Page 28 of Under the Lights
Jen sat up straight. “And did you sayyes, please?”
“Of course not.” Kelly smiled. “I might have thought it, though.”
“You could have just saidyou, up against the wall, right now.” Jen tilted her head. “Come to think of it, you’ve probably said that before.”
“You’re hilarious. And I don’t want him up against the wall. I wantmeup against the wall.”
Gretchen shook her head. “Since you’ve obviously given this scenario some thought, I’m seriously sad you threw away the perfect opportunity to make that dirty little fantasy come true.”
So was Kelly, though she’d rather not admit it. “You already know I have a good reason for why I won’t have sex with Chase.”
“No,” Jen said. “We know why you don’t want a long-term relationship with him. And we know why youthinkyou shouldn’t have sex with him, but we disagree on it being a good reason.”
“What are you girls talking about?”
They all jumped. Partly because they hadn’t heard Mrs. Walker come into the room and partly because Gretchen’s grandmother had caught them talking about sex. Kelly wasn’t sure there was ever an age when that didn’t feel awkward.
“Nothing, Gram,” they all said at the same time, which was probably even more suspicious than the fact that they’d all jumped when she spoke.
“So boys, then.” She looked at each of them in turn, then zeroed in on Kelly. “Any special young man in particular?”
“No, ma’am.”
“I heard that Sanders boy is back in town, and he bought condoms at the drugstore.”
Kelly was vaguely aware of Jen almost spitting her drink all over Gretchen and barely choking it down in time, but all she could do was try to meet Mrs. Walker’s look with a straight face. “I hadn’t heard that.”
“He’s up to no good, that one.” Gram nodded. “I’m going to bed to read. You girls clean up after yourselves.”
They managed to hold back the giggles until they heard her footsteps reach the top of the stairs and disappear in the direction of her bedroom. Then they laughed, trying to muffle the sound with their hands.
“I can never un-hear your grandmother sayingcondoms,” Jen said when they’d regained their composure.
“A whole box of them, even,” Kelly said, putting her hand on her stomach because it ached from laughing and eating too much macaroni salad. When both women turned their gazes on her, she shook her head. “Don’t look at me.”
“Since I’ve seenChaselooking at you,” Jen said, “I’m going to guess you’re the only woman he was thinking about when he bought them.”
Gretchen held up her hand. “Back up for a minute. I want to know the circumstances of him telling you he wanted to take you up against the wall. Did he tell you that over coffee? Write it on a napkin? Just randomly blurt it out when you walked by?”
“We were... kissing.” And just the memory of it still made her weak in the knees. “In my parents’ kitchen.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell usimmediatelythat you were kissing him,” Jen said, and Gretchen nodded.
“It didn’t really end well.” She told them how the post-kiss conversation had gone. “He looks at me and sees Coach’s daughter and not Kelly.”
“It’s natural for him to worry about disrespecting your dad because he means so much to Chase,” Gretchen said, being her usual reasonable self.
Jen nodded. “But his need to take you up against the wall is going to get the better of him very soon and, when that happens, you need to let him.”
“I am not going to have sex with Chase Sanders.”
Gretchen snorted. “You just keeping telling yourself that.”
Kelly rolled her eyes, but she’d been doing exactly that pretty much since she’d pulled Chase over for blowing the stop sign on his way into town. If she kept saying it to herself over and over, maybe she’d start believing it.
—
Ordering another pitcher of beer was probably a mistake, Chase thought. As hot and tired as he’d been all day, the alcohol seemed to be hitting him a little harder than usual, and he’d reached that state of pleasant buzzing in which the greatest ideas of all time were spawned.
