Page 16 of Once Kissed

“Would it have bothered you if I’d done that?” she asks, quietly.

“Licked a shot off one of your sorority sisters? Hell, no.”

Oh, and there’s that pissy look again. “I meant if I’d done that to one of your frat brothers.”

“No.”Maybe.

“No?”

“No.”Okay, probably.

“Oh,” she says.

Maybe it’s me, but she sounds disappointed. I glance over at her, noticing the way she seems to shrink inward, like she used to do all those years ago. For all that she’s changed physically, on the inside, I’m not sure she’s changed much at all. She’s still that same girl, appearing to watch life from a distance.

I nudge her, hoping I can somehow draw another smile.

“Admit it, our time at the ol’ frat house was fun. And if I recall, the night you finally took part in some of those offensive shenanigans—”

“Shenanigans?” she asks, curving the edges of her lips slightly.

“It was my Grammie’s—God rest her soul—favorite word to describe me and my family’s behavior. Anyway, like I was saying, the night you cut loose, you seemed to have the time of your life. Well, until your dad caught us naked in bed the next morning. Speaking of which, how is the old coot?”

Tess’s jaw slowly unhinges, but then she quickly composes herself. “He’s fine. Just fine.”

“What’s wrong?”

“What do you mean, ‘what’s wrong’? You just brought up what happened between us as if, as if—Jesus,Curran.” She covers her face before she realizes how far I’ve driven. “Turn right, right here—no,here.Okay, now left at the next block. There—it comes up fast. No, no, right there.” She shakes out her hands, completely flustered as I make a hard left.

I straighten the car. “You all right?”

“No. I went to bed with you. And now you’re here, reminding me what happened and picturing me naked.”

“I’m not picturing you naked.”

She whirls to face me, her cheeks bright pink. “You’re not?”

“Well, I wasn’t before.” My gaze shoots her way. “But now that you mentioned it, I kind of have to.”

She buries her face in her hands. “Oh, God.”

Without meaning to, I crack up. “It doesn’t have to be a big deal.”

“But it is to me, Curran,” she says, quieting. “What happened between us was something I’d never done before.”

“Holy shit, you were a virgin?”

“No!”

I slump back in my seat. “Thank Christ. I mean, I didn’t think you were, given how hard we went at it and what we did. But if you were, I would’ve felt bad.”

She stumbles over a bunch of syllables before managing to spit out,“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why would you feel bad had I been a virgin?”

“You know.”

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