She goes rigid. Her eyes fly open and lock onto mine. I can feel her breathing hard against my palm. I know I'm pushing a boundary here in her father's basement, but she doesn’t pull back. Instead, she presses closer. Her hips push eagerly against my fingers. Her eyes are wide above my hand, trusting me completely, and I keep going, pressing my forehead against hers.
“You have to be quiet.” My voice is low and rough. “Your dad is right upstairs.”
She nods against my palm. I keep my fingers moving, finding the rhythm that makes her hips roll into my hand.
“I’ve been thinking about this since you walked into the kitchen,” I say against her ear. “I’ve been sitting at that table thinking about watching your dress fall open and making you fall apart.”
She whimpers against my palm and her hips push harder into my hand.
“Every time you leaned across me, I wanted to put my mouth on your neck in front of everyone.” My fingers curl deeper, and her legs start shaking. “I wanted them to know you’re mine.”
Her whole body tightens around my fingers. I can feel exactly how close she is. I press my hand firmer over her mouth. “Let go,” I say softly, and she comes so hard her knees buckle.
I catch her, holding her against the wall with my body while she shakes through it, her sounds buried in my palm. I keep my hand right where it is until she stops trembling. Her breathing slows, and she reaches up, gently pulling my hand away from her mouth.
She looks at me through her lashes. Then she takes my fingers, the ones that were just inside her, and puts them in her mouth. The contrast of the innocent family party upstairs and theabsolute filth of what she's doing to me down here completely shorts out my brain. She pulls my hand away slowly. Her lips are swollen, her eyes are dark, and she whispers, “Can I do that for you?”
I give her a jerky nod because there’s no way I can speak right now.
“How do you want me?” she asks, reaching for my belt.
And I open my mouth to tell her. I’m going to say it. The words ‘on your knees’ are right there on the tip of my tongue.
The door opens and the overhead light flicks on.
We spring apart so fast my elbow catches one of the reclining chairs, sending it rocking back with a loud thunk. The fluorescent light is brutal after the dark, exposing everything. For a split second, I can see us the way someone else would: the rookie and a player’s daughter, half undone in the basement on Christmas Eve. I immediately step in front of her, shielding her from the intrusion.
Coach Barrett is standing in the doorway holding a glass of wine. He looks between me and Mackie, and his eyes drop to her dress, the neckline pulled sideways off her shoulder, the tie hanging loose. He closes his eyes for a long moment like he’s trying to unsee something.
“I’m too old for this,” Coach Barrett says.
“Coach—” I start, and I have absolutely no idea what I was going to follow that with. I’m sorry? It’s not what it looks like? It’s exactly what it looks like and I have no excuse and I know that?
“Nope.” He holds up his hand. “I don’t want to know. I don’t want details. I don’t want context.” He takes a long sip of his wine. “Both of you, get it together and get back upstairs before Jack notices you’re gone.”
He turns to leave, then stops and looks at Mackie.
“Mackinnon, I’d like a word with you.”
Mackie’s hands are already reaching for the tie on her dress, but I get there first.
“I got it,” I say quietly, pulling the fabric closed. My fingers straighten the neckline, easing the fabric back into place, smoothing it flat against her collarbone. I can feel her watching me. I know we should be rushing, but I refuse to let her walk out of this room looking disheveled or feeling ashamed. Barrett is standing right behind us, and I don’t care. Her dignity matters more.
I find the two ends of the tie and bring them together at her waist. My hands are shaking, and I know my attempt at the bow is pathetic, but I tug it once to make sure it holds. She’s quiet through all of it. When I look up her lip is trembling and she’s blinking back tears.
“It’s okay,” I whisper, touching my fingertip to her chin. “You’re okay.”
She nods once and I squeeze past Barrett, taking the stairs two at a time, and drop onto the couch next to Rodriguez. He’s arguing with Brody about which football team deserves to go to the Superbowl and doesn’t ask where I’ve been. I grab my beer and take a long pull, trying to slow my breathing down to something that doesn’t look like I just sprinted up a flight of stairs.
I sit there for maybe three minutes thinking this is the worst part of the night, that it can’t possibly get worse than sitting on a couch pretending my coach didn’t just find me with the daughter of the most veteran player on the team, in a basement. Then Chloe stands up and claps her hands together.
“Okay! White Elephant time!”
Rodriguez whoops. Jack groans. Barrett, who is now sitting in the armchair directly across from me with his wine and his silence, doesn’t react at all, but his eyes find mine and stay there. I want the couch to open up and swallow me into the earth.
Mackie comes back into the room. Her dress is fixed, her hair is smoothed, and her face gives away absolutely nothing. She drops onto the floor next to the tree and starts pulling out wrapped gifts, sorting them into a pile. She looks completely fine.She looks like she’s been upstairs the whole time. She looks like she wasn’t just pinned against a wall in her parents’ basement thirty seconds ago.
I will never understand how she does that.
