I've been faking not knowing how to play pool so this guy at the bar keeps "teaching" me

I learned to play pool when I was twelve. My uncle Mateo had a table in his basement and I spent every Thanksgiving break down there running racks while the adults argued about politics upstairs. By high school I could bank shots clean and had a break that scattered the table evenly. I'm not a hustler or anything, I just grew up with a cue in my hand the way some kids grow up with a basketball.

So when I tell you I've been pretending not to know how to hold one for the past five weeks, I need you to understand the level of performance happening here.

His name is Kai. 23, bartender at the pub two blocks from campus but not MY bartender, he works Tuesdays and Thursdays and the pool table is in the back past the dartboards. He's about 6'1, dark skin, close-cropped hair, tattoos running from both wrists to his elbows (a compass on the left, something geometric on the right that I've studied closer than any textbook). Big hands with long fingers and a jawline that I think about when I'm supposed to be paying attention in lecture.

I'm 5'6, brunette, athletic build from years of soccer that I quit freshman year but kept the legs and the ass from. Small boobs that I make work with good bras and better posture. I wear jeans and cropped tops to the bar because I noticed Kai looking at the strip of skin between my waistband and my hem the second time I came in. So yeah, I dress for the audience now.

The first time was an accident. I went with friends, they left early, I wandered to the pool table and started shooting alone. Kai came over during a break and said "you play?" and I was about to say "yeah, since I was twelve" but then he picked up a cue and stood behind me to show me how to bridge my hand and his chest pressed flat against my back and his fingers adjusted mine on the green felt and I heard myself say "not really, can you show me?"

That was five Thursdays ago.

Every week I come in around nine. Every week he "teaches" me a new shot. And every week I have to pretend that the reason I'm breathing hard is because pool is confusing and not because his right hand is on my hip while his left guides my cue arm and his mouth is about four inches from my ear saying "yeah, just like that, nice and smooth."

(I should mention I've almost blown my cover twice. Once I instinctively did a behind-the-back shot while reaching for my drink and he squinted at me hard. I told him it was beginner's luck. He did not look convinced.)

The thing about being "taught" pool by a man built like Kai is that it's the most acceptable form of full-body contact between two people who aren't together yet. He has to stand behind me. He has to adjust my hips with both hands. He has to lean over me and reach around to position the cue. And because I'm "learning," I get to mess up a lot, which means he has to do it over and over, his breath on my neck, his belt buckle against my lower back, his forearms brushing mine.

I wear my thinnest jeans on Thursdays.

Three days ago, Thursday number five. I'd been thinking about him all week, couldn't focus in a single lecture, kept replaying the way he steadied my elbow the week before and how his thumb grazed the inside of my wrist like it was nothing. I put on my black jeans that fit the tightest and a white crop top and no bra underneath because I wanted him to see exactly what he was doing to me when he pressed against my back.

We were on our third game. He was behind me for a bank shot, his hips square against my ass, one hand flat on my stomach to hold me steady, and I could feel him through his jeans. Hard. Pressed right against me. He tried to shift back but I pushed into it, just barely, and his breath caught near my ear.

"You're getting better," he said, and his voice was rougher than usual.

"I have a good teacher."

"You sure you've never played before?"

And I don't know if it was the two beers or the fact that I'd been wet since he first put his hand on my hip twenty minutes earlier or the way his cock was straining against my ass through both our jeans, but I just thought, fuck it.

I stepped away from him, chalked my cue, leaned over the table and sank three balls in a row. Bank, combo, straight. Clean. Fast. The kind of shooting you don't learn in five beginner lessons.

Kai set his cue down slowly. "Are you kidding me right now?"

I sank the eight ball in the corner pocket without looking up. "Been playing since I was twelve."

He stared at me with his mouth slightly open and then he started laughing. Deep, real laughing, the kind where his whole face creased. "You've been hustling me this entire time?"

"Every Thursday."

"For five weeks."

"Yes."

"Why?"

I set my cue on the table and walked up close enough to smell his cologne, something woody and warm that mixed with the pub's permanent smell of old beer and fryer grease. "Because I like the way you teach me."

He looked down at me for a long second, his jaw tightening. Then he grabbed my hand and pulled me through the back hallway past the bathrooms to the storage room, the one with extra kegs stacked along the wall and a busted jukebox they never bothered hauling out.

He pushed me against the wall and kissed me hard, one hand fisted in my hair and one gripping my hip the way he'd been gripping it over the pool table for a month except now there was nothing careful about it. I could taste beer and something minty and his tongue moved confident and slow like he'd been thinking about this just as long as I had.

"Five weeks," he said against my mouth. "I've wanted to do this for five weeks."

"I know. Why do you think I kept coming back?"

He laughed into the kiss and his hand slid from my hip to my ass and squeezed hard enough that I gasped. I palmed his cock through his jeans and he groaned low in his throat, deep enough to vibrate against my chest.

"You're unbelievable," he said, already unbuttoning my jeans with one hand while I yanked his belt loose.

"You loved every second."

"I really fucking did."

He pulled my jeans down to my thighs and turned me around so I was facing the wall, my palms flat on cool concrete that smelled like basement. I heard his zipper and felt him pull my underwear to the side and then the head of his cock pressed against me, sliding through the wetness without pushing in, teasing.

"Tell me," he said.

"Kai, please."

"Tell me you want it."

"I've wanted it since the first Thursday, now put it in."

He pushed into me slow and I felt every inch, thick, stretching me in a way that made my knees go soft. His hand came around to my throat, not squeezing, just resting, his thumb on my pulse while he pulled back and thrust in again, deeper.

"Mmhh, fuck," I whispered, my forehead dropping against the wall. He set a rhythm, steady and hard, each thrust pushing my hips forward, his other hand locked on my waist. The room smelled like dust and cold beer and his cologne and the wet sounds of him sliding into me bounced off the kegs and the concrete.

He sped up when I started rocking back into him, meeting every stroke, and I reached between my legs and rubbed my clit in tight circles while he fucked me from behind. His breathing went ragged against the back of my neck.

"You feel incredible," he said, and his voice cracked on the last word, which nearly sent me over right there.

When I came I pressed both hands into the wall and tightened around him so hard he stopped moving. "Shit," he breathed through his teeth, gripping my hips with both hands, and then three more hard thrusts before he pulled out and came on my lower back, warm and dripping down toward my ass while he groaned against my shoulder.

We stood there catching our breath in a storage room that smelled like sex and Stella Artois.

"For the record," I said, pulling my jeans up and turning around, "I would've beaten you every single week."

He tucked himself in and grinned at me, still breathing hard. "Prove it. Next Thursday. Real game."

I go on Thursdays for a different reason now. He still stands behind me sometimes when I shoot, but he doesn't correct my form anymore. His hands just go straight to my hips and stay there, and when I sink a difficult shot he leans in and bites my ear and tells me I'm showing off.

I am, and I'm never going to stop.