“But that doesn’t help the problem of tomorrow night. I’m really, really stressed about it, Rowdy.”
I put up my hands in surrender with a smile. “You know, I’ve heard that sex can help relieve stress. Must be why I’ve been in such a good mood.”
“Rowdy.”
“You just gotta trust me that I know what I’m doing. Even with the Wilson Rogers III’s of the world. I got news for you, baby. He’s nothing but an overgrown frat boy. Access to money doesn’t make people any better, classier, or harder to impress than anyone else. I happen to know that Wilson Rogers III got up to more trouble at Duke than I ever did in little old Songbird Ridge, and the only difference between him and me is he doesn’t sit with one arm around his lunch tray as if someone’s gonna steal his biscuits.”
She shakes her head. “I have no idea what any of that meant, Rowdy.”
Each time she says my name, I feel crazier and crazier inside.
“It means he had lawyers that kept him from ever serving time in jail for drunk driving.”
“Oh my gosh, did you?—”
“No, I never drove drunk. But when I was young and had shit for brains, I got caught with weed. Like, kind of a lot of it. And I know all about Wilson Rogers III because I did my community service with a dude who used to run around Durham with the Rogers boys, and they are all subhumans with money…hey, are you okay?”
I notice that while I’ve been ranting about that bottom feeder, Riley has stood up and now made her way to stand in front of me. Her look is fierce, like she’s fighting with the two different entities inside of her. One who wants to dump me, and one who wants to forget her problems for one night.
I wait to find out which one she’ll obey.
Much to my relief, she grabs the front of my shirt and kisses me. Hard.
My hands slip around her waist and pull her tighter to me, deepening the kiss.
“Rowdy,” she says. “You need to stop arguing with me and just fuck me so I can feel less guilty about breaking off this fake date.”
“Now I’m the one not understanding the words coming out of your mouth. But I’ll do whatever you want to do,” I say.
“Good,” she says, kissing me again and slipping her hands under the hem of my ratty tee-shirt. Her cool touch against my stomach makes my cock twitch.
Against everything that compels me, I grab her hand and slow things down. “Let me buy you dinner first, at least.”
“What?”
“You want to practice? Then practice going on a date with me.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I make it a personal policy never to have sex until after the first date.”
“But we already had sex.”
“We sure did. But now you gotta let me reverse engineer things, otherwise this is just a booty call.”
She blinks those long lashes at me. “But I don’t want to go out. I want to stay in and break off the date.”
I do not understand this girl, and I may never understand her. But I’m gonna love her forever anyway.
“Well, I was just about to order some takeout from the Magpie.”
“You order takeout from the fanciest restaurant in town?”
I shrug. “Sure, why not. Beats making reservations. I do it every Thursday.”
“Oh,” she says. “So you do have a schedule after all.”
“Yeah, and every Saturday, I get a massage.”
