by Sara Ney
I count to three. “I didn’t say I was jealous; I said it hurt my feelings.”
“Are you asking me to commit to you James? Because I don’t think I’m ready to be tied down by one person.”
We lie still. Unmoving, breathing heavy, consumed by the ice-cold bucket of reality he just dumped on us both. Moments go by—I’m not sure how many—before I try shoving him off.
It’s such a pitiful effort his solid mass doesn’t budge.
“Tied down? No. All I said was, I thought you liked me more than some screw on a dirty gym floor. You’ve never even taken me out, and you’ve gone out with my roommate twice.”
“That second one was an accident.”
I cringe, not realizing until this very moment how much I actually care for him, how much I like him. And not just like him—I’m talking like like. An old-school, playground-style crush on a boy. Butterflies, sexual fantasies, daydreams, caring, emoticons.
All the feels.
All of them.
I am developing the world’s biggest crush on him, developing aches for him in ways I didn’t imagine were possible.
“We shouldn’t even be here right now,” he groans into my hair, caressing it with his mammoth palm, breathing life into my temple. My eyes flutter shut, tears threatening to spill from the corners as I listen to him carelessly natter on. “This was a mistake. If anyone from the team finds out, I’ll never hear the end of it.”
“Then why did you bring me here?”
He shrugs, still on top of me. “You lost the bet.”
“That’s the only reason?”
“What other reason would there be?”
What other reason indeed.
Jerk.
Sebastian
“Heard you were in the practice gym the other day with that librarian chick.”
One of my teammates approaches, dripping wet from the shower, one towel dragged over his shoulders and another wrapped around his waist.
“Yeah.” I turn my back to rifle through my borrowed storage space in the visiting team locker room. “How’d you hear that?”
“Gunderson.”
Gunderson? He’s a freshman and team PITA (AKA Pain In The Ass), and apparently a kiss-ass snitch with his nose jammed high up Cannon’s asshole.
“What else did fucking Gunderson tell you?” The little fuck.
“Nothing.” My teammate laughs, tossing his towel on the bench. “Just that you had the janitor unlock the practice gym and pull out a few mats. What were you doing with her in there anyway, breaking in the new floors?”
With the funding from a generous alumna donor, the wrestling gym recently had a complete overhaul of flooring, murals, and some of the bigger equipment.
“No. I wasn’t breaking in the new floor.”
“So what were you doing—playing fucking Twister?”
“You know what Cannon? It’s none of your business.”
The short sophomore stabs a finger into his chest. “You’re right—it’s not my business, it’s all of our fucking business. That’s our gym, too, bro; you don’t see me bringing chicks in there. Get your damn head in the game.”
“He’s right, Ozzy. You know girlfriends aren’t allowed in the practice gym. Fucks with everyone’s heads.”
Shit, they’re right.
I haven’t been focused.
I haven’t been training as hard because I’ve been preoccupied. This thing with Jameson has a guilty knot forming a pit in the bottom of my stomach.
The look on her face when she walked away has haunted me all week.
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
“Then I don’t understand why you went on that snowboarding trip when you could have gone to Daytona with the team. Man, there was so much pussy it’s a miracle I’m able to walk straight,” a bronze Zeke calls out from a shower stall. His booming declaration echoes off the tiles and bounces off the ceiling. “My dick is still numb.”
“I told you, I wanted to relax.”
A snort. “Oh. Snowboarding is relaxing now, huh?”
“Well, no. But the scenery was pretty.” Jameson was pretty.
Jameson is pretty.
“Pretty.” Zeke’s voice is flat, unimpressed. I hear him pause. “The fuck, dude.”
“Wait,” Aaron Bower cuts in. “At least tell us you got laid on that trip. I mean, there had to have been snow bunnies somewhere, right? MILFs? Bored housewives with Hoover-like suction?”
He makes a sucking sound with his mouth, pumping his fist against his cheek, mimicking a blowjob.
“Right?” Zeke agrees, still inside the shower. “Last time my mom went on a trip during spring break, she fucked some douchie Ivy Leaguer hanging out by the hotel pool.”
“Daniels, your mom sounds like a lady slut,” comes a taunting shout.
“Up yours, Santiago.”
The water in the shower cuts off and Zeke steps out, dripping wet, toweling off. Undeterred, he wraps the towel around his neck, letting his balls air dry as he turns to me.
“So. Did you at least get laid?”
I roll my eyes and make a show of digging through my cubby. “What do you think,” I posture, neither confirming nor denying the claim.
A hand claps me on the back. “That’s my boy. Who was it?”
“Please tell us it was the slutty librarian chick I keep hearing about,” John begs. “That is who you went with, right?”
Someone lets out a loud, sardonic laugh.
Zeke.
“Yeah right. That bitch? She’s wound up tighter than Betty the actual librarian.”
I ease myself down onto a nearby wooden bench and sit ramrod straight while they hassle me, mock Jameson, and shoot the shit.
“Have you tapped that yet?” another teammate asks, referring to Jameson again.
“I don’t know, Santiago—do people still say tapped?”
“Tapped. Fucked. Screwed. Banged. Shagged. You like any of those better, pansy? You’re starting to sound like your virgin girlfriend.”
“She’s not my girlfriend.” Not even close—I saw to that on Monday.
The guilty pit in my stomach churns.
“Oh yeah? You seem to be spending a lot of fucking time at the library these days studying with someone you claim not to give a shit about.” Zeke uses air quotes around the word studying.
What a douche.
I pull my socks on, the impulse to defend Jameson strong. Defend myself. Us. “I never said I gave a shit about her.”
“So then why are you always at the library, dude?”
“Just tryin’ to maintain my average.”
Zeke, always confrontational, stares me down hard. “Your average.”
“My GPA,” I clarify. “Grade point average.”
“I know what a fucking grade point average is, dickhole.”
My dark eyes bore into him. “You seem really pissed off for some reason. Did someone take a dump in your oatmeal this morning? Didn’t you blow off any steam locking Rogers in that half nelson an hour ago?”
“Maybe I am pissed. Maybe I don’t want you dating a prig. It gives the rest of the bores false hope.”
“You’re a dick.”
He laughs, almost maniacally. “Never said I wasn’t.”
A loud, roaring shout carries over the locker room, echoing from the office. “Osborne. Daniels. This isn’t a pissing match. Get your goddamn asses dressed and on the bus. You have eight minutes.”
Zeke grunts out his disappointment, leveling me with an icy glower before going to his own cubby. He yanks out his duffle bag, calling out over his shoulder, “This isn’t over Osborne. Far from it.”
Sebastian
I stumble into the house, exhausted from the long bus ride and Zeke’s continued badgering during the five hours it took to get us home. He criticized. He fumed. He bitched until my head rolled to the side and I popped on my Beats to drown out the sound with music.
I’m tired.
I’m starving.
I’m ready for warm food and a soft bed.
It’s quiet when I drop my bags in the laundry room, first one back at the house. Hanging my duffle and removing my jacket, I make quick work of taking my shoes off and setting them aside.
I flip on the kitchen light and pad, sock footed, to the fridge. Yanking it open, I stare into it, blinded by the bright light, contemplating the slim pickings: three-day-old spaghetti sauce, a half-eaten hamburger, yogurt. There’s a gallon of orange juice left, some filtered water, and an open bottle of Dr. Pepper.
My choices suck dick.
Bemoaning the fact that I didn’t stop and grab something fast on my way home, I grab the leftover Malone’s hamburger and yogurt, slap them both on a plate, and lean against the counter.
Where the hell is everyone? I grab my phone and tap out a quick text to my roommate.
Oz: Where are you?
Zeke: Stopped for food.
Shit.
Oz: Grab me something would ya. Starving.
Zeke: Yup. Back in thirty.
He might be a total dick, but he’s a dick that’s going to feed my hungry ass.
Satisfied that a meal is on its way, I dump the burger and yogurt in the trash, grab my bag, and head down the hallway for a hasty shower.
It takes me a total of six minutes, beginning to end.
Throwing on mesh shorts and a ratty old tee shirt, I head to my room and down the carpeted hall, pausing in front of my roommate’s door. Giving it a few short raps of my knuckle, I don’t hesitate to turn the handle.
Not wanting to wake him if he’s sleeping, I push the door open slowly, the dim light from within an indication that he’s home and awake.
“Hey, Elliot?”
My eyes stray to the bed, lingering on two entwined figures, namely my roommate humping the shit out of some girl, humping her into his mattress like it’s his last chance at a lay.
Their moaning fills the air.
Momentarily stunned, it takes me a moment to recover. “Oh shit! Sorry man.”
I should have shut the door then, should have backed away and gone to my room, but the sight of my roommate’s white thighs driving fervently into whatever chick he’s railing has me staring incredulously.
Conservative Elliot never brings girls home. Never.
Not once.
Well, I shouldn’t say never, but the occasions are so rare I can’t remember the last time it happened. It’s not his style, so I’m going to assume this isn’t some fling.
This must be a girl he’s been seeing but hasn’t introduced us to.
Someone he probably really likes.
So I should shut the door and walk away, be happy he’s getting his rocks off.
But I don’t.
Shame on me.
My eyes stray to the floor, to the discarded undergarments. The sheer lace bra. Lavender satin thong (nice choice). Jeans. Black patent leather ballet flats. White car—
Wait.
Black ballet flats?
White cardigan.
White fucking cardigan?
My eyes shoot to the bed, the tangle of sheets. Male moaning. A female gasp I’m all too familiar with.
Long, glossy hair spills over Elliot’s navy pillow, his arms braced on the sides of the brunette’s face as he frantically pumps and pumps and rails his hips into her while she gasps in pleasure.
Fucks her.
Fucks fucking Jameson.
It’s her, I just know it.
In a rage, my mouth opens and I take a few steps toward them, intending to—to what? Pull him off her mid-thrust? Start a fight? Fuck! My squeak of outrage must alert them because Jameson opens her eyes, lifting her head listlessly off the pillow in a groggy, sex-induced haze.
Elliot’s fingers cup her ass, digging in near her crack, and I see red when he squeezes. See red when she giggles and moans.
“You’re so amazing,” she whimpers, and I watch in stunned horror as she licks my name off her lips. “You’re the best, the best…right there…yes!”
I watch, speechless, as she pants. Coming.
Coming.
Our eyes meet, hers glassy with ecstasy and she smiles, head rolling back in a sated, drunken state. Elliot sucks her neck, his dirty tongue running up the length of her throat.
Fuck, fuck, fuck me hard.
I smash his door shut so hard it cracks, shuddering on its hinges, and thunder down the hallway. Throw open my door. It bangs against the wall, bouncing back from the force. Pacing, I walk back and forth in the confinement of my room like a goddamn caged tiger, counting to regain my composure.
One, two, five. Ten.
I stalk back out into the hall, breathless like I’ve just sprinted eight miles, and fight the urge to punch the fucking wall separating Elliot’s room from the hall.
I wait.
I’m leaning against the wall outside his door when she comes out, wearing nothing but his tee shirt. His fucking tee shirt. I’m reminded of our trip to Utah—of her wearing nothing but my gray wrestling shirt—and almost lose my shit all over again.
I count to five, noting with satisfaction her startled gasp when she sees me, a gasp not unlike the one I heard a half-hour ago when she was screwing me over.
Screwing my roommate.
“Hi!” Spiteful, my high-pitched and cheerful greeting is anything but pleasant. “What’s up?!”
I’m sure I sound psychotic, but I’m just so fucking pissed.
She looks left, looks right for a rescue. Sorry honey, no one’s coming to save you. “If you have to take a pee, or gee, I don’t know, toss a condom in the trash, the bathroom is down the hall to the left.”
Aren’t I just the goddamn welcoming committee? Tone it down a notch, Osborne.
Instead of making her way to the bathroom, Jameson leans against the wall, mimicking my stance. Ramrod straight, back against the wall, left knee propped up, foot touching the drywall.
“You’re back early,” she says pleasantly. “How’d the wrestling meet go?”
Arms crossed, I study her. Flushed cheeks, tousled hair, eyes a little wild…the post-gasm look is unbelievably sexy on her.
I cut to the chase. “How long has this been going on?”
Her head hits the wall behind her with a soft thump. “Just this once. But it was our second date.”
“Since when?”
“We’ve been casually texting since the house party.”
Sonofabitch. That was at least two weeks ago. Or has it been three?
“When were you going to tell me?”
An ironic laugh leaves her throat. “I wasn’t.”
“Why? I’ve been chasing you around for weeks; you’ll fuck him but you won’t fuck me?”
“This isn’t a contest, and please lower your voice.”
“Why.”
“Why what?”
“Why would you let him…” I swallow, unable to get the words out. Goddammit if this whole thing isn’t making me feel like complete and utter shit.
Her answer is a dry laugh. “Oh please—don’t tell me this bothers you. You who won’t commit. You who get hand-jobs and blowies from anyone with a pulse.” An unladylike snort. “Give me a flipping break.”
I stab a finger in her direction. “You’re fucking nuts if you think I’m going to be okay with this.”
“This has nothing to do with you.”
“Bullshit. This has everything to do with me! You moaned my name. My. Name.”
Her only response is a nonchalant shrug that makes me want to pin her to the wall and show her what she really means to me.
“Did you sleep with him to make me jealous? To bring me to heel? Because I’m telling you right now Jameson, it won’t fucking work. All it did was piss me off.”
A long, soft sigh. “He’s a nice guy, Oz. I like him. We might not be dating or a couple, but at least he’s not going to make me feel used and cheap in the morning. He won’t make me feel like a number. I’ll still have my dignity whe
n I walk out of here.”
“What are you fucking talking about?” I poke a thumb into my chest. “I treat you with respect.”
“Calm down and lower your voice,” she hisses. “God, Sebastian, everything isn’t always about you. Did it ever occur to you that maybe I don’t want to be with someone who wants me to ride him to sex town?”
I silently count to ten and take a deep calming breath, clenching my fists at my sides. “Why won’t you let me fuck you?”
She studies me, cool, calm, and collected. Shoulders back and dignified, as if she’s already thought this through and knows the answer. “Because you say things like ‘why won’t you let me fuck you.’ You think I don’t want you? You’re wrong. I do. I lie in bed thinking of you every night; I dream of you Sebastian. But I’m not a fool. You will break my heart.”
“So this is your solution? Sleep with someone else? My freaking roommate, of all people.”
“I didn’t do this to hurt you.”
“It’s too late for that! How could you do this to me, Jameson? Tell me! I didn’t screw your roommate when I had the chance.”
Her face falls. Shoulders sag. “I guess I…wanted to feel good. I wanted pleasure. I wanted an orgasm. I haven’t had sex in forever, and Elliot was the safe choice.”
“Oh my fucking god.” My fists clench, wanting to punch the wall behind me. “This is such horse shit.”
Jameson crosses her arms. “I’ve made up my mind.”
“I’ve never lied to you about who I am.”
“And I love that about you, but—”
“But what?” I can’t keep the bitter taste out of my mouth.
“Wonderful and awful,” she whispers. “Beautiful and forgettable. That’s how you make me feel, all at the same time.”
“How can you stand there and say that? I adore you! I think you’re beautiful. I can’t go a minute without thinking about you, the way you smell and the way you’re always pulling your hair back, or tapping your pen when you’re concentrating. You drive me crazy.”
“It’s not enough.”
“Don’t do this Jameson; don’t say that shit. Please, you’re breaking my heart.”
She backs away, stepping toward my roommate’s door. “You won’t do it on purpose, Sebastian, but you’re just going to end up breaking mine.”
