Page 59 of The Best Shot

He told me about it later, forehead pressed to mine, laughing under his breath about the look on her face when he got to Audre Lorde. The way she’d tilted her head like she was recalibrating.

We were in the back seat of his truck that time, parked in the shadows of my building’s garage. My legs were draped over his lap, his hand sliding up my inner thigh while he talked.

“I thought you liked smart women,” I managed, voice breathy.

“I do.” He leaned in and took my mouth slow, sucking my bottom lip between his teeth until it pulled a sound out of me. “Just not one who’s trying to grade me.”

I didn’t say anything to that. I filed it with everything else about him I wasn’t looking at directly.

He pushed his hand fully into my panties, fingers stroking me with lazy confidence. I covered his hand with mine, holding him there, guiding the pressure as a soft whimper slipped out.

Another week. Another perfect match.

Ava was incandescent with renewed purpose.

“She’s cultured,” Ava insisted. “She’s competitive. She hosts game nights. She ran a half-marathon last month and somehow that’s not the most impressive thing about her.”

The date lasted ninety minutes.

Ava: HALE!!!!!

Tabby: not the exclamation points

Annie: what now

Hale: She couldn’t play spades, Ava.

Ava: That is not a dealbreaker.

Hale: For the culture? Come on.

Tabby:

Annie: he has a point actually

Ava: I am done. I quit. I formally resign from this position effective immediately.

Hale: Swear to God I’m not sabotaging this.

Ava: You are impossible and I need a drink.

Hale: I’ll buy.

Ava: fuck you.

Hale: Nachos too.

Ava: …fine.

Apparently, that settled it.

Meanwhile, he was in my apartment, or I was in his truck, or we were lingering at my front door at midnight with no good reason to still be standing there.

The nights blurred into doors clicking shut, me gasping into his kiss before I’d even said hello. Or dropping to my knees in my living room, taking him into my mouth while he gripped the back of my head and whispered curses and praise in that low rumble that sent heat pooling low in my belly.

He didn’t ask me where this was going. I didn’t ask him why he kept saying no to women who were, on paper, exactly what he should want.

But I noticed.