American Queen

“I don’t know…” I kept my eyes on the road because I knew if I looked at him, it would be all over. “I had planned on going back to my hotel. Calling it an early night.”

“What a waste that would be,” he said softly, taking a step toward me.

I allowed myself to glance at his feet, the cuffed pants showing the barest glimpse of dark brown hair just above his ankles. I wondered what that dark hair looked like on his calves and thighs, if it looked dusted on or if it grew thick and manly. If it matched the hair stretching from his navel to his cock. I wondered what it would feel like under my fingertips or rubbing against my own legs.

“You don’t even know my name,” I stalled.

“I know that you’re beautiful. I know that you know your twentieth-century American lit. I know that you’ve been crying and I would do anything to see you smile instead. I’d say that’s enough for a hot dog and a Ferris wheel ride, wouldn’t you?”

My resistance, already crumbling, caved completely, a pile of hesitation and good intentions now resting at my feet. I looked up into those glacially blue eyes and knew that something was about to change. Maybe it had already started to change.

“My name is Greer,” I said.

“Sweet Greer.” My name sounded so heavenly on his lips. I wished he would say it over and over again. “Let me take you out for bad food and neon lights. I don’t know what happened to make you leave Merlin’s party in tears, but I don’t want it to have the final say in tonight. I think we should have the final say, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I whispered, and I slid my hand onto Embry’s arm.

He grinned down at me, and the world was never the same.

13

Five Years Ago

Two hours later, Embry and I were swinging high above the ground in an enclosed car, alone, our mouths sweet from cotton candy and our bodies warm from wanting each other. I could smell him now, something with citrus and heat, like pepper, a smell that made my toes curl in my shoes, a smell that made me restless with the urge to kiss him.

On one side of us there was the relentless glow of the city, and on the other the relentless black of Lake Michigan, and Embry and I were two twilight figures in the middle, half in shadow and half in the heady light of the city and carnival rides below us. We sat on the same side of the car, our bodies near but not near enough, and just a minute before, Embry had taken my hand in his. There had been some accidentally-on-purpose brushes of fingers and shoulders throughout the night, a moment where he’d smilingly wiped a pink smear of candy from the corner of my mouth, but there was something so deliberate and intentional about the way he reached for my hand and placed it firmly against his own. Then our fingers interlaced, and my heart flipped over.

The only other man I’d held hands with had been Ash, and that had been four years ago. I’d forgotten what it felt like, palms sliding against palms, large male fingers stretching and squeezing against my slender ones. I’d avoided romance and sex in any form since Ash, for reasons I didn’t entirely understand myself, and now because of a moment of weakness, I found myself alone with a man who seemed to be romance and sex personified. Even his flaws were attractive: the occasional scowl and frown as we talked about our pasts—me staying studiously away from the topic of Ash or my grandfather and him even more studiously avoiding talk of battles and Carpathia; the somewhat presumptuous way he flirted so filthily and with such confidence; the fleeting giddy grin when we talked about the future and the places we wanted to go and see.

He felt like a real person, a person who exuded confidence but had moments of insecurity, a person who laughed because he knew no other way to drive out the darkness, a person who craved connection but couldn’t let go of something inside of himself in order to reach for it.

In other words, with all of my gifts of perception and analysis, I couldn’t escape the feeling that he felt a lot like me.

And the entire night, through all our wandering talks about Cambridge and literature and the beautiful corner of the Olympic Peninsula where he’d grown up, he hadn’t once asked me about the party. Hadn’t asked why he’d found me crying and gin-soaked and trying to hail a cab. And for that I was eternally thankful. So thankful that I found it possible to confess the events of the party to him, even if only in vague terms.

I looked down to where our hands were linked, up to his face, which was watching mine with an expression of interested but reserved hunger, the way a cat looks when you toss a toy their way but before they pounce to get it.

I took a breath. “There was someone at the party tonight.”

He nodded, as he’d been waiting for me to speak these words all night. “A man someone?”

“A someone I had feelings for. And yes, it happened to be a man.”

I could tell from the amused quirk of his lips that he was fighting back the urge to banter about heteronormativity with me, and I appreciated it. I liked bantering with Embry, but I wanted to get this off my chest more.

“It’s been years since he and I…well, we weren’t together in any real sense. But I still had feelings. We met unexpectedly this afternoon, and there was a moment where I thought maybe he felt the same way. But then I saw him at the party tonight with someone else, and it hurt. It hurt and I was so furious with myself for feeling hurt, because I had no right. No normal person would have feelings for four years with no encouragement, no interaction to bolster them, and then feel wounded at the actual proof that there was no hope of a relationship.”