The humiliation of that day as I’d walked between the row of desks came back to me and I could almost still hear the snickers all around me. I’d managed to hold my head up high and had kept my eyes trained on the empty desk the teacher had pointed to, but when the kids had started making oinking sounds beneath their breath, I’d wanted to curl up in a ball and die.
I didn’t realize I’d sat down on the edge of Tate’s old bed until I felt his fingers threading through my hair. At some point he’d moved between my spread legs and one glance at his face and I knew I’d voiced my humiliation about what the kids had done to me out loud.
He didn’t say anything, he just kept caressing me and that made it easier for me to continue.
“I didn’t even notice Revay at first because I was trying so hard not to cry. Then the teacher tells us to get our books out so we can each read a section. I hadn’t gotten my books yet so I thought the teacher would just skip me. But when she said my name, everybody turned around to look at me and I could see some of the kids making silent oink oink sounds. I wanted to fucking die right then and there,” I whispered and I actually had to blink back the tears that threatened to fall.
“What happened?” Tate asked as he continued to gently soothe me with his touch.
“The room was totally quiet, all eyes on me, the teacher waiting…and then there’s this loud screeching sound and I look over and there’s Revay, standing up just a little and sliding her entire desk over. She was a tiny thing even back then and I could only watch in fascination as she pushed it across the aisle until it hit my desk. Then she opened her book, plopped it down in between our desks and pointed to the paragraph we were on.”
Tate chuckled and I looked up at him.
“That was it,” I murmured. “I knew she was going to change everything for me. And she did.”
“She was amazing,” Tate said with a smile. Not a question, not speculation…he said it like he knew it for a fact.
“She was,” I said with a nod of my head.
“Thank you,” Tate whispered and then he leaned down to brush his lips over mine. The kiss was achingly sweet and way too quick. He dropped his hand from my hair and began to step back, and I saw the tension in his gaze as if he’d just then realized what he’d done.
“For what?” I asked, grabbing him by the wrist before he could completely pull away from me.
“For sharing her with me,” he said, clearly startled that I’d stopped him from moving away.
Some unnamed emotion inside of me burst and I felt warmth spread out to all my limbs. But it wasn’t the same rush of heat I felt whenever I touched Tate or he touched me…it was different. It was deeper, stronger.
In that moment my need wasn’t about lust and I refused to release Tate when he took another step back. Instead, I drew him forward but I closed my legs so that he had no choice but to awkwardly straddle me. His eyes filled with confusion until I tugged him down until he was sitting astride me. And then his eyes cleared and he met my lips as soon as I lifted them. As I let my tongue steal into his mouth for a taste, I wrapped my arms around his waist and I was rewarded with his arms closing around my neck.
I loved kissing Tate. There was just no way around it. I didn’t care that I could feel just the slightest hint of stubble where his skin scraped over mine or that he was hard in all the places I’d only ever experienced softness as I let my hands roam along his back. I loved that his need ran just as deep as mine and he held nothing back from me as his tongue dueled with mine before slipping into my mouth. I loved that his grip on me was hungry and desperate and there was nothing tentative as he held my face in his hands so he could take over the kiss. And nothing about the erection I could feel pressing against my abdomen turned me off. If we’d been in anyother place, I would have already been settling Tate’s body beneath mine on the bed.
I ended the kiss before the desire became too much to contain and my guess was that Tate understood because he didn’t resist the move. Instead, he let out a rush of breath and pressed his face against my neck as he drew our bodies closer together. I held him for several minutes as we waited for our racing hearts to settle and I forced my arms to release him when he finally crawled off of me. His face was flushed with color as he looked around the room and then back at me. I saw a hint of a smile as he said, “I think I love this room even more now.”
I laughed and stood up. Tate moved to his closet which was also in a disarray and I watched him pick up an older looking camera from off the floor. He examined it and then flipped something on the camera and it began making whirling noises. He opened the back and popped the film canister out of it a moment later and looked at it.
“What’s on the film?” I asked.
“I don’t remember,” Tate said quietly. “I forgot about this one.”
“This one?”
Tate looked up at me. “Uh, yeah, I sold the few cameras I had before I left.”
“You were a photographer?”
Tate chuckled and shook his head. “I took pictures. Big difference.”
“But that was what you wanted to be.”
A wan smile drifted across Tate’s mouth. “A lifetime ago, yeah, I guess.” He tossed the camera on the floor.
“You don’t want to take it?”
“The lens is cracked,” Tate said. “It would cost more than it’s worth to get it fixed. I guess they didn’t think to check it for film,” he added as he pocketed the roll of unprocessed film.
“Did you take these?” I asked as I moved to his desk and looked through a few of the scattered photos.
“Yes.”
