Never Sweeter(28)

She stood then, but still couldn’t quite leave.

“It just feels like I fucked up or” she started to say.

Only he cut her off. He shook his head and said the best possible thing.

“Hey. Hey. Trust me. We are good, babe. No problems, ever.”

And then followed it up with a completely normal gesture. It was just the back of his hand, brushing down the length of her forearm. Not insistently, not sensually, not anything but a kindly touch offered to a friend. He barely made contact, in truth, so she had no idea what her reaction was about. It just came on her in a great wave the second he did it, unstoppable and insurmountable.

She had to leave fast to stop him seeing her reactioncaught somewhere between elation and a heartbroken sob. In the hallway she put a hand to her mouth to keep it in, but it didn’t really help her. She knew it had happened. She was still filled with all these new and insane feelings.

And now she had to somehow go on, knowing all the while that they were there.





Chapter 11


She had decided not to mention anything about her last meeting with Tate. Not because there was anything weird about itthere wasn’t. But whenever she imagined explaining it the whole thing somehow wouldn’t come together. She didn’t know what had made her panic like that. She had no clue why everything had gotten so intense and strange and full of meaningful staring.

How did you describe a brush of a hand against your arm that made that happen?

She wasn’t even sure what that was. She wanted to call it goosebumps, only these particular ones had teeth and claws and bit through the skin on the way out. They were still with her now, as she sat with Lydia in the bustling cafeteria, over a bowl of teriyaki noodle salad. Every time she thought about it they gnawed at her, until finally she broke.

She had to let something out.

She just wondered why it had to be this.

“He has a massive cock.”

Lydia immediately whipped her head up, eyes like lasers.

That burned a hole right through her body, to the place where shame lived.

“Who has a massive cock?”

“Tate. Tate has one.”

“I’ll be honest: I was really hoping you were going to say Ryan Gosling.”

“I hoped that, too, and I just said it, after finding it out.”

“You found it out? Oh my god, what the hell happened? Were you digging for gold and accidentally stumbled on the Lost City of Tate Sullivan’s Dirty Dick?”

Part of her loved Lydia for putting it that way. For saying dirty dick.

But most of her just went red again and started flailing.

“Jesus Christ, Lydia, no. No. Oh my lord in heaven no. Is that what it sounded like I meant? No no no a million times no, I would never I could never The very thought of having sexual contact with Tate fills me with unspeakable horror. Are you kidding?”

“Then what the fuck happened?”

“Nothing happened.” Apart from the tickle fight that felt like I was fucking him. “He just told me.”

Lydia raised an eyebrow, fork halfway to her mouth.

“He told you he has a massive cock? Oh, well, that’s very convincing. Better call the FBI department in charge of large penises and let them know we cracked the case.”

“I want to laugh here, but his large penis is haunting my brain.”

“He probably doesn’t have a large penis. He was just…bragging.”

“He wasn’t though. That’s the problem. He completely organically brought it up in the middle of a conversation about having terrible sex.”

“Why were you talking about terrible sex in the first place?”

“We were watching Dirty Dancing for the project. Then a lot of things happened.”

“Bad things? Things you hated and are now traumatized by?”

She took a long time to answer. Filled the space with lots of fidgeting and eating and glancing away as though thinking extremely hard. Really though she was just fighting a battle with her wordsmore than anything she wanted to say yes, but yes was not cooperating.

“No. No I wasn’t traumatized. No it wasn’t bad. But maybe that just makes everything worse somehow. I keep having all of this…fun with him. Like the most fun I’ve ever had with anyone. Then I realize we are having the fun and it feels insane.”

“How insane exactly?”

“Like I died two years ago and this is all just my heavenly reward for all the shitty things I had to endure through the whole of my dismal, mediocre little life.”

“You just called him a heavenly reward.”

“I know. I already hate myself for it.”

She knew Lydia was looking at her in the silence that followed. But she couldn’t bring herself to check for sure. If the expression on her face was disapproving, or pitying, Letty wasn’t sure she could take it.