“Shenanigans?” she asks, curving the edges of her lips slightly.
“It was my Grammie’s—God rest her soul—favorite word to describe me and my family’s behavior. Anyway, like I was saying, the night you cut loose, you seemed to have the time of your life. Well, until your dad caught us naked in bed the next morning. Speaking of which, how is the old coot?”
Tess’s jaw slowly unhinges, but then she quickly composes herself. “He’s fine. Just fine.”
“What’s wrong?”
“What do you mean, ‘what’s wrong’? You just brought up what happened between us as if, as if—Jesus, Curran.” She covers her face before she realizes how far I’ve driven. “Turn right, right here—no, here. Okay, now left at the next block. There—it comes up fast. No, no, right there.” She shakes out her hands, completely flustered as I make a hard left.
I straighten the car. “You all right?”
“No. I went to bed with you. And now you’re here, reminding me what happened and picturing me naked.”
“I’m not picturing you naked.”
She whirls to face me, her cheeks bright pink. “You’re not?”
“Well, I wasn’t before.” My gaze shoots her way. “But now that you mentioned it, I kind of have to.”
She buries her face in her hands. “Oh, God.”
Without meaning to, I crack up. “It doesn’t have to be a big deal.”
“But it is to me, Curran,” she says, quieting. “What happened between us was something I’d never done before.”
“Holy shit, you were a virgin?”
“No!”
I slump back in my seat. “Thank Christ. I mean, I didn’t think you were, given how hard we went at it and what we did. But if you were, I would’ve felt bad.”
She stumbles over a bunch of syllables before managing to spit out, “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why would you feel bad had I been a virgin?”
“You know.”
She frowns slightly, appearing confused. “No. I don’t.”
“Because the first time for someone like you should’ve been different than what happened between us. Don’t get me wrong—you were all sorts of sexy and sweet. And I really liked how we rocked it. But we went at it like horny bulls at a rodeo going after hot clowns—” I shut my trap when I realize her jaw is hanging out somewhere near her toes. “That was too much, wasn’t it?”
“Ah, yes, you could say that.”
I clear my throat. Too bad I can’t clear the image of throwing Tess’s legs over my shoulders and pounding into her. “What I mean is, someone like you deserved a different experience if it was your first time.”
She plays with her clasped hands like she doesn’t quite know what to say. When she speaks, her question catches me off guard. “When you say ‘someone like me,’ what do you mean exactly?”
I think about what to say without going too far. But nothing special comes to mind except the truth. “I mean a nice girl. You’re a nice girl, Tess. Just like you were then.”
“You thought I was nice, even though I kept my distance?”
The corner of my mouth twists. “You may not have been real friendly to me. But you did things for other people that showed me who you were. Remember Kenny Singleton? He was my little brother in KOK. He would have flunked out of school if you hadn’t spent all that time tutoring him. Instead, he became the first college grad in his family. And what about Ben Felipe? You found him passed out on the street. Anything could’ve happened to him, but instead of leaving him there covered in his own piss—”
“Oh, God, he was covered in urine?”
“Well, yeah, Benny was pretty wrecked. Anyway, like I said, you could’ve left him there. But instead you brought him back to the frat house and made sure one of us took care of him.” I turn my head. “You didn’t know he’d pissed himself?”