“How am I supposed to unbutton your pants if you won’t let my hands go?” I ask with a tiny voice, shaking all over.

“Not until I’m finished with you.” He kisses a trail from my neck down to my stomach. “So that’s where it is,” he says, kissing the horseshoe tattoo on my hip before smiling up at me.

“Are you wearing a belt buckle that says cocky?” I peer down at his waistband.

“Oh, um…”

I roll my eyes, smiling like crazy. “Would you get back to kissing me already?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he says, diving back in. I kiss the sensitive hollow of his neck. His pulse races beneath my lips. I bite his ear and his neck, as we squirm under the covers, our legs twisting together.

“Not too hard.” He pauses to smile at me. “My parents will kill me if I show up at breakfast with a hickey.”

“Oh.” My face flames devil red.

“I’ll give you one instead,” he says, nipping at my neck. I laugh and try to pull away, but he snuggles me closer beneath the blankets.

We make out for ages, as he presses against me and rocks his hips, slowly at first, then faster and faster, and then he finally pushes past the elastic of my panties, to touch me for real. I love it, and can’t stop murmuring his name over and over. I reach between us and unbutton his pants and tug his boxers down, exploring where he’s hard and silky.

“I think you like me,” he says, grinning.

“You’re okay,” I tease.

“Just okay?” he murmurs, tickling me, making me squirm and laugh. “Just okay?”

“Fine.” I touch his cheek and return his gaze, feeling so many feelings. “I like you so much,” I say quietly, and he reaches over to his nightstand, opens the top drawer, and pulls out a condom.

I’m out of breath, panting—about to tell him I don’t want to do this yet, as he begins to slip my underwear down, when I hear a noise.

This house is so old you can hear every creak and groan, especially from the hardwood floors. The boards squeak—someone is coming up the stairs.

“Hide!” Jack whispers, throwing the bedcovers back, jumping off me, and fastening his pants. He rushes to his dresser and fishes out a T-shirt.

I grab my dress and shoes and catapult myself into the closet. It’s bigger than my goddamned bedroom. I hide behind one of Jack’s suits and try to listen to what’s happening out in the room. Nothing yet. I take the arm of Jack’s suit jacket and bring it to my nose, loving its guy smell. God, I’ve become a complete psycho.

I clench up when the knock sounds on the door.

“Come in,” Jack says.

“Just came to say good night,” his mother says. “You left the wedding early.”

“Are you alone?” Mr. Goodwin asks.

A heartbeat. “Yeah, just tired. Gotta get up early.”

After a long, heart attack-inducing silence, Mr. Goodwin says, “All right. Sleep well.”

“I love you,” Mrs. Goodwin adds.

“Love you too,” Jack says, and a second later I hear the door click shut. I hide beside Jack’s cowboy boot collection for several minutes, until the closet door finally swings open.

“Sorry about that,” he whispers, reaching a hand out. I grab it and pull him to the floor. He laughs as he crawls up between my legs. From his pocket he whips out a red lollipop—one of the fancy ones you can only get at the Cracker Barrel. I hold it against my chest. I’ll save it for a special occasion.

“You’d better get down to Hillcrest,” he says quietly, helping me to my feet.

“Jack?”

“Hmm?” He doesn’t return my stare. He’s too busy running a thumb along the underside of my bra.

“All I want is to get back in bed with you.”

He pushes me against the closet wall and our mouths meet again for another passionate kiss. “I’ve never—” he starts. “You and me—I’ve never felt like—” He doesn’t finish his thought. He slams his lips against mine. When he pulls away, I feel his absence, like when I eat toast without butter.

“Jack? You’re not dating anybody, right? Not Abby or Kelsey or some famous person’s daughter, right?”

He chuckles. “Naw. I had a girlfriend…Jenna Lukens…we broke up.”

“Why?” I whisper.

“My mom introduced us. And I liked her a lot at first…But Jenna went to this private school up on Monteagle Mountain and we didn’t do the long-distance thing so well, and she ended up cheating on me.” His face turns a rosy pink. “And she was all sorts of drama. Always wanted me to buy her gifts and stuff.”

“So you want somebody low-key?”

“I do.” Jack nudges my nose with his. “Listen, if my dad catches you here, he’ll roast me like a shish kabob.”

“Mmm, I love shish kabob.”

“I’ll grill for you sometime.”

“As if you know how to use a grill. You’re a kept guy.”

He grins mischievously. “I’ll prove you wrong.”

He picks my dress up off the floor, dusts it off, and holds it out so I can put it back on. I pull my hair to the side, and he kisses my back as he zips my dress.

He turns me around and we kiss again until he murmurs breathlessly, “God, you’re beautiful.”

I didn’t know how bad I needed to hear that until he said it. He already had me in his bed wearing only my underwear. He didn’t have to say I’m beautiful.

But he did.

The Walk of Shame

“I knew I was in trouble when I woke up and Luke Skywalker was staring back at me.”

I’m sitting with Vanessa at Foothills Diner, sharing a slice of rhubarb pie with her. She said she desperately needed to talk to me, so here I am.

I pound a fist on the table. “I told Rory to get rid of those sheets! I knew something like this might happen…So you saw the sheets? Does that mean…?”

“It means that I accidentally fell asleep in his bed last night and his parents found us this morning and they called my papa and my brother! It was mortifying!”

I sit back and cover my mouth. “And, uh, what happened…?”

“Yeah, I wasn’t, um, clothed.” Her hand shakes as she sips her coffee. “Remind me never to drink champagne again, okay?”

“Oh man, I’m sorry. Did you get in trouble with your grandfather and brother?”

“Ty wanted to fly home from Arizona to ‘kill Rory’ but then Papa reminded him he had a game today and it wouldn’t be a good thing if the backup quarterback disappeared just to go kill somebody.”

“Were Mr. and Mrs. Whitfield pissed?”

Vanessa taps her fork on her plate. “His dad made jokes, but like, his mom? She seemed really disappointed in me. I overheard her telling Rory that girls like me aren’t ‘girlfriend material.’”

“What the hell does that mean? Girlfriend material?”

“I’ve only had one serious boyfriend my entire life. But Mrs. Whitfield seemed to be under the impression I sleep around all the time. I’ve only slept with one guy!”

I clear my throat. “Well, now you’ve slept with two, right?”

Her face goes red. She shovels another bite of pie in her mouth and yells for the waitress. “We’re gonna need more pie over here. ASAP! So…what happened to you last night?” she asks. “You ran off pretty quick.”

“Well, umm…”

“Spill.” Vanessa lifts her coffee mug to her mouth, giving me a look that says, I just told you I woke up in a boy’s bed and Star Wars sheets were involved.

“Jack and I fooled around,” I say softly, making Vanessa squeal. Other Foothills patrons glare at us, including a couple of trucker guys. But after they get a good look at Vanessa and her Amazon bod, they smile and sit up straighter.

“And?” she says.

“It was great,” I whisper back. “But Mr. and Mrs. Goodwin stopped by and I had to hide in the closet.”

“The closet.”

“Yeah, and Jack has tons of cowboy boots. And then we made out some more in the closet.”

Her mouth drops open and then she smiles. “So, are you guys, like, gonna hook up again…or get together…?”

“No idea,” I say. “I don’t even know what Jack wants yet. His dad would be pissed. My dad would be horrified.”

She pops another bite of pie into her mouth. “Do you want something with him?”

I find myself slowly nodding. I want, I want, I want.

“Be careful…Jack rarely has serious girlfriends,” Vanessa says slowly, cradling her cup. “Although you did make out with him two weekends in a row. That’s a record for Jack.”

I change the subject. “What about you and Rory?”

“I’m so embarrassed,” Vanessa says quietly. “I’m afraid Mrs. Whitfield’s never gonna let me come back over to her house. You know what she said to me? ‘I wish Rory’s younger brothers hadn’t seen you here. What kind of example does that set?’”

“Did Rory get the same lecture?” I ask.

“No, his Dad just sent him outside to clean something called a manure collector before church.”

I cringe and take a drink of coffee. “I’m sure Mrs. Whitfield was just shocked,” I say. “I mean, all moms are protective, I imagine.”

Not that Vanessa or I would know anything about that. Several years ago her parents were in a car crash: her father died on the scene and her mom died a while later from her injuries.

“It’s just ’cause I look like this,” she mumbles. “It’s like, nobody ever bothers to get to know me. It’s all about my looks. They think I must be evil because I’m pretty. Or they think I have the perfect life—when really I just miss my parents…”

I’m about to tell her that no one thinks that her life is perfect, but hell, I’ve thought it myself. We don’t know what other people are thinking. We never will unless we ask.

“I’m your friend,” I tell her. “And if Mrs. Whitfield doesn’t see how great you are, then screw her.”

Vanessa looks up and gives me a small smile. “I just hope Rory doesn’t want to end stuff…you know? I haven’t heard from him since this morning…I thought he would’ve found a way to call.”

“Don’t worry. He really likes you…”

She grins, looking into her coffee cup. “So how’d you end up in bed with Jack Goodwin last night?”

“How’d you end up in bed with Rory and Darth Vader?” I fire back.

“And Chewbacca.”

I groan, laughing.

We finish off two more pieces of rhubarb pie and dish up all our gossip, and the pie tastes a little sweeter than usual.

Vanessa has this prehistoric plaid couch the color of Halloween.

Orange, red, gold, and more orange.

She invited me over to her house after we gorged ourselves on pie, and now here I am, gazing around at a tiny house with brown shag carpet and frayed curtains. Family pictures cover the walls and end tables.