Taught: A City's Secrets Novella (6 page)

“You can resume the interrogation another time,” I said.

“You kids be good!” Dillon yelled. I stood up and shrugged at Jim. He smiled.

“It was good meeting you guys,” he said to Lane and Dillon.

“You too,” Lane replied. Dillon waved as Jim and I walked back toward the exit. The next band was getting started, and most of the crowd was up toward the stage, so we had an easy time slipping out the front entrance. We spilled out together into the cool night air, the wash and thud of the live music following us out. We stood by the curb and I grinned up at him, feeling butterflies in my stomach.

“I’m really glad you came,” he said again. I stood close to him.

“Yeah, me too.” He reached out and took my hand in his. I felt a thrill run through my stomach, like a cliché schoolgirl, but I couldn’t help it. I was getting all worked up because a boy played in a band and wanted to hold my hand. I couldn’t stop myself though, and truthfully, I didn’t want to. I was afraid to get involved, but I loved how he made me feel.

He faced me in the street, his lean, tough body close to mine, his face inches from mine. Adrenaline flooded my body and my pulse quickened as he moved closer, and began to lean in. I saw the outline of his soft lips in the streetlight, his shaggy hair layered over his handsome, boyish face, and a deep thread of panic began to unwind inside of me. Distractions, work, and more bubbled to the surface as he drew nearer.

I wanted his taste and his touch, and I squeezed his hand, terrified.

W
e stood outside of the bar on the curb. She was beautiful, radiant, absolutely drop dead gorgeous, and she was looking back at me like I was the only person for miles.

She was fucking hot, as Tom would say.

I was a mess of conflicting nerves, scared that our relationship could jeopardize my job, but overwhelmingly attracted to her. The easy buzz of alcohol in my stomach helped loosen me up, and while I wasn’t anywhere near drunk, I did feel like I had the confidence to do what I’d wanted to do since the stairwell.

I took her hand in mine and squeezed it softly. Her skin was smooth and creamy white. I moved closer, feeling her body close to mine, her eyes wide and her mouth slightly parted, and I began to lean in to kiss her. I noticed she wasn’t wearing her glasses. My heart was hammering through my chest, faster than the up-tempo beat of the music spilling out of the bar. I could almost taste her soft lips and feel her breath.

“My bike,” she said quietly. I stopped, inches away from her face.

“Your bike?” I asked.

“My bike,” she repeated more loudly. “I rode my bike here.”

I blinked at her for a second. Was she joking? I straightened up, a little confused. I was getting all the right signals; I knew she wanted me. And yet she was pushing back again. Well, if she wanted to play, I’d play.

“Oh, yeah, that’s cool. I rode here too, actually.”

“Cool. I mean, that’s good.”

“Yeah. I’m parked over there,” I said, nodding to a bike rack.

“Me too,” she said and laughed awkwardly. I let her hand drop. I didn’t really understand what just happened. Everything seemed good, I was getting all the ‘kiss me’ signals, or at least I thought I was. Then she brought up her bike. I shook my head, at a total loss for what to think.

“How’d you guys get your equipment here?”

“George drove it over in his van.”

“That’s pretty cool.” There was a silence between us.

“So, yeah, still want to hang out?” I asked.

She perked up. “Definitely. Where are we going?”

That was a good question. I hadn’t actually thought much farther than wanting to spend some time with her. There were a few good bars in the area, but for the most part it was a total wasteland between Johnny Brenda’s and Temple’s campus. We could have gone south, toward Old City, but it was getting late and I didn’t want to drag her all over the city. Suddenly, it hit me, the perfect spot to take her.

“Have you ever been in the secret garden on campus?” I asked.

She shook her head. “That sounds fake.”

I laughed. “It does sound fake, but it’s totally real. Let’s go.” I walked over to the bike rack, found my bike, unlocked the U-lock, and then pulled it out. It was an old red thing, a twelve-speed road bike from the 70s.

“Cool bike, where’d you get it?” she said.

“Found it in the trash.”

“Seriously?”

I nodded. “Yep, some guy in the suburbs was just throwing it away one day. Pulled over and took it right there.”

“That’s amazingly lucky.”

I patted the seat of my bike. “Sure was. She’s been with me ever since.”

Emma laughed then found her own bike, and slid it out from the rack. Hers was clearly newer than mine, a single speed thing with a white frame and pink pedals. Dangling from her lock was a cute yellow helmet, which she proceeded to strap to her head. I gave her a little grin.

“Better safe than sorry,” she said.

“You look cute in it.”

She smiled, and used her hands to model the helmet like she was Madonna doing the vogue.

“Fantastic, runway material,” I said. We laughed and climbed onto our bikes.

“Follow me.” I angled out into traffic, heading west, and I heard her following.

I took it easy, not sure how comfortable she was riding in the city, but I quickly realized I had no reason to go slow. She easily kept pace, and even sped passed me when I was playing it safe at stoplights. Soon enough, I was following her up 13
^th
street, back toward campus.

The night was comfortable and quiet as we rode side by side. The streets were dark, and I felt freer than I had in a long time. There was something about riding a bike at night, with so few cars on the streets and no people around. I was the king of the city flying through town next to a beautiful girl. The air whipped through our hair as we moved faster, and I never wanted to stop pedaling. The houses flashed by, each with a different door, and filled with different people, the space around us a pocket of joy and quiet, the only sound coming from our breathing, our bikes, and the wind. I could go anywhere I wanted without worrying about anything. Cities were built for riding a bike at night. Our bikes were tiny worlds in themselves, and riding them revealed something new about the place we lived.

Soon we were on campus. We passed by the dorms called Thirteen Hundred, and sped down across from the Student Center. I moved ahead of her, and banked left toward the business school building. I could hear her right behind me, keeping pace but letting me lead. I took a sharp right and coasted down a short service road that led toward the loading docks. I went passed parked trucks and stopped at the end of the drive. Ahead was a dirt path that led to the backside of the building.

Emma stopped next to me, and we climbed off our bikes.

“I fucking love that,” I said.

“It’s my favorite part of living here,” she said quietly.

I looked at her, and had the stupid desire to try and kiss her again. More than that, I wanted to press her up against the side of the loading bay’s door and fuck her brains out. I didn’t care if we got caught. I knew it was too soon, and anyway she had already turned me down once that night. I motioned toward the path.

“It’s just down here.”

We walked a few feet and took a bend around the building.

“You’re not going to murder me back here, are you?” she asked.

I laughed and looked around. I had to admit, it was a very murder-friendly area.

“No, don’t worry. I got my murdering done earlier in the week.”

“Oh, good. I’m lucky you’re proactive.”

The path ended in an open courtyard, mostly blocked by the building on three sides, with only the dirt path as an entrance. The space was an open courtyard, with a small statue in the middle, and flowers and shrubs planted all around the perimeter.

“Wow, I had no clue this was here,” Emma said softly.

“I told you, secret garden.”

We walked into the courtyard and dropped our bikes. I sat down with my back to the statue and gestured around me.

“Welcome to the best kept secret on Temple’s campus.”

“It’s really pretty.” She craned her neck back, looking up at the building.

“Even better during the day.”

She looked back at me and smiled then sat down next to me, our knees nearly touching.

“What’s this statue?” she asked.

I shrugged. “I have no clue.” We both stared at it for a second. The statue was of a man on a horse, but he wasn’t wearing anything special, just a suit and a tie. He looked old fashioned, but he could have been still alive, too. There was no plaque to say who or what he was, and there was nothing distinguishing about him to give any sense of what time period he was supposed to represent.

“That is, without a doubt, the most boring statue I have ever seen,” she said.

I laughed, having come to that same conclusion myself. “I have no idea if he’s supposed to be a Civil War general, or just a dude from today that loves horses.”

“I know! Why wouldn’t there be a plaque here?” She scrambled up onto her knees and turned her body, searching the statue. As she moved around its side, she suddenly lost her balance, and began to tip over. I moved fast, not thinking at all, and grabbed her by the hips to steady her. She ended up with her hands against my chest, our faces inches apart.

We stared at each other like that for a second. I could feel the warmth of her body and her smooth skin where her shirt was pushed up from the fall. It was an awkward position, but we held it quietly. After a second, she pulled away.

“Sorry about that,” she mumbled.

“Yeah it’s cool,” I said, pretending to brush myself off. It was all I could do not to slip my hands down along her body and feel the warmth between her legs. I felt my dick respond to my dirty thoughts, and took a deep breath to calm myself.

“So uh, how’d you find this place?” she asked me, obviously changing the subject. The touch of her skin lingered, and there was strange electricity there.

“I was just wandering around one day and found it.”

“Have you seen other people here?”

“As far as I know, we’re the only two people who ever experience this terrible statue.”

“Us, and whoever cuts this grass. And plants these flowers. And weeds. I mean, us and like fifty groundskeepers.” She grinned, and then added, “But who’s counting.”

I laughed and playfully pushed her shoulder. She grinned back at me.

“I thought it was special, but I guess not.”

“No, it’s still special,” she said, looking out at the flowers.

We were quiet then while we both looked at our surroundings. I glanced up at the building towering above us and imagined all the kids who walked through its halls, their individual stresses and anger and sadness and joy, all pressed into a single building. They were there to learn and they were there to get through the day or they were there for whatever incomprehensible reason kept them coming back. Meanwhile, outside their windows but hard to access, was a garden paradise. That night, though, the building was empty, and there wasn’t a single light on in any of the rooms. We were really alone, even though we were in the middle of a campus that saw thousands of students every single day.

“Tell me something,” I said, breaking the silence.

“What’s up?”

“The first day we met. Why did you let me stay in that room?”

She looked at me for a second then shrugged. “I don’t really know, honestly. I guess it wasn’t that big of a deal.”

“You were right to ask me to leave. I’m just wondering though.”

She nodded. “I know. I don’t have a good answer. It was probably your great taste in literature.”

“Yeah, that’s what I figured.” I grinned at her. “So, what made you want to become a doctor?”

I wanted to keep her talking before we could lapse back into another comfortable silence. It wasn’t that I minded not talking, but there was such a deep familiarity in the quiet. It was almost too intimate, sitting quietly in an empty courtyard, lit only by the moon and by ambient light from the building. We were intensely alone, isolated in a beautiful spot, and I wanted to make sure she felt safe. Although she had already rejected me, I couldn’t help but think there was a connection between us. There was something about her that made me want to slide my hands along the length of her skin and feel every inch of her.

She sighed and leaned her head back against the statue. “I’m not sure anymore. I guess both my parents are doctors.”

“Yeah? Both of them?”

“My dad’s a cardiologist and my mom’s an OBGYN. Babies and hearts, the important stuff.” She snorted and rolled her eyes.

“I take it you don’t get along with your folks.”

“They’re fine, honestly. They’re not bad people. Just pretty intense sometimes.”

I nodded. “I get that. My parents are the opposite, which I guess is how I ended up twenty-seven and managing a coffee shop.”

“What do they do?”

“My dad is a mechanic and owns his own specialty repair shop, and my mom is a full time hippie.”

Emma laughed. “Full time hippie?”

“Yeah, they’re both hippies honestly. My dad specializes in cars from the 60s, restoring and repairing them. He does other stuff too, but he’s pretty well known for that.”

“That’s really awesome actually. Pretty much the opposite of my hard ass, uptight parents.”

“At least they raised a pretty cool daughter,” I said, looking at her.

She rolled her head toward me and smiled. “You think so?”

I nodded, shifting my weight toward her. “Yeah, I really do.”

She smiled and shifted toward me. Our faces were inches apart and my pulse quickened. She looked deep into my eyes and her mouth parted slightly as I moved closer again. This time, she didn’t pull back or speak, as our lips slowly pressed together, softly at first, and then with hunger. It was the hottest kiss of my life up to that point, as her perfect lips pressed hard against mine. There was something about our seclusion and about her pulling away from me earlier that made her taste that much sweeter. The work was definitely worth it in the end.