Just Past Two (Comes in Threes)

by Elia Winters

  Abby burst out laughing, heart suddenly full. He could always make her laugh. “I did. That’s what I’ve been keeping from you.”

  “I knew it.” He shook his head in disappointment. “You going to prison is really going to put a damper on this New Year’s.” He dropped a chaste kiss on her lips before sweeping her into the dance again. This was textbook for Sam; he wasn’t a PDA kind of guy, and for all his jokes, he was pretty serious underneath. She loved that about him. She’d been drawn to his seriousness from the very beginning. Even when they were first dating, he’d been so respectful of her, never wanting to push her boundaries, until she’d practically had to drag him to bed. She’d landed herself one of the good ones. It had all felt so tentative back then, a relationship with someone she could see a future with, back when she was still trying to muddle her way into adulthood.

  Over Sam’s shoulder, the crowd parted, and another familiar face came into view. She froze, body going suddenly motionless like she couldn’t convince it to move. She must have gone pale, because Sam’s response was all concern. “What? Are you okay?”

  Across the dance floor, a familiar figure strolled out of the crowd. His name and a score of memories both came flooding back all at once. Zachary Levine, tall and bronze, always leaving conversations half finished because of swim team practice or a lifeguarding gig. Zach, who she’d never fucked but had wanted to, Zach of so many near misses, privy to all her wildest days.

  He looked just as good as he had back in college. He was still tall and golden brown, with light hair that probably still lightened up in the summer. He still had that swimmer’s long, lean body with an impossibly broad smile, and wild curly hair that spoke to his biracial ethnicity. He even had freckles like her, darker constellations scattered across his skin. He made eye contact with her across the crowded dance floor and started coming their way.

  Abby looked to Sam, like he might somehow be able to help, which was ridiculous. “It’s Zach,” she said, like that would explain anything at all.

  His eyebrows went up even more. “Okay? You know I don’t know who the hell any of these people are.”

  “Zachary Levine. He was on my floor back in freshman and sophomore year. He dated my roommate for a while, and then he…” She trailed off as he closed the distance, all warm smiles that brought up the same giddy nervousness of her youth.

  “Abby Wood!”

  Abby stepped out of Sam’s embrace, and Zach swept her up into a hug, already laughing, his body so warm against hers. He still smelled the same, kind of, and she didn’t even know she’d remember his scent until she was breathing it in. Zach held her at arm’s length, looking her up and down. “Holy shit, Abby, you look amazing. It can’t have been ten years. You look as young as when we graduated.”

  “It’s been ten years.” She gestured to her husband, fumbling her words. “This is Zach. Sam. This is Sam, my husband.” She moved her arm up and down, like a high-speed Vanna White showing off the latest prize puzzle. “Sam, this is Zachary Levine. We were friends back in college.”

  Zach shook Sam’s hand, warm and cordial. “You lucky bastard. I didn’t think anyone could get Abby to settle down.”

  “Me?” Like hell she was going to take that slander. “You dated pretty much the whole floor!” She turned to Sam. “Listen. I may have had my own wild days in college, but Zach puts them to shame.”

  “Oh really?” Sam grinned, probably happy he was going to get these wild tales after all. “Come on, Zach, maybe you can tell me some stories. Abby keeps dragging me away from everyone who might be able to dish the dirt.”

  Zach’s laugh, loud and free like it always had been, took her right back to the crush she’d nursed for him for years. They were always passing like ships in the night, Zach moving from relationship to relationship, never single at the same time she was. “Let’s grab a table and a drink.”

  Zach left for the bar, and Abby grabbed Sam’s arm. “Come on. Go easy on me.”

  “Okay, okay, I’m not gonna pump him for information.” Sam held up three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”

  “Fine. One drink.” She pulled him toward the bar after Zach. “And if I ask you to dance again, we go.”

  …

  Abby was pretty jumpy tonight. It was just a reunion, and she’d been looking forward to going, or so Sam had thought. But ever since they’d gotten here, she’d vacillated between loud and shy, shifting from the composed, put-together, brilliant woman he loved, to some kind of unrecognizable version of herself, in turns raucous and uncertain, trying out different emotions like shoes.

  Now, though, three drinks into an increasingly laughter-filled conversation with Zach, she was back to the confident self he’d remembered. They hadn’t actually told any stories of the past yet, just stuff about their current lives. Zach told them about his years in the Coast Guard, living down in Florida, and moving back to the area just last year.

  “Western Mass, can’t stay away.” Zach shrugged. “My company offered me a relocation deal too good to pass up. I’m on the road almost a hundred nights a year, but I don’t mind.”

  “The hospitality industry suits you,” Abby said with a smile. “You certainly seemed hospitable enough to our entire dorm.”

  Zach threw back his head and laughed. “Okay, that’s fair, that’s fair.”

  Sam still couldn’t tell if Abby had slept with Zach. He wasn’t going to ask, not yet, anyway, but couldn’t stop the curiosity. It wasn’t jealousy. It was something else, something totally different from jealousy, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Zach was a handsome man, and thinking of him with Abby, for some reason, wasn’t unpleasant at all. Maybe he’d secretly been hoping the stories would go there, a tantalizing hint of a wild Abby hidden inside the familiar Abby he loved.

  They moved on to talking about Sam’s career, and then how he and Abby had met. She told the story better than he did, about him losing control of his vase in the middle of the class and hitting her with a chunk of clay just as she was coming over to compliment him on his progress. It was a funny story, one he didn’t mind even though he came off looking a little silly, and hearing Abby tell it was always a delight.

  Zach laughed. “Did you tell him it would take a few more drinks to get you into mud wrestling?”

  Abby wobbled her wine and snorted. “I did not.”

  Zach put a hand to his head. “Do you remember that time?”

  “What time?” Abby giggled.

  “Mud wrestling in the quad for the Orchard Games. Freshman, sophomore year?”

  Abby held up her glass. “I was motherfucking Orchard Mud Champion. Of course I remember.” She toasted herself and drank.

  “You mud wrestled?” Sam stared, trying to wrap his mind around it. Mud wrestling? Who actually did that? Abby, apparently. His Abby. Sure, she was playful, but that…was a whole different level of playful.

  Zach jumped in before she could answer. “You should have seen it. She was like an Olympian.” He paused, expression going thoughtful. “Your hair was blue back then, right?”

  “Blue?” Sam turned more fully in his chair. He couldn’t picture Abby without her long, beautiful red hair.

  “Don’t remind me.” She finished her glass of wine. “Bleaching it almost ruined it. Part of my wild, rebellious phase.”

  “You mean, the one that lasted all four years of college?” Zach teased, nudging her with his elbow.

  “Please.” Abby threw her napkin at Zach, but her smile wobbled a little. “Don’t exaggerate.”

  “You should be proud of your legacy.” Zach’s expression was earnest. “I think you’re the only person to accomplish the full Campus Twenty.”

  Abby’s normally pale skin went white, her freckles standing out even more, and she covered her face with her hands. “Oh God.”

  Sam shouldn’t ask. She was clearly embarrassed, but underneath her hands, was she…laughing? She pulled her hands away, and yeah, she was laughing even as her pale skin
flushed red.

  So he had to ask. “What’s the Campus Twenty?”

  Zach raised an eyebrow to Abby. “You want to tell him?”

  Abby tipped her head back to stare up at the ceiling of the ballroom, then looked over to Sam and said the next words all in a rush. “Twenty public spots on campus to fool around without getting caught.”

  “Oh.”

  What was he supposed to say, other than “oh”? So she’d fooled around in public before. That wasn’t even such a big deal. It wasn’t something he had ever done, but Abby was always more adventurous than him. It wasn’t like that was a surprise. He’d followed the straight and narrow all the way through college, and she’d had some…indiscretions.

  “It wasn’t anything,” Abby insisted. “Just some hand jobs, maybe a blow job, some stupid shit we did when we were young and dumb.”

  Zach raised his glass to her, then looked her up and down once more. What must Abby look like through his eyes? All soft curves, the plunging neckline of her dress revealing the generous swell of her breasts, as tantalizing as she had been ten years ago. “Well, not we,” he clarified. “Not you and me.”

  Zach and Abby hadn’t slept together. For some reason, that disappointed Sam, which was weird. He could nearly picture it, though. Abby and Zach, laughing together, getting caught up in breathless kisses, fooling around somewhere on campus where they might get caught…

  It was enough to get him half hard, an unexpected reaction. He wanted to know more. “So you hit all twenty?”

  “Yes. I hit all twenty.” She sounded resigned. “But really, I’m not that girl anymore.”

  “It’s nothing to be ashamed of, you know.” Sam tried to choose his words carefully. “I think it’s funny.” Not funny, but arousing, and yet he couldn’t say that with Zach right here listening. Could he even say it at all? How would Abby receive that? She wasn’t the type to kiss and tell, and this line of conversation was clearly making her a little uncomfortable. They should probably change the subject.

  “Yeah. Funny.” Abby drained her glass of wine.

  Zach looked past them. “Shit, is that Heather? I haven’t seen her in forever.” He put his hand over Abby’s. “I’ve gotta run. It’s been so good to see you. Look me up sometime, okay? I’d love to get together.” He squeezed her hand, then shook Sam’s. “Great meeting you, Sam. We’ll have to talk soon.” He left Abby and Sam alone at the table with the silence left in his absence.

  “You know, I really don’t mind it,” Sam said after another awkward moment of silence.

  “Do you know what my nickname was back in college?” Abby ran a finger around the lip of her empty wineglass. She didn’t wait for him to answer. “Abby Wood If She Could. Because of stuff like that. Mud wrestling. Dyeing my hair. Streaking. The Campus Twenty. I was the girl who would do anything. How do you really feel about that?”

  “Curious?”

  Abby rolled her eyes. “You don’t have to placate me, Sam.”

  “I just want to know why you never told me.” He couldn’t keep the hurt tone out of his voice, even though it was slight.

  “Because the past is the past. I’m not that person anymore.”

  She’d been saying that all night, insisting that she’d changed, and clearly she had. Over the almost ten years they’d been together, he’d never seen any sign of this wild woman from college. “Why aren’t you that person anymore?”

  That clearly wasn’t the question she’d been expecting, and she stared at him before averting her eyes. “I grew out of it.”

  “All at once?”

  Her expression grew somber. “I knew it was time to change when that hit man came after me.”

  Sam stared at her, not sure what to believe, until Abby cracked up laughing. He joined her, the tension easing. Okay, so she didn’t want to explain further. He held out his hand. “Come on. You want to dance?”

  Abby got to her feet, wobbly, and grabbed at him for support. “Whoa. All that wine just hit me at once.”

  Sam slid an arm around her waist. “I don’t know how you walk in those heels.”

  “It’s fashion.” She smiled up at him, her smile kind of lazy, the way she always got with a bit of wine in her. “Maybe I should get some air instead. You want to get some fresh air with me?”

  “It’s below freezing out there.”

  “We’ll get our coats. Come on.” She tugged him toward the hall.

  Even with his coat on, it was damn freezing outside, and he stayed close to Abby as they walked out onto the big back deck of the hotel. The deck was clearly not used often in winter, snow blown loosely against the wall behind them, large potted evergreens looming dark instead of wrapped in twinkle lights like the rest of the decor on the building. With only the light filtering through the window and nothing but darkness in the field behind, everything was a mass of shadows. Abby walked over to the corner and gripped the wooden railing, seeming unbothered by the cold, and stared out into the deepness of the night. The music was still audible out here, a muted pulse in the otherwise silent evening.

  They both turned as the door burst open and a couple came tumbling out, laughing, already in the clinch of an embrace. They didn’t even check for other people, lips meeting, hands sliding over bodies. Abby and Sam, as one, both moved deeper into the shadows of the building.

  Abby grabbed Sam’s arm, speaking just loud enough that he could hear. “We should go.”

  “We can’t. They’re right in front of the door.” He pulled her closer back against him, her body tight in front of his as they tried to shrink back into the shadows against the building.

  The other couple stood less than fifteen feet away, kissing as if they couldn’t get enough of each other. They shifted slightly, leaning against the railing, and a shaft of light from the window fell across the man’s face. Abby’s whole body went taut. It was Zach. Zach was out here with a woman from the party, a woman who was slipping her hands down into his pants.

  It was definitely too late to escape now. If they gave themselves away, Zach and his partner were going to ask why they didn’t reveal themselves sooner. The only answer, that they were peeping from the shadows like perverts, wasn’t going to go over well. Fortunately, Zach and his partner were making enough noise to hide other sounds.

  “Fuck, Heather.”

  Heather laughed, deep and throaty, leaning in for another kiss. “Haven’t gotten my hands on you since college. Just like old times, huh?”

  “Shh. Keep it down.” Zach was smiling as he spoke. “We’re gonna get caught.”

  All along the front of Sam’s body, Abby’s curves pressed warm and soft against him. Something about her closeness, the tension of the moment, the heat of what they were watching, and he was fully hard before he felt it happening. Abby shifted, hips pressing against his cock, and then froze.

  They’d been drinking, and hell, it was New Year’s, and he’d been having naughty thoughts all night. Maybe he could indulge them, just a little bit. He leaned down to whisper in her ear. “It’s hot, isn’t it?”

  Abby hesitated before nodding.

  Her breasts were so close to his hand. He’d never do something like this normally, never risk getting caught, but the blood thundering in his body obscured other thought.

  Abby gasped as Sam cupped her full, round breast, the sound drowned out by another of Zach’s moans. Then she pressed even farther in to his hand. Damn. Pulse racing, cock already throbbing, he slid his hand under the deep neckline of her dress and found the hard peak of her nipple beneath the flimsy material of her bra.

  “Sam,” she whispered.

  “Shh.” He rolled the tip between his fingers, making her shiver. “Doesn’t it make you hot?”

  She paused, and then slowly nodded again. He was harder and more turned on than he could remember being before, and all he was doing was playing lightly with her nipple. Of course, they were in public, watching another couple fooling around right in front of them, and they’d certai
nly never been in this situation before.

  Zach lifted Heather onto the railing of the deck, and Abby shivered. Heather giggled loudly. “It’s freezing!”

  Zach kissed her again, moving between her legs, and Heather’s giggles switched to moans. Zach fumbled around with something in his pocket, then he heard the telltale sound of a condom wrapper. Had Sam ever watched someone have sex before? No, actually. He wasn’t even that into porn, because it was all so fake. This, though? This was totally different. Zach shifted forward into the cradle of Heather’s thighs, and she moaned low and breathlessly as he slid into her.

  Sam was going to combust right here. Even with the freezing temperatures, sweat beaded on his forehead. One hand still cupping her breast, he reached the other down, under the hem of Abby’s skirt, trailing his fingers up along the inside of her thighs. This was too far, too risky, too much, and she was going to stop him any minute now, surely…

  Instead, Abby moved her legs farther apart, granting permission. He brushed the top of stockings, then bare skin, acres of bare skin, and instead of the line of her panties…the soft, slick wetness of her pussy.

  She wasn’t wearing underwear. He couldn’t even question it, because his hand was right where he wanted it to be, and he dipped into her hot, wet heat to find the bud of her clit nestled among all that softness.

  Abby shuddered in his arms. “Sam,” she breathed, but it wasn’t a protest, something broken and desperate in her whisper. Jesus. He’d never heard her sound like that. The space was snug, her thighs tight around his hand, and she was so damn wet already. She’d gotten wet watching them.

  “I like watching this,” he whispered again into her ear. And maybe this was too far, but he was going to say it anyway. “I like imagining you like that.”

  She swore under her breath, wobbling in his arms, and he held her tighter against him as he fingered her clit. “Does this make you hot?” He needed to hear her say it, needed to know it wasn’t just him.

  “Yes.” She leaned back against him, letting him support her, her head resting heavily on his collarbone. “God, Sam, what if we get caught?”