Chapter 17
Present Day
West pulls a small tool out of his pocket and picks the lock to the food court with a quick flip of his wrist. He opens the door, checks to see if the coast is clear, and then holds it out so I can enter first. I throw him a quizzical look as I slip inside the empty building.
“Um, we’re definitely going to talk about why you carry a lockpick,” I whisper.
“Up there,” he says, pointing toward a staircase leading to the second level. We pass a handful of fast-casual restaurants, all of them locked up for the night, and take the stairs in silence.
The top level is an open cafeteria, and West strides confidently across the tile floor. He hops over the stainless steel counter with the remembered ease of a former employee.
“What are you doing?” I whisper as he fiddles with the buttons on a large machine. He ducks under the counter, tears open a bag, and pours it into the top.
“No one is going to hear us,” he says at full volume. The machine hums to life, and West turns to me, satisfied. “Fifteen minutes until soft serve.”
“They sell soft serve on University.”
“Bougie stuff that comes in flavors like charcoal and mocha.”
“I like mocha.”
He shakes his head in mock disappointment. “Who are you, and what have you done with Mars?”
“You’re not the only one who’s changed,” I say.
I hop onto the counter and scoot to the ledge, crossing one knee over the other, once again wondering why my dress is so short.
It feels like the hemline shrinks another inch every time West’s eyes slide to my thighs.
Now, though, his attention is squarely on my face as he leans against the counter across from me and crosses his ankles.
His corded forearms are too visible in the dim light.
I feel vaguely like I’ve been abducted from my own life and dropped into an alternate reality.
I clear my throat. West’s face is impassive.
I don’t want to be the one to break the silence, but neither does he.
I tilt my head, and he matches the gesture, his lifted brow the only testament to his burning curiosity.
I can’t help but wonder how long he can last. My twisted mind picks up the innuendo in that thought, and I flush molten hot.
“Fine, you win.” I lift my hands in surrender.
“Were we playing a game, Darling?” His tone betrays the smirk lying beneath neutral features.
I hum noncommittally.
His hands grip the countertop, fingers twitching with the restrained urge to drum them against steel. My eyes travel up his arms to his face, where he’s staring at me hard.
He’s dying to say something. I can read his restraint in every muscle.
“Just spit it out, West.”
He presses his tongue to the inside of his cheek—his thinking face—and I wonder if he’s sorting through his options, deciding between the hundreds of things he wants to say.
Or maybe that’s just me.
“You were blushing a minute ago. Why?”
I swallow heavily. “It’s hot in here.”
He huffs a laugh that sounds like frustration. “You’ve always been a bad liar.”
“I wish I could say the same about you,” I say, my tongue lazy in my mouth.
His smirk slips sideways, his mouth flattening into a hard line. “Why did you read that passage from my book?”
My shoulders relax. An easy one. “To piss you off.”
“Because you still hate me.”
“Yes,” I say, a bit too late to be convincing.
“Even after reading it.”
I roll my eyes. I’m not nineteen anymore. I’m not going to fall in love with him because of a few pretty words on a page. “You haven’t given me a reason not to.”
He searches my expression for the lie and doesn’t find it. He nods slowly, pain flashing in his eyes.
The timer dings. West shakes himself out of his trance and rifles through shelves until he reappears with two spoons and a giant bowl.
He pulls the lever on the soft-serve machine and fills the bowl with chocolate-and-vanilla swirl.
It’s lopsided and near collapse, like a mountain in a Dr. Seuss book.
He presents it to me with a self-directed grimace.
Off-kilter due to his proximity and resigned by way of sugar, I exhale the very last of my fight.
It’s a losing battle, anyway, when he’s determined to be kind.
“Losing your touch,” I say as I lean in for the first bite of his messy creation.
He swats my spoon away with his. “Patience, Darling,” he admonishes. Reaching under the counter, he produces a ten-pound bag of chocolate sprinkles.
“I forgot about these!”
West looks smug as he shakes them over the top before looking to me for approval.
“More.”
He doubles the number of sprinkles and wordlessly pushes the bowl toward me.
“I still don’t see why we couldn’t have purchased soft serve like the non-felons we are.” I dip the spoon into the bowl and bring it to my mouth, flipping it so the cold ice cream lands on my tongue. I groan in surprise. “Never mind. You’re right. This is what soft serve should be.”
The ice cream slips down my throat, and I feel a sick swoop of nostalgia that makes my eyes burn.
I can’t count the number of swirl cones I ate in my four years here.
Breakfast, lunch, dinner, the memories all mixed up with my memories of West. Objectively, I’ve had better desserts. But this one is my favorite.
West ducks his head, a self-satisfied smirk playing at the corner of his lips. He digs his spoon into the bowl and comes away with a large bite.
“If you did this to prove to me that Tucson is better than New York…” I trail off, unsure how to end my sentence.
He leans a hip against the counter’s edge. “Why would I need to do that?” He closes his lips indecently around a large spoonful.
Blood rushes feverishly to my cheeks, and I have to look away. “It’s no contest.”
“I agree.”
I drag my spoon through the ice cream to avoid looking at him.
“I haven’t been back since graduation—” I wince at my own mistake and push forward, hoping he doesn’t notice.
“This city feels like another lifetime. I don’t know how you can live here without constant reminders.
” My face flushes again, and I wonder why I’m dancing so close to topics I’d rather avoid.
“Who says I do?”
My eyes snap up to his, and oh no, have we been this close this whole time?
He’s leaning sideways against the edge of the counter I’m sitting on, his body fully turned to face me, and his hips are inches from my crossed knees.
I swallow and see his eyes track the movement.
My eyes fall to his lips, a spoon dangling loosely from them, then his hands.
His fingers rest on the counter, dangerously close to my thighs.
We’re not touching, but I’ve never been so aware of not touching someone. The absence of it is nearly corporeal.
As if reading my thoughts, West pushes away. He takes the empty bowl and holds it up expectantly. I blink at him. He reaches across my lap to gently pry the spoon from my clenched fist before turning around, and I watch the muscles under his shirt stretch and tighten as he washes the dishes.
When all traces of us have been erased, West dries his hands on his jeans and turns to face me once again. “Time to get you home for real.”
With proper breathing air between us now, I can think clearly. “I’ll go alone. I’m totally sobered up, and I could walk that route with my eyes closed.”
“You think so?” He rakes an unsure hand through his curls, and I realize he’s torn. He wants to be a gentleman, but he’ll let me leave if I don’t want him around.
“Maybe not. I’ve forgotten some things.” I surprise myself with the lie. As hard as I’ve tried to forget, this campus is spilled across my memory like permanent ink. Even with the vast benevolence of thirty-six inches of space in which to make good decisions, I don’t want to walk home alone.
West narrows his eyes, curiosity warring with doubt. “I bet you didn’t forget the library,” he says.
I remember hands in my hair. My spine against a bookshelf. His tongue on my neck.
A beat passes. “Because you were always writing,” he adds.
“Not always,” I protest.
“You were single-minded.”
“I was fun!”
The lines around his eyes crinkle when he laughs. I like it more than I should. “You know you’re fun when you have to say it out loud.”
I childishly kick my feet in annoyance, knocking them back against the shelves, sending a metal bowl clattering to the floor. I lean forward, but West touches me just above the knee, wordlessly stilling my movement.
The sensation registers between my thighs.
A bad idea, this dress. It’s tricked my libido into thinking this is a date.
He bends down and returns the bowl to its place, and when he stands up, he’s positioned between my knees. My dress is criminally short. If I move closer, he’d be between my bare thighs. A bolt of repressed heat shoots through me.
His eyes are intense as they sweep over my face. They trace the outline of my mouth before dipping lower and then back up again. If he’s as surprised as I am, it doesn’t show.
There’s a cacophony happening inside me. All the warning bells are blaring: a five-alarm fire. Without permission from my brain, my body inches toward him. His hands relax heavily on my upper thighs, his fingertips lightly brushing the hem of my dress.
I nearly stop breathing. His expression is so clear I can practically hear him.
Your move, Darling.
I glance down and see a hard swell against his jeans.
Heat blooms in my belly and spreads out.
Into my chest, making it burn. Below my waist, making me ache.
I’m jittery and nervous and lightheaded.
If he weren’t pinning me to this counter, who knows what I would have done by now.
Hooked my leg around his. Slid myself to the edge of the counter until I felt him pressed against my inner thighs.
My thoughts run wild, and I fear that they’re all over my face.
West’s throat works, his gaze as steady as his hands. I can feel him inside my head. He knows exactly what I want.