Her comment stirred something inside me. Was it compassion? Or maybe sympathy? Sometimes I felt so dead inside, always trying to remain numb to any feelings or emotions. But the thought of her having no friends and feeling alone made me want to reach out and help. I’d been lost plenty of times in life, but I’d always had Wilder there to find me. Who was going to find Isla?
She needed friends, and that was something I could help with. “My friends and I meet up for lunch most days,” I said. “Why don’t you join us?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” She looked down at her hands in her lap, still holding my shirt. “I don’t think I feel up to it.”
“That’s exactly why you should come.” I looked at her until her eyes locked on mine.
We stared at one another for a few moments, and I’m not sure what she saw there, but eventually she said, “Okay.”
She folded my shirt, covering the part she’d used, and then handed it to me.
“I think you’ll like my friends.” I put the shirt back in my bag. “They’re almost as good-looking as me.”
She chuckled, and I was happy to see a smile back on her face.
“But before you get too excited to see them,” I continued, keeping our conversation light, “remember, they both have girlfriends.”
“You have nothing to worry about there. I don’t care how good-looking a guy is right now, I have zero desire to jump back into a relationship,” she assured me.
Was it wrong that I liked hearing her say that? It would be nice to have a friend who wasn’t in a relationship—or looking to be in one.
“Now you can enjoy what single life has to offer you.”
“I haven’t been single forever, like literally since I was seventeen,” she said incredulously, like she couldn’t believe she’d been in a relationship so long. “Do you really enjoy being single?”
“What’s not to like about it? I get to enjoy the company of beautiful women with no strings attached,” I said, wholeheartedly loving my decision of remaining a bachelor. “Emotions are messy things.”
She tilted her head to the side in thought. “Maybe you have a point. My emotions have me feeling like I’m on a roller coaster, and I wish I could get off,” she admitted. “Although, I don’t think I could do the no-strings-attached thing you have going on. There is no way I could be intimate with someone in that way and not have emotions get involved.”
I’d heard this reason before, but it was a simple fix. “You have to take the emotion out of it. If you treat it as a purely sexual interaction and nothing more, feelings don’t get in the way.”
She picked at the grass. “That doesn’t sound like a good time to me. I think we just see sex very differently.”
Her statement had me wondering how she thought about sex. I couldn’t imagine Josh was any good at it with how selfish he was. He’d probably made it all about him, not caring if Isla’s needs were being met.
I had no doubt I could make her thinkverydifferently about sex. My eyes roamed her body. I could show her that it could be something fun and pleasurable in a way she’d probably never experienced before, making her body sing at my touch.
“What are you thinking?” she said, interrupting my thoughts.
I smirked. “I don’t think your cheeks could handle what I was thinking.” I reached out and playfully pinched one of her cheeks.
She slapped my hand away and rolled her eyes, and I laughed.
“C’mon.” I got to my feet and held out my hand. “Let me walk you to your next class.”
She grabbed my hand, and I helped her up. “I already missed my next class and don’t have another one until after lunch, so I think I’m going to head home and clean up a little.”
I had a class that started in ten minutes, but I didn’t want her walking home alone right now. I’d just have to be late. “Then I’ll walk you home.”
“Are you sure? You really don’t have to.” She grabbed her bag and put it on her shoulder. “You’ve already done more than enough.”
Confused how she could think I’d done so much, I asked, “How do you figure?”
“You let me wipe my snot all over one of your shirts,” she pointed out.
“Well, when you put it like that, never mind, I won’t walk you home,” I teased.
She laughed, and the sound of it made me smile. Being around Isla was easy. There was a comfort I felt around her that I had only before experienced around my friends, and the thought of adding her to my small group made me feel happier than I’d been in a long time.
