“Right. Which means it’s highly unlikely that it was him who told me all the things he could do to me. Including—” She broke off and giggled with a blush. “The, um, other.”
“Other? I don’t follow.” Anne shook her head.
“You know…” She made another face, her eyes so round Anne thought they were going to pop out of her head.
“Look, you’re just going to have to say it.”
“We were talking about…about…” Gin puffed up with resolve. “Analingus, okay?”
Anne giggled. “What’s wrong with that?”
“It wasn’t just that he said he’s good at it, but that’s what he fantasizes about and it turned into a Q&A sort of thing.”
“Why were you grilling him like you were writing a research paper? Isn’t the point of the chat feature to facilitate a, um…culmination and be done with it?”
“I guess, but the chat has moved to my phone. We’ve been texting all day.” Gin hung her head.
“Wow. And did you pay for this?” Anne asked, trying to assess the situation.
“The chat comes with site membership, but we talk about everything. It’s not just sex. I know he’s just a fantasy, but whoever this guy is, he gets me. It was instant connection.”
“Well, maybe this is good for you. There’s no expectation. It’s safe.”
“I don’t even care what he looks like. He could be some fat gamer living in his mother’s basement that only eats corn dogs and Mountain Dew and I wouldn’t care. In fact, I’m sure he has to be a nerd type. The hot jocks are never more concerned with their lovers’ pleasure than their own.” Gin rolled her eyes.
Chase was hot and he was always concerned about her pleasure.
Damn it, she had to stop thinking about him.
“Really? What if he had corn dog munchies stuck in his moobs?” Anne teased.
“It wouldn’t matter. Because he gets me. I might have to shove him in a shower and pull him away from Warcraft, but I don’t care.”
“Then there’s Seth. Imagine if it was him? Or Justin. They’re both jock-hot and scary smart.”
“Seth and I don’t really talk. Not like I do with this guy.”
“People are different when they can be anonymous. They can be more accepting, more understanding, and there’s less posturing. You paid him to talk to you, Gin.”
“I’m not paying him now.”
“No, but I don’t want you to build him into something he’s not,” Anne said, trying to be supportive and practical at the same time.
“Uh, were you listening to my earlier description? I’m prepared for gamer boy.”
“What if it was Chase?” Anne was just being ornery now.
“Then I’d cry, seriously. Don’t mess with me.”
Gin’s phone chirped then and she fumbled, but didn’t check it.
“Go on, I already know you’re obsessed. You might as well see who it is.”
“It’s him!”
“Duh,” Anne said. She took her brush to the kitchen to wash it while Gin read her text and her fingers flew over the mini keyboard, typing a response.
Anne had a feeling it was Seth. She kept trying to steer Gin toward him, but she seemed determined to go in the opposite direction.
“Can you imagine telling your children that you met through an erotic website?” Anne snickered when Gin joined her in the kitchen.
“Whoa! Hold on, I haven’t even met this guy in person and you’ve got me spitting out babies.”
“Exactly,” Anne said pointedly.
“Hey, I wasn’t talking picket fence and man cave or anything. I’m not even done with school.”
“Right again. But there were stars in your eyes. Slow down. Enjoy it, but slow down.”
“Look, just because it took you and Chase, what, fifteen years to decide to go out doesn’t mean everyone else needs that long.” Gin smirked and flipped her phone closed. “Speaking of…” There was a question in the way she let the sentence hang.
“You can be really intuitive sometimes and then others—like the hot tub—not so much.”
“Yes, I’d realized my blunder after we were already hip-deep in the water. He grabbed you like he owned you when we got in.” Gin opened the fridge and rummaged around inside before popping back up with a mouthful of grapes.
“Didn’t he just?” Anne sighed.
“Seth was convinced there was something illicit going on under the bubbles. He couldn’t get us out of there fast enough.”
“Oh, there was,” Anne confessed. So much for not sharing that bit of info.
“You’re both horrible.” She giggled.
“No, I’m repressed.”
“That’s worse than being outright horrible,” Gin said.
“We’re not together though. We’re just fucking.”
“Oh lord,” Gin exclaimed. “That’s not you, though. And that’s not Chase.” Anne gave her a pointed look. “That’s not Chase with you. He cares about you, Anne.”
“Right, but he doesn’t want a relationship. We’ve both got careers to worry about and he’s still trying to get through medical school. There’s no room for commitment to anything but our futures.”
“What a line of bullshit.”
“What?” Anne put her hands on her hips.
“You didn’t say we don’t want a relationship. You said Chase doesn’t. That was your epiphany, huh? You love him. It took you long enough.”
“We’re just friends, Gin. That’s all we can be. The sex is great.” Her words sounded hollow even to her own ears. So she switched tactics, hoping Gin would follow suit. “The hot-tubbing is great too.” She smirked.
“I’m never getting in that hot tub with you again,” Gin stated. “Now I’m scarred. Forever.”
“Good. That means no more pseudo-coitus interruptus.”
“Hey, I already said I was sorry about that.” Gin looked back to the canvas. “So back to the black space. What is it, if it’s not some angsty, the-world-is-all-darkness etc. and so forth?”
“How soon you forget Women’s Studies. It’s rebirth. The darkness of the womb?”
“Really? You’re just going to hang that up and call it Vagina?”
“No, shut up.” Anne laughed. “It’s like space, too, or midnight. I was actually thinking midnight when I started. There will be gold and pink streaking through the darkness like the first tentative fingers of dawn.”
“What a description. Maybe you should have been a writer instead.”
“Oh please. You weren’t subjected to the heinously and criminally bad poetry I wrote in high school. Awful stuff.”
“I bet Chase read it.”
“He did. And he told me it was bad. Not outright, of course, he wasn’t trying to be mean. Chase told me painting was where my muse was happiest.”
“And he was right, I guess.” She looked thoughtful for a moment. “So, do you think if it was Seth, he’d tell me? I mean, he knows what my phone number is. So does Justin, for that matter. Wouldn’t they…” Gin trailed off and shrugged.
“You don’t recognize the number he’s texting from?” Anne followed the subject change easily.
“No, but it could be a throwaway phone.”
“It could be, and no one memorizes phone numbers anymore. They’re always stored in the phone.” Anne shrugged. “Here’s what you do. Bring up something in conversation with Justin and Seth that you talked about with this guy. See what they say. You may be surprised.”
“You keep saying that like you know something I don’t.”
“I know plenty you don’t.” Anne smirked. “But no. I have no more information about the website than you do. I just have my hopes.”
“That you’re beating me about the head and face with,” Gin replied.
“I want you to be happy.”
“You sound like my mother.” Gin’s phone chirped again and she looked at it with surprise marking her pixie features.
“What?” Anne prodded.
“It’s Seth. He wants to take me for coffee at Books-A-Million. What do I say?”
“What do you want to say?”
“I don’t know. I’m so confused.”
“When all else fails, it’s free coffee.” Anne grinned.
She bit her lip. “I don’t know if I can talk to him now.”
“Why not?”
“I’ll keep wondering if he’s the mystery guy.”
“Ask him,” Anne said with another shrug.
“What if he says yes? Worse, what if he says no?” Then she scowled. “What if he won’t tell me?” She fidgeted as if she was suddenly uncomfortable in her own skin.
“Gin, look at yourself. I think you like him more than you’ve let on. You’re driving yourself nuts.”
“Did I tell you I think he kisses like all the heroes in all the novels we’ve read? I swear, I stopped breathing.”
“Symphonies and fireworks?” She decided not to remind Gin that she knew how he kissed.
“Yeah.”
“And you’re seriously debating not going to have coffee with him?”
“It’s going to be awkward.”
“Sometimes those awkward, unsure moments are the ones that will burn themselves into your brain forever.”
“Fine, but if this goes poorly, I blame you.” Gin was texting him back before she even finished speaking.
“You always do.” Anne hugged her.
Chapter Eleven
Anne tried to avoid Chase the rest of the day.
She cleaned up her painting supplies and locked herself in her room. When he knocked after his afternoon classes, she told him she was working.
Which she wasn’t. Not really. She was literally watching paint dry and deciding how best to approach the topic of no more sex with him.
Finally, after she didn’t come out for dinner and then tried to ignore him again an hour later, he wouldn’t be put off.
“Come on, Annie. What’s wrong?”
“I’m just working,” she said through the door.
“Then why is your door locked? There’s never been a locked door between us.”
There’d never been cock between them either. She snorted to herself.
She took a deep breath and, even though she still had no idea what she was going to say, opened the door.
“See, I knew you were full of shit. What’s going on?” he asked as he stepped into the room, his presence sucking all the air out of the space.
Damn, but he was wearing that belt buckle again. The one he’d been wearing when he helped her move. How was she supposed to think when the gateway to heaven was lit before her like a runway with that thing?
“I am not full of shit. I had to wait for my canvas to dry before I can add the other layers.”
He raised a brow. “No, what you were doing was avoiding me. I’ve pissed off enough women to know the difference between creative seclusion and avoidance. I thought we could tell each other anything. Did fucking change your mind about that?”
“Yeah, kind of.”
“There. See, that wasn’t so hard. You told me you changed your mind. Wanna tell me what else you changed your mind about?”
No, not really. But she didn’t exactly have a choice. Games were for children, and despite the fuckery that was the frat party, Anne was no child. She and Chase were both adults who’d made a mistake and the only way to get past it was to own it.
Not that she thought she ever would get past it. What she felt for him, it welled inside her like a hot spring, bubbling up and searing through her veins every time she looked at him, thought of him.
Loving Chase had never been hard, but being in love with him was excruciating.
She took another deep breath and felt like she was drowning. “You were right.” Anne shrugged helplessly.
“I’m always right, Annie-belle. But to what specifically are you referring?”
Anne met his gaze and his eyes were warm, teasing, but she wasn’t up for the usual banter. She had to break her own heart and she just couldn’t do it with a smile.
“These last couple days have been really good.”
“But?” he prompted when she didn’t say anything else.
“But you were right. I can’t handle it. Me and all my talk of ‘a little fucking between friends’ and I can’t handle it. Not with you.”
“Who could you handle it with?” His eyes narrowed.
“I don’t… Do we have to do this?”
“Yes. I think we do. Just like you thought we had to explore this thing between us, I think it’s only fair that we both understand why it didn’t work.”
God, she’d half hoped that when she talked to him, he’d beat her to the Grand Confession. That he’d say he loved her and wanted to be with her and… So much for being an adult. Anne felt as if she was still the same girl she’d been in high school in so many ways. Believing in fairytale endings at her age. Ridiculous.
“You know what? Let’s get out of here. We’ll have a late picnic just like we did when we were kids, off some country road in the middle of the night.”
Her brain told her it wasn’t a good idea and her mouth opened, but all she did was nod her stupid head in agreement. It seemed she was a masochist because she kept doing these things that she knew would hurt like hell, but couldn’t stop herself.
“But that doesn’t mean you’re going to get out of answering the question.”
She slipped into her shoes and followed him out to the truck. Anne was sure he’d continue to question her during the drive, but he turned on the radio and left her to her thoughts. He stopped at a little gas station on the way out of town that fried chicken guaranteed to be either the best you’d ever eaten or a raging case of dysentery. Odds were pretty even either way, but when it was good, Anne thought it was nothing short of divine.
Anne didn’t like all of this time to think. She should have just spewed out that Gin was telling the truth, that she loved him, then watched his eyes widen in shock and his mouth gape open like a large-mouth bass out of water and promptly shut the door in his face.
Trepidation was a boa constrictor around her whole body and it tightened when he slowed the truck and found a place to park off a seemingly hidden dirt road. As she got out of the truck, Anne decided she didn’t think she was going to be able to eat any of the chicken, even though the scent of it made her mouth water.
This was one of her favorite things, a night picnic. Of course, when they were younger, it had been an evening picnic and they’d always used the blue blanket he’d just spread out for them. It had seen them through many a lengthy conversation about the meaning of life in a quiet country field under a starry sky. She ran her hands over the worn weave of the fabric and wondered if these times between them would ever be the same.
Anne breathed deeply again, fighting for air. The night air was sweet with the scent of mown grass and a tree full of apples ready for picking. She took a long drink of water from her bottle and didn’t mind in the least when some trickled down her chin. It was such a cool relief that she poured a little in her hand and splashed some on her face and dabbed at her neck.
“So are you going to tell me now who you’d rather have casual sex with?” Chase had leaned back against the wheel of the truck and pulled her legs across his lap.
Anne was glad she was done drinking or she would have choked. “That’s not what I said.”
“Explain it to me, Anne.”
“I only said I couldn’t do it with you.”
“You did it plenty with me earlier.”
Anne blushed and then bit her lip. Damn it, but she still hadn’t figured out how to stop biting her lip around him. Or thinking about him naked. Or imagining fucking him. Or—
She rattled herself out of that train of thought. “I did, and I want to do it again.”
“So what’s the problem? We’re having a good time. I like fucking you. You like fucking me. Where’s the conflict? And why do you want to do it
with someone else?”
She opened her mouth, but again nothing came out. Like turning on an old faucet that just shuddered, shaking the pipes until someone turned it off. But Anne finally found her voice. “You’re stuck on that, Chase. If it’s just casual, what does it matter if it’s with someone else?”
It was his turn to have nothing to say. The silence stretched out for what seemed an eternity, but Anne knew it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds. “So, it’s Seth? Are you in love with him?”
Men could be so dense. She would have laughed if she hadn’t felt like crying. “When I kissed him—” she began.
He interrupted her. “Do you remember when you asked me to tell you my fantasy?” Chase drew his finger in lazy circles around her ankle.
“Yeah, you said you’d already lived it.”
Chase didn’t seem to hear her. “Do you remember sometimes we’d go swimming in Potter’s Pond after our late-night picnics?”
“I’d love to be there now.” Anne dabbed a bit more water on her neck. She was hot and getting ready to spill her guts; it made her face flush and her palms sweat. If he wanted to give her a moment of reprieve, she’d let him.
“After every time we went, I swore I’d never go back. It was too hard to keep my hands off you, Anne. You never pushed me away, either. All those times when you let me carry you in the water, laughing and teasing. The feel of your wet, slick body against mine—I was so afraid you’d feel how much I wanted you, but one of my fantasies was that you would feel and you’d realize you wanted me too.” He traced higher on her leg, his fingers warm and strong.
He’d already admitted to her that night in the kitchen that he’d fantasized about fucking her, but she hadn’t realized for how long. It was nice to hear, and she had another confession of her own that would be easier to share than admitting how she felt about him. “Remember the time when Laura and Grant came with us? You’d been goofing off with her in the water like you did with me and when it was my turn to be tossed and you caught me…” Anne didn’t know how she wanted to phrase the rest of it—how hard he’d been.
“That was you. All you. I didn’t think you’d noticed.” He grinned.
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