Tap & Gown (30 page)

Kevin and Omar were already in the car. Jenny just waved back at us and hopped behind the wheel.

Jamie watched until the brake lights turned the corner, then pulled me into his arms.

The walk back to Jamie’s apartment took longer than expected; we stopped every few steps to kiss.

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The drizzle had intensified during Tap Night, drenching our clothes and hair and ceremonial robes. We ran hand in hand up his front porch, and I shivered as he fumbled for his keys in the wet pockets of his jeans, scooting closer to him until I was inside the warm, humid cocoon of his cape.

He wrapped an arm around me and opened the door with the other, half pushing, half carrying me inside. As soon as we crossed the threshold, he spun me around and pressed me against the door. Our wet cloaks hung heavily from our shoulders, their flaps sticking to our arms as we reached for each other in the darkness. Underneath his robe, his T-shirt stuck to his skin and his throat was slick with rain and sweat.

“You know,” I said to him as he started undoing the buttons on my blouse. “I could actually go for some pizza right about now.”

“Tough luck.”

I reached for his belt and my knuckles brushed against his navel and the spattering of coarse hair there.

“Melted cheese, spicy tomato sauce, crust with that signature Sally’s blackened bottom—”

“Later,” he groaned, pushing my sleeves down my arms so my blouse pooled at my feet. My robe instantly melded to the skin of my back and arms. “I promise I’ll buy you a dozen pizzas.”

“A dozen?” I laughed in the back of my throat and pulled the tongue of his belt through the loops. “That law school stipend is a generous one.”

His palms trailed up my sides and he moved closer to me until the edges of our robes furled together.

His fingers were cold from the rain, but his body was all wet heat. “Is this your version of sexy talk?

Financial aid?”

“No,” I said, opening the fly on his jeans. “Pizza is.” I reached inside and he buried his face in the hollow of my shoulder, breathing hard. “It was our first date, remember?”

“I don’t remember it being a date,” he managed, in between attempts to unhook my sodden bra. “If I recall, you were a little broken up about some other guy.”

“It was our
only
date.” There went my bra. I was fairly certain what remained was not a Digger-approved wardrobe.

“Not true.” He slid his hands to the front to work the button on my pants. “In Florida, I made a picnic and took you on a hike. That’s a classic top-ten date.”

“You seduced me on a sandbar, yes,” I conceded, and shoved his jeans down.

He yanked me to him by my waistband. “
You
seduced
me.”

I wrapped my arms around his neck. “Stop splitting hairs.”

“Stop revising history.”

I curled my fingers around the nape of his neck and pulled his head toward mine. “Stop talking.”

For a long time we just kissed, half-naked, our robes tangled and clinging to thighs, chests, shoulders.

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And then I pulled away and grabbed the hem of his T-shirt, lifting it and carefully threading the material beneath the tie that held his cloak around his neck.

“So we’re committing to this?” Jamie asked with a laugh as I pulled the last of his T-shirt through the robe and slipped it off over his head. His wet hair lay in dark whips across his brow, and the rain had left slim, shiny tracks on his temples. “Keeping our robes on?”

I tossed his T-shirt onto the floor, then wiggled out of my pants. “Guess so.”

He grinned and squeezed me tight. “God, I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

His arms tightened just a fraction, and then he became very, very still.

I touched his shoulder. “Jamie?”

“I didn’t expect you to say that.” He still had me in his grip; I couldn’t pull back and look him in the eyes. I
had
expected to say it; had been feeling it ballooning inside me all day, ready to burst with the slightest provocation. I was afraid the entire club would read it on my face; was half hoping he’d know before I ever spoke the words.

I’d wanted to tell him in the tomb, while we sprinted from dorm to dorm, after he’d bolstered me through Topher’s tap, as we stood in the rain outside Michelle’s. I’d wanted to tell him once for every pizza he was going to buy me. I’d wanted to confess it to him spontaneously, in the clear, not as some response to his own declaration. But he’d beaten me to the punch.

“Then why do you say it?” I asked. “It’s not like you to give up a trump card like that.” Neither, I realized with some chagrin, was it like me.

Go figure, Amy. You’re more emotionally unavailable than James Orcutt
.

“I told you,” he said. “I can’t keep secrets from you.”

And then we were kissing again, and touching each other all over. The air grew heavy around us, and my body blazed with heat, sensitive nerve endings sizzling every time the rough fabric of our robes rasped against my flesh. Every place they touched me stung, until Jamie’s cool, tender fingers came along and his caresses soothed my skin. When he knelt before me I threaded my fingers through his damp hair, still slightly chilly, holding on to him for balance.

“This seems familiar.”

“Unlike some people I can mention,” he murmured, as little puffs of air tickled my thighs, “I will not stop in the middle.”

When I couldn’t take the sensations anymore I balled my fists up into the folds of his hood and tried my best to keep my footing.

He steadied his palms against the front of my thighs. “Okay?”

“Yeah,” I panted. “You? Hardwood floors treating you well?”

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I could hear his smile through the darkness, though saw little more than pale skin in the frame of his robe.

“Get down here.”

He reached for his discarded jeans, grabbed his wallet, and drew out a condom, then sat back on the floor, his back against the arm of the couch.

After he was ready, I sank to the ground, straddling him, shifting until our robes were both hopelessly mangled, our legs tangled, fighting for purchase as we pushed into each other, the soles of my feet braced against his thighs as I moved on top of him, the ties of my robe tugging against my throat with every thrust, his hands supporting me at the small of my back and between my shoulder blades as I arched in his arms.

Once he was fully inside me, I paused and leaned up to look in his face, barely visible in the glare of distant streetlights through the window. His eyes were shut, his head lolling back, his lips slightly parted.

All the pride and insolence that usually characterized his features were gone. His sharp cheekbones and angled jaw, the long, dark locks on his forehead that slashed across his eyebrows suddenly fell into different, softer patterns. Was this the true face of Poe? The man he’d be if he hadn’t lost his mother, hadn’t fought his whole life to convince himself and others he was worth the things he was capable of achieving, wasn’t struggling even now with how to reconcile his past with the elite world of Eli and Rose

& Grave? Was this the man I loved?

I leaned forward and brushed noses. His eyes shot open and bored into mine as if he had read every last one of my thoughts.

“Hey” I said. “I love you.”

Jamie could hardly kiss me for smiling.

After the floor there was the shower, cool tile and thick steam taking the place of robes and rain, and then we adjourned to his bed, still dripping with water and lust, wrapped ourselves up in each other and his ragged bedspread, and dozed. I woke sometime later to feel reverent kisses against the small of my back—no, against the Rose & Grave tattoo placed there—and I smiled sleepily.

“Odile was right,” I mumbled.

“About what?”

“You do have a kink. A fetish for Diggers.”

“Hmmm …” He traced the outline of the hexagon with his tongue. “Lucky you.”

I fell asleep again, and the next time I woke, I was alone. The bathroom light was off, so I grabbed one of Poe’s discarded T-shirts, tugged it down to cover my ass, and tiptoed out of the bedroom.

The living room was dark as well. Poe sat at his desk, illuminated in blue light from his computer screen.

I inched closer. Checking e-mail in the middle of the night?

“Holy shit,” I heard him whisper.

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I swallowed, feeling suddenly intrusive, and began to back away. I saw him straighten, and start to turn his head, and I ducked back behind the bedroom door. Did he see me? Should I reveal myself?

A few moments passed, and he didn’t come in, so I went back to bed, but I fell asleep again before he returned.

I awoke to morning light and the scent of waffles. I padded back out into the living room. Poe was in sweatpants and no shirt, bustling around the kitchen.

“Hi,” I said.

“You stole my T-shirt.” He got out the syrup. “I was hoping to bring this to you in bed, but, uh, I don’t really have a tray.”

“It’s fine. Waffles anywhere are good.” I leaned against the counter and yawned. I bet my hair was a disaster, all dried in tangles. Jamie’s hair was mussed, too, and there were shadows beneath his eyes.

“How long have you been up?”

“Pretty long,” he admitted, and handed me a plate. “You have class?”

“Yeah, at eleven-thirty. What time is it?”

“Eight-thirty.”

I gaped at him and put down my fork. “I’m going back to bed.”

He grabbed me around the waist. “No, you don’t. Welcome to the post-grad world, Miss Second Semester Senior. I’ve got a study group in half an hour.”

What the hell kind of study group met at the crack of dawn? “Are you kicking me out?”

“Amy, if you want to spend the day naked in my bed, it’ll be a great fantasy to sustain me through ConLaw. But either way, I have to go.”

I pouted. “Ditch school.”

“Can’t.” His expression sobered. “What are you doing tonight? I want to take you to dinner. Something nice, since you claim we have been lacking in real dates.”

“Jamie, you don’t have to do that.”

“I want to. I want you in a dress, and candlelight, and tablecloths, and appetizers.”

I tilted my head. “You want me in appetizers?”

“And dessert.”

“Dessert sounds
really
good.” I kissed him.

He groaned. “And a table between us so I can concentrate for five minutes and talk to you.”

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“Talk about what?” I narrowed my eyes. Since when did “we need to talk”?

“Just talk.” He checked his watch. “I have to hurry. I hate that I need to run, but I do. Look,” he kissed me, “I had an amazing time last night. Drop me an e-mail when you know where you want to go for dinner. Stay as long as you want, borrow my clothes if yours are still wet, the door locks automatically.”

He started to walk away then came back and scooped me into his arms. “Love you.”

“You too,” I whispered. He bolted out of the kitchen, stopped by Reepicheep’s tank to drop some food into her dish and give her a pat on her head, then rushed on.

Talk about what?

The rest of the morning passed in a cloud of “I got laid” euphoria. No, that’s not right, either. After all, I’d been in that state quite a bit last semester, and this felt way different. More like … I got loved.

And in this admittedly disgustingly cheesy state, I floated. I floated, unashamed, to my Nabokov class in Poe’s clothes. I floated, gleeful, into a quick conference with my thesis advisor about preparing for both final drafts and England. (I decided not to admonish him for not telling me about the colloquium, and Professor Burak, bless his heart, decided to ignore my obvious walk-of-shame attire.) I floated, smug, back to my suite to smirk at Lydia’s messages on our white board:
A: Your mom called. I told her you

were off being naughty.—L

The phone rang as I floated out of the shower and back to my bedroom. Probably my mother in a paroxysm of parental woe.

“Hello?” I said dreamily, pushing for the full effect.

“Amy,” said Michelle. “I’m confused.”

Crash
. “You got the envelope, right?” I said.