“Huh, never would’ve guessed.”
We went straight to my room. Tag gently set me on the floor once he’d untangled his fingers from my mermaid hair. His too was disheveled, sticking up in all different directions. Our soaked clothes had become second skins since leaving the beach, now sealed to our bodies. Tag smiled and kissed me, this one sending a crackling current through my body. I knew he felt it too, because suddenly we were hurrying to undress each other. He peeled off his tux jacket while I feverishly unknotted his bow tie before going to work on his shirt’s buttons. “Take it off,” I breathed. “Please.” I turned so he could undo my dress, my chest now heaving. “You should’ve seen the dance I did earlier.”
After he fiddled with the zipper and slipped the dress over my head, I twirled back around, beaming. “Ta-da!”
Tag stared at me. Green eyes wide and head angled just so, like he was in awe. My pulse wavered, but I tried to play it cool.
“What?” I raised a suggestive eyebrow. “You’ve seen me like this before.”
He silently shook his head.
I unclasped my strapless bra. “Yes, Tag, I’m pretty sure—”
“Lily.”
My heart stopped when he said my name. All I could do was look at him too, shirtless in his dripping boxers.This is different, I realized with a deep ache.After a year of so much secret pining, this is totally different.
We moved toward each other again, but it wasn’t long before I gently pushed him away. It took almost everything in me. He’d been kissing my neck, and my hands had been tugging his hair. “Where are you—don’t—wait.” He couldn’t speak in full sentences. “Hold—Hops—on—”
“Relax, I’m getting something,” I told him, then flicked his shoulder. “Something that wasn’t on the Jester’s packing list.”
The tips of Tag’s ears reddened, remembering ouralmostduring the prank. I laughed and pulled open my top dresser drawer to find the small box of condoms. After first sleeping with Tag (and an honest discussion about it), my mom had left them in my room with a Post-it note attached.Only with someone you love, Lily!
To me, Taggart Swell was the only someone to love.
“What?” I asked after climbing into bed with him. He’d suspended his insulin again and was looking at me in amusement as he set his pump on my nightstand. I grinned. “What is it? Do I have seaweed in my hair?”
Tag kissed both my dimples. “Yes,” he whispered, taking the sealed wrapper from me. “You do, actually.”
I giggled into his neck. “Spare meThe Little Mermaidlines.”
“What about a song?” he suggested, sitting up and ripping open the condom. I drew slow stars around the freckles on his back. The seaweed could stay. “Wasn’t it your childhood dream to play Ariel onstage?”
I didn’t have an answer. Nothing witty or even partly clever came to mind, especially when he turned back and grinned at me.
That grin. God, that mischievous grin.
“I’m so happy we’re here,” he said a minute later, our limbs entwined under my covers. “I know it wasn’t easy, but…” He held my gaze. “Aut viam inveniam aut facium.”
“Find a way or make one,” I agreed, and then we kissed before finding a rhythm that made me crest like an ocean wave.
TWENTY-NINE
“We can’t fall asleep,” I whispered.
“We won’t fall asleep,” Tag whispered back, even though his eyes were closed, and I could feel his heartbeat slowing as his fingertips grazed my ribs. “We have something to do.”
“I know,” I said, heart slightly sinking. “We have to get you back.”
Because according to my retro alarm clock, it was 11:15. Josh was probably gritting his teeth on the prom bus.Only forty-five more minutes!I imagined my mom chanting in his ear.
I switched on my bedside lamp to see Tag yawn. “No, no,” he said. “I meant we have something to dobeforethat.” He raked a hand through his hair. “This might be my last chance.” He kissed my shoulder before getting out of bed, and while admiring the view, I saw his shoulders sag. “Shit, my clothes.” He sighed and gestured at the sopping mess on the floor. “I don’t think it’s even possible to put on that tux.”
“Well,” I said brightly, “if you give me a little more intel regarding this secret mission of ours, you won’t need to try…”
We left my house looking like we were off to meet the Jester at King’s Court. I wore a dark sweatshirt and pulled up its hood to hide the hickeys that were blooming on my neck while Tag had buttoned up the Scotch-plaid flannel he’d let me borrow on prank night. It also hadn’t taken me long to find a pair of black sweats he’d left behind in my closet last year. Tag drove the golf cart while I swatted his sleeve after we soared over the faculty neighborhood’s speed bump. “What were youthinking?” I teased. “This is a residential area! Children are at play!”
He chuckled and cut the cart’s ignition once we reached Hubbard Hall, and after a grand flourish of my mom’s faculty ID, we snuck inside and made for the mail room. I watched Tag unlock his mailbox, shaking my head when he reached in and emerged with what looked like a single playing card. It had been taped to the mailbox’s roof. “I wanted to be ready at a moment’s notice,” he explained.
