Page 80 of The Statistically Unlikely Reunion

One bed.

“I saved this for you guys.” He leads us to the attached bathroom, which has a large tub with a view overlooking the golf course.

Downstairs, the front door opens and someone shouts to Brody to get his ass back out there.

“Don’t say I never did anything for you,” Brody says as he closes the door.

Lucas looks at me and then the door, his body taut with tension.

“I did not ask Brody to plan this. I have no expectations of . . . anything.”

“I know.” I lean in and raise myself up to tiptoe so I can nip his ear. “I asked Brody to help me plan this.”

I laugh at how shocked Lucas looks.

We’ve been dancing around sex for months now, sneaking in as much as we can . . . which is to say, not much. During the school year, my room was always occupied as my roommate worked her way through every available partner at Caltech, PCC, or any random party she visited. She claimed that sex calmed her and that it helped her to focus better on tests.

Considering she’s a double-major at Caltech and maintained straight As? I’m loath to question her methodology.

Lucas’s home was obviously off-limits, considering Lucas shares a room with his brothers, and whenever Delilah isn’t working, she’s organizing bake sales or having neighbors over to talk about which things they want to petition the landlord to fix.

And though Lucas regularly came over to my place, we’ve done little more than sneak in a few kisses between CS lessons for Aurora, fixing the neighbor’s . . . everything, and reading to the younger girls. A few times, we got to the under-the-shirt phase. Once, he went as far as unbuttoning my jeans.

But there were always people around, always distractions and potential interruptions.

“We’re like a depressed married couple,” I tell him, pressing my hips into his, feeling the hard ridge of his erection along my stomach. “We’re worse than one of those silver anniversary couples, since even sexless marriages still bang it out around once a month.”

A pink hue spreads across Lucas’s face. “Did you really say bang it out?”

“Our options are limited. Unless we’re going to bring condoms to worlds, where we’ll both be distracted, when are we going to really be alone again? The Pizza Palace handicap restroom?”

Lucas makes a face, likely because he’s remembering that he did get carried away once in the hallway during one of my breaks, that rather than get caught, we’d stumbled into the bathroom and it had . . . not been good.

As unromantic of a heart as I claim to have, even I draw the line at unsanitary. And I wasn’t able to stay in the moment while pressing my back against a dirty bathroom wall.

“Unless I lock my roommate out next year or unless you’re prepared for our first time to be crazy stupid rushed, this is our best option.”

Maybe our only option.

Lucas nods slowly, his blush deepens, and he’s unable to meet my eyes. His breathing is shallow in a way that speaks more of anxiety than excitement. “Unless I’m making assumptions? I’m not trying to pressure you into sex.”

Lucas bends until he can rest his forehead against mine, his eyes squeezed shut, the edge of his glasses digging into my skin. “I want to fuck you so bad. But I didn’t want to presume. I thought about flying you out to Chicago, but that seemed like the definition of presumptuous. Then I started worrying you’d worry having sex would change something about our team dynamics, and I’d rather not be having sex with you than potentially screw up⁠—”

I kiss him, because it’s one of the few ways I can stop his overactive brain. Lucas’s response is immediate. Gratifyingly so. He leans into me, his hands already slipping under my loose tank when we both hear Brody shouting from downstairs.

“We’ll be meeting to head to dinner at seven o’clock. Everyone will be out until seven sharp. The house will be totally empty. No one else will even have a key.”

“Oh my God,” Lucas whispers against my forehead.

“I couldn’t plan this without Brody knowing.” I smile, even as there are hoots from below, meaning⁠—

“Meaning everyone knows.” Lucas’s voice is a bit pained. “Do you mind?”

I close my eyes, hearing the entreaty in Lucas’s voice. He’s never pressured me. If anything, I’m the one who instigates. “Not as much as I should.”

Meaning I was this close to going further in Delilah’s car on half a dozen occasions. That I wondered how quiet we could be with the girls asleep in their bedroom and us on a couch.

But a private bedroom with a canopy bed in an empty house for the next five hours? Unquestionably better.