“No,” I said solemnly. “Definitely not too drunk for that. I’ve been thinking about kissing you again since the last time I kissed you, and I’m pretty sure you know it.”
Mal bit his lip, and his eyes glittered with blue fire under the streetlights. “Take me to your school, then.”
“My school? What for?”
His voice was a whisper of pure temptation. “Because I have a sudden need to see those bleachers.”
12
Mal
Even if I did happen to be under the influence of three too many Thicket Lickers or whatever the hell those shots had been called, I was still perfectly mentally clear about one thing: I wanted to wipe all of Brooks’s stupid memories with Ava off the face of the planet. Hearing their friends talk about their time together was eye-opening. Maybe I hadn’t fully realized they’d been an actual couple with… all the physical things that came along with it.
So I was being an immature ass.
Brooks practically tripped over the sidewalk as I yanked him away from the building he’d pressed me against. “Which way to the school?”
His grin was sweetly affectionate in a dopey buzzed way. “Why you wanna go to school when we can go to kissing instead?”
Brooks’s forehead crinkled in confusion. “I mean go to the kissing place. The place to kiss… Oh! The tree house. We could do the kissing there.”
“Nope. We’re doing this under the bleachers. Which way?” I didn’t want to think too hard about why I’d suddenly become so fixated on having him under the damned bleachers, but now that I’d gotten it into my head, I knew it was what I wanted to do.
“That way. Past Merv’s.”
Sure enough, we stumbled past a bright pink building with a yellow-painted sign declaring the place Merv’s Merch. I vaguely remembered meeting a man earlier today named Mervin who’d asked me a lot of questions about my sculptures. He’d looked nothing like his name, though.
“Did you go to school with Mervin?” I asked.
“Mervin Baker?”
I snorted. “How the hell would I know Merv’s last name? The Merv I met today. The one who owns the store. He seemed like he was our age. But how did he get the name Mervin?”
“Oh. Yeah. No. He was like six years ahead of me. I went to school with his sister Maureen. You met her at the bar.”
“The lesbian couple, right?” I spotted the tall lights of the football field up ahead.
“What? No. What? There wasn’t a lesbian couple at the bar. Maureen dated Butchie all through high school. He played cornerback.”
I stepped in front of Brooks and faced him, causing him to look up at me in surprise. “You dated Ava all through high school,” I reminded him gently.
“Yeah? So?”
“Maureen and Latonya have the same last name. Unless, of course, they’re sisters, but that would be unexpected since Latonya’s Black. And also because Latonya had her hand on Maureen’s upper thigh in a very non-sisterly way.”
Brooks looked even more confused than before. “Wait. What? Mo and Latonya? But that… but…”
I stepped back beside him and took his hand so I could keep leading him toward the bleachers while another piece of his small-town identity crumbled and fell away.
“But if they came out and got together… why… why doesn’t anyone believe I’m fucking gay?” The anger came back in his voice as the tipsiness faded away.
“Babe, I think they do believe you’re gay now, but ten years ago you were a guy who’d had a girlfriend all through high school. Maybe they couldn’t believe they’d never suspected it, the same way you felt about Maureen. Maybe that’s why they seemed unsure.”
He scoffed. “I’m sure of myself. I’m very sure of myself!”
We arrived at the field, and I quickly ushered him into the hidden depths beneath the metal bleachers. Memories were pinging around in my head like hail on the hood of a car.
“Why didn’t you realize they were together when Alana introduced them that way?” I asked absently, looking for just the right spot.
“Wha? Oh… uh… well, I mean… I was kind of busy looking at you.”
I turned to face him, struck dumb by his words. “You were?”
Brooks’s eyes softened. “You’re so fucking beautiful. I lose all of my brain cells when you’re around.”
I sent up a prayer of thanks for the alcohol’s effect on his loose lips. “You’re a terrible liar.”
He pouted which made me want to nibble on his lower lip more than I wanted to breathe. “Am not. Wait, no. I mean I’m not lying. You’re sexy as fuck, and I can’t think when you’re around.”
I stepped in close to him until our chests brushed. Brooks sucked in a breath. “So, you’re saying you can’t think right now?”
“Huh?”
I leaned in and brushed the tip of my nose against his cheek. A little whimper sound escaped his throat. I stuck out the tip of my tongue just to taste the edge of his ear. Just one taste. That was all I needed.