“What?” I said in an addled way.
He toyed with his lip ring for a second too long, that confident grin still playing on his lips.
“What?” I pressed anxiously. In a swatting motion I quickly brushed back my long, brown hair.
“You just look damn sexy in the morning, that’s all.”
I cocked my head to the side. “Seriously?” I tossed up a hand. “The sun’s barely up, and I’m hung over as hell. I highly doubt I’m ‘damn sexy.’”
“Well you are,” Chad growled, resting his other hand on my waist. He pulled me close. My fists, securing the sheet around my body, became squeezed between his thick, tattooed chest and my own chest, scantily clad in the sheet and flat—anything but perky without a bra for added padding. “But you’re always sexy, Anna-Sophia.”
“Oh, please,” I winced, trying to push back from his embrace. He wouldn’t relent. “Don’t use my full name. It makes me feel like a Catholic schoolgirl.”
“Oooh.” He held me tightly with one hand and brushed my bangs off of my forehead with the other. “Now there’s a fantasy I’d like to see played out.”
“Gross.” I wiggled some more, hoping I could escape from the awkward embrace, but Chad had other plans.
“There you go getting me all excited now,” he said through a small laugh.
He brought his face nearer and gently brushed his lips against mine. “Come on, what do you say to having a go at it for what? The fourth, fifth time?”
“Chad.” I pulled back, but to no avail. “Last night was last night. Not again. Never again.”
His lips grazed my bare shoulder, and instantly a tingle ran up my spine. He moved his kisses down my upper arm, up to my neck, and I closed my eyes, giving in to the sudden flood of heat and flurry of mixed emotions coursing through my body.
“You know what?” he whispered against the nape of my neck.
“Hmm?” I moaned.
“I’ve fantasized about this for a long time.”
“Hmm?”
“You, me, together. Like this.” He dropped one hand to my buttocks, gripping it against the soft silk. “I think we could be really good together, Sophie.”
“Wha—what?” I breathed out huskily.
“Well,” he said lowly, moving his lips to my chest, “we’ve already proven we can be really good together in bed. We’re obviously sexually compatible.”
I moaned as his hands moved to mine and he began to loosen the sheet. “Chad,” I breathed choppily, heavily. “Chad, wa—wait. We—we—we need.”
“Shhh.” He kissed me firmly, then pressed his forehead against mine. He smiled seductively and rasped out, “Don’t worry, sweetie. I’ve got more in the nightstand.” He began to work at the sheet again, successfully exposing one of my breasts. As he cupped it, brushing his thumb against my nipple, I snapped to, taking in a sharp breath.
“No,” I said, tone adamant, head slowly becoming clear. I pushed his wandering hand away and clutched the sheet tighter to my body.
“Sophie, sweetie, if you’re worried about morning breath or the way your hair’s messed, I don’t care.” He attempted yet again to pull down the sheet. “Come on, I’m ready. I’ll take you right here, right now.”
“No. We need—”
“I told you, I’ve got plenty.” His hands covered mine.
“No!” I cried, backing away from him. “No! No, no, no.” I wagged my head and pulled the sheet tighter to my chest. “We need to think this through! We need to—to—to stop! This is wrong, all wrong.” I grabbed at the crown of my head with a free hand. “What the hell are we doing?!”
“Sophie, sweetie.” Chad held out his hands in supplication.
“No, don’t call me sweetie. Please.” I made a gagging expression. “This,” I pointed at his ruffled bed, the top sheet obviously gone, pillows strewn about, “was a mistake. Last night, a total mistake. This must never leave this room!”
“Oh, come on,” he groaned. “That’s not what you said last night! Last night you said you’d been wanting this for a long time, too.”
“Yeah, well, last night was filled with a lot of Chardonnay and evidently a lack of judgment.” I smoothed out my hair, certain it didn’t look “messy” like Chad had insinuated. I peered around for a mirror.
I didn’t know what I was thinking, but the night before, Chad and I had knocked back one too many alcoholic beverages. The summer had been a blast—my first summer away from home. Usually I’d run to Santa Barbara each summer once college let out for some sun, sand, and surf-bum-watching on the beautiful California beaches. That year, however, was the first Claire and I agreed we’d be roomies year-round. It would be the last summer we’d have as college students, so why not make the most of it?
When Claire announced she wouldn’t be going back home to Oregon for the summer, Conner jumped at the chance to pass on his usual summer at home in LA, and he stayed in Seattle with us. Luckily Chad’s from Seattle, so the two got to hang out a lot. Naturally, that meant Claire and I got to tag along with Conner and Chad during random weekends to hang out at Chad’s parents’ immaculate home. The majority of that summer was spent lounging by Chad’s parents’ pool, hopping in the Jacuzzi, riding around on the speedboat, or taking the jet skis out on the lake. It was one of the best summers I’d had.
One of the best, that was, until Chad and I got tipsy, shared a kiss in the pool late at night, and decided Conner and Claire were well out of earshot, evidently giving us license to make the worst mistake of all mistakes in the history of bad mistakes.
I had no idea what I’d been thinking. Chad and I were friends, nothing more. And, yeah, yeah, I’d heard all about how some best friends hook up just for the hell of it—that it means nothing. I’d find out all about that when I’d learn that Jackie and Chad would decide to give it a go one afternoon, high as kites, a few years later. Best friends, male-female, left alone, sometimes one gets a stupid idea in their head and, well…
For Jackie and Chad, their one time go a couple years out of college would be just that. I honestly didn’t know what they were thinking, and I think it was pretty foolish and lousy of them to treat it so casually. All right, so I would come to know casual all too well when I’d go to Paris, but at least I was attracted to Henri. We had a connection, even if we knew our “relationship” wouldn’t result in anything long-term. But Jackie and Chad just brazenly going at it like that…
I mean, though Chad and I were friends and had done something pretty much just as stupid as what he and Jackie would later do, we had shared something more. The way Chad kissed me in the pool that night, and the way I felt connected to him on some deeper and more powerful level than I’d ever felt before when he lowered himself on top of me and whispered in my ear that he’d never felt happier, never felt like anything could be so right in the world. The way he held me in his arms afterwards, and the way I tauntingly smiled as I told him I wanted to do it all over again. And the way we did…and did…and did again!
Whatever Chad and I had that torrid summer night in college—the girls came to call it my acting out a rebellious stage, going for the tattooed, partier, frat-boy—it didn’t end up casual. It may have started that way—a no-strings-attached gimmick—but it felt like there was something more, something lingering and unspoken afterwards.
And I knew a part of that then. I knew, standing there in nothing but a sheet, right in front of Chad, feeling myself blush with embarrassment and rage, that Chad and I did have something more than a one-night stand. What it was, I didn’t really know. But, as I would come to learn, it definitely wasn’t carefree and fleeting like what Henri and I would have. It was…weird. Really weird.
I didn’t feel violated by my encounter with Chad, but I also didn’t feel comfortable with it. I felt like I’d kind of exposed myself (no pun intended) to a friend who was never supposed to see that side of me. We’d crossed the line, I guess you could say. And once you cross that line it’s a bitch trying to hop ba
ck over. Chad and I’d always had a poke-fun-at-each-other kind of friendship, but after that night the passive-aggressive behavior only escalated.
“Sophie,” Chad said from his seated position at the edge of the bed. He ran both hands through his greasy, dirty-blonde hair and exhaled loudly. “What we had last night was hot. Fucking hot.”
“Please.” I held up one hand and scrunched my face in remorse. I thought I could feel some bile rise up.
“And you do look really beautiful.” A smile tugged at his lips, and he reached a bare foot forward. His toes caught the ends of the sheet, and he gave a sharp yank.
“Chad!” I shrieked, sending him into a fit of laughter. “Stop it! It’s not funny! What we did was a mistake. A stupid mistake!”
“You really think that?”
“Yes!” I was baffled. “Do you not?”
He just shrugged cavalierly.
“God!” I groused loudly in disbelief and threw a hand up.
Did Chad really not think that what we’d done was absolutely insane? What we’d done could jeopardize our friendship—and our friendship with Claire and Conner. Say, and this is so hypothetical, if Chad and I had made our little pillow talk a routine, then eventually broke it off, I wouldn’t want to see him, and he wouldn’t want to see me. That would mean when Chad was with Conner I couldn’t be with Conner and Claire, and when I was with Claire then—you get the picture. It would be a disaster for all involved.
Besides, Chad was that annoying frat-boy friend who never took anything seriously in his life except beer and the pong that went along with it…and the bong, too. I had goals, I worked hard, I was in control of my future; Chad, aside from being the dopey best friend of my best friend’s boyfriend and a generally good-natured kind of friend on his own, played an infinitesimally small role in it. The stoner guy and the determined girl do not do things like this—there is no future for them—regardless of the weird, unexplainable, and conflicting feelings I had for Chad.
“Fine,” he said casually, almost flippantly. “Fine then.”
I pulled up the ends of the sheet and raised it high. “Seriously. What are these? Who even has silk sheets?” I said in a beleaguered tone, trying to turn the conversation.
Chad leaned back onto his bed on his elbows, giving me front-row-center view of the goods his boxers were doing a poor job of concealing. I rolled my eyes and awaited an explanation from behind those curling lips of his.
“The ladies love them,” he said, rocking side to side. “Especially when I have them on my waterbed, back at the apartment.”
“Oh, god.” I stomped off towards his adjoining bathroom. “See! This is why we could never work out. You’re a pig!”
“So you’d consider it?”
“What?”
“You’d consider giving us a chance? Working things out? If I were less…piggish?” He scoffed at the last insinuation.
“No!” I peered my head around the door. “Hell no! We are who we are, Chad; and you and I will never work out. Destiny just won’t have it.”
“Destiny!” he laughed. “Oh, Sophie, that’s a good one.”
“I’m serious. It will never happen.”
“Never say never.”
“It won’t.” My temper was rising.
“Oh, don’t be a cynic.” His tone, just like his shrug, reeked of insouciance. “When we go back to school, you come over to my and Conner’s apartment and I’ll show you what a good time you can have on that waterbed, silk sheets and all.”
“You’re disgusting.” I turned my head sharply back around the corner. “See what I mean? Pig!”
He growled through a few choppy beats of laughter. “Come on, Sophie. Just ask Claire.” His tone was taunting.
I leaned towards the mirror and cleaned the sleep from my eyes as he continued to run his mouth.
“She can tell you how many satisfied screams she’s heard from my room.”
“God,” I muttered under my breath as I rubbed at my eyes. “You think you’re actually helping your case here?”
He then appeared in the doorway, leaning a heavily tattooed arm—the one with the top-heavy mermaid (seriously!)—against the frame.
“Of course, I’m completely to blame for all that orgasmic screaming,” he rasped. He leaned forward and pinched my rear. I let out a loud, angry yelp as he said, “But you know all about that, sweetie.”
“For the last time, Chad.” I turned towards him, leaning back against the bathroom counter as far as I could go without sitting atop it. “I’m not your sweetie. You’re disgusting. And this is never to happen again.” I nodded towards the bed. “And you are never to breathe a word of this to anyone. Understand?” I looked deeply into his eyes, dead serious, no room for jokes.
A comedic grin drew the corner of his lips up slowly, mockingly.
“Please,” I pleaded. “I just want to put this behind me. A one-time thing, no-strings-attached. We forget about it.”
“Really?”
“Really!”
He rubbed at his strong jaw, peppered with dark-blonde specks of two-day-old facial hair, and looked off to the side.
“Please,” I pleaded once again. “As absurd as this sounds, I do want for us to stay friends.”
“Friends?” he asked dryly.
“Yes. Friends.” I rolled my eyes at his simpering expression. “Believe it or not, I do consider womanizing Chad Harris to be among my circle of friends.”
“I am ever honored and privileged.” He made a rolling motion of his flattened hand and lowly bowed before me.
“Oh, stop it.” I shoved him in the shoulder.
“Friends,” he said. “Yeah, yeah. I get it.” He straightened, rolling and popping a shoulder along the way. I wasn’t sure if he was purposely puffing out his chest or if it really was just that thick, his posture ramrod-straight. His breath was low and even, his eyes locked on mine.
“What?” I was discomfited as his gaze captivated me. One part of me was repulsed, wanting to slam the door in his face and pretend last night never happened. The other part of me was turned on, ready to push him back onto the bed and relive last night over and over again. We were on a slippery slope, and someone needed to take control. Fast.
“I want to be friends, too,” he replied at last in even tones. “But we can be more than friends.”
“I am not going to get into this habit…becoming friends with benefits.” I shivered at the slutty thought.
“That’s not what I mean. I mean…you and I see where this could go together.”
“As in date?”
“Somethin’ like that.”
“No,” I said instantly.
The thought of Chad and I taking things a step further than we’d already dangerously done…no way.
“We’re friends,” I said, “and if we continue what we’re doing, or if we try to see if there’s something more there—which, there’s not!” I shook my head sharply. “No. No, no. Something like that would ruin our friendship. Besides, I don’t like you that way, Chad, and you don’t like me that way either.”
“You don’t know that.” He began to smile, slowly, in a scheming sort of way.
“Yes, yes, I do.” I poked a stiff finger into his chest. “I know you’re just horny and acting stupid right now. The two of us could never be serious. You? Me?” I laughed loudly, incredulously.
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes. I do.” My voice was stern, face drawn straight, expressionless.
He heaved a loud and drawn-out sigh as I told him that we’d talked the issue to death. It was time we forgot what had happened and move on.
“Wild fling,” I said, making light of the terribly cloudy situation. “Stupid college thing; everyone does it.” I turned on my heels and leaned into the bathroom counter, checking once again for sleep in my eyes.
“Fine,” he said at last through a tightened jaw. “Is that what you want? How you really feel?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you,” I breathed out in relief. “Thank you so much.”
“No, thank you.” He grinned coyly.
“For?” I was afraid to ask.
“For giving me a night I will never forget.” He clapped his hands together again and rocked back on his heels. “You, Sophie Wharton, are a babe in the sack, and I will always have last night to think on when I’m—”
“All right!” I gave his chest a hearty shove and slammed the bathroom door. “When I’m done in here you’re taking a cold shower and keeping your damn mouth shut.”
He was cackling on the opposite side of the door, and I tried my best to remain calm, telling myself it was one night and nothing more. Eventually we’d laugh about it, hopefully forget it ever happened.
I pulled on my favorite pair of boyfriend-style American Eagle jeans over my still damp bathing suit bottoms, slipped on my bathing suit top, and put on my tank top, all the while running over and again through my head, One time, Sophie. One time. One mistake. Nothing more. Forget about it!
Chapter Nineteen
I thought yoga would help me relax, take my mind off of less-than-pleasant things, like memories of mistakes, memories I thought I could suppress after all these years.
But after two back-to-back, hour-long sessions of yoga and meditation I’m no more relaxed than when I first arrived at Studio Tulaa tonight.
When I tell myself to stop being ridiculous and forget about the past with Brandon, the past with Henri, the past with Chad, my mind wanders elsewhere. Chad’s sly smirk will come into view, and once again memories of that steamy summer night with him seven years ago pop into my mind. A mixture of emotions and memories all churn together, swell up inside. I can’t avoid them, not when I’m alone and haven’t found that someone to love who makes all those memories and conflicting emotions seem utterly irrelevant.
I was hoping I’d see Robin at yoga tonight, but as is the case sometimes she probably got held up with the kids or work or a combination of both. Although she did say Bobby’s family had come in for Thanksgiving and it was sure to be an overkill holiday. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s still a bit frazzled over the big family visit.
When Girlfriends Find Love Page 14
