I look away before stealing another surreptitious glance.
A woman appears beside him from somewhere, slipping into the space next to him with the easy confidence of someone who knows exactly how she’ll be received. Dark-haired, pretty, and the way he turns toward her when she touches his arm -
That’s not new, whatever that is.
He dips his head when she talks to him, close to her ear. She laughs. His hand finds the small of her back. It’s casual and deliberate at the same time.
“Elida?”
I turn back to the table.
“Sorry, you were saying?”
Tara was talking about scheduling. I focus on the conversation and contribute something coherent about the women’s program timetable, and I don’t look at the bar again.
Twenty minutes later, when I do glance over - incidentally, it means nothing - they’re gone.
I pick up my wine.
“Another round?” Tara says.
“Yes,” I say. “Definitely.”
MATEO
Jess Hartley has lived in Blackwood her whole life and has no interest in hockey, which is one of the things I like most about her.
She works at the dentist on Main Street and finds the entireculture of college sports mildly baffling, which is uncomplicated. That’s the word. We established uncomplicated about four months ago over cocktails at Tierney’s and it has worked perfectly well ever since.
“You’re distracted,” she says.
We’re in her apartment, which is small and smells like the candles she buys from the place on Fourth. I’m sitting on the edge of her bed with my jacket still on, which probably proves her point.
“Sorry. Bad day.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“God, no.”
She laughs, easy, unbothered, and reaches over and pushes my jacket off my shoulder.
“Okay. So don’t.”
She kisses me first, because that’s how it works with us. Jess doesn’t wait. She leans in with her hand on my jaw and her thumb hooked behind my ear, and she tastes like the cinnamon gum she chews after work. I shut my eyes and put my hand on her waist and try to be where I am.
She pulls back long enough to get her sweater over her head. No bra underneath. That’s not new, but I still look because it seems like the thing to do. She smiles a little, not flattered exactly, but acknowledging.
“You can keep up or not,” she says. “I don’t care either way.”
I shove my shirt off and unbuckle my belt.
Her hands are steady. She pulls my jeans down and wraps her fingers around me and says, “okay, good,” in a voice like she’s checking the temperature of bathwater. Then she leans down.
She doesn’t tease. She takes me deep enough that I have to grab at the comforter and breathe through my teeth. She works her jaw and her tongue against me.
“Hey,” Jess says, pulling off. “Don’t pretend.”
I don’t know what she means by that. I don’t ask. I push her back onto the bed and pull her leggings down her legs, and she spreads her thighs without me having to ask. She’s already wet. She’s practical like that.
