Page 115 of The Suit

I waited while her eyes searched my face, urging me to continue. “What do you really want to know?”

I briefly let go of her hand to brush my finger across her soft, damp cheek as I smiled at her eager gaze. “Where we’re supposed to go, so I’m calling a truce. I’m waving a white flag, and I want to start over with a clean slate. I want the start we should have had at school.” I held the slate and the white scarf out in front of me, and she took them before a broad smile split her face. And I vowed to make that smile happen every day. “So whatd’ya say?”

Her smile widened even further, this time with a firm nod. “Yes, please. I’d like that. I’d like a truce, more than anything. I’d like to start over.”

I held my hand out in front of her.

“What are you doing?” She frowned, looking at it.

“Something I should have done ten years ago.” I placed her palm against mine, giving it a firm shake. “Hi, I’m Raferty Latham, it’s good to meet you. I would ask you to sit next to me, but could I take you to lunch instead?”

She giggled, actually giggled, a sound I’d never heard from her before, and it made my heart swell three sizes until the buttons on my shirt strained in their holes.

“Yes, I’d love that.”

My cheeks hurt from the size of the smile I was now wearing as I gathered her things and placed the slate back in the box while she knotted the scarf around her hair in a thick band.

“Ready?”

Her hand curled into mine as I led her out of the lecture room and down the corridor to the doors opening onto 116thStreet. I stopped before we reached the end, winding my arms around her waist.

“I know this is supposed to happen after the date, but I’ve honestly been thinking about it since the game and I can’t wait any longer.”

I dipped my head, lowering it until my lips met hers, brushing against the soft, plumpness until they opened for me and I could finally taste her like I’d been wanting to for the past eleven days. I lazily swept round her mouth like I had all the time in the world, and this wasn’t the first line of a new story, and I wasn’t frantic to get to the second page.

She moaned softly, her body pressing into mine while her hands slid up my shoulders and pushed into the hair at the nape of my neck, pulling me into her because I wasn’t giving her enough.

We were so fucking good at this.

I cursed myself once more for only just figuring it out.

I moved back a split second before I stepped her into the wall to finish what we started. Fucking her in the corridor was not how I planned our first official date to begin.

Our first of many.

“Come on,” I said, straightening her shirt. “Let’s go.”

I pushed the door and led her out into the bright summer sunshine, her hand back in mine. Exactly where I planned to keep it for as long as I could.

Epilogue

Rafe

Five months later

Ipicked the cufflink off the floor and gave up on fixing it myself. Instead, went in search of the one person I needed to help me.

What did I used to do in this situation?

I couldn’t remember.

Couldn’t remember much B.B., as Murray and Penn now referred to it. Before Beulah.

I ran down the stairs and found her in the kitchen, palms pressed hard on the countertop while she stared at the blank phone resting between them.

Checking my watch, it seemed I’d arrived just in time; just before the second hand hit the top of the hour.

Three.

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