Safe Word Read Online Free Page B

“I suck!”
    “But do you swallow?”
    Melody burst out laughing at that, mostly because she was incredibly drunk.  “Wouldn’t you like to know,” she shot back, not missing a beat.  Then she let out a hiccup.  “Oh God, I drank way too much.  Why did you let me drink so much?”
    “Are your parents going to ground you for coming home drunk?” he teased.
    “Ugh,” she groaned.  “I know you’re only playing around but yeah, welcome to my life.  I mean, don’t get me wrong.  I love my parents because they’re, like...my parents, right?   But here I am twenty-eight years old and my mother still tells me to take a jacket when I leave the house and take my vitamins every morning.  I seriously need to get out of there!”
    “I hear you,” Zane replied.  “I had to stay with my parents for a while when I was recovering from the accident.  I was grateful they helped me out, of course, but damn, was I glad to get my independence back.”
    “This will sound weird, but can you not walk me right to my door?” Melody asked sheepishly.
    “Because they’ll see me and start asking all kinds of uncomfortable questions?” he guessed.
    “Yep,” she nodded.
    He chuckled.  “All this sneaking around kind of feels like high school all over again.”
    “Speaking of high school, why didn’t we ever hang out?” Melody asked him.  “We must have gone to some of the same parties, right?  We must have had some mutual friends or something?”
    “Yes and no,” he replied.  “My sister was always mortified to have her big brother hanging around, so I kept my distance from most everyone in her grade.  It kept her from making my life a living hell,” he chuckled.  “But you and I definitely did go to some of the same parties.  I remember you.”
    “You do?” Melody asked, surprised.
    “Yes.  You kicked Troy Kerr in the balls one time when we were partying down at the river.  I distinctly remember that,” he said with a grimace.  “When a guy witnesses something as painful as that, it’s kind of hard to forget!”
    “Oh yeah, I did do that.  He was being a big creep.  He grabbed my ass,” Melody recalled.
    “Well in that case I would have kicked him in the balls, too,” Zane said.  “What an asshole.”
    “This might sound strange, but I’m kind of sad you and I didn’t know each other ten or twelve years ago,” Melody confessed.  “I feel like we would have been friends or...something.”
    “Can’t we be friends now?”
    “Yes.”
    “Do you remember a Halloween party at Dawn Weiss’s place?” Zane asked suddenly.  “It was my senior year, so I guess you would have been what, a freshman?”
    “I do remember that,” Melody told him, smiling at the memory.  “It was my first real high school party and I was so excited!  And it was such a fun time.  No one wanted to go home!  I think pretty much everyone stayed at the party until the sun came up.”
    “Do you remember the haunted house?”
    “Oh my God, yes!” Melody exclaimed.  “It was so scary!  The entire basement was full of amazing decorations and there were people hiding down there waiting to jump out and scare you as you as you made your way through the dark!  Of course, by the end of the night it had just become another place to make out...typical high school party,” she laughed.
    “What about the guy in the devil mask?” Zane asked softly.  “Do you remember him?”
    Melody stopped in her tracks and looked at him questioningly.  “How did you know about that?”
    She remembered the unexpected kiss she’d shared in the darkened basement with the guy whose identity had been obscured.  It had been her first real kiss, or at least the first one with tongue.  A tall, broad shouldered guy had emerged from the shadows.  At first she’d been startled and then, once she’d realized it was just some guy wearing a mask, she’d started laughing.  He’d held out his arms as if to apologize for