I didn’t want to sound judgmental or like a prude, but I didn’t have an attraction to the rough and tumble types, at least sober. I didn’t want to wind up dating a guy who spent more time on a motorcycle than in a van. I wanted to be with someone smart, someone kind, someone who would prefer a night in reading a good book instead of getting drunk.
I didn’t want my extreme one-off night to somehow represent what I actually wanted.
And that was why I felt embarrassing levels of shame. I’d let myself fall into this. I’d let myself turn into a hot mess like this. This was…
This was sad.
Was Brock at least here? Had he maybe gone to the bathroom and would be back in a moment? I wasn’t going to sleep with him again, but at least I could comfort myself some if I knew that Brock hadn’t just gotten up and left me in…
Wait.
This wasn’t even his own room.
There was a photo on a desk. It was Mason with some girl that looked too much like him to be a girlfriend, probably his sister.
Not only had Brock and I had sex, we’d done so in his friend’s room. Did he even live here? What kind of…
What the fuck!
This was horrifying and embarrassing. I hadn’t just sunk to a new low. I’d sunk tothelow, whatever that was. I hurried to grab my clothes and put them on, no longer caring if Brock came back in and saw me.
I was cold. I almost considered grabbing a sweater or jacket from nearby before remembering I wouldn’t be borrowing from Brock, but from Mason. He may have been an asshole by being a Bernard Boy—whatever fucking stupid, immature phrase that was—but he hadn’t done anything to me.
I left the room, walking downstairs, and paused when I heard two guys talking.
“Bitch said she wanted to do it herself. Wouldn’t let me come.”
It sounded like Steele.
“She didn’t? Why the fuck not?”
Mason.
“She said something about how if Brock was the best of us, she needed to be the one to bail him out. Drill some sense into him.”
I almost laughed at that. Brock, the best of these guys? Bail out? He was in fucking jail?
Damn. I thought I had sunk to a new low, but I’d somehow underestimated my capability for embarrassment.
“I don’t know, man, I don’t fucking like it,” Steele said. “When I saw her, I felt sure that when she saw me, she’d realize what she was missing out on. I was damn sure of it, in fact. And instead, now I can’t help but wonder if she’s going to go and suck off Brock at the jailhouse.”
“Woah, easy,” Mason said. “First of all, even if Tara did somehow have the hots for Brock, she’s better than doing something like that. And you really think a pig like Davis is going to let her do that there?”
Steele said nothing.
“Besides, maybe she’s got a point,” Mason continued. “If any of us were to go with her and saw Sheriff Davis, we’d all kick his ass, right?”
Grumbles of acknowledgment went up.
“I don’t know, I could keep it contained.”
One guy disagreed. I didn’t recognize the voice.
“Shut up, Professor Smartass, not all of us are like you.”
That was Garrett. But Professor Smartass?
Maybe it was the guy I’d seen come in late last night, just before Brock and I had gone upstairs? Now that was a handsome—
