The Thrill of It by Lauren Blakely Page B

he knows I’ve made an error. “She wasn’t. She made everything she did seem okay.” He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, and I want to shrug him off, swat him away for saying crap about my mom. But I don’t want to lose his touch right now. I barely know this kind of contact, and I’m not ready to dismiss it. I want to explore it, so I inch – hell, maybe I even millimeter – closer to his fingertips that brush my earlobe, sending warmth sparking through me. I feel that strange, but wondrous thing I only feel with him as he touches me. A flurry of wishes and hopes race through me – him doing this as more than friends. Him doing this as the guy who wants to comfort me, who knows me, who can say the right things.
    “She wasn’t always good to you, and I don’t like it when people aren’t good to you,” he says as he lets go of my hair, the strands falling against my clingy red shirt.
    His words hurt, but they don’t sear. They hurt in the way the truth sometimes can. “Maybe she was too nice. Maybe that’s what you meant,” I manage to say.
    “Yeah.”
    “I guess it hit close to home what that lady said at the meeting,” I admit.
    “I can imagine.”
    I drink more of my espresso, finishing it quickly, then set the small cup on the counter.
    I still feel edgy, antsy. I tap my fingers against the counter, beating out notes of my frustration.
    “Hey. Let’s get out of here. Get away from people, okay?”
    “Sure.”
    Trey grabs his backpack, makes some kind of see you later gesture to Jordan, places a palm on my hip, and guides me to the back of the coffee shop, past the bathroom, then a tiny office. He opens the door to the office, shuts it, and unlocks a green screen door that opens into the smallest garden courtyard I’ve ever seen. Lined with red brick and planted flowers, this tiny garden area is wedged next to a vacant apartment building slated to be razed. There’s a stained glass window in the empty structure, and it makes such a beautiful piece of random found art.
    A pink stained glass window in an abandoned building.
    I look at Trey. “What is this little place?”
    “Jordan said they’re going to open it up soon. Make it like a tiny outdoor area for the coffee shop. There’s room for a table or two.”
    “Wow,” I say, and turn in a circle. On the other side, we are fenced in by tall wooden posts. Ivy skates down the wood. “I feel as if I’ve made my great escape.”
    “Yeah.”
    “Can we stay all night?” I joke.
    “Maybe,” he says softly, and his voice sounds different. I don’t know what it is, but he seems vulnerable, like he’s about to say something.
    “Maybe?”
    He shrugs, drops his backpack to the ground, and leans against the wall. The night air is warm, and I can hear the sounds of traffic not far from us — horns honking, tires squealing, but then it fades in my ears as he lifts a hand, and it feels as if he might be reaching for me. I don’t know, I’m not sure, I don’t know how to read this moment, and how it’s shifted to possibility. Because I don’t know what happens when a girl likes a boy, and a boy likes a girl, and if that’s even what’s going on here. All my finely-tuned radar is off, it’s skittering, it’s pointing in every direction because everything is different when I’m not being paid for pleasure.
    The world slows down as he touches my arm. The second he makes contact, his fingertips both electric and unbelievably soft and gentle on my skin, I know he senses that something has changed. Maybe he could tell I was at the end of my rope, was veering toward Cam. I close my eyes for the briefest of moments, delighting in how my arm is tingling. The sensations race through my body, and I want to be touched by him. I don’t have to feign interest, or fake a turned-on look.
    But an ominous sound squawks from my back pocket. Darth Vader’s theme music.
    “Fuck.” The moment isn’t just broken. It’s shattered into a million shards