Page 25 of Center of Gravity

“That’s a stupid fucking question.” Emma proceeded to launch into a discourse on heteronormative privilege that endured all the way to the boardwalk down to the beach. “Don’t sleep with him, Marie, I forbid it. He’s a backward step in evolution.”

Marie laughed. “I’ll make him work extra hard for it.”

Tom scoffed.

“But I will say…” Emma paused for effect, “It’s kind of a bummer because I was totally prepared to break my one month rule for you.”

I laughed. “Pencil me in for our next lifetime.”

“It’s a date.”

Our feet hitcool midnight sand and our party broke apart. Groups of revelers were scattered along the shoreline. Coolers were abundant, as were long hair and guitars. Not much had changed. Since the dawn of time, there’d been no more surefire combo than a guy with a guitar by the ocean. Emma and Jill flocked in the direction of one playing a John Mayer-esque tune and I couldn’t blame them. Alex walked with them a bit and then released them into the wild, loping back to me.

“I’m sorry about Tom. He’s an idiot with no filter when he drinks.”

“It’s fine. Really. It’s not 1990 after all, right?” I gave him a sardonic smile. “But I think I’ll head home.”

“Oh come on, just wait.” He held up a finger, darted into the middle of a circle of people—a couple of whom greeted him—then returned with a pair of beers.

I’d parked my ass on an empty patch of sand and he dropped down beside me, passing me a beer. For a while, we didn’t say anything, just watched the shifting pattern of bodies in the moonlight and listened to the disharmonious meld of music from three different groups of guitarists, each with their own hopeful fans pressed in close to their covers of other heartbreaker’s songs.

“Do I get on your nerves because I’m a flirt and enjoy messing with you?” Alex twirled the bottom of his beer can in the sand, reminding me of the Spirograph I used to have as a kid. I watched the circles expand and then looked up at him.

“You get on my nerves because you talk a lot.” He didn’t get on my nerves, not in that way, and I was certain my smile gave me away, but he didn’t reply immediately, just tipped his head back for another swallow, a little droplet of beer hanging on his lip ring until he knuckled it away.

“You’re still here,” he said, and I thought he meant beyond the present moment. He was right.

“So I am.” I reached and touched the curve of silver with the tip of my finger. Alex went still, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed.

“Was this your first one?” I asked of the piercing.

He turned, ever so slightly, so that my finger grazed his lip, soft and warm, before I pulled it away. I was dancing along a mighty fine line.

“I think it was the second. Maybe the third. I don’t know. I can’t remember and there were a lot of them. I guess now it’s probably more edgy to not have tats or piercings.”

“How did you decide which ones to keep?”

“Easy.” When he grinned, it was a bit sharp, a bit predatory, like a wolf smiling from the underbrush. A shiver raced over my skin.

“I kept the ones that feel the best during sex. These”—he tugged at his shirt where the barbells lay—“are fucking phenomenal in the right hands.”

I’d heard, but figured half of it was hype. But the way he said it and the way he looked at me when he said it, his eyes all dark promise, almost made me squirm. I’d never been with anyone with more than a pierced ear, and Sean had been about as vanilla as they came. Shifting uncomfortably, I blocked him from my mind. I didn’t know what to say in response to Alex, so I said nothing. If I’d opened my mouth, there was a decent chance that,Show me, might’ve come out. Thank God I hadn’t taken part in the shots earlier.

Alex finished off his beer and cracked another.

“If you’re hungover tomorrow, I’m not taking it easy on you,” I warned.

“God no, please be as rough as you want.” He grinned and I put my beer to my lips, drowning my throat before I could say something I’d regret.

He watched me, dropping back to his elbows in the sand.

“So we’re just going to ignore this, then?”

“Ignore what?”

“Exactly.” He rolled his eyes. “Why?”

“Plenty of reasons, but let’s forget all of those and just go with this: just because you’re attracted to someone doesn’t mean you have to act on it.”