15. Ally
15
ALLY
“ H ey, how was your day?” Grace asks when I walk into our apartment.
I don’t look at her or reply. I just walk through the apartment to my bedroom where I quickly gather my clothes. I walk out of my room and down the hallway toward the bathroom.
Grace is now standing in the doorway between the hall and the living room. “What’s up with you?” she asks, watching me walk into the bathroom in a daze. I shut the door and lock it behind me.
I toss my clothes onto the countertop, reach into the shower, and turn on the water. Once it’s warming up, I kick off my shoes and take off my clothes. Pushing my panties down my legs, I see a mixture of blood, his come, and my arousal. I shiver and grab the panties from the floor, wadding them up and stuffing them into the trashcan.
I slip into the shower and melt as the hot water washes over me. With my back against the wall, I slide down until I’m sitting on the floor. I pull my knees to my chest and wrap my arms around them. The junction between my legs is throbbing in an unfamiliar way. There’s a burning sensation from the water rinsing over my body. My face feels like it’s on fire, but I’m not sure if it’s from panic or embarrassment. What must he think of me now? I slept with my boss. I can’t believe I slept with my boss. I gave my virginity to him. At least he knows this isn’t something I run around doing. God, what if he tells someone? What if they think I’m trying to use sex to get hired after graduation? This could kill my career before it even gets started.
He won’t tell anyone, I tell myself. If he tells someone, he would be in just as much trouble. He’s my boss. One could argue that he took advantage of me. I shake my head clear. He’s not going to tell anyone, so there’s no need to think of ways to hurt him back. What I need to wrap my head around is that I’ve finally given someone my virginity.
I’m a little surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I’ve been told how much it hurts and how unpleasant it is for the girl the first time. There was some pain, but it eased away and turned into something else entirely. I know without a shadow of a doubt that having sex with anyone else wouldn’t have been as perfect as it was with Ethan. Even though he didn’t know that I was a virgin, he was still a gentleman. He took things slow and allowed my body to get used to accommodating him instead of trying to push for more too fast. I was also told not to expect to get off the first time I have sex, so that was another surprise. He made me feel so comfortable and cared for that I had no problem finding my high.
Grace pounds on the bathroom door.
“I’m fine!” I call out.
“Are you sure?” I hear her yell back.
“I’ll talk to you when I get out,” I promise.
She doesn’t reply, nor does she knock again, so I breathe a sigh of relief.
I pull my braid over my shoulder and remove the elastic. It’s much looser than it usually is because he laced his fingers into my hair when he was thrusting inside me. My eyes fall closed as I relive the memory. His strong hands holding onto me. The way his usually icy-blue eyes were dark. The way his jaw twitched and became sharper. The way his muscular stomach looked when he was moving inside of me. It makes goosebumps prickle my skin as shivers race up my spine.
I should be ashamed of myself for giving my virginity to a man I don’t know. I should be ashamed that I gave it to my boss. I’m risking too much, and that’s gone against everything I’ve ever done. Why aren’t I more upset? I know it was a mistake. I know all the trouble it could cause, and I still can’t do anything but think back on the moment and smile as my body comes alive for him again. My bones warm, and my blood heats up. My stomach tightens, and the junction between my legs throbs—in a good way and a bad way all at the same time. I’m still very sore there, and every throb of excitement brings on a bout of pain.
Taking a deep breath, I push myself to my feet. I turn and dip my head back, letting the water wash over me. When it’s good and soaked, I grab the shampoo and squeeze some into my hand to get on with my shower. I could sit at the bottom of the shower all day and debate whether this was a bad idea, but that won’t get me anywhere. It happened. I accept it, and come tomorrow, I’ll move on. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t take every private moment to relive it. The way he looked at me is enough to set my soul on fire.
When I finish showering, I dry off and pull on a pair of sweats. That’s when Grace reappears.
“What is going on? You’re making me worry.” She leans against the doorframe with her arms crossed. Her brows are arched high, and her green eyes are wide.
My shoulders fall. I want to share this news with my best friend, but I also want to keep it to myself. Grace is the responsible friend. She’s perfect in nearly every way. It was good for me growing up because it gave me someone to look up to, but there have also been times when her reaction made me feel guilty. I’m still reeling with excitement over losing my virginity and am worried she’ll make me feel bad for it.
I press my lips together. “I’m not sure I want to tell you.”
Her mouth falls open in surprise. “Okay, well, now you have to.” She lets her arms fall to her sides as she walks deeper into my room. She sits on my bed. “The only time you don’t want to tell me something is when you’re afraid of my reaction.”
“Exactly,” I agree, dropping the brush back onto my dresser.
“What could you be scared about? You’ve been at work.” She gasps. “Did you make some kind of life-altering mistake?”
I know what she means. Did I kill someone? “No, it’s nothing like that.”
She pats the bed. “Okay, then come on. You need someone to talk to. I can see it on your face.”
I take a deep breath and go to sit beside her. “Okay… I’m not sure where to start.”
“Start at the beginning.”
I feel the corners of my mouth pull upward but hold back the smile. “You know how I’ve told you about some of the interactions I’ve had with Dr. Cole?”
She nods.
“Well, things have continued to… heat up.”
She grins. “What do you mean? Is he flirting with you?”
My face heats. “It’s mostly just been staring at one another. Like from across the cafeteria. I was having lunch with Tray, and he was having lunch with another doctor, and he watched me the entire time. I was so nervous that I couldn’t eat. And I swear he looked jealous.”
She giggles. “That’s so strange. I mean, it’s like the Dr. Cole you know and the Dr. Cole I know are two different people.”
I nod. “After that lunch, I was doing some work in the supply closet, and he came in there. Nothing was said, but we were hyper-aware of one another and of the fact that we were alone in the small space. I was standing at the shelving unit, and he stepped up behind me. He reached for something over my head, and both of us moving so close to one another… I don’t know, somehow, I felt his…” I point downward. “Against my backside.” My face heats and burns.
She gasps and laughs. “Oh my gosh! Are you serious?” she asks around a fit of laughter while I nod. “What did you do?”
“Nothing! I didn’t know what to do,” I tell her.
“How did you feel?”
“How did I feel?”
She nods. “Yeah, like were you into it, or did it make you uncomfortable? It seems like you two are getting closer, so if it made you feel uncomfortable, something needs to be done now before things get worse.”
I shake my head. “No, I wasn’t uncomfortable. I was…” I take a deep breath. “Turned on.”
Her mouth falls open. “Oh my gosh. I can’t believe this. The goody-two-shoes virgin is finally brought to her knees by the bad-boy doctor,” she jokes.
I roll my eyes. “There’s more.”
“More?”
I nod.
She grins, motioning for me to continue.
“After the supply room, we went our separate ways, but after that and the lunch, I couldn’t get him off my mind. I was flustered and confused and didn’t know what to do because he’s my boss and I’m interested in him in ways I’ve never been interested in anyone. But again, he’s my boss and so much older than me. I want it to happen, but it can’t happen.”
She nods.
“Then, I made a mistake. We had an infant code, and Val told me to page another doctor, but I automatically paged Dr. Cole.”
“Oh.”
“I don’t know what happened, but he rushed into the room and froze up. One second, he was there, and the next, he was gone. It reminded me of my first day on the job, but he’s a seasoned doctor, so I don’t know what happened, but he was upset. Anyway, later, I stopped by his office to tell him that I was sorry for the mistake, but I also wanted to tell him that I saw his reaction and that he could talk to me if he wanted to. That’s when he kissed me.”
“He what?” she yells.
I nod. “When I walked into his office, he was spiraling. He was drinking, and one thing led to another.”
“You stopped him, right?”
I press my lips together. “Well… no.”
“What do you mean no?”
I get up and start pacing. “I know I should have, but I couldn’t. At first, I was so surprised. He caught me off-guard, you know?” I glance at her to find her nodding. “And then when the initial shock wore off…” I shrug and smile. “I couldn’t stop it because I was kissing him back.”
This causes another gasp to fall from her lips. She doubles over, massaging the stress from her eyes. “Oh my gosh, Ally. What in the hell are you going to do?” She sits up now, looking at me with her bloodshot eyes. “How are you going to go to work tomorrow, knowing that you’ve made out with your boss?”
“There’s more.”
It looks like her eyes are going to bug out of her skull. “More? How much more could there be?”
I rub my lips together while inhaling a deep breath. “A lot more.” I resume pacing. “The kissing and the touching felt so good. I couldn’t stop it. I didn’t want to. You know how that stuff goes. One thing leads to another, and before I knew it, we were…” I stop and look at her.
“You were what?”
My head tilts slightly, and the way I look at her tells her what she already knows.
“No,” she says.
I bite my lower lip and nod.
“No way. You?”
I nod.
“And him?”
I offer a tight smile.
She brushes the hair away from her face. “You had sex?”
My face heats, but I nod.
“But you’re a virgin.”
“Not anymore,” I say, moving over to the bed to sit down beside her.
“You lost your virginity?”
I don’t reply.
“To your boss? Who is like twice your age? Ally, what the fuck?”
“I know,” I whine, covering my face with my hands.
She stands. Now she’s the one who’s pacing. “I can’t believe this. What were you thinking?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t, I guess. It wasn’t planned. It just happened.”
“You’ve held onto your virginity for twenty-four years. You have more practice than anyone at turning people down. Why didn’t you turn him down?”
“I couldn’t.”
“What if he tells someone, Ally? This could really fuck you over. You could get kicked out of the program, and if you get kicked out of the program, you’ll have to find another hospital to take you on. This late in the semester, that’s not going to be easy to do. Everything will already be filled. And God forbid they find out why you were kicked out. They could use that as a reason to not accept you. If you don’t finish this, you don’t get your credits, and you need these credits to graduate. Do you understand that?”
“Of course I do. But that’s a very long train of thought. When I was in his office, doing what we were doing, I didn’t have that train of thought.”
She shakes her head. “I can’t believe you let this happen.”
All my excitement is replaced with disappointment and anger. I love my best friend, but this is why I didn’t want to tell her. Sometimes, she can act more like a mom than my mom. “He’s not going to tell anyone,” I assure her.
“How do you know?”
“Because his job is on the line, too,” I remind her. “Now, the only person I have to worry about telling is you.”
Her back straightens. “You know I’d never do that.”
I give her a friendly smile. “Then everything will be okay,” I assure her.