Exrated

by Stevie J. Cole

  “It’s good to see you,” he says, blatantly dragging his eyes over me. His gaze stops on my exposed legs before lifting to my face. He smirks. “Damn,” he says. “You’re fucking gorgeous.”

  That angry part of me wants to shove a middle finger in his face and tell him to fuck off, the hurt side still wants him, and that drunk side wants revenge. I swallow. “Thanks,” I say as I turn back to the bar.

  “What do you want to drink?”

  “I got it.”

  “Yeah, yeah. What do you want to drink?”

  “Tequila.”

  “You want tequila? What happened to vodka?”

  “Tastes change.”

  “Some taste…” he says, grinning as he steps up to the bar.

  “You really think you’re gonna get the bartenders attention before—”

  “The regular?” the bartender asks.

  Here I am with my tits basically out, and Tyler takes one step toward the bar and gets his order taken.

  “Yeah, and a tequila shot. Thanks, Will.” He glances down at me with a shit-eating grin on his face. “What was that you were saying, I wouldn’t what?”

  I roll my eyes. “A regular at a night club. Wouldn’t be a drunk would you?”

  “Nah, not at all.”

  Within seconds, he’s handing me a shot glass. I tip the tequila back, and it burns on the way down. My eyes water from the sting as I fight back a cough. “Thanks for the shot,” I say turning to walk away.

  “Hey, where you going, titch?” Tyler grabs onto my arm.

  Fuck. My heart just did that stupid flutter thing and sank to the pit of my stomach. Titch. That’s what he’s called me since we were kids because he said it’s what they call small people in England. I hated that name, but grew to love it.

  “You here with someone?” he asks.

  “My friend.”

  He nods.

  “I gotta…” I rip my hand out of his hold, and he narrows his gaze on me. “I gotta, you know, get back over there before she starts to worry.”

  “Don’t wanna catch up?”

  Oh, fuck you. “Not much to catch up on,” I say.

  “Oh, come on, you’re on a TV show for kids now. Plenty to catch up on.” He smirks and it makes me loathe him even more.

  “No, there’s not.”

  “You’re still mad at me, I see.”

  “Oh, so sure of ourselves, huh? Fuck off, Tyler.”

  “We were kids, Jemma. I didn’t mean to hurt you, you know?

  I walk away, and he’s right behind me.

  “Tyler, I have nothing for you.”

  I head toward the dancefloor, and he grabs my hand. “Where you going?” he asks.

  “I told you. To my friend.”

  “The friend you were dancing with?” He smiles and nods to the end of the bar. “Isn’t that her over there?” I follow his gaze to the side of the room to find Heather snuggled up to the blond guy she was dancing with earlier.

  “Yeah,” I groan. “That’s her.”

  “Well, guess what? That guy wrapped around her waist—that’s my roommate.”

  Of course, it is. Huffing, I make my way toward her, Tyler’s still right behind me. Tyler’s apparent roommate arches his brows, nodding as his gaze veers down to Heather. “You ‘bout ready to head home,” he asks.

  “Uh, yeah…sure,” Tyler says rubbing his hand over the back of his neck.

  Heather grins. “He’s pretty, Jemma,” she slurs, looking at Tyler. “And guess what? They are roommates.”

  “I know,” I groan.

  Tyler walks past me as Heather pushes away from the roommate and stumbles over to me. Placing her hand on my shoulder, she leans in close to my face. “That guy is hot enough that if I fuck him, it doesn’t make me a whore, right?”

  “What?”

  She puts her nose inches from mine, her eyes slightly crossing. “He’s hot enough that it cancels out the whore in me, right?”

  I back away from the smell of alcohol permeating the air and take a quick once over of the guy. Tall, built, blond; total Hollister model material. “Yeah, sure.”

  “Good,” she smiles. “I’ll fuck him, you fuck the other one, and we can be non-sluts together.”

  “Um…” My eyes find Tyler at the bar with his roommate. “It’s a little more complicated than that.”

  “No, sex is so uncomplicated, Jemma. It’s a basic animal instinct.”

  “Right and—”

  Before I can finish my sentence, a shot glass is shoved in front of my face. “Body shots and then we leave,” the roommate says, winking at Heather and me.

  “It’s better with lime,” Tyler says. I turn to find him smiling and holding up a lime wedge.

  “I’m not leaving with you,” I argue.

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “You’re drunk.”

  “And?” I shrug. “I’ll call a cab.”

  “She’s obviously going home with us…” he nods over to Heather whose now deep throating the roommate.

  “Well, good for her.”

  “You’ll be all alone.” He smiles.

  “Yep. Think I can manage it. Thanks for the concern, though.”

  “I doubt that.” He laughs. “Unless you’ve suddenly gotten over your fear of staying in a house by yourself…”

  “I’m twenty-three, not seven, Tyler.”

  I glare at him. I used to sleep in the hallway outside of my parent’s room because I hated sleeping by myself. Of course, since Tyler was my best friend, I told him how scared I was, and he, of course, had a solution. Most nights, he would climb the tree between our houses and I’d let him in my room. “This way you don’t have to be alone, titch,” he told me. “As long as you have me, I won’t let you be alone. Promise.” That memory chokes me up, and now I hate him even more because that was a lie. He did leave me alone.

  He dumps the shot of tequila in his mouth. Shaking his head, he blows a breath through his lips. “Whew, so much better with lime, and this was the last wedge, lucky for you I’m a gentleman and saved it for you.”

  There’s a slight flitter in my stomach when Tyler places the wedge between his teeth and points at the shot in my hand. He takes a step toward me, and I empty the tequila in my mouth. He grabs the back of my head, his fingers scratching against my scalp as he brings my face to his. And then, I jerk free of his grip and take the lime out of his mouth—with my hands.

  “Lame, Jemma,” Heather says, stumbling toward the exit. “So lame I can’t live with you any longer. I’m changing the locks. I swear to God,”

  “Damn, that mad?” Tyler says.

  I narrow my gaze at him. “No, I just don’t want my mouth on you. I don’t know where it’s been the last four years.”

  I walk toward the exit and grab onto Heather’s arm as she steps through the door. “Are you seriously going home with him?”

  Her gaze narrows on me. “Yeah, I thought we went over this. I’m fucking him—” she thumbs over toward Tyler, “You’re banging him…”

  “This is how people get killed, you know that?”

  She shrugs. “I’ll take my chances. He’s hot, and I’m horny.”

  A cab pulls to the curb, and Heather opens the door.

  Tyler steps up beside me. “You gonna come?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, come on. You can cuss me out. It’ll be fun.” He smiles. “Seriously, it’d be nice to catch up.”

  I step to the side to hail another cab.

  “Goddamn, I forgot how stubborn you are,” he says in a groan. “Just get in the taxi, would you?”

  “I don’t want to.”

  He steps up beside me. “So, you are going to take a cab alone?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Not gonna happen.”

  “Excuse me? Who the fuck do you think you are to tell me what I’m going to do?”

  “It’s not safe.”

  “Oh, fuck off. That’s a shitty attempt to g
et me to go home with you.”

  “Girls have been getting fucking raped taking cabs by themselves.”

  I glare at him because I am well aware of that.

  “Look,” he says. “You can come back to my house. I’ll sober up and drive you home, or I’ll just ride in the cab with you to your place then take it home.”

  “Of course.” I laugh, annoyed at him. “I’m a woman, I’m incapable of doing anything alone.”

  “No,” he grits his teeth and leans in close to me. “There are sick fucks out there and, under the current circumstances, it’s not safe.”

  “Are you two coming or what?” Heather calls from the back of the cab.

  I glance between her and Tyler and throw my hands up. “Jesus Christ…” It’s not worth arguing about. I climb into the back of the cab and Tyler scoots in beside me, slamming the door.

  “You’re unbelievable,” I say beneath my breath.

  “And you’re stubborn.”

  “Ugh.” I cross my arms over my chest and stare at the back of the seat.

  “Where to?” the cab driver asks.

  “Hancock Park.”

  I roll my eyes. Hancock Park is expensive. His body is even nicer than it was, and now, he obviously has money. We ride for twenty minutes in silence. Heather and Tyler’s roommate, who I’ve now found out is named Jake, are lip-locked and every time she moves, her high heel digs into my leg.

  The cab turns onto a residential street lined with palm trees. Tyler shifts next to me. “Of all the people I could have run into tonight,” he says, leaning in by my ear. “I couldn’t have asked for a better surprise.” The heat from his breath fans across my neck and chill bumps race over my skin.

  “Yep. Surprise alright.”

  The cab stops in front of a nice house. A really nice house with landscape lighting reflecting off the white stucco front and arched doorway over the porch.

  Heather’s ass is practically in my lap, and I smack it, then shove her out of the way. “Can you get off each other long enough to make it inside the house?”

  She tears away from Jake and looks out the window. “Holy shit!” Heather slurs. “This is where you live?”

  “Yeah,” Jake says.

  “What the hell do you two do for a living?”

  “We getting out?” Tyler asks, slinging the door open.

  Jake slides across, followed by Heather, who stumbles out like a baby deer with new legs.

  I may be angry at him, but I am drunk, and he is fucking hot, and damn, was he good in bed. I follow them up the sidewalk, trying to pep-talk myself on the way to the front of the house. This is how bad things start: You go home with a guy, he says it’s just friendly, and the next thing you know you’re bowed over the bed fisting his sheets while staring at his damn cat. A few tequila shots are not an excuse to fuck your ex. My gaze lands on his ass. But really, it’s not like I would be adding any numbers to my list. It would be kind of like it never even happened. Oh, for fuck’s sake, Jemma. Control your fucking vagina.

  Tyler shoves the key into the lock and pushes the door open. We step into a small foyer that opens up to a large living room and kitchen.

  “Wow, you two must make some money. What are you fucking high-end escorts?” Heather asks.

  Tyler coughs, tosses the keys on the entrance table, and walks to the kitchen to open the fridge.

  “We just moved in,” Jake says. “Tyler got a…” he clears his throat. “A promotion.”

  “This is fucking amazing,” Heather says as she slams into the frame of the door. “Whoops. This,” she points through the open doorway, “is where I meant to go. Double vision’s a motherfucker, you know?”

  It is amazing. Everything is new and sleek. God, I just got fired for a sex tape with an ex and can’t even get a hemorrhoid commercial, and he’s probably a lawyer like he always wanted to be—wait, he’s not had enough time to go through law school. What the hell does he do?

  A few seconds later, a door down the hallway bangs shut and now it’s just Tyler and me in the living room. Outstanding. “You want something to drink?” he asks, walking toward the kitchen.

  “Sure.”

  “Water?”

  I hear a cabinet open. “Yeah, thanks.”

  I glance around the room for a moment before heading toward the picture window. The streetlamp shines down on the rows of palms planted along the curb. When I left my apartment earlier this evening, I never thought I would be standing in the middle of that boy’s living room at the end of the night. It’s crazy that after so many years, that attraction hasn’t waned at all, if anything, it’s worse because instead of a boy, he’s a man. A very attractive, very muscular, evidently very successful man. Usually when you end up at some random person’s house after a night of drinks, you have no idea what to expect. It could be great, it could be shit and in that uncertainty lies a bit of hesitation. Sex with Tyler was never shit. Everything else about him has gotten better, more mature with age so I can only imagine what the sex is like now.

  I watch his reflection in the window as he steps up behind me. His eyes are trained on my back as he slowly sweeps my hair to the side. His long fingers trail over the side of my throat. I tense under his touch, but I don’t want him to stop. It feels too good.

  His fingers skim up the back of my neck, slowly scratching into my hair.

  What do I do here? There’s still something between us, some undercurrent that’s familiar and foreign all at the same time. “Your house is really nice,” I say. That sounded so stupid. Jesus, could I be any more obvious?

  He hands me a glass of water and steps back. I watch in the window as he takes a seat on the couch and kicks off his shoes. “I didn’t drink too much. I can take you home in a little bit if you want.”

  “Yeah…sure.” I remain facing the window.

  “Sorry if I seemed like an ass, I just…wouldn’t want anything to happen to you, you know?”

  In my head, all I can manage to think is: Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Great! Exactly what I want to do: listen to my friend banging some random guy. I take a sip of water and then a muffled thud, thud, bang, thud, bang echoes down the hallway. I swallow. This is awkward as hell. “Actually, do you have any liquor?” I ask.

  “What?” he laughs.

  I turn around. “Like some tequila or vodka or anything?”

  The banging grows more frantic.

  “Uh,” he narrows his gaze. “Yeah…” He stands and makes his way back into the kitchen, and I follow him.

  “Help yourself,” he says as he opens a cabinet and steps to the side.

  I select a bottle of tequila, Petron, to be exact, and pull the cork out. “Glasses?”

  He turns around, grabs a glass and hands it to me. I go to the fridge, get some ice, then fill the cup to the brim with tequila.

  He points inside the cabinet. “No mixer?”

  “No.”

  I hear Heather moaning, and I tip the glass back, taking a few gulps.

  When I glance back at Tyler, he’s leaned against the counter, smirking.

  “What?”

  He shrugs.

  I walk to his sink, take a glass and fill it with ice and tequila then hand it to him.

  “I didn’t say I wanted a drink.”

  “Well, I didn’t want to get in the cab,” I say, walking back to the living room, trying to ignore the hammering sound echoing down the hallway. “So,” I say as I fall back onto the couch, “When did you move to California?”

  “Two years ago.”

  “Huh.” I take another gulp of the tequila. I need something to help me through this fucking nightmare. “Finish up at NYU?”

  “No…”

  I can tell by the blank expression on his face something happened. “Taking a break?” I ask.

  “Something like that. What about you? Are you in school?”

  “Nope. Stopped going when I got that role…” I trail off praying to God he hasn’t seen that tape.

&n
bsp; “Yeah, understandable.”

  We sit in silence for a few minutes, well, the not talking kind of silence because that damn headboard is still bumping against the wall pretty hard. Right now the she-bitch in me wants to make him regret losing me. I want him to want me and obsess over me the way he used to. I want to prove that I was right when I believed the love we had was an epic love, even if it goes nowhere.

  He inhales. “I actually failed out of NYU,” he says before turning up his glass.

  “That sucks.”

  “Yep.”

  And…silence again.

  “Jemma. I never meant to, we—”

  “So, what do you do now then? If you aren’t in school and all, I mean, this is a really nice house. You aren’t selling drugs or some shit are you?”

  His lips lay flat across his face, and he exhales a low groan. “No, of course not.”

  “Well, at least there’s that.”

  “You know I—”

  “So what do you do, Tyler?” I want him to stop trying to rehash the past because I am not going there with him. Hell, I don’t even want to be in his house right now, well, I mean, I kind of do, but I don’t.

  “I work.”

  “Where?”

  He glares at me. “I’m a service provider for a multi-million-dollar company.”

  I take another long sip of the liquor. My eyes stray to his lip ring. “When did you get your lip pierced?”

  “A year ago.”

  “I like it.”

  “Thanks.”

  And here we sit, slamming back about four shots worth of tequila. After a few moments of silence, a slow chuckle leaks from Tyler’s mouth.