The Hard Way

by Katie Ashley

  “No. Why?”

  “Well, it’s still early. I thought we could head over to the Shakespeare Tavern and catch a play.”

  Avery’s eyes immediately brightened. “Really?”

  “Yeah, why not?”

  “I haven’t been there since the senior year fieldtrip with Dr. Paulson’s class.”

  “Me either.” I glanced at my phone. “The show’s probably already started, but we can catch the last couple acts. Since it’s dinner theater, we could grab a bite to eat while we’re there.”

  “Are you sure your head won’t combust from having so much culture in one night?”

  I laughed. “I think I could stand it.”

  Avery grinned. “I would love to.”

  “Then it’s a date.”

  The moment the words left my lips, I instantly regretted them. They were just too loaded for the no man’s land in which I currently found myself, and I felt even worse when Avery’s face flushed a little. “Uh, yeah, we better go.” I then ducked my head and made a beeline for the car.

  AVERY

  Friday night found me holed up in my bedroom getting ready for Cade’s fraternity party. Part of me wanted to feign some sort of illness to try to get out of it—nothing seemed like a more torturous idea than hanging around a bunch of drunk fraternity guys—but the other part of me didn’t want to give Cade the satisfaction of gloating over my surrender.

  As I was spreading blush across my cheeks, a low whistle came from the doorway. “Well, well, well. Look at you, Miss Hotstuff!” Tori exclaimed.

  An embarrassed warmth filled my face, causing me to look like an overly made-up clown.

  “Thanks,” I replied as I tried removing some of the blush.

  Tori collapsed onto my bed, sending her long auburn hair into her face. After she flicked it away, she asked, “What are you getting all dolled up for on a Friday night? If you don’t go back home, this is usually your Netflix and chill night, isn’t it?” She wrinkled her nose. “Jesus, did I actually just say ‘Netflix and chill’?”

  I laughed. “Yes, while I usually stay in when I’m here, tonight I’m going to a party.”

  My statement was met with the flailing of arms and rustling of sheets as Tori scrambled to sit up. “You’re shitting me,” she demanded incredulously.

  “No. I’m not.”

  “But you never go to parties.”

  “As a wise—though often inebriated—roommate once told me, ‘There’s a first time for everything.’”

  She laughed. “Well, it’s the truth.” When I glanced back at her reflection in the mirror, her full lips turned down in a pout. “But what the hell, Avery? There’s a party and I’m not invited? I mean, I’m the one who loves parties, not you.”

  “Yes, I’m aware of that.”

  “Although I shouldn’t speak to you any more tonight, I can’t help asking where you’re going.”

  I turned away from the mirror. “I’m glad you’re sitting down for this one.”

  Her blue eyes widened curiously. “What do you mean?”

  “Remember how Cade went with me to ease my nerves when I played for Jamal?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, he sorta bribed me.”

  She snorted. “I knew there had to be a reason for him to go for a night of hymns.”

  I waved my hand dismissively at her. “Anyway, he said he would go with me if I would go to his fraternity’s ’80s party.”

  Tori blinked at me a few times. “You’re going to a fraternity party?”

  “Yes.”

  “With Cade Hall?”

  “Yessss,” I replied.

  “Wow, Aves. This is…epic.”

  I swept a hand to my hips. “Is it really that mind-blowing that I’m going to a fraternity party?”

  Tori shook her head. “It’s more about fact that you’re going with Cade.”

  Staring down at my heels, I whispered, “Because I’m not good enough for him.”

  My chin was unceremoniously jerked up. “That is not what I meant.”

  “It sounded like it.”

  “You are certainly good enough for Cade. If anything, you’re worlds better than him.”

  I patted her shoulder. “I think it’s safe to say you’re shitting me, but I appreciate the effort.”

  “I’m serious, Avery. You got hella brains and beauty, not to mention you have one of the most giving hearts around. Cade should thank his lucky stars that you even lower yourself to speak to him, least of all go with him to a party.”

  While fighting the tears her compliments had induced, I couldn’t help asking, “Then why did you seem so surprised Cade had asked me to the party?”

  “My surprise came more from the fact that Cade wanted to go to the party with a date. Frat parties are hookup central.”

  “You know, I asked him the same thing.”

  “And?”

  “It’s payback more than anything.”

  “He’s blackmailing you into being social? I don’t get it.”

  “Cade knows how much I hate parties—especially A-list parties. So, in his eyes, it’s payback for going to Ebenezer for Jamal’s performance.”

  “Let me get this straight: Mr. Manwhore Hall is forgoing available ass just for payback?” When I nodded, Tori snorted. “Oh honey, I think it’s about way more than that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Cade doesn’t give a shit about you hating parties or getting paid back. This is about him caring about you.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Oh, I do. Guys like him don’t give up free pussy just for payback.”

  I wrinkled my nose at the word pussy. I always had and always would hate that word. “He’s also paying me back for being such a bitch to him at the beginning of the summer.”

  “Once again, I call bullshit.” She cocked her brows at me. “You have lady-scaped, haven’t you?”

  A laugh burst from my lips. “Tori, please.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “I know you are—that’s why it’s so funny.” I placed both my hands on her shoulders. “Trust me, there is no way Cade and I are having sex tonight or any time soon. Most likely never…again.”

  “It’s a logical step. You guys are practically dating.”

  “We are not,” I quickly countered.

  “You hang out all the time and are constantly texting each other.” Tori was right about that one. In the month that had passed since Cade’s apology, we had spent an awful lot of time together. We would grab dinner after work at O’Malley’s, and I would even stay with him to watch some of the Braves games on the big screen there. Besides dinner, we also caught an occasional movie, but I assured myself it didn’t mean anything.

  “Friends hang out together and text each other. We’re just friends.”

  Tori threw her hands up in frustration. “Aves, you can’t be ‘just friends’ with someone you have a sexual history with.”

  “One time doesn’t constitute a history.”

  Tori shook her head. “Once is plenty to have a history.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you had more than just a sexual history with him.” Tori gave me a pointed look. “You loved him.”

  That comment hit me like a bullet to the chest. In the last three years, I really couldn’t remember a time when I’d stopped loving Cade. It had always been there, and no matter how hard I tried to quit, I couldn’t. It was like a flame burning within me that refused to be snuffed out. It had even remained flickering through my long-term relationship with Hal and during the two other short-term relationships I’d had.

  After spending time with Cade recently, the little flame had begun to grow again. If I gave myself over to my feelings, it would become a wildfire that would consume me. Cade’s rejection had burned me so badly before and I didn’t know if I could survive again if things didn’t work out. Things didn’t work out? I was probably overthinking things a littl
e. Once he was finished working at The Ark, that would be it, but while I could’ve argued a million and one reasons why Cade and I as a couple weren’t a good idea, none of those reasons mattered to my heart. It had never felt for anyone else the way it had for Cade.

  I exhaled a long, painful breath. “Yeah, I did love him, back when I was younger and much more naïve. I know not to start something up with him again.”

  Sweeping her hands to her hips, Tori countered, “Oh really?”

  “Yes. Really.”

  “Avery Rose Prescott, you are lying through your fucking teeth!”

  “I am not,” I fired back.

  “Yeah, you are, and no, it’s not your perfect future lawyer poker face giving you away; it’s the look in your eyes whenever you talk about him.”

  I closed my eyes. “Can we please drop this subject? I need to finish getting ready.”

  Tori held her hands up. “Fine, fine. I’ll talk about something else like your costume. Where is it?” When I flicked my wrist at the black graduation robe hanging on the closet door, Tori gasped. “You can’t be serious.”

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “The better question would be who the hell are you supposed to be in that thing?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Well, duh. Sandra Day O’Connor.”

  “Who?”

  “Um, the first female Supreme Court Justice.” When Tori continued staring blankly at me, I continued rattling on, “She was appointed by President Reagan in 1981, and she served until 2006.”

  Tori rose off the bed to come stand before me. Placing her hands on my shoulders, she shook her head. “My dear, sweet, delusional-as-fuck Avery, you cannot go to a fraternity party dressed as some old hag in a robe.”

  “That’s really disrespectful considering she died in 2012. You shouldn’t say bad stuff about the dead.”

  “Are you even listening to yourself? Unless you’re going as sexy Sandra O’Connor with a red, white, and blue thong and American flag pasties, you will embarrass not only yourself, but more importantly Cade. The dude has a reputation to protect.”

  “Then just exactly who would you suggest?”

  “It’s an ’80s theme, right?”

  “Yes,” I replied cautiously.

  Tori momentarily pinched her eyes shut in thought. “Someone sexy from the ’80s.”

  “Why does it have to be someone sexy?”

  She peeped one eye open at me. “Shut up. You’re ruining my concentration.”

  “Excuse me,” I muttered back.

  Her face lit up in a classic light-bulb moment as her eyes snapped open. “Oh my God. It’s so simple I can’t believe I actually had to think about it.”

  “Who?”

  “Madonna.”

  I gasped and took a step back. “You’ve got to be joking.”

  “I never joke about parties.”

  “Tori, there is no way in hell I can pull off Madonna.”

  “Of course you can. You have a rockin’ body.”

  Motioning to my B-cups, I countered, “These do not scream Madonna.”

  “The bustier will fix that.”

  “What bustier?”

  “The leather one you’re going to be wearing.”

  I grunted with frustration. “Cade will be here in less than an hour. I don’t have time to go to the store.”

  “You can wear mine.”

  “You own a leather bustier?”

  “Three actually—a red one, a black one, and a white one. I’m just trying to decide what color for you?”

  “Do I even want to ask why you own them?”

  Now it was Tori’s time to grunt with frustration. “During my first year at Emory, I was in a sorority. Trust me, there was no way to escape sorority life without owning one.”

  Since I was so not the sorority girl type, I replied, “I see.”

  Tori bunched my hair in her hands. “Would you object to dying your hair?”

  I jerked back from her. “I would object very much, not to mention we don’t have the time.”

  “Let me call Jack and see if she has a blonde wig.”

  Jack, or Jacqueline Bateman, was Tori’s best friend from high school. She lived a few floors down with her boyfriend and attended Georgia State. We hung out from time to time.

  “Madonna is a natural brunette, you know.”

  “Hmm, it might work. I’m thinking a bustier and fluffy skirt to look like the album cover for Like a Virgin.”

  As I pictured it in my mind, I swallowed hard. “I’m not so sure I’d be comfortable wearing that.”

  Either Tori didn’t hear me, or she just chose to ignore me. Instead, she started furiously typing on her phone. Based on the dings in the air, she was getting quick replies. After a few seconds, a beaming grin stretched across her face. “Okay. It’s time to get your Madonna on.”

  Jacqueline arrived with a white bustier, white crinoline skirt, white lace arm-length gloves, and the classic ‘Boy Toy’ belt Madonna wore. “How in the world did you find all that so quickly?”

  “Oh, I had it in my closet.” The way Jacqueline said it made it sound like it was perfectly normal to have a full Madonna costume just hanging among your leggings and tunic tops.

  Any modesty I might’ve had was thrown out the window when they began to strip me. They helped me wiggle into the bustier and then put the skirt on me. I was basically a doll for them to dress up.

  With twenty-five minutes on the clock, Tori and Jacqueline imprisoned me in one of the kitchen chairs while they worked their collective magic on me. The table overflowed with makeup and hair products. Tori had unearthed her hair crimper to give my hair the perfect ’80s look.

  When they were finally finished, Tori stepped back and grinned at me. “Holy shit, Aves. You look ah-mazing!”

  Jack nodded. “Just like the infamous MTV Music Awards performance, minus the wedding veil.”

  “How could you possibly remember that?” I asked.

  “My mother worshipped Madonna, so I grew up idolizing her.”

  “I see. Well, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll have to judge how much I look like Madonna for myself—that is if you two will let me up to go look in the mirror.”

  Tori took me by the hands and pulled me out of the chair. “Fine. Go look at your epic transformation.”

  Jacqueline snorted. “Jesus, Tori. When you say it like that, you make it sound like she was some unfortunate hag before we got our hands on her.”

  “Thank you, Jack,” I said.

  “You’re welcome.”

  Unlike Cade, Tori and I didn’t have bathrooms of our own. Instead, we had to share the one off the living room, a Jack and Jill bathroom that joined our bedrooms. When I turned to gaze in the bathroom mirror, I seriously did a double take. I know that sounds cliché, but I seriously did the headshake of disbelief. I didn’t know how it was possible that the reflection in the mirror was actually me. I had been totally and completely transformed.

  “Holy shit,” I murmured.

  “Told ya,” Tori said from the doorway.

  Eyeing my pushed-up cleavage, I once again murmured, “Holy shit.”

  Jack’s gaze zeroed in on my boobs. “Isn’t it amazing what a bustier can do? Who knew you had tits like those?”

  “I should wear a bustier more often,” I mused.

  “I bet Cade knows all about your tits,” Tori said with a sly smile.

  “Call me crazy, but I highly doubt after three years he even remembers my boobs, not to mention all the other breasts he’s seen since then.”

  “Oh, I bet he remembers them fondly. I mean, I have two dicks that have stayed in my memory all these years.”

  “Seriously?”

  Tori nodded emphatically. “When they’re good both in their delivery and aesthetic quality, you tend to remember them.”

  Jack wrinkled her nose. “I’m sorry, but I don’t find dicks aesthetically pleasing. It’s chicks like you who have perpetuated the myth that women wa
nt to see dicks, and thus that it is imperative to send a dick picture.”

  I laughed. “Way to go, Tori. Thanks for inflicting the horror of dick pics on all womankind.”

  “Hey, just because I appreciate a large, veiny dick doesn’t mean I started the dick pic revolution.”

  Our dick-pic argument was interrupted by a knock at the door. Immediately, my stomach did an Olympic-style somersault before twisting into knots. What would Cade think of my outfit? Would he think I was just dressing for the party, or that I had chosen my costume to try to get him to notice me? Oh, who was I kidding? I really wanted him to notice me, or at least desire me like he once had.

  While my mind and heart waged a war over my feelings for Cade, my body was fighting its own battle—the battle of wanting to have sex, specifically sex with Cade. It had been six months since I’d had any type of physical action, and I was starting to feel it. Since I knew the type of sexual attention Cade delivered, it made me want him all the more. In the few times we had watched movies together on his couch, I had found myself fantasizing about him banging me.

  Tori smacked me on my ass. “Go get him, girlie!”

  I stumbled a bit on the stilettos as I made my way to the door with Tori and Jack close on my heels. I had a feeling it was going to be the three of us greeting Cade, rather than just me.

  When I threw open the door, the breath I’d been holding wheezed out of my lungs. Cade stood before me in a white navy uniform complete with a hat. I was immediately hit with a Top Gun vibe, which made sense since it was one of my mom’s favorite movies. “Maverick?” I questioned with a smile.

  Cade gave me a cocky grin. “Yes, Madonna.”

  I laughed. “Come on in.”

  After Cade stepped into the foyer, he did a slow appraisal of me from head to toe. The way he looked at me warmed my skin like I had been out in the sun. He let out a low whistle.

  “Damn, Prescott. That’s some costume.”

  It wasn’t just his words that lit a fire within my lower belly—and, if I was honest, between my legs; it was also the slow, sexy smile that stretched across his face after he said them that did it. I fought the urge to jump him right there in front of Tori and Jacqueline.