The First Time

WAS still temperate at nighttimes. Still warm enough to walk home.

Hand-in-hand—purely for balance reasons—Jamie and I snuck out of the party hosted by the football team, both of us giggling like drunken idiots in the street. Which we totally were.

On a usual day, his long strides would indubitably outpace me, but I kept up in the brisk midnight air by walking double time. My burst of energy was mostly thanks to the vodka Red Bulls that one of the offensive tackles had mixed for me, back at the party. The concoction made me wired and buzzing, and the world spun around my feet.

"I can't believe we're doing this," I giggled, almost tugging Jamie along the sidewalk by his hand. I walked so fast when I was drunk that even Jamie was falling behind.

Ever since Jamie and I made out playing Drunk Jenga with the eighth floor, he'd been giving off major signals. I'd hooked up with enough men to spot someone attracted to me. It was obvious when he not-so-subtly elbowed his way into the conversation between me and the offensive tackle—whose name I now could not even remember—by challenging me to a vodka Red Bull-drinking competition.

For a fairer contest, I argued we should measure the drinks by alcohol percentage per body weight—not sheer volume—screaming about the relationship between blood alcohol concentration and metabolism, and therefore the need to correct for our different sizes—

But the next thing I knew, Jamie had steered me from the living room and cornered me by the staircase.

"Stop screaming at me," he'd said heatedly, one arm holding my forearm. Which Drunk Viv took to mean, kiss me—which seems like a leap, but seriously, his expression was pure lust—so I did.

So, yes. Here we were.

It took a few more moments of dragging Jamie along the pathway to realise he was dawdling for a reason. I dropped his hand and whirled around to face him, hands on my hips.

"What are you thinking?"

"Do you really want this?" Jamie mumbled, his cheeks stained with red blotches and hair messy. He had no business being that hot. "We can walk home and then—"

"—spend the night together," I interjected, swaying slightly on my feet, "is the correct answer to the rest of that sentence. Agree?"

Jamie's lips parted. His eyes swept up and down my body—most of which was dwarfed in my favourite denim jacket, with the vodka pockets. I watched his throat bob as he swallowed.

"Agree."

Jamie looped his arms around my waist and pulled me against his body. I had to tiptoe to reach his lips, wrapping both arms tightly around his neck. Our kiss was hungry and graceless, teeth bumping, tongues searching for entertainment in each other.

He tasted like sugar and lemon, reminders of the revelry we'd abandoned. The scent of clementines cradled me, faint underneath the intoxicating mixture of alcohol and sweat. I wanted to get closer to Jamie to chase it.

When I tightened my grip around his shoulders, his weight shifted toward me, and our combined lack of coordination sent us swaying dangerously on the concrete. With a hand on Jamie's chest, I pushed him away.

If we could get back to the dormitory—I was still acclimating to the sheer bliss of not having a roommate this semester—we could kiss for as long as we liked. And do other graphic things...

Then Jamie took one step backward and struck a crack in the pavement. I watched as his ankle buckled and he nearly face-planted.

I burst out into laughter, grabbing his hand once more. Like I said, it was for balance reasons. Nothing emotional whatsoever. We resumed our trek back to our residence hall, Jamie watching the ground carefully.

"Do you think Jake is gonna be mad at us for ditching him?"

"No," Jamie slurred dismissively. "He'll be doing a keg stand."

I thought back to the last time we'd seen Jake, surrounded by his teammates and happily exhibiting his gravity-defying gastrointestinal system.

"True," I chuckled.

I swung our enjoined hands between us, glancing at the yellow streetlights as they ambled past in the inky night. Most of the houses on this street were quiet, curtains drawn tight.

"What's your party trick, Jamie?"

"I don't really have one."

"Everyone has one," I insisted. "Otherwise you'd just be a fixture of the furniture at a party. What do you do to stand out?"

Jamie cast a bleary smile down at me. He was so drunk. It was kind of nice, seeing him let loose and enjoy himself. He'd been holed away ever since he bombed a Data Analysis essay assignment, without any time to just be.

"Why would I want to stand out?"

I rolled my eyes. Sometimes his naivete really showed, breezing through life as if blind to his own looks and skill. The false modesty thing wasn't something I considered attractive, but I couldn't tell if it was actually false on Jamie.

"What if you want to make a grand first impression on someone?"

"Um, I'll go up and say hi?"

"Bland."

"Bland is better than confusing a guy for his twin brother."

My jaw dropped at the harsh reminder, triumph immediately flooding into Jamie's features. "I apologised for that!"

Jamie released my hand, drifting behind me until he planted his hands on my waist. He reached up to shift my hair over one shoulder, pulling the collar of the denim jacket off the other. I paused the walking, certain that I would trip over my own two feet as he pressed a long, scalding kiss to my neck.

"I'd like another apology," Jamie whispered.

My throat had tightened up, but I croaked, "I'm sorry."

"Hm," he hummed pleasantly. "Not really what I was thinking." Then Jamie turned around to face him, and kissed me hard.

A startled moan rippled from me, muffled by Jamie's mouth. Darn, the man really knew how to kiss. Even while drunk, he knew exactly how to adjust the rhythm of his tongue, the pressure when he nipped at my bottom lip, the tightness of his grip around my waist...

The world faded. I saw bright lights carouselling against the back of my eyelids, probably the retinal imprints from the lamps lining the quiet street. Even if science could exactly explain the joy coursing through my veins, it was still a magical experience.

Like fairies were floating in my periphery, or some other mystical, luminous beings. I could even imagine Tinkerbell flitting by my head, pulling that disgusted blergh expression of hers—

"What's so funny?" Jamie asked, after I started chuckling against his lips.

He didn't seem upset or affronted, just intensely curious. He kept looking at me like that, as if he could tell half the things I said were outrageous lies. As if I was some story he wanted to read end-to-end and display on his bedside table. As if he wanted me for keeps.

"I don't know. I'm drunk," I cackled. "And you just make me want to laugh."

Jamie shook his head slightly, and the drunken, happy-go-lucky boy returned. It relieved me. This version of him couldn't hurt me. The drunken version of myself couldn't get hurt.

"I'll take that as a compliment," Jamie smiled. After we walked a few paces more, he circled back to our conversation. "What's your party trick?"

"I can recite the whole periodic table of elements," I said proudly.

"Bullshit."

"Hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium—"

Jamie laughed disbelievingly. "There's no way."

"Boron, carbon, nitrogen—" I continued smugly, bent on making him regret ever asking.

Most people couldn't decide whether they felt deeply impressed or deeply annoyed by the time I finished reciting it. All I knew was that they never forgot who I was afterward.

Jamie noticed the steely, cocky resolve in my eyes and hung his head back, staring at the stars. I wondered if he had digressive thoughts about streetlights and stars like I did. If he ever looked at my face and daydreamed. Probably not. The man had a one-track life—football, parties, women—and a one-track mind.

With faux horror, he drawled, "What have I done?"

And still I kept singsonging my way through the building blocks of the universe.

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"—oganesson."

"That's insane," Jamie mumbled, holding me from behind.

I'd kept reciting the periodic table out of the residential street where the party was, along the road towards Halston University's main campus, and into the lobby of our residence hall.

As soon as we were out of sight of the lobby cameras, Jamie had resumed littering my neck with kisses—which made my task exponentially harder. "I don't know if that made me want you less or more."

The sensation of his hard length pressing into my lower back sent a flutter through my chest. "Evidence is pointing to more."

We stumbled through the common room, into the corridor, and finally my bedroom. But Jamie halted before the threshold. He slipped off his shoes by the door before stepping further inside, before I even had the chance to do the same.

"I remember," he piped up softly—and I realised he'd seen me staring at his feet. "That's what you do in your home."

A strangled scoff, laugh and gasp combination got stuck at the back of my throat. I'd mentioned my family tradition once in passing. And he'd remembered.

"You're good," I shook my head disbelievingly.

"You're better," he winked smoothly.

For a moment, the reality of the situation nearly crowded my head. These weren't the sugary sweet nothings from my usual one night stand. This was one of my friends, someone I had to see everyday after tonight—but surely it would be okay. Jamie and I weren't even that close as floormates.

"Alright," I drawled, starting to strip. "Dial back the charm, Tanner. I'm already going to sleep with you."

He gulped, transfixed, as I peeled off my clubbing clothes and pulled my hair into a ponytail.

"Well?" I asked Jamie, noting he had gone still. "Do you still want this?"

Our gazes locked for a split second, before he strode forward and wrapped me up in his arms.

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I left the blinds open and the lights off, letting moonlight guide our bodies together.

I preferred sex in the dark. The experience was less performative when I didn't have to worry about what I looked like. It was also less intimate because I could substitute any fantasy I wanted onto the body of my hookup of the fortnight—and I was all for less intimacy.

But this time, I couldn't forget that it was Jamie.

I told him to lean against the headboard while I rode him, planning to take my usual pleasure and then open it up to his preferences—but, damn, no-one asked him to be so enthusiastic about it. His hands on my hips, roughly jerking in synchronicity with my own thrusts, his lips on my neck...

I felt like a different person in bed with him.

In our little cocoon of darkness, I felt like a goddess. Powerful, desired. We could have been the only deities in the universe, rolling through the chaos and birthing stars each time our flesh slams into each other. Making life each time I cried out and screamed his name. The pleasure throbbing in my core wiped away any second thoughts I could have mustered.

When Jamie caught my mouth in his and kissed the breath from my lungs, I had to pause him. Either I was too drunk to focus on kissing and fucking at the same time, or something weird was going on.

"I feel weird," I mumbled. My entire body was flaming hot, and a strange tension wracked my throat—but every time I tried to pinpoint the location, it faded. Only to return the next time I got lost in the sex.

Jamie's thrusts slowed. Maybe it was something in my voice that alerted him to the fleeting sincerity I was showing him now. I could only do that when I felt unlike myself, in the dark, very likely to forget this night.

"What's wrong?" he asked. I saw a sliver of reflected moonlight on Jamie's eyes, peering concernedly up at me. "Did I hurt you?"

"No, I'm fine," I assured him, gesturing vaguely to the area where I last felt the odd clenching sensation. "I'm feeling weird here."

"Is it hard to breathe?"

I took several experimental breaths. "No," I concluded. "It's kind of hot. And there's, like, butterflies in my chest, but I can breathe fine. And my throat feels tight, but I can speak fine. It's weird. Oh, my God, feel my heartbeat. It's tachycardic."

Jamie's rough fingers splayed on my breast, pressing gently on my pulse. I knew what he would feel: the thunderous race of a heartbeat too fast to be healthy. More bizarrely, the mere touch of him made the knot in my throat reform.

"Huh," Jamie murmured. He didn't sound concerned. "Lemme try something."

I nodded, quite happy to trial and error solutions. Jamie's arm slid around my waist, holding me firm against his body. His free hand wandered to cup my cheek, tilting my face slightly. Jamie swallowed and pulled my head down to meet his lips.

I was still unused to the way he kissed me. Like there was no part of me hidden to him. His tongue overwhelmed my mouth, my mind, deafening me to the cries I made until he drew away. Jamie's thumb brushed carefully against my cheek.

I turned my face to press a kiss into that hand, while our bodies rocked together slowly, shallowly, his cock pressed so deep into me, his pelvis skimming my clit, that I could have orgasmed if he kept it up.

But he didn't keep it up. "Did that make it worse or better?" Jamie queried, his hands running soothingly up my back.

"Better." Much, much better.

I had felt so good just now, the odd sensations nearly forgotten—overshadowed by pleasure. Then I considered that part of the pleasure had been the intensity, the light-headedness, the shortness of breath, free-falling in darkness and landing safely in his arms.

"No, worse," I amended. "But also better?" I was confused. I'd had lots of sex before. But never like that. "This is a medical anomaly."

"It's not an anomaly. You know what I think?"

I sighed, "No," and, considering he wasn't medically trained, "but I don't particularly care."

"I think you love me," he said anyway. I heard, rather than saw, the smirk on his face.

I snorted, believing he was just trying to distract me and cheer me up with ridiculous jokes. Because that had to be a joke—and not a good one.

"Big words, Tanner. Are you always this sappy in bed?"

"What? I think it's plausible. We've had chemistry from the beginning, and now you're just overjoyed to be having sex with me. Your body doesn't know how to handle it."

"Wow," I sniped, picking up the pace as Jamie let out a moan. "You're so drunk that you're talking out of your ass."

I liked this dynamic—the clashing egos, the competitiveness, the banter between us—much better than being sappy and entertaining thoughts about love. Sincerity was scary. Superficiality was safe. No-one ever got the upper hand on me in the bedroom, and I wasn't going to start now. I had to be the one in control, the one who lost myself less, the one who walked away feeling detached and satisfied.

I didn't make love, and I certainly didn't fall in love.

Jamie grabbed my ass in his large hands and started hammering into me from below.

His voice was husky, not of this world. Godly. "Maybe I am."

A jolt of pleasure, of pain, shot to my core when he brought his mouth to suck fiercely on a nipple.

"Oh, fuck," I exclaimed as Jamie changed the angle of his thrusts, using his hands as leverage while pistoning hard and deep. The springs in the mattress squeaked rhythmically, a would-be mood killer if the sexual tension filling the room wasn't so thick.

Two hours later, after I'd wrung all the orgasms I could out of my body, I let Jamie curl up around me in bed. I had planned to kick him out—because he lived literally thirty seconds away—but I figured his Olympian performance tonight had earned him some cuddling privileges. Though, only this once, and never again.

"When you thought I might love you," I started slyly, lips pressed to his hand which curled around my shoulders, "Was that bullshit or wishful thinking?"

Jamie's laughter vibrated through my body, because there wasn't a sliver of space between us. "Wishful thinking, of course. But obviously, you don't."

"Damn, are you really fishing for more compliments after I just screwed you?" I joked.

I felt Jamie smile against my bare shoulder and give me a teasing bite, his tongue laving the sting away. "I'm not fishing. Just stating facts. You don't love me, and I don't love you. I can imagine it, though."

I stilled in his arms. Every nerve in my body was ready to bolt at the first sign of touchy-feely interactions, and Jamie had just sprung on me some major touchy-feely—not the literal type.

"I don't think you're drunk enough to say that kind of stuff anymore," I said thickly.

"I know I'm not," Jamie chuckled almost bitterly. "But surely you could imagine it, too."

And the right course of action here was to say goodnight and pretend to sleep, but something tugged the words straight from my mouth, "I can."

"And?"

"And it'd terrify me because I don't fall softly, Tanner."

For a second, I thought that was the poignant end to a conversation that was random to begin with—but then Jamie shifted his arm to my waist and left a lingering kiss on my hair, holding me in a way that just predicted heartache.

"I'd catch you," he promised.

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Here it is, the last flashback of this story!

Did this go the way you imagined when you first read the morning after scene in Chapter 7?

I had a lot of fun writing this chapter. The reason I love slowburn so much is the ache; the bittersweet space between wanting and having. And as a person who can't do full fluff for long, I could write angst, arguing and bursts of passion forever and ever.

One chapter and an epilogue to go!

See you there,

Aimee x