He reached around, finding his favorite spot again, and even though I couldn’t spread my legs in the jeans, he was close enough. I was soaring, up, the fluttering building into a cascade. He felt me start to go and thrust faster, harder, so that I totally forgot where we were. I pressed backward, taking him in deeper, and everything tightened at once, letting go in a shuddering release that set him off immediately, emptying into me with a force I’d never felt in him.
He exhaled against my hair, and I shifted my weight so that I wasn’t leaning on the crate, which had mercifully held. The image of it falling, and all the startled students seeing us, our jeans around our ankles, struck me as so hilarious that I started giggling.
“Uh-oh,” Gavin said, pulling out and yanking up his jeans. “This isn’t going to be one of those epic never-ending Corabelle giggle fits, is it?”
I had forgotten they existed. I couldn’t even remember the last one. Before I got pregnant? Had I exploded into one at any point with Finn? I bent to pull up my pants but everything was so funny. Me, my butt in the air, holding on to a crate of books. Gavin, plowing into me, rustling the plastic. I held my belly, trying to stay silent, my laughter so intense that my ab muscles were starting to hurt.
Gavin bent and jerked up my pants, because I was doubling over, the giggles coming so fast now that there was no stopping them. I managed to grab my waistband and snap it closed, but still, images of us surrounded by downed crates, the loose plastic floating down in the aftermath, was just…so funny.
“How did I used to get you to stop?” Gavin asked, although he was on the cusp of cracking up himself.
I shook my head. “I…don’t…remember…” I gasped for air. My stomach was aching. I tried to think of serious things like librarians and their stern expressions. The astronomy professor, leaning on his podium — no, that was even funnier. I burst into a fresh batch of giggles.
“Is somebody in there?” A voice outside the ring of crates made me clap my hand over my mouth.
“Now we’ve done it,” Gavin whispered, but he was already laughing.
The plastic began rustling. “You should come out now.”
Gavin put his finger over his lips.
I was heaving with effort and trying to stop, sucking air in. I should have been appalled, worried, but no, I couldn’t bring it down.
A head peeked through the gap, a guy not much older than us with square black glasses. “I knew it!”
Gavin held up his hands. “We’re busted.”
The face disappeared and resumed as just a voice. “I’m the TA in charge of the graduate study area up here. This is a silent study floor.”
“We’re coming,” Gavin said. He turned back to me and handed me my backpack. “You ready for the great escape?” he whispered. “I’ll go left, you go right, and we’ll meet in the stairwell.”
I nodded, only just now able to get my giggles under control.
“I’ll go first, distract him, then you bolt.”
“Got it.”
Gavin pushed through the plastic. “Hey there. I don’t think we were making any noise.”
“You’re not supposed to be in there.”
I waited a second, not sure when to leave.
“What’s in these crates anyway?” Gavin asked, and I could tell he’d moved away from the opening.
I took a deep breath, then pushed on the plastic and wormed my way out. As soon as I was free of the crates, I took off to the right, barreling along the interior wall that held the elevator shaft and stairwell. I didn’t look back, not even when the TA said, “Hey!”
I saw the exit sign and snatched at the door. I went down one flight, then looked up, waiting.
Gavin burst through it and said, “Go!”
I began running down the stairs, holding on to the rail. Gavin caught up. “Let’s not go to the bottom, in case he’s waiting there for us. We’ll kill time on one of the middle floors.”
We leaped out at the fourth floor, a busy area with full stacks and tons of students. Once we were safely away from the elevator and stairwell, we collapsed at a study desk.
“That was nuts,” I said.
“That was awesome!” Gavin’s smile was as wide as his face. “We never were troublemakers in high school. We have to make up for our well-spent youth.”
I swallowed, trying not to wreck the moment. I’d done enough bad stuff for both of us. All three of us, I amended.
“Hey.” Gavin reached over and squeezed my arm. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think about how worried you’d be about getting in trouble.”
“No, no, it’s fine. It was fun.” I faked a smile. “I just had forgotten about the giggle spells. It’s been too long.”
“I’ll say.”
“How long do you think we should wait?”
Gavin checked his phone. “It’s 10:30. I’m guessing he’ll go to the ground floor, wait a couple minutes, then he’ll have to get back to his duties.”
“When do you have to be at work?”
“11, but it’s not a big deal. I’ll call Bud if we get stuck. Meanwhile,” he reached for my hand, “I’ll just sit here and gaze at you lecherously.”
I felt a trickle in my jeans and realized that once again we’d gone without a condom. Might as well bring it up now. “So. I was thinking.”
“About doing me again in the elevator?”