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“Such as?”
“Do I have to say?”
“I told you how desperate and pathetic I am, Shane, the least you can do is return the favor!”
“Okay, sheesh, fine. Just … I think, being in the dark, alone with me, away from school where everybody thought she was this goodie-goodie preacher’s daughter, with her parents asleep, she was just indulging the bad girl inside, you know?”
Tatum nodded, knowing all too well. “And you were … what?”
“The right guy in the right place at the right time, I suppose.” Shane’s voice seemed far away, as if young Emily had hurt more than just his pride. There was a wounded, vulnerable expression on his young face that she hadn’t seen before, to match the soft, quiet timbre of his usually cheerful voice.
She nodded, her hand reaching to cover his where it rested, big and splayed out, on the bleacher seat beside him. It was a brief glance, a reassuring squeeze, but it was enough to jar his eyes back to hers. Then she let it quietly drift away before she asked, “But in the dark, you did everything boys and girls do together when they’re alone and no one’s watching, right?”
He nodded, bit his lip, then shook his head. “Well, not everything.”
“No?”
“I mean, don’t get me wrong. I sure made her happy!”
Tatum chuckled, struggling to hide the way she appraised him, up, down, and back again. “Oh, I’m sure you did, you little low-down country boy wildcat, but how about you?”
He sagged again, all the foolhardy bluster gone out of him like the air of a week-old birthday balloon. “I mean, sometimes I’d be satisfied on accident, rubbing on each other that way, but mostly it was just, you know, doing what it took until she couldn’t take it anymore, you know?”
Tatum gave him a rock-hard glare. “You don’t mean to tell me you’re still a virgin, are you?”
“Not in so many words. No. Not exactly.” He shook his head indignantly, then seemed to think better of it before confessing, “Well, I mean … I suppose I am in some ways and not in others, you know?”
“I don’t, Shane. Not really. It’s kind of a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ question, but I can see you don’t feel all that comfortable about it, so…”
He nodded, sagging with obvious relief. Their eyes met in the darkening sky as she sought to comfort him, body, mind, and soul.
“You know what the biggest shame of all is, Shane?”
Chapter Eight
Shane
“What’s that, Tatum?”
Tatum was sitting close, too close by far. He could smell her sweet and savory perfume again. Sense the heat shimmer coming off her in waves, caressing his skin as if it were her very own fingertips. Her eyes bored into his, liquid and brown and convincing.
“If you spent all that time in the dark, then that means she never sawyounaked, either.”
He chuckled, surprised by her blatant flattery. Since she’d first walked into the locker room earlier that day, Tatum had been the very picture of aloof—distant, professional, hands-off, and occasionally even parental. Suddenly, she seemed real to him, in a way she hadn’t before.
Clearly, unless he was overthinking things, she felt the same. “She never seemed to mind.”
Tatum nodded, as if she understood. “Still, you never answered my question.”
“Didn’t I? I just poured out my sad, pathetic little heart to you, girl!”
“Right, I get that, but … have you made peace? With Emily, I mean?”
Shane nodded, recalling the knock-down, drag-out, come-to-Jesus phone call they’d shared shortly after his first week on campus. “She made her excuses, I accepted them. I think, maybe, we both should have broken up long before I left town. Seen other people, not tied up our whole high school experience with each other, you know?”
Tatum nodded begrudgingly. “Pretty common experience, I suppose.”
“I guess now that I’m gone, she’s out sowing her wild oats as often as she can.”
