Chapter 8: The Party Continues
The music was a physical thing, a thick slab of bass that moved through the soles of Leo’s shoes and up into his ribs. Abby had resumed her position, her back against his chest, her small hands guiding his to her hips. They swayed, a slower rhythm now in the center of the frantic dance floor, an island of something quietly intense.
Her hair tickled his nose, smelling of cigarettes and vanilla. She tilted her head back, her lips close to his ear. Her whisper was barely audible, but he felt every syllable. “So where’d he go?”
“Who?” Leo murmured, his voice rough.
“The guy from last night. All shaky hands and nervous apologies.” She rotated her hips slowly, deliberately. “The one in the bathroom… he was someone else.”
Leo felt the heat rush to his face, grateful for the darkness. He tightened his grip on her, the memory of her bent over the sink, of her stifled cries under his hand, flashing behind his eyes. “I don’t know,” he admitted, the honesty surprising him. “I just… went with it. Wanted to…” He searched for the right word, one that wasn’t in his usual lexicon. “Wanted to hear you.”
Abby shivered against him. “Yeah? That all it takes?” Her tone was light, teasing, but there was a thread of real curiosity there. “Mission accomplished, Vance. Felt pretty damn good.”
“Could be better,” he heard himself say, the confidence from the hallway still buzzing in his veins.
She laughed, a low, rich sound. “Oh yeah? Enlighten me.”
He swallowed. “I’m not the expert here.”
“Try me.”
He leaned down, his mouth brushing the shell of her ear. He didn’t know where the words came from, only that they felt true. “Just wanted to make you fall apart. However that happened.”
Abby went very still for a second. Then she pressed back against him, a firm, grounding pressure. “You want a roadmap?” she whispered, the tease back but edged with something raw. “For that? Easy. Tie me down. Don’t ask. Just… pound me like you’re paying for it.” She said it fast, a reckless, graphic dart thrown into the dark.
The air left Leo’s lungs. A hot, stupid blush scorched his neck and ears. He was glad she couldn’t see his face.
A beat of silence pulsed between them, filled only by the thrashing music. He felt her stiffen, then deflate slightly. “Shit,” Abby muttered, her own cheeks flushing a deep, furious crimson he could feel radiating from her skin. “I didn’t… forget I said that.”
They stood there, mutually mortified, the revelation of her fantasy hanging in the sweaty air. It was Chloe who broke the spell, stumbling out of the crowd and grabbing both their arms with damp, enthusiastic hands.
“You guys! Couch! Now! My feet are dead,” she slurred, her eyes bright and unfocused. She hauled them through the press of bodies toward a scarred leather sofa tucked under a spinning disco ball. They collapsed onto it, Chloe in the middle, leaning heavily on Abby.
Chloe took a long swig from a plastic cup, then grinned, a wide, sloppy thing. “Okay. So. Mike.” She let out a giggle that was pure delight. “He just… wow. Took me to that weird room with the beanbags? Anyway. He went down on me forever. Like, forever-forever. Then he just flipped me over and, like, properly pounded me out.” She giggled again, covering her mouth. “Oh my god, I can’t believe I just told you that.”
Abby was staring straight ahead, still processing her own confession, the feel of Leo’s stunned blush against her skin. She was adrift, for once not the most explicit person in the conversation.
Chloe nudged her. “Your turn. Bathroom quickie, right? Spill.”
Before Abby could form a deflection, Leo spoke. His voice was calm, matter-of-fact, as if he was describing the steps of a coding problem. “She gave me a blowjob while I leaned on the door so nobody would come in.”
Chloe’s eyebrows shot up. Abby’s head snapped toward him, her eyes wide.
Leo continued, looking right at Chloe. “Then I bent her over the sink. Fucked her from behind. Her dress was around her waist. She came twice.” He paused, and the ghost of a smile touched his lips. “After I finished inside her, I got on my knees and cleaned her up with my tongue. Wanted to taste it all.”
The noise of the party receded into a distant roar. Abby’s face underwent a spectacular transformation. The crimson blush returned, volcanic, spreading from her cheeks down her neck, disappearing beneath her dress. It was a complete, unguarded flush of utter shock and something like dizzy arousal. She looked away, biting her black-painted lip, a gesture so uncharacteristically vulnerable it was like seeing a new person.
Chloe’s jaw was slightly open. She looked from Leo’s placid expression to Abby’s burning, averted face. A slow, impressed smile spread across her features. She whistled low. “Damn, nerd,” she said, raising her cup in a salute. “You tamed the wild goth girl. Nobody gets Abby Holloway to blush.”
Chloe’s declaration hung in the air, a verdict that seemed to make Abby’s blush deepen. Leo felt the strange, warm weight of the moment settle on his shoulders. Without a word, he shifted on the lumpy couch and wrapped an arm around Abby, pulling her into his side.
She came stiffly at first, then melted, tucking her head against his collarbone. He could feel the heat of her skin through his shirt. They stayed like that, a silent pocket of quiet in the roaring room, while Chloe giggled and finished her drink. The world outside their small contact narrowed to the pulse of the bass and the steady rhythm of Abby’s breathing.
The peace shattered when Mike loomed over them, a wall of muscle and sweat-smelling cologne. “There you are,” he boomed, his voice slurry. He hooked a hand under Chloe’s arm and hauled her upright. “Time for round two, yeah? Gonna make you scream this time.” He punctuated his promise by shoving his other hand boldly up her skirt, fingers splaying over her thigh.
Chloe just shrieked with laughter, allowing herself to be dragged back into the throng. “See you guys later!” she called over her shoulder, already disappearing.
The sudden absence of her chatter left a vacuum. Leo looked down at Abby, who was still pressed against him. “You wanna get out of here?” he asked, his voice low.
She nodded, pulling away just enough to look at him. The blush had faded to a faint pink high on her cheeks. “Yeah. This place is starting to smell like regret and spilled vodka.”
The night air outside the sorority house was a cold, clean slap after the party’s swampy heat. Leo shrugged out of his hoodie and offered it to her. She took it, pulling it on over her dress, the sleeves swallowing her hands. “Thanks.”
“I’ll walk you home,” he said, shoving his own hands in his pockets.
Abby fell into step beside him, their shoulders brushing. The campus pathways were mostly empty, lit by pools of orange sodium light. “Or,” she said after a block, her voice tentative in a way he’d never heard, “you could just stay with me. Chloe won't be back tonight.”
He wanted to say yes. The idea was a physical pull. But the unfinished code on his laptop, the deadline tomorrow morning, formed a cold, hard knot in his gut. “I can’t,” he said, the words tasting like ash. “I’ve got that project. The files are on my desktop. I have to at least submit it from my dorm.”
“Oh.” The single syllable was flat. She looked away, across the dark quad.
“But,” he said quickly, “you could stay with me. My roommate, Marcus, will be there. Probably asleep. It’s not… it’s just a guy’s dorm. It smells like socks and energy drinks.”
She looked back at him, a slow smile returning to her lips. “Socks and energy drinks are a step up from patchouli and poor decisions. Lead the way.”
They walked the rest of the way hand-in-hand, her small, cool fingers laced with his. The silence between them was comfortable, filled with the rustle of leaves and the distant sound of traffic. His dorm building was a concrete slab, impersonal and quiet. He fumbled with his keycard at the main door.
Inside his room, the blue glow of Marcus’s gaming PC cast long shadows. Marcus himself was a snoring lump in his bed, headphones askew. Leo put a finger to his lips and Abby nodded, her eyes wide with amusement in the dim light.
She toe-heeled her heels off, one then the other, letting them thud softly on the linoleum. Then, with her back to him, she reached for the zipper at the side of her tight dress. The sound was loud in the quiet room. She shimmied out of it, letting the black fabric pool at her feet.
In the faint light, he could see the intricate tapestry of tattoos across her back, the sharp lines of her spine. She was left in only that tiny lace bra. She turned, picked up his hoodie from where she’d dropped it, and pulled it on. It fell past her hips, covering her completely, the fabric swallowing her frame.
“The underwear casualty of war,” she whispered, a grin flashing. She padded over to his bed and climbed in, settling against the wall.
Leo stripped down to his boxers and slid in beside her. The single bed was narrow, forcing them close. She immediately curled into him, her back to his chest, her head fitting under his chin. One of her cool feet slid between his calves. He wrapped his arms around her, feeling the ridge of her bra strap through the soft cotton of his hoodie, the bump of her spine.
Her breathing evened out slowly, deeply. The scent of his laundry detergent and her vanilla perfume mixed on the sheets. He held her, listening to Marcus’s snores and the hum of the mini-fridge, the frantic energy of the night dissolving into this impossible, quiet warmth. Sleep pulled him under not long after, his face buried in her choppy, white-blonde hair.