Page 30 of A Night to Remember

Her gray eyes are searching my face, probing, pleading. I take a step back from her and rub my hands over my face. Isthiswhy she’s been angry with me all this time? Is this why she ghosted me?

“I… no,” I stammer. “No, I just took Allison home. As soon as you went into the house to look for her, I saw these guys head into the woods with her, and they were laughing in a way that… well, I could guess what they had planned. And I could see that she was really drunk. She just needed to get out of there, fast, so I intervened and took her home. I texted you and waited for you as long as I could. Then I wanted to come back to you, but you didn’t answer any of my messages. I didn’t… I would never have…” I’m absolutely flabbergasted that she could have thought this. I would almost be angry if it weren’t for the painful remorse written all over her face.

“I know,” she says with a deep sigh, seemingly fighting back tears. “I mean, I know now. Allison just told me. I had never asked her about it, because I thought she might be embarrassed or ashamed. And I… I think I let myself believe it all this time because I was scared. Of you.”

“Scared ofme?Why?”

“Because I really liked you! Because I thought that if we got together, I might fuck up college! But that was no way to treat you. I’m really, really sorry.”

She looks straight into my eyes. I feel such a strong connection to her that I don’t think I could look away even if the bar burned down around us. Every part of my body is pulsing to the beat of my pounding heart.

“You really liked me,” I say finally, breathing hard. She just nods.

“And so that night,” I continue, needing, urgently, to know the whole truth, “if it hadn’t been for Allison…”

“Yes,” she says, still looking into my eyes, her expression of remorse replaced by something needier. I can tell she’s breathing hard too.

“Yes what?” I growl, allowing myself to step closer to her.

Her chest rises and falls quickly as she considers her next words. She finally breaks eye contact and looks down at her tattered sneakers.

“YesIwouldhavesleptwithyou,” she says all in a rush. Her eyes flick back up to mine. “When you danced with me like that, you really turned me on.” She gives me a tentative smile. “I was very attracted to you back then,” she confesses, just above a whisper.

“And now?” I whisper back, edging even closer.

She doesn’t move away. Instead, she just shakes the hair out of her eyes and tips her face up to mine. A sentence seems to be forming on her lips, but I never hear it. Because suddenly I can’t take it anymore. I close the distance between us, twist my fingers in her hair, and kiss her hungrily. She drops the beer bottle she was holding. It shatters at her feet as she claws at my chest, my arms, my back, pressing me harder and harder against her. Her tongue slides against mine, our teeth clack together, it’s messy and rough and I don’t care, because finally,finallythis is happening. I slide my hands to her perfect hips and she hops up and wraps her long legs around me. I run my palms over her ass, up her back to where I can feel her bra clasp under her shirt. Iundo it in one easy motion and now my hand is on her skin, my fingers flicking against her nipple as she moans into my mouth. My erection is pressing against her jeans and I know she can feel it from the way she tightens her legs around me. Groaning, I slam her against the bulletin board. Thumbtacks and notices rain down—those underqualified yoga teachers will never know what happened—and pull down the collar of her t-shirt so I can lick her neck, her collarbone, her?—

“K? Are you all right?” Allison’s voice suddenly rings out. “Oh, shit?—”

“I think she’s fine,” I hear a man say in a choked voice. “Come on.”

I realize, now, that that interaction wasverypublic. Kayla must realize it too, because she slides her feet back to the floor.

“Yes, everything’s all right,” she says a little breathlessly. I risk a look at her, and she’s smiling and biting her lower lip as she looks up at me mischievously. She looks so gorgeously disheveled—messy hair, t-shirt and bra askew, a flush spreading over her cheeks and chest—that it takes real effort to acknowledge that there are people behind me. I turn around to see Allison and her boyfriend in fast retreat. But something makes Allison stop short as she’s about to turn the corner.

“Gabe,” she calls carefully. “I think your brother might be coming over.”

Oh, shit.Adam. How much of that did he see? How much will he intuit?

“He shouldn’t see us together,” I tell Kayla without thinking.

She’d been straightening her hair and clothes, but now she furrows her brows. “Why?”

“He was really pissed that I talked to you after your meeting with my dad,” I hasten to explain.

“Adam!” I hear Allison’s voice on the other side of the wall, pitched half an octave higher than it had been before. “I wasjust wondering if you could tell Tom here about your workout routine! Howdidyou build these biceps?”

“Oh, um, well, that mostly involved curls, and boosting my protein intake?—”

“Fascinating!” a voice I assume is Tom’s interrupts. “Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but I seem to recall that the Wilsons are descended from the Eastons, who first settled in northeastern Missouri in 1830?”

“Uh, what?”

Kayla suppresses a laugh, but turns serious when I say quietly, “He could make refinancing difficult for you if he wanted to.”

“Would he? Why?”

“Because he’s mad at me. Because he’s a dick. I don’t know, but I don’t trust him.”

---