“Still working on that, huh?” I hope I sound casual and not shrill as I dump my things in my room before joining them at the table. I’d overheard Kellan calling Crosbie last night and correctly assumed he’d told him everything, and now here he is, like a good best friend, comparing the names/descriptions Kellan had jotted down with something on his phone. “What are you doing, exactly?”
Kellan and I are at either end of the table, Crosbie seated in between, and now he turns his phone so I can see the display: it’s a close up shot of the bathroom wall in the Student Union building. Kellan’s list.
I try to keep my expression neutral, but Crosbie’s watching me, no doubt waiting for some sort of Crosbabe rant. Instead I say, “Have you made any calls?”
Kellan nods. “It went about as uncomfortably as you’d expect.”
“He’s working his way back,” Crosbie explains. “Starting with the most recent girls and asking them to call if they get a positive result.”
“I use condoms,” Kellan interrupts. “I swear. So however this happened, it wasn’t like I was spreading it around after.”
I nod like I’m in total agreement. When I’d gone for the test the nurse asked if I’d had either oral or anal sex with the infected person, since that would require a swab. Kellan and I had done neither, but since I’d witnessed him getting a condom-free blowjob—forty-five minutes after we’d screwed in a closet—I know there’s one opportunity for him to have picked it up. And if it happened once, it could have happened twice. Or—I squint at the notebook—sixty-two times. Well, sixty-one, since I can eliminate myself from the possible oral gonorrhea givers.
I frown and pick up the notebook. The bathroom wall gives actual names, since it’s not Kellan who updates it. Kellan’s notes, however, are quite different. There are entries like: starts with a C or K, blonde in blue dress, hostess from that tapas place, girl from bus stop, and girl who looked like Kate Middleton.
“Did you never ask them their names?” I ask. “Even once?” It’s not much of a consolation prize, but at least I’m not the only nameless entity in this mess. Though I don’t appear to warrant much of a description, either.
“Hey,” Crosbie says, shooting me a sharp look when Kellan winces. “No judgment.”
I roll my eyes. He’s on that bathroom wall too, and we all know it. It’s not only Kellan’s honor he’s trying to defend.
“No judgment,” I say, holding up my hands in surrender. “It would just make things a bit…easier.”
Kellan sighs. “I know. Lesson learned.”
I tap the top of the list. “So these are the most recent girls?” There are about ten candidates spanning October and November.
“Yeah. I spoke with three of them today, since they’re in my science lab and we have a class contact list.” Oh dear. “And these two work at that bar near the library, so I can probably find them pretty easily. This one—” He points to number six, known as Pink shorts with stripe. “She runs the same route as me on Thursdays, so I can talk to her then. Number seven is Dane’s sister, and eight is his cousin—”
“Dane?” Crosbie interrupts, looking alarmed. “Dane who lives down the hall from me? Dane who thinks his sister’s going to become a nun?”
Kellan whistles. “She’s definitely not going to be a nun.”
“Oh Jesus.”
“Can you ask Dane for their numbers? Um, and their names?”
“Kill me.” Crosbie looks at me. “Please, Nora. Just put me out of my misery before Dane does.” He turns to Kellan. “How did you meet them? They don’t even go to Burnham.”
“They were at the Halloween party.”
“You said you didn’t hook up that night!”
“I didn’t say I didn’t get a few numbers and call them the next week!”
“What about Miss Louisiana?”
“I got her number, too.” He holds up a hand proudly. “And her name is Dana.” A pause. “Or Darla.”
“You’re making everything worse.”
“Guys!” I exclaim. “Let’s focus.” The sooner we find the girl, the sooner we end the hunt. Given the timeline, I’m probably either blank space forty-one or forty-two, which gives me twenty chances to end this search before they start trying to track me down. “What about number eight? Super hot kinkster?”
Crosbie looks intrigued. “Kinkster, huh? How kinky are we talking?”
I forget about wincing and kick him in the shin. He curses and scowls at me, but Kellan doesn’t even notice.
“Very,” he assures us dreamily. “Remember when we went to that club earlier this year on the track team trip?” This is directed at Crosbie.
“The one with the foam or the snakes?”
“The foam.”
“Yep.”
“She was a waitress, and she was wearing this white leather dress—the tiniest thing I’d ever seen, despite her massive—” Kellan breaks off as he remembers I’m sitting three feet away. “Ah, she had a great body. Anyway, we were dancing and the foam was piling up, and she kept grinding back against me, inching up her dress until her whole ass was on display, just split in half with this little red G-string. So I’m like, ‘Your dress is riding up,’ and she’s like, ‘I know,’ and I’m like, ‘Want to go someplace?’ and she’s like, ‘Right here’s good.’ And next thing I know we’re fucking, right there on the dance floor. It was hot.” He rests his chin on his hand. “I miss her.”
I know I’m supposed to be outraged or offended or somehow off-put by this story, but those last three words—I miss her—only make me think of Crosbie. His text. His fingers. His body. And how much I want him. I dart a glance at his face and he’s looking at me, the same thoughts mirrored in his eyes.
Crosbie clears his throat. “Okay,” he says, shifting in his seat. “So you know where she works. You can probably call the club and leave your contact information. Hopefully she calls you back.”
Kellan nods. “Good one. Will do.”
I take a breath. “Number nine? Lin from stairwell at gym? You meet girls in stairwells?” Is there any place he can’t meet women?
“We didn’t exactly ‘meet’ there, if you know what I mean.” Kellan grins thoughtfully. “Or rather, we met there, but for the express purpose of—”
“I think I get it.”
“She’s a volleyball player,” he supplies, though I hadn’t asked. “And we’d been eye fucking for a while, then after one of her matches we bumped into each other and decided to just go for it. She kept the kneepads on, if you know what I mean.”
I rub a hand over my hot face. Be indignant, I tell myself. Be righteous! But all I’m doing is picturing myself on my hands and knees, Crosbie behind me, in front of me, under me, doing so many dirty things.
I’ve lost track of how many times we’ve had sex since that night in the front seat of his car. He picks me up after work regularly and we drive some place to mess around as best we can. Because it’s cold out and I’m not willing to get arrested for public indecency—again—we’ve had to be creative. Hand jobs in the back row of a mostly-empty movie theater, a quickie against the wall in the supply closet at Beans after I let him in the back door, one painful attempt to squeeze into the backseat of his car that left us both with seatbelt-shaped bruises and vows never to try again.
We’d finally gotten so frustrated that I’d pulled up the hood of my jacket and hidden my face as we ran up the stairs to his room at the frat house, so desperate to just have fully-naked, proper sex, that I’d been willing to ignore the consequences. Unfortunately we weren’t the only ones with sex on the brain, and his next-door neighbor and his very vocal partner were doing their best to bring the house down with their sex sounds. When the wall shook so hard it rattled Crosbie’s bed, he’d thrown on jeans and a shirt and stormed out of the room to threaten the guy with castration if he didn’t keep it down. When he got back neither one of us were in the mood.
By the time Kellan’s walked us through the details of his romp w
ith number ten (either Tiffani or Brittani, but it definitely ends in an i), I’m ready to combust. I can barely sit still, my thighs clenching with need, and I’m familiar enough with Crosbie’s flushed cheeks and darkened gaze to know he’s on the same dirty page. The problem is, we have nowhere to go to read this page.
Kellan’s phone rings suddenly, jarring us all out of this strange sexual haze. “It’s Dane,” he whispers, before picking up and saying hello. “Good,” he says. “You?” He nods and listens, nods and listens, then for some reason, gives us a thumbs up. “He’s right here,” he says. “I’ll tell him, absolutely. Cool. See you soon.” He hangs up and gapes at us as though he can’t believe his good luck. “This is perfect!”
Crosbie and I exchange wary looks. “Is it?”
He turns to Crosbie. “Dane said they’re going over to prank the Kappa Deltas tonight, and we need to be there. In fact, we need to go right now, to help prepare. Come on. You walked over, right? I’ll drive you back.”
Crosbie’s flush is deepening and I see his chest rise and fall as he takes a calming breath. “Right now?”
“Yeah, right now. You can talk to Dane and get those numbers for me. Let’s go.” He snatches up the notebook and tosses it into his room, where it flutters to the floor like a bird dying of sexual frustration.
I stare miserably at my hands, twisted on the table to stop myself from lunging at Crosbie and dragging him into my room, shouting at Kellan that the deal’s off, feel free to bring any girl he wants back to the apartment.
“Actually…” Crosbie says tentatively. “I’ll follow you over in a bit. I wanted to ask Nora to look over my English paper. She said she wouldn’t mind proofing it before I turned it in. It’s just a few pages.”
I’ve never agreed to proofread this paper, because it doesn’t exist. But Kellan doesn’t know that and I’m more than willing to play along. “You finished it?” I say. “That’s great. Of course I’ll take a look.”
Kellan’s frowning. “Can’t you just email it?”
“I brought a hard copy,” Crosbie says. He reaches into his bag and passes me a stapled sheaf of papers. It’s a bunch of recipes for protein shakes to help build muscle faster.
Kellan grabs his jacket from the couch and pulls it on. “Okay, whatever. Will it take more than fifteen minutes? I have to get gas, so we’ll just run over, fill it up, and come back to pick up the paper—is that enough time? I know you’re both trying to keep your grades up, but tonight is really important. Last year the Kappa Deltas covered the Alpha Sigma Phi house in toilet paper. Dirty toilet paper. Remember that?”
“Er…” Crosbie and I exchange tortured looks.
“Why don’t you get gas and stop here on your way back?” Crosbie suggests. “I don’t want to come to the gas station.”
“Why not?”
“The, uh…fumes. They make me sick.”
“They do? Since when?”
“Since always.”
“Geez, man. I never knew.” Kellan looks a bit incredulous, but then just shakes his head. “Fine. I’ll get the gas and swing back here to get you. Think you’ll be finished in time?”
We both freeze. I speak first. “If I work fast.”
“I don’t think it’ll take that long,” Crosbie adds. “The paper is really ready to go.”
Kellan stares at us like we’re morons, then shrugs. “Okay, fine. Whatever. I’ll text you when I’m back.” Finally he puts on his sneakers, grabs his keys, and leaves.
The door’s been closed for exactly one half-second before Crosbie’s on me. “Oh, thank God,” he mutters. He snatches the papers out of my hand and hurls them onto the floor before hauling me in for a frantic kiss.
“Finally,” I mumble against his lips. “I’m dying.”
“You’re dying? I’ve been dying for days.”
“I bet I died more.”
“I bet I died harder.”
We fumble to our feet and I feel his erection against my belly. Hard is the perfect adjective. “You win.”
“If we do this right, we’ll both win.”
I moan into his mouth as his fingers carefully unbutton my shirt. He doesn’t even bother to unhook my bra, just shoves down the cups and fills his hands. “Crosbie,” I pant. “Faster.”
“I want this all the time,” he says, pulling back long enough to look at me, his fingers tugging lightly on my nipples. “I think about you every day.”
He’s wearing an old concert tee over a long-sleeve shirt and I pull off the top layer and throw it on the floor. “Me too.” I stand on my toes to kiss him again. “It’s not enough.”
“No,” he groans. “It’s not.”
The rattle of keys has us lurching apart. I clutch the front of my shirt together and dash into my room, trying to fix my bra. I hear Crosbie curse, then his T-shirt sails past me and lands on my bed, a very weak stab at hiding the evidence.
I keep my back to the room as I hear the thud of Kellan’s feet climbing the stairs. “I forgot my phone.”
“Oh. Right.” Crosbie sounds hoarse and annoyed.
“Are you guys done already?”
My body spasms unhappily at the possibility of this being over before it even begins.
I turn around to find Kellan looking at the floor where Crosbie’s “essay” sits, discarded. Hastily I pick up random papers from my desk and wave them to distract him. “I thought it’d be easier to read in here,” I lie. “So Crosbie wouldn’t be breathing down my neck the whole time.”
Crosbie crosses his arms, making his biceps bulge. “I just want to make sure you do a good job.”
“Nora always does a good job,” Kellan replies, oblivious. “And she’s fast, too.”
Oh God. “I’m going to get back to work.”
“Right. I’ll be back soon. Don’t give her a hard time,” Kellan adds, pointing at Crosbie. “She’s doing you a favor.”
“I’m very grateful,” Crosbie replies, straight-faced.
“You should be. Back soon.” Kellan jogs down the stairs and disappears outside. This time we scurry over to the front window and hide behind the curtains as we watch him climb into his car and drive down the block.
“Fuck me,” Crosbie mutters, grabbing me by the waist and backing me into the wall.
“That’s the plan,” I say.
He laughs. “C’mon. I’ll show you how grateful I really am.”
We strip down to our underwear in record time and Crosbie squeezes my ass and boosts me up so I’m pinned between his chest and the wall. I wrap my legs around his waist and feel his cock against the cotton of my panties, grinding into me. I gasp for breath and rotate my hips, desperate for more friction. Just desperate, generally.
“I wish we had more time,” he mutters, tongue trailing over my neck, teeth nipping lightly. “And a door with a lock he didn’t have the keys to.”
“I know. I know.” I can’t think much beyond the hand he’s sliding under my panties, coasting over the skin of my ass and lower, down between my legs, finding the wetness that waits.
“Oh fuck.”
I echo the sentiment when one of his thick fingers pushes inside. It feels like only seconds before I’m clinging to his neck, my short nails digging into the muscles of his back as I switch between begging for more and swearing I can’t wait any longer.
“Nora, I’m gonna—Oh, fuck, Nora, I think—” He lowers me so I’m standing, then hurries to his pants to retrieve a condom. He’s shaking as he rolls it on and I know there’s no way he’s going to be able to hold me up again. Truth be told, as long as he fucks me, I don’t care how he does it.
There’s no time to debate, so I just pull off my panties and bend over the arm of the couch. “Like this,” I tell him.
His brows raise. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah.” Our previous encounters haven’t really given us the opportunity to do much more than face to face, a few hands sliding into pants whenever possible. We’ve never done it from behind or so much
as tried oral, and when he eases into me I’m thinking about how much more time we need to do everything we haven’t done. Everything we want to do. Just everything, really.
In record time I’m thrusting back and biting my lip to stifle my cries. His fingers squeeze my hips too hard and my flesh burns, but I don’t try to stop him. Next thing I know I’m coming, fingers clawing the couch, muscles straining, clasping, squeezing. Crosbie’s grunting behind me, powering through my body’s contractions, and soon I hear him come, too, hunching over me, one hand tangled in my hair as though anchoring himself.
“Nora,” he groans on a ragged breath, his hips bumping mine artlessly as he forgets finesse and just gives in to his body’s demands. “Nora, Nora, Nora.”
I reach up weakly and cup the back of his neck, the only thing I have the strength for. “Crosbie.”
chapter sixteen
Two nights later I’m trudging down the sidewalk toward my apartment. It’s quarter to eight and Kellan had texted mid-afternoon to ask if I wouldn’t mind coming home until after seven. I figured he’d put enough time between the gonorrhea news and treatment that he’s ready to get back in the game, and if I’m not mistaken, he’d planned some sort of date night for Marcela. Nate’s still bringing Celestia by the shop and Marcela is still bitter, so even though I can think of a million better things—and people—for them to do, this is their mistake to make. And everybody makes mistakes. I should know.
I squint up at our living room window. There’s a faint glow shining through, as though a light has been left on in one of the bedrooms. I’m really not looking forward to the prospect of walking in on my roommate and my best friend, but I’m cold and I’m hungry and I just spent two hours memorizing irregular French verbs and I want to go home. If need be I’ll creep quietly into my bedroom with my eyes closed and my ears covered, and sleep with headphones.
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