Page 18 of Double Dared
“She’s very pretty,” I said. Prettier than even in the photo in the center of Harrison’s crime-planning corkboard.
“Yes, I know.”
I didn’t say anything else after that. Harrison’s lips were pinched as he turned the pages of his book. I didn’t think he was reading anymore.
We stayed in the park for another hour before Harrison needed to catch a lecture. I had my own classes to attend a little later, so I put my hoodie on and helped him pack up, and we walked in the same direction for a few minutes.
“Are you alright?” I asked.
“Peachy,” he said, smiling. But when I didn’t join him in joking, he nodded. “I’m okay. She saw us. You were practically naked there, so that must have caught her attention. She’ll think about that.”
“Mm, mission accomplished,” I said. “I’m happy to strip at request whenever she’s nearby. Just say the word.”
He shot me a playful look that assured me he really was okay. “You don’t want to give me all that control.”
I clicked my tongue. “You’re too sweet to abuse that power.”
“That’s what I made you think,” he said.
“I’m happy to put the state of my decency into your hands, Harrison,” I told him. “You’d never ask me to do anything that was improper.”
He threw his head back and laughed aloud.
“I’ll see you tonight, then,” I said.
“Text you the details,” he said, and we went our separate ways.
As I walked back to the Bel House, a tingle in my stomach told me I was nervous about something. Maybe having the whole campus think I was now gay and dating the coolest devil around wasn’t such a smart idea.
I’d done a fair share of silly things in my day, but pretending to date Harrison could end up taking the crown. He was wonderful, interesting, and incredibly charming, and it would take a while to convince everyone that it had all just been a prank.
I took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly. It didn’t actually matter what strangers thought. And I’d have an easy time with my friends. That knowledge should have calmed my nerves.
Except…
Except it didn’t. The tingling, fluttering sensation of anxiety remained in my stomach, calming down in the lectures, then intensifying when Harrison texted me about where his gym was. It was the same one I went to, just a different location, so my pass covered it. I went to my room in the early evening to check that I had clean workout clothes, then packed them andheaded to meet Harrison at his place so we’d go together.
As I walked from campus, there was a skip in my stride, and my heart beat a little erratically, but I was, in all honesty, just excited to see Harrison’s technique.
CHAPTER SIX
harrison
When I was seven,my parents vacationed in Thailand, and we visited Bangkok for a few days. One of the days, in the late afternoon when the heat was the most oppressive, and the humidity made my mom’s hair frizzy, they took me to the zoo.
I didn’t remember much of the trip, although the monkeys were so like us in their curiosity and movement that they forever remainedour cousinsin my head. The thing that stuck with me the most, though, was this cave-like entrance into the terrariums. All the scariest, most interesting spiders and snakes were behind the wooden door, and whenever someone opened it, all I could see was darkness.
To my seven-year-old imagination, there was no limit to what lay beyond the door. The glass protection of the terrariums was gone, and all the spiders crawled along the ceiling and hid in the corners, and all the snakes were waiting to coil around your feet, and Ihadn’t seen anyone come out from the cave, only people going in. It never occurred to me that it might be a tunnel.
What I knew with the certainty that penetrated into my bones was that this was something very scary, very unwise, but oh so very exciting, so I stepped through the door.
And I stepped into the gym with Taylor walking shoulder-to-shoulder with me.
He ran a hand through his hair, then shook his head so that the floppy locks fell in a particularly careless and effortless way.
We swiped our passes at the entrance and walked down to the locker room, where a few guys were in various states of dressing and undressing.
I tossed my duffel on the bench and pulled the burgundy cashmere sweater over my head, then took off the white undershirt, and tugged down my pants until I was in my underwear, fully aware of Taylor’s measuring look settling on me. He wanted to see how I worked out so he could change up his routine, so it was only natural that he wanted to see what the results were. Well, I wasn’t shy. I didn’t mind being seen. In fact, I liked it. The problem was that I liked it too much, and I easily confused it with another kind of interest.
