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  I’m naked, utterly bare to him, and I feel his hands everywhere, inciting moans in me and eliciting groans from him as he palms my breast and cups my sex and I caress his arousal and we kiss through groans and kiss through whimpers and I can’t stop—there is nothing but this, nothing but Jamie in this moment and the wild dizzying fury of how badly I need this. His back is bare and strong, the muscles rippling and undulating under my hands, which skate downward and I feel his buttocks with a slight dusting of hair flexing and pulsing as his need becomes too much. I’m whimpering because my own desire is a mad explosion of heat in my belly and a flood of damp in my core, and there’s nothing, nothing, nothing in this universe except Jamie. I hear tinfoil tear and feel his hand move clumsily and desperately between us, and then his mouth covers mine once more and I wrap my legs around his waist and welcome him into me and we’re moving together. I clutch at him and cling to him, writhing beneath him. He is everywhere, above me, around me, inside me. This is not mere pleasure, god no—this is so much more.

  This is pure, unadulterated ecstasy.

  He groans, and I cry out.

  He moves desperately, wildly, an unrestrained animal passion driving him to grunt my name in a guttural chorus, and I’m wrapped around him, every limb clinging to his sweat-slick body, writhing in synch with him as we explode together.

  Our lips stutter together, and I taste his moans and he sucks in my whimpers and we explode and explode and explode and our voices are raised together, and I’ve never ever known anything like this, never known such heights of wild, furious passion.

  After a too-short eternity, it fades and I’m left sobbing with the quaking aftershocks.

  He’s gasping for breath.

  I’m so dizzy.

  I can’t breathe.

  Wave after wave continues to shake through me, leaving me trembling and helpless as Jamie rolls to his side and gathers me in his arms—I don’t question his embrace; I’m too dizzy, too breathless, too helpless.

  Moonlight bathes me in quiet silver as I drift in unfamiliar arms that nonetheless feel like home.

  The sky through the window is dark gray tinged with pink as I wake.

  Arms are wrapped around me.

  Male desire is hard and thick behind me, and his breath is ragged, and his hands clutch at my breasts, and desire wakes in me fully alive and ravaging, ravenous. I twist in those strong arms and bury my mouth on his and we are lost together in bold touches and desperate caresses and possessive clutches.

  I bite down hard on his shoulder as he fills me and I weep as I’m stretched to bursting, moving raggedly as he shows me without words how beautiful I am, and yet I hear his voice in raw breathless whispers—“So beautiful, Elyse. You’re so beautiful…”

  And I know I’m doing something wrong, something terrible, something deeply forbidden but I’m too caught up in the delirious mad joy of the ecstasy Jamie infuses in me with his every touch, every movement, every kiss to even think of what could be so wrong about such incredible perfection.

  I cry, sobbing, whimpering as I come apart.

  His groans as he joins me are as ragged and helpless and breathless as mine.

  I fall asleep again, with our arms wrapped around each other.

  5

  It’s full daylight when I wake again. There’s a soft snore beside me, and awareness ripples through me.

  Jamie.

  I remember it all—every moment. It’s all burned with crystal clarity into my mind. Meeting him. Drinking with him at Field’s, dancing with him at Vinnie’s, talking for who knows how long over drinks and endless glasses of water. Walking and talking with easy familiarity.

  His home.

  His room.

  His bed.

  His hands, his kiss.

  Earth-shaking sex.

  World-altering sex.

  I’m breathless even now at the memory of it.

  I glance over at him—he’s sleeping, and he looks boyish in the vulnerable innocence of sleep.

  I glance at the bedside table: there’s a box of condoms hastily ripped open, a strip of foil packets hanging out of the opening of the box, and two opened, empty packets.

  I vaguely remember him putting one on the first time, but the second time was a mad, wild rush of passion, and I was half asleep and thought perhaps I was dreaming and all I really remember is him and the fury of immediate bliss at his touch, the erotic thrill of our union.

  There are two empty packets, so he must’ve worn one the second time, put it on before I was fully aware.

  I feel a rush of worry, a blast of panic—but we used one both times. It’s fine. I’m fine.

  I leave the bed in slow, careful movements; I honestly can’t believe I did that with Jamie—that I let it go so far, so fast, knowing so little about him. I don’t know his last name, or what he does. I do know a lot about him, though—that he grew up in New Hampshire, that he’s a got an older sister who’s a marketing exec in Manhattan, and a younger brother studying law at Columbia.

  I know we’re both fairly recently divorced.

  He knows I have an eight-year-old son named Aiden, and I know he has no children, but that he does want them someday.

  We both love Dave Matthews Band even though it’s kind of passé at this point.

  We both love Sixteen Candles, Tremors, and St. Elmo’s Fire.

  And Hootie and the Blowfish.

  We can both quote Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves pretty much word for word.

  And I know that sex with Jamie was, without question, the most amazing thing that’s ever happened to me.

  I also know this was a one-night stand, and that I have to get out of here, get home, showered, and changed and go pick up Aiden—we have back-to-school shopping to finish, and I can’t pick him up from my parents’ still smelling like sex and wearing last night’s clothing.

  I find my underwear and step into them—my bra is under the bed, and I have to lay on the cold hardwood floor to get it. My dress is out in the hallway, inside out, and his bright red boxer-briefs are inside out on top of my dress. I shrug and wiggle into my dress, zip it up, and spin in circles, looking for the rest of my things.

  My purse—where is my purse?

  I find it downstairs on the floor by the front door, along with my shoes. I step into them, settle my purse over my shoulder, and sneak as silently as I can out the front door—the hinges protest and the knob rattles, and the screen door screams as I open it and thunks loudly closed despite my best efforts to be quiet.

  My heels thwack on the concrete steps.

  I dig my cell phone out of my purse and glance at it as I head toward the county highway, which is less than half a mile from here; I have sixteen missed calls from Cora, ranging from one in the morning to less than twenty minutes ago, as well as…it looks like forty-two text messages.

  I hear a sprinkler going, and look up to see Mrs. Himmler, self-appointed head of the Clayton Busybody Society, watering her roses and watching me very, very intently.

  Hooo, boy. Looks like all of Clayton will soon know about my little walk of shame. Yay.

  I ignore the voicemails and texts from Cora, opting to call her instead once I’m safely out of earshot of Mrs. Himmler and Jamie’s house. It only rings half a ring before she picks up.

  “ELYSE GABRIELLE THOMAS! WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN?” she shrieks, so loudly that I have to pull the handset away from my ear.

  “I’m doing the walk of shame, Cora,” I say, keeping my voice low.

  “What? You’re—you…you what?” She stutters to a stop, quieter now.

  “I slept with him,” I hiss.

  “The guy from the bar?” She’s incredulous. “You went home with the guy from the bar? The one with starched chinos and the blue polo?”

  “Yes, Cora.”

  “Holy crap holy crap holy crap!” She’s breathless with excitement. “Tell me everything!”

  “I’m on Washington Street and I need a ride home. I’ll tel
l you everything after I’ve had a shower and coffee.” I hesitate, thinking back to how wasted she’d been last night. “How are you awake right now? You were even more drunk than I was!”

  “Yeah, but I do it more often, so I recover better. Plus, I’ve been so worried about you not returning my calls or texts that I couldn’t sleep, even being super drunky-fish.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, genuinely contrite. “I didn’t mean to worry you.”

  “Must’ve been good,” she speculates, still angling for immediate info.

  I laugh. “You have no idea. Now come get me.”

  She sighs. “I’m already on the way. I’ll be there in less than five minutes.”

  “Make it two, because Mrs. Himmler saw me leave.”

  “Ohhh boy. The Busybody Society is going to have a field day with this one, Elyse.”

  We’ve called Mrs. Himmler and her circle of elderly retiree friends the Clayton Busybody Society since we were in junior high when they would watch our every move and report back to our parents and grandparents.

  “No kidding.”

  “I’m turning onto Washington now. Get ready for a quick getaway.”

  I hear her engine and a soft squeal of tires, and then she’s braking to hard a stop beside me, the black top up and her windows open, “Where the Streets Have No Name” is blaring from the speakers. I slide in, buckle up, and kick off my heels, toss my purse in the footwell, and thud my head back against the headrest.

  “Holy cow, Cora.”

  She snorts. “Who even says holy cow anymore, Elyse? For real?”

  “Shut up. I’m in no mood for your crap.”

  “Says the woman who called me at six-oh-four in the morning for an emergency walk of awesome pickup.”

  “Walk of awesome?”

  She nods. “I don’t believe in the concept of a walk of shame. You have nothing to be ashamed of. You’re an adult and you had an enjoyable evening. That’s nobody’s business but your own.”

  “Yeah, well, all of Clayton is going to make it their business.”

  “Ignore them! This stupid town can and will gossip about literally anything and everything, and you know it. So just ignore it.”

  “Easy for you to say,” I grumble.

  Cora eyes me. “Really? Easy for me to say? And why would that be, Elyse?”

  She halts at the stop sign at the highway and then turns left to head east toward the town square. My house is in East Clayton, the neighborhood occupying the southeast quadrant of Clayton—mirrored on the opposite—southwest—side by…you guessed it, West Clayton. They’re both distinct neighborhoods, even though they both border on Pleasantonville. Basically, if you have money, you live in Pleasantonville; if you’re not well off but not poor either, you live in East or West Clayton, if you’re somewhere between poor and East/West Clayton, you live in Oak Junction, and if you’re flat-out poor, you live in Grand Manor. In a place like Clayton, there’s a certain subtle, unspoken, but very real socioeconomic status that’s directly tied to where you live, and those who feel it the most acutely are the kids in middle and high school.

  We’re approaching my street, Walnut Drive, and I hold my answer until we pull into my driveway, the third house on the left. She shuts her car off and eyes me. “Seriously—what did that mean?”

  I sigh, shrugging. “Just that you don’t care what people think, and never have. I do, and it’s harder for me to shrug the gossip off like you can.”

  “Oh.” She seems to deflate. “That’s not what I thought you meant.”

  I give her a baleful glare. “Really, Cora?”

  She rolls a shoulder. “Whatever. Go take a shower while I make coffee. I need the deets.”

  “Deets?”

  “People still say that,” she protests.

  “No, they don’t. Or if they do, it’s either ironically or they’re hopelessly out of touch and trying to sound like they’re not.”

  She laughs. “How do you use ironically, anyway?”

  We head into my house—there are still Legos all over the floor, and the TV is on, the Lego Movie DVD home screen illuminates the living room.

  “You’re an English teacher,” I say. “Aren’t you supposed to know the definition of irony?”

  “Yeah, I know the definition of irony, but that’s a different thing than using a colloquialism or slang term ironically.”

  “So basically, nobody really understands what irony really means, and we’re all just pretending we do?” I ask.

  “Exactly!” She whacks me on the butt. “Shower! I need details, and I need them now!”

  “I’m going, I’m going.”

  I take my time showering, and it’s hard to not relive last night. I want to remember it forever, but I’m also a little scared to look too closely, because I’m worried if I do, I’ll start a downward spiral of one-night stand guilt. Once I’m finally clean, my hair washed and conditioned, my legs shaved, and I’ve blow-dried my hair and dressed in comfy clothes—yoga pants and a long-sleeve T-shirt—I follow the scent of brewed coffee to my kitchen. Cora is at my kitchen table, sipping coffee, munching on a Pop-Tart, and scrolling on her phone.

  “I can’t believe you still have this junk in your house,” she says, lifting the pastry. “I thought you gave up this kind of stuff a long time ago.”

  I laugh. “I did! I thought I threw out all that stuff—where’d you even find it?”

  “Back of your pantry.”

  “And you’re eating it? That’s got to be leftover from when we moved in!” Which was three years ago; I bought this after selling the house Daniel and I had owned together.

  Cora just shrugs. “It is a little stale. Whatever. I was munchy.”

  “I have real food, you know.”

  “That requires cooking. I barely slept last night and I’m not in the mood for culinary exertion.” She gestures at the mug of coffee on the table near hers. “Sit and spill the juicy stuff, sister.”

  Cora knows me better than pretty much anyone—she’s poured my coffee and put ice cubes in it, because I like my coffee at a temperature most people would call cold, which I call not burning my tongue to cinders.

  I sit, sip at the coffee, and spend a few minutes just breathing. Cora knows better than to rush me, so she just idly browses through the news app on her phone until I’m ready to talk.

  “Best sex I’ve ever had,” I say, by way of introduction.

  She almost spits out her coffee, coughing and wiping at her lips. “What?”

  I nod. “For real. It was…magical.”

  “Magical,” she repeats.

  “I’ve never felt anything like it in my life.”

  “Ever?”

  “Ever.”

  She stares at me. “Dude. Then why did you sneak out? Did you leave your number?”

  I shake my head. “Nope.”

  She frowns. “Why?”

  I shrug. “I don’t know. I just…the thought of going through all that awkwardness was just…no. We didn’t even exchange last names, or what we do.”

  “So?”

  “So…it was a one-night stand.”

  “Why does it have to be just that?” she asks. “Why couldn’t it be, like, a four-month stand or something?”

  I laugh. “That’s stupid. I’d get attached, or he would, and I’d be tempted to bring him around Aiden, and it would just be good sex and not a real relationship and it would eventually end and Aiden would get hurt. I mean, you can’t base a relationship off of sex, even amazing, truly magical sex. It has to be based on friendship and trust and…and reality.”

  Cora rolls her eyes at me. “Yeah, because that worked out so well for you last time.”

  “Your relationship with Hank,” I say, referring to her longest relationship, which ended…unhappily, shall we say. “What was that based on?”

  “Incredible sex.”

  “Exactly.” I lift an eyebrow at her. “And did it last?”

  “For five years, yes.”
<
br />   I sigh. “And do I have to remind you what happened?”

  “NOPE!” she says, too loudly. “What about you, though? You and Daniel were high school sweethearts. You never even dated anyone else—like, ever, did you?”

  “No…”

  “So, how do you know what happened with the hottie from last night was a fluke? Or the reverse, that sex with Daniel was just that bad? You don’t know.”

  I sigh. “We did break up sophomore year of college, remember?”

  “For, like, two months. And then you got back together.”

  “Yeah, and I wasn’t a nun for those two months, was I?”

  She snorts. “No, but there was just the one guy, what, three times? Hardly counts as a broad field of study.”

  I frown. “Why are we dissecting my sexual history?”

  “Because you said it was the best sex of your life, and yet you’re willing to just…poof? Let it go without looking back?”

  I shrug. “It’s safest.”

  “Was he just passing through?”

  “No. He’d just moved in, but we didn’t stop to do a tour, if you know what I mean.”

  “There are not that many options. You know you’re going to run into him again, right?”

  “Jim and Janine Morrow moved last fall, and I know their house finally sold a few weeks ago, but I haven’t heard anything about to whom. There’s the new principal, and I heard he’s already hired a new gym teacher because Amy Erhart transferred to the middle school. Plus, Brad Caldwell was talking the other day about how he hired a couple new guys at the automotive shop. So there are actually quite a few options as to who Jamie could be.” I sigh. “And if I do run into him, we’ll be adults about it. It happened, and it was good, and we’re both moving on.”

  “Are you sure it wasn’t just amazing because you were drunk?”

  I sigh. “I mean, sure, there’s probably an element of that. But I remember everything perfectly—and I mean…everything. And it was amazing.”

  “Amazing how?”

  I hesitate. “I don’t know. He just made me feel…beautiful. Wanted. Desired. It was…passionate.”