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Regardless, my two-hour stint there left me feeling relaxed and good-humored, even if my ribs did ache from the blow delivered by the Pillsbury Doughboy. Who knew those guys were so hardy?
I slowed down on East Second as a couple of guys clad only in what appeared to be jocks and jackets skipped across the street and disappeared into a bar. On the sidewalk, next to the entrance, I saw a dark-haired girl who looked somewhat like AM. I shook my head a little, knowing I had her on my mind, but when she moved to the side and her face was illuminated by the light, I realized it was AM.
I slammed the brakes on, grateful I was almost at a stop and didn’t ram into anyone. I deployed the down button on the passenger window and leaned across the center console.
“AM,” I yelled. She looked startled and came over to stand next to the car.
“Bo?” She leaned down to peer inside.
I reached over, pulled the door handle, and gave the passenger door a push. She gripped it indecisively for a moment and climbed in, but didn’t shut the door.
“I was going to take a cab home,” she said, biting the side of her mouth.
“You don’t need one now,” I declared. She shot me another glance and looked at the empty street.
“Guess not.” She swung her legs inside and shut the door. I engaged the locks and took off.
“What are you wearing under there?” I tilted my head toward her trench coat. A trench coat seemed an odd choice for club attire. Even in the dead of winter, girls seemed to be impervious to the cold with their miniskirts, high heels, and see-through tops. No one wore jackets. It was like she was on a top-secret mission smuggling booze.
She shifted uncomfortably next to me, blushed, and looked out the window, which only heightened my curiosity. I glanced back at the bar she had been standing by and the two guys in their underwear flicked through my head. I shook it. Nah, that couldn’t be right. AM wouldn’t be wearing just her panties underneath that jacket.
I tried a different tactic. “Where were you?” It came out hoarse, like I hadn’t drunk water for a week, but I couldn’t help it. All fluids in my body were pooling below the waist at the thought of her attired in nothing but a bra and panties. Thank God it was dark.
“The Garden,” she said, unconcerned. Likely she’d not a clue as to what was swirling through my head.
“What’s that?” I hadn’t heard of it before.
“Gay bar.”
And that’s the reason why. I saw no reason to go to a gay bar to drink. If I had to move it on the dance floor, it was for the express purpose of picking up a girl. But that would explain the two guys in jocks and, no, wait, it did not explain the guys in their underwear.
“I saw two guys go inside with some briefs on. What’s that all about?”
“Special invite-only party,” AM mumbled.
“What’s that?”
“Underwear party.”
I clearly didn’t hear that right.
“Underwear party?” Out of the corner of my eye I saw her nod her agreement. I took my eyes off the road and looked at her jacket. Would that I had X-ray vision right now.
“Hey,” she said, her hand coming over to the steering wheel. I’d veered off into the gravel and was perilously close to the curb. I took the next two lefts and ended up in a low-lit parking lot. The bustle of the downtown was two miles behind us and the campus a few miles in front of us. It was a no-man’s land of closed businesses here.
I put the car in park and turned in my seat. “Underwear party?” I repeated.
“Why are we stopped?”
Did she think she was making sense? Because she wasn’t. “You just said underwear party. I almost drove off the road at those words.”
“I won’t talk about it,” she promised.
“I still can’t drive. It’s not safe for either of us.”
She rolled her eyes at me, but I was thinking seriously of our safety. Did she honestly believe I could drive knowing that she was wearing underwear under her trench coat? Did she not know that this was like every guy’s fantasy from the age that guys could have fantasies?
“Fine,” she huffed. “It’s an invitation-only party. You go in your underwear.”
“Everyone?”
“Yes.”
“All these gay guys get to look at you in your underwear?” I was outraged.
She nodded.
“How do you know if they’re gay? Shit, I’d lie two ways to Sunday that I was gay to get into a shindig like that.”
“I don’t know. And there are straight guys there. Ryan Collins was there.”
That sneaky motherfucker. How did he get in there? We were going to have a talk after tonight, he and I.
“Can we go home now?” AM said impatiently. “I’m kind of cold.”
I bit the inside of my cheek to yell back that of course she was cold. She was wearing her fucking underwear and nothing else. Instead, I shook my head and got out of the car. I did a few deep knee bends, tried to lift the car, and then rested my head against the roof, battling back all sorts of images in my head.
I vaguely registered the car door opening and closing. Then felt the heat of AM’s body as she stood next to me.
“Ah, what’re you doing?”
“I have poor impulse control, AM.” I refused to look at her. Did I really think she needed to make the first move? How illegal was it if I just kidnapped her and locked her in my bedroom until she agreed to my demands? Very illegal, Bo, I counseled myself sternly.
“What does that mean?”
“It means, I’m not ready to get back into an enclosed space with you,” I huffed. Could she not just go back into the car and pretend I wasn’t out here?
I felt her soft hand on my arm. “Is everything okay?”
I stood up and looked down at her. Even in her damn fine heels, she didn’t come up much higher than my neck. “I fought some guys tonight. A friendly workout to release some tension. I bruised my knuckles.” I showed her the scraped backs of my fingers. She hovered her hand over one of them but didn’t touch. “I got hit in the face.” I pointed to the reddish bruise forming at the top of my cheekbone on the right side. “I’ve got a helluva bruise on my ribs.” I pulled up the side of my shirt to expose the killer shot from Mr. Tubby. I heard her sharp inhale. “But I can’t feel even any of that because all the blood is in my shorts at the thought of you standing in front of me, all wrapped up quiet in that tan coat of yours, wearing some kind of crazy getup underneath, like a hidden surprise at the bottom of a Cracker Jack box.”
I was breathing heavily at this recitation. AM’s hand was a hair’s-breadth away from my exposed ribs and everything in me wanted to lean into it and make contact.
Her hand crept closer, and my stomach muscles contracted in anticipation. But then she curled her fingers into her hand. I allowed my shirt to drop down and heaved out a big breath.
“Come on.” I gently took her arm and steered her toward the passenger door. I helped her inside, shut the door, walked slowly around the car, and dropped into the driver’s seat. “Sorry.”
“I’m just,” she started and paused. “I don’t date guys from Central, and even if I did, you’ve already told me you’re a hookup-only kind of guy. I don’t want that.”
God, when did I say that? I reviewed my conversations with her. But she wasn’t wrong. I was a bad bet. I hadn’t had a real relationship ever. Unlike Noah, who had always seemed to know he wanted his girl, Grace, I spent my time being the best in the moment because I was pretty sure I didn’t want or couldn’t sustain anything longer.
“But it’d be good, AM.”
She gave a laughing huff and replied, “That’s what worries me.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m not really good at separating the physical and the emotional aspects of things, and even though we’re young, I guess I just don’t want to have a series of casual hookups.” She said this like it was an embarrassing confessional, like it was somehow wrong to want something stable and loving. The embarrassment should have been mine.
The trip to her apartment was too short. I pulled in and found a parking space toward the back, in a dark corner. Subconsciously perhaps, I was trying to get her to stay with me, alone, for just a few moments longer.
But she made no move to get out of the car either. Yes, Bo were the words I wanted to hear from her mouth. Will you let me remove your jacket? Yes, Bo. Will you allow me to lick you from the base of your neck into the valley of your breasts? Yes, Bo. Will you let me remove whatever delectable pieces of lace and satin you have on and let me warm you with my body? Yes, Bo.
Her mouth never opened. Instead we sat in charged silence. My hands curled around the steering wheel and her fingers fretted the end of her belt.
“AM.” I broke the silence. “I have a lot of things stacked against me, but—”
Before another word could come out of my mouth, AM leaned over and kissed me squarely. My mouth opened in surprise and her delicate tongue poked inside, almost hesitantly. Immediately, my hand went up to the nape of her neck and pressed her more insistently against me. I stroked her tongue with my own, confidently, and she moaned into my mouth, the vibrations sending a shiver of desire from my mouth to my toes. I had waited for this moment for what seemed so long, since last semester when I first winked at her.
I hadn’t realized how much I wanted her kisses until her lips were moving softly against mine. I wanted to drink her down and eat her up until I’d devoured every inch of her. I pressed my mouth against hers harder. The slickness of her tongue, the wet sounds our mouths were making, everything was making the tightness in my jeans nearly unbearable, but I couldn’t stop kissing her.
I palmed her head in my hand and angled her so that I could penetrate deeper. So that I could taste every inch of her. She returned my kisses with the same fierceness, making tiny moans of pleasure that made my cock stiffer with every sound.
Nothing else made contact between us. Her hands remained in her lap. My other hand gripped the steering wheel, lest I end this moment with any sudden asshole moves.
She pulled back, and initially I fought it, but then I released her. We were both breathing heavily. I leaned toward her and pressed my nose against her neck and this time felt her body shake in response. I wanted to beg to come inside, but she issued no such invitation.
I took a deep breath and pushed away from her. Pulling myself out of the car, I stopped for a moment and adjusted myself. AM had gotten out of the car before I could move around to her side.
“Hey, I get to do that for you,” I protested.
“What? Open my car door?”
“Yeah.”
Her only response was to shrug. We were both at the ends of our ropes, I thought. Maybe tonight was a bad night for anything, even a hookup.
I walked her to the door and she pulled out her security card. My arm shot out, almost an involuntary reflex, and stopped her before she went inside. “Maybe I could be more than a good time.”
She hesitated, and I thought for a moment, my heart pounding so loudly that I swear she could hear it, she’d agree.
“It’s the maybe that scares me,” she said and walked away. The pang I felt was indecipherable. I recognized only that it was strong and connected to AM. She didn’t look back. Not when she got to the interior door and not when she hit the apartment complex hallway. I’m not sure how long I stood there holding the door open, but it was long enough that my fingers turned blue from the cold.
Until I realized this: she had made the first move.
AM
“I NEED A POSTGAME RUNDOWN,” I informed Ellie when we met for lunch again. This time we were having fancy ramen noodles.
She smiled a bit sheepishly. “I’m just glad we don’t live in the dorms anymore.”
“Why didn’t you bring him home?”
“Dunno!” Ellie exclaimed. “Erik went home with someone else, so the room was empty.”
“Did you do the walk of shame, then?”
“Nah, I left early in the morning so I could shower and get to class.”
“So now what?”
“I’m not sure.” Ellie ran her finger around the top of her glass and looked around our apartment pensively. “He’s not someone I think I can hook up with and then leave behind. He might make a mark.”
“Would that be so bad?” I asked quietly.
“I don’t know. What’s stopping you from hooking up with Bo?” she challenged.
“Me,” I admitted. “I’m afraid that he’s only good for a short-term fling, no matter what he might say in the heat of the moment. You know how attached I get. I don’t think someone gets a crush on Bo Randolph and comes away unscathed.”
“We’re a couple of sad sacks,” Ellie said. “So what now?”
“Now I wish I’d switched classes with you in Rocks for Jocks,” I said glumly. “But I guess I’m just going to have to learn to be friends without developing some huge crush on him.”
