I pull her chair toward me with my feet. She’s close enough that my hand under the table slips to her bare knee.
Outside is a misleading spring day. Warm and refreshing, a reprieve from our dreary and snowy winter. Campus was alive this morning on Sutton’s run. I found her a half mile in and completed the rest of the four miles with her, stealing a headphone to learn that she listens to podcasts while running. This one an interview with a former student athlete on burnout and falling out of love with swimming after competing at an Olympic level.
Whatever seeds were planted in me and have been watered, blossomed.
Sutton tried to change it to music, which she did once the episode ended, but I wanted to listen another episode. Asked if she had another, which she did. I’ve felt alone in my struggle with hockey, misunderstood, but hearing how the Olympian spoke, I was validated.
Outside my house, Sutton leveled me with a look. Told me to stop running with her. I said no. We bickered back and forth till we compromised. Not on the days I have games—overtraining, or whatever. The swimmer said doing other sports and/or movements helped her. I’ve always love boating and swimming, was on the summer swim team as a kid. We agreed to go swimming later this week.
My thumb rubs circles on the inside of her knee.
“All you need to do is ask,” she parrots my words back, shoulder and mouth set.
“Is that so?” I run my hand up her thigh as far as I can.
Sutton does a shit job at trying to act like this isn’t affecting her.
“What’s my gift?”
“You can’t stop thinking about it, can you?” I ignore her question.
“It wasn’t even that good.”
“Liar.”
“I’ve had better.”
“Promise you haven’t.”
“You don’t know what I did in my free time?—”
“Yeah, I do.”
“We aren’t friends. I still hate you.”
“Pretty sure you called me your best friend the other night, while my mouth was between your legs. Need a reminder?” I squeeze her thigh, assertive but gentle. “Or want a reminder? Maybe both.”
She stares at me, taking a slow, languid inhale.
I don’t know if it’s seconds or minutes that pass in our standstill, but the room is a crackle of electricity when she curses under her breath, “Fuck it.”
Quickly, I push our computers out of the way. Papers, pens, and whatever else on the table become debris on the floor. Our limbs are a tornado as we latch onto each other.
Her back is pressed against the table. My body over top of hers. Lips crashing.
There’s a franticness to us that might come from the fact that the door is unlocked and anyone could walk into the study room. Sutton drew the blinds closed when we entered earlier. Privacy for this or me?
The denim skirt she’s wearing is pushed up around her waist.
I skim my hand along her underwear, damp already.
“If it wasn’t that good, why are you already so wet?” I whisper in her ear, then bite it.
“Thinking about someone else.”
A kernel of anxiety festers, wanting to pop. There is someone else. There’s always someone else that I’m not.
I’m losing hockey to it. I don’t want to lose her to it either.
