Everett
THEN
My foot hangsoff the edge of my bed, my sock-covered toe occasionally grazing Teeny’s right calf. I’ve reread the same paragraph in my textbook six times, some impertinent detail about the year 1775 and The Battle of Lexington. Teeny, on the other hand, her attention is a little harder to sway. With every brush against her skin, I expect a peek over her shoulder or for her to put her paintbrush down altogether and join me on my bed. But all she does is dip her brush into the small mason jar of water on my desk. Or a quick readjustment of her headphones.
One more sweep against her skin.
“You keep doing that, and I’m going to leave.”
“After lugging your easel and your stool and your paint and brushes here? What a waste of time.”
She gently puts her brush down and swivels on her stool to face me, tugging her earphone out of her ear. “Yeah, but I’d get so much work done if I didn’t have you trying to distract me.”
I sit up and pull at her hand. “Take a break.”
She exhales a deep sigh but gives. “Fifteen minutes, mister.” She starts climbing onto my bed next to me and nuzzles her face into my neck. My entire body turns into Jell-O, and I feel her warm breath and her playful kisses all the way down to the pit of my stomach.
“Fifteen minutes is plenty for what I want to do with you.”
She giggles. “What do you want to do with me?”
“Have you help me memorize, in sequential order, who signed the Declaration of Independence? Eat the last of the cookies and cream ice cream in my freezer?”
“Well, John Hancock was first,” she says, her voice muffled against my skin. “And we can go over the rest over a bowl of ice cream.”
“How did you know that?”
“Everyone knows who signed the Declaration of Independence first.”
“I didn’t know.”
She shrugs, looking at me with a smug smile, and I pinch at her waist, making her squirm.
“Everett!”
“Are you making fun of me?”
I pinch her harder, and she giggles into my chest. She’s flush against me now and while the moment is a playful one, I have this sudden urge to kiss her. And not a quick peck on the cheek, but something deeper and unhurried.
Teeny moves first, hooking her arm around my neck and tugging me closer to her. She kisses me, pushing her chest into mine, and I grab her arm, pressing her hand into the mattress. My thumb runs over the soft skin of her wrist, where her pulse thuds and races. She’s nervous, or anxious. One of those things that makes her heart pound inside her chest.
The way her blood rushes through her, faster when she’s excited and more listless and measured when she’s calm, feels like an all-access pass to her thoughts. And knowing I’m exciting something in her brain, something that elicits this level of enthusiasm, makes me uninhibited.
My body moves over her, pinning her down, and my hand grips her wrist harder. I don’t even realize the low grumble that rattles in my throat, but it cuts through the room and has Teeny pushing her hand into my chest.
“You know, the last time we were in this place, I believe I was a little…”
“Drunk?”
She looks at me with narrowed eyes. “Indisposed?”
I smirk. “Okay.”
“And…I just want to say thank you.”
“For what?” My fingers move a few strands of hair away from her forehead.
“For making the right choice for me,” she says softly.
