by Angel Lawson
“Where did you get this?” I ask, wide eyes drinking in the picture.
He shrugs, burying his hands into his pockets. “I’ve always had it.”
It’s a photo similar to the one I have upstairs—a snapshot in time of the two of us. We’re wearing matching team suits. His hair is wet, plastered over his forehead. Mine’s in narrow, dripping pigtails. Neither of us are looking at the camera, but instead smiling at one another. We’re both displaying the champion medals that hang heavily around our necks.
“I want—” He exhales and shuffles closer, voice dropping as his gray eyes lock with mine. “I want you in my life, Gwendolyn. If all I can ever be to you is a friend, then I’ll take that. It’s selfish of me, but you hold me accountable. You challenge me. You make me better. You make everything better.”
His words rock me, leaving me trembling and breathless. These are the words of the man who cared for me when I was sick, who stood by me with the swim team, who defended me to Heston, over and over again. I don’t wonder anymore which version of Hamilton is the real one, because the way he’s looking at me right now—hopeful and impatient and terrified—could never be anything less than real.
I flex my fingers around the frame, inspecting the photo. These two kids were fearless and ready to tackle anything that life had to throw at them. I’m not sure where they lost their way.
But I think I may know how they find their way back.
“You’re not the only one figuring out what you need,” I confess, meeting his gaze. “I don’t need Preston Prep, or the swim team, or to be valedictorian. But I know the kind of person you can be, and that guy? I don’t want to lose him.” I give him a watery smile. “Because he’s funny and clever, and he made me feel special and cared for. And maybe also because he needs a little tending to himself, and I like that he can do that—listen and question and grow. People take for granted how hard that is to do. But not me.” I glance down at the photo, then back at his face. “Not anymore. So now it’s my turn to apologize. I jumped to conclusions and made assumptions that day at school. I knew being with you was going to be hard and I bailed without giving you a chance to explain.”
He shakes his head. “Don’t, okay? It’s alright.”
I nod, pressing the frame to my stomach, feeling the knot in my chest unwind.
He wets his lips, shuffling forward once more. “Now that we’ve agreed we’re all sorry and forgiven and everything, where do we go from here?”
I want to kiss him—so bad. I threw those papers into the fire so we could start fresh, and it’s almost embarrassing how much I want everything we missed. I want the dates and the fumbling, and a new first kiss—one that isn’t the product of anger and resentment and doesn’t end in shame. I want it all.
I walk to the mantle, move a paper mâché snowman a few inches to the left, and place the frame there. “Want to come hang out?” I ask, turning to him with a cautious smile. “We’re watching cheesy movies and there’s, like,” I roll my eyes, “a gazillion cookies.”
His gaze skitters to the entry, expression heavy with anxiety. “With your family?”
I nod. “We’re kind of a package deal.”
It’s a stretch for Hamilton to not only accept me, but the rest of the Adams family, too. I think of all the hateful, cruel things he’s said in the past. If he really wants this, wants me, this is his moment to prove it.
He exhales shakily, but moves forward, slipping his warm hand into mine. “I think I’d like that.” His gaze cuts uncertainly to me. “If you think I’d even be welcome, that is.”
I laugh, squeezing his hand. “We’re talking about my family, Bates. We love nothing more than a good stray.”
He smiles and it lights up his face. I start toward the den, but he yanks me back, crashing me into his chest. His eyes are warm but intense, darting between my eyes and my mouth. I know that look. God, I’ve missed it. He takes my face in his hands and spends a torturously long moment gazing into my eyes, thumbs brushing my cheeks. We meet in the middle, lips brushing against one another, and it’s everything I want from a new first kiss—sweet and gentle and warm and Hamilton.
Thirty minutes.
That’s the length of time Hamilton, my family, and I sit in a tense, awkward silence. Mom and Dad are on the couch, while Hamilton and I share a loveseat. Brayden is slouched in the armchair, and Micha is on the floor, painting Michaela’s nails over the coffee table. Skylar is sprawled out in front of the TV, cramming popcorn into her mouth.
Hamilton feels so tense beside me that I grab his hand and squeeze in what I hope is a reassuring manner. If anything, it seems to make it worse, his gaze darting nervously to my mom and dad, to Brayden. When his jump to mine, the question in them screamingly obvious, I just smile, lifting a shoulder in a shrug.
Naturally, it’s Micha who breaks the ice.
“Can I paint your nails?” he asks, staring at Hamilton with an expectant look.
Hamilton looks around, eventually realizing that Micha is talking to him. “Me?”
Micha nods.
“Well, that depends,” he says, eyebrows knitting together. “Do I get to choose the color?”
Micha shrugs. “Yeah, ‘course.”
Hamilton spends the next ten minutes going through Micha and Michaela’s ridiculously extensive palette of polish. Everyone else in the room spends the same ten minutes watching him closely.
“What about a green?” he says, considering. “Like a dark green, not a neon green. Like this one—” He plucks a bottle from the menagerie.
Micha pushes his mouth to the side in thought. “I like that one. It’ll go good with a glitter coat.”
Hamilton’s eyes narrow. “No glitter.”
I can practically feel everyone holding their breath.
Micha asks, “Why not?!”
“Because it gets everywhere,” Hamilton explains, “and you spend the next week spreading it like the glitter-flu.”
Micha snorts a laugh. “It’s nail polish, not craft glitter.” He lifts his chin, sounding obnoxiously formal when he promises, “I personally guarantee this glitter isn’t going anywhere but your nails.”
Hamilton looks skeptical, but ultimately agrees, “Fine, but it has to be this,” and plucks out a purple glitter coat that, in my opinion, is chosen a touch too quickly and decisively for someone who claims to hate glitter.
After that, things relax immensely. We all finish the movie as Micha carefully paints Hamilton’s nails, only commenting once that he’s got really nice cuticles for a jock. Later, when the polish is finished drying and Micha and Michaela have both begged off to bed, Brayden and Skylar follow, and my dad’s not very far behind them.
Before my mom clears out, she gives me a look that’s meant to be meaningful but goes completely ignored. “Good night, you two. Hamilton, please send your family our Christmas wishes.”
Hamilton shoots to his feet and for a split second, looks utterly ridiculous, like he’s about to shake her hand or possibly bow. “Thanks for letting me stay, Mrs. Adams. I’m sorry if I imposed.”
She watches him, something in her face softening and—ah ha! There it is. Mom is realizing that he’s a stray. “Do you have somewhere to go tonight?”
Hamilton looks briefly confused by this question. “I, ah—I’ve been staying with my sister.”
My mom smiles and nods like she expected as much. “Well, if you get tired and don’t mind Michaela waking everyone up at precisely sunrise to open her gifts, then you’re more than welcome to our sofa.”
Hamilton’s still got a stunned look on his face when she leaves the room. “Did your mom just offer to let me stay the night?”
I stand up, stretching lazily. “Yep.”
“But she knows that I’m—”
“Yes.”
He gestures between us. “And she knows that we—”
I nod, taking his hand. “Most definitely.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” he says, watch
ing my face even as I lead him to the stairs. “Because they seem really nice. But your parents are kind of...”
“Crazy?” I ask, smiling as I lead him up the stairs. “Recklessly lenient? Overly trusting?”
Hamilton doesn’t understand where I’m taking him until we arrive in my bedroom. When he does, he freezes, two steps inside the room, watching me close and lock the door. “Whoa, wait.”
I look at him, lifting an eyebrow. “What’s the problem.”
He looks shiftily around, like he’s casing the place. “Is this a good idea? What if they find out I’m in here?”
I shrug. “Trust me, it’s fine.” At his worried expression, I sigh, explaining, “Their room is on the bottom floor, all the way on the other side of the house. They never get up during the night, especially the night before Christmas. You can go back down before Michaela wakes everyone up. But even if they did catch me, like... these are my parents.” I roll me eyes. “I’m sure there will be some very psychology-approved talks about contraception and responsibility and how to handle one’s emotions in a healthy way. But that’ll be it.”
He gnaws on his lip for a long moment, eventually meeting my gaze. “You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
His shoulders slowly lose all of that back-rigid tension as he approaches me, hands landing loosely on my hips. “We don’t have to do anything, it’s not—”
I cut him off with a kiss, sighing when his hand comes up to gently cup my jaw. This kiss is careful, testing, as if we’re asking a question, wondering how well we still know this. But it comes to us as easy as breathing, him deepening the kiss, me tugging him back toward the bed.
It’s a little reckless of me, having him here, pulling him down onto the bed with me, and guiding his hips until they’re between my legs, his body surging into me. All I can think is ‘Yes. This’. God, I’ve missed this. I’ve missed the way he pushes open-mouthed kisses to my neck, and I’ve missed the solid length of him, hard and insistent, pressing into my center. I’ve missed the white-hot zing of burning lust I feel when he does. I’ve missed the way his hand snakes up my shirt and grabs a handful of my breast, and I’ve definitely missed the rough groan he muffles into my kiss at the feel of it.
He pulls back when I grab at his shirt, letting me shuck it over his head. His chest is heaving with his every breath, much like mine, and the look on his face when I pull off my own shirt is full of something unguarded and wanting.
He touches me like someone who’s afraid it might be snatched away. Slow and careful, trembling.
I run the tips of my fingers down the hard planes of his chest, over the ripple of his abs, and then hook them into his waistband. “Do you have a condom?”
He stares down at me with hooded eyes, lips wet and red. “Uh.” It seems to take him a moment to shake the fog, eyebrows wrinkling together. “I don’t know.” Before I can question that, he reaches back, sliding his wallet from his pocket. I know the answer just from the relief in his eyes when he peers into one of the folds, but he pulls it out with a victorious smirk.
We finish undressing one another slowly, and I’m not sure if it’s because we want to take our time, or because we’re both weirdly nervous. Either way, it seems like it takes hours before his fingers finally make their way up my bare thighs, hooking into the elastic of my panties. He holds my gaze as he slides them off and keeps pinning me there as his fingers find my bare center, fingers sliding into my wet folds.
I spread my legs and bite my lip, letting my eyes close at the feel of him. His mouth drops to my neck, breath washing warm across my skin as he kisses the skin below my ear. Suddenly, the world seems very small, reduced down to all the places we’re separated; narrowed in on the way he feels, hard and eager against my thigh; shrunken down to the curl of his shoulder as his arm works between us, fingers sending me to the edge and back again.
I have to nudge him impatiently before he finally opens the condom and rolls it carefully over the hard length of himself. He holds my gaze as he pushes inside, and I can tell by the strained, desperate look on his face that this isn’t going to last long.
He can probably tell by the look on mine that it really, really won’t need to.
He makes a ragged sound when he’s fully seated, elbows digging caverns into the bed as they bracket my head, and I feel like all the air has been sucked right out of my chest. He moves in these short, grinding thrusts that make me dig my fingers into his back, biting hard on my lip to keep myself quiet. He watches me with those heavy gray eyes, and we haven’t lost this—the crackling intensity that’s all at once thrilling and terrifying—only now, it’s a different kind of fear.
It’s not long before I feel my toes curling with the mounting pleasure blooming in the pit of my core. I know he feels it, too, by the way he rocks into me, punctuating every thrust of his hips with a lingering push against me, the friction bringing me right to the precipice.
My orgasm hits me with a sharp gasp into his mouth, eyes slamming closed with the overwhelming tide of it. I feel him following me, hips crashing mindlessly into mine as I swallow his rough groan.
Later, we catch our breath while curled into one another, having tucked myself beneath his arm, head resting on his shoulder. We stay on top of the blankets, leaving it all bare. He curls his fingers and brushes his knuckles over the side of my breast, eyes heavy, as if lost deep in thought.
“Hey,” I whisper, reaching up to run my fingertips over his new beard. “What are you thinking about?”
Instantly, and without any shame, he answers, “Your tits.” He looks up when I laugh, mouth curving into a smile. “Well, you asked.” After a beat, he adds, “I’m also thinking about how you burned my list. You have no idea how long that took me.”
I shrug. “I’m not sorry.”
“Now there’s a list I can give you, right off the top of my head,” he says, fingers carding through my hair. “Things I’m not sorry for.”
I peer up at him, exhausted and yet somehow too excited to fully fall into sleep. “Is this going to be more stuff about fourth grade?”
His chest bounces with a soft laugh. “Nah, it’s only got one thing.” He pushes a kiss into my hair and lingers there, inhaling. “I’m not sorry for falling in love with you.”
My breath stutters and stalls, and then escapes me in a hard whoosh. If I could find a way to put it into words, I’d explain that breathless swooping-chest feeling to him, that I know what it is, and what it means, and how much I want to keep it safe. Because when you’re running with a Devil, you might get tattered and torn and broken and bruised.
“Neither am I.”
Alternatively, the Devil may care.
Epilogue
“Congratulations!”
I’ve heard the word so many times, it’s starting to do that thing where it stops sounding like an actual word in your head. Nevertheless, every time I hear it, I feel pride swell in my chest. Earning Valedictorian wasn’t easy—not when you’ve got Hamilton Bates chasing your tail the whole time.
Literally and figuratively.
“One tenth of a point,” he reminds me constantly. Ironically, the class that pushed me over the edge was Dr. Ross’. He thinks I had the upper hand because I sit in the front of the class, “wearing those little goddamned skirts every day. It’s a fucking miracle I came in second place.”
“That’s when I knew,” Hollis says to me over the crystal punch bowl. We’re on the expansive back patio of the Bates house, overlooking the lake on a warm evening. His parents wanted to throw him a graduation party and had been hounding him about it for weeks. Hamilton ultimately agreed, but only on the condition that it be for the two of us, together. “Anyone who can beat my brother and earn his respect at the same time? You’re perfect for him.”
I flush, trying and failing to hide my pleased smile.
Hearing her say it means a lot. And having his parents accept our relationship means even more. Not that it was easy, but they’ve ha
d a big turn-around in the past few months. They could shift the blame when one kid walked away from the family, but two? It was time for a little introspection.
Across the room, my parents are talking to his. This isn’t a huge deal. We’ve all coexisted in the same community for ages. Our dads are both Preston Prep alumni. The difference now, is that they’re talking because their kids are dating. We’re public now and have been since we both agreed to go back to school in January.
No more secrets.
No more hiding.
I won’t pretend it didn’t cause a ripple in the social structure at school. That first day back, Hamilton waited for me in the quad as I parted from the twins. I was nervous—terrified, actually—of going from the girl everyone ignored to the girl walking hand in hand with Hamilton Bates, my sworn enemy, down the hall.
Not only did he hold my hand, but he backed me up against my locker and kissed me long and hard. Long and hard enough that Dean Dewey threatened another month of detention if we didn’t keep the PDA to a respectable minimum. I didn’t even care. It was worth it to see Reagan and Campbell’s shocked expressions. It was perfection watching Heston’s jaw drop in disbelief. But we didn’t do it alone. Tyson was great. Xavier was awesome. And everyone else?
They fell in line.
Because the Devils may have disbanded, but that didn’t take away from the power structure at the school. Hamilton Bates will always be at the top. He can’t help it. It’s in his genes.
The only thing that’s changed is that, from now on, I’ll be by his side.
“When is your flight?” Presley asks, popping a chocolate-covered strawberry in her mouth.
I hum. “Tomorrow night.”
“I can’t believe you’re spending six weeks in Puerto Rico.” Tyson wrinkles his nose. “I’ve got a full summer of training ahead of me.”
“It was a compromise,” Hamilton says, hand slipping around my back. “I wanted to go to Hawaii. She talked me into some half-vacation, half-work situation, where apparently we’ll be digging wells or something.”
