There’s a big game on tonight and the place is packed. I see a lot of regulars, and even more new faces. It’s a good mix: some younger, some older, and a few in between. I keep track of the drinks of the people sitting at the bar, and carefully monitor a particularly rowdy group of sorority-type girls in a booth near the jukebox.
Luke comes in around ten, slipping up to the bar while I’m covering for one of the waitresses. He’s laughing with Fred when I join them, and he reaches out, snags one of my belt loops, and smiles, so fucking wide.
My entire body is full of tiny bombs that detonate when he gives me that smile.
“Hey,” he says.
He’s changed into a pair of dark jeans and a blue T-shirt that stretches tight across his biceps and across his lats. I run my hands up his sides, feeling him. His hair is soft and falling over his forehead and his smile straightens into hunger when I say, “There you are.”
“Can I drive you home?”
“My car is here,” I remind him. “Don’t you have work in the morning?” I put a coaster in front of him, reaching into the cooler to grab a cold pint glass, and begin filling it with a new IPA I’m sure he’ll love.
He catches my hand for a second as I place the glass in front of him, just long enough for his fingers to ghost over my wrist. “You’re the one who closes here and gets up with the sun to go surfing. I want to come home with you. I haven’t been in your bed yet.”
He says it without a hint of trepidation, and suddenly it’s all I can think about.
Luke in my bed.
Luke naked in my sheets.
Luke with his head thrown back against my pillow when he comes.
My voice is noticeably shaky when I tell him, “Okay,” and nod to someone trying to get my attention at the other end of the bar. “Go play with your friends so I can work.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he says, picking up his beer and standing. “And Logan?”
“Yeah?” I ask.
“You look beautiful tonight.”
* * *
IT DOESN’T ESCAPE my notice—or Fred’s, for that matter—that I track where Luke is all night. He talks animatedly with his friends and even joins them in a game of pool, but keeps checking his watch, meeting my eyes when he looks up to find me watching him, too.
My breath catches every time. I’m nearly drunk with the giddy feeling that rises like carbonation in my chest and the words that seem intent on making their way up my throat.
I love you.
I blink away and back down to the credit card I’m supposed to be using to start a tab, and have to clear out the sale and start over.
About an hour later I watch one of the sorority girls leave her group and wander into the back room. Luke’s not really paying attention—his eyes seem fixed on the screen above the pool table as he appears to argue with Not-Joe about the game—so he doesn’t immediately react when she slips into the chair next to him. She leans in, saying something in his ear, and loops her arm through his.
I didn’t even know I was holding my breath until he looks over at her, shifting just enough to put some space between them and removing his arm from her grip. Luke shakes his head and, without any more attention given to the moment, turns back to the television. He clearly didn’t do it for my benefit—he doesn’t even look to see if I’ve been watching.
My hands tremble as I wipe down the counter and glance at the clock, counting down the hours until I can take him home, and kiss another set of words into his skin: I trust you.
* * *
IN THE END, I do leave my car at the bar and let Luke drive me all the way back downtown. I don’t really want to be away from him; things between us feel settled but not. When is he moving? What will I do?
He holds my hand as he drives, we listen to quiet music, and an easy sleepiness takes over the space between us.
Upstairs, we brush our teeth side by side. Luke brought a toothbrush with him, and when I see him pull it from a small duffel bag, I tell him the story of finding Ashley’s at Justin’s house. His reply is to spit, rinse and wipe his mouth, and press a wordless, lingering kiss to my temple.
“What a bag of dicks,” he says when he’s pulled away.
“I’m going to rinse off really quick,” I say. And I do mean quick. I get in the shower before it’s all that warm, soap and shampoo at the speed of light, and practically sprint to my room in a towel.
And Lord. Nothing looks better than Luke naked in my bed.
He’s between the sheets already, his clothes in a neat pile on my desk chair. With unblinking eyes, he watches me drop my towel and tie my damp hair into a bun on top of my head. His eyes move down my neck, stalling on my breasts.
“Do you sleep naked?” he asks.
“With you I do.”
He nods, rapt, and I pull back the sheets, climbing over him.
He’s mine now.
I sit up over him, and feel like we’re swimming in a tiny pool of light from the small lamp on the bedside table. His face is just barely in the shadow, but my entire torso is illuminated, and he reaches up, hands cupping my breasts. Between my spread legs, I feel him start to harden more.
“Logan?” he says quietly.
“Yeah?”
His thumbs slide slowly toward my nipples. “Are you my girlfriend?”
I nod, and he catches his lower lip between his teeth as he watches his thumbs draw slowly expanding circles around the tight peaks. Warmth floods my body, longing, and I bend down, kissing him once.
“Did you miss having a girlfriend?”
His brows pull down as he considers my question and he cups my breasts again, gently squeezing. “Not in the way you mean. I like being in a relationship, but I wouldn’t have wanted to be with anyone before you.”
The question seems to come out of nowhere: “Do you ever miss Mia?”
He looks momentarily confused.
“I mean, do you ever—”
His eyes clear in understanding and he interrupts me: “Do you miss Justin?”
I laugh. “It isn’t the same. He cheated.”
“People get over each other for different reasons,” he says patiently. “Just because Mia didn’t cheat on me doesn’t mean I still love her the way I love you.”
I watch my fingers run over the smooth skin of his chest. “I know.”
And I do. But it helps to hear him say it.
“I’ll fuck up sometimes, I know I will,” he says with a tiny, flirty smile. “I’ll forget important dates and buy the wrong brand of tampons when you send me to the store and eat the wrong number of Pop-Tarts and most likely say unintentionally sexist things you’ll need to point out, but I won’t—I promise—ever be unfaithful.” His hands slide up my hips to my waist. “I’m not built that way.”
I kiss him for that, straightening over him again and running my hand down his bare chest. And then I feel my brain hitting the brakes, slowing further as I watch my fingers follow the map of muscle on his body. My fingertips explore the dips and swells, the long lines of his ribs wrapping around his sides.
He’s mine now.
No one else will touch this bare chest.
No one else will enjoy this transition from chest to stomach, from stomach to hips.
No one else will feel the soft trail of hair just here.
He twitches in my hand as I grip him, whispering my name, sitting up beneath me and sucking at my neck.
No one else will touch his cock.