Page 22 of Double Dared
“Did I do that?” he asked, voice low and husky.
“We have a no-doorbell rule,” I said. “If you’re cool, you just walk in.”
Guilt twisted his face. “Am I cool?”
A small laugh escaped me.
He didn’t wait for a reply. “I’m sorry, Taylor. I was an ass, and I overreacted. I really appreciate your help.”
I waited. Then waited some more. “And?”
Harrison looked into my eyes, and it was difficult not to feel seen by him. Like really seen. Like beneath all the layers and walls and protections. He smiled. “And I really enjoy your company, Taylor. So, I’d like to come on Friday as we planned. If you’ll have me.”
I inhaled deeply and couldn’t help but smile. “That’s some romantic gesture.”
“If only I had the balls to do the same to Emma,” he mumbled.
I laughed out loud, hoping he was joking. Showing up at her door after two months when she was already dating someone else wasnotthe same as making up with a potential friend an hour after a bit of sparring. “I’d love it if you came on Friday.”
Peanut zipped from left to right with a squeaky toy in his mouth, biting it and making it cry. Harrison turned around to look at him, and I stepped out, closing the door behind me. “I don’t think it’s hopeless,” I said softly.
“I know.”
We looked at each other, and the moment lingered, held.
He was good. We were good. It shouldn’t have mattered as much as it did, but long after Harrison had gone home and Peanut had gotten tired of running, I found myself lying in my bed, smiling.
CHAPTER EIGHT
harrison
The Bel Houseparty was our most daring outing to date, and the highest that the stakes had been so far. The flipside was that Emma wouldn’t be a factor because she wouldn’t attend something like a fraternity party in a million years. Neither would I, except that I was supposed to be dating a frat boy.
The stage was set, the players all accounted for. Taylor’s closest friends were Greg, Finn, Jason, and now, Jason’s boyfriend, Bennet. The house was full of students who didn’t see themselves as the typical fraternity guys. They fell on the various spots of the various spectrums, which I guessed Taylor had told me about in order to illustrate just how atypical Bel was.
And when I came with a bottle of wine and a little bow tied to its neck, the doors were wide open, and the music was not deafening, and people seemed to hold on to the ground just fine, not flying off it with too many kegstands to blame.
I stepped through the door and into a crowd of people who seemingly all knew each other. The small clusters didn’t stay the same size for long, people passing and greeting each other, joining groups or merging them. Between the legs, Peanut made his way through the living room, and he carried a rope in his mouth, minding his own business. He ignored me as I walked a few steps deeper into the house and the crowd, watching out for anyone I knew.
This wasn’t exactly my crowd. It wasn’t what I’d expected, but it was still just a campus party.
On the far end of the room, laughing as ever, was Taylor. His hair stuck out in an unruly and messy way, his eyes glimmered with amusement, and his teeth shone, completely bared as he smiled broadly at something Jason was saying.
I paused in the middle of the room, looking at Taylor for a long, aching moment. Life would have been easier if I’d picked anyone else for this task, but the universe had sent me Taylor on a dare.
Almost as if he could feel my gaze, feel the intensity of it, of its hidden meanings and its secret desires and its shameless attempts to see through the white shirt he wore and beneath the dark brown trousers held around his waist by a blue belt, Taylor turned around and looked right into my eyes.
His face lit up. I hadn’t realized he could look any brighter, yet he did, just then, as he stepped away from Jason with a flirtatious little smile.
He was a verygood actor.
If I were directing him, I would have told him to do precisely this. He looked like he was so pleased to see me, like everything else had just fallen off the face of the Earth, and all that mattered was right in front of him. And he looked like he was trying to hide that feeling.
He fooled me.
I cleared my throat and shook off the feeling that I had just stepped into a place of incomprehensible and unconditional love, then tried to appear a little out of place, which wasn’t too difficult.
Taylor and I met halfway to one another. “You came,” he said.
