“You want an inventory of thoughts?” he says, and squeezes my upper thighs, skin on skin. “Fine. It wastights, Reid trying to drink my beer, tights, roller derby, tights, tights, put away chairs.Thentightsagain. Exactly like you wanted.”
“I didn’t mean—”
Gideon sighs, then wraps one arm around my upper thighs and lifts me off the bleacher. I squeak in surprise before he sets me down on the floor, at our usual heights, and then makes a whole show of pulling my skirt down.
He takes me gently by the chin and pulls my face up so we’re looking at each other.
“Yes,” he says. “You did.”
“Then I’m glad it worked.”
“You thought there was a chance it wouldn’t?”
I take a tiny step closer in. He releases my chin, and my hands find their way under the bottom of his shirt, my fingertips on warm skin. Gideon makes a noise in the back of his throat.
I did think there was a chance it wouldn’t work. For all his enthusiasm I swear sometimes I can see the tiniest flicker of hesitation on his face. I keep remembering him, in the dark, sayingsometimes this feels wrong, too, and I know that for all his grumpy bluster and stone-faced exterior, Gideon’s soft as a kitten on the inside and just as easily hurt. It’s easy enough to feel one thing and think another, and some of my buried, latent fears are afraid he thinks I’m a harlot.
“There’s always a chance,” is what I say, and Gideon snorts, and then his mouth lands on mine again, more desperate than before.
The plan was, as far as there was a plan, to cheekily show him the garters on the drive back to his house, then launch myself at him once we were through the door. I didn’t mean for him to grab my ass and haul me against him in an old high school gym, but plans change.
“Fuck,” he mutters, and pulls away. He breathes like he’s trying to catch his breath. “We should get going, it’s a long drive.”
“How well do you know Blythe?” I ask, and he frowns.
“Some,” he says. “Why?”
I tuck my fingers below the waist of his jeans and slide one thumb along his erection before I realize I’m doing it, and he makes a noise in the back of his throat.
“Any good lovers’ lanes?” I ask. “Your house is pretty far away.”
“I think that’s illegal,” he says, voice hazy.
“Then we won’t get caught.”
Gideon’s staring at me in the dark like he’s trying to collect his thoughts and failing, pupils wide, lips parted. His hair’s curling at the ends and he’s not disheveled yet, all of him still in order, but everything about him is begging for it.
“How do you know?” he asks, sliding one hand up my body, along my jaw, one thumb featherlight against my lower lip, the way I did to him earlier.
“Be inconspicuous,” I say, then lick his thumb. “And quiet.” I close my lips around it, my tongue against the rough pad, and Gideon looks like he might pass out for a moment.
“You think—” he starts, and then we both freeze at the sound of a door shutting. It echoes across the empty gym, bouncing from the bleachers behind us, his thumb still between my teeth. There are footsteps. I bite down, gently.
“Fuck,” he whispers, and I put a hand on his chest and push.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-TWO
GIDEON
“You knowmy car’s the other way,” I say, low enough that my voice won’t carry.
“Oh, oops,” she says, still pushing me backwards. There’s a light in her eyes bordering on unholy, and she grins. “Let’s take refuge in this dark hallway while I get my bearings.”
“If you’re confused, I could guide you.”
“You know I’ll never learn if I don’t figure it out myself,” she says, then grabs my wrist and tugs me along.
At the end of the bleachers there’s a dark hallway that runs parallel to the back wall. It probably leads to locker rooms or ball storage or something, and it’s lit by one emergency light all the way at the end. Andi pushes me against the wall in the darkest part, the painted-over cinderblocks cool against my back, her hand splayed over my chest. Another door opens, out in the gym, footsteps fading, and Andi stands up on her tiptoes and kisses me more carefully than I’m expecting.
