by Croix, Ada
Allie’s feet nearly missed the next stair. Hearing dirt about the guy Violet had hooked up with was bad enough, but then to get confirmation that Marc was worse … “I’m surprised they have the time,” she said hollowly.
“And you thought water polo was the game they’re the best at.” Kelsey snorted a laugh at her own joke while they ascended to the landing. “This must be Blake’s room.”
Blake had left his door wide open. The master suite was disgustingly luxurious. There was a jacuzzi tub stationed by the all-glass wall which opened to a balcony. The view overlooked the ocean where pale sand stretched to the curl of waves. Gradually the sunset’s stain was filling the sky.
“I have to get a picture of this,” Allie said in disbelief.
“Go for it. I’m going to see if Blake has one of those robot toilets from Japan.” Kelsey slipped through the bathroom door.
Allie stepped back into the room to get more of it in view, tapping up the messenger to take a photo to send to Violet.
Blake’s room
Holy Shit
You whore ♥
Allie grinned. Then she bit her lip.
Un-Valentine’s party
Ivan’s here too
I just found out he has a gf :/
Is that for me?
Hun, no worries
BBall is in the house tonight
Just have fun
Allie
HAVE FUN
17
“Allie, I think they’re back with the drinks,” Kelsey called. She had returned out onto the landing and leaned over the rail to look towards the ground entry.
More people had arrived while they’d be touring. The stairs were getting crowded once they made their way to the second floor and lower. There were faces Allie didn’t recognize, mostly the girls from the Southern California school teams, but there were also some guys who must have been on Blake’s university squad.
What really stopped Allie in her tracks was a familiar head of dark hair towering above them all.
“Blow job time,” Kelsey proclaimed. She held fast to Allie’s hand and pulled her through the thickening crowd.
Allie surreptitiously tried to keep her eye on him while taking in the crowd. He was there. Marc, standing within a pack of the girls.
In her distraction she bumped shoulders with someone when Kelsey pushed her up to the counter. New handles of liquor were stationed beside a few cans of whipped cream.
“Is this your first blow job?” Blake’s voice made her head snap around fast.
Allie quickly thought better of letting her mouth hang open and snapped her jaw shut. It was times like these that made her feel so nakedly obvious in her sheltered inexperience.
“Let’s take that as a yes.” Kelsey barged ahead, the bump of her elbow against Allie’s nudging her into Blake.
Allie shuffled her feet and ducked her face to compose herself before looking to see what Kelsey was doing.
Her roommate put three shot glasses onto the counter. In went the Bailey’s then liquor from the bottle shaped like a monk, and finally the whole thing was crowned by a heavy swirl of whipped cream. Kelsey made lewd eye contact to Allie and Blake as she shook out the can between swirls.
“Oh, I get it.” Allie’s smile started to curl. “Because of the, uh, cream.” Her eyes didn’t quite flick all the way up to Blake’s face.
“And,” Kelsey declared grandly as she caught Allie’s wrist, “because you don’t use your hands. Behind your back!” Kelsey proceeded to demonstrate by leaning over the counter to catch the shot glass up into her mouth, straightening to dump its contents down her throat.
It seemed like an embarrassing disaster waiting to happen. Allie feared spilling liquor and whipped cream all down her front. She was scared to look and see if Marc was watching. Bad enough that Blake was at her elbow.
“I’ll hold your hair,” Blake offered before she had a chance to think of an excuse to get away. He swept his hand up from Allie’s temple to catch the fall of her hair back in a twist.
Allie’s flesh prickled at her nape. Maybe it’d be best to just get it over quickly. She tried to mimic Kelsey in taking the shot. The rim clicked hard against her teeth. Not only did whipped cream smear across her cheek, but also a dribble of Bailey’s escaped from the corner of her mouth.
At least nothing got on her shirt. Once she dropped the glass back on the counter, Allie licked her tongue wide at the mess. She reached up to reclaim her hair from their host.
He wasn’t letting go.
“Good, isn’t it?” Blake asked with a tick of eyebrows.
The burn of alcohol gave extra fuel to the panicked racing of her heart. “It’s sweet,” Allie answered as truthfully as she could without setting off her blush.
“Blake, you didn’t take yours,” Kelsey accused.
“I’m taking it slow.” Blake moved the third shot in front of Allie with his free hand. “I’m in training for this little competition later this summer. You might have heard.” He repositioned to stand more directly behind Allie, tightening his hold of his hair. “Allie will just have to take it,” he said to Kelsey.
His next words were murmured just to Allie, leaned to brush against her far ear. “Maybe I’ll have one later.”
“I’m not sure …” Allie balked, her hands pushing at the counter’s edge.
“You can’t let it go to waste. The whipped cream will fall,” Kelsey cheered her on.
When Allie took a breath and clasped her hands behind her back, the curl of her fingers brushed against Blake’s solid-built thigh. This was the kind of day off a girl was supposed to look forward to, but her mind was full of all the times at work when she stood close enough to press at Marc’s knee. Surely she could handle one more shot if it would get them off her back. Literally, in Blake’s case. Her second try went down more smoothly, maybe because she was more interested in getting it over with than worried about who might be watching.
“Good girl,” Blake praised.
Kelsey was already grabbing her arm. “Come on, we’re getting left behind.”
Allie weaseled out from the pin Blake had made of her against the counter. She pulled her head free with a twist so she could look towards the center of the living room where she had last seen Marc. The music still bumped but all of the people had cleared out except a couple of guys who were sitting eating steak.
“Where’d everyone go?” Allie wondered, looking for that one towering form in particular.
“They’ll be back.” Blake’s hand caught her other wrist.
“Meera wanted to go down to the water for the sunset.” Kelsey was unstoppable. “Come on Allie, it’s beautiful, you’ll love it.”
“Across the sand?” Allie’s head was starting to swim. She wasn’t sure she wanted to go out to the water, but she was certain she didn’t want to stay in the kitchen. She twisted her wrist from Blake’s hold and followed after Kelsey.
“We can get to the beach out the back. Right, Blake?”
“Yeah,” Blake said, relaxing back against the counter to watch them go.
The breeze off the water felt nice once they made it outside. They kicked off their shoes before leaving the patio. Allie giggled at herself when her balance failed, swaying her shoulder against the fence post as she bent to force her pant legs into a roll up to her calves.
“Blake was flirting with you big time, Allie,” Kelsey crooned under her breath as they pushed clear of the patio and scampered out into the sand.
“I think he just likes to tease me.” Allie shook her head. It was a mistake and made her path more wobbly as they walked fast to catch up to the pack moving down towards the water’s edge.
Some genius had brought a water polo ball. It went sailing back and forth over the herd, causing the group to spread out farther. The girls were leaping for it, too, and perhaps Allie could see what Adam meant about them being mean. They played dirty, threatening the guys with their knees and yanking at the hair of their im
promptu opponents.
Marc only had to stretch his arm up to his full reach and no one had much chance of touching the ball in his grip. Girls hung from his elbows and clawed at his shoulders in their attempts to bat it loose. It was one of the women’s team players about Kelsey’s age who made the most effective attack. She climbed up his front and got her legs wrapped around his waist.
It was one thing to repress her jealousy over the easy playfulness that the women athletes had with their male counterparts, but Allie couldn’t help but stare at this bold display and lack of physical boundaries. Not when it was Marc. He still seemed nonchalant while he switched his hold on the ball between one hand and the other, expertly avoiding the girl’s tugs at his arms. The workmanlike tension in his jaw was an expression Allie had seen him wear often enough in the pool that she thought she could detect the marring of a faint curl at one corner of his mouth.
Natalie, the others from her team cheered the girl on. When Allie remembered how Adam had mentioned that name her stomach curdled. She could see that they were talking, Natalie and Marc, but she couldn’t hear them over the roar of the waves.
Maybe it was giving up when Marc tossed the ball back to his teammates where they’d walked farther along the shore. He stopped to try and peel at Natalie’s legs. When she wouldn’t let go he simply turned and started to wade into the ocean. Soon her voice was loud enough to hear, her indignant screams turning to threatening shrieks.
Whether or not Marc would have actually thrown Natalie in soon became irrelevant. Like an overexcited puppy drawn to commotion, Adam bounded over and leapt at them both with a flying bear hug. They all went down in a tangle of limbs beneath the next crashing wave.
Trailing the group of athletes who still played catch, Allie watched as the trio picked themselves out of the ocean. They seemed to argue a moment. The girl gestured at Adam but pushed at Marc. Natalie stormed up the beach first with Adam trailing apologetically after. Marc was slowest to return, taking his time to strip the wet of his shirt off his torso.
Allie looked away when he caught her watching him. She lengthened her stride to be absorbed back into the group, quashing the urge to tell him to be careful of throwing out his shoulder or getting sick. It wasn’t like her pathetic excuses for talking to him would mean anything.
Focusing on the view, she tried to ignore the feelings carving at her insides and fogging behind her eyes. In the distance the sun set behind the great cranes of a shipping yard, their skeletons like giant stick insects against the ruddy orange glow. Framing the sight was the city’s skyline on the right and a lighthouse standing out on the curling spit of land.
There was a flask being passed around that someone had brought in a pocket. Allie probably wouldn’t have accepted it if she were thinking straight. She grabbed at it and took a double swig, passing it on once she’d made herself cough and her eyes burn. On the other side of the group Natalie was complaining about the chill. Allie wrapped her arms around herself even though she wasn’t really cold.
After the rule-less ball game earned a few more people salty dunkings, everyone seemed ready to drift back towards the scent of food and the bass call of music. Allie still hadn’t eaten anything and her stomach was churning.
“Hey, stay off the couch,” Ivan pointed to the guys wearing seawater and sand when they came tumbling back into Blake’s. He was back and had settled himself with one of the college girls tucked under his arm. They watched music videos cycle on the huge flatscreen in the living room.
Have fun, Allie reminded herself of Violet’s words. She wound her way through the house towards the kitchen while the pack of girls put on a song and started jumping in the center of the room, singing along. A puddle of Bailey’s sloshed on the counter while she poured herself out a blow job, foregoing the cream. She cheated by using her hands to pitch it down her throat.
Kelsey discovered another big bottle of vodka in the wet bar. “Where are the shot glasses?”
The girl’s team captain Meera blew a raspberry. Her solution was to reach out and hook Marc’s waistband from where he stood just inside the patio doors nursing a bottle of water. “I’m taking my shot from this,” she declared.
“Me too!”
“Get your own!”
“Adam,” Brittany claimed quickly.
All Allie could see was how the pack of them had captured Marc. He resisted at first, mostly by virtue of standing his ground to sip from his water with unreadable stoicism. Maybe he only moved once he noticed her watching. “I’m still sandy,” he placidly warned Meera.
“I’m not scared of a little grit,” Meera dismissed. With the cooperation of the other girls she shoved him back against a built-in shelf next to the mantelpiece. “Right here,” she instructed Kelsey with a tap at the centerline groove above his belly button.
On a distant level, Allie marveled that she now knew what it felt like to want to punch someone.
Marc settled with a sigh into an elbow-braced lean that made a better ramp of his stomach. He seemed more interested in heckling Adam than in Meera’s tongue. “You gonna be able to suck in that gut, kid? You’ve been going after those pizzas.”
“Fuck off, Belmont,” Adam laughed from where Brittany had him in her clutches.
Allie couldn’t laugh. Her brow was knit and her gaze fixed on the familiar shine of liquid sliding down Marc’s abdomen. She licked her lips as she watched Meera suck vodka from where it pooled in his navel. Her feet started to drift towards them without her really realizing. But then she felt hands on her waist. Breath in her ear.
“Is it everything you expected?” It was Blake.
“Allie, you’re next.” Kelsey spotted her across the room. Her roommate had the bottle in one fist and her hand gripped at Marc’s wrist like he was hers to offer. She was holding him right where Allie always did.
“It looks like the intern already has a shot glass,” Natalie piped in from where she toweled dry her hair near the stairs.
“You know Blake’s abs must be cut like crystal, not glass,” Meera chortled from where she’d flopped onto the couch.
Blake chuckled and Allie felt him moving around her while Kelsey let go of Marc to walk the vodka over.
The room was chaos and noise but for a moment the spinning stopped because she was held by his gaze. Allie thought Marc had smiled, but maybe she imagined it because no matter how hard she looked she couldn’t find a trace of it left on his features. He had started to follow Kelsey but her roommate was still approaching while he had fallen still. His tight-jawed stare was aimed over her shoulder.
Allie tore her eyes away from Marc to glance up into their host’s face. Blake looked like a movie poster and felt just as fake. “I can’t.” She blinked and forced a deep breath into her lungs, fighting against her swimming vision. The reason churned in her stomach and stung at the rims of her eyes and she couldn’t put words to it so she marshaled her most reliable arguments. “Not like this. I’m … I’m a professional.”
“What’s she saying?” Meera wondered.
Blake was still touching Allie, steadying her at her elbows. His eyes were searching her face. They were light, not dark, and it was all wrong. “Do you want to go somewhere quiet?”
Going sounded good. So did quiet. She longed to be far away where her world was stable and she didn’t feel awful. Allie nodded.
“Okay.” Blake waved off Kelsey. “I think she’s had enough.” He guided Allie’s shoulders to turn towards the hall.
Kelsey pursued them a moment, slinging the bottle of vodka into the crook of her elbow. Her fingers reached to tuck a lock of Allie’s hair out of the way as she peered at her with her mouth twisted unhappily. “All right,” she relented to Blake’s judgement. “You better take good care of my roommate, Blake Ellsley.” She shoved clumsily at his shoulder. “I know where you live.”
“I promise,” Blake said as they left Kelsey behind in the living room.
Allie relied on the strength of Blake’s a
rm around her shoulders to aim the weave of her footsteps in the right direction. She wasn’t sure when everything had gone so wrong. Surely before the last shot and the flask on the beach. It seemed like it must have been long before that. Before coming to California, before sitting next to Blake in the training center’s dining hall. Maybe it happened when she was waiting for stupid Marc with that stupid sign Violet made. “This is … this is conduct unbecoming,” she mumbled to herself.
Blake might have laughed. “Come on, up we go.”
She started to fumble up the first stair before the significance of the direction registered. Everyone was going to know she went up to his room. Marc was going to know. Allie braced out her arms in a stop against the banisters. “No.” Her weight fell backwards which had the questionable effect of leaning her against the solid slab of Blake’s chest.
“It’ll be quieter.” He was still murmuring in her ear and it was too hot.
“No. I shouldn’t.” Allie didn’t care what Violet said. This didn’t feel right. She felt sick to her stomach. “Not your room.” There wasn’t space between the tight of her teeth for tact. “Not you.”
“Allie.”
Just like in Colorado, Allie escaped from under Blake’s arm before he could try to catch her. It was a lapse in defense. For some reason, that made her laugh. She felt along the wall until she got herself turned towards the door. “I should … I should go. Thank you. For inviting me. But … I should go.”
“Allie. By yourself?” He sounded so reasonable as he stood there with his perfectly mussed hair in his perfect hallway.
It didn’t matter. Allie scrambled back when Blake stepped forward. She got her hands on the door and fought it open. “I know the way. I’m good at navi—directions.” She nodded decisively and that was a mistake, too. “Just stay there. Here. And I’ll …” Go. The night air brushed refreshingly across her skin. It made the house seem all the more claustrophobic with its excess of water polo players. “Goodbye, Blake.”