I looked up from my phone, doing a double-take, trying not to check him out too hard. He was already sort of cocky without me openly drooling over him. I hadn’t realized that he must have been following some sort of dress code at the coffee shop because he looked so different now.
He was wearing distressed khakis, cuffed twice at the bottom, brown laced-up boots, a deep v-neck white t-shirt, revealing the tattoos on his defined chest, a handful of long beaded necklaces and charms, and a faded black blazer rolled at the sleeves. Nothing about his outfit made sense, it certainly wasn’t something found on a mannequin at the mall, but, somehow, it worked.
He kissed me, and I pulled him closer, wondering if we should just do it in my car. But I had driven all this way, so I should at least get to lay down properly, I rationalized. As if he read my mind, he stepped back, and I followed him, already thinking of an excuse if I met his parents — I was his tutor, we were lab partners, something innocent — but we walked past the farmhouse and up to a carriage house farther back that I hadn’t noticed.
“Wait, you don’t live with your parents?” I asked as we walked up wrought-iron steps to the second floor, past the first floor that must have been a garage or storage.
He glanced back at me, giving me a weird look. “What? Oh, that house? No, I just rent this place from the homeowners.”
He opened the door, and we stepped inside. I’d never seen a place like this, feeling so far away from my simple apartment. It was like a loft, with no interior walls, just exposed brick and barn wood outer walls. As I stood at the front door, I could see his entire place — the galley kitchen and a wooden island in front of us, a leather couch just past it, colorful woven blankets tossed half-haphazardly on it, a pallet coffee table, a television on top of a vintage trunk against the wall. His mattress was behind the makeshift living room, a reclaimed barrel functioning as a nightstand with an Edison lamp on top.
He kissed me before I could comment on his place. I realized he didn’t care what I thought about it, and it was freeing to realize I didn’t have to either. I didn’t care why he lived here when there were so many other options or why he didn’t have a bed frame or real furniture or really anything about the whole situation.
And then I was really grateful for the place having no walls because it was so easy for us to stumble to his mattress, focused on stripping off our clothes instead of avoiding walls and bumping into doorways. Effortlessly falling to the bed, hands everywhere, lips everywhere, louder than we’d ever been in the car, until we couldn’t take it anymore, seeing stars over and over again.
We fell away from each other, our limbs tangled, breathing hard. After a moment, he shifted, and I picked up my bra off the floor.
“Sorry, I’m going to go, I just need a minute,” I said with a laugh, throwing a blanket over myself.
He laughed, grabbing his boxers and lying back down. “I feel ya,” he said, closing his eyes.
I checked my watch, shocked to discover I’d lost track of time. I’d been here almost an hour.
“Oh, wow, I really should leave. Can you toss me my shirt?”
“You know,” he said, sitting up to pass it to me, “if you stick around a while longer, we could do this again.”
I stared at him. “Seriously?”
“Yeah,” he said, glancing at me over his shoulder. “I mean, I need some time, but yeah.”
“How much time?”
I looked at my watch, and he laughed.
“I don’t know, Skye. Just, like, time. You don’t have to stay. I’m just putting that out there.”
I considered this. I’d come over because I didn’t have anything else to do. And it would be nice to have my fill of the hottest hookup I’d ever had before I cut things off. Before Krista came back. Before fall break ended, and I’d need to focus on economics. Before I would go back to my normal schedule and routine.
“Do you care if I do some homework while we wait?”
He laughed again. “Sure, do whatever you want.”
I grabbed my backpack from my car, walking back in to see he’d moved to the couch, still shirtless, holding a pencil, doing something in a notebook, I couldn’t really tell what. He glanced at me, really not seeming to mind that I wanted to do homework instead of talk to him. I sat against on his bed, opening my accounting textbook.
“Oh, by the way,” he said after nearly 10 minutes of silence, not looking up from what he was doing, “I just thought about this. We get pumpkin spice stuff Friday. In case you want to tell your friends.”
I laughed, pausing on the problem I’d seen solving. “You know, I’ve never ordered a pumpkin spice anything.”
“I know. But you can be a pumpkin-spice girl without actually drinking it,” he said simply.
I rolled my eyes. “You mean I’m a basic bitch.”
He looked over at me and smiled. “I prefer coffee shop slut.”
I laughed, tossing a pillow at him. It dropped in the middle of the floor with a soft plop, not even brushing the back of the couch. “So tell me, do all baristas judge people by their orders so harshly?”
“Oh yeah, definitely,” he said, moving to sit on the back of the couch to face me. “We gotta know what we’re dealing with. Is this person going to make me prove I used nonfat? Is this guy going to try to get a discount by using a cup he got yesterday? Is this girl going to ask me a hundred different ways if we have pumpkin spice stuff when the line is out the door during midterm week? It’s a crazy world out there,” he said with grin.
I laughed and glanced down at my accounting textbook, feeling slightly embarrassed. “Yeah, sorry about my friend the other day. She was kind of annoying.”
He shrugged. “Oh, I don’t care. She’s just one version of the same person. They all blend together after a while. I wouldn’t have even noticed her if you hadn’t been there.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah?”
He smiled, that dimple looking so hot, and lied down at the foot of the bed, looking at me upside down. “Yeah, that glasses and suit thing you had going on,” he said with a grin. “Pretty hot. What was that about?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, sitting my textbook aside.
“Why were you dressed like that? You looked like you were walking into a job interview.”
“I had a midterm. You know, how you have to dress up for presentations,” I said as he looked at me, not seeming to understand. I laughed. “What’s your major? You don’t have these kind of midterms?”
“I don’t have a major,” he said, moving to pick up the pillow I’d dropped on the floor.
I was unable to stop myself from the face I made. “You’re undeclared?”
He glanced over his shoulder at me. “No, I’m not a student.”
“Oh, okay,” I said, nodding, relieved.
He laughed and sat in front of me, pulling me toward him so my legs were wrapped around him.
“When did you graduate?”
He kissed my neck as he answered, “I didn’t. I dropped out like three years ago when I was twenty-two.”
I pulled back. “Whoa, what?”
“Yeah, school wasn’t for me,” he said, his mouth against my skin, not caring about my reaction or not noticing. He slipped his hand under my shirt, moving his fingers to my bra clasp. When I didn’t react, he pulled back. “Are you not into this anymore? We can stop.”
“Why did you drop out?”
He dropped his hand. “Okay, let’s stop.”
He gently moved me off of him and stood, grabbing his shirt from the floor.
“Wait, why?” I said, not expecting him to push me away. I should be the one pushing him — the college dropout — away.
“Cause, Skye, this isn’t one of your dates where you ask a bunch of questions and send the guy away when he gets them wrong,” he said. “This is sex. My student status shouldn’t factor into that. Clearly, it does for you. Do you want me to walk you to your car?”
I sat up on the bed,
annoyed. “You said we could do this again. I waited around.”
“Yeah, and we were going to,” he said with a laugh.
I shouldn’t have been attracted to him. The way he pushed back his dark, messy hair, how his toned arm flexed just so when he did, his skin covered in patterned, colorful tattoos. The way his eyes were such a rich brown, and how they’d been full of desire a few minutes ago, but I’d been too caught up on what he’d been saying to notice.
That was the beauty of this, why it was so hot — I didn’t know him, I didn’t care, I didn’t need a bevy of information to hookup with him. He was right, this wasn’t like my dates, it didn’t matter, no pro and con list at the end, just mind-numbingly good sex.
I groaned, annoyed he was right, but mature enough to admit it.
“Look, you’re right, I don’t care why you dropped out. I don’t want to get to know you. Can we just…” I quickly grabbed my notebook and pencil. “Let’s lay some ground rules, okay? So this sort of miscommunication doesn’t happen again.”
He looked at me skeptically. “What?”
“Rule number one,” I said, reading what I was writing down out loud, “No personal questions. This includes current student status and historical data—”
He laughed and sat down on the bed. “You’re being serious.”
“All the best deals have solid contracts,” I said, rolling my eyes. “This will make things easier.”
He considered this, looking me up and down, and shook his head, giving in. “You know, if you weren’t so good in bed, I would not be down for something like this.”
“You think I’d be here if you weren’t so good either?” I replied, putting my pencil back on the page. “So no questions like student status and … no questions about family,” I said, thinking of Krista and my parents. They’d be freaking out if they knew I was in this guy’s bed 24 minutes away from the bed frame they’d bought me.
He nodded. “Yeah, perfect. Past and present. That historical data thing you said.”
“And how about no questions about my dates?”
He laughed. “Okay, that’s a totally different rule. We can both do whatever with whoever, no permission or discussions needed, no jealousy.”
“Yes, perfect. Just, you know, be safe, use protection, etcetera. And if this whole thing,” I said, gesturing between us, not interested in finding a label, “lasts longer than three months, we’ll get tested.”
“Yeah, totally,” he said even though we both knew it wouldn’t last that long. “It’ll be our first date,” he said with a joking laugh. “Oh, write that down. Rule three, no dates. With each other,” he clarified. “I don’t even know what we’d do even if we wanted to. We have nothing in common.”
I was so grateful he understood.
“In that same line of thinking, let’s be sure we don’t do anything, like, romantic,” I added, writing that down as Rule 4. “No intimacy. Hand holding—”
“—cuddling,” he added, gesturing to the bed.
“Exactly,” I said with a laugh. “Bed is reserved for sex.”
“So no staying over, no sleepovers. Rule five.”
“And phones are reserved for sex,” I added, scribbling this down as Rule 6. “No texting unless it is to coordinate hookups. Clearly, no phone calls—”
“Unless it’s phone sex,” he said with a laugh. We both made a face at the idea, but I added it in just to be on the safe side.
“Let’s leave our friends out of this, too. I don’t really want their input or opinions,” I said, writing that down as Rule 7, reminded of how Lindy thought I was still with some perfect guy named Brad.
He laughed. “Yeah, agreed.”
“Okay, and then rule eight … this stays a secret. Otherwise, it just gets complicated, trying to explain a guy like you.”
“Deal.”
“Deal.”
We looked at each other and smiled. And then we reached for each other at the same time, falling back down on the bed, already working the other’s clothes off, not wanting to waste one more minute, tossing the notebook to the side.
The Contract
Rule 1: No personal questions. This includes student status, historical data, family information, and past and present information.
Rule 2: We can both do whatever with whoever, no permission or discussions needed. No jealousy.
Rule 3: No dates with each other.
Rule 4: No intimacy. No hand holding, cuddling, arms around each other, etc.
Rule 5: No staying over.
Rule 6: No texting or phone calls unless it’s hookup related.
Rule 7: Leave our friends out of this.
Rule 8: This stays a secret.
CHAPTER FOUR
Midterms had seemed easy compared to this. I was on our living room floor, surrounded by multi-colored markers, color-coded sticky notes, and several big poster boards as Krista paced in front of the television, dictating.
“Okay, so green are things we have some time on but can’t forget. Like, we should make decisions on them, but we don’t have to pull the trigger for a few months. Like, flowers. Write down ‘flowers.’”
“Got it,” I said, nodding.
“Use a black marker,” she said as I picked up a blue one. “Then we’ll put them on the poster board,” she said, picking up one and taping it to the wall. She taped the other three side by side until the wall behind our couch was covered by a long line of poster paneling.
“The first poster is for to-dos, the second is for things in progress, third is done, and the fourth one is totally and completely finalized,” she said, turning from where she stood on the couch. “Got it?”
“Why don’t you hire a wedding planner?”
She huffed and rolled her eyes. “Because this is my wedding, and I want to plan it. We’ve been dreaming of this since I was seven years old. Plus, it’s fun,” she said, hopping off the couch to resume pacing. “Write down ‘dress shopping’ on an orange sticky note. That means we can’t wait much longer. Put ‘venue’ on a red sticky.”
I handed her the sticky note, and she slapped it on the first poster, facing me with a bright smile. “I am so stressed out. Isn’t this fun?”
“Yeah, this is great. What does red mean?”
“Panic mode,” she said with a laugh, sitting down next to me and putting her arm around me. “Thanks for booking all those appointments while I was gone. What else did you do on fall break?”
I thought of Dean.
“Nothing really,” I said, writing “bridal shower” on an orange sticky note before she had a chance to dictate it. “Homework, cleaned, you know, the usual.”
“My trip was so great,” she said, smiling up at the ceiling. “Kyle is so perfect, you know. He wants the same things as me. I feel like we’re already becoming the same person.”
I glanced at her, thinking about how we used to say that about each other. Then I wrote “choose colors” on a red sticky note. She grabbed it with a groan and stuck it on the poster board. We went through a long list, only allowing interruptions for her to tell me about her trip.
“Oh, I think I saw Michael at a restaurant when I was there,” she said as I wrote “photographer.” Her words made me accidentally jerk my marker, smearing my letters. “Explain to me why you two broke up again? He seemed so perfect.”
“That was more than half a year ago, Krista. It doesn’t matter,” I said, crumpling up the sticky note, focused on rewriting a fresh one.
“Yeah, but he would look so good in our photos,” she teased.
I looked at her, not sure what she meant.
“Oh, did Mom not tell you family photos are booked? We’re doing them at the lake house on Thanksgiving. The leaves will look ahhmazing then. We have to wear white. Oh, write that down,” she said, pointing to an orange sticky note, “‘engagement photos’ and ‘engagement party.’ I need to find a white dress for that, too.”
After 47 more minutes of this activity, Krista final
ly stopped dictating, taking a deep breath as we stood. The first poster board was absolutely covered in a waterfall of colors. She had added yellow for things she didn’t want to forget but already knew what she wanted and purple for things she’d request an expanded budget on from Dad. Black marker meant we would figure the items out together, brown for just her, navy for just me, green for Kyle and Krista. So far, he only had “cake” and “deejay.” I took a picture of the wall, knowing it would be vital to reference multiple times.
Krista put her arm around me. “This is going to be so much fun. I feel like I’ve been all over the place lately, so this will give us a great opportunity to spend time together.”
I nodded, smiling at her, and squeezed her shoulder in return. I was happy to help her. I wanted to spend time with her. Even if this was how we spent that time.
Even if it meant that most of the conversation was dominated by a wedding I hadn’t had on my radar. A life experience I hadn’t been prepared for just yet.
Even if it meant I spent that time on it without her, constantly thinking about what I needed to do while she was at work or with Kyle, slotting in wedding to-dos in my already packed schedule, updating my mom about it, answering questions about it from interested parties. Even if it had nothing to do with me.
“So, Skylar, how is Krista enjoying her engagement?”
I looked up from the pumpkin guts in my hand and smiled.
“It’s great, she loves it,” I said to yet another Junior League lady, Betty. “She’s never been happier.”
I looked across the room where my sister was talking to a group of women, looking radiant just holding a glass of cherry punch, her ring sparkling, at this stupid pumpkin carving social.
Mom had put Krista in charge of arranging the pumpkins and decorations before everyone arrived. Once everyone was settled, Mom said Krista could keep things tidy as she worked the room. She left me in charge of helping these women maneuver the carving tools and tracing the faces that came in the carving kits.
A Guy Like Him Page 6
