There was too much clothing involved. I could barely feel him through his leather bomber jacket and the thick cables of his sweater. But I was definitely feeling something through the denim of his jeans.
“Is your van in the garage?” he asked as the windows began to fog.
I choked out a laugh, remembering how things had turned out for the last man who’d gotten into the back of my van. The vanwasin the garage. But so were my children’s car seats, a box of fruitsnacks, and a case of baby wipes. I couldn’t believe I was actually considering it.
“The kids are at my parents’ for the weekend. You want to come in?” The words came out in a desperate rush, hot and sticky in the air between us, too late to take them back.
He caught my bottom lip between his teeth “What about Vero?”
“At her cousin’s,” I panted.
His tongue crashed into mine, and I was pretty sure I would get naked and do it on the front lawn if it got any hotter in his Jeep. He grabbed my hand as I reached for the door. “Wait. We shouldn’t,” he said between ragged breaths. “I can’t stay. I have to get home and pack. The guys want to be on the road at sixA.M.”
I sat up, disoriented, my hat falling askew. “Where are you going?”
His lips were swollen, his eyes still hungry. “Our professors are away at a conference next week. They gave us a few extra days off to study for exams. Some of us are heading down to Panama City to go camping for the week.”
“You’re going to Florida?”
“It was an impulse trip,” he said, smoothing back my flyaway hairs and fixing my cap. “My boss let me trade a few shifts at the bar. We just booked the campsite this week.”
I remembered Steven’s college breaks to Daytona and Miami with his fraternity buddies. I’d never been invited, and I had never been privy to the details after. But that didn’t mean I was ignorant. “Just you and the guys?”
“And a few people from school,” he said. I sat back, putting a few inches between us. Julian took me gently by the chin. “We’re just going to grab some sun and unwind. That’s all. I’ll be back in a week.”
Green colored my visions of college coeds in tiny bikinis andeven tinier tents. I had no right to feel jealous. Julian and I weren’t serious. He’d never even been inside my house. He’d never met my kids or Vero or my ex. “Oh,” I said as the flip side of that equation hit me like a slap in the face.
In the entire month that we’d been seeing each other, I’d never met any of his friends either.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I said, pasting on a smile. What did I expect from him? I had two children and a job and a house I was responsible for. Had I seriously expected him to invite me along? “It’s fine,” I insisted. “You should go. Have a good time.”
“Are you sure? Because if something’s wrong, maybe we should—”
I took him by the face and kissed him. Because I didn’t want him to finish that sentence.Maybe we should stop seeing each other. Maybe we should take things slower. Maybe we should talk about it.I didn’t want to do any of those things. I wanted to have sex with him in his Jeep, and maybe even on the crumb-crusted floor of my minivan. I didn’t want to think about him at the beach, in a sleeping bag with someone else.
He dragged off my hat, tossing it into the passenger seat. His fingers slid into my hair and under my shirt as he pulled me back onto his lap with a frustrated groan.
Tires squealed. We jerked apart, breathing hard, as a truck skidded to a stop at the foot of my driveway. Its taillights glared, a livid shade of red.
I slid out of Julian’s arms into the passenger seat. Julian turned, following my gaze out the back window, his eyes still smoldering as he panted, “Your ex?”
I nodded, waiting for Steven to put his foot on the gas and leave. Instead, he put the truck in park. “Shit!” I muttered.
Julian sank back against the headrest, his voice husky. “I should probably go.”
“Don’t. Please. Just… don’t move,” I said, holding up a finger as I threw open the door of his Jeep.
I slammed it harder than I’d intended, adjusting my sweatshirt and raking back my ruffled hair as I stormed down the driveway and met Steven at the bottom of it.
“What are you doing here? I told you, the kids are with my parents.”
“Whose Jeep is that?” Steven frowned at the GMU sticker on the rear window, craning his neck to see inside it.
“A friend.” I put a hand to his chest as he took a determined step toward the Jeep. “Look, I’m a little busy right now. Can’t you just call me tomorrow?”
He paused, surprise coloring his cheeks. “Why’s your neck all red? And what the hell happened to your hair?”
