She did, bringing the car to a smooth halt at the gas station just off the ramp.
“You want to drive?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
Still smiling, she hopped out, came around the hood and settled into the passenger seat where he’d been picturing her when he’d bought the car. Her seat.
Where she belonged.
“The car’s great, Tim. I love it.”
And I love you, were the first words that sprang to his mind. To be quickly followed by, But from now on I’m driving because this car’s a lot more powerful than your Manta, little girl, and I don’t want us to die before we have sex.
“Come on, hurry,” I said to Ann one day late in October. We’d just come from class, and I was supposed to meet Tim. I couldn’t wait to see him. Didn’t want to waste one second of the time I had with him.
“He’ll wait for you.”
“I don’t want him to have to wait.” I had a note to give him. And hoped he had one to give me, too. He was always asking me to write him notes.
I loved writing him notes. I’d seen my friends write notes in high school and now I finally had someone to write to.
Problem was, as much as Tim liked getting my notes, he wasn’t as good about writing back to me.
And I needed him to write to me. I needed to know how he felt about me. I needed to be able to tell him how I felt about him, and a girl couldn’t tell a guy first.
At least this girl couldn’t. My father was a smart man, and if he was certain that a girl who proclaimed love first was only asking to be used, then I was certain, too.
I’d reached the student union where I was meeting Tim.
Our song was playing. “You Light Up My Life.” We had a song already.
I’d bought the recording right after I’d heard it in Tim’s car. It was about a girl who’d been all alone, who’d been adrift and sitting in her chair, looking out into the night, just as I’d done, sitting in my gold velour chair on the plush brown carpet I’d chosen, staring out the window of my upstairs bedroom those many Friday nights when Rebecca, and most of the girls we knew, were out on dates.
All those nights I’d sit alone, the light on the marble table beside me turned off, looking at the street below and dreaming about my Harlequin hero, the man who was out there someplace and who would take away my darkness.
The song really did tell my story word for word. Until it got to the part about filling up my nights. My nights, the parts where I went to bed and tried to sleep, were painfully empty.
And I wondered, as I stood waiting on one side of the swarming student union, if any of the hundred or so college kids lounging around me, talking, goofing off, eating, and studying knew that I wanted to go all the way with Tim Barney.
I felt guilty and on top of the world at the same time. But no matter how many moments of shame I put myself through, I wasn’t sorry for what Tim and I had done at his house on Maple Street. He’d touched my clitoris. Every single time I thought about it, that excited tingle would start in my groin and spread.
It’s all I thought about. Tim’s hands on my skin. His arms around me. His mouth on mine. I relived the moments, and I lived for the next time I’d be alone with him. The next time he’d reach for me. Touch his lips to mine. Put his tongue in my mouth and . . .
“There he is,” Ann said, pointing.
I looked. And melted. He was in jeans and that black jacket that I loved. His hair was as thick and long and wild as always and his eyes . . . those brown depths . . . they were focused on me. Really focused on me. Like I was the only person in the room. The only thing Tim saw.
My heart filled until I thought it would burst.
I reached out my hand when he walked up, and he took it like he owned it. He did own it.
And I had to talk to him. I couldn’t be alone with him again. Not until we talked. Because I knew what would happen, and I couldn’t let it. But I didn’t trust myself not to let it.
I was a good girl. I didn’t let anyone touch me like I’d let Tim touch me. I couldn’t do it again. And I couldn’t let it go any further until we’d talked. He had to promise that we had a future. That we were more than a hot and heavy college fling. I wanted to make love to him. I couldn’t do that until I was married.
Period.
I wasn’t stupid. I didn’t expect him to ask me to marry him right then. But I needed to know that getting married was a possibility for our future. I needed to know that I was more than sex.