“Just get in, Birdie.” I sigh, patting the top of my thighs for the third time.
My golf cart is idling against the curb in front of Hang Five, the street almost empty now that people have started turning in for the night. Once again, Birdie glances around up and down the street before biting her lip as she looks inside the packed golf cart, hugging the box that holds the lava lamp I won her against her chest along with the purple stuffed hedgehog.
Since Wren and Owen left a few hours ago, taking Birdie’s ride home with them, I promised to give her a lift. And then I spent the rest of the night weighing the pros and cons of sneaking away for a few minutes to jerk off in the men’s room after watching Birdie bend over to toss Skee-Balls, bend over to play pool, and bend over to tie her fucking shoe, which led to me having more than one beer. Bodhi has been too busy getting high on all the sugar he consumed all night to drink, so I handed him the keys, and then he decided to offer rides home to half the arcade.
Fine. So not half the arcade, but enough people that everyone is doubled up on laps, including Tess, who has one of her co-bartenders from SIG that she ran into tonight sitting on her thighs. The only spot left in here for Birdie, who was the last to come outside, is in the backseat with me next to Erin and Steve, a young married couple who own one of the small hotels, and she’ll have to sit on my lap.
“It’s fine. I’ll just walk,” she says with a shrug, taking a step back from the golf cart.
Let me tell you how much joy it’s bringing me that she’d rather walk home than sit on my fucking lap for a few minutes.
“It’s a thirty-minute walk. Will you stop being stubborn and just get in?” I pat my thighs again and grind my teeth when she doesn’t move closer.
“For fuck’s sake, get in!” Tess finally shouts at her from the front seat. “Melissa has a bony ass that’s killing my thighs, and I’m sure Putz will promise not to kill you with his bone.”
Melissa and Tess giggle in the front seat, and I pretend like it’s the funniest thing in the world too and not an actual possibility, when Birdie finally moves. She hands Melissa her lava lamp box and stuffed animal to hold in the front seat, punches Tess in the arm, then moves around to the rear-facing back seat, grabs onto the roll bar by my shoulder and climbs inside the cart.
Birdie turns and sits sideways, perching her butt right on the very edge of my knees before Bodhi hits the gas and takes off. He soars down the street, and Birdie stays right where she is, holding tightly onto the armrest with one hand, gripping the top of her bare thigh with the other hand, and probably squeezing the life out of all the muscles in her body so she doesn’t move one centimeter back on my thighs. She’s barely putting any of her weight on me, her spine stiff as she sits straight up, and her stoic profile stares out the side of the golf cart at the passing landscape.
“You can scoot back,” I tell her, shouting over the music as Bodhi flips on the sound system and Eminem blares from the speakers, the LED lights under the roof of the cart shining a multicolored glow all around us.
“Oh, I’m fine!” Birdie chirps back brightly, turning her head to smile at me before looking back out the quickly moving cart.
Bodhi takes a turn without slowing down, and my hands dart out and grab Birdie’s hips when she almost flies right off the end of my knees and out the back the golf cart.
“This is ridiculous,” I mutter with a shake of my head as everyone in the cart aside from the two of us starts singing “Lose Yourself” at the top of their lungs.
Sitting forward, I snake one arm around her waist and haul her back on my thighs until she’s pressed against me, with her shoulder resting on my chest.
“Better?” I ask, my chin right above her shoulder and my mouth right against her ear.
Birdie’s only answer is a quick nod as she keeps looking forward.
It sure as shit isn’t better for me. It’s the worst punishment and the sweetest torture I’ve ever put myself through. She’s so snug and warm pressed up against me, and she smells like heaven. When I pulled her back on my legs, it pushed my shorts up as she moved, and now the backs of her bare thighs are pressed against the top of mine, and visions of them hot, sweaty, and smacking together as I drill her from behind fill my head until I feel like I’m going to pass out.