Ritual - Palm South University

“You were thinking about teaching English,” I muse after the drink. “And you mentioned in therapy that you’re a grad student. Is that what you’re studying now?”

He shakes his head. “Psychology.”

I chuckle.

“Fitting, isn’t it?” he says with his own smile. Then, a shrug. “I want to be a different kind of grief counselor. I want to work with people who don’t believe in the hippie ya-ya bullshit. People like me. People who need their therapy served a little hard up, like a shot of whiskey instead of a tall glass of sweet tea.”

I tilt my head. “I like that analogy.”

“We’ll see how far it gets me.”

The waiter stops by again, and Gavin places our order in Japanese before making small talk. By the time the waiter leaves, they seem like best buds.

“So, Erin Xander,” he says once we’re alone again. “Besides the fact that you’re fucked up enough to need group and solo therapy, what else should I know about you?”

I nearly choke on my next sip of saki, but laugh despite it. “Wow, you really don’t shy away from the dark, do you?”

“Why should I?” He shrugs. “We’re all fucked up. It’s the brave ones who actually admit it.”

“And the ones like us who go to therapy for it, what do you call us?”

“Bored. Self-seeking.” He pauses, his blue eyes locking on mine. “Lonely.”

My eyes drop to the cup in my hand. “Well, if the fact that you know a little Japanese didn’t make me think you were smart, that observation just did.” I sigh, ignoring the pinch in my gut when I look at Gavin again. “As far as what you should know about me, I’m the president of Kappa Kappa Beta.”

“I don’t care.”

The comment shocks me quiet, and I stare at smiling, confident Gavin for a moment before hesitantly continuing. “Um… I graduate at the end of this semester, and I’ll be attending Grove Law School next summer.”

“Don’t care about that, either.”

I frown. “I love country music, and going to the beach with my friends.”

“Bor-ing,” he sings, sitting back in his booth and sipping his saki.

“You are such an asshole,” I spit, shaking my head. “Seriously, why ask me something and then react like that?”

“I asked what I should know about you.”

“And I’m telling you.”

He leans forward, elbows on the table and eyes boring into mine. “You’re telling me things you think define you — positions you hold, schools you attend, your major, the music you like.” Gavin’s eyes search mine. “Tell me something real.”

My chest is tight when I force my next breath. “I don’t know what you want from me.”

“Tell me. Something. Real.”

Part of me wants to reach over and slap the stupid, knowing look off his face. The other part of me wants to shrink away from his gaze. And somewhere in the deepest, darkest hole of my heart, I see myself reflected in him.

It both terrifies and excites me.

I lean over the table, too — mirroring his stance and leveling my gaze with his. “I’ve been playing a part for so long, I don’t know who I am past the labels I’ve been given and the credentials I can attach to the back of my name.”

Those words linger between us for a moment, and Gavin’s eyes soften, his next inhale long and deep.

“That real enough for you?”

Gavin swallows, and then he pushes out of his side of the booth enough to balance on his elbows and meet my lips in the middle of the table.

The kiss is so unexpected that I’m stiff at first, my eyes shooting open wide as he takes my face in his hands, holding me to his mouth, his lips soft and warm. In the next breath, before I can even catalog what I’m feeling or what we’re doing, I’m melting into him, sighing into his mouth as I open mine and let his tongue sweep inside.

The lights dim somehow, and the music around us fades until it’s no more than a thumping heartbeat pulsing through me. Gavin’s hands are possessive and sure, holding me steady as his expert lips move in time with mine. It feels like the entire world has stopped spinning, like everyone in the restaurant has frozen in place in the name of this sacred moment.

When Gavin pulls back, he presses his forehead to mine, and we both exhale shaky breaths that meet between us.

Then, his hands gently release me, thumbs brushing my jaw softly before he sits back in his booth. I lean back in mine, too, and we watch each other for a beat before the world kicks into motion again, and the waiter delivers our order, and Gavin picks up his chopsticks like nothing even happened.

“Alright,” he says, smirking with his eyes on me while I fight to catch my breath. He picks up the mackerel nigiri, dipping it ever so slightly in soy sauce before offering it to me. “Are you ready to have your mind blown?”