Two years before the yacht party
Patrick jogged past the students sunning themselves on the campus lawn. Training had run overtime, and he had a cognitive development lecture in half an hour. Whatever Winona had to tell him, he hoped she’d say it fast. He skidded into the campus café and found her sitting by the window. The second he saw her face he knew what was coming. He slowed his pace, relief mixing with nerves. It would be good to get the breakup over and done with, but it was never easy.
“Hi,” he said, taking the seat across from her. “How’s things?”
“Good. Thanks for meeting me.”
She was polite but there was a definite undertone. He inwardly steeled himself. “Is there something you want to talk about?”
“Yes.” She fixed him with the impenetrable gaze he’d come to associate with therapy tutorials. “Are you serious about us, Patrick?”
Here we go...
“I like you and I think you’re great…”
Winona’s eyes flicked upward.
“… but I don’t think I’m as serious about us as you’d like me to be.”
“Right.” She traced a squiggle on the table like she was taking client notes. “Well, thanks for being vulnerable. I appreciate your honesty even if I don’t appreciate what it means.”
Psychology students shouldn’t date each other. Too much passive-aggressive therapy talk. “Do you want to stop seeing each other?”
“Yes. I feel like you’ve deceived me about what you wanted out of this relationship.”
Five dates. They’d been on five dates. Patrick tried to keep his expression neutral. “I get where you’re coming from, but when you asked me out, I told you I didn’t want to be anyone’s boyfriend—”
“I disagree.”
“Sorry?”
“I disagree. I think you want to be a boyfriend. I just think you’re deluded about whose boyfriend you want to be.”
His pulse kicked into high gear. “So, we’ll stop hanging out? No hard feelings?”
“You want her, don’t you? Cheryl?”
His stomach crumpled like tinfoil. “She’s my mate.”
“Really? Is that why you spent all of Friday night staring at her tits?”
Shiiiiiit.
He was pretty good at hiding his attraction to Cheryl, but when he was drinking, he could be a little… Obvious. Plus, she’d showed to Willow’s birthday party braless in a tiny pink dress that barely covered her ass. She’d never looked hotter. Everyone at the bar had been staring.
“I’m sorry,” he told Winona. “I didn’t mean to be disrespectful.”
“You mean by drooling all over Cheryl’s big fat boobs in front of me?”
“Steady. She’s my friend.”
Though in fairness, he had spent a lot of the night wondering what it would be like to push his cock between Cheryl’s tits, slide his thumbs over her nipples, and…
“Fuck you!” Winona snapped. “Do you have any idea how embarrassing you are?”
Patrick scrubbed a hand through his hair. He deserved that, but if it had been up to him, Winona wouldn’t have been at the party. Willow had invited her after they’d run into him on Chapel Street. He hadn’t had the balls to say, ‘I think it’s too soon for us to do couple-y stuff like that.’ He exhaled. “Look, I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable, but that’s not a free pass to insult my—”
“What do you even like about her? She’s fucking boring. Oh, wait, I know. She dresses like a slut.”
