“Yeah,” Jeremy said faintly. “I guess it did.”
“How the fuck did she know?”
“Dad says we were so obvious, it could be seen from space.”
“Hyperbole is so stupid,” I mumbled. “We weren’t that obvious.”
Jeremy rubbed his jaw. “I think we might have been. Vince told me he was happy we finally figured things out.”
“What?”
He nodded. “Yeah, and you really don’t want to know what Nana told me.”
“Tell me,” I demanded.
“She said that if I ever needed to borrow one of her paddles to use on you—”
“Never mind! Don’t tell me! Ack! Gross! Ugh!”
He grinned at me. “Larry said that it was okay because Vince was a Dom and Paul was his pony. They seemed very open-minded about the whole thing. I didn’t want to ask what that meant, but—”
“Jesus Christ,” I groaned as I put my face in my hands. “I swear to god, those people are going to be the death of me.”
“Nah,” Jeremy said easily. “They just love you, is all. And they’re right. All of them.”
I dropped my hands. “About what? I don’t want you to spank me with one of Nana’s paddles. I mean, sure, maybe if you had your own we could talk, but—” My eyes bulged as I replayed my own words. “Uh. Forget I said that?”
“Frankly, I don’t think that’s possible.” He had this look in his eyes like he was imagining me bare-assed and over his knee. “You want to—”
“If the conditions were right, I suppose—”
“The conditions? What the hell does that—”
“I don’t know! I haven’t even picked out a safeword! Shouldn’t I—”
“Oh, so now we’re in safeword territory, are we? Seems like we skipped a couple of steps—”
“Tumblr taught me safe, sane, and consensual, and everyone knows Tumblr is where you go to look up spanking—”
“I want to kiss you,” Jeremy said, and all my words dried up. “More than anything. I want to take you home with me. I want to be with you. I don’t ever want to let you g
o.”
I nodded slowly. “Soon.”
He closed his eyes. “Soon. Because we’re going to do this right.”
“God, I hate how responsible we are.”
He laughed, and the tension eased. “I know. But I don’t want anything standing in our way. Because I’m all in, Corey. Okay?”
I swallowed thickly. “Okay.”
“Good. Now, for old times’ sake, how about I drive you home. I got a new CD for us to listen to. It’s Jason Mraz. You ever heard of him?”
“Jesus Christ. What the hell is wrong with you? Do you see a white guy with a guitar and think, ‘oh my god, I need to have this!’ Is that what’s going on? Because that is an illness, Jeremy. A debilitating illness.”
“Just because you have unrefined tastes in music doesn’t mean you get to—”