instincts were perfect. He weakened her with every stroke, instinctively knowing when to tease her and when to enter her. Her heart pounded so hard she thought it would burst, but she didn’t care. All that mattered was this moment, this man, this feeling.
And then, in a moment, something exploded inside of her, leaving her clinging to him and shuddering, as wave after wave of pleasure splashed upon the shore of her resolve.
It seemed to go on forever, then slowly the world came back into focus, with just a few shimmering streamers of ecstasy drifting through the sky before her.
“I—” She couldn’t speak. “I’ve never—”
He silenced her with a gentle kiss.
She held herself against his shoulder, burying her face in the crook of his neck.
The wind rose, and the seat creaked again. It had probably been creaking the whole time, only she hadn’t noticed.
“I’ve never done that before,” she said finally, in a rush of breath.
Luke touched her cheek tenderly.
“We shouldn’t have…this is crazy…”
He pulled back and looked at her with sharp eyes. “What?”
“Well, I mean, Michael…”
For a moment, he looked as if she’d slapped him. “Right. Michael.”
Something in her deflated.
“He’s probably been calling, wondering where I am,” she said, trying to think what she’d say to Michael about tonight.
Luke let out a long breath. “We’d better tell him the truth about this.”
“No!” She could imagine his response. He’d be livid. “No, we can’t.”
“It’ll be okay,” Luke said. “You want me to talk to him?”
“Oh, God, no, you can’t. Let me think.” But her mind was blank. Luke had erased everything. It wasn’t that she wanted to maintain her relationship with Michael. After what had just happened, she couldn’t imagine going back to him. She just didn’t want to end it in an explosion of jealousy and accusation. “If it looks like I ran off with his best friend, it will humiliate him.”
“Look, I’ll just tell him I made a pass at you,” Luke said, before she had the chance to tell him what she was thinking. His voice had cooled. “But that nothing really happened. That’s the truth, after all. Nothing much really happened. It’s not like we did it all.”
Nothing had happened? She had been intimate with him in a way she’d never been intimate with anyone, in a way she’d intended to save for her wedding night, but Luke thought nothing had happened?
Shame burned in her cheeks. “That’s right. Nothing happened. So why get Michael involved? He’ll just be mad at both of us, and for no real reason.”
The Ferris wheel jerked to life, easily lowering them to the ground.
“Perfect timing,” Luke noted. “I guess it’s a sign. Come on, I’ll take you home.”
In the end, neither one of them had to tell Michael. Susan Howard, who lived across the street from Grace and who had a massive crush on Michael, told him she’d seen Luke drop Grace off very late one night. It was all he needed to hear. He’d immediately jumped to the wrong—or maybe really the right—conclusion.
It had ended his friendship with Luke and nearly ended his relationship with Grace. She’d jumped through hoops to preserve it. As much as it embarrassed her to recall it now, she had apologized profusely and promised never to talk to Luke again. And she hadn’t.
Not until the day she’d walked into his office asking for a job.
It was still muggy outside at 7:00 p.m. A milky haze of mist hung over the soccer field, with a great orange ball of sun dipping lower behind the goalposts. The buzz of locusts filled the evening air.
Luke waited for her by the barn. He was grinding out the stub of a cigarette with his toe when she walked up.
“Thought you stopped that years ago,” she said to him.
“Did,” he said, with a puff of smoke. “Just every once in a while…”
She shrugged, thinking of the entire box of chocolate marshmallow cookies she’d consumed during a marathon viewing of Pride and Prejudice after Michael had left. She was hardly one to point fingers. “I guess we all do things that aren’t good for us once in a while.”
He looked at her for a moment. “Yeah, well, I won’t tell if you won’t.”
She hesitated. Was he talking about smoking or…? Or nothing. Of course he meant smoking. “I’m not going to tell,” she said flippantly. “The kids don’t need to know what a dubious role model you really are.”
He raised an eyebrow, resting his gaze on hers for a moment. “Think you’re a better one?”
She straightened. “I’ll be an excellent influence, Luke. You know I was a great student. You used to make fun of me for it all the time.”
He gave a laugh and started off toward the bus, like the Pied Piper, so sure she would follow him that he didn’t even look back.
She did.
“I don’t think I made fun of you for being a good student,” he said lazily. “As I recall, it was for sucking up to the teachers.”
“I did not suck up to the teachers!”
“Geez, Grace, you needed an extra locker just for all the polished red apples you brought in for Mrs. MacGonagle.”
“Once,” Grace said, her face going hot immediately. She had taken so much grief for that. “Once I brought in apples for Mrs. MacGonagle, and it was only because my mother told her we had such a huge harvest from the apple tree that she was going to have to throw them away if no one wanted them. And they weren’t polished.”
“Okay,” Luke said, splaying his arms as he walked. “If you say so.”
“What about you? As I recall you were an all-A student, even while you were doing your broody James Dean thing. You even got that big scholarship.”
“I never sucked up.” He smiled, but it was a smile that said he didn’t want to talk about anything personal if it had to do with himself. He kept walking until he got to the bus. “Okay,” he said, leaning on the yellow vehicle. “Go to it.”
“Okay.” If he didn’t want to talk about it, they wouldn’t talk about it.
She walked past him and into the bus. He followed this time.
It was as hot as a sauna inside. “Comfortable?” Grace asked with a wan smile. “If not, I can turn on the air conditioner. Oh, wait, there isn’t an air conditioner.”
“I’m fine,” Luke said. “But if you’re hot, go ahead and turn on the fan. That should help.”
She gave him a look. “You’ve never driven this bus in the summer, have you?”
“Sure I have. Now get going so you can pass the test and drive it yourself this summer.”
“All right, all right.” She proceeded to complete the safety check she’d have to perform for the final portion of the test on Friday. She checked the windows, the locks, the lights and signals, gauges, seat belts, mats, steering wheel and everything else that moved, lit, opened, closed, signaled or stuck out.
Including the Bodily Fluid Clean-up Kit.
“Which looks fine,” Grace pronounced, sitting