![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rsadellePart 1
Kelsey was juggling three different packages when she went into the post office. Mary Ann was experimenting with online sales. They hadn't taken off much yet, but they got a few orders, and when those orders came in after their mail had already been picked up, Mary Ann sent Kelsey to the post office with cash and packages.
The top package on the stack started to slide off when she set them down on the thin counter that served as a barrier for the line and a place to rest boxes, but a hand reached out and pushed it back into place.
"Thanks," Kelsey said as she smiled and looked up. Right into Tyler's blue eyes. She could feel her smile slip.
"You're welcome." Tyler rested his hand on the stack of packages for a second. "Mailing things?"
"For work," Kelsey said. "We're starting to do online sales." She nodded at the envelope in his hand. "Need stamps?"
"Yeah," Tyler said. "Card for my grandma. She lives in Canada, so I need more stamps."
Kelsey had shipped a few orders to Canada, so she understood the extra postage. "That's nice," she said, "that you're sending her a card."
"Yeah, she's been sick," Tyler said. He flashed a quick grin. "And I told my brother I was going to, so now he'll do something nice for her too."
"That'll be nice for her," Kelsey said. And she meant it. It was sweet. "Younger brother?"
"Yeah, I'm the oldest."
Kelsey nodded. "That sounded like a big brother thing to do." Not that she had any experience with it, but she'd been friends with people who had or were big brothers who would do that kind of thing.
"I guess so," Tyler said. "Do you have a big brother?"
Kelsey shook her head. "Nope. Only child."
"Huh."
Kelsey frowned at him. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Tyler held up his hands. "Nothing. I just didn't know that. Did you like being an only child?"
Kelsey shrugged. "I don't really have a lot to compare it to. It's just the way my life is." They'd moved up as they talked, and they were at the front of the line. "Go mail your card."
Tyler gave her one of those smiles that was just the slightest turning up of the corners of her mouth. "I'll see you around."
"Yeah, probably," Kelsey agreed. It didn't look like that was going to stop anytime soon.
*
"Are you sure you want to go out?" Courtney asked. "We don't have to. We can order pizza and eat ice cream instead."
"I'm sure." Kelsey leaned into the mirror to make sure none of her makeup needed touching up. "I want to go out." She turned around and let Courtney look her up and down. "Good?"
"You look totally hot," Courtney said.
Courtney was in a more demure black dress and heels. She looked cute, but it wasn't the same as the look Kelsey was going for. Kelsey's dress stretched tight across her body, dipped low at the front and lower at the back, and barely came halfway down her thighs. She'd paired it with three-inch shiny black heels that stretched out her legs and added extra curve to her ass.
"Good," Kelsey said. "Let's go."
Courtney didn't try to talk her out of it again. Maybe going out wasn't the best idea, but it was what Kelsey wanted. She wanted to drink and dance and forget about what made the day such a shitty date on her calendar.
To that end, they went to one of the busier places they could go, one with a dance floor. Kelsey went for the bar first, ordering a pair of shots for her and Courtney. They toasted, downed them, and grinned at each other. Courtney declined another, so Kelsey did the second shot by herself.
They headed onto the dance floor together. It was always easier to start out dancing with someone she knew, and Kelsey knew what kind of attention they could get for dancing together.
The shots were kicking in when a guy came up behind them and put his hands on Kelsey's hips. She flashed a grin at him, and Courtney faded into the crowd so Kelsey could dance with him.
The guy didn't last long, Kelsey turning away from him to someone else when the song changed, and then from that guy to another.
She wasn't thinking, at least, but none of the guys held her attention for more than a song or two. Maybe she needed another shot.
Kelsey slipped away from the guy she was dancing with and headed for the bar. She smiled at the bartender and got herself a third shot. She was turning around from the bar after slamming it back when someone across the bar caught her eye. Head, hips, and shoulders cocked to one side, beer in his hand, and then surprise on Tyler's face as he met Kelsey's eyes across the room.
That would be a better way to not think.
Kelsey slipped through the crowd toward Tyler, and he took a step away from the people he was with when she got close to him.
"Hi," he said.
"Hi." Kelsey was almost breathless with how good he looked up close. "You should take me home."
Tyler looked her up and down, checking her out in a really obvious way, and took a long drink of his beer. "You sure about that?"
Kelsey shoved away her flicker of doubt and nodded firmly. "Yes." He looked good, and he was good in bed. It would be a really good way to not think about what the day used to be.
Tyler looked her over again, his eyes lingering at the top of her dress, and the bottom. "Yeah, okay." He handed his beer off to one of the guys he was with.
Kelsey headed in the direction she'd last seen Courtney, and Tyler followed close behind her, one hand on her back. Her dress was cut low enough that his hand was mostly on her skin.
Courtney was in a group of girls near the edge of the dance floor, several people Kelsey knew and a few she didn't.
Kelsey waved and said hi to the people she knew, and then told Courtney, "Tyler's taking me home." She leaned back against Tyler as she said it, not that she needed to, because Courtney knew exactly what Kelsey intended to do with Tyler once she got him home.
"Okay," Courtney said slowly. "I'll probably call Jason and see if he wants to come out with me." She squeezed Kelsey's hand. "Call me if you need me."
Kelsey surged forward, away from Tyler and toward Courtney, and wrapped her arms around Courtney in a tight hug. "Thank you."
"Of course," Courtney said, because she was just the best friend Kelsey had ever had.
Tyler looked like he didn't quite know where to look, but Kelsey just smiled at him and took his hand to lead him to the coat check and then out of the bar.
The cold outside sobered her up a little bit. Not much, but enough that the flicker of doubt came back. Kelsey took a deep breath and looked at Tyler walking next to her. He was so solid, and he'd been honest with her about what he didn't want. Taking him home was definitely the right choice.
She maybe zoned out a little bit on the drive. Tyler didn't try to make her talk, and she just watched the streets pass outside the window.
"Are you sure you want to do this tonight?" Tyler asked her when they got into the apartment.
"Yes," Kelsey said. She tugged him down and kissed him hard, as much to convince him as to enjoy it herself.
Tyler got into it quickly, pushing his hands into her hair and kissing her deep and wet.
Kelsey wrapped her arms around him and held on tight, taking every bit of distraction and warmth he was offering and holding onto it for all she was worth.
Tyler ended the kiss with a gasp, his blue eyes darker than they had been as he looked at her.
Kelsey got caught there, the fuzziness of the shots she'd done mixing with the fuzziness of wanting him, so all she could do was look at him and try to catch her breath.
"Kelsey," Tyler murmured, and he bent and kissed her softly.
Instead of dwelling on how safe that made her feel, she stepped out of her shoes, pushing them toward the wall so Courtney wouldn't trip on them if she came home. Tyler looked so much bigger when she was barefoot, but in a good way, like she could throw herself at him and he would catch her.
She did just that, plastering herself to him and kissing him with every ounce of pent-up energy she had.
Tyler kissed her back, groaning into her mouth, and then he pushed her away while he kicked off his shoes.
They were kissing again after that, Tyler's hands all over her, and then just on her ass and lifting her up.
Kelsey gasped, and got it together enough to wrap herself around him so he wouldn't drop her. Not that she really thought he would, but she felt safer that way.
He didn't put her down until they were in her room next to the bed. "Your dress," he said. "Is there a zipper?"
"No," Kelsey said, "it just," and then Tyler was peeling it off of her. Kelsey kicked off her panties and dropped her bra to the floor while Tyler got out of his clothes in no time flat.
He looked so good, and Kelsey was wet, and she laid down on the bed, grabbing for a condom and tearing the wrapper open so he could get in her faster.
Tyler knelt up over her while he put the condom on, and then he was leaning down and kissing her while he pushed into her.
He was hot and heavy in her, on her, and after he stopped kissing her they were just looking at each other while Tyler moved in her. It was good. It was good, and then it wasn't as good, maybe the shots wearing off, maybe the day catching up with her, and then, much to her horror, she started to cry.
Tyler stopped moving. "Hey, are you okay?"
That only made Kelsey cry harder. "Fuck," she said. "It's not about you or this, fuck, I'm sorry." She covered her eyes with one arm, and Tyler pulled out of her, and then she rolled onto her side, away from him, where she could cry into her pillow.
She could feel the shift of the bed as he got out of it, and that was probably good. There was no reason he had to deal with her being a mess. But then he was in bed with her again, warm and solid at her back, his cock still hard but covered in cloth, and putting his arm over her.
Kelsey sobbed, horrible, ugly crying, and Tyler was just there, holding her and making her feel cared for and safe.
She couldn't cry forever, and eventually it trailed off into the last few tears and a whole hell of a lot of embarrassment. She sat up, not looking at Tyler as she reached for the Kleenex to wipe the last of the tears out of her eyes and blow her nose. The Kleenex came away dark with mascara and eyeliner. Her face was probably a mess.
"Sorry," she said.
Tyler sat up too, and rubbed her back. "Me too, if I did something."
"No," Kelsey said quickly. "No, it wasn't you." She blinked in case she started to cry again.
"Do you want me to go?" Tyler's hand stopped moving, rested warm and large in the center of her back, behind her heart.
She could say yes. The evening was already an embarrassment. But Courtney wasn't home, and she wasn't sure she could take the quiet. "No," she said. "But you can."
"No," Tyler said. "I want to make sure you're okay. Is there something I can do?"
Kelsey glanced at him, sliding her eyes in his direction for just a moment. He looked completely sincere.
"There's ice cream in the freezer," she said. "If you want to grab it, I'm going to wash my face."
Tyler said, "For sure," and slid his hand across her back and shoulders before he got up.
When he was gone, Kelsey snagged her robe and took it with her into the bathroom. Her makeup had smeared something awful. She took it all off, scrubbed her face clean. Her eyes were still red, but there wasn't anything she could do about that. She put on her robe and tied it tightly before she left the bathroom.
Tyler was sitting on her bed in his underwear and shirt. The ice cream carton was sitting on the nightstand with a pair of spoons resting on it, and Tyler held out a cup to her.
"Water," he said when she took it cautiously. "You've been drinking and crying. You should hydrate."
Kelsey sipped at the water. It tasted amazing. She gulped down the rest of it, and took the cup into the bathroom to refill it.
Tyler had the ice cream when she joined him again. Kelsey sat cross-legged on the bed facing him and took one of the spoons.
Tyler held the carton out to let her take a spoonful first. The ice cream was rich, cool, deeply chocolatey. Kelsey ate her spoonful slowly, savoring it.
"David," she said, "my ex. That's what it was about, not you."
"Yeah?" Tyler dug his spoon into the ice cream and held the carton out to her.
"Yeah." Kelsey sighed. "He came here to go to school, the Business Administration program." She ate tiny bits of her ice cream between sentences. "We met at Lake George, at the beginning of my senior year of high school. He was only a freshman, so he wasn't that much older. My parents even liked him."
Kelsey dug into the ice cream again, making sure to get a piece of brownie this time. "Anyway, we were just, like, texting, at first, but then we started dating. When it was time for me to go to college, I already knew what the Business Administration program was like, and the area, so I came here and we moved in together. I know some people think that's dumb, that there's no way you can know what you want when you're eighteen, but I loved him. And it was great. I mean, you know, the things that happen when you have to figure out how to live with someone else, but our relationship was good. I thought it was good."
Tyler held the ice cream out without her having to ask for it. "What happened?" he asked softly.
"He graduated," Kelsey said, "last spring. And a week later, he told me that we'd had fun and he'd enjoyed his time here, but that he'd taken a job in New York City and it was time for him to move on from Glens Falls. And me."
Tyler winced, and Kelsey nodded.
"I really thought we were going to be together forever. Get married, have kids, grow old together, the whole thing." Kelsey spooned up another piece of brownie. "Today would have been our anniversary. Four years."
"No wonder you wanted to go out and party," Tyler said. He took a spoonful of ice cream.
"Yeah," Kelsey said. "Courtney suggested staying in with pizza and ice cream. I guess maybe I should have listened to her." She made an apologetic face. "You're a really great guy, and you shouldn't have to get stuck with me and my drunken breakdown."
Tyler was quiet for a moment, and then he said, "Julie. That's my ex. We'd kind of known each other for a while, you know, friends who overlap, parties, that kind of thing. But then we ran into each other and it was like there was a spark that time. So we started texting and whatever."
Kelsey spooned up some ice cream without taking her eyes off of him more than necessary so he would know she was really listening.
"She lives in Michigan, so it was mostly long distance. I'd go visit her when I could, she came here a couple of times. She came here for Thanksgiving. I mean, she goes to school near her family, so it's not like it meant she wasn't going to see them at all, but." He shrugged. "It was a holiday, so it was a big deal."
Tyler took a spoonful of ice cream, and Kelsey let him have the break in his story.
"She got a summer internship in Philly so we could live together. She could do her internship, I could work with the Flyers' trainers."
"What happened?" Kelsey asked when Tyler paused.
"It didn't work," Tyler said flatly. "We'd never lived together. We'd never even really been around each other when we weren't trying to make it special because that was all we got. And neither of us had ever lived with someone we were dating. I don't know," Tyler said with a sigh, "maybe we could have made it work, but we didn't. I think we resented each other a lot by the end, and it wasn't even that long, like a couple of months." He smiled faintly. "So I know about getting drunk to not think about it. And that's why I tell perfectly nice girls in bars that I'm not going to call them." He held the ice cream out. There was only a small bite left.
"You don't want it?" Kelsey asked.
"No," he said. "You can have it."
Kelsey put her hand over his to steady the carton while she scraped up the end of the ice cream. "It broke my heart when David left."
"Yeah," Tyler said. "It does that."
Kelsey met his eyes. He was looking at her like he understood because he'd been there too. Kelsey swallowed down the last of her urge to cry with the last of the ice cream.
Tyler took her spoon from her, put both of them in the carton, and leaned over her to put them on the nightstand. Kelsey caught his shirt as he sat back, keeping him close, and she turned her face up to his.
"Kelsey," he murmured.
"Kiss me again," she said. "I'll try not to cry on you this time."
Tyler smiled briefly, but then he dipped his head and kissed her. He put one hand on her cheek as they kissed, and it was so soft, so gentle, like they were both being careful of their healing hearts.
They kept kissing like that, careful and slow. It was different from earlier in the night. There was no urgency, no rush to forget. There was just the slowly unfolding pleasure of their mouths meeting.
When the angle became too strange, Kelsey slowly slid down onto the bed, pulling Tyler with her so he was over her, still kissing her. She was getting wet again, a slower build of heat, and she could feel Tyler hard against her, but they kept going slow, making out for a long time, Kelsey's hands roaming over Tyler's back and his hands never straying lower than her shoulders.
Still, they were pressed together and kissing, and it didn't stay quite so slow forever. Tyler shifted over her, and it pressed him against her just right. She gasped into his mouth. He pulled back enough to look into her eyes, and she looked back, open to him in a way she hadn't been before, and then she reached down and untied the belt of her robe.
Tyler answered that by pulling off his shirt, and then his underwear when Kelsey slipped her arms out of her robe so it was just a spill of cloth beneath her naked body.
Even then there was no rush. Tyler touched her for a long time, still kissing her, but also running his hands all over her body in a way that made heat trail after them. Kelsey returned the favor, touching him everywhere she could reach, trying to make him feel just as good as he was making her feel.
Tyler reached across her to the nightstand. He held up a condom. "Okay?"
Kelsey surged up to kiss him. "Yes," she said. She stroked his shoulders as her hands fell away from him when he sat up. "I'm good. This is good."
Tyler put the condom on, and then slid into her slow and perfect.
If Kelsey felt a little like crying, it wasn't the same as earlier. It was because it was so good, because Tyler was looking in her eyes the whole time, watching to make sure she was okay.
Kelsey reached for him, pulling him down to her. "Kiss me again," she said. "I'm not going to cry."
Tyler brushed her hair back. "Are you sure?" His hips moved in a little hitch that made her gasp.
"I'm sure." Kelsey leaned up to kiss him. "This is good. This is perfect." The last word came out with another gasp as he moved in her again.
"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, it is." He kissed her, and it was deep and wet, and then he started to move, a slow rocking in and out that was so good she was almost dizzy with pleasure.
Kelsey stopped trying to talk to him. She kissed him, again and again, and shifted her hips just enough that every press into her was more than just good, that every touch was just right, and she felt more than just easy warmth.
The heat built in her, more and more and more, and he just kept kissing her, kept moving against her, and she tore her mouth away from his and gasped out his name as she came.
Tyler kept fucking into her, a few more short, sharp thrusts that sent sparks of aftershocks through her, and then he was saying her name and coming and kissing her again.
They kissed for long moments, slow, messy kisses that felt like the perfect thing after what they'd just done.
Tyler pulled out of her and threw away the condom, and then he was lying down with her and kissing her again. It would have been so easy to just fall asleep like that, warm and sated in her bed with Tyler next to her. That thought shocked her out of the warm, intimate daze she was in.
She pulled away and stared at Tyler. He met her eyes, and they just looked at each other for a long minute.
"I'm going to go," Tyler said, his voice rough and stunned, like he was realizing the same thing she was.
"Yeah," Kelsey said. "Yeah."
She gathered up her robe from under her and pulled it on. She tied it tightly and walked him to the door, because that was what she did when they did this.
She stood by the door while he pulled on his shoes, and she thought maybe this time he wouldn't kiss her goodbye.
He hesitated, but then he put his arms around her and kissed her, deep and slow. He met her eyes when he pulled away, and said, "Goodbye, Kelsey."
"Goodbye, Tyler." Kelsey shut the door behind him, locked it, and took a deep, shuddering breath. She didn't think she was going to cry, but she also wasn't going to fall asleep comfortable and warm like she might have if Tyler had stayed.
*
Kelsey didn't see Tyler again for over a month. She tensed for it sometimes, like when she was in the grocery store or stopping for dinner after work, but when she kept not running into him, she started to think maybe the goodbye she'd said to him the last time really was a goodbye.
She should have been fine with that. She hadn't wanted to date anyway. But she kept missing him in odd moments, times when she really wanted to go home with someone and could only think about how good he was in bed, times when she was struck again with the sting of David's leaving and wanted the reassurance of someone who understood, times when she was eating alone and remembering how much she'd enjoyed having dinner with him.
Kelsey just kept shaking it off. There was nothing to be done about it. Courtney seemed to attribute any dips in Kelsey's mood to the approach of finals, and Kelsey didn't say anything to contradict that assumption. When Courtney didn't ask her about the last time Kelsey had brought Tyler home, Kelsey decided she didn't want to talk about it anyway and didn't volunteer any details.
*
A week after Thanksgiving, Courtney cajoled Kelsey into going out for frozen yogurt.
"I'm not going to crash your date," Kelsey said.
Courtney laughed that off. "Jason and I go on plenty of dates that are just us, and we're going to be busy with finals soon." She looped her arm through Kelsey's. "Come hang out with us."
"Okay, okay," Kelsey said with a laugh. She closed her textbook. "Let's go."
"Yay!" Courtney cheered. She grinned at Kelsey, and they put on shoes and coats.
Courtney turned up the music in the car, grinning at Kelsey until they were both singing along at the top of their lungs.
It was fun. Not that Kelsey hadn't had any fun recently, but between work and school, she hadn't had this kind of simple hanging out with Courtney in a while.
They were both laughing when they walked into the frozen yogurt place, and Courtney turned that brightness on Jason, who was already there.
Tyler was also there, sitting sideways in a chair at the table Jason got up from to greet Courtney. Tyler looked up at Kelsey, and there was a moment, as their eyes met, when they seemed to be isolated, nothing in the world but the two of them.
Tyler dropped his eyes and broke the moment. "Hey."
Kelsey smiled tightly. "Hi." She managed to regain a wider smile by the time Jason and Courtney were done kissing.
"I feel like mint," Courtney said. She grinned brightly at Kelsey. "I know you're going to get a vanilla base."
"Yep. Best place to start from."
They got cups, and then they separated a little as they all chose different flavors of yogurt to start with. They necessarily reconvened near the toppings. Jason and Courtney kept up a lively conversation on the benefits of sprinkles and cookie pieces and sauces.
Kelsey let them do their thing while she put hot fudge and strawberries over her vanilla. It meant she was done first, Jason and Courtney finally starting in on putting toppings on their yogurt.
"What's your strategy?" Courtney asked Tyler.
Tyler shrugged. "I don't really have one. I just put on whatever sounds good." He looked down at his cup, and poured a small scoop of gummy bears into it.
"He ends up with weird combinations," Jason said.
"Yeah," Tyler admitted. "Sometimes." He added skittles and then cookie dough bits.
"So what's your strategy?" Jason asked Kelsey.
Kelsey tipped her cup toward him to show him what she'd chosen. "Plain and simple," she said.
"But still really rich and delicious," Jason said. He tipped his cup in her direction. "Most of us have to make a bunch of different choices to get to that."
Kelsey shrugged. "Sometimes I go for more things, but this is what I want today."
"Nothing wrong with that," Jason said.
Tyler finally stepped away from the toppings, and he and Jason rock-paper-scissored as they walked to the counter.
"Cheater," Jason said cheerfully when he lost. He pulled out his wallet when they got to the counter and paid for all four of them despite Kelsey's protest that she could buy her own. "Nah," Jason said. "We're gainfully employed and you two both go to school. Only fair for us to get it, and I lost."
"I work too," Kelsey said.
"No, I know that," Jason said. "That's not what I meant. I just meant let us do this."
Jason was actually a nice guy, and Courtney was giving her a weird look - Kelsey didn't look to see what Tyler was doing - so she let it go and smiled at Jason. "Thanks."
The girl at the counter ran Jason's card, and the four of them made their way to a table.
"So how is your job?" Jason asked.
"Good," Kelsey said. She could probably say a lot of things about her job, but she didn't really feel like saying them to him.
"Online sales taking off?" Tyler asked, and Kelsey looked right at him for the first time since they'd first gotten there. He looked completely sincere in his interest. He probably was.
"A little bit," Kelsey said. She smiled at him, kind of faintly, but real. "I've been making more post office runs. How's your grandma?"
"Oh, she's great," Tyler said. "Had the flu, but she's pretty tough."
Jason and Courtney were ignoring them in favor of being cutesy and taking bites of each other's yogurt creations.
"I'm glad to hear that," Kelsey said, completely meaning it. She was trying not to forget the intensity of the last time they saw each other, but it was just so easy to talk to him. She scraped her spoon through the hot fudge in her cup. "Did you get your brother to do something nice for her too?"
"Oh, yeah, he sent her flowers, so then I had to send her flowers because I couldn't let him show me up."
Kelsey chuckled around a spoonful of hot fudge and strawberry.
Tyler flashed her a quick smile. "Grandma got swag out of that flu."
That made Jason and Courtney stop being cutesy, or Jason anyway. He turned an incredulous stare on Tyler. "Did you really just say that?"
"Yep," Tyler said. "Cody would agree with me."
"Who's Cody?" Courtney asked when Jason just shook his head.
"My brother," Tyler said.
Kelsey ate careful bites of her frozen yogurt, letting them carry on the conversation.
"Oh," Courtney said. "Older or younger?"
"Younger," Tyler said.
"Another oldest child," Courtney said. "I have two sisters and a brother." She grinned at Kelsey. "And Kelsey."
Kelsey smiled back at her while Jason and Tyler looked from her to Courtney.
"Kelsey's an only child," Courtney explained to Jason and Tyler. "We would always go over to her house when we wanted it to be just us, and over to mine when we needed more people."
"You grew up together?" Jason asked.
"Yep," Courtney said. "Best friends since kindergarten." She held out her hand, and Kelsey smiled as she hooked her little finger with Courtney's. "Sometimes the things you pinkie swear when you're five last forever."
Kelsey kept smiling as she sat back and dug into her yogurt.
"That's how you know she starts with vanilla," Jason said.
"For frozen yogurt," Courtney said, still smiling at Kelsey. "She likes chocolate ice cream."
"Okay," Jason said slowly.
Kelsey stopped smiling and looked down into her cup. She knew it was an odd distinction, but she didn't really want to deal with Courtney's boyfriend judging her over it.
There was an awkward pause, and then Courtney asked, "How's yours, Tyler?"
"I think I should have gone with Kelsey's strategy," Tyler said. "It's all good, but it doesn't really fit together in combination."
"Did you start with cake batter yogurt again?" Jason asked.
"It's the best one," Tyler said. He looked forlornly at his cup. "It just doesn't always mix the best."
Kelsey tamped down the urge to offer him a spoonful of hers. Things weren't like that between them, and there wasn't any reason for her to try to make the evening better for him. Even if she wanted to.
"You've gotta up your game," Jason said, and from there it devolved into the kind of affectionate teasing guys were prone to.
Kelsey listened to it with half an ear while she ate carefully balanced spoonfuls of frozen yogurt, hot fudge, and strawberries.
Jason and Tyler eventually moved on from their teasing and included Kelsey and Courtney in their conversation again. It was fun. It was easy. Courtney was her best friend, so of course it was easy with her. Jason was pretty easy to get along with, even in the beginning before Kelsey had gotten to know him. And Tyler was just as easy to talk to as he had been every other time she'd spent time with him. Kelsey kept catching herself smiling at him, or bringing up things from their previous conversations and then reminding herself that that wasn't the kind of relationship they really had.
It didn't get awkward until they were outside saying goodbye and Tyler and Kelsey just stood there and looked at each other while Courtney and Jason kissed goodbye. Kelsey wanted to hug Tyler, wanted to feel his arms tight around her, but the last time they'd hooked up had shown her that wasn't a good idea. It was too easy to get close to him, and that wasn't what she needed in her life.
Kelsey and Tyler waved awkwardly at each other when Courtney and Jason were done, and then she and Courtney walked away from Jason and Tyler.
In the car, Courtney turned the volume on the stereo down and asked, "What's with you and Tyler?"
Kelsey shrugged, not wanting to tell even Courtney the whole depth of it. "Nothing. We hooked up a couple of times." She looked over at Courtney. "We can be chill and hang with you and Jason."
"I know you can be chill," Courtney said. "It just seemed like there was something going on there."
Kelsey shrugged. "You know, you hook up with someone and then it's kind of weird but you also know them a little." It was true enough, if only a faint version of the truth.
"Okay," Courtney said. "If you're sure it's cool to hang out with him."
"Yeah, it's fine." Or it would be. Kelsey could make it be anyway.
*
Kelsey put her head down and focused on school all the way through finals, and then picked up extra hours at the shop. The holiday season meant more business, both people coming into the store and online orders that needed to be filled and mailed, and Mary Ann was as happy to have Kelsey working extra hours as Kelsey was to be working them. It gave her something to do, and she was making money to buy Christmas presents and save up for whatever the next semester was going to bring.
They were set to close at four on Christmas Eve, and they stayed open until six because there were people in and out of the store all day.
"Thank you for staying," Mary Ann said when they finally closed up. She looked tired, but pleased with their business for the day.
"No problem," Kelsey said. She pulled out the register drawer. "I can finish closing up, if you want to go home to your family."
Mary Ann came over and hugged her. "No, I'll close. You go home. You have a longer drive." It wasn't that much longer, but Kelsey hugged Mary Ann back and let her take over the register drawer.
"I do have something for you," Mary Ann said, following Kelsey into the back. She went into the office while Kelsey pulled on her coat. She came back with an envelope. "Christmas bonus."
Kelsey hugged Mary Ann again instead of opening the envelope. "Thanks, Mary Ann. Have a nice Christmas."
"You too," Mary Ann said.
Kelsey tucked the envelope into her purse and went home to throw the rest of her stuff into an overnight bag. Courtney had already left, so Kelsey turned the heat off and texted her parents to say she was on her way.
It was later than Kelsey had planned to leave, but it wasn't too late by the time she made it to her parents'. The house was lit up, the inside lights and Christmas lights outside turned on and casting warm glows on the snow outside.
Mom came out of the kitchen and Dad came out of the living room when Kelsey pushed open the door and called out a hello. Kelsey dropped her coat onto a hook in the entryway and hugged both her parents.
"How was the drive?" Dad asked.
"It was fine," Kelsey said.
"Dinner's almost ready," Mom said. "Put your bag in your room, and we'll eat."
Kelsey did as she was told, stopping in the living room to put presents under the tree before she joined her parents in the dining room for dinner.
Kelsey talked to her parents enough that there wasn't a lot of news to share, but being across the dinner table made it easier for Mom to pin her with a look and ask, "Are you seeing anyone?"
Kelsey flashed on Tyler's face, the way he looked when he really smiled and the bright blue of his eyes, but she said, "No."
"You must be meeting people," Mom said. "Didn't you say Courtney's boyfriend plays a sport? I'm sure he could introduce you to some people."
"He plays hockey," Kelsey said. "Professionally. I've met some of his teammates." She tried not to think about Tyler. She didn't need to make the conversation any more complicated by giving her mom the hint that there might be something else there.
"And you're not interested in any of them? I'm sure they know other people too."
"Mom, come on," Kelsey said.
"Honey," Mom said.
Kelsey shook her head. "I'm not ready."
"It's been seven months."
"And it was three and a half years before that," Kelsey said. "I just need more time." When Mom opened her mouth, Kelsey appealed to Dad, hoping he would back her up.
"We're just worried about you, sweetheart," he said.
"I'm fine," Kelsey said. "I'm just focusing on school right now. I'll date again when I'm ready."
"We just want you to be happy," Mom said, and then she finally dropped the subject.
*
Christmas morning was quiet, breakfast and opening presents - Kelsey even had a stocking to go with her other presents - and they were still hanging around the living room, all three of them in pajamas, when there was a knock on the door.
Dad got up to answer it, and came back with Courtney.
"Merry Christmas," Courtney said, and she hugged Mom and then Kelsey. "Things are crazy at my house. I thought I'd get away for a minute."
"You're always welcome here, you know that," Mom said. Then she said, "I think I'm going to go get dressed," and Dad went with her, leaving Kelsey and Courtney alone in the living room.
"Look," Courtney said, drawing a pendant away from her chest so Kelsey could see it. "Present from Jason. He made me promise not to open it until this morning."
Kelsey put her fingers under the pendant to get a better look at it. Diamond, unless it was fake, set in gold on a matching gold chain. "Wow," she said. "That's beautiful."
"I know," Courtney said. "I love it. Jason's great."
Kelsey made a face. "Keep your voice down."
Courtney laughed. "What? Are we ten again, trying not to let your parents know we're talking about boys?"
"We might as well be," Kelsey groaned. "They asked me if I was seeing anyone."
"Oh no," Courtney said.
"Yeah. And they suggested Jason could introduce me to people."
"Oh no," Courtney said again. "You didn't tell them anything about Tyler, did you?"
"No!" Kelsey glanced at the stairs. "Do not let them hear you say his name."
Courtney also looked at stairs. "Quick, go get dressed. We'll go to my house. My family wants to see you anyway."
Kelsey grinned at her and dashed up the stairs to her room. She swapped her pajamas for jeans and a sweater, ran a brush through her hair, and grabbed her phone and keys. "I'm going over to Courtney's," she called as she dashed back down the stairs. It was like being a teenager again, or ten or six or any of the million times she'd done the same thing growing up.
"Don't be out too late," Mom called, just like she had a million times before.
Kelsey shoved her feet into her boots, pulled on her jacket and a hat, and fell out of the house with Courtney, both of them laughing. Kelsey hooked her arm through Courtney's.
"This is nice," she said. "Even if it is freezing."
"It is," Courtney said. "Just like when we were kids."
And just like when they were kids, there were a couple of neighbors in the three blocks between their houses who waved and called out hellos.
As they turned the block toward Courtney's house, Kelsey dropped her arm and said, "Race you," even as she took off for the door.
They slipped and slid a little in the snow, and then they crashed into and through the door. And then they were inside and the chaos of Courtney's house on Christmas meant no one was going to ask Kelsey about dating.
*
Kelsey spent most of winter break working, but that still left her enough time to have some fun, read something that wasn't for school, and sleep in. People started coming back from their vacations in the middle of January, taking time to hang out before classes started.
On a Tuesday night, Kelsey and Courtney swung by to pick up their friends Brie and Sarah and went to the movies.
"You're not going to see this with Jason?" Brie asked.
"We don't have to do everything together," Courtney said. "I want to spend time with my girls."
"Enough talk about your boyfriend," Sarah said. "We need to talk about Chris Pine and how I can make him my boyfriend."
They all laughed, and Courtney said, "Good luck with that one."
"But you have to admit she has taste," Brie said. "I love Kevin, but Chris Pine is fine."
"I'm still not dating," Kelsey said, "but even I might make an exception for Chris Pine."
They all laughed again, and Brie asked, "Really?"
Kelsey shrugged, glancing at her in the rearview mirror. "He's hot, and those eyes."
"Kelsey likes blue eyes," Courtney said.
Kelsey shot her a sharp look, and Courtney just shrugged at her. "You do. You always have."
It wasn't untrue, and as long as Courtney wasn't talking about anyone specific, there wasn't any reason for Kelsey to be upset about it.
"Well, you can't have him anyway," Sarah said, "because he's going to be mine."
They all laughed, and they were still laughing about it when Kelsey parked the car and they went into the theater to buy their tickets.
"I want a snack," Brie declared once they were inside, so they all went to stand around the concessions area and look at the menu. "If I get popcorn, will you all help me eat it?"
"I will," Kelsey said. She hadn't had movie popcorn in a while. "I'll get drinks."
"And I'm buying M&Ms," Sarah said. "We don't have to put them in the popcorn," she added before anyone could protest.
"Red Vines," Courtney said.
They stepped up to the counter, paying for their snacks and then finding their theater and looking at their choices of empty seats. They took four in the middle of an empty row halfway up the theater, and passed napkins and snacks around until everyone had what they wanted.
It wasn't two minutes later that a group of guys walked into the theater, and Kelsey sank back into her seat in a brief moment of resignation at the change in their evening before she had to smile as Jason spotted them and brought his group up to meet theirs. He was with Tyler, Cal, and someone Kelsey hadn't met yet.
"What are you doing here?" Courtney asked when Jason came up to where they were and leaned in to kiss her.
"Seeing a movie," he said with a grin. "You ladies mind if we join you?" He gestured at the other guys. "Tyler, Cal, Oliver, this is Kelsey, Brie, and Sarah."
Courtney looked at the rest of them for an answer. Kelsey shrugged, because she'd been enjoying the night out with just the four of them, but having the guys in the theater was going to change things anyway, and she could handle it if everyone else wanted to sit with them. Brie seemed to share her willingness to go along with whatever Courtney and Sarah wanted.
"Of course not," Sarah said with a smile that took in all four of the guys.
The reshuffling of their seating arrangement ended up with Kelsey near the middle, between Tyler and Cal. One one side of her, Cal leaned over to talk to Courtney and Jason. On the other side, Brie and Sarah were chatting with Oliver, which left Kelsey and Tyler to look at each other.
"Did you have a good Christmas?" Tyler asked after an awkward moment of silence.
"Yes," Kelsey said. "I drove down and spent it with my parents. How about you?"
"It was good," Tyler said. "We had a game the day after, but I flew home for a few days. Got to see my brother while I was there."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." Tyler gave her a faint smile. "We both got big hugs from our grandma."
That surprised Kelsey into a laugh, which made Tyler's smile get a little bigger.
"What's making you laugh?" Sarah asked from the other side of Tyler.
Kelsey met Tyler's eyes for one electric moment that made her breathless. Then she shook it off and looked past him to Sarah. "Kind of an inside joke," she offered.
Sarah raised her eyebrows at Kelsey and then looked at Tyler. "I didn't know you knew each other well enough to have inside jokes."
Tyler looked at Kelsey, leaving it up to her to answer Sarah.
"You know," Kelsey said with a shrug, "he's friends with Jason, and Jason and Courtney are always together, so." She shrugged again.
"They are always together," Oliver said, and that drew Sarah and Brie's attention to him again.
"Sorry," Tyler said in an undertone. "That was awkward."
Kelsey shrugged. There wasn't anything she could say to that. It was awkward, and it would probably continue to be awkward. She was saved from having to make any more conversation by the dimming of the lights.
They passed snacks back and forth through the first few trailers, until everyone was settled with what they wanted, and then all Kelsey had to do was watch Chris Pine run around Moscow and New York for two hours.
There was a lot of chatter when the movie was over, everyone offering opinions while they pulled on their coats and gathered up their trash.
Their overlapping conversations carried over into the lobby, where Sarah caught up to Kelsey and hooked an arm through hers. "Kelsey agrees with me," Sarah declared.
"What do I agree with you about?"
"That Chris Pine has great eyes and is totally dreamy." There was an edge of playfulness to Sarah's declaration that kept it from sounding completely absurd.
Kelsey laughed and leaned against Sarah. "I do agree with you." She was still smiling when she looked up and met Tyler's eyes, just as blue as Chris Pine's but set in a face that was looking directly at her, like he was seeing right into her.
No one else noticed them having a moment because Jason said, "We have practice in the morning," and that distracted everyone into saying goodbye.
It would have been weird if Kelsey hadn't hugged Tyler with everyone hugging everyone else, so she went into it with literally open arms. It felt so good, Tyler's arms wrapped tight around her, Kelsey's nose pressed to his shoulder where she could smell him, that Kelsey just settled into it when Tyler held on for a few seconds too long.
He smiled at her, mouth and eyes soft when he pulled away, and she returned it, unable to do anything else.
They had to wait for Courtney and Jason to kiss goodbye, and then they separated into two groups as they went out into the cold.
The moment the car doors were closed, Sarah said, "You have to introduce me to more of Jason's friends."
"Sarah," Brie said.
"What? They're cute. They're athletes so they probably have stamina."
Brie laughed, and Courtney said, "Oh, they do. Or Jason does anyway."
Kelsey ignored the way Courtney was glancing in her direction.
Sarah poked Kelsey's shoulder. "What's up with you and Tyler? You seemed to be getting along, and he has very blue eyes."
Kelsey paused for a moment, deciding what she wanted to tell them, but they were all close friends and there was no reason not to spill at least some of it. "We've hooked up a couple of times," she admitted.
"Really?" Brie asked.
"Yep."
"So you weren't joking when you said you'd make an exception for blue eyes," Sarah said.
Everyone else laughed, and even Kelsey had to smile reluctantly.
"So does he have stamina?" Sarah asked.
"Oh my God, I'm not telling you any more about it," Kelsey said.
"Spoilsport," Sarah said. "It's been too long since I had a good hookup. You could at least tell me about yours."
"You went home with that bartender, like, last week," Brie said.
"Yeah, but he wasn't anything special."
They all laughed, and it took the attention off of Kelsey, enough that no one else asked her about Tyler.
*
Kelsey managed to go for a while without running into Tyler much. She saw him out at bars sometimes, when she was with Courtney or Brie and Sarah, but they only nodded at each other in passing, and Kelsey kept her attention on her friends. As much as part of her ached to get close to Tyler again, she didn't want to get drawn into anything more complicated than the few hookups they'd already had.
At the end of February, Courtney talked Kelsey, Brie, and Sarah into going to one of Jason's games with her. Courtney been to a couple already, with some of the other players' wives and girlfriends, but it was the first hockey game for the rest of them.
"This is a lot of people," Brie said as they found their seats.
"They're popular around here," Courtney said. She gave them a rundown of how the game worked while they were waiting for it to start.
Before the game started, there was a big production of introducing the starting players. Jason wasn't one of them, but Tyler was.
Sarah leaned over Courtney to say, "There's your boy," to Kelsey.
"He's not mine," Kelsey protested, but she looked more carefully at the line of players on the ice. They didn't have their helmets on, standing together for the anthem. The shape of Tyler's face was familiar, but he looked different in his hockey gear.
The game moved too fast for Kelsey to catch much of the action, so she picked out the number on Tyler's back and watched for that as much as she could. She couldn't quite follow what was happening, but she knew he'd done something good when the announcers called his name after a goal.
"I have no idea what's happening," Sarah said cheerfully.
"Assists," Courtney said. "Tyler and Mark helped on the goal, so they each get a point." She gave them a brief rundown of what points meant in hockey.
"So Kelsey's boy is doing well," Sarah said.
Courtney's, "Yes," overlapped with Kelsey's, "He's not my boy."
"Sure," Sarah said. "But success is sexy, right?"
On the other side of her, Brie stopped being able to hold in her laughter. "Oh my God, Sarah."
Sarah flashed a grin. "It's true."
"Yep," Courtney said. "I hope Jason gets a point."
He didn't, and despite Tyler and the guys he was on the ice with getting a second goal near the end, the Phantoms lost.
"Is Jason going to want to see us after they lost?" Brie asked when they lingered around the rink at the end of the game.
"He knew we were coming," Courtney said. "They won't be happy about losing, but he'll come see us."
There were a few other people hanging around, fans with things they want players to sign. The four of them stayed to the side, letting the fans get autographs and pictures, while they waited for Jason.
Jason brought a Oliver and another guy over with him. He kissed Courtney and accepted her tight hug first, then introduced them all to Mark.
While everyone else was talking, Brie leaned over to Kelsey and said, "We're going to need a team roster to keep them all straight if we keep meeting more of them."
Kelsey laughed. "There are a lot of them." She looked up at Jason and the other guys in front of them, and then past that, to where the last few fans were still hanging around. Tyler was there, wearing a suit and crouched down next to one of the kids. Tyler and the kid both had serious looks on their faces as they talked. Tyler signed the kid's piece of paper, and then they both turned to a woman who must have been the kid's mom while she took a picture of them with her phone.
Kelsey drifted to the side, away from the group she was with, to where she was just opposite where Tyler was saying goodbye to the kid.
Tyler stood up, looked up, and met Kelsey's eyes. He looked so good, and he was looking at her like he wanted to see her. Kelsey didn't look away while he crossed the space between them.
"Hi," he said.
"Hi." Kelsey finally dropped her eyes, looking down at the ground between them. She wanted so much to step forward into him, and that was probably showing in her face.
"I got a ride to the rink," Tyler said, "so I can't drive you home."
Kelsey glanced up. He was looking down at her, and there was an echo of what she was feeling on his face. She stopped herself from reaching out for him.
"I drove," she said, "and we came in two cars. I can give you a ride."
Tyler nodded his agreement. Kelsey drifted back to her group and tugged Brie a few steps away from them. Brie was the other driver, and she was the least likely to draw attention to what Kelsey was about to say.
"I'm going to give Tyler a ride home," Kelsey said. "Can you make sure everyone else has a ride?"
Brie raised her eyebrows, but didn't make any other comment. "Yeah, sure. Have a good night."
Kelsey smiled briefly at her and slid away from their group to where Tyler was still waiting for her. He reached out like he was going to touch her, and then let his hand drop.
"Ready?" Kelsey asked.
"Yeah." Tyler followed her to her car, waited for her to unlock it before he could get in.
In the moment before they both closed their doors and the overhead light went off, she could see the strong line of his jaw, the way his hair was still damp.
They didn't talk in the car, other than Tyler giving her directions.
Kelsey pulled into the space he directed her to in front of his building and turned off the car.
"Come up?" he asked.
Like there was a chance she was going to say no to him. "Yes." Her fingers itched to reach out and touch him.
Tyler led her into the building and up to his floor. The apartment was dimly lit when he opened the door, one lamp in the living room casting just enough light into the entryway for them to see by.
They stopped to take off their shoes, and Kelsey hung her coat and purse on one of the hooks on the wall.
Tyler touched her arm, the first time he'd touched her all night. It sent a shock through her, and her eyes snapped to his while she sucked in a breath.
"I need to grab some water," he said. "Have to rehydrate. You want anything?"
Kelsey shook her head, but she followed him to the kitchen. He filled a water glass from a pitcher in the fridge, drank it down, and refilled it. He took the second glass with him as he turned off the light and walked further into the apartment. Kelsey followed him down a short hall to one of the bedrooms. Tyler turned on the light and closed the door behind them. He drank from his water glass and then set it down on a crowded nightstand.
He loosened his tie as he walked back to where Kelsey was still just inside the door. He stopped just in front of her, slight smile on his face. "Hi."
Kelsey smiled back at him. "Hi." She reached for him at the same time he reached for her, and they met in the middle in a kiss that was so soft and so perfect her heart ached with it. Kelsey closed her eyes and rested her forehead against Tyler's chest, feeling the heat of him through his dress shirt.
Tyler wrapped his arms around her, and she felt so safe, so cared for.
"This is a bad idea," she said, because it was. It was so easy to be with him, so easy for them to be together, and it was everything neither of them wanted. "I'm not ready to do this again."
"I know," Tyler said. "I'm not either." And then he tipped her face up and kissed her again. "I promise not to call you," he murmured against her lips.
Kelsey let out a short, hysterical laugh. "You don't even have my number."
Tyler looked down at her, serious and solemn. "So you know I won't." He brushed her hair back and kissed her.
Kelsey leaned into it, leaned into him, giving up on rationality and letting the feelings Tyler brought out in her take over. She kissed him back, opening up to him and letting him lick deeply into her mouth.
She slid her hands under Tyler's suit jacket, getting closer to his warmth, feeling the strong muscles of his back through his dress shirt.
One of Tyler's hands slid up under her sweater, warm and solid at the small of her back. With that one touch of skin on skin, every one of Kelsey's senses burst to life, and then it wasn't enough to touch him through his shirt, to have his hand and mouth be the only places he was touching her skin.
Kelsey moved her hands, bringing them between their bodies and up to the top button of Tyler's shirt.
Tyler sighed into her mouth when she undid the first button. When she got to the third, he broke away from her. "Take off your clothes," he said, voice rough.
Kelsey pulled her sweater over her head first so then she could watch him undress while she took off her jeans. He hung his tie on a rack in the closet, his jacket on a hanger. He was more casual with his pants and shirt, draping them over a hamper in his closet, and Kelsey reached behind herself to unhook her bra while he stepped out of his boxer briefs. By the time she pushed her panties down and off, he was walking across the room toward her.
He stopped just far enough away that he could touch her, hands settling onto her hips while he just looked at her. It sent heat all through her and made her breath come faster. Kelsey looked him over, letting her eyes linger on the familiar line of his jaw, the strength in his arms, the hardening curve of his cock.
Tyler ran his hand up her side, spreading warmth across her bare skin. "Come to bed," he said.
Kelsey nodded. "Yes," she said.
Tyler's bed was neatly made, dark gray sheets and comforter in straight lines against the large, dark curve of the headboard. He pushed the sheets and comforter aside to make room for them.
Kelsey followed him across the room and got into his bed. Tyler looked down at her for half a second before he stretched out over her, hands framing her face, legs outside of hers, his body warm and strong above her.
Kelsey reached up to run her fingers lightly over his cheek. He leaned down so she didn't have to lean up very far to kiss him. The kiss got heated fast, both of them opening up to it and Kelsey putting her arms around Tyler and pulling him more firmly down on top of her.
Tyler kept one hand on her cheek, and the other ran down her neck, down her arm, over her side, across her hip. Her nerves sparked to life everywhere he touched her.
"Kelsey," he murmured.
She clung to him, arms tight around him and fingers digging into his back. "Please," she said. "Just-"
He pulled back enough to meet her eyes, his gone dark and serious. "Yeah?"
"Yeah," she agreed.
He slid his free hand in, between her legs, and groaned to match her gasp when he pressed his fingers against where she was so wet and sensitive.
Kelsey leaned up to press her lips against his throat, the dip between his collarbones, while Tyler reached into the top drawer of his nightstand and came up with a condom.
He had to pull all the way away from her to roll it on, and then they were both moving, Kelsey spreading her legs to make space for him, Tyler settling into that space.
Kelsey moaned when he pushed into her.
"Shh," Tyler said. "Cal's sleeping."
Kelsey bit her lip until Tyler kissed her. Then she didn't have to think about being quiet and could think about what they were doing instead, the way he felt hard and thick inside her.
Kelsey tilted her hips up to get him deeper inside her, wrapped herself around him as best she could, and let herself get lost in the intensity of how it felt to be so intimately connected to Tyler.
Every one of his thrusts sent waves of sensation through her. He was kissing her too, and touching her, and she was touching him back, hands roaming over his back and down his arms, legs wrapped around his hips.
Tyler lifted his mouth from hers, and she opened her eyes to look at him, his lips red and eyes dark.
"I want you to come," he said, hips grinding into hers to punctuate his words.
Kelsey's mouth fell open on a gasp. "Yes," she said. "I want-"
Tyler moved in her, short, barely there thrusts that were more of a grind than anything else. "Can you, like this?"
Kelsey waited out a few more thrusts, paying attention to the way they made the heat slowly build in her. "I need," she said, squirming against him. She needed a little more if she was going to come.
There was an awkward moment while Tyler pulled back a little and they were a confused tangle of limbs until Kelsey said, "I can," and got her hand between them, fingers right where she needed them.
That was good, Tyler pushing into her over and over, his cock filling her up, his mouth on hers, and her own hand between them. She didn't have to work for it very hard; his thrusts kept pushing her fingers tighter against her, setting up a rhythm that matched the rhythm of his cock in her.
It worked to make Kelsey's desire spiral up and up and up until it finally broke into an orgasm that had her crying out, not caring that Tyler only managed to silence part of it with his kiss. She did her best to keep kissing him while he thrust into her a few more times before groaning his way through his own orgasm.
He stayed on her and in her for a little longer, kissing her with a softness that almost made her cry. Even after he pulled out and took care of the condom, Tyler stayed close, on his side next to her. Kelsey turned to face him and traced the line of his jaw with one finger before she leaned in to kiss him again.
He was all warmth and strength, pulling her close so she could feel him, and his sheets were soft against her skin.
Kelsey never wanted to leave.
"I'm not going to stay," she said.
"No." Tyler brushed her hair away from her face. "You shouldn't." And then he leaned in and kissed her again.
They made out for a long time, the kind of soft, slow kisses Kelsey associated with boyfriends and lazy Saturday afternoons, the kind of thing that made her want to stay, to spend the rest of her life with him.
That thought was scary enough for her to finally break away from him. "I should go," she said, looking right into his serious blue eyes.
Tyler stroked her cheek. "Okay."
Kelsey got out of bed. She pulled on her clothes piece by piece and only looked at him again once she was fully dressed.
He was in just a pair of pajama pants, hanging low on his hips and leaving his chest bare to her gaze. Kelsey's breath caught, and then she turned around and walked out of his room.
Tyler followed her to the entryway and waited while she put on her shoes and coat, grabbed her purse off the hook and automatically checked for her keys and phone.
"Kelsey," he said, and then she went to him, hands against that warm, bare skin while he bent and kissed her softly.
Kelsey leaned up into it, drinking in the softness of his kiss, the way he smelled, the feeling of his skin under her hands. Neither one of them spoke when their lips parted, Tyler's hand still curved around the back of her neck, her hands still flat against his chest.
Kelsey leaned her forehead against his shoulder for one long moment, and then she pulled away, turned around, and walked out of his apartment.
Part 3
Kelsey was juggling three different packages when she went into the post office. Mary Ann was experimenting with online sales. They hadn't taken off much yet, but they got a few orders, and when those orders came in after their mail had already been picked up, Mary Ann sent Kelsey to the post office with cash and packages.
The top package on the stack started to slide off when she set them down on the thin counter that served as a barrier for the line and a place to rest boxes, but a hand reached out and pushed it back into place.
"Thanks," Kelsey said as she smiled and looked up. Right into Tyler's blue eyes. She could feel her smile slip.
"You're welcome." Tyler rested his hand on the stack of packages for a second. "Mailing things?"
"For work," Kelsey said. "We're starting to do online sales." She nodded at the envelope in his hand. "Need stamps?"
"Yeah," Tyler said. "Card for my grandma. She lives in Canada, so I need more stamps."
Kelsey had shipped a few orders to Canada, so she understood the extra postage. "That's nice," she said, "that you're sending her a card."
"Yeah, she's been sick," Tyler said. He flashed a quick grin. "And I told my brother I was going to, so now he'll do something nice for her too."
"That'll be nice for her," Kelsey said. And she meant it. It was sweet. "Younger brother?"
"Yeah, I'm the oldest."
Kelsey nodded. "That sounded like a big brother thing to do." Not that she had any experience with it, but she'd been friends with people who had or were big brothers who would do that kind of thing.
"I guess so," Tyler said. "Do you have a big brother?"
Kelsey shook her head. "Nope. Only child."
"Huh."
Kelsey frowned at him. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Tyler held up his hands. "Nothing. I just didn't know that. Did you like being an only child?"
Kelsey shrugged. "I don't really have a lot to compare it to. It's just the way my life is." They'd moved up as they talked, and they were at the front of the line. "Go mail your card."
Tyler gave her one of those smiles that was just the slightest turning up of the corners of her mouth. "I'll see you around."
"Yeah, probably," Kelsey agreed. It didn't look like that was going to stop anytime soon.
*
"Are you sure you want to go out?" Courtney asked. "We don't have to. We can order pizza and eat ice cream instead."
"I'm sure." Kelsey leaned into the mirror to make sure none of her makeup needed touching up. "I want to go out." She turned around and let Courtney look her up and down. "Good?"
"You look totally hot," Courtney said.
Courtney was in a more demure black dress and heels. She looked cute, but it wasn't the same as the look Kelsey was going for. Kelsey's dress stretched tight across her body, dipped low at the front and lower at the back, and barely came halfway down her thighs. She'd paired it with three-inch shiny black heels that stretched out her legs and added extra curve to her ass.
"Good," Kelsey said. "Let's go."
Courtney didn't try to talk her out of it again. Maybe going out wasn't the best idea, but it was what Kelsey wanted. She wanted to drink and dance and forget about what made the day such a shitty date on her calendar.
To that end, they went to one of the busier places they could go, one with a dance floor. Kelsey went for the bar first, ordering a pair of shots for her and Courtney. They toasted, downed them, and grinned at each other. Courtney declined another, so Kelsey did the second shot by herself.
They headed onto the dance floor together. It was always easier to start out dancing with someone she knew, and Kelsey knew what kind of attention they could get for dancing together.
The shots were kicking in when a guy came up behind them and put his hands on Kelsey's hips. She flashed a grin at him, and Courtney faded into the crowd so Kelsey could dance with him.
The guy didn't last long, Kelsey turning away from him to someone else when the song changed, and then from that guy to another.
She wasn't thinking, at least, but none of the guys held her attention for more than a song or two. Maybe she needed another shot.
Kelsey slipped away from the guy she was dancing with and headed for the bar. She smiled at the bartender and got herself a third shot. She was turning around from the bar after slamming it back when someone across the bar caught her eye. Head, hips, and shoulders cocked to one side, beer in his hand, and then surprise on Tyler's face as he met Kelsey's eyes across the room.
That would be a better way to not think.
Kelsey slipped through the crowd toward Tyler, and he took a step away from the people he was with when she got close to him.
"Hi," he said.
"Hi." Kelsey was almost breathless with how good he looked up close. "You should take me home."
Tyler looked her up and down, checking her out in a really obvious way, and took a long drink of his beer. "You sure about that?"
Kelsey shoved away her flicker of doubt and nodded firmly. "Yes." He looked good, and he was good in bed. It would be a really good way to not think about what the day used to be.
Tyler looked her over again, his eyes lingering at the top of her dress, and the bottom. "Yeah, okay." He handed his beer off to one of the guys he was with.
Kelsey headed in the direction she'd last seen Courtney, and Tyler followed close behind her, one hand on her back. Her dress was cut low enough that his hand was mostly on her skin.
Courtney was in a group of girls near the edge of the dance floor, several people Kelsey knew and a few she didn't.
Kelsey waved and said hi to the people she knew, and then told Courtney, "Tyler's taking me home." She leaned back against Tyler as she said it, not that she needed to, because Courtney knew exactly what Kelsey intended to do with Tyler once she got him home.
"Okay," Courtney said slowly. "I'll probably call Jason and see if he wants to come out with me." She squeezed Kelsey's hand. "Call me if you need me."
Kelsey surged forward, away from Tyler and toward Courtney, and wrapped her arms around Courtney in a tight hug. "Thank you."
"Of course," Courtney said, because she was just the best friend Kelsey had ever had.
Tyler looked like he didn't quite know where to look, but Kelsey just smiled at him and took his hand to lead him to the coat check and then out of the bar.
The cold outside sobered her up a little bit. Not much, but enough that the flicker of doubt came back. Kelsey took a deep breath and looked at Tyler walking next to her. He was so solid, and he'd been honest with her about what he didn't want. Taking him home was definitely the right choice.
She maybe zoned out a little bit on the drive. Tyler didn't try to make her talk, and she just watched the streets pass outside the window.
"Are you sure you want to do this tonight?" Tyler asked her when they got into the apartment.
"Yes," Kelsey said. She tugged him down and kissed him hard, as much to convince him as to enjoy it herself.
Tyler got into it quickly, pushing his hands into her hair and kissing her deep and wet.
Kelsey wrapped her arms around him and held on tight, taking every bit of distraction and warmth he was offering and holding onto it for all she was worth.
Tyler ended the kiss with a gasp, his blue eyes darker than they had been as he looked at her.
Kelsey got caught there, the fuzziness of the shots she'd done mixing with the fuzziness of wanting him, so all she could do was look at him and try to catch her breath.
"Kelsey," Tyler murmured, and he bent and kissed her softly.
Instead of dwelling on how safe that made her feel, she stepped out of her shoes, pushing them toward the wall so Courtney wouldn't trip on them if she came home. Tyler looked so much bigger when she was barefoot, but in a good way, like she could throw herself at him and he would catch her.
She did just that, plastering herself to him and kissing him with every ounce of pent-up energy she had.
Tyler kissed her back, groaning into her mouth, and then he pushed her away while he kicked off his shoes.
They were kissing again after that, Tyler's hands all over her, and then just on her ass and lifting her up.
Kelsey gasped, and got it together enough to wrap herself around him so he wouldn't drop her. Not that she really thought he would, but she felt safer that way.
He didn't put her down until they were in her room next to the bed. "Your dress," he said. "Is there a zipper?"
"No," Kelsey said, "it just," and then Tyler was peeling it off of her. Kelsey kicked off her panties and dropped her bra to the floor while Tyler got out of his clothes in no time flat.
He looked so good, and Kelsey was wet, and she laid down on the bed, grabbing for a condom and tearing the wrapper open so he could get in her faster.
Tyler knelt up over her while he put the condom on, and then he was leaning down and kissing her while he pushed into her.
He was hot and heavy in her, on her, and after he stopped kissing her they were just looking at each other while Tyler moved in her. It was good. It was good, and then it wasn't as good, maybe the shots wearing off, maybe the day catching up with her, and then, much to her horror, she started to cry.
Tyler stopped moving. "Hey, are you okay?"
That only made Kelsey cry harder. "Fuck," she said. "It's not about you or this, fuck, I'm sorry." She covered her eyes with one arm, and Tyler pulled out of her, and then she rolled onto her side, away from him, where she could cry into her pillow.
She could feel the shift of the bed as he got out of it, and that was probably good. There was no reason he had to deal with her being a mess. But then he was in bed with her again, warm and solid at her back, his cock still hard but covered in cloth, and putting his arm over her.
Kelsey sobbed, horrible, ugly crying, and Tyler was just there, holding her and making her feel cared for and safe.
She couldn't cry forever, and eventually it trailed off into the last few tears and a whole hell of a lot of embarrassment. She sat up, not looking at Tyler as she reached for the Kleenex to wipe the last of the tears out of her eyes and blow her nose. The Kleenex came away dark with mascara and eyeliner. Her face was probably a mess.
"Sorry," she said.
Tyler sat up too, and rubbed her back. "Me too, if I did something."
"No," Kelsey said quickly. "No, it wasn't you." She blinked in case she started to cry again.
"Do you want me to go?" Tyler's hand stopped moving, rested warm and large in the center of her back, behind her heart.
She could say yes. The evening was already an embarrassment. But Courtney wasn't home, and she wasn't sure she could take the quiet. "No," she said. "But you can."
"No," Tyler said. "I want to make sure you're okay. Is there something I can do?"
Kelsey glanced at him, sliding her eyes in his direction for just a moment. He looked completely sincere.
"There's ice cream in the freezer," she said. "If you want to grab it, I'm going to wash my face."
Tyler said, "For sure," and slid his hand across her back and shoulders before he got up.
When he was gone, Kelsey snagged her robe and took it with her into the bathroom. Her makeup had smeared something awful. She took it all off, scrubbed her face clean. Her eyes were still red, but there wasn't anything she could do about that. She put on her robe and tied it tightly before she left the bathroom.
Tyler was sitting on her bed in his underwear and shirt. The ice cream carton was sitting on the nightstand with a pair of spoons resting on it, and Tyler held out a cup to her.
"Water," he said when she took it cautiously. "You've been drinking and crying. You should hydrate."
Kelsey sipped at the water. It tasted amazing. She gulped down the rest of it, and took the cup into the bathroom to refill it.
Tyler had the ice cream when she joined him again. Kelsey sat cross-legged on the bed facing him and took one of the spoons.
Tyler held the carton out to let her take a spoonful first. The ice cream was rich, cool, deeply chocolatey. Kelsey ate her spoonful slowly, savoring it.
"David," she said, "my ex. That's what it was about, not you."
"Yeah?" Tyler dug his spoon into the ice cream and held the carton out to her.
"Yeah." Kelsey sighed. "He came here to go to school, the Business Administration program." She ate tiny bits of her ice cream between sentences. "We met at Lake George, at the beginning of my senior year of high school. He was only a freshman, so he wasn't that much older. My parents even liked him."
Kelsey dug into the ice cream again, making sure to get a piece of brownie this time. "Anyway, we were just, like, texting, at first, but then we started dating. When it was time for me to go to college, I already knew what the Business Administration program was like, and the area, so I came here and we moved in together. I know some people think that's dumb, that there's no way you can know what you want when you're eighteen, but I loved him. And it was great. I mean, you know, the things that happen when you have to figure out how to live with someone else, but our relationship was good. I thought it was good."
Tyler held the ice cream out without her having to ask for it. "What happened?" he asked softly.
"He graduated," Kelsey said, "last spring. And a week later, he told me that we'd had fun and he'd enjoyed his time here, but that he'd taken a job in New York City and it was time for him to move on from Glens Falls. And me."
Tyler winced, and Kelsey nodded.
"I really thought we were going to be together forever. Get married, have kids, grow old together, the whole thing." Kelsey spooned up another piece of brownie. "Today would have been our anniversary. Four years."
"No wonder you wanted to go out and party," Tyler said. He took a spoonful of ice cream.
"Yeah," Kelsey said. "Courtney suggested staying in with pizza and ice cream. I guess maybe I should have listened to her." She made an apologetic face. "You're a really great guy, and you shouldn't have to get stuck with me and my drunken breakdown."
Tyler was quiet for a moment, and then he said, "Julie. That's my ex. We'd kind of known each other for a while, you know, friends who overlap, parties, that kind of thing. But then we ran into each other and it was like there was a spark that time. So we started texting and whatever."
Kelsey spooned up some ice cream without taking her eyes off of him more than necessary so he would know she was really listening.
"She lives in Michigan, so it was mostly long distance. I'd go visit her when I could, she came here a couple of times. She came here for Thanksgiving. I mean, she goes to school near her family, so it's not like it meant she wasn't going to see them at all, but." He shrugged. "It was a holiday, so it was a big deal."
Tyler took a spoonful of ice cream, and Kelsey let him have the break in his story.
"She got a summer internship in Philly so we could live together. She could do her internship, I could work with the Flyers' trainers."
"What happened?" Kelsey asked when Tyler paused.
"It didn't work," Tyler said flatly. "We'd never lived together. We'd never even really been around each other when we weren't trying to make it special because that was all we got. And neither of us had ever lived with someone we were dating. I don't know," Tyler said with a sigh, "maybe we could have made it work, but we didn't. I think we resented each other a lot by the end, and it wasn't even that long, like a couple of months." He smiled faintly. "So I know about getting drunk to not think about it. And that's why I tell perfectly nice girls in bars that I'm not going to call them." He held the ice cream out. There was only a small bite left.
"You don't want it?" Kelsey asked.
"No," he said. "You can have it."
Kelsey put her hand over his to steady the carton while she scraped up the end of the ice cream. "It broke my heart when David left."
"Yeah," Tyler said. "It does that."
Kelsey met his eyes. He was looking at her like he understood because he'd been there too. Kelsey swallowed down the last of her urge to cry with the last of the ice cream.
Tyler took her spoon from her, put both of them in the carton, and leaned over her to put them on the nightstand. Kelsey caught his shirt as he sat back, keeping him close, and she turned her face up to his.
"Kelsey," he murmured.
"Kiss me again," she said. "I'll try not to cry on you this time."
Tyler smiled briefly, but then he dipped his head and kissed her. He put one hand on her cheek as they kissed, and it was so soft, so gentle, like they were both being careful of their healing hearts.
They kept kissing like that, careful and slow. It was different from earlier in the night. There was no urgency, no rush to forget. There was just the slowly unfolding pleasure of their mouths meeting.
When the angle became too strange, Kelsey slowly slid down onto the bed, pulling Tyler with her so he was over her, still kissing her. She was getting wet again, a slower build of heat, and she could feel Tyler hard against her, but they kept going slow, making out for a long time, Kelsey's hands roaming over Tyler's back and his hands never straying lower than her shoulders.
Still, they were pressed together and kissing, and it didn't stay quite so slow forever. Tyler shifted over her, and it pressed him against her just right. She gasped into his mouth. He pulled back enough to look into her eyes, and she looked back, open to him in a way she hadn't been before, and then she reached down and untied the belt of her robe.
Tyler answered that by pulling off his shirt, and then his underwear when Kelsey slipped her arms out of her robe so it was just a spill of cloth beneath her naked body.
Even then there was no rush. Tyler touched her for a long time, still kissing her, but also running his hands all over her body in a way that made heat trail after them. Kelsey returned the favor, touching him everywhere she could reach, trying to make him feel just as good as he was making her feel.
Tyler reached across her to the nightstand. He held up a condom. "Okay?"
Kelsey surged up to kiss him. "Yes," she said. She stroked his shoulders as her hands fell away from him when he sat up. "I'm good. This is good."
Tyler put the condom on, and then slid into her slow and perfect.
If Kelsey felt a little like crying, it wasn't the same as earlier. It was because it was so good, because Tyler was looking in her eyes the whole time, watching to make sure she was okay.
Kelsey reached for him, pulling him down to her. "Kiss me again," she said. "I'm not going to cry."
Tyler brushed her hair back. "Are you sure?" His hips moved in a little hitch that made her gasp.
"I'm sure." Kelsey leaned up to kiss him. "This is good. This is perfect." The last word came out with another gasp as he moved in her again.
"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, it is." He kissed her, and it was deep and wet, and then he started to move, a slow rocking in and out that was so good she was almost dizzy with pleasure.
Kelsey stopped trying to talk to him. She kissed him, again and again, and shifted her hips just enough that every press into her was more than just good, that every touch was just right, and she felt more than just easy warmth.
The heat built in her, more and more and more, and he just kept kissing her, kept moving against her, and she tore her mouth away from his and gasped out his name as she came.
Tyler kept fucking into her, a few more short, sharp thrusts that sent sparks of aftershocks through her, and then he was saying her name and coming and kissing her again.
They kissed for long moments, slow, messy kisses that felt like the perfect thing after what they'd just done.
Tyler pulled out of her and threw away the condom, and then he was lying down with her and kissing her again. It would have been so easy to just fall asleep like that, warm and sated in her bed with Tyler next to her. That thought shocked her out of the warm, intimate daze she was in.
She pulled away and stared at Tyler. He met her eyes, and they just looked at each other for a long minute.
"I'm going to go," Tyler said, his voice rough and stunned, like he was realizing the same thing she was.
"Yeah," Kelsey said. "Yeah."
She gathered up her robe from under her and pulled it on. She tied it tightly and walked him to the door, because that was what she did when they did this.
She stood by the door while he pulled on his shoes, and she thought maybe this time he wouldn't kiss her goodbye.
He hesitated, but then he put his arms around her and kissed her, deep and slow. He met her eyes when he pulled away, and said, "Goodbye, Kelsey."
"Goodbye, Tyler." Kelsey shut the door behind him, locked it, and took a deep, shuddering breath. She didn't think she was going to cry, but she also wasn't going to fall asleep comfortable and warm like she might have if Tyler had stayed.
*
Kelsey didn't see Tyler again for over a month. She tensed for it sometimes, like when she was in the grocery store or stopping for dinner after work, but when she kept not running into him, she started to think maybe the goodbye she'd said to him the last time really was a goodbye.
She should have been fine with that. She hadn't wanted to date anyway. But she kept missing him in odd moments, times when she really wanted to go home with someone and could only think about how good he was in bed, times when she was struck again with the sting of David's leaving and wanted the reassurance of someone who understood, times when she was eating alone and remembering how much she'd enjoyed having dinner with him.
Kelsey just kept shaking it off. There was nothing to be done about it. Courtney seemed to attribute any dips in Kelsey's mood to the approach of finals, and Kelsey didn't say anything to contradict that assumption. When Courtney didn't ask her about the last time Kelsey had brought Tyler home, Kelsey decided she didn't want to talk about it anyway and didn't volunteer any details.
*
A week after Thanksgiving, Courtney cajoled Kelsey into going out for frozen yogurt.
"I'm not going to crash your date," Kelsey said.
Courtney laughed that off. "Jason and I go on plenty of dates that are just us, and we're going to be busy with finals soon." She looped her arm through Kelsey's. "Come hang out with us."
"Okay, okay," Kelsey said with a laugh. She closed her textbook. "Let's go."
"Yay!" Courtney cheered. She grinned at Kelsey, and they put on shoes and coats.
Courtney turned up the music in the car, grinning at Kelsey until they were both singing along at the top of their lungs.
It was fun. Not that Kelsey hadn't had any fun recently, but between work and school, she hadn't had this kind of simple hanging out with Courtney in a while.
They were both laughing when they walked into the frozen yogurt place, and Courtney turned that brightness on Jason, who was already there.
Tyler was also there, sitting sideways in a chair at the table Jason got up from to greet Courtney. Tyler looked up at Kelsey, and there was a moment, as their eyes met, when they seemed to be isolated, nothing in the world but the two of them.
Tyler dropped his eyes and broke the moment. "Hey."
Kelsey smiled tightly. "Hi." She managed to regain a wider smile by the time Jason and Courtney were done kissing.
"I feel like mint," Courtney said. She grinned brightly at Kelsey. "I know you're going to get a vanilla base."
"Yep. Best place to start from."
They got cups, and then they separated a little as they all chose different flavors of yogurt to start with. They necessarily reconvened near the toppings. Jason and Courtney kept up a lively conversation on the benefits of sprinkles and cookie pieces and sauces.
Kelsey let them do their thing while she put hot fudge and strawberries over her vanilla. It meant she was done first, Jason and Courtney finally starting in on putting toppings on their yogurt.
"What's your strategy?" Courtney asked Tyler.
Tyler shrugged. "I don't really have one. I just put on whatever sounds good." He looked down at his cup, and poured a small scoop of gummy bears into it.
"He ends up with weird combinations," Jason said.
"Yeah," Tyler admitted. "Sometimes." He added skittles and then cookie dough bits.
"So what's your strategy?" Jason asked Kelsey.
Kelsey tipped her cup toward him to show him what she'd chosen. "Plain and simple," she said.
"But still really rich and delicious," Jason said. He tipped his cup in her direction. "Most of us have to make a bunch of different choices to get to that."
Kelsey shrugged. "Sometimes I go for more things, but this is what I want today."
"Nothing wrong with that," Jason said.
Tyler finally stepped away from the toppings, and he and Jason rock-paper-scissored as they walked to the counter.
"Cheater," Jason said cheerfully when he lost. He pulled out his wallet when they got to the counter and paid for all four of them despite Kelsey's protest that she could buy her own. "Nah," Jason said. "We're gainfully employed and you two both go to school. Only fair for us to get it, and I lost."
"I work too," Kelsey said.
"No, I know that," Jason said. "That's not what I meant. I just meant let us do this."
Jason was actually a nice guy, and Courtney was giving her a weird look - Kelsey didn't look to see what Tyler was doing - so she let it go and smiled at Jason. "Thanks."
The girl at the counter ran Jason's card, and the four of them made their way to a table.
"So how is your job?" Jason asked.
"Good," Kelsey said. She could probably say a lot of things about her job, but she didn't really feel like saying them to him.
"Online sales taking off?" Tyler asked, and Kelsey looked right at him for the first time since they'd first gotten there. He looked completely sincere in his interest. He probably was.
"A little bit," Kelsey said. She smiled at him, kind of faintly, but real. "I've been making more post office runs. How's your grandma?"
"Oh, she's great," Tyler said. "Had the flu, but she's pretty tough."
Jason and Courtney were ignoring them in favor of being cutesy and taking bites of each other's yogurt creations.
"I'm glad to hear that," Kelsey said, completely meaning it. She was trying not to forget the intensity of the last time they saw each other, but it was just so easy to talk to him. She scraped her spoon through the hot fudge in her cup. "Did you get your brother to do something nice for her too?"
"Oh, yeah, he sent her flowers, so then I had to send her flowers because I couldn't let him show me up."
Kelsey chuckled around a spoonful of hot fudge and strawberry.
Tyler flashed her a quick smile. "Grandma got swag out of that flu."
That made Jason and Courtney stop being cutesy, or Jason anyway. He turned an incredulous stare on Tyler. "Did you really just say that?"
"Yep," Tyler said. "Cody would agree with me."
"Who's Cody?" Courtney asked when Jason just shook his head.
"My brother," Tyler said.
Kelsey ate careful bites of her frozen yogurt, letting them carry on the conversation.
"Oh," Courtney said. "Older or younger?"
"Younger," Tyler said.
"Another oldest child," Courtney said. "I have two sisters and a brother." She grinned at Kelsey. "And Kelsey."
Kelsey smiled back at her while Jason and Tyler looked from her to Courtney.
"Kelsey's an only child," Courtney explained to Jason and Tyler. "We would always go over to her house when we wanted it to be just us, and over to mine when we needed more people."
"You grew up together?" Jason asked.
"Yep," Courtney said. "Best friends since kindergarten." She held out her hand, and Kelsey smiled as she hooked her little finger with Courtney's. "Sometimes the things you pinkie swear when you're five last forever."
Kelsey kept smiling as she sat back and dug into her yogurt.
"That's how you know she starts with vanilla," Jason said.
"For frozen yogurt," Courtney said, still smiling at Kelsey. "She likes chocolate ice cream."
"Okay," Jason said slowly.
Kelsey stopped smiling and looked down into her cup. She knew it was an odd distinction, but she didn't really want to deal with Courtney's boyfriend judging her over it.
There was an awkward pause, and then Courtney asked, "How's yours, Tyler?"
"I think I should have gone with Kelsey's strategy," Tyler said. "It's all good, but it doesn't really fit together in combination."
"Did you start with cake batter yogurt again?" Jason asked.
"It's the best one," Tyler said. He looked forlornly at his cup. "It just doesn't always mix the best."
Kelsey tamped down the urge to offer him a spoonful of hers. Things weren't like that between them, and there wasn't any reason for her to try to make the evening better for him. Even if she wanted to.
"You've gotta up your game," Jason said, and from there it devolved into the kind of affectionate teasing guys were prone to.
Kelsey listened to it with half an ear while she ate carefully balanced spoonfuls of frozen yogurt, hot fudge, and strawberries.
Jason and Tyler eventually moved on from their teasing and included Kelsey and Courtney in their conversation again. It was fun. It was easy. Courtney was her best friend, so of course it was easy with her. Jason was pretty easy to get along with, even in the beginning before Kelsey had gotten to know him. And Tyler was just as easy to talk to as he had been every other time she'd spent time with him. Kelsey kept catching herself smiling at him, or bringing up things from their previous conversations and then reminding herself that that wasn't the kind of relationship they really had.
It didn't get awkward until they were outside saying goodbye and Tyler and Kelsey just stood there and looked at each other while Courtney and Jason kissed goodbye. Kelsey wanted to hug Tyler, wanted to feel his arms tight around her, but the last time they'd hooked up had shown her that wasn't a good idea. It was too easy to get close to him, and that wasn't what she needed in her life.
Kelsey and Tyler waved awkwardly at each other when Courtney and Jason were done, and then she and Courtney walked away from Jason and Tyler.
In the car, Courtney turned the volume on the stereo down and asked, "What's with you and Tyler?"
Kelsey shrugged, not wanting to tell even Courtney the whole depth of it. "Nothing. We hooked up a couple of times." She looked over at Courtney. "We can be chill and hang with you and Jason."
"I know you can be chill," Courtney said. "It just seemed like there was something going on there."
Kelsey shrugged. "You know, you hook up with someone and then it's kind of weird but you also know them a little." It was true enough, if only a faint version of the truth.
"Okay," Courtney said. "If you're sure it's cool to hang out with him."
"Yeah, it's fine." Or it would be. Kelsey could make it be anyway.
*
Kelsey put her head down and focused on school all the way through finals, and then picked up extra hours at the shop. The holiday season meant more business, both people coming into the store and online orders that needed to be filled and mailed, and Mary Ann was as happy to have Kelsey working extra hours as Kelsey was to be working them. It gave her something to do, and she was making money to buy Christmas presents and save up for whatever the next semester was going to bring.
They were set to close at four on Christmas Eve, and they stayed open until six because there were people in and out of the store all day.
"Thank you for staying," Mary Ann said when they finally closed up. She looked tired, but pleased with their business for the day.
"No problem," Kelsey said. She pulled out the register drawer. "I can finish closing up, if you want to go home to your family."
Mary Ann came over and hugged her. "No, I'll close. You go home. You have a longer drive." It wasn't that much longer, but Kelsey hugged Mary Ann back and let her take over the register drawer.
"I do have something for you," Mary Ann said, following Kelsey into the back. She went into the office while Kelsey pulled on her coat. She came back with an envelope. "Christmas bonus."
Kelsey hugged Mary Ann again instead of opening the envelope. "Thanks, Mary Ann. Have a nice Christmas."
"You too," Mary Ann said.
Kelsey tucked the envelope into her purse and went home to throw the rest of her stuff into an overnight bag. Courtney had already left, so Kelsey turned the heat off and texted her parents to say she was on her way.
It was later than Kelsey had planned to leave, but it wasn't too late by the time she made it to her parents'. The house was lit up, the inside lights and Christmas lights outside turned on and casting warm glows on the snow outside.
Mom came out of the kitchen and Dad came out of the living room when Kelsey pushed open the door and called out a hello. Kelsey dropped her coat onto a hook in the entryway and hugged both her parents.
"How was the drive?" Dad asked.
"It was fine," Kelsey said.
"Dinner's almost ready," Mom said. "Put your bag in your room, and we'll eat."
Kelsey did as she was told, stopping in the living room to put presents under the tree before she joined her parents in the dining room for dinner.
Kelsey talked to her parents enough that there wasn't a lot of news to share, but being across the dinner table made it easier for Mom to pin her with a look and ask, "Are you seeing anyone?"
Kelsey flashed on Tyler's face, the way he looked when he really smiled and the bright blue of his eyes, but she said, "No."
"You must be meeting people," Mom said. "Didn't you say Courtney's boyfriend plays a sport? I'm sure he could introduce you to some people."
"He plays hockey," Kelsey said. "Professionally. I've met some of his teammates." She tried not to think about Tyler. She didn't need to make the conversation any more complicated by giving her mom the hint that there might be something else there.
"And you're not interested in any of them? I'm sure they know other people too."
"Mom, come on," Kelsey said.
"Honey," Mom said.
Kelsey shook her head. "I'm not ready."
"It's been seven months."
"And it was three and a half years before that," Kelsey said. "I just need more time." When Mom opened her mouth, Kelsey appealed to Dad, hoping he would back her up.
"We're just worried about you, sweetheart," he said.
"I'm fine," Kelsey said. "I'm just focusing on school right now. I'll date again when I'm ready."
"We just want you to be happy," Mom said, and then she finally dropped the subject.
*
Christmas morning was quiet, breakfast and opening presents - Kelsey even had a stocking to go with her other presents - and they were still hanging around the living room, all three of them in pajamas, when there was a knock on the door.
Dad got up to answer it, and came back with Courtney.
"Merry Christmas," Courtney said, and she hugged Mom and then Kelsey. "Things are crazy at my house. I thought I'd get away for a minute."
"You're always welcome here, you know that," Mom said. Then she said, "I think I'm going to go get dressed," and Dad went with her, leaving Kelsey and Courtney alone in the living room.
"Look," Courtney said, drawing a pendant away from her chest so Kelsey could see it. "Present from Jason. He made me promise not to open it until this morning."
Kelsey put her fingers under the pendant to get a better look at it. Diamond, unless it was fake, set in gold on a matching gold chain. "Wow," she said. "That's beautiful."
"I know," Courtney said. "I love it. Jason's great."
Kelsey made a face. "Keep your voice down."
Courtney laughed. "What? Are we ten again, trying not to let your parents know we're talking about boys?"
"We might as well be," Kelsey groaned. "They asked me if I was seeing anyone."
"Oh no," Courtney said.
"Yeah. And they suggested Jason could introduce me to people."
"Oh no," Courtney said again. "You didn't tell them anything about Tyler, did you?"
"No!" Kelsey glanced at the stairs. "Do not let them hear you say his name."
Courtney also looked at stairs. "Quick, go get dressed. We'll go to my house. My family wants to see you anyway."
Kelsey grinned at her and dashed up the stairs to her room. She swapped her pajamas for jeans and a sweater, ran a brush through her hair, and grabbed her phone and keys. "I'm going over to Courtney's," she called as she dashed back down the stairs. It was like being a teenager again, or ten or six or any of the million times she'd done the same thing growing up.
"Don't be out too late," Mom called, just like she had a million times before.
Kelsey shoved her feet into her boots, pulled on her jacket and a hat, and fell out of the house with Courtney, both of them laughing. Kelsey hooked her arm through Courtney's.
"This is nice," she said. "Even if it is freezing."
"It is," Courtney said. "Just like when we were kids."
And just like when they were kids, there were a couple of neighbors in the three blocks between their houses who waved and called out hellos.
As they turned the block toward Courtney's house, Kelsey dropped her arm and said, "Race you," even as she took off for the door.
They slipped and slid a little in the snow, and then they crashed into and through the door. And then they were inside and the chaos of Courtney's house on Christmas meant no one was going to ask Kelsey about dating.
*
Kelsey spent most of winter break working, but that still left her enough time to have some fun, read something that wasn't for school, and sleep in. People started coming back from their vacations in the middle of January, taking time to hang out before classes started.
On a Tuesday night, Kelsey and Courtney swung by to pick up their friends Brie and Sarah and went to the movies.
"You're not going to see this with Jason?" Brie asked.
"We don't have to do everything together," Courtney said. "I want to spend time with my girls."
"Enough talk about your boyfriend," Sarah said. "We need to talk about Chris Pine and how I can make him my boyfriend."
They all laughed, and Courtney said, "Good luck with that one."
"But you have to admit she has taste," Brie said. "I love Kevin, but Chris Pine is fine."
"I'm still not dating," Kelsey said, "but even I might make an exception for Chris Pine."
They all laughed again, and Brie asked, "Really?"
Kelsey shrugged, glancing at her in the rearview mirror. "He's hot, and those eyes."
"Kelsey likes blue eyes," Courtney said.
Kelsey shot her a sharp look, and Courtney just shrugged at her. "You do. You always have."
It wasn't untrue, and as long as Courtney wasn't talking about anyone specific, there wasn't any reason for Kelsey to be upset about it.
"Well, you can't have him anyway," Sarah said, "because he's going to be mine."
They all laughed, and they were still laughing about it when Kelsey parked the car and they went into the theater to buy their tickets.
"I want a snack," Brie declared once they were inside, so they all went to stand around the concessions area and look at the menu. "If I get popcorn, will you all help me eat it?"
"I will," Kelsey said. She hadn't had movie popcorn in a while. "I'll get drinks."
"And I'm buying M&Ms," Sarah said. "We don't have to put them in the popcorn," she added before anyone could protest.
"Red Vines," Courtney said.
They stepped up to the counter, paying for their snacks and then finding their theater and looking at their choices of empty seats. They took four in the middle of an empty row halfway up the theater, and passed napkins and snacks around until everyone had what they wanted.
It wasn't two minutes later that a group of guys walked into the theater, and Kelsey sank back into her seat in a brief moment of resignation at the change in their evening before she had to smile as Jason spotted them and brought his group up to meet theirs. He was with Tyler, Cal, and someone Kelsey hadn't met yet.
"What are you doing here?" Courtney asked when Jason came up to where they were and leaned in to kiss her.
"Seeing a movie," he said with a grin. "You ladies mind if we join you?" He gestured at the other guys. "Tyler, Cal, Oliver, this is Kelsey, Brie, and Sarah."
Courtney looked at the rest of them for an answer. Kelsey shrugged, because she'd been enjoying the night out with just the four of them, but having the guys in the theater was going to change things anyway, and she could handle it if everyone else wanted to sit with them. Brie seemed to share her willingness to go along with whatever Courtney and Sarah wanted.
"Of course not," Sarah said with a smile that took in all four of the guys.
The reshuffling of their seating arrangement ended up with Kelsey near the middle, between Tyler and Cal. One one side of her, Cal leaned over to talk to Courtney and Jason. On the other side, Brie and Sarah were chatting with Oliver, which left Kelsey and Tyler to look at each other.
"Did you have a good Christmas?" Tyler asked after an awkward moment of silence.
"Yes," Kelsey said. "I drove down and spent it with my parents. How about you?"
"It was good," Tyler said. "We had a game the day after, but I flew home for a few days. Got to see my brother while I was there."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." Tyler gave her a faint smile. "We both got big hugs from our grandma."
That surprised Kelsey into a laugh, which made Tyler's smile get a little bigger.
"What's making you laugh?" Sarah asked from the other side of Tyler.
Kelsey met Tyler's eyes for one electric moment that made her breathless. Then she shook it off and looked past him to Sarah. "Kind of an inside joke," she offered.
Sarah raised her eyebrows at Kelsey and then looked at Tyler. "I didn't know you knew each other well enough to have inside jokes."
Tyler looked at Kelsey, leaving it up to her to answer Sarah.
"You know," Kelsey said with a shrug, "he's friends with Jason, and Jason and Courtney are always together, so." She shrugged again.
"They are always together," Oliver said, and that drew Sarah and Brie's attention to him again.
"Sorry," Tyler said in an undertone. "That was awkward."
Kelsey shrugged. There wasn't anything she could say to that. It was awkward, and it would probably continue to be awkward. She was saved from having to make any more conversation by the dimming of the lights.
They passed snacks back and forth through the first few trailers, until everyone was settled with what they wanted, and then all Kelsey had to do was watch Chris Pine run around Moscow and New York for two hours.
There was a lot of chatter when the movie was over, everyone offering opinions while they pulled on their coats and gathered up their trash.
Their overlapping conversations carried over into the lobby, where Sarah caught up to Kelsey and hooked an arm through hers. "Kelsey agrees with me," Sarah declared.
"What do I agree with you about?"
"That Chris Pine has great eyes and is totally dreamy." There was an edge of playfulness to Sarah's declaration that kept it from sounding completely absurd.
Kelsey laughed and leaned against Sarah. "I do agree with you." She was still smiling when she looked up and met Tyler's eyes, just as blue as Chris Pine's but set in a face that was looking directly at her, like he was seeing right into her.
No one else noticed them having a moment because Jason said, "We have practice in the morning," and that distracted everyone into saying goodbye.
It would have been weird if Kelsey hadn't hugged Tyler with everyone hugging everyone else, so she went into it with literally open arms. It felt so good, Tyler's arms wrapped tight around her, Kelsey's nose pressed to his shoulder where she could smell him, that Kelsey just settled into it when Tyler held on for a few seconds too long.
He smiled at her, mouth and eyes soft when he pulled away, and she returned it, unable to do anything else.
They had to wait for Courtney and Jason to kiss goodbye, and then they separated into two groups as they went out into the cold.
The moment the car doors were closed, Sarah said, "You have to introduce me to more of Jason's friends."
"Sarah," Brie said.
"What? They're cute. They're athletes so they probably have stamina."
Brie laughed, and Courtney said, "Oh, they do. Or Jason does anyway."
Kelsey ignored the way Courtney was glancing in her direction.
Sarah poked Kelsey's shoulder. "What's up with you and Tyler? You seemed to be getting along, and he has very blue eyes."
Kelsey paused for a moment, deciding what she wanted to tell them, but they were all close friends and there was no reason not to spill at least some of it. "We've hooked up a couple of times," she admitted.
"Really?" Brie asked.
"Yep."
"So you weren't joking when you said you'd make an exception for blue eyes," Sarah said.
Everyone else laughed, and even Kelsey had to smile reluctantly.
"So does he have stamina?" Sarah asked.
"Oh my God, I'm not telling you any more about it," Kelsey said.
"Spoilsport," Sarah said. "It's been too long since I had a good hookup. You could at least tell me about yours."
"You went home with that bartender, like, last week," Brie said.
"Yeah, but he wasn't anything special."
They all laughed, and it took the attention off of Kelsey, enough that no one else asked her about Tyler.
*
Kelsey managed to go for a while without running into Tyler much. She saw him out at bars sometimes, when she was with Courtney or Brie and Sarah, but they only nodded at each other in passing, and Kelsey kept her attention on her friends. As much as part of her ached to get close to Tyler again, she didn't want to get drawn into anything more complicated than the few hookups they'd already had.
At the end of February, Courtney talked Kelsey, Brie, and Sarah into going to one of Jason's games with her. Courtney been to a couple already, with some of the other players' wives and girlfriends, but it was the first hockey game for the rest of them.
"This is a lot of people," Brie said as they found their seats.
"They're popular around here," Courtney said. She gave them a rundown of how the game worked while they were waiting for it to start.
Before the game started, there was a big production of introducing the starting players. Jason wasn't one of them, but Tyler was.
Sarah leaned over Courtney to say, "There's your boy," to Kelsey.
"He's not mine," Kelsey protested, but she looked more carefully at the line of players on the ice. They didn't have their helmets on, standing together for the anthem. The shape of Tyler's face was familiar, but he looked different in his hockey gear.
The game moved too fast for Kelsey to catch much of the action, so she picked out the number on Tyler's back and watched for that as much as she could. She couldn't quite follow what was happening, but she knew he'd done something good when the announcers called his name after a goal.
"I have no idea what's happening," Sarah said cheerfully.
"Assists," Courtney said. "Tyler and Mark helped on the goal, so they each get a point." She gave them a brief rundown of what points meant in hockey.
"So Kelsey's boy is doing well," Sarah said.
Courtney's, "Yes," overlapped with Kelsey's, "He's not my boy."
"Sure," Sarah said. "But success is sexy, right?"
On the other side of her, Brie stopped being able to hold in her laughter. "Oh my God, Sarah."
Sarah flashed a grin. "It's true."
"Yep," Courtney said. "I hope Jason gets a point."
He didn't, and despite Tyler and the guys he was on the ice with getting a second goal near the end, the Phantoms lost.
"Is Jason going to want to see us after they lost?" Brie asked when they lingered around the rink at the end of the game.
"He knew we were coming," Courtney said. "They won't be happy about losing, but he'll come see us."
There were a few other people hanging around, fans with things they want players to sign. The four of them stayed to the side, letting the fans get autographs and pictures, while they waited for Jason.
Jason brought a Oliver and another guy over with him. He kissed Courtney and accepted her tight hug first, then introduced them all to Mark.
While everyone else was talking, Brie leaned over to Kelsey and said, "We're going to need a team roster to keep them all straight if we keep meeting more of them."
Kelsey laughed. "There are a lot of them." She looked up at Jason and the other guys in front of them, and then past that, to where the last few fans were still hanging around. Tyler was there, wearing a suit and crouched down next to one of the kids. Tyler and the kid both had serious looks on their faces as they talked. Tyler signed the kid's piece of paper, and then they both turned to a woman who must have been the kid's mom while she took a picture of them with her phone.
Kelsey drifted to the side, away from the group she was with, to where she was just opposite where Tyler was saying goodbye to the kid.
Tyler stood up, looked up, and met Kelsey's eyes. He looked so good, and he was looking at her like he wanted to see her. Kelsey didn't look away while he crossed the space between them.
"Hi," he said.
"Hi." Kelsey finally dropped her eyes, looking down at the ground between them. She wanted so much to step forward into him, and that was probably showing in her face.
"I got a ride to the rink," Tyler said, "so I can't drive you home."
Kelsey glanced up. He was looking down at her, and there was an echo of what she was feeling on his face. She stopped herself from reaching out for him.
"I drove," she said, "and we came in two cars. I can give you a ride."
Tyler nodded his agreement. Kelsey drifted back to her group and tugged Brie a few steps away from them. Brie was the other driver, and she was the least likely to draw attention to what Kelsey was about to say.
"I'm going to give Tyler a ride home," Kelsey said. "Can you make sure everyone else has a ride?"
Brie raised her eyebrows, but didn't make any other comment. "Yeah, sure. Have a good night."
Kelsey smiled briefly at her and slid away from their group to where Tyler was still waiting for her. He reached out like he was going to touch her, and then let his hand drop.
"Ready?" Kelsey asked.
"Yeah." Tyler followed her to her car, waited for her to unlock it before he could get in.
In the moment before they both closed their doors and the overhead light went off, she could see the strong line of his jaw, the way his hair was still damp.
They didn't talk in the car, other than Tyler giving her directions.
Kelsey pulled into the space he directed her to in front of his building and turned off the car.
"Come up?" he asked.
Like there was a chance she was going to say no to him. "Yes." Her fingers itched to reach out and touch him.
Tyler led her into the building and up to his floor. The apartment was dimly lit when he opened the door, one lamp in the living room casting just enough light into the entryway for them to see by.
They stopped to take off their shoes, and Kelsey hung her coat and purse on one of the hooks on the wall.
Tyler touched her arm, the first time he'd touched her all night. It sent a shock through her, and her eyes snapped to his while she sucked in a breath.
"I need to grab some water," he said. "Have to rehydrate. You want anything?"
Kelsey shook her head, but she followed him to the kitchen. He filled a water glass from a pitcher in the fridge, drank it down, and refilled it. He took the second glass with him as he turned off the light and walked further into the apartment. Kelsey followed him down a short hall to one of the bedrooms. Tyler turned on the light and closed the door behind them. He drank from his water glass and then set it down on a crowded nightstand.
He loosened his tie as he walked back to where Kelsey was still just inside the door. He stopped just in front of her, slight smile on his face. "Hi."
Kelsey smiled back at him. "Hi." She reached for him at the same time he reached for her, and they met in the middle in a kiss that was so soft and so perfect her heart ached with it. Kelsey closed her eyes and rested her forehead against Tyler's chest, feeling the heat of him through his dress shirt.
Tyler wrapped his arms around her, and she felt so safe, so cared for.
"This is a bad idea," she said, because it was. It was so easy to be with him, so easy for them to be together, and it was everything neither of them wanted. "I'm not ready to do this again."
"I know," Tyler said. "I'm not either." And then he tipped her face up and kissed her again. "I promise not to call you," he murmured against her lips.
Kelsey let out a short, hysterical laugh. "You don't even have my number."
Tyler looked down at her, serious and solemn. "So you know I won't." He brushed her hair back and kissed her.
Kelsey leaned into it, leaned into him, giving up on rationality and letting the feelings Tyler brought out in her take over. She kissed him back, opening up to him and letting him lick deeply into her mouth.
She slid her hands under Tyler's suit jacket, getting closer to his warmth, feeling the strong muscles of his back through his dress shirt.
One of Tyler's hands slid up under her sweater, warm and solid at the small of her back. With that one touch of skin on skin, every one of Kelsey's senses burst to life, and then it wasn't enough to touch him through his shirt, to have his hand and mouth be the only places he was touching her skin.
Kelsey moved her hands, bringing them between their bodies and up to the top button of Tyler's shirt.
Tyler sighed into her mouth when she undid the first button. When she got to the third, he broke away from her. "Take off your clothes," he said, voice rough.
Kelsey pulled her sweater over her head first so then she could watch him undress while she took off her jeans. He hung his tie on a rack in the closet, his jacket on a hanger. He was more casual with his pants and shirt, draping them over a hamper in his closet, and Kelsey reached behind herself to unhook her bra while he stepped out of his boxer briefs. By the time she pushed her panties down and off, he was walking across the room toward her.
He stopped just far enough away that he could touch her, hands settling onto her hips while he just looked at her. It sent heat all through her and made her breath come faster. Kelsey looked him over, letting her eyes linger on the familiar line of his jaw, the strength in his arms, the hardening curve of his cock.
Tyler ran his hand up her side, spreading warmth across her bare skin. "Come to bed," he said.
Kelsey nodded. "Yes," she said.
Tyler's bed was neatly made, dark gray sheets and comforter in straight lines against the large, dark curve of the headboard. He pushed the sheets and comforter aside to make room for them.
Kelsey followed him across the room and got into his bed. Tyler looked down at her for half a second before he stretched out over her, hands framing her face, legs outside of hers, his body warm and strong above her.
Kelsey reached up to run her fingers lightly over his cheek. He leaned down so she didn't have to lean up very far to kiss him. The kiss got heated fast, both of them opening up to it and Kelsey putting her arms around Tyler and pulling him more firmly down on top of her.
Tyler kept one hand on her cheek, and the other ran down her neck, down her arm, over her side, across her hip. Her nerves sparked to life everywhere he touched her.
"Kelsey," he murmured.
She clung to him, arms tight around him and fingers digging into his back. "Please," she said. "Just-"
He pulled back enough to meet her eyes, his gone dark and serious. "Yeah?"
"Yeah," she agreed.
He slid his free hand in, between her legs, and groaned to match her gasp when he pressed his fingers against where she was so wet and sensitive.
Kelsey leaned up to press her lips against his throat, the dip between his collarbones, while Tyler reached into the top drawer of his nightstand and came up with a condom.
He had to pull all the way away from her to roll it on, and then they were both moving, Kelsey spreading her legs to make space for him, Tyler settling into that space.
Kelsey moaned when he pushed into her.
"Shh," Tyler said. "Cal's sleeping."
Kelsey bit her lip until Tyler kissed her. Then she didn't have to think about being quiet and could think about what they were doing instead, the way he felt hard and thick inside her.
Kelsey tilted her hips up to get him deeper inside her, wrapped herself around him as best she could, and let herself get lost in the intensity of how it felt to be so intimately connected to Tyler.
Every one of his thrusts sent waves of sensation through her. He was kissing her too, and touching her, and she was touching him back, hands roaming over his back and down his arms, legs wrapped around his hips.
Tyler lifted his mouth from hers, and she opened her eyes to look at him, his lips red and eyes dark.
"I want you to come," he said, hips grinding into hers to punctuate his words.
Kelsey's mouth fell open on a gasp. "Yes," she said. "I want-"
Tyler moved in her, short, barely there thrusts that were more of a grind than anything else. "Can you, like this?"
Kelsey waited out a few more thrusts, paying attention to the way they made the heat slowly build in her. "I need," she said, squirming against him. She needed a little more if she was going to come.
There was an awkward moment while Tyler pulled back a little and they were a confused tangle of limbs until Kelsey said, "I can," and got her hand between them, fingers right where she needed them.
That was good, Tyler pushing into her over and over, his cock filling her up, his mouth on hers, and her own hand between them. She didn't have to work for it very hard; his thrusts kept pushing her fingers tighter against her, setting up a rhythm that matched the rhythm of his cock in her.
It worked to make Kelsey's desire spiral up and up and up until it finally broke into an orgasm that had her crying out, not caring that Tyler only managed to silence part of it with his kiss. She did her best to keep kissing him while he thrust into her a few more times before groaning his way through his own orgasm.
He stayed on her and in her for a little longer, kissing her with a softness that almost made her cry. Even after he pulled out and took care of the condom, Tyler stayed close, on his side next to her. Kelsey turned to face him and traced the line of his jaw with one finger before she leaned in to kiss him again.
He was all warmth and strength, pulling her close so she could feel him, and his sheets were soft against her skin.
Kelsey never wanted to leave.
"I'm not going to stay," she said.
"No." Tyler brushed her hair away from her face. "You shouldn't." And then he leaned in and kissed her again.
They made out for a long time, the kind of soft, slow kisses Kelsey associated with boyfriends and lazy Saturday afternoons, the kind of thing that made her want to stay, to spend the rest of her life with him.
That thought was scary enough for her to finally break away from him. "I should go," she said, looking right into his serious blue eyes.
Tyler stroked her cheek. "Okay."
Kelsey got out of bed. She pulled on her clothes piece by piece and only looked at him again once she was fully dressed.
He was in just a pair of pajama pants, hanging low on his hips and leaving his chest bare to her gaze. Kelsey's breath caught, and then she turned around and walked out of his room.
Tyler followed her to the entryway and waited while she put on her shoes and coat, grabbed her purse off the hook and automatically checked for her keys and phone.
"Kelsey," he said, and then she went to him, hands against that warm, bare skin while he bent and kissed her softly.
Kelsey leaned up into it, drinking in the softness of his kiss, the way he smelled, the feeling of his skin under her hands. Neither one of them spoke when their lips parted, Tyler's hand still curved around the back of her neck, her hands still flat against his chest.
Kelsey leaned her forehead against his shoulder for one long moment, and then she pulled away, turned around, and walked out of his apartment.
Part 3