It Happened on Maple Street Page 6

  “I hear sex is great in cars,” he tried again halfway through class.

  “Sssshhh.”

  “Well then, I won’t take you for a ride in my new car,” he said.

  At first, she seemed to think the threat was just more of his nonsense, and then her eyes widened and her face broke out into the grin he’d come to know, the one that stirred his blood every time.

  She scooted down in her seat. “You got a car?” She was still facing forward, her hand up like she was playing with her mouth in some studious, mode of concentration.

  “Yeah.”

  “When?”

  “Last night.”

  She stared at the professor, like she was paying attention, except that he was talking to a student who’d had trouble finding a particular table in the textbook. A table he knew Tara had already found because she’d had her book open to it.

  “What kind?”

  “Pontiac LeMans Sport.”

  “What color is it?”

  “Gold. Black leather interior.”

  “When can I see it?”

  “As soon as class ends if you want to.”

  She turned toward him then, and the excitement in those blue eyes was everything he’d hoped it would be. “You have it here?”

  “Yep.”

  “Can I drive it?”

  He hadn’t thought about that. A girl driving his prized possession. His first car.

  But this wasn’t any girl. This was Tara. “Of course,” he said. He’d seen her handle a shift. She was a pro.

  He didn’t really regret the words when she was behind the wheel of his new car just hours after he’d purchased it. He did second-guess them, though. And squirm a bit. The shy girl he knew changed when she got behind the wheel of a sports car. Her shyness evaporated. And left a wild woman in her place.

  Tara took his new machine from zero to seventy in about ten seconds—which was hard on the engine. He didn’t want to criticize her, though. Or spoil her fun. He held on. And started to pray.

  They made it to the expressway in one piece. They made it without so much as a single complaint from the car. She gunned the motor and, both hands on the wheel, grinned from ear to ear.

  He was glad he’d made her so happy and saw the curve just ahead.

  “Slow down.” The words burst out of him.

  “I was only going eighty and I was slowing down for that curve.”

  “Okay.” If she said so.

  He made it another two minutes. Just until he saw the next exit. “Hey, pull off here,” he said.

  She did, bringing the car to a smooth halt at the gas station just off the ramp.

  “You want to drive?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  Still smiling, she hopped out, came around the hood and settled into the passenger seat where he’d been picturing her when he’d bought the car. Her seat.

  Where she belonged.

  “The car’s great, Tim. I love it.”

  And I love you, were the first words that sprang to his mind. To be quickly followed by, But from now on I’m driving because this car’s a lot more powerful than your Manta, little girl, and I don’t want us to die before we have sex.

  “Come on, hurry,” I said to Ann one day late in October. We’d just come from class, and I was supposed to meet Tim. I couldn’t wait to see him. Didn’t want to waste one second of the time I had with him.

  “He’ll wait for you.”

  “I don’t want him to have to wait.” I had a note to give him. And hoped he had one to give me, too. He was always asking me to write him notes.

  I loved writing him notes. I’d seen my friends write notes in high school and now I finally had someone to write to.

  Problem was, as much as Tim liked getting my notes, he wasn’t as good about writing back to me.

  And I needed him to write to me. I needed to know how he felt about me. I needed to be able to tell him how I felt about him, and a girl couldn’t tell a guy first.

  At least this girl couldn’t. My father was a smart man, and if he was certain that a girl who proclaimed love first was only asking to be used, then I was certain, too.

  I’d reached the student union where I was meeting Tim.

  Our song was playing. “You Light Up My Life.” We had a song already.

  I’d bought the recording right after I’d heard it in Tim’s car. It was about a girl who’d been all alone, who’d been adrift and sitting in her chair, looking out into the night, just as I’d done, sitting in my gold velour chair on the plush brown carpet I’d chosen, staring out the window of my upstairs bedroom those many Friday nights when Rebecca, and most of the girls we knew, were out on dates.

  All those nights I’d sit alone, the light on the marble table beside me turned off, looking at the street below and dreaming about my Harlequin hero, the man who was out there someplace and who would take away my darkness.

  The song really did tell my story word for word. Until it got to the part about filling up my nights. My nights, the parts where I went to bed and tried to sleep, were painfully empty.

  And I wondered, as I stood waiting on one side of the swarming student union, if any of the hundred or so college kids lounging around me, talking, goofing off, eating, and studying knew that I wanted to go all the way with Tim Barney.

  I felt guilty and on top of the world at the same time. But no matter how many moments of shame I put myself through, I wasn’t sorry for what Tim and I had done at his house on Maple Street. He’d touched my clitoris. Every single time I thought about it, that excited tingle would start in my groin and spread.

  It’s all I thought about. Tim’s hands on my skin. His arms around me. His mouth on mine. I relived the moments, and I lived for the next time I’d be alone with him. The next time he’d reach for me. Touch his lips to mine. Put his tongue in my mouth and . . .

  “There he is,” Ann said, pointing.

  I looked. And melted. He was in jeans and that black jacket that I loved. His hair was as thick and long and wild as always and his eyes . . . those brown depths . . . they were focused on me. Really focused on me. Like I was the only person in the room. The only thing Tim saw.

  My heart filled until I thought it would burst.

  I reached out my hand when he walked up, and he took it like he owned it. He did own it.

  And I had to talk to him. I couldn’t be alone with him again. Not until we talked. Because I knew what would happen, and I couldn’t let it. But I didn’t trust myself not to let it.

  I was a good girl. I didn’t let anyone touch me like I’d let Tim touch me. I couldn’t do it again. And I couldn’t let it go any further until we’d talked. He had to promise that we had a future. That we were more than a hot and heavy college fling. I wanted to make love to him. I couldn’t do that until I was married.

  Period.

  I wasn’t stupid. I didn’t expect him to ask me to marry him right then. But I needed to know that getting married was a possibility for our future. I needed to know that I was more than sex.

  I slipped him the note I’d written. And thought about him reading it.

  I’m glad you got the car. Things will be much easier. Now that he no longer had to come and go as his buddy dictated, we could spend more time together.

  And then I got to the stuff that was really critical.

  I think you’re lying to me about your mom liking me. She only saw me for a second, and then we didn’t give a very good impression by staying so late. Next time, we’ll have to talk to her some more, and you’ll have to get me home early!

  I felt like such a bad girl. And I didn’t like feeling that way. I’d spent my whole life being a good girl. I was a good girl.

  There was a little more stuff about the movie we were planning to see on Sunday. And then came the most important part.

  Love ya, Tara

  I couldn’t tell him I was in love with him. I couldn’t even say I love you—out loud —though the words screamed thems
elves inside of me. He hadn’t told me that he loved me. And I couldn’t say that first. I couldn’t be that forward. I couldn’t let him know that he had me that completely.

  Not if all he wanted from me was sex.

  And to that end, I’d added the last line of the note. P.S. Hey! I want to talk to you soon, okay?

  I’d told him several times that I needed to talk to him. He always said okay, or nodded, but anytime we had five seconds alone, we were too busy locking our lips together to be able to get words through them.

  Seven

  THE CARD SHE’D GIVEN HIM, TELLING HIM HE WAS GREAT, was tucked away in the little metal lockbox in his bedroom. Locked up for safekeeping, not for hiding. He still did double takes when he woke up in the morning, trying to believe that a girl as beautiful as Tara really saw enough worth in him to stick by him. Why should she? She could have any guy she wanted.

  And it wouldn’t be too hard for her to find a guy who had more to offer than he did. He couldn’t buy her nice gifts. Hell, he could barely afford to take her out for a fast-food dinner.

  On the last Thursday in October, just before he left for school, he looked at the note she’d given him the day before. She’d signed it “Love ya.” What in the hell did that mean?

  Did she have feelings for him? Maybe love feelings? Or was she just being casual and cute?

  But what about that last line, about needing to talk. When someone says “We need to talk,” what follows usually isn’t good. The words were almost always a prelude to “Things aren’t working out for me.” Or “I want to date other people.”

  Not that he and Tara had talked about such things. He assumed she wasn’t seeing anyone else, but she hadn’t said. He hadn’t asked. And neither had she. Before he left for school, he locked the letter in the box with the card.

  She was waiting for him outside of geology.

  “Hey,” he took her hand as usual. “You want to go to a party in Eaton this weekend?”

  “What party?” She was frowning.

  “A Halloween party. It’s at Steve’s girlfriend’s house.” Steve had taken the news that they wouldn’t be carpooling anymore pretty well.

  “Who’s going to be there?” She was frowning.

  “Kids I hung out with in high school.”

  “Couples?”

  “Mostly.” Was that good or bad? If she didn’t want to go, why didn’t she just say so?

  “And you want to take me?”

  “Yeah.” He’d asked, hadn’t he?

  Her serious expression broke into a smile, and she hooked her arm through his. “Okay, I’d like to go with you.”

  He’d been worried for nothing.

  I was a nervous wreck on the way to Eaton on Saturday night. In my entire life I’d never been to a party of kids my own age. I’d heard wild stories, though, and had no idea what to expect. Huber Heights was four times the size of Eaton, and there was probably a lot more bad stuff that went on in Huber Heights, but what if Tim wanted to get drunk? Or they had pot there?

  What if all the kids were cracking jokes? I wasn’t funny. Most particularly not on the spot.

  I wanted to meet his friends, to be a part of his life. I wanted him to be proud of me.

  Eaton was really small. He’d had about a hundred kids in his graduating class. I’d had seven hundred in mine.

  He’d know every single person there.

  I was scared to death I was going to embarrass him.

  I was also afraid I was going to find myself face-to-face with an ex-girlfriend. Maybe someone who meant more to Tim than I did. Someone who’d broken his heart who wanted him back.

  Someone who was part of his small-town world and knew him a lot better than I did.

  The only good news, as far as I was concerned, was that Tim had insisted that we just wear jeans and sweaters to the party. No costumes for us.

  The party was in full swing when we arrived. Tim took hold of my hand at the car and didn’t let go.

  “Carol, this is Tara. Tara, Carol, Steve’s girlfriend.”

  “Oh, hi!” I smiled and so did the other girl, but I felt like I was under a microscope.

  “Hi,” the girl said and then looked straight at Tim. “Barb’s here.”

  Tim didn’t so much as blink. I wasn’t even sure he’d heard the girl.

  During the next few minutes I met what seemed like a hundred people. Way too many for me to keep track of names. Besides, half the kids were in costume, so it wasn’t like I would recognize them if I ever saw them again.

  We made our way out to the garage and sat on a bale of hay.

  “Who’s Barb?”

  “Barb who?”

  “I don’t know. Carol just told you Barb’s here.”

  Tim glanced around, still keeping my hand firmly within his. “I’m not sure, but probably Barb Cottrill. I knew her in high school.”

  “Were you two an item?” I had to know.

  “Heck, no.”

  I was still smiling when Carol’s mom joined us, sitting down on a chair across from our bale of hay.

  Tim introduced us. I squeezed his hand and said hello.

  “Tim says you’re from Huber Heights.”

  “Right.”

  The woman told me about someone she knew from the Heights. She sat and talked to us for a long time. She asked about my studies, my mom, and Tim’s mom, too. She stayed long enough for me to feel welcome. To realize that I was actually enjoying myself.

  I might even be able to go back into the crowd with Tim and, if miracles happened, find something to contribute to a conversation with people my own age so they would like me.

  These were Tim’s people. If I didn’t pass muster, they’d tell him so. And their opinions might make a difference. After all, he’d known them all his whole life.

  I was just gearing myself up to face the crowd when Tim stood, pulling me up with him.

  “You ready to go?”

  “Go?” Really? I wanted to be there with him. But I wasn’t a partier. Still, I didn’t want him to think I was a party pooper. “We can stay if you want to,” I added.

  “I want to go. I’d much rather have time with you at my house before I have to take you home.” He looked me straight in the eye, those brown eyes of his glinting, and I melted.

  No one was home when we got to Maple Street and Tim took me straight back to his room. Which was the only place in the world I wanted to be.

  But I was scared, too. Scared of me. Of what I might do. I wasn’t kidding myself anymore. I wasn’t going to keep him away from my body, or out of my pants, but I had to keep his male body part away from my female body part.

  My church had taught me well. I had to be a virgin when I got married. Anything else would be a lie.

  And my father had taught me well. If I gave Tim everything now, he wouldn’t ever need to marry me. Or even want to marry me.

  I was so afraid of giving him everything.

  I was also afraid of getting pregnant and being left to handle the next twenty or thirty years on my own.

  And the second Tim touched me, as I’d known he’d do, I clung to him, giving him kiss for kiss, touch for touch. I loved his chest. The contours. The firmness. The way his nipples responded.

  I loved his belly. It was different from mine. More coarse. Mysterious.

  And below that—his penis. It embarrassed me even to think the word. But oh how the thing fascinated me. It grew. And hardened. I knew it did a lot more than that.

  But whenever my Harlequin romances got to that point, the bedroom door closed in my face so I didn’t know quite how that marvelous part of Tim did what it did. I had no idea how it all worked, practically speaking.

  But I wanted to know.

  An hour later, lying side by side with him on his bed, I was working up the courage to find out. The button on Tim’s jeans was undone. His shirt was undone. My pants were undone and my sweater was up around my neck.

  My fingers, moving along Tim’s lower sto
mach, were inching their way downward.

  “Tim?” The voice was just outside the door.

  I jerked my hand back and flew off the bed.

  “Yeah, Mom.” He started to sit up. Slowly.

  “Don’t you think it’s time you get that girl home?”

  “Yeah. Okay.”

  We’d been caught, and right then, all I wanted to do was laugh.

  Maybe hysterical laughter. Because life was so far out of control.

  I was the first one put back together. I’d had my pants fastened before his mother had asked her question. Standing by the still-closed door, waiting for Tim to tuck his shirt back in, I glanced over at his dresser. Trying not to drown in a pool of embarrassment.

  A class ring was sitting there.

  A big one. His? I grabbed it up without thinking. Or rather, I was thinking, about him, his ring, his high school, the fact that he still had his ring. His mother knowing what we were doing. And blaming me because I was too easy. I wasn’t thinking about how I might look, standing there gazing at his ring.

  “You can have it if you want.”

  I swung around, the ring still between my fingers. “What?”

  “That,” he nodded toward the ring. “You can have it if you want.”

  Not quite the way I’d have envisioned being asked to go steady for the first time in my life. Who was I kidding? Like I hadn’t fantasized the moment, with Tim, a hundred times in the past three weeks?

  “Do you want me to have it?” I asked him, meeting that brown gaze head on.

  “Yes.”

  He didn’t look away. And my heart was his.

  Completely.

  Forever.

  It wasn’t an avowal of love, but, right there in his bedroom on Maple Street, he’d made a commitment to be tied to me.

  Pocketing the ring, I took his hand and walked out to his car.

  The morning after the Halloween party, Tim woke up and thought something was wrong with him. His lips were swollen to twice their normal size. Once he was fully conscious, and ran his tongue over his lips, he realized why they were swollen. He’d given them quite a workout.

  He also noticed, when he went in to shave, that he had a bruise on his neck. And he remembered Tara’s lips there, too, sucking on him. He wore his love scars proudly, the bruise under a turtleneck shirt. Tara had taken his class ring home with her last night. Who’d have believed that a hot college babe would commit to him?