All Played Out
I roll my eyes. “Have you gone in them before?”
“Nope.” He smirks. “We can have our first time together.”
I purse my lips and glare at him. There’s no way that phrasing was accidental.
“I guess I could hold on to you for protection,” he says. “If it bothers you that much. I’m for equality, you know.”
I suppose in the grand scheme of things, some light teasing about my virginity is to be expected. And I’d much rather that than . . . well, all of the other reactions I imagined him having. If he’s teasing me about it, maybe that means it’s not that big of a deal. If he were bothered by it, he would ignore it completely. Or rather, he wouldn’t be here at all.
A zing of electricity runs up my spine because . . . he is here. And the day after my disastrous slip of the tongue, too. That has to mean something . . . doesn’t it?
Dangerous thoughts. I redirect my focus to our conversation and ask, “What else?”
“Big Daddy Rusk, definitely.”
I nearly choke on my coffee. “Big Daddy Rusk?”
“That massive statue in the commons.”
“Of Thomas Jefferson Rusk?”
“I prefer Big Daddy.”
“And what is the tradition where . . . Big Daddy . . . is concerned?”
Torres’s grin is infectious, and it pulls a smile to my face.
“Well, you’re not supposed to touch him these days. Something about skin oils damaging the bronze or something. That’s why they put the little fence up a few years back. But the tradition is to climb up and sit in his hand and take a picture.”
“A picture. That seems doable.”
“In recent years, it’s become more popular to leave a little, uh, token of appreciation behind for Big Daddy.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, you know. Coins. Knickknacks. Lacy underwear.”
That time I do choke on my coffee, and it burns as it goes down the wrong pipe. I cough and cough, and Torres stands and slides into my side of the booth to rub at my back.
“Jesus, woman. If you try to die on me every time I mention underwear, that’s going to make seducing you trickier than I thought.”
I gulp in some air and shove him out of the booth.
“People really do that?”
“Oh yeah. They loop all kinds of stuff over the fingers on the statue, especially during homecoming week. The school assigned security guards there this year, but people still found a way.”
“That’s crazy.”
“If you really want crazy, there’s always the Sweet Six.”
“Do I even want to ask what that is?”
“The six spots on campus where you’re supposed to have sex before you graduate.”
“Oh, come on. Now you’re just making things up to shock me.”
“I’m not. Swear to God.” He holds one large hand to his chest and lifts the other like he’s being sworn to tell the truth. It’s not fair that he’s this charming. It’s not fair that this is all just a normal day for him. He’s always this outgoing and fun and spontaneous. I’m just a regular occurrence for him, and God, how I wish I could say it was the same for me.
“I don’t believe you,” I say.
“One of the Sweet Six spots is the stacks with all the old university records on the third floor of Noble Library.”
“What? I study in the lounge on the third floor all the time.”
“Well, then. That’s a prime opportunity for a study break if I ever heard one. There’s also the old stairwells that they have roped off in the chapel.”
“The chapel? Seriously?”
“Do you think the Sweet Six should count as six things on your list?”
“No. Absolutely not.”
“You’re right. They’re kind of a package deal. We’ll just count them as one.”
I drag my hands through my hair and gape at him. “You are . . .”
“You keep doing that. Am I that hard to describe?”
“Yes.”
“Is that a yes for the Sweet Six or. . . ? ”
I force myself not to react. He likes flustering me, and I won’t give him the satisfaction.
“That’s a no to the Sweet Six. Final answer.”
“What about Big Daddy Rusk?”
I throw up my hands and stand up from the booth. “I think it’s time to go. Any longer here and I might murder you. And it wouldn’t be smart to murder you with an audience.”
I reach for my wallet, but Torres stops me.
“I got this. You shouldn’t have to pay on the day of your very first hangover.”
I return my purse to my shoulder and smile. “Thanks.”
He leaves some money on the table and then loops his arm over my shoulder. “I’ve got some ideas for how you could thank me. Six of them, in fact.”
I laugh, and shove his arm off me, and he calls out after me the entire time I march toward the door, getting louder and more dramatic with every step. He’s making a giant scene, and everyone in the diner is watching us. Normally I would be horrified and well on my way to an unattractive magenta blush, but . . . it’s different with him.
Everything is different with him.
“I CAN’T BELIEVE I’m about to do this. I’ve gone crazy. You’ve made me crazy.”
Torres’s hand lingers at my waist for a long moment before he does what he’s supposed to and helps boost me up onto the base of the Rusk statue that we talked about at breakfast a few days ago. The base alone comes about as high as my chest, and I never could have gotten up without him. Or a ladder. The statue’s pose is reminiscent of the Lincoln Memorial, with Rusk sitting down, only his hand is open and stretched out, and that’s where I’m heading. If I can manage to climb all the way up without falling and breaking my neck. When Texas was an independent republic, Rusk served first as secretary of war and later the Supreme Court chief justice. And when Texas became a state he was elected as one of its first senators.