“And it wasn’t Seth?” I tease.
“Seth has more sense than that,” Daniel says. We’re lying on my floor, my head on his arm. “Besides, she’s the one who fucked the cousin, not him.”
“Right,” I say, laughing. “Though, really, who else is there to fuck in Sprucevale? Everyone’s someone’s cousin, you’re bound to get into trouble sooner or later.”
In return, I go over all the reasons that Elizabeth claims her new house is haunted, even though it was built in the 1970s and the original owners are still alive, they just moved to Florida.
“I keep telling her that I can probably fix most of the creaks,” I say. “And, I mean, the doors coming open at night is just a mounting problem, but I think she kind of enjoys living somewhere allegedly haunted. Gives their life some spice.”
“I’d make a dirty comment about mounting problem, but I can’t follow it up right now,” Daniel says, and I laugh.
Around three that afternoon, he finds my vibrator in the drawer of my bedside table. By three-thirty I’ve come so much that I’m begging him to stop using the toy and just fuck me, and he obliges by sitting me on his cock and letting me ride him as fast or slow as I want.
I come again. I have no idea how, except it might have something to do with him sucking my nipples and telling me he loves watching me while I fuck him.
For someone who usually reprimands me for saying damn, Daniel is dirty as hell.
We both collapse sideways onto the bed, the sheets all kicked off and in a heap on the floor. My vibrator is still going, buzzing incessantly a few feet away from me, and by a heroic effort I reach over and turn it off.
“I should have bought Gatorade or something,” Daniel muses. “I didn’t realize I was coming here for an endurance athletic event.”
I take a deep breath, eyes closed, and ask something that’s been on my mind the last few hours.
“Is it too much?” I ask.
“Well, there are limits to what the human body can endure,” Daniel teases, then rolls toward me, eyes open. “But I think you’re a ways away from literally breaking my—"
He pauses as he looks at my face, then reaches out, puts one hand on my cheek.
“No,” he says.
“We’re not moving too fast, are we?” I ask. “We only got fake-engaged, like, two and a half weeks ago.”
It doesn’t feel too fast. It feels just right, us being together like this, but I’ve seen a calendar. I can count weeks. I know it was fast.
“When did we meet?” he asks. “Sixth grade?”
“I think so,” I say. “Was that the year we had math together with Mrs. Thompson?”
“Was she the one who wore the battery-powered light-up sweater at Christmas?” he asks, and I laugh.
“No, that was Miss Petchul and she taught English,” I say. “Mrs. Thompson always wore about fifty pounds of costume jewelry. Including a tiara that one time.”
“I’d forgotten the tiara,” he admits.
“Anyway, you sat behind me and copied all my answers, only half of them were wrong, and when you got busted she gave us both detention because she thought we were in cahoots,” I say. “It was sixth grade. I got in so much trouble.”
“Eighteen years ago, then,” he says. “We’ve known each other for eighteen years and been best friends for most of that time.”
I see his point.
“By most reasonable standards that’s glacially slow,” he points out. “It’s not like we barely know each other.”
“Especially now.”
“We’ve done plenty of talking,” he rumbles, his fingers working their way into my hair. “I think we’ve earned one weekend-long sex fest.”Chapter Twenty-FourDaniel“And then I went down the big waterslide,” Rusty says, so excited she’s breathless. “Fifty-five miles an hour!”
I lean my arms against the railing on the landing outside Charlie’s door, looking down at the cars in the bridal shop’s parking lot, phone pressed to my ear. It’s Saturday night. And yes, I’m clothed.
“That’s pretty fast,” I say, keeping my voice as light as I can. “Did they clock you?”
“No but that’s what the sign says,” Rusty goes on. “The Tropical Tornado waterslide make you go up to fifty-five miles per hour, and you have to cross your arms and legs and close your eyes but it still—” she breaks off for a moment, giggling, “—it still gave me a wedgie at the bottom.”
I swallow hard, opening and closing one fist. I don’t love the idea of my small, fragile seven-year-old hurtling down a water slide, but I also know I’m being a little overprotective. She’s tall enough, the waterpark is lousy with lifeguards, and hardly anyone ever dies at amusement parks.
Though staph infections and mysterious rashes are another matter altogether.
“What next?” I ask.
“Bruce and I went on one of the tube rides,” she says. “Mom couldn’t go because she’s having a baby, so it was just us. Bruce is nice.”