Never Sweeter(60)

“How am I supposed to wait until lunch? That is not cool, Letty, no don’t close the door on me”

“I have to, you’re a crazy person. And besides, I really need to sleep off all the super weird, rubber-wearing mega bondage we did.”

Lydia’s expression was priceless as she finished closing the doorcaught somewhere between glee and frustration. In fact she was still laughing about it when Tate finally emerged, fully dressed and groomed and ready to go. She turned with that wicked grin still on her face, then felt it slowly wither and die. He just looked so…down, suddenly. Not like himself at all.

Though it was only after he’d left that she fully appreciated the issue she’d caused.

Her phone stayed free of his texts for the next three days.



She knew he was at the party. She overheard two girls talking about how amazing he looked tonightand it was true. He did. The moment she saw himstanding all alone in the flickering glow of the bonfire someone probably shouldn’t have lither heart actually lurched. Her mouth went dry, her knees went weak, her head spun. For a second she was every cliché she’d ever read about girls who’d fallen hard for some guy, and she couldn’t fault herself for any of them.

He was just that beautiful.

She was allowed to admit now that he was beautiful. In truth she barely knew how she’d ever thought otherwise. Those brutal features were not brutal at allthey were so soft they almost seemed out of focus, so pretty he could have walked the runway tomorrow. The only thing that really marked him as a powerful man was that body. But you couldn’t really see it beneath the dark red sweater he was wearing, the scarf he had around his neck, and the hat, the woolen hat, oh lord she loved that woolen hat.

It made him seem like falling leaves and spicy hot chocolate and a million things she probably shouldn’t think about right now, considering he was still mad. No texts for three days meant mad. He even looked mad, just standing there on his own without the armor of his buddies or a bunch of girls. Everyone seemed to know he needed a wide berth tonight, so it didn’t seem like that much of a reach.

Until he turned his head her way and held up one oddly hesitant, half-faltering handas though he had no idea if he should say hello. He could see Lydia was on her way back across the field with two beers in hand after all. Maybe a wave would give the game away. Expose them, in a way he knew she didn’t want.

So instead he folded that hand back down, waiting.

Good god, he had been waiting for her to say it was okay.

She could see he had, yet for a second that idea was so staggering to her it just cycled around and around in her mind without ever really making contact with anything. Lydia handed her a beer and she just accepted it mechanically, nodding at whatever her friend was saying but unable to hear it. She couldn’t even explain it. It felt like gravity had suddenly flipped, and now everyone was suddenly walking on the sky.

Tate was not the one ashamed of their relationship.

She, Letty Carmichael, thunder-thighed creature from the back of beyond, bane of their high school, scourge of anyone with eyesight, was the one.

She was the one ashamed of him.

And that was…god she didn’t know what that was. Her mouth wanted to both tense into a pained line and grin more wildly than she had ever done in her life. Feelings flooded her body, but she didn’t have a name for any of them. Most of them seemed too awful to name. They smelled like triumph, like victory, but they weren’t the kinds that she wanted anything to do with.

Maybe before he had kissed her by her door.

Or further back, when he had held her face.

When he had made amends.

And carried her.

But not now, never now.

Now she just wanted to go over to him. To tell him all the things she’d always longed for him to say to her: I didn’t mean it. I take it back. I’m sorry, I was a fool, I don’t know what I was thinking. All the things he had said to her, and was still saying right at this moment. She could practically see it written across his features. It was there when his brows knitted together as he waited for her to decide, and there again in the relief when she told Lydia she had to go see him and then started to walk his way.

Had anything been as beautiful as that relief?

That happiness, when she took hold of his hand?

She knew he wouldn’t pull away, she knew it, she knew she had nothing to fearand it was glorious. All of the wonder of the world was in that one moment, when she threaded her fingers through his. It was like rewriting the past, and having it stick. Like time traveling, to put right what once went wrong.

And she knew he felt it, too.

If he hadn’t, he probably wouldn’t have brought her hand to his lips, to kiss. Right there in front of all the people milling aroundhis bros over by the keg and all the girls who adored him right down to their bones. In front of Lydia, who mouthed I knew it in a way that was both amazing and crazy, plastic cup raised in a silent salute that just about made it okay.