A brunette in the group keeps making eyes at Jesse like she wants to get his attention, and he smiles at her before making his way over toher.
One of the guys in the group is intrigued by my business experience and says he wants to pitch a business idea to me. Admittedly, I’m only half listening, mostly because I don’t believe there’s anything of value this early-twenty-something is going to share with me. But I try to keep engaged enough that if he says something actually novel, I won’t miss out or be unable to encouragehim.
But I’m keenly aware of the girl Jesse’s chattingwith.
Is he bisexual, or is he pretending to be straight like some of the gay guys I’veknown?
It shouldn’t matter to me what he is, but for some reason, the kid intriguesme.
I manage to slip away from Ty’s new friends for a drink and decide I’m going to stay away. As much as I wanted to keep getting assaulted with the one entrepreneurial kid’s genius plans for world domination, after hearing his third, ill-conceived, get-rich-quick scheme, I wasn’t interested in sticking around to hearmore.
I sip on a glass of tequila and rum and turn my attention to a wall-mounted TV playing a music video from the ’90s. I wonder if it’s even something Jesse or Ty wouldrecognize.
“Well, aren’t you the life of the party?” I hear behindme.
There’s a lightness in my chest as I turn to Jesse, who leans forward and rests his elbows on thebar.
9
Jesse
This has been frustratingasfuck.
Since the day we messed around, I’ve wanted to get Eric on his own to talk, but considering all the time Ty and I have spent at the beach the past two days, there haven’t been anyopportunities.
I order a vodka Sprite from the bartender, and while I’m waiting for it, Eric glances around—like he’s looking to see where Tyis.
“He’s hung up on Mandy right now,” I say. “So you wannatalk?”
He searches around. “Maybe somewhere a little moreprivate?”
After we grab our drinks, we head upstairs to a secluded corner booth, where we sit. He takes a moment, looking like he’s searching for the rightwords.
“I’m sorry about the other day,” he finallysays.
Ishrug.
As pissed as I was at the time, maybe it was for the best. We both got so caught up in what we wanted from each other, we weren’t really thinking things through. I mean, he’s my friend’s dad. I shouldn’t have been begging him to crawl up myass.
“Don’t be sorry,” I say. “I think you might have saved us both from fuckingup.”
He appears surprised by my words, like he was expecting me to be all butt-hurt about it. “Don’t get me wrong, I was pissed afterward. I mean, it went from being really hot to…well, awkward as fuck. You did make me feel like I was doing something wrong for not having messed around withguys.”
“That’s not what I meant. If it was going to be just messing around, that would have been one thing, but for your first time, it just shouldn’t have been like that. You deserve better thanthat.”
Deservebetter?
His words throw me, and suddenly, as annoyed as I’ve been about what happened, I find he’s knocked my defensesdown.
“Wow. You should have said that the other day. I was thinking you were just being a dick by throwing me out like that. Like I was some kind of piece ofmeat.”
“No, I didn’t mean it that way at all. I just needed you to go…because if you didn’t, I didn’t know how much longer I’d have been able to control myself…to do the rightthing.”
I gulp. Something about that is…reallyhot.
And sweet at the same time, especially now that I understand what was really going through his head when he kicked me out of hisroom.
As I let this new awareness settle, I say, “Well, it was probably for the best, especially considering our situation with Ty. And really, as bothered as I was, I was in way over my head. I wasn’t ready to do that… Hell, I didn’t really even know if I was clean down there. It could have been adisaster.”
