the party

The night bled out of the pizza parlor in waves of heat and laughter, the air thick with grease and soda syrup. A teammate drummed on the table with two greasy breadsticks, chanting Tom’s name until the whole booth joined in, pounding the laminate with fists.

Donna stayed close, close enough that her knee brushed his under the table, close enough that every time someone shouted across the booth she leaned in against his shoulder to hear his answer. Any other guy on the team would’ve been pulling her into his lap by now, letting her whisper in his ear, riding the rush of post-game glory straight into her lipstick-stained grin.

Tom smiled where he had to, nodded at her words, but it was hollow. His body responded when her hand slid “accidentally” over his wrist as she reached for her drink, but the arousal just brought up the vision of Sarah’s towel slipping low on her chest.

When the group finally spilled out into the night, the parking lot glowed under buzzing sodium lamps. Exhaust curled from idling cars, headlights sweeping arcs across faces. Donna lingered, her pom-poms dangling from one hand, her other brushing down his arm like she wanted to tether herself there.

“You’re coming to the after-party, right?” she asked, voice lilting, hopeful. Tom felt a pang of guilt at her expression. She was a pretty, charming girl who had feelings for him that he was unable to reciprocate.

"Sure, you bet!" he answered, forcing himself to grin.

The after-party swelled around him, the bass shaking the walls, the laughter spilling down the hallways. Tom kept trying to lose himself in it, but every time someone shouted, every time a couple ducked upstairs, his mind replayed the thought of Sarah and Robert across town. Dinner plates between them, candlelight catching in her hair, her eyes half-lidded with that smile she only gave when she was truly enjoying herself. Later, the thought pressed harder, they’d be in bed—together.

The image dug under his skin until it ached.

Donna tugged at his hand, eyes wide, lips glossed and eager. “Come on, Tommy,” she coaxed, pulling him toward the stairs. He hesitated only a moment before giving in, letting her lead him up past the noise into a dim, borrowed bedroom.

The door clicked shut behind them. She kissed him hard, sweet and insistent, and Tom let the tide pull him under. His hands found her waist, her skin warm and familiar, but in his head another waist filled the shape of his palms, another body arched beneath him.

Still, he made himself gentle with her. The way he touched, the way he whispered in her ear—it was the learned patience of the man he had been, the Tom who had once been Sarah’s husband. Donna responded to it with little gasps and shivers, surprised, delighted, clutching him tighter as though she’d never had him like this before.

He tried, as always, to give her pleasure. It wasn’t her fault she wasn’t Sarah. It wasn’t her fault that even as his body moved with hers, his heart beat only for someone else. He buried his face in her neck, not to hide his own sounds, but to avoid betraying the name rising unbidden in his throat.

When it ended, Donna curled into his chest with a dreamy smile, tracing little patterns on his arm, whispering his name like she meant it. Tom stared at the ceiling, his pulse still thudding, his body sated but his mind restless, unquiet.

Somewhere else, his mother was in another bed. With his father.

The thought burned through the haze of sex, sharper than ever.