Romance Novel Scene

I am stuck. Not only am I stuck, but I am in a janitor’s closet with a woman I haven’t seen since high school. Since then her figure has filled in significantly. The curve of her hips is delectable in the dim light that is still swinging above us. Her ass jiggles slightly as she tries the door handle for the fifth time. 

I chuckle behind her as Alanna throws her hands in the air. 

“What are you laughing at?” she asks, popping her hip and placing her hands on her waist. “Please, if you have a better way of getting out of here Mr. Prom King, be my guest.”

I laugh again, louder this time, and her nose crinkles as her eyes narrow.

“I’m sorry, okay?” I say as I regain my composure. “I know you didn’t particularly like me in high school-”

“Didn’t particularly like you? Oh, no. It was much worse than that, Noah,” she says, cutting me off. She pushes my chest. “You were insufferable. Constantly teasing me, embarrassing me during class or softball practice. You were a huge jerk, and I hated you.”

“Maybe I did those things because I liked you,” I say, taking a step toward her and twirling a strand of her hair around my finger. Her breath hitches just for a split second before she swats my hand away, but I saw it. The flicker of desire in her eyes. I didn’t miss how she said “hated” instead of hate earlier. We were paired up for our ten-year reunion scavenger hunt tonight. We had been getting along pretty well, and I couldn’t remember why I had teased her so much in high school until we got locked in here and her nose crinkled with annoyance. The last item on the list was a poster from inside the school, which had been locked up for the night. Alanna was a goody-two-shoes back then, and I thought she would never go for it. The determination in her eyes when I told her she probably wouldn’t do it lit a fire in my stomach, and our close proximity was only serving to stoke the flames. Her eyes were now blazing with a different kind of fire.

“That argument might work with five-year-olds, but I am 28, and you are full of shit,” she says, poking her finger in my chest to accentuate her point. 

“You know, it’s kind of your fault we are in here,” I tell her. This might be the equivalent of poking a bear if the bear was a foot shorter than me and a hell of a lot angrier, but that nose crinkles again and suddenly, I don’t care if I’m mauled. “You’re the one who said you thought you heard something. Maybe you wanted to get me alone? Are you even really trying to open the door?”

“How much do you weigh?” she asks, cocking her head to the side and pasting an innocent smile on her luscious lips.

“Why?” I raise my brows, not liking where she could be going with this. 

“Well, I think if I shoved you into the door hard enough, it might fall down,” she says, stepping behind me.

I turn to face her, holding my hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry.” I bite the inside of my cheek. “Do you want to know the real reason I teased you all those years?” I ask, shifting my weight back and forth. 

“Why?” There goes her damn nose again. I tap it with my index finger. 

“Because of that,” I say. Her brow furrows. “Anytime you get annoyed or angry, your nose crinkles. It’s the most adorable thing I have ever seen.”

“So you made my life hell in high school because I look cute when I’m angry?” she says. She keeps her face neutral, probably trying not to crinkle her nose. 

I rub the back of my neck with my palm, “Well, when you put it that way, it sounds bad…”

She just stares at me until a sudden burst of laughter leaves her mouth, and she clamps her hand over it. Muffled giggles keep coming until she’s bent over with one hand on her knee and the other holding her stomach. “I’m sorry-” laugh. “It’s just-” laugh. “That’s one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard!”

I lean back on the door and stare down at her. A wide smile is spread across her face, and her nose is crinkled in a way that I hadn’t noticed before. She stands straight, and swipes her fingers under her eyes where tears started to gather. A strand of hair had fallen in her face. She was still beaming with the brightest smile I had ever seen. I step forward, and lift my hand toward her face, holding it midway to look in her eyes for any hint of hesitation before I sweep her hair behind her ear.

Her smile fades slightly, but her nose is still crinkled, so I leave my hand cupping her face.

“You know,” I say, “if I had seen that beautiful smile, I would have tried to make you laugh more in high school.”

She looks up at me through her lashes, and leans into my hand. “But then we might not be here,” she says.

I blink at her, raising my brow. “I really am sorry, you know. I was an idiot back then. I wish I would have had the balls to just talk to you. We could have been here sooner.”

She rolls her eyes. “I was too stubborn in high school. I would have only seen you as a bonehead jock,” she chuckles.

“That’s because I was a bonehead jock,” I tell her. 

“And what are you now?” she asks.

“Now,” I say, bringing my other hand up to cup her face, “I’m an older, wiser bonehead jock.” She laughs, crinkling her nose again. I swipe my thumb across the tip of it. “There’s that gorgeous smile again.”

“Just kiss me already, bonehead,” she says, standing on her tiptoes to try and reach me.

I dip my head to meet her halfway, brushing my lips against hers. I pull away, but she tugs on the collar of my shirt, bringing my head down to crash our lips together in a bruising kiss. I swipe my tongue across her bottom lip, and our tongues meet as she opens her mouth, battling for dominance.

I move my hands down her body to land on her plump ass, squeezing lightly. She softly moans into my mouth just as the door to the closet swings open, and a night janitor shines a flashlight in our eyes. Alanna looks like a deer caught in headlights, but then she grabs my hand and pushes past the janitor before running down the hallway, pulling me with her. 

We rush out the gymnasium door that we snuck in through, and we double over laughing and trying to catch our breath.

We start our walk back to the community center where the reunion after party was being held hand in hand.

“You know,” I say, stopping to turn toward her, “we forgot to grab a poster while we were in there.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” she says as her nose crinkles in annoyance.