My breath comes out ragged. I leave my bike and my sparkly shoes in his front yard, tiptoeing toward Roy’s first-floor window. Light from a neighboring porch guides my way.
I don’t allow myself to stop or think. I ping my knuckles against his dusty window and wait, smoothing my windblown hair. A whole second passes before I cup my palms against the window to peer in. In the shadows of his room, his handsome face peeks out from beneath a disheveled white sheet.
I knock harder. He stirs. I tap again, ’til his head twists toward the window.
“Roy,” I call, and recognition appears on his face.
His tall frame lumbers ’cross the dark room, and I wiggle my toes in the damp grass. My lips curl into a timid smile.
“Bonn?” he croaks. He tugs open the window. “What are you doing here?”
“Why was your window closed?”
“Bugs,” he whispers simply. “Is everything okay?”
“It is now. I needed to see you,” I say, mimicking Henry’s words to me.
A smirk appears on Roy’s face, but his eyes are narrow. “You’ve become quite the night owl, haven’t you?”
“Well, tonight it’s all ’bout you.” I reach through the open window, shaking my hand for him to take. “Unless you’d rather I leave.” I begin to withdraw my arm.
Roy pulls me into his room.
My feet touch the ground and I advance, both hands against his chest, not giving him a chance to question me further, pushing him toward his bed. We tumble onto it, amidst his rumpled sheets.
His perplexed expression only makes this moment more important. My mind flashes to the other week, how Buck looked at Blanche with instant desire. Instant. Yet Roy has never lusted over me quite the same way. I think of Henry. My mind drifts to the intenseness I felt from Clyde’s eyes. I stop any further thoughts. I need to. I’m here for Roy. I crush my lips to his, needing to feel that spark, needing Roy to be more than the safe small-town boy I’ve known my whole life.
Roy kisses me back. I slip my tongue into his mouth and fumble with his shirt.
“Bonn?” he mumbles against my lips.
I shake my head, his head moving with my motion, the two still linked together.
Deepening the kiss, I sink into him, feeling him, knowing my surprise visit is exciting him as much as me. I smile, pulling back to see his face.
His eyes are still narrow, but that smirk is gone. Desire stares back at me as he licks his lips. “Is this how girls with short hair act?”
My stomach flutters. “It’s how I act.”
He runs his hand ’cross his forehead. “Guess that makes me a lucky man.”
I laugh, music to my ears. A new thought springs to mind. “Would you ever fight someone for me?”
This time Roy laughs. No doubt I’ve caught him off guard again. “Are you forgetting James Tucker?”
“James Tucker,” I repeat. That’s right. Roy whopped him good, a few years back, for razzing me ’bout having a tear in my hand-me-down skirt.
Through the darkness, I drag a fingertip down Roy’s mouth, pulling his lower lip, imagining the cut James left behind. And I want more, more. This night is like diesel fuel.
“Touch me,” I say, on top of him. My tone is low, seductive, the voice I used when I sang. I grab Roy’s hand, moving it to the small of my back, then lower, squeezing his hand so his fingers dig into me.
And then I’m on my back, Roy looking down at me, kissing me. The rhythm of his breathing pulses into me, matching the erratic beat of my heart.
“I want you,” I murmur into his mouth, followed by a moan. The sound is unfamiliar yet intoxicating, like something out of a Jane Austen book. “Do you want me?”
“Where is this all coming from?” Roy asks, each word slipping out between kisses.
“Would you rather I stop—”
“No.”
Self-satisfaction swells in me.
I was done saving my love. I wanted to show it, experience it, prove it. And Roy’s being receptive.
It only strengthens my desire to share Doc’s with Roy. Maybe he’ll want to swing me ’round the dance floor. Or play a round of cards at the tables. He’s a good cardplayer—one time he didn’t have to do his chores for a week, after he beat his pa in a game. And just ’cause his daddy had problems with alcohol, it doesn’t mean Roy will. Soon. Yes, soon I’ll tell him. But tonight … I want tonight to be ’bout us.
A sense of power courses through me, driven by Roy’s desire, forming another thought in my head: I can leave him wanting more. He’ll want more.
Just as I pushed him onto the bed, I push him off of me. The shadows of his room once again coat his face in confusion.
I backpedal toward his window.
“Wait. Where are you going?”
I slip one leg into the night, straddling the windowsill. “I’ll see you at school, Roy.”
“Why not tomorrow? I’ll be at our house.”
“Busy,” I say flippantly.
“But…” The light flicks on next to his bed. Roy’s eyes are big, his lips swollen, his cheeks flushed. He points down at himself, clearly happy I’d decided to stop by. “You’re leaving me like this?”
I chuckle—I’ve awoken a beast, one that’s been sleeping our entire relationship—and climb through the window.
Running ’cross Roy’s yard, flinging myself onto my bike, I’m giddy.
I’ve never ridden through the streets of Cement City after midnight before, my adrenaline moving my legs so fast that my feet slip from the bike’s pedals. I’ve also never had this overwhelming feeling of power before, ever.
13
After last night’s foray into singing and heated foreplay with Roy, my current mood is “craving attention.” I grudgingly step off the stage at Doc’s, a place Mary has encouraged me to go whenever the mood strikes me. I’ve been innocently flirting with the crowd through the sway of my hips and my sultry tone all night.
When I get back to the bar, Blanche is grinning at me like a goon. “Keep doin’ what you’re doing, Bonn. Tips go up, way up, when you’re prancing ’round under those lights.”
I laugh. An upstanding English teacher who moonlights as a seductive speakeasy singer. Wouldn’t that be rich?
“But it also means I’m going through these bottles faster,” she adds. “Mind getting me a new one?”
I turn on my heels, a pep in my step.
“Hold up!” Blanche says, and I face her. “I got so caught up in playing nurse last night that I forgot to ask you where you ran off to. Is there any other reason why you’re glowing?”
“Maybe.” I draw out the word.
“Bonn!” She grabs my shoulders. “Stop being such a closed book.”
“Fine,” I say, but I hesitate, partly ’cause I enjoy watching Blanche squirm, and also ’cause I want to keep my Roy-related excitement to myself a bit longer. Blanche has shared her conquests with me many, many times. But Roy ain’t a conquest, even if last night did feel like a victory.
“Bonn…” She grips my chin, holding my face steady.
“I went to Roy’s—”
Blanche’s eyes go wide, her fingers tightening on my cheeks. “In the middle of the night … you did not.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And did you make him your Roy Toy?”