After dinner, everyone is stuffed, but excited about going to the movies together.
“I’m afraid Quinn and I won’t be able to come along,” Carson announces, much to my surprise.
“Do you have plans?” Mom asks.
“I promised my folks I’d bring her by their place for a little while so they can see her. And she hasn’t seen the new house yet. Can we meet you back here for dessert a bit later?”
This is news to me. I start to question him, but before I can get a word out, he takes my hand under the table and squeezes it.
“That sounds wonderful,” Mom says. “Please give our best to your parents, Carson.”
“I’ll do that,” he says.
He’s still holding my hand under the table and I’m beginning to wonder what’s up.
A few minutes later, I slide into the passenger seat of a new maroon Jaguar as Carson holds the door open for me. He must be making bank if he can rent cars like this. I say, “Nice car,” but he ignores me. His mind seems to be elsewhere.
We drive down to the end of the block, and Carson pulls into the neighborhood’s community center parking lot. The two of us used to spend hours here just sitting on the swings and talking. There were a few cigarettes involved, if I recall.
He pulls the car into a parking spot.
“What are we doing?” I ask.
“Waiting.”
“For…?”
“For your folks to leave for the movie.”
“I don’t understand,” I say.
“We have to go back to your parents’ house to make my wish come true. My folks are home right now.”
“And what was your wish?”
He arches an eyebrow.
“No, seriously. What was it?”
Now I get a dirty grin.
“Are you really thinking what I think you’re thinking?”
“Yep.”
“I don’t believe you.”
This time it’s a dirty grin and an arched eyebrow.
“Say it then.”
“Okay: We’re gonna have sex.”
“We can’t do that. It would be too weird.”
“I got the big piece of the wishbone. I get my wish.”
“And your big mysterious wish is to have sex with me? Are you serious?”
“Quite serious. You’re about to get wishboned.”
“You’re funny.”
“How long has it been for you?” he asks.
“Longer than I care to admit, to be honest.”
“Same here. More than a year, in fact. I’m about to explode.”
I laugh. “Carson, I am not going to be your safety valve.”
He turns to face me.
“Let’s be totally honest with each other for a minute, okay?”
He’s got on his serious face. I nod and catch myself biting my lip a little.
“Quinn, can you honestly tell me you have never wondered what it would be like to get naked together?”
I can’t respond. I know I’ve thought about it more than once, especially since that damn dream.
“So you have thought about it?” he pushes.
“A little. It’s only natural. You and I were very close as kids.”
“But you’ve never thought about actually doing something about it?”
I sit there, thinking, with Carson impatiently waiting on me to finish.
I’m not sure I could do this if I saw him all the time, but he lives in a different state and we rarely see each other these days. I have definitely wondered about the possibility, and something tells me this might be my only chance.
“But hey, if you really don’t like the idea, I’m not going to insist,” he says, obviously disappointed.
“I didn’t say I don’t like the idea.” I place my hand on his thigh and it immediately feels strange. Why did I choose that spot? I don’t know, but now I have to leave it there because I can’t very well jerk it away without looking like an idiot. I try to ignore my slutty hand and focus on the topic. “Give me a minute here. Are we sure we want to do this? Are you sure?”
“I’ve been hard since you hugged me in your doorway.”
What? I blush, but keep my own eyes trained on his beautiful green ones.
“You have not.”
“Not completely. But yeah, mostly.”
Don’t look, Quinn. Do not look.
“Are you hard now?” I realize I’m blushing as the question leaves my mouth.
Carson gives me another of those dirty little grins and I have no choice but to look.
He is. Hard, that is. Obviously so, visible through his pants. I have the urgent desire to touch it, but don’t dare.
“Just like I was in that closet during Seven Minutes in Heaven. Remember that?”
“How could I forget? Wait… are you saying…?”
“You didn’t feel it? I was hard as a rock the second my tongue touched yours.”
“I was so nervous I didn’t feel anything except my heart pounding.”
He laughs softly. “All these years, I’ve been thinking I crossed a line by getting a hard-on when we were forced to kiss. I thought you could feel it as much as I could. I damn near came in my pants that day. I’ve been so sure you were disappointed in me for that involuntary reaction.”
“Oh my god, you poor thing,” I say. “We were so young and innocent.”
“But now we’re not that young. And definitely not that innocent.”
We gaze into each other’s eyes. My hand slides upwards over his thigh until I feel the hardness underneath my fingers.
Yeah, I do want this. Very much. You only live once.
I give him my own dirty grin and say, “We’d better hurry. They’ll be back from the movie in a couple of hours.”