Page 53 of The Best Shot

Not touching.

Close enough to feel the heat.

I didn’t ask her why she’d been there. She didn’t ask me how the date went.

A few minutes later, Annie pulled out of the lot with both hands on the wheel, Tabby riding shotgun, Yasmine and me in the back seat.

The theater disappeared behind us. Ricochet was ten minutes away.

Yasmine’s knee was three inches from mine.

I knew because I counted.

15

“WHAT’S GOIN’ ON IN THAT HEAD?”

YASMINE

Igot home after midnight with one clear objective.

Sugar.

Not sleep or reflection. Not a calm, adult review of the choices that had brought me to this point.

Sugar.

The apartment was dark except for the TV flickering over the couch, where CeeCee was asleep under the Moroccan blanket from the armchair. Her face was slack with exhaustion, almost younger with it, one hand tucked under her cheek, the other resting over the swell of her belly. On-screen, a man with very strong opinions about open-concept kitchens was explaining himself at low volume.

I crossed to the coffee table first, found the remote, and turned the TV down another two notches before adjusting the blanket where it had slipped off CeeCee’s shoulder. Then I moved to the kitchen, straight to the fridge.

The cheesecake was where I’d left it three nights ago, half-gone in the back. New York-style, from the place on Sixth I’d been driving twenty minutes out of my way for since I was twenty-three. I pulled it out, set it on the counter, and got a fork from the drawer.

I didn’t bother with a plate.

I stood there with the fork in my hand and looked at it for maybe three seconds. Then I dug in, because Christ, I needed it.

After the movie theater debacle and drinks at the bar, Hale had dropped Tabby off first. Then Annie, who hugged him goodbye through the car window, still geeked about getting to drive the Chevelle.

After that, it was just the two of us and the night going quiet, conversation lazy and circling, moving from the movie to Ricochet’s to something Tabby had said that made him laugh. I sat with my knees angled slightly toward him.

He pulled into the garage beneath my building and parked, and neither of us moved.

“What’s goin’ on in that head?” he asked.

In the dim garage light, he was still dressed for a woman who wasn’t me, black T-shirt, chain at his throat. The words slipped free. “Are you going to see her again?”

The engine ticked softly between us before he answered.

“No.”

Relief hit fast and dizzying, so sharp I almost laughed at myself. I knew how insane it was, how completely fucked, but I was moving anyway, climbing across the console as his hand came up to pull me close like he’d been waiting for the signal.

The gearshift dug into my thigh. I didn’t care. I smiled against his lips and he made a pleased sound before hauling me closer, one hand fisting at the nape of my neck.

The steering wheel pressed into my back. His other hand gripped my ass, and I felt him hard against my inner thigh.

We didn’t make it upstairs. We didn’t make it to the back seat either.