Page 34 of Let the Light Shine Through

“So let me.”

“Roz, I wasn’t going to fuck you on an uncomfortable picnic table and I’m not going to fuck you at a crowded skate park, so get your shit under control,” her gaze falls to my dick, “and let’s skate.”

My head rears back from the shift in attitude. I wasn’t trying to fuck her right here. Not really.

I want to though. More than I want to skate. Skateboarding is associated with snowboarding because a lot of other professionals dabble in both to satisfy the need for carving year-round, but I’m not one of them. I haven’t been on a skateboard since I was nine or ten.

A little kid flies by on a scooter. Is that a scooter? Jesus, they got it all here.

Anyway, I’m done with riding—everything—and I tell Gia that.

“Play my game and I’ll play yours.”

“What game is that?”

She ducks under my arm and I turn to follow her, glad my cock didn’t get to full hard-on status yet. I’m definitely a grower.

“Without stopping to think about it, tell me what you want?”

“You.”

Gia’s eyes widen.

“I didn’t, you know, mean it like that. That’s—”

“And what exactly do you want with me?”

“Uh…” My eyes dart around the semi-fenced-in cement jungle. “Answers. You avoid every question I ask.”

“What do you mean? I told you about B.J.”

Some guy rolling by grabs his crotch, shouting, “I’ll take a BJ!”

Gia catches me as I step forward on autopilot and yells back at him, “You’re not my type, Duncan!”

Through narrowed eyes, I continue to watch Duncan skate away, but ask Gia, “Do you even have a type?”

She attempts to take her board from my grasp, but my clenched fingers don’t relax enough to actually let go until I finally break my stare from across the skate park. It’s deposited by my feet, ringing out like a judge’s gavel in a courtroom followed by my sentencing.

“For every drop-in you complete, I’ll answer a question, starting with my type.”

I groan, adjusting my beanie. “I didn’t agree to this.”

“Your pit stains say otherwise.”

Seeing she’s right—my armpits are fucking soaked—I whip my shirt off, tossing it at her.

“And that’s not my first question.”

She catches my shirt, laughing, and sticks it in her back pocket so the material drapes down. Hands on her boxer-brief-covered hips, she asks, “Then what is?”

The noise of the busy skate park comes into focus. The metallic clang of boards grinding against rails, the whir of worn wheels rolling across the pavement, cheers echoing from someone landing a new trick correctly. It’s all so different.

It’s all too much.

A grungy-as-fuck guy with face tattoos rips by us, bumping knuckles with Gia before dropping into the bowl we’re standing at the top of, and I get caught up watching the way his body moves, anticipating the curves and dips, the way his face zones everything else out until it’s just him and the ride—the thrill.

That. That’s the fucking same. The same rush I’ve gone after for what seems like my entire life.