His entire body, once tense, now jelly, fell on top of hers. Julia waited for the pulses between her legs to slow down. Herorgasm seemed unwilling to stop while Tae was still inside her. She raked her fingers through his hair, listening as his breath slowed down back to normal.
Tae finally pulled back a bit and looked down at her, his face soft, lovely. His eyes searched hers.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi,” she said back with a smile. “So I think this might be a good time to confess that this was my first time—”
Tae’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. “What?”
“Having sex in a car,” she said.
He dropped his forehead to hers and shook his head back and forth. “Julia,” he said in a whisper.
“I know, I’m a nut. You don’t have to say it.”
“I was going to say, if you want to have sex in a real car, I can make that happen for you too.”
Julia clenched. Everywhere.
Tae hissed before pulling himself out slowly. He discarded the condom in the trash can next to the nightstand. “Don’t let me forget to get rid of that before my parents get home,” he said.
She giggled again and then snuggled her face into Tae’s neck and sighed.
Julia pushed back the small, nagging fear that all of this was too good to be true—that somehow, someway, she’d end up ruining this.
For now, she held on a little tighter to stay as close as she could get to Tae.
For now, she wasn’t letting go.
23
First Date
Tae
All Tae wanted was to do something easy.
After three failed setups, Julia deserved easy. And frankly, so did Tae.
And after a night of incredible sex together, Tae ached to just be alone with Julia. He wanted to hold her, touch her, talk to her, laugh with her, be inside her again. He did not want to share her with anyone. So he suggested they have their firstrealdate. Just the two of them, alone.
“I’d really, really like that,” she said to him, releasing a breath, sounding so relieved. That was exactly what Tae felt too. He was going to reward her for that extrareallytoo.
So yeah,easysounded great right about now. Something totally opposite to the kind of pressure-clad date that required practice dates and check-ins from best friends and report-backs to family members. A date that didn’t leave Julia feeling discouraged and blaming herself for its predestined failure. And something that didn’t leave Tae feeling like an underachieving loser.
A date that Julia didn’t try to sabotage, and Tae didn’t try to overcompensate.
But he was beginning to feel like this wasn’t going to be easy at all.
So you two are finally doing this.
The text he’d gotten from Rachel was not unexpected. He figured Julia would tell her two best friends everything and get them caught up. He wondered how mucheverythingentailed. Did she tell them about the race car bed?
He held the phone between his ear and shoulder, waiting for Rachel to pick up as he pushed Mr. Choi’s washing machine back into its spot.
“I pushed the pipe in a little farther, so it shouldn’t make that noise anymore,” he said loudly to the hard-of-hearing Mr. Choi.
“Is that what you said to Julia the other night?” Rachel said, answering his call.
