Chapter 16 Definitely Not A Virgin
Theo
I don’t realize how hard I’m gripping the plastic bag until it digs into my skin.
Chill. You’re bringing food, not serving a subpoena.
The walk up to Raine’s driveway feels short, knotting my stomach when I stop in front of her door.
She invited you.
On purpose.
Remember that.
It’s been four days since the garage. Four days since she cried into my shirt and whispered she didn’t want to do it alone anymore.
Four days since I kissed her, like I was afraid she’d shatter, terrified I’d be the one who broke her.
Four days of texts that don’t sound like the Raine I met at the beginning.
You alive, Professor?
Send me that budgeting spreadsheet again. I won’t say thank you but I’ll feel it in my soul.
Elias is hovering. Make him stop.
Nothing huge. Nothing dramatic. Just… more. More than I ever expected out of her.
She still hasn’t answered Jax, though.
He’s pretending it doesn’t bother him, but I’ve known him too long. It’s killing him that she’s mad. Killing him more that I’m the one she asked over tonight. Petty as it makes me, some selfish part of me is pleased. For once, I’m the guy the girl wants and not just the friend of the guy.
I knock before I can overthink it. Three quick taps. I almost turn away and pretend I have the wrong place when I hear her footsteps on the other side. The lock clicks, the door swings open with a creak, and there she is.
Raine stands there in black joggers and an oversized faded band tee that might’ve been her dad’s. No eyeliner tonight. Her hair’s up in a messy knot with strands of cyan falling around her face. She looks almost soft, and somehow even more dangerous like that.
“You’re here.” She says it like she wasn’t the one who told me to come over in the first place.
“Yeah.” I hold up the plastic bag, suddenly aware of how tight my grip is. “You said you had too much food, so naturally, I brought even more food.”
Her mouth does that almost-smile thing as her eyes soften on me in a way that makes my knees almost quake. “Makes total sense," she plays along, eyeing the bag curiously. "Please tell me it's dessert.”
“Obviously.” I open the bag for her to peek inside. “Chocolate cake. Because, statistically speaking, everyone likes chocolate cake, and if you don’t, I’d rather find out now before my heart gets more invested.”
That earns me an actual smile. Quick and crooked, gone too fast, but it’s there.
“Get in here, Professor, before my neighbors start asking why I’ve got a guy holding a cake on my porch.”
I step past her, trying not to inhale too obviously when the clean bite of green apple shampoo hits me. The house is narrow and quiet, almost cozy with its mismatched and DIY furniture.
I spot the little ghosts of her dad everywhere, knowing how to spot them from my own experience with loss.
A framed photo near the living room, slightly crooked, the two of them grinning with grease on their faces.
A beat-up metal sign from some long-dead parts company hanging in the garage entryway, dented at one corner as if it’s been moved three times.
There’s a faint trace of aftershave still clinging to the air under the oil and detergent, so light I almost convince myself I imagined it.
I take in the rest the way my brain always does, cataloging without meaning to.
The jacket hook, the boots, the sagging couch that’s seen more nights than it should, a tire rim serving as the base of the coffee table like it makes perfect sense.
An easel nearby, which shouldn’t surprise me but does.
On it is a finished canvas of abstract noise that looks aggressive and honest.
Nothing in here is trying to impress anyone. It’s all evidence. Proof she’s been doing this alone for a long time, fixing what she can, leaving the rest for later, keeping the essentials within reach. And for some reason, that hits me harder than any fancy house ever could.
“Shoes off.” She nods toward the mat. “I actually mopped the floor for once.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I toe off my boots and follow her into the kitchen, spotting takeout containers already spread across the counter—lo mein, some kind of spicy chicken, dumplings, fried rice, and spring rolls.
“Told you I ordered too much.” She nudges the bag toward me, half-annoyed at herself, half trying to pretend she didn’t want an excuse to share. “My eyes are bigger than my stomach.”
“Good.” I smile softly, setting the cake down beside what feels almost like a buffet. “My stomach is bigger than my eyes.”
She snorts, grabbing mismatched plates from the cabinet behind her. “Eat as much as you'd like.”
We pick our food and take it to the couch, sitting close but not touching. We eat and talk about surface-level stuff that somehow still feels like more than that, because she's opening up, and that itself is priceless.
The food goes down easier than my nerves. Every time her knee bumps mine, my brain shorts out for a second and has to reboot. After a while, she leans back, plate empty, one hand resting over her stomach. “I’m going to explode.”
“Same.” I almost laugh, but take another bite anyway. “Still eating, though.”
“You’re insane.”
“Hungry.” I tip my chin toward her, matter-of-fact, since teasing is safer than admitting I’m glad she’s eating at all. “Subtle difference.”
“Uh-huh,” she mumbles, but she’s hiding a smile again, so I take that as a win.
We demolish most of the food and split the cake, her taking bites straight from the container with her fork, me pretending to be offended and then stealing some anyway. It’s messy and weirdly intimate and I’m almost too full to breathe.
Eventually the plates make their way back to the kitchen. When she comes back, she doesn’t sit at the other end of the couch. She drops down right next to me, thigh brushing mine, then lifts her feet and curls them under her, turning slightly so she’s facing me more head-on.
My pulse spikes as I feel her warmth. Before I can stop myself, my hand moves, reaching for hers, slow enough that she can retreat if she wants to.
She doesn’t.
Her fingers twitch, then curl around mine, palm warm against my own. Her eyes lift to mine, searching for something that I'm not sure of. Whatever she finds there, it makes something in her relax.
“Come here,” she says, as if it’s the most normal thing in the world.
My brain fizzles for a few seconds too long. “I’m literally right…”
She cuts me off by tugging on my hand, pulling me closer. Then she swings one leg over my lap, settling onto my thighs as if that’s not going to short circuit me in one second flat.
My breath leaves my lungs in a rush. “Oh.”
Her hands bracket my jaw, brushing along the faint bruise with calloused thumbs. “You sure you’re not going to regret being by my side? Not letting me do this alone?”
“Absolutely not,” I utter, way too fast, but I mean every syllable. “I mean—yes. I mean, I’m sure I won’t regret it. I need to stop talking.”
“Yeah,” she murmurs, lifting the corner of her lips in that radiant way I don't see enough . “Let me help with that.”
She leans in and kisses me. The first brush of her mouth is gentle, but there’s nothing tentative about the way her body fits against mine, thighs snug around my hips, chest pressed to my own. I make a small, embarrassing sound into her lips and feel her smile against my mouth.
She deepens the kiss in small increments, giving me time to breathe, to adjust, to catch up. Her tongue teases at my lower lip, and I open for her like it’s instinct.
Everything else fades away, like it never existed.
My hands find her waist, fingers spreading cautiously over the cotton of her shirt. She shifts, sinking down a little more firmly, and my brain whites out. Heat bolts straight through me, and I have to break the kiss for a second just to breathe.
“Too much?” Her voice comes out soft, careful, and her breath fans my lips with every word.
“No.” I get it out on a swallow, honest even when my body’s doing too much. “Just… a lot.”
She studies my face, tracking every shift with her eyes as if she’s checking for cracks. “We can stop.”
The thought of stopping now twists something tight in my chest, sharp enough to make me hate the idea. “I don’t want to stop.”
“Good.” The word is a murmur with relief threaded through it. “Me neither.”
She kisses me again, slower this time. Her hands slide down from my jaw, along my throat, across my shoulders. She’s feeling her way through me like she’s mapping new territory, and every place she touches catches fire.
At some point, I’m not sure when, my fingers slip under the hem of her shirt. Her skin is hot against my hands, smooth and taut over muscle. She sucks in a small breath when my thumb grazes the dip of her waist.
“Okay?” I pull back just enough to find her eyes, searching her face even while my hands don’t want to leave her.
She nods, pupils blown wide. “Yeah.”
We keep going, kissing and touching. Everything else disappears. It's just us on this couch, no outside problems. No responsibilities.
After a while, she pulls back, breathing a little harder, and my name slips out of her on a shaky exhale. “Theo.”
“Yeah?” It comes out rough, my voice catching in my throat as I try to pull myself together.
“Bedroom?” The word sounds casual on her tongue. The look in her eyes doesn’t match it.
My heart does a full somersault.
A full ass somersault. Because fuck.
Did she really just ask that?
“I…”
Every insecurity I’ve ever had rockets to the surface.
The fact that I’ve never done this. The fact that every other time with anyone else, I bailed before it got this far.
The fact that Jax and Elias have stories and experience and I have…
research, theory, and a ridiculous amount of knowledge but exactly zero practice.
Her expression softens when she sees something flicker across my face.