound like I cared. I should be interested in the girl who I’d awkwardly lost my virginity to senior year of high school, especially since she’d morphed from pretty girl next door to hot college dance team girl. “Doesn’t she have a boyfriend?”

  “No, she said she just broke up with him and was looking to forget he existed.”

  “Nice,” I said, playing the game. I’d gotten pretty good at faking that interest over the last two years. I didn’t need Malcolm questioning why I never came home with girls, why I rarely went to the local clubs around campus with him.

  I usually used studying as an excuse. That was easy because everyone knew I was the honors kid who’d graduated third in our class. But I did feel like I was missing out on that college social scene. I had a guy I talked to/flirted with online on the rare occasions I was alone in my room, and it helped having someone I could be open with, but Derrick lived in Minnesota and was only words behind an avatar. That wasn’t real life. I’d even gotten brave enough to drive the hour to New Orleans to go to a gay nightclub a couple of times over the last few months, convincing myself that my attraction to Malcolm was only due to proximity and familiarity. That if I had more choices, the stupid feelings would go away.

  I’d almost had a panic attack when I walked into Club Decatur the first time. Somehow it was as if I didn’t belong in either world—not the one I lived in every day where I was Bates, a regular guy’s guy from small-town Alabama, nor the bright, spinning world of the club where everyone was so . . . out. But I’d forced myself to stay for an hour the first time, and I’d gone back two weekends later. Each time I went I got a little more comfortable. But after chatting with a few guys, dancing with a couple of others, and making out with the bartender in his car one night, I’d come to the dire conclusion that my feelings for Malcolm were intensely specific. I was attracted to other guys, sure, but nothing felt like this. None of them was Malcolm.