Page 73 of After the Snap
Her eyes lift to mine as she sets her phone on the bench and slips her hand into mine. “You better not be terrible.”
Her fingers close around mine, and whatever uncertainty crept in while I waited disappears. I draw her away from the bench, and the awkwardness I expect never comes. I draw her away from the bench, and the awkwardness I expect never comes. We manage to find the beat quickly, Calliope laughing when I get a little too confident with it. I stop thinking about what we’re doing and start enjoying her.
I’ve seen Calliope smile plenty over the last few weeks, but this is different. I’m close enough to watch the laughter take over her face, and every time it starts to fade, I find myself trying to bring it back. Not because I’m trying to cheer her up or pull her away from studying. I just want to make her happy because being here with her feels so fucking good.
As we keep laughing and getting in each other’s way, I stop monitoring how close we are or wondering whether wanting another five minutes with her crosses a line we agreed not to touch. There’s no win attached to this, nothing I did right that earned me the moment or made me useful enough for her to want me here. I’m dancing with her because I want to, and she’s still here because she wants to be.
As the song winds down, I become aware of the ending in a way I wasn’t aware of the time passing. Calliope is still smiling, close enough that I can feel the warmth of her against me, and the possibility that she’ll step away when the music changes puts an ache behind my ribs. I’m not ready for this to be over.
The next song begins before either of us moves, and I keep hold of her hand. “Stay.”
Calliope looks up at me, and I don’t give her anything else because I don’t want to make the word smaller now that it’s between us. For weeks, I’ve found reasons to have pieces of her without asking for more than she was already giving me, but this time I know exactly what I want. Her hand slides higher against my shoulder as she stays, bringing her closer than she was before, and I wasn’t prepared for how good it would feel to ask for more and have her choose to give it to me.
Without the laughter between us, I become aware of how close she is. She simply moves with me, and without the laughter between us, I realize how close she is. I already knew I wanted her body before I even learned her last name, but wanting her now comes tangled with knowing the exact smile she makes when she’s trying not to laugh at me and how easily she reaches for me when she forgets all the reasons she thinks she shouldn’t.
My breath catches when her eyes flick to my mouth, and her fingers tighten slightly against my shoulder when they lift again. She doesn’t step away, which makes it almost impossible not to close what little distance remains between us. I know what kissing her feels like, but right now, I want to kiss the woman who was laughing in my arms thirty seconds ago, the one who stayed when I asked and is still looking at my mouth like she might be thinking about doing the same thing I am. I hold myself where I am because I need to know whether she wants this to keep going as badly as I do.
Calliope’s eyes move over my face as if she’s looking for the same answer I’m trying not to give her, and the hand at her waist tightens before I realize I’ve done it. Her lips part, but whatever she might have said disappears when footsteps sound from the other side of the lockers. She turns her head, and I look past her to find Easton and Tuck coming around the end of the row. Both of them freeze in place the minute they see us.
I should move my hand, but the thought doesn’t make it far enough to become action. Calliope is still against me, and after spending the last few minutes forgetting there was anything unusual about having her here, I resent the hell out of being reminded.
Easton’s eyes drop briefly to my hand on her waist, quiet concern written across his face. “You good, Callie?”
“Yeah,” she answers without hesitation, and I have to fight the urge to pull her closer when she still doesn’t move.
Tuck doesn’t say a word. His gaze moves from me to Calliope, lingering on the fingers she still has against my shoulder before his eyebrows lift slightly. Calliope looks down at where my hand rests against her waist before her eyes come back to mine, and the ease between us disappears beneath the sudden awareness of how close we are.
She steps back, and I let my hand fall even though I want to pull her right back where she was. “I should probably get back to studying.”
She turns toward the bench and reaches for her flashcards. Easton and Tuck move farther into the locker room without saying anything else, but Calliope keeps her attention on what she’s doing, straightening the stack of cards before re-clipping them together. I want to tell her she doesn’t have to leave, but I already asked her to stay once. She said yes when it was only the two of us standing here, and I won’t ask her to make the same choice now that she knows someone else is watching.
“See you later, Pea.”
Her eyes lift to mine, and for a second, I get the same look she gave me before Easton and Tuck walked in. “Later.”
I watch her disappear around the end of the lockers, and the urge to go after her is strong enough that I have to remind myself why I’m staying where I am. She chose to leave, and no matter how badly I want her back here, I won’t turn what happened between us into something she has to defend just because watching her go is harder than I expected.
For weeks, I’ve been telling myself I could handle this as long as I didn’t ask for anything. Whatever time Calliope gave me was enough because I never had to admit I was waiting for it or wonder what would happen when I started wanting more. I believed that right until I asked her to stay, and she did. She could’ve stepped away when the first song ended, but she came closer, and I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to know whether the way she looked at me meant she was finally done pretending, because none of it felt like something left over from one night in Houston.
I don’t know how to go back to only having pieces of her, and I’m not sure I want to anymore.
Chapter Eighteen
Calliope
By Tuesday afternoon, the 78 percent at the top of my practice set has started to feel less like a number and more like a personal insult.
I know better than to treat one block of questions like a verdict. I also know exactly why I missed four of them, which should make the whole thing easier to put away once I finish reviewing the explanations. Instead, my eyes keep returning to the 78 percent while I update my spreadsheet with the categories I need to review again.
Tomorrow’s study schedule is supposed to be lighter. Content review in the morning, flashcards after lunch, then nothing timed until Thursday because I promised myself I wouldn’t rebuild my life around this test the second I started studying again. My cursor hovers over the empty space beneath Wednesday afternoon before I add another thirty-question block.
Those thirty questions will tell me whether today’s mistakes came from the material or from the way I approached the passages, and knowing that gives me something useful to work with instead of sitting here wondering. I shorten my review block on Thursday to keep my total study time almost the same and close the spreadsheet before I find something else that needs adjusting.
I dig my headphones out from beneath the stack of notebooks to my left and open the Bluetooth menu on my laptop. I find them quickly, but the device listed directly above them catches my attention.
KING’S SPEAKER—DUVALL’S RETIREMENT HOME
A laugh slips out before I can stop it. Easton spent most of Sunday finding increasingly creative ways to remind Jubal that thirty-two apparently makes him eligible for assisted living, although he became noticeably less committed to the bit after Jubal hit him for a touchdown late in the third quarter. I watched them argue about it on the sideline afterward, Easton grinning so hard that whatever insult he was shouting couldn’t have carried much weight.
