Most Likely to Succeed

I scooted down on the bed until I lay flat, and I reached up to unbuckle his belt.

An hour later, between soft kisses, he whispered, “Do you want to?”

“Yes.”

He rolled out of bed. I clung to the sheets so they wouldn’t slide off and expose me. He had no shame, though. He padded naked into the bathroom and came back with a condom, taking his time burrowing under the sheets and warming my body again. “Are you on something? In case this breaks, I don’t want your dad to murder me.”

“Oh, he won’t murder you. My mother will have killed you already. But I have an IUD.” In fact, my mother had suggested I get it when she saw that Aidan and I were growing more serious. I’d thought she was being silly at the time. Aidan and I hadn’t done anything more than kiss. But the next summer, when he started to pressure me, I was very glad I had it.

As Sawyer opened the package and put the condom on, I tried to remember what I’d been thinking when I did this with Aidan. I couldn’t believe I’d taken that step back then. I hadn’t liked him nearly enough. I’d just thought I had, because I didn’t have anyone to compare him with. And now that I did, sex with Aidan seemed like a real shame.

Sawyer looked over at me. “What’s wrong? You seem sad, which is incorrect for this occasion. Maybe we should—”

I touched one finger to his lips to quiet him.

He nodded once, understanding. Then he rolled on top of me and settled his hips between mine, bracing himself above me on his forearms. His eyes roved across my face. “You look beautiful in nothing.”

“So do you.”

He smiled. “I never thought this day would come.”

I didn’t say “Me neither,” because that would sound insulting. But I thought it. In the two years I’d known Sawyer, and watched him, and lobbed back the insults he served to me, I couldn’t have predicted I would spend the darkest hours of homecoming night underneath him. Somewhere below me, past the foundation of this ancient building, under a layer of sandy soil and palm tree roots, past the ancient sea floor, deep within the earth’s core, hell was freezing over.

A chill ran through me, starting on my bare arms and racing down my skin to my toes, despite the fact that we were draped with sheets and Sawyer’s body covered mine.

He watched me, his blond hair tousled white across his forehead, his bright blue eyes just another tone of gray in the dusky room. He should ask me whether I was cold. But no, this was Sawyer, who knew exactly what made a girl shiver at a time like this. He should ask me if I was still sure I wanted to go through with this. But no, Sawyer wasn’t one to ask again to be absolutely positive after he’d already gotten the answer he wanted—

“Oh,” I heard myself exclaim as he moved into me. With a shuddering sigh, he set his forehead against mine and closed his eyes.

* * *

I didn’t want to turn on the bathroom light, because that would break the spell. In the shadows of midnight I looked at myself in Sawyer’s mirror and used my fingers to piece my curls back into place. The left side looked okay. The right was mangled, and there wasn’t much I could do about it until I washed it and re-set it. And I couldn’t see the back, but it felt flat. I’d have to tell my parents I’d driven around with my windows down. Not something I would have done a few weeks ago for fear of exactly this sort of hairtastrophe.

Something I definitely could see myself doing from now on.

Sawyer came in behind me and set his chin on top of my head. Normally I would have pushed him off me because this would cause more hair squashing, but his body felt too good behind mine.

“Do you have a second mirror, so I can see the back of my hair?” I asked.

“I seriously, seriously doubt I will ever be that sophisticated.” He focused on my hair and fingered the curls. “Wow, you look like you just had sex.”

“Do I?” I asked, heart sinking into my stomach.

“If it’s any consolation, you look like you just had excellent sex.”

Our eyes met in the mirror. His cocky grin faded, and we were watching each other, dead serious. I was hyperaware of the warmth of his body behind me. Tingles raced across my chest, and the hair stood up on my arms.

I turned around to face him and caught a flash of his blond lashes as he bent down and his mouth took mine.

A few minutes later he finally broke the kiss to say “I love you.” Hearing himself, he backed a few inches away and looked me in the eye.

“I love you, too.” My voice cracked at the end.

“Will you marry me?”

This time his question wasn’t as ridiculous as it had been every time before, so I wasn’t as quick to say yes. I phrased my answer carefully and truthfully. “Ask me again when it’s time.”

He led me by the hand back to bed. I wanted to snag a T-shirt or a towel along the way to cover myself, but he wasn’t entertaining ideas like that. Even when I tried to draw the sheets back over me, he tossed them away. I grabbed for them. He kicked them off the bed completely. I was exposed. The only cover was his hand smoothing across my skin.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

I took a deep breath, terrified to tell him. “If we get serious—”

“If!” he exclaimed, letting his head fall backward to the pillow. “What just happened? Maybe we need to do that again.”

“As we get serious,” I corrected myself, “have you thought about what happens in May? What are you doing after graduation?”