Page 5 of Just Past Two

“Yes. I hit all twenty.” She sounded resigned. “But really, I’m not that girl anymore.”

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of, you know.” Sam tried to choose his words carefully. “I think it’s funny.” Not funny, but arousing, and yet he couldn’t say that with Zach right here listening. Could he even say it at all? How would Abby receive that? She wasn’t the type to kiss and tell, and this line of conversation was clearly making her a little uncomfortable. They should probably change the subject.

“Yeah. Funny.” Abby drained her glass of wine.

Zach looked past them. “Shit, is that Heather? I haven’t seen her in forever.” He put his hand over Abby’s. “I’ve gotta run. It’s been so good to see you. Look me up sometime, okay? I’d love to get together.” He squeezed her hand, then shook Sam’s. “Great meeting you, Sam. We’ll have to talk soon.” He left Abby and Sam alone at the table with the silence left in his absence.

“You know, I really don’t mind it,” Sam said after another awkward moment of silence.

“Do you know what my nickname was back in college?” Abby ran a finger around the lip of her empty wineglass. She didn’t wait for him to answer. “Abby Wood If She Could. Because of stuff like that. Mud wrestling. Dyeing my hair. Streaking. The Campus Twenty. I was the girl who would do anything. How do you really feel about that?”

“Curious?”

Abby rolled her eyes. “You don’t have to placate me, Sam.”

“I just want to know why you never told me.” He couldn’t keep the hurt tone out of his voice, even though it was slight.

“Because the past is the past. I’m not that person anymore.”

She’d been saying that all night, insisting that she’d changed, and clearly she had. Over the almost ten years they’d been together, he’d never seen any sign of this wild woman from college. “Why aren’t you that person anymore?”

That clearly wasn’t the question she’d been expecting, and she stared at him before averting her eyes. “I grew out of it.”

“All at once?”

Her expression grew somber. “I knew it was time to change when that hit man came after me.”

Sam stared at her, not sure what to believe, until Abby cracked up laughing. He joined her, the tension easing. Okay, so she didn’t want to explain further. He held out his hand. “Come on. You want to dance?”

Abby got to her feet, wobbly, and grabbed at him for support. “Whoa. All that wine just hit me at once.”

Sam slid an arm around her waist. “I don’t know how you walk in those heels.”

“It’s fashion.” She smiled up at him, her smile kind of lazy, the way she always got with a bit of wine in her. “Maybe I should get some air instead. You want to get some fresh air with me?”

“It’s below freezing out there.”

“We’ll get our coats. Come on.” She tugged him toward the hall.

Even with his coat on, it was damn freezing outside, and he stayed close to Abby as they walked out onto the big back deck of the hotel. The deck was clearly not used often in winter, snow blown loosely against the wall behind them, large potted evergreens looming dark instead of wrapped in twinkle lights like the rest of the decor on the building. With only the light filtering through the window and nothing but darkness in the field behind, everything was a mass of shadows. Abby walked over to the corner and gripped the wooden railing, seeming unbothered by the cold, and stared out into the deepness of the night. The music was still audible out here, a muted pulse in the otherwise silent evening.

They both turned as the door burst open and a couple came tumbling out, laughing, already in the clinch of an embrace. They didn’t even check for other people, lips meeting, hands sliding over bodies. Abby and Sam, as one, both moved deeper into the shadows of the building.

Abby grabbed Sam’s arm, speaking just loud enough that he could hear. “We should go.”

“We can’t. They’re right in front of the door.” He pulled her closer back against him, her body tight in front of his as they tried to shrink back into the shadows against the building.

The other couple stood less than fifteen feet away, kissing as if they couldn’t get enough of each other. They shifted slightly, leaning against the railing, and a shaft of light from the window fell across the man’s face. Abby’s whole body went taut. It was Zach. Zach was out here with a woman from the party, a woman who was slipping her hands down into his pants.

It was definitely too late to escape now. If they gave themselves away, Zach and his partner were going to ask why they didn’t reveal themselves sooner. The only answer, that they were peeping from the shadows like perverts, wasn’t going to go over well. Fortunately, Zach and his partner were making enough noise to hide other sounds.

“Fuck, Heather.”

Heather laughed, deep and throaty, leaning in for another kiss. “Haven’t gotten my hands on you since college. Just like old times, huh?”

“Shh. Keep it down.” Zach was smiling as he spoke. “We’re gonna get caught.”

All along the front of Sam’s body, Abby’s curves pressed warm and soft against him. Something about her closeness, the tension of the moment, the heat of what they were watching, and he was fully hard before he felt it happening. Abby shifted, hips pressing against his cock, and then froze.