She groaned. “How much did I drink?”
“Too much!” he snapped, angrier than he meant to be, but then his tone softened as he absorbed the blame. “Me too.”
She sat on the floor and leaned against the wall, staring at him, looking concerned.
“Rhees, do you remember last night?”
She thought for a moment. “I’m drawing a blank on pretty much everything after we danced.”
“Which time?”
She laughed but then groaned. “Oh, my head hurts too much to laugh.” She closed her eyes and thought about it some more. “Okay, I remember showing the gang our dance.” She smiled. “Mm, it was nice.” She quieted for a second and then laughed again, quieter to keep the throbbing to a minimum.
“I remember you and the guys dancing on the bar. You were so . . . mmm, yummy.” She opened one eye and glanced at him to see how he’d react to her description, testing their new, not-pretend boundaries—they’d yet to define what the boundaries were. He closed his eyes as if he didn’t like hearing it, and she wished she hadn’t said it. “Then Taylor ordered everyone some iced tea. It’s all a blur after that.”
“It wasn’t iced tea, Rhees. A Long Island Iced Tea is a cocktail made with just about every kind of alcohol known to mankind. You had no business drinking one of those—I should have known better—but I was too drunk to pay attention.” He rubbed his face, another sign of his bad mood.
“That was after the Zombies Taye ordered earlier, and the champagne—shit, Rhees, after last night, your liver’s as pickled as mine.” He frowned, pursing his lips a few times.
“It must have tasted good if I drank it.”
“We both drank everything regardless of the taste. By the time we got to that point, taste didn’t matter anymore.” He leaned his head back and he stared at the ceiling. “Aw Rhees . . . I messed up. I really messed up.”
She crawled over to the tub and put her hand on his shoulder. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
His head fell forward again and he covered his eyes with his hands, trying to rub the whole incident away.
“Oh, Dani Girl . . . I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” He shook his head slowly, over and over.
“Paul. Tell me what’s wrong. It’s killing me to see you like this. I want to kiss you and make it all better, but I have puke-breath.”
He huffed a humorless laugh. “I don’t want you to kiss me.”
“I understand. In spite of how much I love your mouth on mine, I wouldn’t kiss you if you had puke-breath either.”
“Did you seriously just say you loved my mouth on yours?” He looked up at her, incredulous. He hissed and then hung his head again, defeated.
She watched him make angry faces and she listened to his labored breathing as he struggled with whatever he struggled with.
“Are you going to keep doing that or do you think you’ll get around to telling me what’s wrong?” she asked. He reluctantly rolled his head so his eyes met hers.
“I’m no good for you. I wish you’d never walked into my life.”
She pulled her hand from him as though she’d been bitten. She’d seen this mood before, but after the zip line, she thought she wasn’t supposed to see it again. Instead, he’d become a roller coaster, up and down, back and forth. She backed away and pulled her knees to her chest, curling into a ball. She wouldn’t look at him.
“Look at how much I’ve already changed you. I don’t want you to change, but I’m slowly dragging you down to my level. That’s the last thing I want. You’re perfect. You’re so lovely and innocent, and I don’t want to change you, but it’s inevitable if you’re going to be around me.”
“You’re breaking up with me,” she rasped. It was her turn to shake her head slowly, over and over.
Hearing her put it that way shocked him. He struggled to breathe; she did too.
“No,” he finally choked out. He closed his eyes again. I should, if only I could. He knew it would be best for her. Being with him put her in constant danger, but still, he’d never bring himself to do the right thing. “But we need new rules.”
The despondency evaporated, and she willingly looked at him again.
“New rules? Okay.” She seemed to perk up.
“From now on, we can’t . . . we can never, both, get drunk, at the same time again. Understand?”
She nodded enthusiastically. Apparently she thought that an easy enough rule, but then she looked disappointed when he continued. She thought he’d finished, but he was just getting started.
“No more kissing in bed, in the bedroom, period.” He said each item as it came to him, not really thinking it through, but he desperately brainstormed, trying to convince himself it could work.
“Or when we lay down . . . anywhere. We have to stand up if we’re going to kiss.” He reconsidered. “Hell, even standing isn’t safe with me.” He stared at her, warily, and for too long before he continued. “No kissing when we’re alone, got that? Only PDA from now on. No more private intimacy.” He stared at the ceiling, thinking. “We start using two sheets. We’ll each have our own, like the bundling bag in that movie. No more skin touching skin in bed.”
“But, snuggling . . . the nightmares. You know it’s . . .”
He sighed. “All right, snuggling is all right—but only when you have nightmares. That’s where double sheets come in, to keep us from having too much skin contact. You should get some pajamas, real ones—flannel.”
She laughed, interrupting his rant. “I am nawt wearing flannel in the Caribbean.”
He shot her an icy glare, thinking her disagreeable when he was only trying to protect her.
“I’m from Utah. I’ve survived twenty-four winters in the Rocky Mountains. You, on the other hand, have lived your whole life in the heat and humidity. You can wear flannel jammies, not me.” She glared at him, holding her ground.
“Okay, no flannel, but . . .” A trace of desperation appeared in his tone. He seemed a little stumped.
“Geeminy, Paul. You’re all over the place this morning. Are you planning to tell me what’s wrong?”
“You think I’m all over the place,” he shouted. “Last night, I was all over you. I still am!”
She didn’t like how brusque he sounded, though she had no idea what he meant.
He rubbed his face again and she could see his distress.
“Look at your panties.”
It took her a second but she turned her back to him and checked. She could see it, feel it, but still didn’t know what it meant.
“That’s me. That’s my dried cum, all over you.” He watched her warily, waiting for her reaction.
She humphed, thinking it through, and not giving anything away as to how she felt about it. “So why are you in the tub? If it’s that bad, if we already—what good did you think sleeping in the tub was going to do?”
“I don’t know.” He seemed to realize she was right, but only just at that moment. “I honestly don’t remember. I can’t remember a fucking thing.”
She tried hard not to let on how satisfied, relieved, she felt. Somehow, she knew it wouldn’t go over very well with him to admit how grateful she’d feel to have it over with. And if it happened when she’d been too drunk to cringe, flinch, wither away from him, or scream for him to stop—she hoped she hadn’t—all the better.
She really couldn’t remember. She looked at him again, sure he would have stopped if she had. She’d heard the Coitus Club gossip about some of his drunken induced, not-so-flattering behaviors, but none of the other girls ever made it sound like a bad thing. They definitely weren’t afraid of him because of it. On the beach the night before last, he’d personally admitted he could be forceful at times, and it worried him, for her sake.
She pinched her lips into a ti
ght line to keep from appearing too content.
“I came too fucking close!” His swearing steadily increased—a sign of his frustration. He’d tamed his language so much since they’d been together, but sometimes, when things slipped beyond his control, he reverted back.
“I don’t even know how close I came. Fuck! I can’t remember. I was too fucking drunk! Shit, Rhees. This is serious. I’m all over your panties, all over you. It’s too close to—I didn’t plan to let myself get anywhere near you, like that.” Paul’s intensity had increased to yelling by the time he finished.
They both startled when they heard a loud bang on the wall. Someone in the room next door yelled for them to shut up. Paul rubbed his temples and sighed, but it made him calm down.
“I don’t think I did,” he said quietly before he launched into another one of his fast thinking, hard-to-follow rants. “I hope to God I didn’t. I don’t believe I did. You still had your panties on, but I can get around those without taking them off, so that’s no assurance, and I found semen on both sides of your panties, inside and out, but the fabric is sheer, maybe it just seeped through.”
Dizzy from the roller coaster ride that was Paul when he was disappointed in himself, she looked off at a spot in the corner, waiting for him to ride it out until she had a thought.
“Could I be—” She paused and glanced down at her panties again. “Could I get pregnant?”
His body went slack and the color drained from his face. He hadn’t thought of that. He’d stopped carrying condoms months ago as a deterrent to keep him off of—out of her. Of course he hadn’t worn one.
“I don’t know.” He was fraught with disdain for his own behavior. “It depends on what I did—”
“It depends on what we did. We, Paul, we,” she scolded. “There’s semen all over my panties, inside and out. That means it could have gotten inside me, right? Even if we didn’t actually do it? My mom said that could happen when she gave me her own version of Sex Ed since I didn’t participate at school.”
“Technically, yes, in theory.” His own mom had warned him of the possibility, but curious, he’d looked it up as a teen. That scenario didn’t rank high on his list of concerns. “It’s not impossible, but people all over the world are messing around every day. There’d be a lot more virgin mothers running around. I’ve never met one, have you? We’d hear about it, besides in just the bible.”
She nodded but sat quietly. She still didn’t look up.
“But if I penetrated you—that’s just it—I don’t know. I don’t know what the fuck I—we did.” He carefully corrected himself after her little objection. “I don’t think I did.” His eyes darted to her and he corrected himself again. “We did. I didn’t see any blood.”
He let out a shaky breath. He slowly and hesitantly turned his gaze from her. It wasn’t enough. He had to close his eyes to ask the hard question.
“You are a virgin, right? If I had—” He cleared his throat. “Penetrated you, there’d be blood.”
Rhees didn’t answer. It was as though someone had sucked all the air out of the bathroom and he had to look. She appeared sick. She was sick, she drank too much the night before, but she looked a different kind of sick as she sat stoically on the floor, trembling.
“Rhees?” Based on what he’d witnessed since he’d known her, Paul knew he’d pushed her farther than she could handle. He sighed and then retreated, hoping to bring the focus back to himself—bring her back. “There wasn’t any blood. I didn’t deflower you. Rhees? I think we’re okay.”
She finally nodded and he watched as she slowly came back from the dark room she’d locked herself in for those few seconds. They sat silently for a while until his disgust with himself got the better of him again.
“This is entirely my fault, not yours, but no matter what I did, exactly—it was too much. It should never have happened.”
“I wouldn’t have cared,” she said in a soft voice.
“Oh my God.” He snapped back to frantic. “God damn it, Rhees.”
It didn’t matter anymore what he might really be saying or trying to make her understand. She’d tried to tell him she could be okay with more physical intimacy but he’d made it clear. The idea repulsed him. She only heard rejection and she knew why he’d want to reject her. She stood and hesitated, unable to decide what to do, yell at him or run away. She did both.
“I’m not a fucking idiot! I understand plenty! I understand you hate the idea of being with me, and I don’t blame you. Actually, I am an idiot. I get it, okay? I just thought things might finally be different, but nothing’s dif—I—I’m still dirty.” Her shoulders went limp and she stopped herself. She’d never come so close to spilling her personal feelings aloud, she never allowed herself to even think them. She looked around the room a few times, as if lost, as if she’d lost her bearings in the small room.
She ran out of the bathroom, but it wasn’t far enough. She needed to get away, but she couldn’t think straight. She ran out the door and headed down the long hallway of the hotel.
Paul heard the door slam.
“Aw shit!” He jumped out of the tub and ran out the door after her.
He didn’t catch her until she’d made it to the elevator and stepped inside. He grabbed hold of her and dragged her back out before the doors closed again. She fought, but he ignored her attempts to get away, holding her to him until she finally gave in and hugged him back. She buried her face in his chest and cried.
“It’s going to be all right. I promise.” He let her cry it out, but winced at his own words. He’d just made a promise he wasn’t sure he could keep. No, actually, he’d made one before. He’d promised she’d leave their island the same way she’d come, and though he hadn’t broken that one exactly, he’d come too close. The more he thought about it, the more he realized how much he had changed her.
She would never be the same again and it wrenched his conscience, unable to decide if it was a good thing or not. She once couldn’t bear him touching her. He knew that wasn’t good. How seriously messed up does a person have to be, to hate being touched as much as she once did?
She didn’t mind his touch anymore and he thought that was good, but only for a second. Now she didn’t mind too much. Maybe he hadn’t done her any favors after all. He believed himself to be the last man she should get so comfortable with. The fact that she still freaked out when anyone else touched her only added to his concern.
He’d come too close. Yeah, he felt sick inside and needed to get his mind off this line of thought. He winced again because he couldn’t help himself. He squeezed her to him even tighter. He knew she’d be better off without him, but he never wanted to let her go.
“You are aware we just locked ourselves out of our room?”
Rhees shook her head as best as she could without having to break contact with him. His chin rested on the top of her head and after quietly holding her for several minutes, he spoke calmly, soothingly, and began rubbing his hands up and down her back. It felt good and she started to feel better.
“The key is in my jacket, on the counter, in the room, behind the door that is now shut . . . and locked. My phone is in there too. We’re standing at the elevators on the top floor of a five star hotel. We slept in our clothes. Neither of us is wearing shoes.” His chest vibrated with a quiet chuckle. “My mom would die. She’d say something like, ‘People will think we’re a bunch of hillbillies or trailer trash’.
“My dad always responded to her social concerns by saying, ‘Dude . . .’.” Paul laughed again at his dad calling his mom, of all people, dude. “‘You can take the trash out of the trailer, but you can’t take the trailer out of the trash’. I never really understood what that meant when I was a kid.” Paul’s chest shook with another chuckle. “You know? I haven’t had a fond memory of my parents in a very long time. My
very prim and proper mother and my dad who grew up poor, but clawed his way to the top, how they ever wound up together will forever be a mystery. ”
“Opposites attract,” she mumbled into his shirt.
“Falling in love is a curse enough. Falling in love with your opposite, someone you have nothing in common with, makes it even worse.”
She looked up to see his face, hurting and hating how he’d just reconfirmed he could never fall in love. Not with her, or anyone else. She rested her cheek against his chest again and breathed him in as deeply as possible, wishing he hadn’t been so damaged as a young boy. She understood why she would never deserve his heart, but sadly for him, she believed his brother and the girl who stole Paul’s innocence were the real curse. She didn’t want to cry again.
“At least we both have our clothes on,” she said. “That’s pretty lucky considering you just got out of the tub.”
Chapter 21
The gang had brunch, the last thing they would do together for another year. They all had flights to catch and would be heading their separate ways until the next Testosterfest. The men, nearly inseparable through junior high and high school, realized as they got older, their friendship would eventually take a backseat to real life. They’d come up with the idea to take one week a year to revisit their wild, carefree days. Taylor and Bryce still lived in Miami and got together occasionally, but David had taken a job in Washington D.C.
Paul had missed a couple of years when he got lost. His friends were happy and relieved to finally find him again, via his father’s team of private investigators, but Paul refused to return to Miami for any reason. Every now and then, the three men made their way to the island for a one-on-one visit with him, but as predicted, Testosterfest had become the only opportunity they had to all get together at the same time.
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