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all good here?” he asks, leaning forward into her neck so he won’t be tempted by that wide mouth. He has to clear his throat twice to speak.
    Addie laughs, loud and jangly in his ear. “ I’m good,” she declares, legs opening. She’s fidgety, wiggling on the Formica. “I should probably go re-apply deodorant before I let you any closer though.”
    Eli shakes his head, feeling the beer swim along with him. “No fair.” She smells good actually, that rosy perfume sweating off her and getting mixed up in the salt. He wants to strip her down and investigate all the damp places. “If I can’t, you can’t.”
    “Mmm.” Addie turns, nose smushing up against his cheekbone. Her breath is just slightly stuttery. “Okay then,” she says, soft. Eli is rubbing higher and higher up her thighs with each pass. “S’a deal.”
    Oh, fuck it. Fuck the arson, fuck the bad memories. Eli has both hands underneath her dress. “Deal,” he agrees and turns his head to kiss her.

Chapter Two
    He’s good at this, Addie thinks vaguely, winding her fingers through the slightly damp hair at the back of Eli’s neck. There’s none of the first-makeout awkwardness. The last guy Addie dated, this grocery-store manager named Anthony whose mother is a friend of her mom’s, was kind of unbearably spitty. Eli— shit , Addie thinks, tilting her head back so he’ll press his mouth against her jawline, the faintest scrape of his teeth along the bone—Eli knows how to kiss.
    She lets herself sink into it, one leg hooked around the back of his knee and the warm weight of his hands on her thighs. They’re far enough away from her noisy AC unit that she can hear the zipping sound his short nails make as they run across her nylons, hear how his breathing’s gotten faster. When he bites at her neck, Addie lets out a quiet gasp.
    That makes him smile, the curve of it just as distinct against her skin as his teeth were. When he pulls back his eyes are warm and friendly, dark dark dark just like hers. “That okay?”
    “Umm,” Addie says, sounding noticeably breathless. God, she can’t believe she’s doing this. She’s definitely never just brought some random guy back to her apartment before—she’s never even had an apartment before, how she lived at home with her freaking parents until this past spring. Not to mention that this is Eli Grant of all possible randoms, arguably the sluttiest guy at Eleven and maybe even all of Berkshire County. Addie doesn’t know what’s gotten into her—the heat, maybe, or the tequila, or the morning spent kneeling in a pew at St. Bonaventure’s saying goodbye to a twenty-seven-year-old fireman. “Yeah.”
    Eli grins like she said something smart. He fits both hands around her calves and tugs, dragging her across the countertop. Addie’s hose are the only thing that keeps her from sticking. “Right,” he says, planting a kiss on her lower lip that is somehow both silly and businesslike. “Let’s try for better than okay, how ’bout?”
    “’Kay,” Addie agrees nonsensically. The yank forward has him pressing her hips open, not quite his belt but his stomach, the weight of it all against her inner thighs. Her dress is hiked now, Mary Mother. For no reason at all Addie thinks of The Friendly Giant , every morning on her grandparents’ rabbit-ears set before church, “Look up, my friends, waaaaaaaaaay up.” Screwing around in mourning clothes, Jesus Christ. Probably that’ll be an extra rosary.
    “You taste good,” Eli tells her, mouth opening against her collarbone. He has to hunch a bit to do it, how absurdly tall he is—Addie doesn’t know how she never noticed that before, Eli Grant’s tall, good body. Maybe she just wasn’t looking.
    She puts a tentative hand on his back, on top and then underneath his jacket, sliding her palm down to feel where the sweat has gathered at the base of his spine. The fabric of his dress shirt is limp. When she scritches, Eli hums like a