It didn’t take long for both of us to spiral over the edge, coming in a rush of sweaty limbs and greedy touches.
Chest heaving, I rolled to the side so I didn’t crush her. My shoulder pressed against hers, and I felt her leg hook over mine, keeping us close and connected.
“Jesus,” I exhaled, as I stared unseeing eyes at the smooth ceiling overhead.
“I know,” Mac agreed heavily from my side.
The longer we lay side by side, unmoving, the more my thoughts intruded, drawing me out and away from the moment. I worried Mac would push me away or make light of what had happened between us—whatkepthappening between us.
So I started talking, a desperate need to keep us right here, in this together. “What’s your favorite prank we ever pulled on each other?”
That startled a laugh out of her. “Oh, God. I don’t know if I can pick.” Then after a moment, “Remember when you signed me up to run for homecoming, and I actually placed and got a spot on the court?”
I grinned. That had been fun. “You just like that it backfired on me.”
“Well, yeah.” But I could hear the smile in her voice, though I was suddenly too chicken to turn my head and confirm. “What’s your favorite?” she asked.
“In fifth grade, when you won the contest to name the road the new library was on.” My lips tugged up on the corners. “Brady Buttface Boulevard was legendary. Ten out of ten. No notes.”
Mac cackled delightedly and buried her face in my arm. When she’d recovered, she admitted, “I spent every minute that summer reading so I could log the most hours and win.”
“You were dedicated,” I admired. “Like a sociopath.”
She laughed again and rolled to face me. I turned, too, propping an elbow up and resting my chin in my hand.
Mac’s expression was warm with the levity of our shared history. But there was so much more to it than that. Moments that were tainted with regret and shame—at least on my part.
“I used to go to Tanner Park with a soccer ball. Just hoping to run into you,” I confessed.
Her smile changed, lips parting in surprise as her gray eyes softened. “You did?”
I nodded. “I said I was just going out to shoot, but I knew you went with your friends sometimes. Twelve-year-old Brady wasn’t very enlightened.”
She poked a finger into my bare chest. “I’m not so sure that twenty-eight-year-old Brady is all that enlightened,” she teased.
I grabbed her finger and placed a kiss against the pad of it before twining our hands together. And instead of looking at her face, I stared at our fingers woven around one another when I admitted, “I had a crush on you. And like a lot of stupid little boys, I went about it all wrong. I teased you and picked on you,looking to get your attention even if it was with some nasty comment or stupid prank. I think after a while, the negative parts stuck.”
The confession pressed a heavy hand around my heart, squeezing until I felt my pulse pound like a drum. I risked a glance at Mac, and she looked dumbfounded.
Maybe it had been stupid to tell her that. There was a helpless and vulnerable voice in my head, calling me every inch a fool. Too much altogether and more than she was willing to hear.
But then her gaze softened, amusement curling her faded red lips. “I don’t know that chopping off my pigtail was the best way to go about making your feelings known, Brady Buttface.”
I smiled, grateful for her response. “You’re still bitter about that one, huh?”
“No six-year-old looks good with an asymmetrical cut. I looked like I was going to ask to speak to the manager.”
We both laughed at the thought of a first-grade Mac with an emergency haircut and the image it provoked. Mine undoubtedly faded and timeworn tender while Mac’s was probably sharper and bolder, like a drawing you’d traced over and over, committing it to vengeful memory.
So much of my youthful stupidity had come about with the intent of keeping and holding Mac’s attention. As we’d grown older, my goals had remained the same. I’d watched dates and hookups come and go, losing her interest. Men that had been forgotten or discarded after a week, a month.
I’d chosen to make myself interesting instead. My methods hadn’t been the best, but I hadn’t been able to stand the thought of her forgetting me. I’d wanted to be memorable, a constant in her life, separate from her family but no less important. To be her last thought before she went to sleep.
Sure, good thoughts would have been nice, too, but I’d taken annoyance and irritation because it meant I was still hanging on, still relevant to the girl who’d occupied my own thoughts so desperately.
And now, after everything, I wanted to burrow down so deep that she’d never be able to get me out.
When our laughter faded, I squeezed her hand and said, “This is where you sayyou also liked me and just tortured me because you were trapped in the mindset of a second grader with a fruitless crush, too.”
