Chapter 17: Same Seat

On Friday night the network ran a replay of Thursday's semifinal, with the commentators talking over it.

Devin had said we didn't have to watch.

I had said I wanted to see it with nobody in the room.

My mother and Gordon had checked into a hotel across town on Thursday afternoon.

My mother had texted me twice since, "We should talk," and "Call me when you're ready," and I had put the phone face-down on the kitchen counter.

For the first time in a week, the house was ours.

I came into the den in his grey t-shirt and nothing else, and Devin was on the couch with his arm along the back.

Biscuit was stretched across his feet.

"You're sitting on the end," I said.

"I'm sitting where I always sit."

"That's the middle."

"The middle is mine," he said.

"Move over, then."

He didn't move over. He held out his hand.

I took it, and he pulled me down across his lap, sideways, and kissed me before I'd finished sitting.

It was slow.

It was the slowest kiss he had ever given me.

We had the whole night, and neither of us wanted to spend it fast.

"We didn't need a game on for this," I said against his mouth.

"No."

"I'm watching it anyway."

"Of course you are."

On the screen, the red shirts won a throw-in, and neither of us looked.

I swung my leg over and settled astride his lap, facing him, my knees pressed into the cushion on either side of his hips.

"The seat's different," I said.

"It's got a better view."

"The view's you."

"I know." He laughed under his breath, and his thumbs found the edge of the shirt where it rode up my thighs. "I was being modest."

I put my hands on his face.

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