“The second time I saw you,” Irie continues, “was at the party. When you were hitting on me. You walked over to me like I was this sure thing, that you were supposed to smile a bit and say a few charming things and I was supposed to let you throw me over your shoulder caveman-style and carry me off to some bedroom upstairs. I think you even told me you were a psychology major and you wanted to try to figure me out.”
I laugh.
She isn’t wrong.
I was also drunk as fuck.
“But the third time, Talon,” she says, “you were getting up in some guy’s face—one of your teammates I think because he looked like a linebacker. And you were telling him what a worthless piece of shit he was, that he should give up his spot on the team to someone who actually deserves it.”
It’s true.
I remember that day.
His name was Matt Greene and he ended up dropping out that semester.
I was going off on him because we were roommates and I caught him coming home one day with a brown paper bag filled with syringes and vials of steroids.
If you can’t play with integrity, then don’t fucking play.
“The fourth time—” she begins to say.
“—Irie, I get it. You can stop now.”
“I’m just saying, the guy that I’ve seen and the guy sitting next to me right now are two different people,” she says.
“You’re right. They are,” I say. “I can be an asshole, Irie. I know that. But I swear to God, this? You and me? It’s genuine.”
The rumble of a bus sounds in the distance.
It’s almost time for her to go.
“I wish I could believe you,” she says. “But at the end of the day, I know deep down it’s not me you want. It’s that victory you’ve been chasing all these years.”
“It started out that way,” I say.
She scoffs. “You realize there’s nothing you can say that’s going to convince me otherwise, right?”
“Then why don’t I show you?” I ask. “Let me prove it to you.”
“How?” She tucks a strand of silky hair behind one ear, brows raising as she studies me.
The rumble of the bus grows louder. I feel it in my chest, reverberating in time with the hammer of my heart against my ribcage. In my head, there’s a countdown clock.
5 … 4 … 3 … 2 … 1 …
This is it.
This is my time to shine.
I lift my hand to her face, cupping her soft cheek. She’s still as a statue, our eyes holding. I’m not even certain she’s breathing. She has every chance to protest, every chance to push me away, but she doesn’t.
She knows what’s about to happen—and she’s starving for it as much as I am.
I move in, taking my time, and her eyes flutter shut.
Dragging the pad of my thumb against her full bottom lip, she shivers. Leaning in closer, closer still, I angle her mouth in the perfect position before grazing it with a tease of a kiss. While every part of me wants to claim her, punish her for playing hard to get all these years, I want her to enjoy this.
I want to enjoy this.
I bring my other hand to the side of her face and guide her closer, our lips pressing together harder as our kiss becomes less restrained. Within seconds, our tongues caress and her body softens with my touch. I breathe her in—icy air and exotic flowers—and just as I’m about to pull her into my lap, the rumble of the bus turns into the screeching of brakes.
Irie pulls away, eyes wide and lips beginning to swell. “I have to go.”
I reach for her arm to ask her to stay, but it’s too late.
She’s already trotting down the sidewalk to catch her ride home.
I watch her board and find a seat halfway down the middle before the bus drones away.
Leaning, I stretch my arms over the back of the porch swing and gather in a generous lungful of January night, every part of me electrified as I replay that moment in my head again and again.
I kissed Irie Davenport.
I kissed Irie Davenport.
And I’m going to kiss her again.
Chapter 9
Irie
My lips are still on fire the second I walk into Aunt Bette’s. The bus ride was a blink-and-it’s-over eleven minutes, but I must have replayed that kiss a hundred times already. I swear I can still taste his cinnamon tongue, still feel the soft tease of his mouth grazing mine, and something tells me I’ll be feeling it still come tomorrow morning.
“Irie, is that you?” Aunt Bette calls from the living room.
I peer through the doorway, toward the dark void that flickers with the flash of late-night TV commercials.
“No, it’s Clark Gable,” I tease back, hanging my purse on the back of a kitchen chair.