“Seriously. They’re on the other side of Brown. You can check.” I took a deep breath blowing it out slowly. “I wanted to talk about…what I’m doing.” His gaze flicked back to my face. Right where I wanted them to be. I decided we were having this conversation and he needed going to hear every bit of it. “I want you to know that it’s just intercourse.” His jaw tightened. “Just the physical coming together of two bodies. But, Cain, if you were ever willing again I want us…” My hand waved between us. “To make love. It’s two different things.”
“How can you say that?”
“Because I don’t give a shit about whoever that guy is. But you…I love you. My real first time would be with you.” He wasn’t buying it. His face was easier to read right then than ever before and I’d been very good at reading him. “You’ve had lots of sex with lots of people right?” He looked like he wanted to say something but instead nodded. “Please, dear god, do not give me a number. Are you telling me that being with me would be exactly like being with them? Me and Erin really are the same?”
“Of course not.”
“Why is that?”
“They don’t fucking matter, Flannery.”
“Exactly. I know you aren’t only interested in my virginity because then you’d be like those guys bidding on me. You want…or wanted anyway, me and you wouldn’t care if I wasn’t a virgin when we met, right?”
“Flannery, it isn’t about the sex. It’s a trust issue. You were doing this behind my back.”
“I wouldn’t have,” I cut him right off. He needed to know these things. “I know how it all looked, what it seemed like was going to happen, but more than anything else I know I wouldn’t have been able to not tell you first. Alex just beat me to it.”
We sat there in silence to allow him whatever time he needed to absorb everything I’d said. And me trying not to get my hopes up. Then I needed to leave him to it once I knew he didn’t have any more questions or comments.
“I’ll go now. Just remember that if you are ever want me again, I’d love for my real first time to be with you.” Then I started to walk away but thought better of it. Turning around, I decided to act without any more thinking and kissed him quickly on the cheek before leaving for real.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Arriving at Cain’s apartment with Adam had me rethinking whether meeting there was such a good idea. I reminded myself I wasn’t alone and we needed to meet for class but I hadn’t been in his place for so long my chest started to ache. Yet I knew we had to finish the project. As we got out of his car, another pulled up. Matt hopped out yelling something to what looked like his mom. It might have been the cutest thing ever. I sometimes forgot how young Matt was.
So the three of us were standing together when Cain opened the door. Yup, the library would’ve been a better idea. But I sucked it up and went in as if we were anywhere else. And I absolutely did not notice what he wore, how he looked, or the way his t-shirt clung to every hard muscle under it making me want to rip it off his body. Nope, didn’t notice at all.
Settling around the coffee table, the TV flickered a baseball game but I sat on the floor between the table and the couch. Matt tried to sit near me but Adam directed him to the floor on the other side or the table. My questioning look went unanswered. Adam dropped himself into the chair to my right leaving the couch to my left, and slightly behind me, the only open place for Cain. Then I got what was going on. I wished Adam would let it go. Things were what they were and his constant need to try to push me and Cain together wasn’t helping. And made me sad.
I busied myself booting my laptop and discussing with Matt how we were going to approach the final project. Yes, I completely left Cain and Adam out of it. And yes, I did it completely on purpose. I was mad at Adam. And Cain hadn’t talked to me in a while. Basically only the one time outside the art building. Other than that we only had brief interactions that didn’t leave me with a warm, fuzzy feeling. I figured he’d be as uncomfortable as me. I’d already started typing when Cain brought everyone a drink. I didn’t remember him asking if we wanted one but a diet pop appeared by my side anyway.
“So, uh, Flannery,” Matt started. Poor kid seemed to feel perpetually out of place. “Do you know much about baseball?”
“Pfhh.” I glanced up at him then back to the computer. “All I know about baseball is that a bunch of guys play with their balls.” All of them laughed but Matt seemed to relax which is what I was going for. I liked the kid.
After another hour of Adam and Cain watching the game while Matt and I worked, we were done. I stood up and stretched from the time on the floor only to realize my foot had fallen asleep. Stomping it several times only made things worse. It was all pins and needles. Limping off to the bathroom, I took pause at his bedroom door. Memories of my time in his bedroom flooded my mind. I had to get out of his apartment. It’d been a nice evening and I didn’t want to ruin it by imagining all the things we’d done in there, how close we’d come to being together.
“We decided to watch Blood and Guts Part four,” Adam said when I came back.
Scrunching up my nose, I asked, “Is that actually what it’s called?”
“No,” he laughed. “But it may as well be.”
Shifting my weight uncomfortably, I couldn’t sit back on the floor but the only other place happened to be next to Cain. I didn’t want to push my luck.
“It’s rated R, though, right? Are you allowed to watch that, Matt?” Deflection was my new favorite coping mechanism. He threw a pencil at me. Apparently, I rubbed off on him in not such great ways. I laughed anyway because he missed me by a mile. “I think I’ll just pack up, though. You don’t have to take me, Adam, I can walk.”
“You’re not gonna walk.” Adam shook his head. “You’re gonna sit your ass down and watch this blood bath with us.”
“I don’t like horror movies anyway and I can walk. I’m a big girl.”
“Hardly. Flannery.” He sighed. “If you really have to go, I’ll take you but you could choose to not be such a fucking girl right this minute and sit your ass down.”
That smirk on his face asked to be smacked right off. Before I could respond my phone rang. Instead of following through on that little tap, I grabbed it, walked to the other side of the room, and whacked the back of his head along the way.
Kendra called. She wanted to check on me because she knew we were meeting at Cain’s apartment so the conversation was pretty short. I did tell her that her boyfriend may not come back alive to which he chuckled and said something about how he’d like to see me try. I started plotting immediately.
After a couple of deep breaths, I plopped onto the couch trying to sit as far from Cain as I could, pulling my knees to my chin. Things had been pretty good between us civility wise but I didn’t want to push it. I’d told him what I needed him to hear and he hadn’t said anything about it. Course, it’d only been a couple of days.
The movie was disgusting. I grabbed a throw pillow to hide my face behind during some of the more gruesome scenes. Dudes and their gore. So nasty. I never got into horror movies because I got so damn fidgety. In high school, more than one guy tried to use it as a way to cop a feel. Course neither of them could walk right for a few minutes after those encounters. I gripped the pillow so hard enough the joints in my fingers started to ache. It wasn’t until several minutes later I realized how close to Cain I’d bounced. I wanted to curl into him but needed to scoot away without being obvious.
On the screen, the psycho killer was about to take out another house full of almost naked co-eds when he popped out of nowhere slashing across a girl’s body, spraying blood across the camera. Grossed the hell out of me. I had to look away. Which I did. But when I did, I threw myself into Cain. And immediately wondered if this was all part of Adam’s plan. He and Kendra made no secret of the fact they wanted us back together.
Yes, I lingered a little longer than I needed to; taking in the scent I missed so much. The distinct boy
soap smell that I had no idea how they got. Eventually, I forced myself to pull back.
“Sorry,” I said but didn’t look away. The warmth in his brown eyes woke every part of my body.
“No problem,” he whispered back. And I noticed his hand cupped the back of my head and I wished he’d pull me back to his chest. But he didn’t. He let me go pretty quickly.
Sigh.
***
I hit the student union to look for Kendra and found her surprisingly alone at a table. Which almost never happened. I plopped across from her because I needed my best friend right then.
“Got the email,” I said. Her eyes widened and she swallowed hard.
“The email?” I nodded my head. “What’d it say?”
I told her because I told her everything. The date had been set. I had one week before I lost my virginity to a forty-seven year old man whose name I didn’t know. Probably hairy. Probably with saggy balls, as Kendra pointed out. But I had up to twenty-four hours before the meeting to cancel otherwise, Melody reminded me, if I cancelled after that I owed her a commission.
“And how do we feel about that?”
I shrugged. I made my peace a while ago. “I just hope he bathes.”
“One and done, right? Then we get to keep you.” Nodding, that was the plan. She continued to try and talk me out of going home saying things on campus would die down. “Plus, Adam told me about the…uh…incident at Cain’s the other night.”
“Great.”
“I made him act it out. Cain cradled the back of your head? Good thing you jumped into him.”
“All part of Adam’s plan I’m sure. I swear it must’ve been his idea to watch that horrid movie. I mean, at least we’re done with our project.” The look on Kendra’s face told me everything I said was accurate. And I owed Adam a shin kick.
***
It was my last week as a virgin. Not exactly how I’d imagined it would be. As a teenager, I started to imagine the day I’d lose it, which happened a lot when I had a high school boyfriend and was, in fact, how I figured out it wouldn’t be with him, I never thought money would exchange hands. I also never thought it’d be with some old guy. I mean the guy was ten years older than my own mother.
If my mother knew what was going on, she’d fly out and haul me back to Washington by my ear. I literally mean she would pull me by the ear until we walked through the door of our super small apartment, throw me in my bedroom, and slam the door. In that scenario, I wouldn’t even try to get out. Staying in would be safer. At least, as far as I knew, while my little scandal created waves locally, nothing had gone national.
We moved our chairs back together to have a little group time. Unlike most of the other groups, we’d already finished and now just had to complete a quick in class exercise then we were done. Which worked for me because I was starving. Although, unlike all the other times we congregated, Cain didn’t leave without participating. He sat to my right. Not as close as he used to but at least he sat there.
“You know, Matt,” I said in the middle of the exercise. “You’ve never said what your major is.”
“Uh…” He looked at each of us nervously. “I want to be a doctor. I was sick as a kid, spent a lot of time in the hospital, which is how I graduated early. There was literally nothing else to do.”
“Wow, you have so much more ambition than I do.” I hadn’t completely decided on a major yet.
“I’m majoring in Sociology, minoring in Communications,” Adam offered up.
“Right.” I laughed. “He’s majoring in getting laid.” The laughter died down when all their eyes darted to me. Yeah, I made a joke about sex. Me. The sell my virginity girl. Whatever. I was done being the girl that tried to blend in the background to make everyone else comfortable. Then the four of us burst out at the same time. Seemed some others were done with it, too.
Slapping the worksheet on Hendricks’ desk, our entire group left early. We had no reason to stay. I didn’t turn to the left the way I normally would’ve to go back to the dorm. Instead I went right because food was the priority.
“Where ya headed?” Matt asked falling in step beside me.
“Food.”
“Mind if I come. I skipped breakfast.”
Shrugging, I said, “If you don’t mind being seen in the union with me.”
“Why would I?” Matt didn’t live on campus but he still had to have heard everything going on.
“Well I haven’t been back since my run in with Alex so it could be weird.”
“What run in?” I hadn’t realized Cain walked with us. I thought it was Adam behind me. Cain’s tone turned hard, the way it’d been all the other times he’d dealt with Alex.
Before I could answer, Alex did. Of course, he already started laughing about it.
“Oh, man, you would’ve been proud of this girl. She freaked the fuck out on him. Called him out in front of everyone and told him he needed to get a little more creative.”
“Creative?”
Keeping an eye on them over my shoulder, Adam nodded.
“Yeah. Said to quit calling her a whore and come up with something better like…wait, I don’t remember.”
Rolling my eyes and dropping my head back, I said, “Woman of easy virtue.”
Cain snorted.
“It was the best. I had to drag her out of there before I pissed myself.” Adam laughed at the memory. “Oh and she hit him below the belt. Attacking the size of his manhood.”
“Ouch,” Cain laughed really , like before. Unfortunately he had personal experience with that particular attack in recent weeks.
Unexpectedly, Adam and Cain joined me and Matt for breakfast. With food on our trays, we passed this blond girl I’d seen around. She always had something to say though.
“What a surprise, Flannery Tate taking on three guys.”
“And you have none. Must be sad.” I kept walking. Like I said. I was completely done being sad Flannery Tate. The girl selling her virginity to stay in school. The girl trying to avoid everyone. The girl in hiding.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Too soon Matt and Adam were both gone and the conversation more than lulled. It ran out the door like rats from the Titanic. I think Cain wanted to leave but maybe felt a little awkward about being the last one to go. Even though we weren’t completely alone because half the student body milled around us, it was weird. I hated how we used to be comfortable with one another and now we weren’t.
“You don’t have to stay, you know.” I wanted to give him an out. I would’ve loved to sit there and see his face. “If you don’t want to.”
“I have a question.”
So he’d gotten past the insanely pissed off phase. Maybe not past it more like working through it. But I was terrified. My palms began to sweat. He could have literally anything on his mind.
“Ok…”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
My eyes closed giving me time to take a deep breath before answering. “I would have. I told you. I swear it’s the truth.”
“No. I mean, when you found out about the scholarship. I was going out of my mind because you wouldn’t answer my calls.”
“Oh, I was scared.” I couldn’t break the connection we had when our eyes locked. Nope. that would have to be him. “No scholarship meant going home which meant no you. I was completely sick over it. I love you, Cain. I didn’t want to be a few thousand miles away.”
He didn’t say anything else. His eyes stayed on me for what seemed like a long time but not long enough and then he was gone. That was it? He had to have more but I wasn’t about to push.
At least he spoke to me. For the first time I let myself imagine what it’d be like to be friends with him. But my imagination went wild from there. If we were friends, we’d hang out in groups. When he got a new girlfriend, she’d be around, too. I knew that wasn’t something I could be a part of. And if the girlfriend turned out to be Erin Kramer, I was one hundred percent positive I’d get
arrested for the first time in my life.
But still, he talked to me.
***
After the breakfast, everything about myself felt lighter. With the exception of my upcoming meeting. The days were dwindling and actually, I became pretty ok with the situation. I mean, I didn’t love the idea of some stranger all over me but I’d compartmentalized it to perfection. As a business transaction, nothing more. Once it was over, it was over and while I’d made the decision to go home for the next school year, even that became less likely. I loved being in Michigan. Loved my friends. And if I ever wanted to be with Cain again, I couldn’t do it from Washington.
Kendra became invaluable and surprisingly Ava did too. They prepared me. They wouldn’t trust the guy to provide adequate protection, I had enough condoms to do the entire Navy fleet. Although the agreement was for one time only. He bought my virginity not an entire night. They’d even picked out my outfit, though I wanted to wear jeans and a t-shirt. As if what I wore mattered to the guy who only wanted someone who’d never been touched intimately.
The Wednesday before D-day, I allowed myself a day to let go in the dorm room between classes. I blasted the music from my Ipod docking station and danced like I hadn’t in months. With only two days left, I focused on everything and anything but the meeting.
When I first heard knocking, I thought it was the bass in the song I had playing. Then it was louder and I realized someone knocked on my door. I hit pause and tried to catch my breath before answering.
“Hey.” My voice came out all breathy both from the dancing and the surprise of Cain standing in my dorm. “Come in.”
He did but only enough to let me close the door.
“I thought you were having a party in here,” he said with a small smile.
“Please. Party of one.” He nodded. I couldn’t stop the babbling. “But the one is me so it’s awesome. Besides, while most people have quieted down, I’m not sure many would be seen anywhere near me yet.”
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