“That was me, making my move.”
I cast my eyes upward to the ceiling, my smile threatening to split my face in half. “Oh, thank God.”
She giggled then, and it was the sweetest sound in the world. “Would you think I’m a wimp if I told you I’ve wanted to do that for a long time, but I just wasn’t brave enough?”
“No.” I let my finger sift through the hair at the back of her head. “Your timing is perfect. Absolutely perfect. Although . . .” I settled her more firmly across my chest, splaying my fingers over her back. “I have to ask you what this means. Was it just—this? For now? Something you felt like doing? Or does it mean more?”
A bit of trepidation flashed through her eyes. “I hope it’s not just for now. I want it to mean more. I think I want more with you, if you’re still, um, interested. But I need to move slow, Tate. I’m still terrified. I’m still not ready to trust my own heart.” She lay her cheek on my chest and sighed. “But I do trust you.”
I’d never known it was possible to feel so much hope and joy at once. I wanted to shout, and I wanted to do one of those crazy touchdown dances my teammates loved. But being here, holding Gia, was better than anything that had ever happened to me on the football field, and if we could make it happen, I’d have stayed right there for the rest of my days.
“I can take everything as slow as you need,” I assured her. “I mean, we can wait for sex until after dinner, if you want.”
Gia lifted her head to stare at me in shock, her mouth opening to give me hell until she saw the twinkle in my eyes. And then she just began to laugh at me.
“That’s so understanding of you.” Curling her fingers, she rested her chin on top of her fist on my chest. “If we’re being totally honest—and I know, I know. You always are.” She gave me a lazy smirk. “But if I’m being honest, there’s nothing I’d like to do more right now than to ravage you.”
At those words, my cock, which was already very interested after that kiss and by Gia’s body pressed into mine, stiffened to a nearly painful extent. “Honey, I’m all yours, whenever and wherever and however. All the evers.”
“Thanks.” She touched my chin with the tip of her finger, rubbing the bristles there. “But I don’t want to jump into that too fast. I’ve never had anything like what we have with any other guy. Moving slow is good for both of us. I think.”
“You’re right. As much as I’d like to turn over right now and . . . find out what it is I’ve been missing all this time, I’m just as excited to walk into Amico’s with you, holding your hand.” I paused. “Am I allowed to hold your hand?”
She rolled her eyes. “You’ve been holding my hand anyway, for weeks. You’ve just been slick about it. But yes, it would make me very happy if you held my hand.”
“Then I’ll never let it go. I’ll never let you go.” I raked my fingers through her silky black hair, framing her face with my hands. She was so small that my huge palms completely cupped her cheeks. “If I’m overwhelming you, Gia, you only have to tell me, but if you don’t, I’m planning to take every opportunity to let you know how I feel. I never want you to doubt me for a minute.”
She circled her fingers around my wrists, holding on loosely, and then slipping her hands up to rest on mine. “Bring it on.”
That day was like living in a dream I’d convinced myself would never come true.
Gia and I turned on the next episode of Veronica Mars eventually, but we didn’t pay very close attention to it—or at least I didn’t. I was too busy pinching myself, making sure this wasn’t some hallucination I was having after one tackle too many on the football field. I was lying in Gia’s bed, with one arm wrapped around her, while she lay with her head on my chest, her fingers drawing absent-minded circles on my arm. Each touch of her fingers set me on fire, and it was all I could do not to do what I’d said I wouldn’t, roll her over so that she was beneath me and kiss her senseless. I wanted to feel every inch of her body against mine, to feel her writhe and stretch and press into me.
But I hadn’t been lying before. I could control myself, especially now that I knew we were moving forward. We were going to have the chance I’d been afraid we never would. So sure, I could be patient. As long as I knew that we had a future, that my time with Gia wasn’t limited and finite, I could wait for a long time.
“Tate.” Her voice was soft and muffled against my chest.
“Hmmmm?” I nuzzled the top of her head, loving the intimacy of holding her this way. It was new, and for some people, maybe simply lying together wouldn’t be such a big deal, but for me, it was heaven.
“Why have you waited so long . . . you know . . . to have sex? I know you said you just never really had a girlfriend, that you were focused on other things, but I’ve got to admit, I’m having trouble wrapping my mind around the fact that a guy like you didn’t have girls dying to be with you.”
“Who says they weren’t?” I wiggled my fingers on the hand resting by her waist, and Gia squirmed.
“Then why didn’t you take advantage of that? Not of the girls themselves,” she added quickly. “I know you well enough to be positive that you’d never intentionally use someone that way. But I know there’re women out there who would be down for a casual hook-up with someone like you.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” I shifted a little, tucking Gia closer to me. “But that’s just it. I wasn’t looking for casual. Never was. I understood the attraction, because when you’re turned on by a girl and know she feels the same, there’s definitely the temptation to act on it. If you’re both on the same page, it feels like a no harm, no foul situation. But you know, I grew up with Pops, and for all his bluster, he’s a man who believes in true love. He never preached at me, but he taught by example. He let me know that it was possible for a man to be with only one woman for his whole life. He didn’t tell me that was what I should do, but I decided pretty early that I wanted what Pops and Grammy had.”
“That’s beautiful,” Gia murmured. “I wish I’d had that kind of example. I wish . . .” She exhaled, and I felt her sadness. “I wish that I could be untouched and unspoiled, too. I wish I came to you without all the garbage in my past.”
“Hey.” I twisted so that I could see her face more fully. “You’re not spoiled, Gia. Not by a long shot. You and I both come into this—into being us—in different ways, but that’s okay. Our paths might not have been the same, but that doesn’t make where we are any less valid. We are who we are, and I wouldn’t change a damn thing about that, even if I could. Everything that you’ve been through makes up the Gia you are now. And I happen to think that Gia is pretty wonderful.” I kissed her forehead, just because I could. “I probably shouldn’t show my cards this early, but you know, I can’t hide anything from you. In case you haven’t noticed, the truth is that I’m pretty crazy about you. I’d do anything for you, babe. Anything at all.”
She bit her bottom lip, and her eyes were glowy. “I believe you.”
“Good.” I ran my hand down her back and pinched her fine ass. “Now get off me, woman. We need to get ready for dinner. Believe it or not, I’m—”
“Starved,” Gia finished for me, shaking her head as she untangled herself from me. “Color me shocked. Don’t worry, it’ll only take me about ten minutes to change and be all set.”
“Ohhhh.” I sat up, mock leering at her. “Now that we’re moving into the more-than-friends territory, do I get to watch you?”
Gia opened up the small wardrobe that served as her closet and pulled out a dress on a hanger. “Sure, you can, sweetie.” She batted her eyelids at me. “You can sit right there and enjoy me putting on my makeup and brushing my hair, if that’s what gets you hot. Tell me, do your alpha male teammates know that you like that kind of thing?”
I grabbed for her hand, and she laughed as she dodged me. “Smart ass. No peep show for me, then?”
“Nope. I’m all for maintaining the mystery. I need to preserve something, or you might lose interest i
n me.” She draped her dress over one arm and headed for the bathroom.
“Never, sweetheart.” I kept my voice light, but Gia must’ve heard the underlying thread of truth. She turned and looked back at me, her eyes holding mine. “Not in this lifetime. I think you’re stuck with me.”
She smiled, but a ghost of something else, something sad, flitted over the happy. “Promises, promises.”
Then
“Hey, gorgeous. I thought you were going out tonight.” Zelda glanced up at me from her laptop, frowning as she took in the yoga pants and baggy T-shirt I was wearing. “Isn’t it Saturday?”
“It is.” I flopped down on the worn recliner in the corner of our miniscule living room. “But I decided I didn’t feel like going out. I’ve got a shit ton of work to do. I’m behind on reading in two classes, and I have a paper due in four days that I really should get started on.”
“Hmm.” She gazed at me over the top of her reading glasses. “Yeah, that’s probably smart.” She didn’t have to add what I was sure she was thinking: I hadn’t been making smart choices for a while now, when it came to school. I’d been skating by, phoning it in, and it was only by the grace of some last-minute scrambling that I was still getting mostly B’s.
“How about you? Staying in, too?” Zelda, for all of her outrageous sexual behavior earlier in our college days, had calmed down in the past few months. I could almost mark the change to the summer before our junior year, the same year Matt had moved back to his grandparents’ house to go to summer school with me at Birch. I winced a little, remembering those months. For Matt and me, they’d been marked by dizzying highs, when we’d spent weekends together in bed and he’d promised me the sun, the moon and the stars, and by heartbreaking lows, when we’d screamed at each other for hours on end after he’d fallen off the wagon, getting drunk or high. I suspected, too, that he’d hooked up with other girls, even though he’d sworn it hadn’t happened.
Since then, we’d existed in an uneasy kind of truce that passed for a relationship. Matt still called me his girlfriend when he introduced me to people, and I still went down to Carolina at least once a month to see him—or more accurately, to sleep with him. Any time I tried to initiate a real conversation, we ended up fighting—mostly because I always brought up his present, which he was doing his damnedest to fuck up, and our future, which seemed murky at best.
Zelda hit a key on the computer and nodded. “That’s the plan. I’m going to make dinner for Quinn, Nate and Tuck. You want in on that?”
“Maybe.” I shrugged. “I don’t know. I might just buckle down and get through this paper, with some chips and dip to help me out. I’m not much in the mood for socializing.” I paused before adding, “And it’s still hard to stomach the Nate and Quinn show. Is it just me, or does she look a little sadder every day?”
“It’s not just you.” Zelda blew out a long breath. “I hate this. And I’ve told her that. We all know she’s still crazy in love with Leo. Even Nate realizes it. I’m still pissed at him for putting Quinn in the position of having to choose.”
“Yeah.” I fiddled with a thread on the knee of my pants. “I love Nate, and my heart breaks for him, but he could’ve just asked Quinn to be with him until . . . the end. He didn’t have to propose. Now she’s going through the farce of a wedding, knowing it can’t ever be a real marriage.”
“And what if he doesn’t die?” Zelda glanced over her shoulder, lowering her voice. “I asked Quinn that. I said, what’re you going to do if Nate has a sudden, miraculous remission or if they come up with a cure? Then she’s stuck with him, unless he’s man enough to bow out—and let’s face it, Nate wouldn’t do that. He’s always been hung up on Quinn, and I think if he knew he was going to live, he’d fight to hold onto her.”
I smothered a sigh. Zelda’s anger at Nate wasn’t new, and I understood how she felt, but I’d known him longer than she had, since I’d gone to school with Quinn, Leo and Nate from junior high on. I genuinely liked him. He was quirky, funny and straightforward, and the truth was that I’d had a big crush on him in high school. But even back then, anyone could see that Nate only ever wanted Quinn. She was everything for him, and that had never changed.
“As I understand it, there’s no chance that he’ll live. Quinn told me that the doctors say he might not even make it to the end of the year. His parents wanted him to leave school, to buy some more time, but Nate’s stubborn.” My phone vibrated in my back pocket, and I arched my body to pull it out, scanning the screen. “Shit. Matt got the dates mixed up and thought I was coming down today, not next weekend. He’s freaking out.”
Zelda snorted. “What the hell does he expect you to do? Snap your fingers and transport yourself down there?” There wasn’t any love lost between my friend and my boyfriend. Zelda hated the way Matt treated me, and she didn’t hesitate to call him on it, either. Matt, in turn, taunted Zelda for being a bitch, telling me often that he couldn’t understand why I was friends with her.
“No, he’s just mad. Because, you know, this is all my fault, as usual.” I turned off the phone and put it back in my pocket. “I’m going to ignore him and bury my frustration in a ten page, in-depth study of the character Laertes in Hamlet. And some chips, too.”
My phone was on the table next to my bed, and I’d managed to ignore it for the last two hours as I wrote, even though it was vibrating almost non-stop. I knew I should’ve just put it on silent completely, but I also knew that if I picked it up to do that now, I’d get sucked into looking at Matt’s texts to me. I wasn’t ready yet.
I made it through another forty-five minutes before I stood up to stretch and reluctantly reached for the phone. I had eight messages from Matt, but I chose to ignore those a little longer, tapping instead on my favorite social media site.
Moments later, I wished I hadn’t. Because I had my feed set up so that I saw Matt’s posts first, I also saw pictures where he’d been tagged, and that was why the very first photo that filled my phone’s screen was of my boyfriend, naked, lifting high a bottle of whiskey, while a blonde woman knelt in front of him. I couldn’t quite see what she was doing, but I had a pretty good idea from the way Matt’s other hand covered the top of her head. It was the same thing he did to me whenever I was giving him a blow job.
The next pictures didn’t leave so much to my imagination. They’d just been posted, and I was willing to bet that the site would pull them within moments, but lucky me, I’d gotten an eyeful before that happened. This time it was a different woman with her mouth around Matt’s dick, but girl number one was still in the frame; she was nude from the waist up, and my boyfriend was palming her enormous—and probably fake—tits.
There were more pictures, more images that left no doubt what Matt was doing tonight to get back at me for not being with him this weekend. I closed the app, turned off the ringer completely and dropped onto my bed, trying to calm the nausea roiling in my stomach. I didn’t have any delusions about Matt, or at least I hadn’t thought I did. But it was one thing to suspect his infidelity, another to hear about it, and still another yet to see it in living color.
I’d hit a breaking point. I was furious, so fucking furious that I couldn’t see straight. I wanted him to know how much he’d hurt me and how it felt to be in this much pain. I wanted him to know this kind of agony. I wanted to get back at him, and right now, I didn’t care what kind of fall-out that revenge might have.
Stifling a groan of frustration, I stood up. I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t stay here in the apartment. I had to get out.
And suddenly, I knew just where I wanted—no, needed—to go and what I was going to do once I got there.
Digging through my closet, I found my shortest, tightest and lowest-cut dress. I stripped off the yoga pants and T-shirt, along with my underwear, and tugged the dress into place before stepping into high heels. My hair was fine, thanks to its simple style, so I only needed to add a little makeup and a spritz of perfume before I stepped out of
my room.
Four pairs of eyes swiveled my way. Tuck, Zelda, Nate and Quinn were all sitting around the table, eating whatever Zelda had whipped up for dinner. Quinn’s eyes went wide as she watched me walk toward them.
“Thought you were staying in tonight and hitting the books.” Zelda leaned back in her chair. “That doesn’t exactly look like a studying outfit.”
“I guess it depends on what you’re planning to study.” I pasted on a bright smile. “Don’t wait up for me, kiddos. I’m calling a RideIt, so I can drink as much as I want. If I don’t come home, don’t send out the National Guard.”
I looped my small purse over my shoulder and reached for the doorknob. Quinn’s voice made me pause.
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing, Gia?”
I didn’t bother looking at her. “I’ve got no fucking idea, Q. All I do know is that I need to stop thinking . . . and forget.” I opened the door. “Don’t worry about me. You know I always land on my feet.”
The RideIt car was waiting for me downstairs, in front of our building, and I felt the driver’s eyes on me as I slid into the backseat. He was a little old to be a student here at Birch; he must’ve been a local, making some extra bucks on the side from college kids like me who needed to pay for a designated driver.
He dropped me at the edge of fraternity row, where I could hear music and shouting even before I opened the car door. The driver frowned at me.
“Are you here by yourself? Or are you meeting friends?”
I shrugged as I stood up. “If I play my cards right, I’ll be making all kinds of new friends. Thanks for the ride.” Slamming the door, I made my way to the house with the wide-open doors, where the front porch was crowded with writhing bodies.
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