Her eyes widened. "You think—oh, hell. Of course you do. What a tangled web we friggin' weave. No, we didn't go overtime, you numbskull. We were waiting for Jasmine to come back. Matt didn't want to interrupt you guys before, uh, before."
"He did interrupt us. Right when we were standing bare-assed in the living room."
Sara backed up a step, her hand flying to her mouth.
Harrison noted the reaction first with astonishment, then outrage. Did she care if he'd been naked with Jasmine? And if she cared, what the fuck was she thinking to continue with this fucking Challenge?
"Sara, I didn't have sex with Jasmine," he said. "We were naked because—I'll tell you some other time. This whole thing's insane. Why is this place all dark? You didn't do anything with Matt, did you?"
"Of course not. Did you seriously think I would?"
Harrison wanted to strangle her. "Yes, I thought you would. That was your plan."
"So how did you know we didn't do anything?"
Harrison wasn't about to tell her that he could smell that she hadn't had sex, or a shower. It was not the kind of thing he had been raised to say.
"A wild guess."
"Well, you're right. We didn't. We played one of those reveal-all quizzing games. It was very interesting. Very revealing. And Matt was trashed."
"I wondered. He was carrying the bottle."
"Have you ever seen him drunk before?"
"Not that I remember." He looked down at her. It was unreal. He'd spent the better part of the last five hours with a spectacularly beautiful naked woman and hadn't felt a twinge of arousal. Well, maybe a twinge. But no big deal.
Yet now he was staring down into Sara's brown eyes and had the urge to shove her down on the floor where she stood and cram his cock into her.
She hadn't fucked Matt.
He didn't know why that was better than if she had fucked him. Friends weren't supposed to care if other friends had sex. And Sara and Harrison were friends. Friends who happened to have been intimate one week ago today.
But that was a time alone. Separate from the other stuff. Supposedly. He'd almost succeeded in putting it out of his mind the past week.
So what was he doing here?
Who are you kidding, Thomasson? You've thought about her every night. You've been staying away from her in case you can't stop yourself from grabbing her. You miss her. There's already been leakage.
The key sounded in the lock and the door swung open and Jasmine walked in. Wearing clothes, he noted foolishly.
She nodded vaguely at them and went straight to her bedroom.
"Oh, boy," Sara said. "She doesn't look good."
"Matt didn't seem all that happy when he came in."
Sara's arms were on her hips. "No, I'll bet he didn't. Did he walk in on you guys about to have sex?"
"No," Harrison said patiently. "He walked in on us hanging out. Nothing happened, despite your machinations. You were the one who wanted us all to have sex, Sara. Are you now agreeing with me that it was a bad idea?"
"I don't know," she admitted. "I have to think about it some more. I've figured out some things about Matt and Jasmine and…you and…things."
"Well, think about it, then. Because I'm going to. I meant what I said about leakage, Sara." And that's a reminder to myself. No kissing that wrinkle off her nose, dammit.
"I know."
So, instead of doing what his urges told him to, he squeezed her arm once, turned, and left.
THIRD FRIDAY— SARA AND HARRISON
At eight o'clock on Friday, the third Friday of the Challenge, Sara and Jasmine waited in the hallway outside their apartment. There was no sign of the guys. Sara was apprehensive.
"Did we miss a memo or something?"
Jasmine gave her a sidelong who-knows look.
Sara wandered in front of Matt and Harrison's shut door and pressed her ear against it. "I know I've seen Matt today."
"I saw Harrison on his way to the pool," Jasmine said. "This morning."
"I haven't seen him all week. Matt's been around, though. I went to his library thing with him."
"Library thing?" Jasmine asked. She'd been very quiet and reclusive all week, and Sara was worried about her.
"Yeah, you know. The toys."
"No."
"The toys he's gifted for reviewing. You know."
"No," Jasmine said again.
Sara's nose wrinkled. "Where have you been for the last six months? You don't know about the toys?"
"You mean the toys he makes his living reviewing because he's too lazy to get a real job?"
Was Sara imagining it, or did Jasmine's dart at Matt seem duller than usual, almost obligatory? "Right. So last summer he started taking them over to the library to show the kids how they work. You know. He donates them." Sara began to feel like she was talking to a stranger. "It's totally fun. I go with him sometimes. He gave me a lift from work Wednesday and we just hung out at the library all evening. I think one of those little vectors had a cold, though. I've been fighting something."
"I didn't know all that," Jasmine said.
"Yeah. Matt's really in his element with those kids. I think he was Peter Pan in a former life. By the way," she added innocently, "did I mention that it never went down between him and me last Friday? We just weren't into it, so we ended up playing a card game instead of shagging."
Jasmine glanced up quickly. "Yes, you told me."
If she'd asked, Sara would have told her a lot more, but Jasmine, predictably, was unforthcoming about her private thoughts. Sara crossed her arms over her chest and fidgeted for a while. "My phone's in the apartment. Did you bring yours?"
"No. Do you want me to get it?"
"Nah. It's got to be a quarter past. I guess we could knock." Sara didn't know why the idea felt wrong. Maybe because every other time they'd met up for their Friday night Challenge, they'd all assembled right here in the hallway outside their apartments. There had been no need to track down anyone. Consistently, they'd all been there on the dot at eight to couple off.
Sara was nervous. Last weekend things had not gone quite as planned. Since then, there had been less of the usual contact between the two pairs of roommates. Once again, Sara wasn't sure if that had more to do with their schedules or a desire to steer clear of each other. But it was starting to look a lot like leakage to her.
By Friday morning, Sara had been afraid some one or other of them would cancel. Just call it quits due to leakage. But nobody had said anything. So she assumed that as far as everyone was concerned, the Challenge was still on.
This week, Matt was scheduled to have sex with Jasmine again, and she was going to mess around with Harrison like they'd done once before. If all went well, he'd bring himself to go all the way this time. Sara lived in hope. Since starting the Challenge, she was now crazier about him than ever. She was disappointed at not seeing him all week, but unsurprised. Their last encounter had been almost argumentative, so maybe he was avoiding her.
Sara thought she heard a sound. Her eyes widened. She leaned into the guys' apartment door and cocked her ears. Feminine laughter. She glanced quickly at Jasmine, but before she could say or do anything, the door swung open and a striking young brunette came out.
"See you," she called out. And, running into Sara: "Whoops, sorry." She wore workout clothes and carried a backpack on one shoulder. "You going in?" She held the door open for them.
"Uh—no. It's okay." Quickly, Sara shut the door after her and watched her head down the stairway. But not quickly enough. From inside, she heard a muffled shout that sounded a lot like a curse.
Pretty soon, the door opened again and this time Harrison stood there, out of breath. His hair was ruffled, his glasses were down his nose, his clothes were rumpled, and he wore a familiar faraway look. "Damn," he said when he saw Sara and Jasmine. He reached in his pocket and pulled out his mini tablet. "I'm glad I heard you guys out here. Sorry. I lost track of the time." He ran his hand through his hair.
>
"Who was that who just left?" Sara asked baldly.
"Who was who?"
"The girl who was just here. She just came out…" At his confused look, her words drifted to a stop. On one level, Sara was relieved that the girl hadn't been with Harrison. And that he clearly hadn't meant to cancel.
But on the other hand….
She very carefully avoided looking at Jasmine.
She nudged Harrison's arm and tried to speak quietly. "Is, uh, is he in there…?"
Harrison's eyes widened. The wheels seemed to turn in his head.
"Hold on," he said, retreated, and shut the door. Sara used the time to sneak glances at Jasmine. Her roommate was standing right where she had been, staring at the floor stoically, not saying anything.
A minute later, Harrison was back. He looked at Jasmine with a distinctly harassed expression.
"Matt will be out in a minute, Jas," he said. "He's running late, too." Then he looked down at Sara. "You. Come in." He grabbed her hand and pulled her inside.
When the door was shut behind him, he frowned. "I'm sorry about that. I was working." He looked like he wished he were still working, too. Sara didn't know what to make of that.
"What just happened?" she hissed. "Did Matt really have a girl up here?"
Harrison looked uneasy. "Yeah, I guess so."
"But it's Challenge day. Eight to midnight. It's Jasmine's time." Sara felt indignant on her roommate's behalf. "That dog."
"Sara, let it go. It's not our business."
"But—"
"Matt's business is Matt's business. We're not getting involved."
"You don't understand. It's not just about Matt, it's about Jasmine. You didn't see the look on her face. He's the one that got on her case about doing the Challenge in the first place. I can't believe—"
"Sara, let it go. Things aren't always as simple as they look. Remember what happened last week?'
"What—oh." He was talking about Matt walking in on a naked Jasmine and Harrison. Matt hadn't reacted well, according to Harrison. Sara might have told Matt that their nudity hadn't been any big deal if he hadn't changed the subject every time she tried to bring up Jasmine's name.
"Listen," Harrison said, running his hand through his hair again. "I'm in the middle of something. Let me just wrap it up, okay?" He headed for his bedroom. Sara followed him. She watched him muck around at his computer for a while. From the way he kept muttering to himself and opening application windows, she got an inkling about what was wrong.
"You're pretty busy, aren't you?"
"Yeah. They're painting the department and my office has been unavailable the last few days. I'm trying to work this thing out by the end of the weekend." He looked at her guiltily. "I know it's past eight. I'm just finishing up."
"It's okay," she said. She supposed she should have been disappointed, but she wasn't feeling all that into the idea of sex at the moment, with her nose all stuffed up. "You can work on it. Honestly," when he looked disbelieving. "I'll just," she glanced about the room and spotting the bookshelf, said, "grab a book or something. Let's see. Whatcha got? Not that…not that. Boy, Harrison, don't you read novels?"
"I don't have a lot of time for fiction. Well, at least not in the English language." He turned his chair and slid it closer to the desk. It was as though her giving him permission to concentrate on his work had flipped a switch. He was now in study mode, and Sara bit her lip to keep the giggle in.
She flopped down on the bed. "I wish I'd known. I could have grabbed my phone."
He reached around on his desk, found what he was looking for, then tapped with his stylus and held out his arm. "Use this." It was his tablet. She retrieved it, then settled again on the bed, clicking away.
Sprawled out on Harrison's bed, using Harrison's tablet, Sara cruised the web, visited some forums, and checked her email. She replied to some friends, but hesitated over a message from the guy she'd met at the office last week. She considered just replying with "no, thanks, I've sworn off men," but recent experience had taught her that only served as a challenge to some guys.
Since her skill at saying "no" was still in question, it was probably best just to leave the email unanswered until she came up with something sufficiently tactful and off-putting without being hurtful. Maybe she'd ask Harrison about it, she thought on a yawn.
She watched him work for a while, which was happy-making. But then her eyelids grew heavy and eventually, the sleepies got so bad she felt under her chin for her lymph nodes. Just as she suspected, they were a little swollen. Darn contagious little tykes and their viruses…
She crammed a pillow under her head, letting the tablet fall from her hand.
THIRD FRIDAY—JASMINE AND MATT
Except for outside noises and the roar of the furnace, the hallway was silent. The wind shuddered against the windows in the stairwell, sending a chilly draft through.
Jasmine was alone.
As she saw it, she had three options, none of them satisfying.
If she stayed there in the hallway, Matt would come out of his apartment in his own good time and expect to go on with the Challenge as usual.
If she retreated to her apartment, Matt might take her absence as a signal that he should turn right back around and go away. But he might also take it as a signal that she was waiting for him and come after her.
If she left the building, problem solved.
It was what any woman with pride would do. And Jasmine had more than her fair share of pride.
Tonight it was a brunette. But it wasn't the first time he'd had a woman over this week. Monday night, she'd passed him coming up the staircase with a blonde. He'd acknowledged Jasmine with a bland, "Hey," during that encounter.
So. The message was pretty clear.
Whatever had happened between them the first night of the Challenge, whatever kind of betrayal she thought she'd seen in Matt's eyes last week when he walked in on her and his roommate, Matt was over it.
Business as usual. Although not quite. Because their friendship was clearly toast. Jasmine had already suspected it was, but now they were both acting like it was a sure thing.
So it was a disaster. She should cut it loose, like she'd done when she'd left her parents' house. Only then, too, she'd had a problem with looking back. Look where she was still working—at a job she hated, employed by her parents.
Her problem was that she wasn't the same person she'd been before the Challenge.
A disproportionate number of the guys she'd dated had cheated on her, resulting in a minor ego prick, her annoyance quickly dispelled.
Now? Serenity was a joke. After seeing the brunette come out of Matt's apartment, her emotions were in the primitive class. If she stayed, she didn't trust herself not to do something frighteningly un-Jasmine-like.
She should have followed her instincts after last Friday and called off the Challenge, not allowed herself to be reassured by finding out from Sara that nothing had happened between Sara and Matt.
The door to Matt's apartment opened. He came out and halted. Almost as though he hadn't really expected to see her.
"You scum." The words were a reflex. She'd not intended them.
He flinched subtly. "Glad you don't fool yourself about it."
He wasn't advancing, but she held up a hand to ward him off anyway. "If you think I'm about to be with you after that chick with the backpack, you're living in a dream world." She regretted saying it immediately and lifted her chin.
His eyes widened. "Are you jealous, Jasmine?" Suddenly, he was there, pinning her arms and shoving her against the wall. His grip keeping her twisting body immobile was just short of painful. "I'm really astonished. Why would you care? That's what I can't figure out."
"Let me go."
He did, instantly. But he didn't move back, still crowding her, and her palms came up, ready to push him away.
"Now how, I ask myself, could a woman who cheerfully fucks one man one week and another man the next h
ave any particular preference for who the first man fucks? It just doesn't make sense." It took a moment for the savagery in his words to register.
"I didn't have sex with Harrison," she hissed. "You know I didn't. Or you would have known if you hadn't just scarfed down practically that entire bottle of vodka."
He reeled back as if she'd slapped him. "You didn't have sex," he said in an entirely different tone. "Right."
Was he being sarcastic? "You can believe me or not." She crossed her arms over her chest.
"What? No, you wouldn't lie," he said. "You wouldn't lie."
Was that sarcastic? She should have left it there. But her ire was really stoked now. "It doesn't matter what you saw. Or that it was eight to midnight. You should have known."
Jasmine knew she was being ridiculous. She, herself, had jealously brooded about his having sex with Sara. But she also knew she hadn't really believed they would do it. At least, she'd wanted to believe that. The fact that he had believed she could have sex with Harrison after what had happened between them the previous Friday was what wounded her. Even though he had no claim on her. And she had none on him.
"You should have known," she said again.
"I said I believe you," he said. "And I do."
She had to push him. "What did it matter to you that we were naked?"
His hand came around her wrist, tight. "You know exactly why it mattered."
"What are you talking about? That was the plan, wasn't it? The Challenge? You shouldn't have been surprised." Pushing. "We were going to do it. We just decided not to."
He let her go and slid down the wall at her feet, his head falling down between his knees.
She didn't want to feel guilty. She wanted to fight.
"Jasmine, you can give your nakedness to anyone you want. Or not."
"So you got so pissed at me, you made sure I'd see you with your…your lays," she accused. "How terribly mature."
A short laugh sounded from below.
"You have no right to be pissed because I was naked," she insisted. "I have every right to be pissed because you can't keep your parts in your pants on Challenge night."
Leakage: A Friends-to-Lovers Romance Page 12