Page 14 of Due South

Chanoch. I say it over in my head, but not out loud, afraid I’ll embarrass myself or upset him if I get it wrong. It sounds strange coming out of his mouth, like he doesn’t say it very often. Why? Whyever, it seems as though he doesn’t like it very much, and I feel him pulling away from me. I want him to stay.

“Should I keep calling you Evans?”

“Yeah. Definitely. Please do.”

I smile at him, the shyness coming over me again.

“I guess we should—”

“Oh, yeah.”

He reaches between us to hold the condom on as he finally pulls out, and I miss him right away. The feeling of him inside me, the breadth of his hips between my thighs. He was solid and warm, and when he’d been there, we’d been us. Now it feels like him and me.

He grabs a bunch of napkins from the counter and offers me a few apologetically. We clean up and try to put ourselves to rights. Standing, staring at each other, we talk over one another.

“We should—”

“I guess—”

“You first,” he insists.

“We should go?”

He nods and flings a careless hand toward the coffee maker. “I guess you can show me how to work that tomorrow.”

“Definitely.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll walk you out.”

I could tell him not to bother. It’s late and I don’t think he’s going home yet. Ten minutes can make the difference between finishing a project and not. But I let myself nod because I’d like him to.

A few minutes later, we’re standing by my car and I’m not sure of what to say. What are you supposed to say after something like that?

So I unlock the door, muttering an awkward goodnight so he doesn’t feel like he’s supposed to kiss me or anything. I slip inside, and he closes the door after me, catching my coat in the door. I have to open it to get it out and almost smack him in the face with the sharp corner. Somehow the fumbling makes my heart flutter. Not in embarrassment. In a recognition kind of way. Evans isn’t too cool for me; he’s not going to treat me badly in the morning. When we finally manage to get the door closed without any fabric or limbs caught in it, I roll down the window and there’s a flurry of goodbyes and see you tomorrows.

He stands there with his hands in his pockets. I watch him in my rearview mirror as I pull away, almost clipping the One Way sign as I pull out of the garage.

That suspiciously glowy feeling lasts until I get home and into my bed. I was so tired when I left, and now I can’t seem to sleep. Those voices Evans had chased away with his certainty come creeping into my head.

Don’t abandon your morals to give into the temptations of the flesh. Your behavior needs to be unimpeachable because people assume things about girls who look like you, Lulu. Sex outside of marriage should be spurned, not coveted.

And heaven help anyone whoenjoyedit. But I had. And it wasn’t in a godly, sacred way. Nope. Not in a be-fruitful-and-multiply kind of way either. My enjoyment had been in a very earthly, mortal way. Without Evans to keep it at bay, the certainty I’ve done something very, very wrong beats loud in my head, and I can’t make it stop, even with all the pretty sex-positive mantras I throw at it. The rational part of me knows there’s nothing wrong with what we did, but right now Bible-thumping Captain Irrational McRantypants is in charge and in no hurry to give up.

I throw in the towel around four. If I can’t sleep, I might as well work. I have enough to do. Only nine days; the race is on.

Chapter Five

‡

December 19th

Evans

Wow. Just, likewow. That was the best craziest thing that’s ever happened to me in my whole life.

For the most part, I go to work, I deal with my family, and I go to sleep. Over and over again. The ratio of how I spend my days might change, but the composition remains the same. Black and white, black and white, until the whole mess of hours and days, weeks and months, blends into a mess of grey.

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