his wide, warm hands clasp my bottom as he held me against him, was a fantasy I had entertained more than once. In the shower this morning, for instance.
Damn my barren love life.
But it was my fantasy. And in my fantasy, he had stood behind me and skimmed his hands up the front of my shirt, his fingers teasing my breasts as they peaked in the cold air in the fridge, while his hot tongue licked a trail down the side of my neck. When I lifted to my toes, he’d ground against me as I grasped a shelf in front of me for support.
“Ohmygawd, look who’s here!” Tasha exclaimed.
I blinked out of my sex fantasy and took a generous swallow of my drink. I couldn’t believe I’d slipped into la-la land in public. Men didn’t often draw me into waking dreams of them. No, that wasn’t true. Men never drew me into waking dreams of them. Joshua died and my daydreaming had died with him. I’d slotted myself into the asexual column and had done my best to ignore my hormones.
Until Devlin. What was it about him?
I pictured his round, suited shoulders. Ink-colored hair slicked away from carved cheekbones. Full, firm lips and a jaw made of granite.
It was his everything.
“Asshole,” Tasha grumbled. She directed her sneer and upturned nose to a guy in a screen-printed T-shirt. A symphony of tattoos tracked down his left arm. He sipped beer from a Solo cup and when he licked the foam from his lip, a dimple sliced into one side of his face.
“The cute guy?” I blinked at my friend.
“He’s not cute.”
I took a second look. “Uh, sorry, hon, but yeah, he is.”
“Well, he’s an asshole, so that sort of eradicates the cute.” She crossed her arms and sipped her drink.
“What’d he do?” I asked, curious. Tasha preferred preppy boys. The well-bred smooth talkers over tattooed bad boys, but I’d never known her to dislike any boy. Especially a boy as attractive as the one across the room talking animatedly to his buddy.
“We were at a frat party last weekend and he hit on one of my friends. She shot him down then he turned to me.” She touched the beaded necklace at her throat. “His eyes wandered all over me.” She sounded more interested than offended, but I kept that to myself. “And then he was like, ‘You’ve been smilin’ at me for a while, darlin’,’ in this annoying drawl.”
I was pretty sure by “annoying” she meant “sexy.”
“Then,” she continued, “he said, ‘What do you say, kitten? Care to take a ride on the Cade train?’”
I laughed. Mistake. Tasha’s jaw dropped open in offense.
“I’m sorry,” I said, pulling myself together. “That’s a terrible line. I am laughing at its epic badness.”
“He called me ‘kitten’ like I’m a tramp or something. And the ‘Cade train’ thing? Disgusting.” Her gaze cut to him again. I knew Tasha. Part of her wanted everyone to like her. And the possibility of this tattooed, T-shirted bad boy not liking her bothered her all the way down to her ballet flats.
A cacophony of male whoops lifted on the air. Across the sorority-house living room, Tasha’s ex-boyfriend, Tony—a taller version of Bruno Mars with the same pretty quality to his face—strolled through the door. Now, Tony? Him I could hate. He had no business being within twenty yards of Tasha after last weekend. He high-fived a few guys for who-knew-what as he entered. Cade’s lip curled with disgust, which made me like him more.
“He said he wasn’t coming tonight,” she mumbled, her eyes glued to her ex-boyfriend’s ambivalent expression. Mine were glued to Tony’s rich-boy prep-wear. Tasha’s kryptonite. Oh, how she loved a well-pressed pair of khakis.
I grabbed my friend’s arm and forced her to look at me. “You talked to him?”
“Of course not!” She bit her lip, then added, “Text.”
“Tasha! Tell me you’re not this drunk!” I took her cup away and she snatched it back.
She was my best friend… my first real friend. We were always honest with each other. She and I had become friends in the ninth grade, and she was the only person from high school who hadn’t avoided me after Joshua’s accident.
My world had dwindled down to two people back then: Tasha and my smother. And, yes, the “s” was there intentionally.
“He texted me to apologize.” She waited for my objection.
I pursed my lips and stayed silent.
“Admit it. It’s possible he’d mistaken Jamie for me, right?”
“How dark was this party?” I