Page 90 of Fall for Me

Inside it was dark, the only light a glow coming from up the stairs in front of me. It smelled musty, and a little like machinery grease. At one time, the place had apparently been a textile manufacturer, and later, a restaurant. But it had been shut down for over a decade and Eli said it was gutted to the studs down on the main floor.

“Hello?” I called.

I should have texted to let her know I was here. But I heard the thud of footsteps, and then Chelsea, calling my name. “Seamus?”

I still couldn’t get over the way my skin went warm at the sound of her voice.

“Hey,” I said.

“Up here.”

More footsteps, then the stairs lit up with running lights along either side of the risers. A moment later, The Tracks of My Tears by Smokey Robinson came pouring out of some speakers I hadn’t noticed on the landing.

I gripped the banister and tipped my head back, almost laughing at the irony. Dad and I had busted out to this song in the bar that night—rousing half of O’Malley’s to join in too, arms slung around each other.

I didn’t see Chelsea at the top of the stairs, or the next set either, though I heard the patter of her footsteps as she ran out of sight ahead of me. “Keep going,” she said.

I smiled, my chest somehow both light and heavy at her obviously well-rehearsed plan.

With the running lights—along with signs assuring me I was going the right way—it was impossible to miss the way the partygoers were supposed to go: to the roof.

It was only when I pushed open the door that I found my jaw dropping.

“Holy shit,” I said out loud. The roof, which connected to the others on this city block, had been cordoned off with potted cedars along the sides. There were posts in cement-filled pots every few feet, and strung from those, lights on strings. A dozen large round tables with as many chairs at each covered the space, their white tablecloths clipped, but flapping gently in the breeze. In between all of them, eight-foot space heaters stood, the kind that were on the patio at O’Malley’s last night. They weren’t on yet, but I knew the space would be indulgently warm tonight, even with the light wind coming in off the Quince.

But I didn’t turn around, not yet, because I knew what I was going to see.

And I knew it might crack the resolve I worked so hard to build. It might break me.

“Seamus,” she said.

But how could I say no to her saying my name? If I’d learned anything over these few weeks—these perfect, magical weeks with Chelsea Kelly—it’s that the sound of my name in her mouth would undo me, every time. I turned, and felt the wind knocked out of me.

Chelsea looked even more goddamned breathtaking than I’d been worried about. She was wearing a dark green dress; lacy, like a forest canopy. It went up high, showing no cleavage, and had long sleeves, but the way it hugged her form—and the short skirt that fluttered just like the tablecloths in the breeze—it was sexy as goddamned hell. Her hair was doing things to me too—she wore it in that slicked-back way she’d sometimes been doing it, making me think of that actress in the Matrix. The one I used to watch late at night as a hormonal preteen.

“Fuck me,” I said, and she laughed.

But as there had been since the beginning, there was a note behind it; an uncertainty. It was barely there, but I heard it.

And it was the only thing that kept me from walking over and kissing her; taking her right there on the table.

I managed to take in the rest of the set-up: behind her, there was a podium with three chairs next to it, the whole thing illuminated with ground lights, and a giant projector screen on a stand, wafting ever-so-slightly in the breeze. Beyond that was a sweeping view of the Quince Valley: the river, the bridge far to our right, and beyond that the Rolling Hills resort, twinkling in the trees.

“It looks incredible,” I said, still not trusting myself to move too close to her.

Chelsea, we need to talk.

“You look incredible.”

Fuck.

“So do you,” Chelsea said. Her eyes roamed over my suit, and even though I swore I wouldn’t get distracted, for a moment I let myself enjoy the sensation of her looking at me like that, like she wanted me as much as I wanted her. “You clean up nice,” she said, when she met my eyes again.

“You were already clean.”

She smiled. “Not that clean.”

The look in her eyes was enough to make electricity shoot directly to my dick.

---