“You cannot be annoyed that I didn’t IM you after.”
“I’m kind of annoyed that you didn’t IM me during. Now I know almost nothing about the person I am desperately trying to see over your shoulder.”
Letty glanced behind herself at that, as though an echo of Tate somehow still remained.
But there was nothing to see. Just the scene of the crime—sheets still twisted into faintly sordid-looking shapes, the pillow he’d left curled like a recently salted slug, the hint of what could have been underwear peeping out from beneath her bed.
“He’s in the bathroom.”
“Tending to his wounds, huh?”
“Men these days just don’t know how to take a finger up the butt.”
“You did not put a finger up his butt. Are you lying? I can tell you’re lying, Letty.”
“I have to go now. I promise I will talk about how sore his butt is at lunch.”
“How am I supposed to wait until lunch? That is not cool, Letty, no don’t close the door on me—”
“I have to, you’re a crazy person. And besides, I really need to sleep off all the super weird, rubber-wearing mega bondage we did.”
Lydia’s expression was priceless as she finished closing the door—caught somewhere between glee and frustration. In fact she was still laughing about it when Tate finally emerged, fully dressed and groomed and ready to go. She turned with that wicked grin still on her face, then felt it slowly wither and die. He just looked so…down, suddenly. Not like himself at all.
Though it was only after he’d left that she fully appreciated the issue she’d caused.
Her phone stayed free of his texts for the next three days.
—
She knew he was at the party. She overheard two girls talking about how amazing he looked tonight—and it was true. He did. The moment she saw him—standing all alone in the flickering glow of the bonfire someone probably shouldn’t have lit—her heart actually lurched. Her mouth went dry, her knees went weak, her head spun. For a second she was every cliché she’d ever read about girls who’d fallen hard for some guy, and she couldn’t fault herself for any of them.
He was just that beautiful.
She was allowed to admit now that he was beautiful. In truth she barely knew how she’d ever thought otherwise. Those brutal features were not brutal at all—they were so soft they almost seemed out of focus, so pretty he could have walked the runway tomorrow. The only thing that really marked him as a powerful man was that body. But you couldn’t really see it beneath the dark red sweater he was wearing, the scarf he had around his neck, and the hat, the woolen hat, oh lord she loved that woolen hat.
It made him seem like falling leaves and spicy hot chocolate and a million things she probably shouldn’t think about right now, considering he was still mad. No texts for three days meant mad. He even looked mad, just standing there on his own without the armor of his buddies or a bunch of girls. Everyone seemed to know he needed a wide berth tonight, so it didn’t seem like that much of a reach.
Until he turned his head her way and held up one oddly hesitant, half-faltering hand—as though he had no idea if he should say hello. He could see Lydia was on her way back across the field with two beers in hand after all. Maybe a wave would give the game away. Expose them, in a way he knew she didn’t want.
So instead he folded that hand back down, waiting.
Good god, he had been waiting for her to say it was okay.
She could see he had, yet for a second that idea was so staggering to her it just cycled around and around in her mind without ever really making contact with anything. Lydia handed her a beer and she just accepted it mechanically, nodding at whatever her friend was saying but unable to hear it. She couldn’t even explain it. It felt like gravity had suddenly flipped, and now everyone was suddenly walking on the sky.
Tate was not the one ashamed of their relationship.
She, Letty Carmichael, thunder-thighed creature from the back of beyond, bane of their high school, scourge of anyone with eyesight, was the one.
She was the one ashamed of him.
And that was…god she didn’t know what that was. Her mouth wanted to both tense into a pained line and grin more wildly than she had ever done in her life. Feelings flooded her body, but she didn’t have a name for any of them. Most of them seemed too awful to name. They smelled like triumph, like victory, but they weren’t the kinds that she wanted anything to do with.
Maybe before he had kissed her by her door.
Or further back, when he had held her face.
When he had made amends.
And carried her.