All Played Out (Rusk University 3)

“You are ridiculous. And you can’t blame me if the food ends up being horrible.”

“I won’t blame you for that. I’ll just blame you for torture.”

“Torture, is it? Really?”

He catches my bottom lip between his thumb and forefinger, tugging lightly. “Keeping me away from this,” he says. “Definitely qualifies as cruel and unusual.”

I close my eyes. How am I supposed to remain cool around him when he says things like that? How?

“One minute,” I tell him. “You’ve got one minute. Then I need to check on the sauce and start on a salad.”

Cockily, he lifts one dark brow and says, “Guess I better make that minute count.”

His hands slide from my ass down to the tops of my thighs, and he heaves me up so that I’m forced to wrap my legs around his waist. I throw my arms over his shoulders to hold on, but he keeps me up with just his hands and the crush of his body against mine as if I weigh nothing at all.

“Fifty seconds,” I tell him. I mean for it to sound sarcastic, but instead it comes out breathy and soft, and he groans in response.

“Cruel and unusual,” he says again before slanting his mouth over mine.

I expect the kiss to be fiery and hot and fast, but instead it’s teasing and sensual. He seduces me one stroke of his tongue at a time. Quick. Slow. Quick. Quick. Slow. And every time he withdraws, I arch up into him, trying to keep him with me. In seconds, the kitchen disappears, and it’s only me and him and all the places our bodies are touching and all the places they aren’t. His fingers dig into my thighs, and the small bite of pain somehow heightens everything else. I drag my hands over the slopes of his shoulders, down to his muscled biceps and back up again, and when he slows the kiss, it’s my turn to dig my fingernails into his skin. Because I don’t want slow. I want everything.

He pulls back, grazing his lips over mine again and again without actually kissing me. I groan in frustration, and he says, “Minute’s up.”

I tighten my legs around him and breathe, “Have another minute.”

When we finally come up for air, I’ve boiled half my water away and have to refill the pot. This time I manage to resist him long enough to make a salad, get the water back to boiling, and toss in the tortellini. Fifteen minutes later, we fill our plates and head for the table. Once we’re sitting, I realize that I’d been so ridiculously worried about what I was going to say when I saw him or how I was going to look and how the night would end that I didn’t even think to be nervous about the other scary part of the evening.

Dinner. Like an actual dinner date. With conversation. And awkward silences. And more awkward silences. I pick up a fork and push at my food, trying to think of what we could possibly talk about. Then he groans.

“Good?” I ask hopefully.

He gestures with his fork while making another series of appreciative noises that despite not being words somehow read as Oh my God, yes.

“It’s my mother’s recipe.”

“It’s amazing. You’re amazing.”

I look down at my plate, hiding a small, satisfied smile. “Thank you. But it’s just pasta. It’s not as if I made the tortellini from scratch.”

“None of that,” he says, pointing his fork at me. “This is excellent. The end. Full stop.”

“Okay. Thank you,” I say again.

“One thing, though. You have to promise me never to cook for any of our friends.”

My stomach clenches at the word “our.” I still haven’t checked off that particular item—“Make new friends”—despite the Frisbee game and the party. I’m waiting for it to feel right. For it to feel like I belong to them and they belong to me. But I realize then that Torres counts. Whatever else he might be . . . we’re friends.

“Why can’t I cook for them?”

“Because then they’ll always want you to cook. And this . . .” He circles his fork over his plate. “This is mine.”

I smile and shake my head. “So selfish.”

“With you? Hell yes.”

“With my food, you mean.”

He suddenly looks serious. “With you. No more calling that ginger dude to help you with your list. I don’t like him.”

“You don’t know him.”

“Sure, I do. Matty something or other. He came to a few parties earlier this year with Dylan. And what kind of name is Matty anyway?”

“Selfish and jealous. You’re not doing so hot tonight.” I lift my eyebrows in mock disapproval. “Anyway, Matty is just a friend. And it’s not like you have to do everything on the list with me.”

“It is like that.”

“No, Mateo. It isn’t. Besides, you’re busy. You have practice and games and classes. You might not always be around. School is out in about a month, and then . . .”

“ And then what?”

“And then I graduate.”

When a stunned silence follows, I realize I maybe should have broached that particular topic with a bit more finesse. Until now, he’d been continually shoving pasta into his mouth and still managing to hold up his end of the conversation. Now he does neither.

“You’re twenty,” he says finally. “You can’t be graduating.”

“I am. I came in with all my requirements pretty much out of the way. And since I don’t have a job, I petitioned to take more than eighteen hours each semester.”

“So that’s what the list is. One last hurrah. And then what?” He fiddles with the napkin beside his plate for a second, and then continues: “You leave?”

Am I imagining the tension around his mouth and his shoulders?

“Not immediately. None of the graduate programs I’m applying to allow me to start in the spring semester, so I got a job as a research assistant for one of my professors. That will last me through the end of the school year. I’ve applied for a few summer internships, and hopefully one of them will work out, and then after that, theoretically, graduate school.”

“Damn. You never stop, do you? It’s one thing after another. Now I get why . . .”

He trails off, and all my worst fears are coming true. We’ve barely been at the table for ten minutes and the differences between us are already abundantly clear. We do fine when we’re just joking or flirting or kissing, but beyond that? What do we have?