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“I gotta get my mama her car back, anyway,” Jimmy reasons, nodding his head a bit too fast. His nerves are consuming him. “I’ll do that, then. Good idea. Alright.”
“To the Strong ranch,” I confirm, studying him with concern.
“To the Strong—” His own swallow cuts him off. “—the Strong ranch, yeah.”
I nod, then cross my arms and peer out the window, watching the cars and trucks out late on a Saturday night whiz by on the old two-lane highway.
Nothing more is said at all.
But a lot more is thought.
And felt. And worried over.
I can’t say what’s likely going on in Jimmy’s mind other than the obvious, but I know what’s going on in mine.
I can still taste him on my lips.
That wasn’t just another kiss in a bedroom.
Jimmy Strong put fucking everything into that kiss. He took complete command of me with his arms around my body, with his hands at the small of my back, and with the way he possessively held me against him, our hips crashed together and our crotches grinding one another’s in those few, fleeting seconds.
He owned me.
And he totally fucking has me.
I close my eyes and feel his lips on mine again.
I feel the shock that raced through me when he took hold of me and kissed me.
My dick jumps, straining against my underwear, and against these tight, fitted slacks of Jimmy’s that I’m wearing.
This fitted blue button-up of his, too.
These shoes on my feet. Even the chic dress socks.
It’s like Jimmy’s already all around me, holding me in place.
My eyes pop open, and the highway still surrounds us, roaring under our feet with the engine, and I’m still at a loss.
I mean, this is the same Jimmy Strong who brought girls to our dorm and made out with them in front of me. The same one who regularly shared his sexcapades with me. The one who had a panty collection of his exes. The one who went all the way with a girlfriend freshman year in the parking lot of a Wendy’s.
How does that boy reconcile with the one who just kissed me passionately in front of an upscale restaurant in Fairview?
The two versions of Jimmy are completely incongruous.
I close my eyes, rest my head against the window, and let the steady white-noise moan of the car carry me off.
The jarring difference between smoothly paved streets and the bumpy, gravelly country roads leading out to the ranch stirs me out of my half-nap. Soon, his headlights pour over the front of the Strong ranch and its pretty, newly-renovated front porch that I spent so much of last summer on, lounging around with a laptop, a book, or Jimmy himself, staring off into the countryside.
He pulls off somewhere on the gravel, then kills the engine. We get out of the car, are swallowed at once by cricket songs and the noise of restless trees in the warm summer night, then head up the steps of the porch—which no longer creak.
After Jimmy unlocks and opens the door to let us in, we find a single lamp on in the living room as well as a small nightlight in the kitchen. His parents don’t seem to be home. “Probably are out with some friends themselves,” he mumbles to himself, tossing his ma’s keys on the counter and turning to me. “You thirsty, my man? We might have some of my mama’s lemonade.”
“You mean Jacky-Ann’s lemonade,” I can’t help but correct him, “and no, I’m fine.”
“Alright.” He stares at the counter, blank-faced as a stone, not seeming to have even heard my subtle correction.
I shuffle my feet awkwardly, then scratch at something on my arm as I search around with my eyes, looking for anything that’s different or changed, since I didn’t get much of a chance to do it earlier when Jimmy rushed me here to dress me.
It’s difficult to do in the dim lighting.
“How about we go to your room and … chat?”
“Yeah, good. That sounds good.” Jimmy starts limping up the stairs, leading the way. He goes slowly, taking each step one at a time, for once giving his bad foot the attention it needs.
Which forces me to head up right behind him just as slowly, granting me a view of his snugly-fit buns in those skinny jeans the whole way as he hops from step to step with care.
Bad timing for a generous view like that. Aren’t my emotions already all scrambled up enough like a Sunday omelet as it is …?
At the end of the landing, we enter his room. I shut the door behind us as he flicks on a lamp, drops into a stylish wicker chair by the window, then props up his bad foot on his bed.
For as much time as I spent in this room last summer, it’s strange how it always takes me by surprise how big the bedrooms in this house are. Jimmy’s room—which used to be Tanner’s years ago before he moved into his own house—is at least twice the size of my own. This boy’s got enough room for two beds, a pool table if he wanted, and maybe even an area to set up a gym with mats. His room’s so big, he’s had friends over to practice dance routines in here his senior year of high school. I guess he and his friends got tired of using the oversized gym in the garage (complete with wall mirrors and a length of smooth, hardwood flooring) his junior year. I remember so many times when I came over to watch them, how I felt so in awe of Jimmy’s talent.
