I nod, and she lets it hang there. When the light goes green, I take us out of downtown, up into the neighborhoods where the only open businesses are 24-hour diners and the occasional gas station. I know a place that’s always empty at this hour—an old haunt from my early days, before I could afford to even look at cars like this.
I take a left, then another, winding us through streets that grow narrower and more residential. The Lamborghini is so out of place here it’s almost a joke: black and low and sharp as a knife, prowling past parked minivans and sensible sedans. I pull up in front of The Copper Rail, a squat brick building with a neon coffee cup flickering in the window. The parking lot is all potholes and broken glass. I kill the engine and listen to the silence grow.
She doesn’t move. I get out, circle around, and open her door. She hesitates, then steps out, bag clutched to her side. For a second, in the dim light, Andie looks like a girl I’ve never seen before: softer, more exhausted, but also more herself than I’ve ever known her to be.
We go inside, and she walks ahead of me, finding an empty booth at the far end of the room. I follow, watching the way she drops her bag onto the seat, then slides in after it, tucking her feet under the table. I sit across from her, and for a moment, we just breathe.
The waitress comes over with two mugs of coffee before we even ask. “You want menus?” she says.
I shake my head. “Just coffee.”
She glances at Andie, who nods, eyes still on the mug.
When the waitress leaves, I wrap both hands around my cup and stare at her over the rim. “You can say whatever you want to me,” I say, keeping my voice low. “But you have to say something.”
She shrugs, her eyes fixed on a dark spot in the Formica. “You don’t need my words,” she says. “You’ve already made up your mind about me.”
I think about that, then take a sip. The coffee is shit, but I’m grateful for the burn. “Maybe,” I say. “But let’s start light then. How have you been, Andie?”
She looks at her coffee, shrugs. “Fine. Working a lot. Getting by.”
A half-laugh escapes me. “You don’t have to pretend.”
She shrugs again, tighter. “I wasn’t pretending.”
I let out a snort of frustration. “Okay let’s skip the small talk then because it’s obviously not working. I need you to tell me everything about the bet. No filters, no lies. Start at the beginning.”
She looks up at me, and her mouth is a hard, straight line. She thinks for a second, then just says, “Okay.”
Her fingers flex on the mug, then go still.
“It started at the end of last year. Me, Stella, Kayleigh, and Mary Kate. We were just bored one day. You know, classes and all that were a drag.” Her voice is even, but the words come out like old coins, dull and heavy. “So we decided to make things exciting. A contest. The first one to lose her virginity, and prove it, wins the pool. Thousand dollars. Enough to make it real.”
She looks at the chrome napkin holder, then back at her coffee.
“There were rules. You had to provide some kind of evidence, probably photo or video although we were never totally clear on what counted and what didn’t. It was juvenile. It was supposed to be funny, a dare. I never even thought it would happen to me first.”
She lifts her chin, and the angle is defiant, but the eyes aren’t.
“Then I met you. I didn’t know who you were. Not until the next morning. By the time I figured it out, it was already…”
She doesn’t finish. She takes a breath, tries again.
“I wanted to quit the bet. I tried to work up the courage, but I could never find a suitable excuse. So I just kept mum and said I was having no luck.”
The words hang in the air, thrumming.
I say nothing. I just wait, because she isn’t done.
“The first time, when we hooked up outside? I took a photo of you for the bet. I wasn’t thinking. It happened really fast, and it was only of your cock.”
I jerk back, astonished.
“When? Outside the faculty club when we literally crashed into each other?”
Andie flushes.
“Yes. It happened really fast. You had me bent over, pushing into my ass from behind and I reached for my phone. I literally filmed you from between my legs so there’s only a photo of your cock going into my asshole from below. It could be anyone, to be honest, and you were so busy coming that you didn’t notice. But obviously, that photo didn’t pass muster because you were in my ass. The girls demanded a face photo, and so I took one of you at the Faculty Club the next time.”
