Free Moments in Time by Karen Stivali Page A

ride to your mom’s place?”
    “About two minutes. Mom always said that was her favorite thing about the house. Being able to be at the church any time you needed.”
    I could tell Tanner had a wiseass comment, but he didn’t make it. “So, anything I need to know before we get there? I mean other than the obvious—knock before you enter the bathroom and if any animalistic urges hit, make tracks to the shed.”
    I closed my eyes, not knowing if I should laugh or get annoyed or turn the car around, head back to our dorm, and make up some off-the-wall excuse about why we didn’t show up. Herd of escaped zoo animals? Extremely localized tornado? Cops locked down the street due to suspicion of alien invasion?
    “That ought to do.”
    Tanner put his hand on my leg, and I jumped.
    “You have got to calm down. It’s just us in the car. Jesus, I really didn’t mean to make you this jumpy. You want me to call a cab or something and just go back to the dorm?”
    My gut twisted. Because a part of me would have been relieved if he’d done just that. The rest of me would have felt like shit, though. “No. I’m sorry. I’m just nervous.”
    “I know you are. And it’ll get easier the more times we do shit.”
    “I guess.”
    Tanner shifted in his seat, and I had the feeling it wasn’t the suit that was making him uncomfortable. “Do you think you’ll ever tell them?”
    My stomach had advanced from twisting to some form of elaborate knotting. Macrame. Sailing. Knots I wasn’t sure would ever come undone. “I don’t know.”
    Tanner stayed quiet for what seemed like a long time but was probably only a few seconds. I glanced over but couldn’t read his face. Serious but not pissed. At least I hoped not. “Okay,” he said, “one thing at a time. One more question.”
    “Shoot.”
    “Is there cake at this thing?”
    I managed a laugh as we pulled up to the house, and then nothing seemed funny anymore.
    “Surreal” didn’t begin to describe what it was like to watch Tanner socializing with my family. I heard him talking baseball stats with Sean, which shouldn’t have surprised me. He charmed every woman in sight from my mother to my sister-in-law to my six-year-old niece. I don’t know why that surprised me either. It’s not like I hadn’t seen him do it before with every female student, teacher, cashier, or waitress we’d ever encountered. Whatever he had, he should try bottling it. He’d be rich. Particularly considering that it seemed to be equally enchanting to certain guys. Like me. Keeping a safe distance from him was making me crazy. More than anything, I wanted us to get home, close our door, and be alone. Together.
    Sean handed me a piece of cake. Yellow with a thick layer of bright white frosting and a tiny white chocolate cross on the top. “It’s good. It’s from Carmine’s.”
    We’d gotten all our cakes there since I could remember. They were amazing. But that didn’t make me feel any less weird about eating virginal white cake in a room with two priests, my entire family, and the guy I’d been naked with every day the past week.
    “Thanks.”
    “You’re still working at Gino’s, right?”
    “Yep.” Gino was Carmine’s brother. That’s part of the reason I’d been able to get a job with him back in freshman year. They’d both gone to the same Catholic school as my family, although they lived on the Italian side of town, while we were on the Irish side. Didn’t matter. Loyalty to our small town was a big thing with the locals. My brothers had both worked at Carmine’s while they were in high school, so it only seemed fitting that I got a job at Gino’s when I moved three towns away for college. It also made it that much more important that I was a good employee. And that I kept my private life… private. Anything Gino knew would undoubtedly make it to my hometown in record time. My stomach twitched again. “The service was nice.”
    “Thanks.” He made eye contact just