Page 157 of Deep End

“Oh. Then maybe he didn’t lie.”

“And that you were out of his league.”

I blink at sweet, baby-faced Johan. He’s what, two years younger than me, tops? But so naive. “When did he say that?”

“When I asked him if you two were dating, outside of Avery. Months ago.”

What? “Are you sure that—”

“Let’s go.”

I look up. Lukas holds out his hand. “Where?”

“Home.”

I sneak a glance at Johan. Should we leave him here, all alone? Should we be talking so openly about . . . Well. The Swedes are not easily fazed. “Mine or yours?”

He shrugs. I take his hand. Johan seems unsurprised by this turn of events and waves goodbye.

“Is he going to hate me because I stole you?”

“Nah. His boyfriend’s playing.”

“Ah.” We exit the court, still holding hands. This is . . . morepublic than we’ve agreed on. But if Pen is at a party with some rower, maybe she’s okay with them finally announcing their breakup. Plus, it’s just the two of us. I can’t find it in me to pull away, not even when he gently eases me into the wall and bends down to kiss me.

He tastes like beer and himself. Smells less like chlorine, more like soap. His shoulders under my hands, the scratch of his cheek against mine, it’s all so fiercely familiar, it could be the stairway up a diving platform.

“You know,” he says against my lips, “I wanted to be righteously angry at you. I told myself I wouldn’t be with you until you were ready to be honest.” I don’t ask about what. It would be supremely dishonest. “But I’m just so fuckinghappyto see you, Scarlett. I can’t be mad at you, when every time I think about you I am reminded that you exist.”

I don’t think he’s joking, but I smile anyway. “I’m glad you’re not angry,” I say, pulling him down again, deepening the kiss until he’s licking into my mouth and I’m arching into him. The heat and comfort and joy that come simply from beingcloseto him rip through me, burn in my stomach. He tries to ease back, but I can’t let him go, not after so long without him.

“Fuck, Scarlett.” He groans, like my inability to unwrap my arms from him physically devastates him. “Not here.”

“Why?” I protest.

And maybe there’s no good reason. Because he looks around and finds a door. It’s a meeting room that smells like lemon and disinfectant. There are chairs, a whiteboard. One of those insipid inspirational quotes Stanford loves to paste all over athletic facilities, something about pain and discipline and regret. I read the first half while Lukas wedges a chair under the doorknob, but he’s already kissing me again, lifting me on the closest piece of furniture—a podium.

My hands run to the fly of his jeans.

“You can’t just—I can’t fucking do this,” he says.

I manage to undo a single button, but he stops me with his fingers. I’m forced to look up. His eyes are a dark, relentless, vaguely desperate blue.

“This is so much more than sex,” he tells me. “It was the first time, and sure as hell is now.”

I stare at him, breathing heavily. Find something in his face that’s half plea, half determination.

“I need you to admit it, Scarlett.” His voice is a low, resolute rumble. “I need you tonotleave me alone to face this.”

I’m going to burst into tears. They are lodged in my throat, behind my eyeballs, and I have to swallow past their sharp heat before I can say, shakily, “From the very start, I . . .”

It’s good enough for him—but it changes everything. His urgent, frantic kisses melt into slow, reverential trails over my shoulders, cheeks, eyelids, collarbone. His hand closes against my breast, grazes my nipple. He says my name, over and over. I say his. My shorts and underwear are pulled down, gently, and he doesn’t have to check whether I’m ready to take him in.

It just works. He sinks inside, little by little, inexorably. It’s so good, so alarmingly exquisite, I let the tears flow. He licks them up and buries deep, husky sounds into my skin. In and out, full and empty, and it’s so easy. We’ve been leading up to this for the past eight months. Every time we met, fucked, spoke, touched, looked, texted—every time I thought of him, it was all for the sake of a perfect moment.

In some shitty multimedia room in Maples Pavilion.

I let out a hushed, watery laugh. He shakes his head and continues to move, slow, good, as good as always, maybe even better. But new. “I fucking can’t with you,” he says, before kissing me like hecan, with me.

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