Fifteen
Helen drives home and concentrates doubly on the road instead of the insistent thump thump thump of her heart. The numbers on the clock tell her it’s just after one a.m.—she’s spent almost nine full hours in Grant Shepard’s company today, yet somehow it feels like everything has happened in the span of minutes, then heart-racing seconds.
She isn’t sure when their idle conversation about a yearbook turned into something more, something flirting dangerously close with seduction. She laughs as she stops at a red light. If that was flirting with seduction, I’m screwed.
Her cheeks flush with heat as she remembers the sensation of Grant’s fingers skating across her skin—slowly, innocently, just staying on this side of plausible deniability until . . . until you basically fellated his thumb.
If anyone escalated things, it was her and her brazen mouth.
Not fair, she protests to herself. He wanted it too.
She remembers the insistent press of his erection against the denim of his jeans, and tries to ignore the embarrassing answering dampness in her previously respectable cotton briefs.
Technically—technically!—nothing has happened that they can’t explain away.
She laughs at this train of thought. Remember when we held hands at the cemetery? This was just like that, but . . . more. He’d kissed her forehead then too. Kissing fingers and kissing foreheads is basically the same thing. Chaste gestures between friends.
She combs a hand through her hair, hoping it isn’t too much of an incriminating mess.
Can I sleep here?
The words had slipped out innocently enough, but she may as well have just said, Please will you fuck me so hard we both forget our names?
She embarrassed herself with how easily, how quickly and certainly, she would have thrown herself at him if he’d leaned down just a fraction of an inch closer. And then what?
Helen shakes her head as she pulls into the driveway of her parents’ house. There is no and then what with Grant Shepard. There’s no world in which a night of temporary, sanity-obliterating horniness ends in anything but regret and awkwardness and avoidance and . . . and what if it’s too late and this ruins everything once we get back to LA?
She sits in the car, tapping her finger against the steering wheel. She thinks about those first uncomfortable weeks in the writers room, when they barely ever looked at each other—as if it was the last month of their senior year all over again.
No.
It’s not too late. It’s fine. Technically, nothing happened. We didn’t cross any lines that can’t be uncrossed. In a few months, Grant will forget this next-to-nothing even happened.
Helen nods to herself, takes a steadying breath, and heads into the house.
She’s avoiding him.
Grant glowers at the call log on his phone. He hadn’t called on the morning of the twenty-seventh. He had needed time to think and, if he was honest, replay the events of the previous night a few more times until it was permanently tattooed in his memory.
He did call on the twenty-eighth, but she didn’t pick up and he thought he’d give her a full twenty-four hours to call him back. Twenty-four turned into thirty-six. He knows she’s still in town—he saw an Instagram story she posted getting bagels. He tried texting her—a carefully considered what are your new year’s plans?
It’s around nine a.m. on the thirtieth now and she still hasn’t responded.
He thinks about driving down to her house and banging on the door like a caveman until she answers. And then what?
And then he’d drag her back to his cave and finish what they started.
He laughs at this surprisingly primitive thought. But he doesn’t know where she lives—somewhere at the base of the mountain, across the highway. And what if someone else answered the door? What then?
He pushes away the what then. What then doesn’t matter if she won’t even fucking talk to him. Does she expect to be able to avoid him until they’re back in LA? What then? Are they supposed to sit in a room and pitch storylines and jokes and pretend he didn’t jack off three times this weekend to the thought of other things he could have done to her warm, willing body while she was still beneath him?
His phone dings and it’s embarrassing how quickly he grabs it, only to relax when he sees the name—Kevin Palermo.
Heard you’re in town! NYE party at my spot, come thru.
It’s followed by a second ding—a cheesy graphic inviting him to Kevin’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve Party, along with address details.
Grant exhales. He doesn’t want to go to Kevin Palermo’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve Party—it gets sadder every year as more and more of their old friends have kids and babysitters to get home to. He can think of a hundred things he’d rather do than sit in Kevin’s parents’ basement listening to a Spotify playlist of pop hits from the early 2000s. At least ninety of those things involve Helen Zhang and her interesting mouth. Screw it, all one hundred of those things.
On the other hand.
He tries to think past the angry haze of lust. Maybe a passive, neutral approach would be best.
Grant thinks of the way she tapped her finger—so prim and admonishing—against his lips when he violated whatever insane rules she had privately determined for this game of “who can make the other person hornier without technically running any bases.”
I’ll be at Kevin Palermo’s new years party tomorrow.
Come if you’re around?
He forwards the graphic invitation along and ignores the feeling in his gut that says she might not come, she might be done with you already.
Helen calls herself a fool at least twenty times in the Uber to Kevin Palermo’s house. Does Kevin even know she’s coming? Does he remember who she is? Would it be worse if he did?
She fidgets and pulls the skirt of her dress down slightly. She only packed so many clothes for this trip, and none of them particularly appropriate for a New Year’s Eve party. After debating a last-minute trip to the mall and nixing it for being too pathetic to entertain, she decided on a black silk slip dress she packed as a nightgown. It’s honestly too cold for a slip dress, but it clings to her ass in a flattering way and her pride won’t let her show up in a shapeless sack of a sweater dress, as she did the last time she saw Grant. She added a leather jacket and a spritz of perfume, laughing at herself the whole time. What for? She told her parents she was going to an old friend’s house, and they didn’t mind because they had plans of their own with Theo’s parents in Edison.
Helen rings the doorbell and a pretty brunette in a clingy silver turtleneck dress answers the door. She tilts her head, studying Helen, then her pouty lips break into a smile.
“It’s you,” she says.
Helen runs the smiling brunette against a mental Rolodex of possibilities and arrives at—
“Hi, Lauren.”
Lauren DiSantos looks Helen up and down.
“Long time no see,” she says.
Grant Shepard’s hometown sex friend is gatekeeping me from this party. Helen wonders if it’d be more mortifying to turn and run back into the Uber and tell the driver to take her home. Or to Siberia. Maybe the North Pole.
Except if she did, Grant would definitely find out. And that would be worse.
“It’s really cold out here,” Helen says.
“Well, let’s get you a drink,” Lauren says, yielding and opening the door.
Helen follows Lauren into the kitchen, trying not to crane her neck a full 180 degrees searching for Grant in every room of this mid-century house that looks like it was last decorated by someone’s grandmother. They pass clusters of adult strangers with vaguely familiar faces and Helen feels like a sophomore playing dress-up at a party full of cool seniors.
“There’s cheap champagne or boxed wine on the menu,” Lauren says.
“I’m fine with either,” Helen says.
Lauren smirks.
“Or . . .” She stoops and pulls out a bottle of sixteen-year-old Lagavulin from beneath the sink. “There’s the good scotch Kevin hides and forgets about every year. You’ll get warmer faster.”
“That’d be great,” Helen says.
Lauren pours them both glasses of scotch, neat.
“Cheers,” she says, and clinks their glasses.
Helen isn’t a scotch drinker but she thinks she might become one after this, as the smoky taste of aged whisky melts down her throat and travels straight into her belly.
“So,” Lauren says. “What’s new?”
“Um,” Helen says, taking another sip of scotch. “Not much.”
Lauren laughs. “Babe, we haven’t seen each other in fourteen years. Not much?”
“Maybe too much, then,” Helen says. “I wouldn’t know where to start.”
She’s anxious and jittery. Suddenly she’s reminded of how much she hates parties and staying out late with people she doesn’t know that well and why the fuck did she come here.
“I heard you’re working on a TV show,” Lauren says. “That’s pretty big.”
“Yeah,” Helen says into her drink. “It’s exciting.”
“Is anyone famous gonna be in it?”
“Um, I don’t know,” Helen says. “I think they’re still figuring out . . . contracts, and stuff.”
Lauren studies her and takes a sip of her scotch. “Grant’s working on that show, right?”
“He is,” Helen says, and looks down.
“Must be weird for you, given everything. How is he to work with?” Lauren asks.
“He’s . . . fine,” Helen says. “High school was a long time ago.”
Lauren studies her curiously. Helen hopes she won’t press on the subject.
“It was,” Lauren finally agrees. “You know Grant’s here, somewhere.”
“Yeah, I know,” Helen says. “He told me about the party.”
He told me about you, she thinks, and wonders if there’s something he didn’t tell her. Maybe she’s been overthinking things. Maybe he’s already forgotten about what happened the day after Christmas. Maybe he took her lack of response to his calls and texts at face value and just threw out the invite to be friendly.
Maybe he’s already planning on going home with Lauren.
“I wondered. We’ve never seen you around here before,” Lauren says. “So you guys are friends?”
“Something like that,” Helen agrees.
“Grant and I were ‘something like that’ once too,” Lauren says casually. “Not so much now, though. I think he’s changed, since I knew him.”
“That makes sense,” Helen says, not entirely sure it does.
“You’re different too, than how I remember you.”
Helen feels uncomfortably warm under Lauren’s direct gaze.
“I hope so,” she says, telling herself to grow a spine. “I have tried.”
Lauren smiles.
“I get it,” she says finally. “I’m trying to change too. Old habits, though, you know.”
Is Grant an old habit?
“I think he’s downstairs,” Lauren says. When Helen blinks, Lauren nods toward the carpeted stairs to the basement. “Grant. If you want to say hi.”
“Oh,” Helen says, and her pulse quickens. “Thanks. I will.”
“Hang on,” Lauren says. She sets down her drink and holds Helen’s chin in place with one hand, then dabs at her lips with a napkin with the other. “Your lipstick’s smudged. Wouldn’t want that, would we?”
Helen waits for Lauren to finish, then pulls back.
“Thanks,” she says uncertainly.
“No problem,” Lauren says. “Girls gotta look out for girls. Good luck.”
She raises her glass in a slightly sardonic toast.
Grant doesn’t look up when Kevin leaps off the couch and yells, “Bruh!” for the fourteenth time tonight. Another long-lost face from his past, probably.
“I haven’t seen you in fucking forever, man,” Kevin says.
“Yeah, well,” a crisp female voice answers. Grant whips his head so fast, he’s surprised he doesn’t break his neck. It’s her. “I don’t usually have a lot of free time when I’m back home.”
“You look great,” Kevin says, in the understatement of the century.
She’s wearing a silky black dress that looks like it’s a few molecules thick, which is ridiculous in this weather and also fucking hot. Her long hair is brushed and curled and his hand itches with a desire to wrap those curls around his knuckles. And then what?
Helen flushes at Kevin’s pathetic compliment in a way that makes Grant want to knock his old friend out cold.
“Thanks,” she says. “I tried. You look great too.”
Her eyes flit to Grant and suddenly the air seems to have left the room.
“Hi,” she says to him.
“Hi,” he answers, trying to keep his voice even.
“So what’s new, man?” Kevin says, fucking oblivious. “Can I get you a drink?”
“I, um, had one,” she says. “Lauren, upstairs, gave me some of your scotch. I hope that’s okay.”
She mumbles that to the ground and Grant frowns. He thinks she must be uncomfortable here, with so many people she doesn’t know. He hates Kevin suddenly, and Lauren, and everyone in this building that’s keeping him from having a straightforward conversation with her.
“Yeah, yeah,” Kevin assures her. “Lauren’s an old friend. She knows where we hide the good stuff. And now you do too! Funny how people become old friends, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Helen says, looking over at Grant.
“So how are you?” Kevin asks again.
Grant stands and walks over to them, because he can take only so much before he does something drastic.
“I’m good,” Helen says. “I’ve been busy with . . . writing stuff. How have you been?”
“Same old, same old,” Kevin says. “Had a job, lost my job, got a new one, didn’t work out, but that’s cool because I’m gonna take some time off to go hang with my cousin in Lake Michigan in January anyway.”
“I hear it’s beautiful there,” Helen says.
“Yeah, we’re gonna work on his boat,” Kevin says. “I’ve never worked on a boat before, but, you know, sounds like a good time. Maybe it’ll be my calling.”
“I think the ball’s gonna drop soon,” Grant says. “You should probably . . .”
“Oh shit, yeah,” Kevin says, and claps his hands on his head. “We have this big projector outside so we can do sparklers and shit, but it’s been glitchy as fuck this year. I mean, we can watch in the living room upstairs, but no sparklers, no fun, you know what I mean?”
“Yeah,” Helen says.
“Catch you guys later,” Kevin says, and heads upstairs, leaving them alone.
Finally.
“So,” Grant says. “You came.”
Helen nods. She seems far away, and he has the somewhat whimsical impression of a stray cat contemplating crossing the street. I’ll come to you, if it’s easier.
“I wanted to see . . . what it’d be like,” she says, as he advances slowly on her.
“And?” he asks, as her pulse flutters rapidly at her neck. He stops in front of her, close enough to touch. “How are you finding it?”
She looks around at everywhere but him.
“I remembered I hate parties,” she says.
“And people, and talking to them—and me,” he says, his voice low. He places a hand on the wood-paneled wall behind her, mentally commanding her to tilt her chin up to look at him. “Right?”
“I don’t . . .” She starts, then stutters as he finally, finally, reaches out to stroke the skin on her shoulder. There are goose bumps on her arm—because it’s cold, and her dress is flimsy. “I don’t hate people,” she says softly.
He huffs slightly and the hair in front of her face moves from his breath. His hand at her shoulder drifts down until he’s just lightly holding on to her elbow with his thumb and forefinger.
“People,” he repeats. “Okay.”
“I don’t know what this is,” she says, looking up at him.
“What do you want it to be?” he asks, and tugs her closer, closer, until she’s practically arching into his leaning body.
“Nothing. I mean—I don’t know,” she says.
He laughs and drops his head to her shoulder. Her hand floats up and tangles in his hair, scratching slowly. Good boy.
“Help me out,” he says against her skin. “I don’t know the rules.”
“The rules?” Her voice is small, and he skims his lips across her shoulder. Not enough pressure to be called a kiss. But—something.
“Of this game we’re playing,” he says. His fingers dig into the cool satin of her dress, and he can feel the heat rolling in waves off of her. “What do I get if I win?”
“There’s no winning,” she says.
He lifts his head, then flicks the thin strap of her dress off her shoulder. “No?”
“It’s not . . . possible,” she says, breathing heavily as he lowers his head to the newly exposed millimeter of shoulder. He presses his nose to her skin and brushes it back and forth.
“I’m enjoying it all the same,” he whispers, his lips brushing her collarbone.
“What else are you enjoying?” Helen asks, her voice tiny.
His fingers flex against her hip and she gasps.
“I’m enjoying this dress,” he says. “If you can fucking call it that.”
She presses forward against him and feels a gratifying answering hardness below the belt.
“I meant,” she gasps, as he presses his knee between her legs and pulls her down, whispering silk across the hard denim. “Are you enjoying . . . anyone else?”
Abruptly he leaves her and she finds herself shivering in the relative cold of the basement without Grant Shepard’s body heat.
“What do you mean,” he says, staring at her, “by ‘anyone else’?”
“I saw Lauren upstairs,” she mutters, and looks away. “And I wondered, if maybe you guys were . . .”
He lets out a soft ha of air.
“Not during this trip,” he says. “Not in a while, honestly.”
“Oh,” she says, and colors. “Okay.”
He tilts his head, then grins. “You’re cute when you’re jealous.”
She scoffs and looks away, but doesn’t deny it. Not when she can still feel the hum of satisfaction in her body processing the apparently very important information that (1) he thinks she’s cute, and (2) he’s not going home with Lauren.
“So that’s a rule, then?” he asks, studying her. “No enjoying anyone else?”
She thinks she must look ridiculous right now, her hair mussed, her skin flushed, her dress wrinkled. Fuck this.
She’s too smart for this.
She comes off the wall and reaches out to press a hand against his chest, taking back some control. He doesn’t put up a fight, and within a few steps, he lands against the back of the couch he had been sitting on when she came downstairs.
“It would be easier,” she says softly, “if we could say nothing’s happened.”
“Nothing has happened,” he says quietly.
Her palm slides down from his chest and stops at his belt. She pauses, then slowly brushes the back of her hand against the front of his jeans. He exhales sharply.
“I want—”
“I don’t want to know what you want,” she says, and slides her hand off.
“Okay,” he says, his breath ragged.
She feels powerful then, like he might do anything she asks, just now. Her fingertips skim his outer thigh, then she dips a hand under his belt, into his jeans.
“Fuck,” he exhales.
She leans forward, her breath a warm suggestion in his ear as she strokes him through the soft fabric of his boxer briefs. She can feel a damp spot, and heat. His throat muscles seem to go taut.
“There’s no way to win with us,” she says, stroking, squeezing, pulling. “There’s just . . . this.”
His breathing comes out in short, ragged bursts. He’s close, she thinks—it would be so easy to reach out and taste him. He probably tastes like something she can’t afford. Grant cups the back of her head and brings her close enough to rest his forehead against hers.
“Look at me,” he says, straining. “You want this?”
She watches him through glazed eyes, and the tip of her tongue comes out to wet her lips, which suddenly feel dry. A muscle ticks in his jaw and his eyes flicker, but he keeps watching her with a strained kind of intensity, until she gives a fraction of a nod. He isn’t going to last much longer.
“I want this,” she whispers.
“You can have it, then,” he gasps. “I have to come.”
“Come for me, then,” she murmurs, and he does, dropping his head to her shoulder and stifling a groan as his shaft jerks against the fabric into her hand. He drags his mouth—lips, teeth, stubble—against her skin so hard as he climaxes, she thinks it might leave a mark. “That’s what I wanted.”
It would be easier if we could say nothing’s happened.
Grant cleans himself up in the bathroom to the best of his ability. So far, he could say Helen Zhang is responsible for two of the quickest, hottest orgasms of his life. But she’s careful with him, the way that she’s careful with everything. Her hands never strayed to the skin, no matter how determinedly his dick pressed against the placket of his boxer briefs. When he finished, she let him linger against her for a few harsh, precious heartbeats before slowly extracting her wandering hands from him and murmuring, “There’s a bathroom over there, I think.”
She never kissed him either, at least not on the mouth.
Well, he thinks grimly, he never kissed her either.
She’s two up on him, though, and that bothers him.
Come for me, then. That’s what I wanted.
What about what he wants? He wants to bury his face between her legs and find out if she comes undone loudly without inhibition or with quiet shaking sobs. He wants to fuck her against a wall, then again in his bed, and maybe in a car afterward too.
I don’t want to know what you want.
Grant remembers the fire in her eyes when he asked her if she wanted this. If she wanted him.
I want this.
A feeling of hot, masculine pride surges in his chest at the thought that this woman—this prickly, particular woman, wants him. Or some parts of him, anyway. He isn’t sure how much she’s willing to give, but he suddenly finds he’s willing to take whatever he can get, for as long as it lasts.
There’s no winning.
Bullshit. He wipes his hands and stares at himself in the mirror. He looks like he just ran a marathon. He feels like a horny teenager, and like he could build a house with his bare hands. He’s Grant Fucking Shepard. And before Helen Zhang came into his life, he was always good at winning.
So that’s what he’ll do. He exits the bathroom to find the basement empty. He goes upstairs and is completely unsurprised to find out she left already. He locates his coat and quietly slips out as well. He doesn’t need to stay for the ball drop. He needs to make a plan.