Tongue prodding the tip of my canine, my eyes scroll down to the next speech bubble.
ME
That depends. Is it working?
No response. Two minutes since the last text. I’m going to decapitate Sutton and stick his head on a spike to warn off anyone else who wants to fuck around with my love life. There’s nothing worse than rejection, okay? But rejection by Staten is lethal.
All the guys hold their breath in anticipation as if they’re watching the final play of the Stanley Cup, and then, finally, Staten blesses me with four words that gauze my open wound of worry.
STATEN
See you at ten.
My friends and I face down the two-story exterior of Sigma Chi’s frat house, rambunctious partygoers separating into distributaries around us while they all fight for a spot inside. Despite the building probably being in violation of multiple health codes, the magnitude of the crowd is intimidating, and a pang of queasiness swoops low in my belly.
I can’t believe Staten actually agreed to come tonight. I was sure I was going to have to do a lot more begging, and I wasn’t ready for my teammates to see that side of me yet.
As our group is welcomed into the function like we’re the guests of honor, I loiter outside and wait for my plus-one, the glacial air bogging down my lungs, yet somehow failing to douse the inferno that rules inside me with an iron fist. Cinders the size of confetti nuzzle into the dark, untouched corners of my body.
The jaundiced moon overhead just barely illuminates the foot-beaten path in front of me, shadows prowling on the outskirts of my vision. With each minute that passes, I wrestle with the conclusion that Staten might’ve dipped at the last second. I wouldn’t hold it against her, obviously. Parties aren’t her thing.
I’d never admit this to anyone, but I’d take a night watching chick flicks with Staten over getting drunk off my ass and bumping fists with people who only like my hockey persona. They’re all parasocial relationships, and most times, I’m only interesting when someone wants something from me.
Suddenly—without me having to send a distress flare—there’s movement in my peripheral that has me upright and alert like a defenseless doe clocking a twitch in the dense underbrush, and the girl I’ve been waiting for materializes out of the sable pitch of night.
Staten, uncharacteristically, is dressed in a black, skin-tight dress that fuses to all her curves, emphasized by a short, cheeky hem and a plunging neckline—both of which I’ve fantasized about on multiple occasions. She’s decadent hedonism wrapped in shadow, wanton lust booking a one-way trip to the crotch of my jeans. Shit. I can’t have a repeat of the boner blunder from last week.
With an extra three inches of height, she shuttles over to me on miniature heels, cautiously marking each step as if it’s the first time she’s ever walked in non-orthopedic shoes. She traverses a troublesome crack in the sidewalk with surprising ease, then rushes me with a hug that almost unbalances me.
I stare down at the crown of her head. Her small arms are braided around my torso—her cheek pressed against my stocky chest—and I find myself outsourcing counterfeit confidence to drug theker-thumpof my heart.
“You’re hugging me,” I say, too nervous to return thegesture, in a near-catatonic state just from that bombshell of a dress alone.
“Yeah, we’re in public.”
Fake relationship. Right. This is the first time we’re going official. Everything that Staten does tonight is to appease a narrative that we created.
Come on, dude. Don’t be stupid. Don’t read into this. You both agreed to work together to achieve your individual goals, and that’s all this is. It…it will never be anything more.
For a brief second, my arms engulf her, and the feel of her body is like gasoline to a match that I hadn’t realized I lit. Staten Renault isn’t just the girl next door—she’s something to take the edge off, addictive, a long-lasting compound that stays in the system.
When she pulls away from me—and I silently curse the distance—her fingers reach up to brush the forgotten stubble sprouting along my jaw’s coastline.
“You’re hairier,” she observes with absolutely no inflection as to whether that’s a good or bad thing.
It’s ridiculous, but I don’t move in fear of scaring her away. God, I wasn’t even this nervous for my first threesome, and the guy brought a vibrating butt plug with him. Yes, I saidguy. I’m an equal opportunist.
The cotton in my mouth is hard to ignore. “I, um, haven’t had the chance to shave.”
“You look good,” Staten tells me, her arm falling to the side.
There’s no sultry purr in her voice, no coy flutter of her eyelashes, no simper unraveling over her kissable, glossy lips. She isn’t eventryingto seduce me, and yet I’m seconds away from collapsing onto my knees before her. She’s a siren that drags men to their underwater graves—unmarked and wrought with offshoots of hydrilla—and all I want to do is drown.
Am I blushing right now? I feel like my man card is going to be revoked at any minute.
“Thanks. You look?—”
Staten tugs at her dress, cowing in embarrassment. “Is it too much? I borrowed it from my friend. It doesn’t really feel like me, you know? Oh my gosh, it’s so tight. It’s a pain just to go to the bathroom in this thing. I swear she slipped this sausage casing over me just for her amusement. Is it obvious that I had a giant bowl of pasta before I came?”
