My guilt is replaced by excitement by that Saturday night, though. And by the time Rose comes by my room to walk me over, after I wrap up piano practice early, I’m in a great mood. We sent Molly and Eleanor ahead without us so we could have a few minutes together on the walk over, before we have to split up. Even walking into the party together might get read wrong with the state of the rumors at the moment, and we can’t risk it.

I sit in my desk chair and grab one of my sneakers. “I’m almost ready,” I say. “I just have to get my shoes on.”

She saunters up, nods, then she kisses me until I drop my shoe to the ground. And for god’s sake, that one kiss is enough to quicken my breath and plant a needing heaviness in the pit of my gut. The ache is back, like it always seems to be these days, and I want her, even if it means we’ll be late. No, I need her to. It’s kind of ridiculous, isn’t it? I go my whole life without sex, and now it’s suddenly all I want to do? I’m better than that, aren’t I?

Nope, actually, I don’t think I am. It’s really hard for me to sound casual as I ask, “When did you tell the girls we’d meet them?”

She looks at me, and her eyes darken from light to forest green in an instant. “They can wait,” she says, getting to her knees as she runs a hand up my thigh. It drifts over the material of my jeans, skipping a little over the zipper and buttons, and then her skin meets mine, and I let my head fall back until it hits the top of the chair. I do my best to control my breathing—because for some reason, in that moment, it seems embarrassing how quickly she brought me from fine to definitely-not-fine—but then she cruelly stops there. I wait for her to keep going, but she doesn’t. She just waits, the pads of her fingers pressed just by my hip bones.

I’m shaking with the effort of reining myself in when I finally open my eyes and look down to find her looking smugly back up at me. She quirks an eyebrow in a silent question.

I hate her a little.

“Do you want to head to the party now?” she asks. “We’d get there on time.”

I shake my head.

“What was that?” she asks, and she is enjoying herself at my expense a little too much here.

“No,” I say grudgingly, and one corner of her mouth lifts into a crooked smile.