Page 50 of Double Dared
The next one followed soon.I feel like I was enchanted. I can’t break out of the spell.
My heart hammered fast. Despite doing all I could to pretend there weren’t red flags planted along this path, reading these words was suchencouragement, such relief, that I felt like I could take deeper breaths all of a sudden.
I’m thinking of you, too, I texted back.Non fucking stop.
Harrison replied almost immediately.Got important classes the next two days?
Nothing I can’t skip, I replied.
Pack a bag. I’ll pick you up at five.
I stared at the message, not understanding it entirely for a little while. Then, focusing on the only thing I understood, I typed back a reply.What should I pack?
Whatever you’re most comfortable in, Harrison texted.We won’t be hitting a fashion runway.
And a minute later, he added,Actually, I don’t expect you’ll need clothes at all that much.
Say no more, I wrote back. The messages left me smiling, tingling with excitement for a long time after. I didn’t have a second to rest or, God forbid, think twice about it, because it was half past three already.
I hopped into my shower, sang to myself, then spent far too long trying to get my hair to behave. The result was a messy mop that had required way too much effort, but I hoped that Harrison would notice the effort rather than the results.
I stuffed my backpack with mostly casual stuff for a couple of days, sweatpants that were easy to take off in a pinch, T-shirts that served the same purpose, a pair of pants, and a shirt in case we went out. Then I dug throughmy drawer to see if I had anything at all that was even remotely sexy. All my underwear was straight guys’ boxer briefs, black, dark blue, dark green, without a single pop of color or a good fit that would accent either my ass or my balls. Then I dug a little deeper and found an old jockstrap. Not the sexy kind either, but a plastic cup I wore when I played football with friends on some weekends. I lifted it, looked at it, then put it back in the drawer. I zipped up my backpack, threw it over my shoulder, and went for the door. Just as I opened it, I hurried back and threw the jockstrap deep into the backpack under my other things. I didn’t have to show it to him if I felt iffy about it.
Harrison pulled up his car in front of the Bel House, gliding slowly in the mainly pedestrian zone of campus where speed limits were down to a crawling pace.
I shut the door after dropping into the passenger seat and leaned in by instinct as much as desire to kiss him. Harrison’s lips found mine, and he kept the kiss going for a few heated moments.
When he pulled away from me, I was flushed with warmth and just a little hazy. Then I buckled my seat belt and tossed my backpack behind.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
Harrison smiled. “It’s not so much about the where of it,” he said.
“Ooh.” I rubbed my hands. “Why are we going?” I asked instead.
Harrison shot me a challenging look that nearly undid me right there and then. “Because I want you all to myself for as long as I can have you. And I want tosee how loud you can be without my neighbors calling in a wellness check.”
I would have laughed if I thought even for a second that he was joking. As it were, I shivered with anticipation. “You packed your toys, didn’t you?” I asked.
The corner of his smirking lips rose a little higher.
The place we were going was three hours away, deep in the mountains. There was only a winding road leading up to it, and by the sound of it, there were acres of forest around it.
“Is it a wolf den? I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said.
Harrison laughed. “If it were, would you stay there for me?”
I shrugged. “I’m in the car, aren’t I?”
I paired my phone with the car’s speakers, then played Pink Floyd’s “Shine On You Crazy Diamond,” to which Harrison put a hand on his chest and pressed the back of his head against the backrest, matching the look of heartbreak that I felt listening to it. It was the complete version, well over twenty minutes long, and it spoke to the former band member, Syd Barrett, and the creative superpower that had established the band’s identity early on. What happened to him wasn’t entirely known, but they speculated that he suffered a breakdown before secluding himself away from the public and from the band. The melody of this masterpiece matched both the fire and ambition as well as his vulnerability and beauty.
We listened to it in silence, murmuring the fewrazor-sharp lyrics when they came along. I drummed my knees hard enough to make Nick Mason proud.
“Dad had an old video recording of theirPulseperformance,” I said. “It was one of the few things he carried everywhere we moved. And often there would either be a VCR in the apartment, or he would buy one at the flea market for pennies, and he’d sit me down, and we’d watch it together.”
“That’s sweet,” Harrison said. “I first watched it a couple of years ago, alone.”
“Still a core memory,” I offered. “If it was late at night or if you were high, I bet those pigs scared the fuck out of you.”
