Page 30 of Most Likely to Match
“You know, usually kids come here to fool around. Or…” The cop flashes the light right into our eyes and we both wince. “Do drugs.”
“We weren’t doing drugs,” I say. I think that’s pretty obvious.
The cop makes a face that tells me he agrees.
“Guys.” He sighs. “Can you do all this…” He twirls his finger in our direction. “At home?”
“She lives in Toronto,” Dean says. “And I live with my parents.”
I squeeze his leg, a silent plea toshut up. Has no one ever told him about his right to remain silent?
“Are we under arrest, officer?” I ask.
“You know this is public indecency, right?” he asks.
Fuck.
“So, weareunder arrest?” Dean sounds panicked. He looks at me. “I could lose my license to practice therapy.”
I look at the cop, eyebrows raised, awaiting our fate. Mostly, he looks like he wishes he was retired, which is fine with me. “Please just go…not here.” He ambles back to his cruiser, the flashlight guiding his way. He gets in but doesn’t drive away. Probably waiting for us to leave first.
A slick oil feeling of discomfort takes shape in my stomach. “Do you think he was giving us special treatment?” I ask.
Dean ignores me, flipping on the dome light and muttering about car keys.
“That felt weird. Didn’t that feel weird? Like would he have treated us differently if we weren’t adults who know our rights?”
Finally, Dean seems to realize that the car has an automatic start button. He presses it. “Honestly, probably. Yes, he was giving us special treatment, but can wepleasego back to my house?”
“But that’s wrong,” I say.
From a few spots down, the cruiser’s siren blips, the reds and blues illuminating the inside of the car and the strain that stress has thrown across Dean’s face. “I agree,” he says, guiding my hands to the ten and two position on the steering wheel. “But can wepleasefinish this discussion at my parents’ house? Or even in their driveway?Please?”
Dean’s chest heaves with deep, shuddering breaths, his jaw pulsing with tension.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
His chest expands on a deep inhale, his eyes closed. “I swear to god, Chloe. If you don’t start driving, I will?—”
I throw up my hands. “Okay, okay. We’re going.”
The cop follows us out of the parking lot and down the street toward Dean’s subdivision, peeling off only when I turn left. Dean doesn’t soften, even after we lose our tail, sitting rigidly in the seat next to me like we didn’t have each other’s genitals in our hands less than fifteen minutes ago. And I can’t think of what I should orpossibly could say to make it better. Mostly because I’m pretty sure he won’t want to talk about it anyway.
I pull into his driveway without a single direction from him. Something I should be proud of, because who remembers exactly how to get back to their high school French tutor and secret friends with benefits’ house fifteen years later? But as with most feelings tied to Dean, it’s complicated.
I turn off the engine and we sit behind a dark-colored pickup truck. The kind of utility vehicle that seems useless for most people living in the Toronto suburbs and is most likely a vanity purchase; not that I’d ever say that to Dean about what is likely his father’s car.
We sit so long, Dean staring straight ahead at the license plate— AZPY 336— that the motion sensor light pointed at us turns off. We used to wait for this moment, when we could hide behind the dark and kiss and touch. When Dean would say that French kissing is more language practice.
I want to apologize, because even though I don’t knowwhatI did, I know it was wrong. ButI’m sorryseems to be the one thing we for sure cannot say to each other. “How’d you become a boyfriend for hire?” I ask, because I’m curious and because that seems like a safe distraction.
He shakes his head before he looks at me, like he’s trying to shake away whatever loop his brain found itself in. With his eyes on me, I am suddenly once again very aware of the fact that I am not wearing panties, that my dress is still damp in uncomfortable places. I wonder if the cop thought, when I rolled down the window, that it smelled like sex in here, and if it still does.
“My college roommate,” he says simply.
“Like…he was your pimp?”
“Chloe.” He sighs, eyes closed and head back. “No. He liked this girl, and she wouldn’t go out with him unless he had a friend for her friend, and that was me.” His voice is rough, more from emotion than disuse. “And it turned outmydate actually liked my roommate, too.”
