We tried to sit on opposite sides of the room to watch the four-hour-long movie. Then we tried to sit on opposite ends of the couch. Then we tried to sit next to each other without touching.
Yeah, this is not going to be one of my better papers in my Film Studies class.
“I don’t think I’ve sat down so long since my plane ride back to school,” I tell Baylor. “What do you say we go for a walk?”
I throw on my hoodie and help her on with her coat and we head out to enjoy the late afternoon sunshine. I can’t help but look at her. Every time I do, I picture her thrashing around on my lap when she had an orgasm last night. If I could bottle that up and sell it, I’d make millions. But, no, it’s just for me. Only me. I selfishly wonder if she’s had orgasms with other men touching her.
I think about the fact that she’s a virgin. I’m sure I’ve been with them before. I mean, chances are pretty damn good anyway. But I never bothered to ask and none of them ever said anything; or if they did, it fell on deaf ears. To think that I could be the first person to be with Baylor, to take her into uncharted territory, to claim her like no other . . . it has my dick hardening a little. It’s so much more than that, however. I don’t see her as some sort of conquest. She’s nothing like the others. She doesn’t even come close to being in the same category as any of the other girls I’ve been with. If she gives me her virginity, I will handle it with the care and respect that it rightly deserves.
I briefly laugh under my breath wondering who the hell has taken up residence in my head, because it sure as shit ain’t me.
As we pass by a group of guys, I don’t miss the fact that they’re all checking her out. I also don’t miss the fact that she smiles back at them. Okay, so it’s a friendly smile, not a ‘come hither’ smile. And of course I would kick some serious ass if any one of them tried ‘coming hither,’ but still . . . she acknowledged them, and that grips my heart like a fucking vice.
“Ouch,” she says, trying to squirm her hand out of mine.
I had been unconsciously squeezing it when I was thinking about her with other guys. “Sorry.” I bring her hand up to my lips and place a kiss on the back of it. I stop walking and take her other hand in mine so that I’m holding them both. “I’m not sure I made myself clear yesterday, Baylor.”
She cocks her head to the side, narrowing her eyebrows at me in question.
“When I asked you to go out with me last night, I was asking you to be my girlfriend,” I say. “I want to be the only one you’re dating, darlin’.”
Her eyes soften at my endearment, and the smile on her face produces the dimple I long to see. “I never thought of it any other way, Gavin,” she says. “I would never date two guys at once.” Then her smile disappears as her eyes lower to the ground and I know exactly what she’s thinking.
I let go of one of her hands and put my finger under her chin to raise her head back up. “That goes for me as well, Baylor,” I assure her. “I’m not planning on seeing anyone else. I promise you.”
She grins at me and picks up my arm, pushing back the sleeve of my hoodie to see my watch. “What are you doing?” I ask.
“I’m looking at the date,” she says playfully. “Hmmm, January twenty-fourth. Gavin McBride is off the market—a momentous occasion for all mankind.” She smirks at me.
My jaw drops at her temerity. She pulls away from me and teasingly jogs ahead, but I quickly catch up to her, grab her arm and pull her into a kiss. I savor every taste of her cold lips that turn warm with our kisses. I try to keep myself under control, but control is not something I possess in the presence of Baylor Mitchell. My first girlfriend. I pull away laughing.
“What is it?” she asks.
“Oh, nothing,” I say, grabbing her hand and pulling her into a walk. “I was just thinking how I’m twenty years old and you are my very first girlfriend.”
“Wow, that’s pathetic,” she teases. “Just so you know, we will go as slow as you want. You don’t have to do anything you aren’t comfortable with.” She stops us and gets serious as she looks into my eyes. “You are in complete control.”
Fuck me. My dick twitches and starts to swell in my pants. I have the sudden urge to throw her down right here on the frozen grass.
“Darlin’,” I say, pulling her close to me so that she can feel what her words have done, “you can’t say things like that when we’re out in public.”
She looks up at me with that crimson blush sweeping up her adorable face. “Oh,” she says, stunned at the absolute power she holds over me.
“Yeah,” I say laughing, as I lean down to plant a kiss on the tip of her cold nose.
My stomach growls, reminding me it must be getting close to dinner time. “Do you have plans for dinner?”
“Yes,” she says, a little too eagerly.
I frown. “But you said I had complete control, and I say you should have dinner with me.”
She giggles. “I did say that, didn’t I?” I nod at her. “Okay then,” she says, “how about you come with me?”
“Come with you? Where?” I ask.
“To have dinner with Skylar.” She smiles brightly.
“Skylar? As in one of your sisters?”
“Yes. She’s down here for the weekend with her best friend,” she says. “Janie is some kind of genius, and at only sixteen she’ll graduate this year. She’s checking out UNC and brought my sister with her so that we could hang out.”
I instantly feel guilty about monopolizing her time. “Geez, Bay, you should have been with her this whole time. Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because she wanted to do the whole tour thing with Janie. You know, get the official introduction to campus and all. I wasn’t supposed to see her until tonight when Janie’s parents drop her off at my dorm at six. I’ll also get to spend the day with her tomorrow.”
I look at my watch to see that it’s five o’clock. “Do you really want me to meet your sister, or are you just inviting me because I asked you to dinner?”
She rolls her eyes at me. “Gavin, don’t be silly. Come with us. It’ll be fun,” she says. “But we have to go for pizza. Skylar is a certified pizza lover.”
“Pizza it is,” I say. “I know a great place that y’all will love.”
We walk back hand-in-hand to my house. We get a few stares from people who recognize me and I realize that my new relationship status may be about to cause a bit of a stir around campus. I think I need to sit down with some friends and warn them. And by friends, I mean Karen.
“Wow!” Skylar says when I tell her how many goals I scored last season.
She’s pretty, like Baylor. Except Skylar has green eyes and my color hair. She hasn’t yet grown into the beautiful woman that Baylor is, but I can tell she’s going to be a heartbreaker. She’s also seriously crushing on me. It makes me wish I had a little brother.
“Are you interested in soccer?” I ask her.
“Well, I am now,” she says.
“Skylar!” Baylor scolds her sister. She turns to me and says out of the side of her mouth, “Sorry, she can be kind of direct.”
“I’m sitting right here,” Skylar says. “I can hear you, you know.” She rolls her eyes at her older sister as she brings a piece of deep-dish pizza up to her lips. She stares at me contemplatively as she chews. Then with a mouthful of food, she asks, “What do you plan on doing this summer? I mean you live thousands of miles apart. That’s gotta suck.”
Baylor and I look at each other with raised eyebrows. I’m not sure it ever occurred to either of us what might happen three months from now. I know it never even crossed my mind. I’ve never had a girlfriend before. I never looked into the future. I never needed to consider anyone other than myself.
“Uh, we haven’t really talked about it, Skylar,” Baylor says, giving her the evil eye. “We literally just started dating yesterday.”
“Yeah, but you’ve been totally into each other for a while now,” Skylar says. “I mean, come on, you both ran at the same time every Monday and Wednesday morning over the break just because the other one of you was doing it.” She gives us another eye roll.
“Skylar!” Baylor chides her once again.
I give her leg a squeeze under the table right after she kicks her little sister.
I smile because I never did ask Baylor if she stuck to the pact we made before break. And since she never brought it up with me, I assumed that meant maybe she didn’t. Now I know that not only did she stick to the deal we made, but she talked about me when she was home. At least to Skylar, anyway.
“What? I call it like I see it,” Skylar says, getting up from the table. “I have to pee. Be right back, you two love birds.”
Baylor turns to me. “I am so sorry, Gavin. She’s always been pretty crass. I texted her earlier when I told her you were coming with us and she promised to attempt to be civil.”
“She’s fine,” I tell her. “She’s sixteen, Baylor, cut her a little slack.” I smile and lean close to her. “So, you ran with me, huh?”
She blushes and then nods. “Every time. Even the week we had a bad snow storm, I went to the local gym and got on the treadmill.”
“Me, too.” I lean in and give her a kiss on the spot under her earlobe that has her sucking in her breath. “Do you know how badly I wanted to text you?”
She snaps her eyes to mine. “Really?”
I nod. “At the risk of sounding like a complete loser, I’ll admit that I also looked at your pictures every day,” I confess.
“That doesn’t make you a loser, Gavin. It makes you a romantic.”
“Huh.” I ponder her statement. “I’ve been accused of a lot of things in my life, but never once has anyone accused me of being romantic.”
She giggles and when my dick jerks, I have to remind myself that her sixteen-year-old sister will be re-joining us soon. I lean in close to her ear and let my hot breath flow over her before saying, “It’s you, darlin’. You make me want to be that way.”
I pull back to see that she’s closed her eyes and her mouth is slightly open. God, I can’t wait to get her alone. But it won’t be tonight. She arranged for Tori to sleep in a friend’s room so Skylar could stay with her in the dorm. It’s all good. We’ve been joined at the hip for the past two days and should probably spend some time apart. Then I immediately shake my head at the ridiculous thought.
“So, how long is summer break?” she asks. “Probably a whole lot more Mondays and Wednesdays than winter break.” She frowns.
I take her hand in mine and join them on top of my thigh. “We have a long time to make plans for the summer, Bay. But, I have to tell you that I’m already committed to going to Brazil for six weeks.”
“Brazil . . . wow!” she says, excitedly. “Are you going to play soccer there?”
“I might, but that’s not why I’m going,” I explain. “This was planned at the beginning of last term. It’s a work-study program that will look good on my college transcripts. And, yes, I chose Brazil because they are wicked-good at soccer down there.”
“That sounds like a great experience,” she says, seeming genuinely happy for me.
I’m afraid to tell her what I have to tell her next, but I’ve promised myself to always be truthful with Baylor. I sigh. “Darlin’, I’m going with my friend, Karen,” I say. “If I could change it now, I would, but the money has been paid and it’s non-refundable. If I had known . . . well, I wouldn’t have agreed to it. But I did and now I’m stuck. I’m sorry.”
“Gavin, it’s not your fault,” she says. “It sounds like an incredible experience—”
“What sounds like an incredible experience?” Skylar returns, interrupting Baylor. “You guys having sex?” She giggles. Her giggle sounds like Baylor’s, except that it does nothing to me. Good thing, because that would be pervy.
“God, Skylar, will you quit acting like a toddler? Gavin was telling me that he’s going to Brazil this summer,” Baylor says. “With his friend, Karen. Isn’t that wonderful?” I can tell she’s trying to sound happy about it.
I’ve only known her a short time, but I can already tell when she’s happy and when she’s sad and when she’s full of shit. And I know for a fact that, as soon as I said Karen was going with me, her shit-meter was all but overflowing.
Damn. Now I feel like a dick.
Skylar gets a huge grin on her face. “Friend, huh?” she asks, moving her eyes back and forth between us. “Did you tell Gavin that you’ll be working with Chris at the restaurant this summer?”
Now it’s my turn to suck it up as Baylor stiffens up under my touch.
“Chris works at your parents’ place, huh?” I ask, turning to look Baylor in the eyes.
“Yes,” she says. “He’s worked there for the past five years. I think my dad is grooming him to take the place over since none of his daughters want to run it.”
I look at Skylar. “Oh? You don’t want to run Mitchell’s? What is it that you want to do, Skylar?” I try to make idle conversation so I don’t ball up my fists and shoot steam out of my ears over the fact that Asswipe will be working alongside my girlfriend when I’m five thousand miles away in Brazil. And that her dad obviously likes the guy. A lot.
Hypocrite.
“Run the restaurant? In Maple Creek?” Skylar laughs. “Hell, no. I’m going to the city as soon as I’m eighteen. I have plenty of experience and I’m sure I can get a great job at some swanky place.”
“New York City?” I ask.
Skylar nods. “Yes.” She bounces with excitement. “I love it there. I go whenever my mom or dad has to go in for restaurant business.”
“What about Piper?” I ask. “What is she, twelve? What does she think about the restaurant?”
Skylar rolls her eyes. “She hates it. Dad practically has to force her to help out on the weekends. She says she doesn’t want to be stuck waiting tables for ungrateful customers. But she’s young, so who knows,” says the worldly sixteen-year-old.
The sisters get into a conversation about New York City while I mentally count the days I have left with Baylor before we have to be apart. Why didn’t I just ask her out last term? Maybe I can see if there are any spots left on our work-study trip. I’ll even pay for her to go.
Then I remember, it’s only for people who took a study-abroad prep class. Fuck. There is no way around this. My dad would kill me if I didn’t go. Hell, I think even my mom would kill me if I threw away this opportunity. Going to Brazil will be amazing. Seeing another culture. Maybe even getting to play soccer with some pretty incredible players. I have to go. I know I have to go.
“Gavin?” I look up to see both of them standing up and staring at me. “You ready to go?”
“Yeah, sure.” I scoot my way out of the booth.
Back at her dorm, Baylor and I share a rated PG kiss in front of Skylar when we say goodbye. I tell them both to have a fun day tomorrow. Then I go home and plot how I can get the U.S. to go to war with Brazil in the course of the next three months.
I climb into bed at midnight.
Me: I just wanted to say goodnight, darlin’. Sweet dreams.
Baylor: See—I told you that you were a romantic. Goodnight, Gavin.