Her car was a stick shift.
What girl drove a standard-shift car?
Tara did.
Every time she stopped and had to start again, they started moving smoothly, first gear into second, then third, and finally fourth without so much as a hitch. No hopping. He had friends who could still only drive automatics.
Before he knew it, they were in Huber Heights, a newly incorporated city that was a hub of Dayton and swarming with people. So she was a big-city girl and he was a small-town guy—he could hold his own with the best of them.
When she turned off from State Route 201, one of the main roads through Huber Heights, onto Brandt Visa, the suburb’s ritziest street, he started to get uncomfortable. He lived in a rented house on Maple Street, with grey exterior shingles. It was nothing compared to the huge brick homes on landscaped acre lots that they were passing by now.
Hopefully they were simply passing all these elegant places to get to a house in the country.
He’d barely finished the thought when Tara made a right turn and then an immediate left into the driveway of a trilevel, Tudor-style house, one of only two homes on Drywood Place. One of two elegant brick custom homes.
“Come on in and meet my mom,” she said, turning off the car and grabbing her denim purse.
He was in way over his head.
The front door of the house he’d grown up in was a single piece of wood with a handle that swung open and shut and locked at night. You opened it and walked in one person at a time. Tara approached a set of double doors inlaid with etched glass, put her key in a deadbolt lock, and then pushed gently on one of the pull-style door handles and stood back for him to enter. They could easily have gone in together. He stepped into a foyer that was as big as the kitchen at home. From there he could see Tara’s kitchen, twice the size of the one on Maple Street, and part of a family room off to his left, a formal living room str
aight ahead, and stairs to the lower level off to his right.
Tara walked toward the kitchen area and, nervous as hell, he followed her. Her mom was standing there in a gray dress and slightly oversized glasses. The only other thing he noticed was her smile.
“Hi, Tim. Welcome,” she said.
“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Gumser.” He held out his hand. It always felt strange and somewhat confusing to him to meet his friends’ parents. They were always about half his mother’s age. Tara’s mom was no different. She looked to be about the age of his oldest brother.
“It’s nice to meet you,” she said, taking his hand. Her grip was soft, but sure. Tim liked her. “Tara’s talked about you . . .”
“Come on,” Tara interrupted, turning back the way they’d come. “I’ll show you the rest of the house.”
He saw the living room. Her dad’s organ. A formal dining room. Some stairs that led, she said, to three bedrooms, including hers, and a couple of bathrooms. She showed him a bedroom on the main level, a laundry room, and another full bathroom. Tim could barely take it all in, and she was heading for the stairs he’d seen off the foyer when they’d come in.
The first thing he saw on the lower level of that house was of a pool table, and he relaxed just a bit for the first time since she’d pulled her little blue car onto Brandt Vista Drive. People with a pool table couldn’t be all that uptight.
There was a small office down there, too, but he really liked the room with the wet bar, a full-size working pinball machine, Atari video games, and a poker table. Definitely a man’s refuge.
Even the furniture was guy-like—the bottoms of the table and the couches were all made out of beer barrels. There were two couches, black leather with some kind of color design along the back.
“What do you want to do?” she asked. “We can play pinball. Or pool. Or . . .”
He hadn’t meant to do it, but she was so damn cute and driving him crazy, and before he had a single thought about the advisability of grabbing a beautiful girl in her home on their first date, Tim pulled Tara to him and pressed his lips against hers.
Just like that. They’d never even held hands and he was kissing her.
He could have ended up in jail.
The kiss would have been worth the trip. Her lips were so soft.
Tara’s arms were around him and the kiss deepened. They fell down to the couch and he didn’t have enough blood supply to his brain to conjure up any thoughts. Involuntary actions took control.
Until he opened his mouth and Tara did the same. He moved his tongue, lightly probing her lips—and her tongue touched his, too. It was like a dance: everything he did, she followed expertly. His tongue entered her mouth fully and she not only accepted him, she entered him as well.
He’d never in his life been kissed like that. Or kissed someone like that. Instead of relieving some of the pressure he’d been feeling over the past few days every time he thought about this girl, the feelings only intensified. His entire body was on fire.
Lying down with her, feeling her body along the length of his, just seemed natural. He’d never had sex, had no intention of having sex right then—he just had to be closer to her. And, as if their brains and bodies were already communicating, as if the dance merely continued, she moved with him until she was flat on her back and he was lying on his right side, half on top of her. Their lips had never broken contact.