“Looks like someonewoke up on the right side of the bed for once,” Finn said as he walked into the kitchen on Friday morning. He slung his backpack onto a chair at the breakfast nook and joined me at the counter.
I might have been whistling Balefire’s “Helluva Ride” as I warmed a pan of breakfast burritos in the oven and poured my travel mug full of joe.
Weight training on Fridays was always light, but we still had to be at the gym at the butt-crack of dark, which normally sucked. But I’d spent all night dreaming of a certain violet-eyed smoke show—dreams that should have awakened me with a hard-on about once an hour—and I’d slept like a rock. Of course, my morning wood had been hard enough to pound nails, so I took care of that in the shower to memories of Piper riding me like I was the inventor of sex.
After she refused to give me her number, I’d driven home in a weird mood, half-high from the rock-my-world sex with the hottest girl I’d ever met and half-down from her unwillingness to share more than a one-night stand. When I woke up this morning, though, I had something of a plan forming.
“Bummer you weren’t home when we came back from the library. A couple of Tory’s friends were asking about you,” Finn said as he filled his travel mug with what coffee was left in the pot and started a new one for our roommates.
“’Han keeps warning you about that jailbait, and you keep ignoring him.” The timer on the oven blared, and I pulled out the pan of breakfast. “How can a guy with a three-five GPA in bio-chem be such a dumbass about girls?”
I shook my head as I turned off the oven.
Joining us in the kitchen, Callahan said, “Because it’s Finnegan, Bax,” as though that explained everything.
I laughed because he wasn’t wrong.
“Like you’re any better.” Finn gestured toward my chest with his coffee mug. “What girl is ever going to take you seriously when you walk around wearing that?”’
Glancing down at my T-shirt that read “‘Fuck it.’ My final thought before making most decisions,” I smirked. “Don’t most women appreciate truth in advertising?”
Twin Ferris wheel-size eye rolls answered my question. But I smiled as I thought about how that exact thought had led me to the best sex of my life in the back seat of my truck with the hottest girl on campus.
“All right, Bax, what’s with the shit-eating grin?” A speculative gleam came into Callahan’s eyes. “You didn’t come home until late last night. What were you doing?” he asked as he slipped the coffee pot from the coffee maker while it was still brewing, deftly sliding his travel mug beneath the spout and letting coffee fill his mug without spilling any.
“Unlike ole Finnegan here, I don’t kiss and tell.” I waggled my brows over the top of my coffee.
Like some old-timey cartoon character, Finn’s eyes about bugged out of his head. “You were out with agirl? Since when?”
“Since I met someone last night who wanted to jump my bones—twice.” My chest might have come up on that last part.
Callahan laughed. “Thought you didn’t kiss and tell.”
My cheeks grew hot, and I turned away, busying myself with grabbing a foil-wrapped breakfast burrito and stuffing it into my backpack sitting on the table. “You know all you need to know.”
“All we need to know about what?” My third roommate, Danny Chambers, entered the kitchen yawning and scratching his chest through his T-shirt.
“Bax’s love life,” Callahan so helpfully supplied as he slid the coffee pot back onto the warmer to finish brewing. “You riding with me?” he asked as I shouldered my backpack and hid behind another pull from my travel mug.
“Bax has a love life?” Danny’s brow furrowed. “Since when?”
“For fuck’s sa—”
“Since he got laid last night, apparently.” Finn talked over me.
I pulled my phone from my pocket, making a show of checking the time. “The reason I make the burritos on the weekends is so we’re not late to practice. If you three are done gossiping, maybe we can hit the road.”
“I’m driving myself today,” Danny said as he drained the last of the coffee into his travel mug, rinsed the pot, and set it in the drain.
“Me too,” Finn said, stuffing a burrito into his bag.
“You can ride with me,” Callahan offered as he unwrapped his burrito and ate about a third of it in one bite.
Heading toward the door, I said, “Thanks.”
I never should have said anything about my evening with Piper. From the way my roommates were acting, anyone would think I’d been a virgin before last night. Sure, I’d never had a girlfriend since Finn, Callahan, and I had moved into our house together, so I understood their skepticism. But they were acting like I’d never even hooked up with someone, for fuck’s sake. It wasn’t as if I couldn’t attract a woman’s attention.
Things did not improve after we arrived in the weight room. My roommates were determined to force out every detail of my hookup, especially her name, which I was equally determined to keep to myself. Normally, I’d have bragged about all of it, from the eye tag Piper and I played in the mirror behind the bar to her initiating sex in the back seat of my truck, but something about her had me keeping the exciting parts of the evening private.
