14. Gigi
14
GIGI
“ O kay,” I pant, lying back on the bed. “So, there’s no point in pretending we don’t want each other. But it doesn’t have to mean anything.”
A rumble of laughter erupts from deep in Mack’s throat. “Okay.” Damn him, that laugh is as sexy as it is irritating.
A bounce on the mattress startles me, but it’s only Tedward. “Hey, Ted,” I murmur, reaching over to scratch him under the chin. “I forgot you were here.”
“He was probably hiding under the bed,” Mack observes. “Good thing he didn’t get smushed.”
My breathing finally starts to slow from the Olympic-level sex we just had. God, if this is going to continue I really need to work on my stamina. “Look, this is just sex, though, okay? Nothing more.”
“Is it?”
I sit up and look at Mack quizzically. “I mean, isn’t it?”
“Dunno.” He sits up next to me. I try not to gawk at how fucking gorgeous he is naked. God, the tattoos on this man. They’re of varying degrees of skill, but he’s like an artist’s canvas the way he wears them. Mack has a body that was made for tattoos. His nakedness is even more naked with ink, somehow. He is a living celebration of the male form. I wish I could mark him with my own designs.
“So,” Mack continues, petting Ted absently, “you’re not gonna say we gotta stop doing this, are you? ‘Cause I’m pretty sure that would be a sin against sex.”
“No…” I trail off, glancing at the closed door. “But we can only keep doing this if we can keep it totally under wraps.” This thing between us is potentially explosive, and I know I don’t have to explain that to Mack.
I expect him to make a joke of it, like he does with everything. But to my surprise, his brow furrows. “Okay, but listen,” he says. “G, if we’re gonna keep doin’ this thing, you gotta do me a favor and stop flirting with other men. It’s gonna drive me fucking crazy. I’ll end up punching one of them in the fucking face.”
I can hardly believe my ears. “Are you actually jealous ?”
“Damn right I’m jealous.” He reaches for me, pulling me into a long probing kiss that leaves me dizzy. When he releases me, his eyes are dark with desire. “Especially now that I know what this is like. What you taste like. What you feel like when you’re under me, moaning my name as your pussy clenches around me. I don’t share, Gigi. I don’t even joke about sharing. You get me?”
Whoa. This conversation suddenly feels a lot more weighty that it started out being. The look on Mack’s face is dead serious, which in itself kind of stops me in my tracks. I’m so used to him making light of pretty much everything.
“I get you,” I hear myself say breathlessly.
His face instantly relaxes. “Good,” he says, smirking. “Otherwise, I might have to tell the club you’re not into guys.”
I freeze.
All of a sudden, the evidence of my monumental stupidity comes rushing toward me. All the years I’ve known him to be a colossal jackass, all the years I’ve known being attracted to him was a terrible mistake, flash before me like the worst movie I’ve ever seen.
Without a word, I scramble up off the bed, naked, then run to the tiny bathroom and lock the door, Mack calling after me in a bewildered voice.
Staring at myself, wide-eyed, in the mirror, I hiss at my reflection: “What the fuck are you doing? With Mack Maxwell, of all people? Christ, you’re an idiot!”
I have more than enough knowledge of who that man is to stay as far away from him as humanly possible. How in the hell did I let him lull me into thinking he had changed? I mean, he’s never apologized for what he did to me back then, but I can’t believe he would actually joke about it. And not only that, but threaten to do it again ?
“Hey!” Mack calls from the other side of the bathroom door. “G, what’s up? You okay?”
I can’t stand this. I can’t stand that he was just touching me — that he basically now knows my body probably better than any other person on this earth except me — and he just proved that he’s still nothing but King Asshole. I can’t have this conversation with him. I can’t face him again right now. I’m pretty sure I’d break down crying if I had to.
“Get out!” I yell through the door. “I’m tired and I want a shower. Go party with your friends. I’m calling it a night.”
“G, what the hell? Come on, I was just joking.”
“I said, go !” I scream, a note of hysteria creeping into my voice.
My whole body tenses, waiting for him to start pounding on the door or trying open it. I stare at the knob, fists clenched.
“What the fuck?” I hear Mack mutter. The mattress creaks softly. There’s the sound of a belt buckle, and then the scrape of boots on the floor. His footsteps stop just outside of the bathroom. “I don’t know what the hell’s gotten into you, Gigi,” he says gruffly. “But I ain’t gonna beg you to talk to me. You get ready to talk, you come find me.”
The boots walk away. Seconds later, the door to the apartment slams.
The back of my throat starts to sting, letting me know tears are close. Sniffling, I emerge from the bathroom to skitter across the apartment, flipping the lock on the door. I slump down on the bed my tears spilling over as the memories flood me.
I didn’t have a lot of friends in high school. Part of that was by my own design. My home life was bad enough, with my drunk of a dad, living in a ramshackle house that was probably only a few steps away from being condemned. As soon as I was old enough to realize how our lives would seem to anyone looking in from the outside, I avoided getting close to people. The end result, of course, was that I was lonely. Often desperately so. Books were my refuge, the one place I could go in my mind to escape.
My main defense mechanism outside of my home was the I-don’t-care personality I developed. By the time I was a teenager, I had the reputation of being a defiant loner. Most of the time, that suited me just fine. The downside was that I didn’t really have anyone in my corner when classmates decided to taunt or bully me. And since I wasn’t supposed to care, I also wasn’t supposed to be hurt by the meanness of my peers.
Connor knew a little bit of what I was going through. But he was older, and an upperclassman. He had his own life and his own stuff to worry about. And of course, I did my best to keep it hidden from him, and from Mack, whom I had had a mortifyingly persistent crush on since I was a tween. The thought of Mack seeing what a social outcast I was horrified me almost more than the thought of him discovering my crush. So I cultivated a cool girl rocker aesthetic, and pretended to have a friend group that I knew they didn’t care enough to ever ask me about.
Mack and Connor had always been naturally gifted at sports, even as young boys age. In high school, they both went out for football, and got on the varsity team as sophomores. I was jealous of Con’s popularity, but again, I did my best to hide it behind my cool, aloof girl persona. Reenie and Choppa, of course, went to every one of their home games. Sometimes I went too, sitting mostly by myself at the top of the bleachers, out of sight.
During my own sophomore year, which was also Mack and Connor’s senior year, I somehow caught the eye of one of the other players on the football team. His name was Brock. I met him because he was in my art elective class. He was one of the only boys and certainly the only athlete in the class, so when he started talking to me one day it was probably out of boredom. He was Homecoming-King cute, and had a great football player body.
Since Brock was a popular kid who was way out of my league, it never occurred to me to be intimidated by him. I enjoyed our easy companionship. I was able to talk to him just as a buddy, if an unlikely one. Eventually, I did end up developing a bit of a crush on him. But since we already had an easy rapport, I just looked at it as an unfortunate development that I would just have to ignore. If nothing else, crushing on Brock had the positive effect of distracting me from my unrequited feelings for Mack Maxwell.
One day after school, Brock noticed me walking by the practice field as I set out on my way home, and came jogging up to talk to me. He was looking especially good that day, I remember, in that handsome jock way. He was cracking jokes and making me laugh loudly enough to capture the attention of some of the other players. And so it happened that just as he was leaning over to say something to me in confidence, Mack came ambling up.
“Hey, G,” he said casually. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” I replied. My emotions started to swirl, between pride that Mack saw me talking to a good-looking boy, and the ever-present attraction to him that I just couldn’t seem to shake. “Just on my way home.”
Mack’s eyes slipped from me to Brock. “Didn’t know you two knew each other."
“Yeah,” Brock said easily. “We have a class together.”
Mack paused for a second, then nodded. “Oh, sure, I get it. That makes sense, then.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, bristling.
“Nah, nothing,” Mack replied. See ya around, G. Come on, Brock, you gonna practice or spend all day talking?”
Brock shrugged a goodbye at me and took off jogging behind Mack. I sent off a mental fuck you to my brother’s best friend, and left.
The next day in class, Brock acted like we barely knew each other. And it wasn’t long before I found out why. Later, a girl named Lily in my English class came up to me right before the bell rang.
“Hey, I didn’t know you were gay,” Lily said, giving me a wide smile. “Did you ever think about joining the GSA? We meet today after school.”
“What?” I asked, startled. “I’m not gay.”
She furrowed her brow. “Oh, really? That’s not what I heard. And that’s not what’s going around the school.”
At practice the day before, Mack Maxwell had told Brock Tichenor that I was a lesbian. Well, from what I heard later, his actual words were, “She’s batshit crazy. And she’s not really into guys.” As they say, a lie can travel around the world in the time it takes for the truth to put on its pants. By the end of the day, pretty much everyone in my high school had heard I was gay. Given the fact that I’ve always been kind of an alternative chick, it was easy for people to believe, I guess. I wouldn’t have even cared that much, except that that was the end of any hope that Brock would ever ask me out. From that day forward, he never really spoke to me again. Since homophobes aren’t my thing, that pretty much took care of my crush on him. But unfortunately, the chilling effect of that rumor also ended up killing my chances of ever having a boyfriend in high school
So that was the end of my chances with Brock, or with any other boy, for that matter. All because of a thoughtless and stupid prank Mack pulled just to be an absolute dick to me. He never even acknowledged doing it. To this day, we’ve never spoken about it. But now, years later, he just joked about doing it again. Proving that not only does he remember, he wasn’t — and still isn’t — sorry about it.
What seems like a silly high school prank has brought all the hurt and humiliation and insecurity I felt back then rushing to the surface. My stomach is in knots, the same way it used to be when I looked at Mack and realized he just thought of me as a dumb plaything. I was only the stupid sister of his best friend, not good for anything but being the butt of a practical joke. I thought maybe he had changed all these years later. But not enough. Not nearly enough. I can’t believe I ever let my guard down enough to let myself get involved with him. I can’t believe I had sex with him. Twice .
And it’s worse than that.
I can’t believe that it wasn’t just sex for me. I let my heart crack open, just a little bit, and started developing feelings for him again. I should have known better than that. Hell, I did know better than that. Mack has always been nothing but King Asshole.
Tedward, who has been sitting next to me as I fall apart, jumps down from the bed. Trotting over to the closed door, he meows at it, then paws at it, as if wanting Mack to come back.
Great . Even my cat, who hates everybody except me, has fallen for Mack.
“Traitor,” I mutter.