Ashley left the lounge, half-looking for Jim, but mostly because she had to use the ladies’ room.
The light was on in Dunk’s office—he was no doubt still in there. She was hesitant to interrupt him—so she went down the hallway that led to the unisexhead—as the bathroom was called aboard a boat.
Or ship.
There was a definite difference between the two, according to size, and it was not okay to call a boat a ship or vice versa, so when in doubt useseagoing vessel. She’d just been discussing that, in a lively conversation with Thomas and Rio, during which a few too many bars of the theme song toLove Boathad been sung.
Rio had a surprisingly lovely voice—rich and husky. And the warm twinkle in his dark brown eyes should’ve been an ego-boost.
She’d laughed along with them, of course—but all the while she was hyper-aware that Jim hadn’t yet returned to the lounge. And hadn’t returned. Andstillhadn’t returned. So she’d also been kicking herself. For kissing the man, and for not being honest when they’d discussed it in the car.
And for letting herself like him enough, in the first place, so that she was hurt by his rejection…
Friends. Right. Apparently they were not only going to be friends, they were now going to beawkwardfriends.
Unless she went to find him, right now, and just blurted that out.If the reason we’re not going to have crazy hot sex is because it’ll ruin our friendship, then we might as well have the crazy hot sex because frankly, the friendship appears to have been already ruined.
Ashley smiled at her reflection in the bathroom mirror as she washed her hands. Yeah, that would go over well. Assuming she could grow the large enough set of balls she’d need to actually say it.
She was still smiling—although a tad grimly—as she pushed open the bathroom door. But her smile faded fast because Bull and Todd were standing out in the hall, obviously waiting for her and blocking her path back to the mess—which was the only way to get to both the lounge and Dunk’s office.
There was a door behind her that led outside to the parade grounds, but she was not going to run away into the darkness of the night. Not this time.
“Jig’s up,” Bull said, and Todd chimed in with, “We saw you.”
She had no clue what they meant, so Bull added, “This afternoon…?”
But she was so focused on whatthey’ddone—switching sides and “killing” her during the paintball game—that she still didn’t understand, and she shook her head.
Until Todd spelled it out. “When you were kissing the SEAL…?”
Oh, God…
“That wasn’t, um…” she started, unable to finish her sentence, because she still wasn’t quite sure what that kiss was or wasn’t,andit was none of their damn business.
“Um…” Bull mocked her. “You weren’t just kissing, you were dry humping him. I’m sure you had fun tonight, during your extremely longvisitto Sarasota.”
Todd giggled.
Ashley sighed and shook her head at her incredible, almost impossibly bad luck.
“But that ended fast—he’s already done with you,” Bull pointed out. “Unlessyou’vemoved on. Hmmm…” He turned to his friend. “Maybe she’s some kind of frog-hog.”
“Well, obviously,” Todd said. “Rosetti’s next on her list.”
“Slade, check.” Bull laughed. “Rosetti, she’s ready!”
Oh, dear, sweet God. Ashley had never heard the phrasefrog-hogbefore, but it didn’t take much imagination to figure out that it meant some kind of Navy SEAL groupie. Frog was a nickname for SEALs—because they’d started out in WWII as Navy Frogmen. Hog was… hog.
Nice.
And really, the unflattering name was just another form of slut-shaming. A man could be a super-model groupie and get high-fived for his “valiant efforts” to bed the entire cast of the current Victoria’s Secret catalogue. He was called aplayeror aplayboyor, frankly, just a normalred-bloodedman. But when a woman did the exact same thing…? She was called terrible names, includinghog.
Personally, the idea of sleeping with a long line of men simply because of one specific achievement, rather than their individual attractiveness and winning personalities was never going to be Ashley’s thing. In fact, casual sex of any kind was not her thing—and maybe that was part of her problem. She believed that romance—and the sex that came with it—was some terribly serious life-or-death choice, instead of a far more lighthearted frolic filled with pleasure and sunshine and laughter.
God forbid she actually enjoy herself and have a little fun.
“Excuse me, please,” Ashley said, working hard to keep her voice even as she tried to move past them. There was no point in having any kind of a conversation with these particular troglodytes. She wasn’t going to convince them they were wrong, and it wasn’t worth her time or effort.
