We played a few more holes, the conversation easy between us, like it had always been. Thankfully, sleeping together hadn’t ruined it or made it awkward. We were still the same, even after he’d been inside me. Twice now!
“So, did anyone come see you today?” Charlie asked on hole six.
I raised a brow. “No. Why?”
He shrugged his shoulders and stayed quiet for a couple more moments.
“I heard that Derek came over the other night. Why didn’t you tell me?”
Why didn’t I tell him that his brother came over?! Because I have literally done nothing but obsess over the fact that he has been inside me not once, but twice now! All my dirty dreams are coming true, and Derek slipped out of my mind.
I walked up to my pink golf ball and lined my golf club up to it. “I didn’t think it was a big deal. He said that he was going to text you and that it wasn’t really important.”
“It is a big deal,” Charlie said sternly, which was so unlike him.
I glanced over to see him glaring at the fake green grass while clutching his golf club until the veins popped out in his strong hands. He gritted his teeth like he hated Derek more than anyone in the world.
But he barely ever spoke about him, good or bad.
“Why?” I asked while hitting the ball. “Did he do?—”
“I don’t want him around you alone.”
My eyes widened as the ball spun around the back edge of the hole and rolled out of it. I walked over to it and lined up again to hit it into the hole.
Why was he acting so weird about it?
“It’s not like he stayed for long,” I said. “Only a couple of minutes.”
“Did he say anything to you?”
“Not much.”
“Did he flirt with you?”
My mouth dried, and I walked up to my ball. Had Derek flirted with me? Maybe a bit. Had I flirted back because I never thought anything would happen between Charlie and me? I really didn’t want to tell him that.
“Not really.”
He stepped up to his ball, but didn’t look up at me. “But he did?”
“Charlie,” I whispered, “nothing happened.”
After hitting a hole in one, he pressed his lips together and walked toward me like it didn’t matter that he had just hit the ball into the hole in a single hit. Something I had never ever been able to do. Not that I cared, but it was more significant than this reaction, wasn’t it?
“That’s not what he made it seem like.”
“You talked to him?”
“Did you flirt with him back?”
I opened and closed my mouth a handful of times, then settled on, “No.”
While I might’ve flirted a bit—I was terrible at it anyway, so Derek had probably just thought I was acting weird—a little white lie to protect our friendship wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t like Charlie hadn’t told a couple of white lies either.
Last Halloween, he had told me that I looked good in that angel costume. Then, the next morning, when I saw those pictures, I wanted to hurl from how terrible I’d looked. But I had spent three hours stressing out over having nothing to wear.
It had protected me at the time, and this would do the same.
