Page 57 of Never Been Shipped

They’d stayed up for four hours on that porch, crafting the verses and chorus, Micah humming a melody over his guitar until she started scribbling down some lyrics that she felt could fit. She’d never had a song come together in quite that way before—where it truly felt like a conversation, like everything John did made her think of a way she’d want to respond. When she’d asked if he had a name for the song, when he’d first started figuring it out, he said, “If Only.” And even though she’d already written out most of the lyrics and that phrase never appeared in them once, she knew it was the right title. It perfectly fit everything she’d been thinking, too.

She sat down now, reaching for the acoustic guitar closest to her. John had already made sure it was in tune, of course, and she easily found the position for that first A minor chord on the fretboard, strumming gently with her fingers. It felt good, sitting with a guitar again, feeling its weight on her, the press of her fingertips against the strings. She’d missed it, she realized, which was not something she’d known until that very second.

John pushed one of the open guitar cases toward her withhis foot, indicating a bunch of differently colored picks piled up in one of the pockets. “Later, I’ll set one of the mic stands up with a pick holder,” he said, “and have you practice grabbing another pick midsong, in case you drop the one you’re using. It happens sometimes, especially if you’re nervous and your hands are sweaty. Honestly, that’s probably the only thing you’ll have to worry about—I know you won’t have trouble with the song itself.”

That was more confidence in her abilities than she had, but she appreciated it and was grateful once again that he’d thought so far ahead. Dropping her pick while she was in the middle of playing hadn’t even been on her short list of things she was anxious about.

She reached down to grab a pick from the case, letting out a choked laugh when she read the words printed on it.“Flick It Good?”

John looked up, his brow furrowed, until something seemed to click and he grabbed for the guitar case to slide it farther away from her again. But she’d already come up with a whole handful of the colorful picks, and was turning them over in her hands, reading them one by one.

“Go Pluck Yourself,” she said. “Give Me a Lick. I Love Your G String. Put Good Wood on It. John, these are filthy!”

She didn’t think she’d ever seen his face so red. It was delightful.

“They were a present,” he said. “A gag gift from Asa. He—”

“Between the Batman pajamas and these, I’m starting to think Asa doesn’t exist,” Micah said. “He’s like your Canadian boyfriend. Your fake Floridian housemate you blame whenever I find out something embarrassing about you.Shake That Bass—a bit of a homograph problem there, right? Is that what youwould call it?You Rock My World. I’m Good at Fingering—well,that’scertainly true.It Isn’t Going to Spank Itself. Touch My—”

She broke off, unable to even get the words out, she was laughing so hard.

John had a smile playing around his own mouth now, and he was watching her face instead of looking at the picks. “Touch my what? What does it say?”

She shook her head, her laughter having ascended to that plane where no sound was coming out of her mouth, where her stomach muscles almost hurt and there were tears in her eyes. “Touch My—” she started to say when she thought she’d gotten control over herself, but then the laughter started all the way back up again, until eventually John was laughing, too. She held the pick out to him, and he turned it over to read what it said.

“Touch My Whammy Bar.That’s pretty good. I’ll definitely be using that one.”

“If you sayanyof this stuff to me during sex, that’s it, party’s over. I’m putting my clothes back on and you can touch your own whammy bar.”

“I don’t know. They’re not all terrible. LikeGive Me a Lick.”

Okay, she had to agree that one wasn’t bad. In fact, something about the way John said it, thatKsound in the back of his throat, suddenly wiped away any desire to laugh and replaced it with another desire entirely. She set her acoustic guitar carefully back in its stand.

“What are you doing?” John asked, but in a tone that suggested he knewexactlywhat she was doing.

“We need to focus,” she said. “And I feel like we’re going to have a hard time focusing.” She lifted her shirt over her head, dropping it to the floor next to her. Then she reached behindher back to unhook her bra, letting it fall down her arms to join her shirt.

“I have excellent focus,” he said. She could swear his eyes were darker than they’d been a second ago, more pupil than iris.

“I know you do,” she said. She slid down to her knees, crawling the two feet until she was kneeling between his legs. When she touched his thighs through his jeans, she could feel his muscles clench, could feel his body heat. She could see where he was already hard, and it made her mouth water.

He was still holding a guitar pick between his fingers, and he flicked one of her nipples with it, making it tighten into an almost painful bud. She arched her back, leaning into the sensation.

“The door’s not locked,” he said. “Anyone could come in.”

It wasn’t a rebuff or a rejection. It was a test, a question where he cared about her answer before moving forward. But he also had to notice the way her breath caught, the way her hands tightened on his thighs as he worked her other nipple with his guitar pick, almost casually, like she’d watched him play a thousand times before.

“They won’t,” she said.

His hands skated along the tops of her shoulders, coming up to cradle her face. “What do you want?” he asked, his voice low. Something about the way he said it, she didn’t even think he was only talking about sex. But she didn’t know how to answerthatquestion, which was much bigger than this moment and which had the power to unravel everything. All she knew was the way she wanted to feel right here, right now.

“I want to see you,” she said. “All of you. I want to touchyou. I want to taste you. I want you inside me. I want it all, John, everything you’ll give me.”

He shrugged out of his hoodie, then yanked off his own shirt, until he was bare-chested in front of her. She’d had the chance to look at him on the beach, but even with her sunglasses on, she’d been conscious of staring too long. Now she was able to drink in the sight of him as much as she wanted: the sharp line of his clavicle, the dusting of dark hair on his chest, his puckered nipples that she touched with one finger.

John closed his eyes briefly before opening them again. “I want everything, too,” he said.

She reached up to the button at the fly of his jeans, glancing at him to make sure he was okay with it. The knuckles of her uninjured hand brushed his stomach, the trail of hair leading into his waistband, and she felt him suck in a breath as she worked his zipper down. The rest was difficult to do with one of her hands partially bandaged, and so he lifted his hips off the chair to pull his jeans down his legs, kicking them and his underwear away until he was completely naked. She pulled her own pants and underwear off so she could join him.

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