The door to the garage was closest, so we went in that way after I entered a code onto the keypad.
“Remember prom?” I asked her once we were safely enclosed in the garage.
“When we got locked out, and I had to crawl through the doggy door to let us in, all decked out in my prom dress?”
“So, you do remember.”
“How could I forget you shoving miles of tulle in after me?”
“The fabric?”
“Yes,” she said as we moved toward the door that went into the house. “The fabric. It was tulle. And it ripped on the frame of the doggy door as you all but booted me inside.” She laughed and I braced her against the door and pressed my finger to her lips.
“Forget my stumbling, your mouth is gonna wake up the whole house.” I removed my finger and didn’t turn the handle right away. “Besides, aren’t prom dresses kind of like wedding dresses? You’re never going to wear it again, right?”
“Well, no, I’m not going to wear it again. But it was the fact that I had to look terrible when we went to the diner after we grabbed your keys, in my ripped and dirty gown.”
“Terrible? You didn’t look terrible.” She’d worn a navy-blue dress with a long tulle skirt and strappy top with a deep v-neck. I remembered it well and not just because I had the prom photo in my wallet, but because she’d looked… “Gorgeous. You were gorgeous. Navy is your color.”
“It’s also my name.” She giggled. “And thanks,” she said, almost shyly. “Are we going to go inside, or…?”
I shrugged, still holding her braced against the door. “Thought we’d just stand here until my legs gave out if that’s okay with you.” It earned me a laugh, but also, I’d meant it. Holding her was no effort, and I wasn’t eager to let her back down anytime soon.
But then something dawned on me. “Fuck.”
“What?”
“I’m pretty sure the door is locked.”
“Keane…”
I grimaced. “I know.”
“I am not climbing through the dog door again.”
That was fair. “I’ll try to reach. Hold on.” I set her on her feet, regrettably, and dropped to my knees on the cool concrete stoop in front of the door. It’d been a while since we had a dog, but we hadn’t replaced the door with the old doggy door installed in it. Which was a good thing, because I locked myself out of the house entirely too often. I angled my body so that one arm went through the dog door and then I maneuvered my head through the door as well until I saw the lock. After a moment of grunts, I managed to unlock the knob and slid back under the dog door. “We’re in,” I said, and swooped her up into my arms once more.
Navy laughed into my shoulder. “Let me down. I’ll walk, it’s okay.”
“You’re clumsier than I am, so that’s a no. I’ll let you down when we get into my room,” I promised, entering the house and tightening my hold on her as I crept down the hallway, past my parents’ and Asa’s doors until we reached mine. I opened the door and let us in, waiting until we were safely behind the door to exhale. “We did it,” I whispered on a laugh. I’d promised to let her down when we reached my room, but I still held her. And she didn’t make any moves to loosen her legs around me.
God, she smelled so good. I’d always appreciated how she smelled, but in the context of what had happened tonight, the way she smelled was fucking hot as hell.
“Navy,” I said, not realizing how hoarse my voice would sound. I swallowed.
“Are you going to kiss me?”
My arms tensed under her. “We’ve been drinking,” I said, doing everything in my power to list the reasons going any further was a bad idea. Though we hadn’t explicitly talked about sex, we were now in my bedroom. Which… had a bed. “You’re drunk.”
“So are you.”
“Not as much as you.”
“Oh, so there are levels? You measured?”
“Well, no…” I made a move to let her down, but she only tightened her hold around my hips, bringing my lips right to the skin of her neck. I closed my eyes, willing all my strength. What was I saying before? “We shouldn’t do this.”
“Don’t give me the same speech you gave me back in high school,” Navy said, and I heard the hurt in her voice. “I won’t believe you don’t want me this time.” As if to illustrate her point, she wiggled, bringing her directly in contact with my erection.
“Whoa.” I winced. Fuck. “I’ve never not wanted you, Navy. That’s not what it’s about.”
“Then educate me. What is it about?”
“I don’t know what’s going to happen after this.”
She tapped my forehead. “Because you’re not a mind-reader. And neither am I. But we both know that if we don’t do this, we’re always going to think about it.”
I did know that. In many ways, the fact that we were in this situation proved that we’d already crossed some arbitrary line between friends and more than friends. “So it’s a decision of choosing to go forward and let the chips fall where they may,” I said, and Navy held up one hand like it was a scale, “or always wondering what could have been.”
She held up her other hand, lifting either one back and forth as we weighed our options.
“And you’d choose…” I began.
“Well, I’m not letting go of you. So that should tell you.” Despite the influence of alcohol, she looked me very clearly in the eyes and tightened her hold on me.
“Do you mean that?”
“Are you going to ask me every time I say something if I mean it or not?”
I ran a hand through my hair, hardly believing this was happening. “I don’t think so. I just… this is new. I don’t know how to act.”
“Well…” She brushed a hand through my hair, her nails dragging over my scalp in the most delicious way. She knew how much I loved that, as she’d done it a dozen times before. But this time, we were talking about sex, which made it feel like a tiny, little torture. “Then treat me like you would if I weren’t me.”
“I can’t treat you like that.” This was Navy. She was special; someone I cared deeply for, in complicated ways. I could never treat her like I didn’t care, or like she was someone I wasn’t invested in.
“Then just do what comes natural for you.”
I didn’t think it was possible to be more aroused, but the thing that felt most natural to me in that moment was to carry her to the bed and lay her across it. So I did.
The moonlight that poured in through my window bathed her body in white light, illuminating her dark hair and making it look silver. Shit. As many girls as I’d dated, the only one I’d ever had in this bed was Navy. She was special. I’d have to make sure she felt that, too.
I started at her feet, removing her shoes with quick precision, and then my own before I climbed over her so that I braced myself above her.
We’d cuddled probably a hundred times in this bed—hell, we’d even spooned—but I’d never looked at her this way. I hadn’t allowed it. Knowing I could now meant my head swam with possibilities. Flooded by them, I hesitated over her.