Chapter 2 #2
“You’re their favorite, and mine.” He kisses her softly. “Message when you’re ready to come home.”
We reach the lobby and Connor heads in one direction, while Dred and I go the other. We cross the street and take the elevator to my floor. I let us into my apartment, and Dred sets up Battleship on the kitchen island while I pour us glasses of Tang.
“What happened with Tally?”
I grip the edge of the counter. “She asked for help with something, and I had to say no.”
She gives me her full attention, eyes lit up with curiosity. “Would you like to elaborate, or should I guess?”
I drag my eyes away from the Tang. “She propositioned me.”
“As in…”
I choke out the words. “She asked me to take her virginity.”
Her eyebrows pop. “Oh wow, she’s got balls.”
“It’s not funny.”
“I’m not really laughing.”
I run a hand through my hair. “She’s ready to throw her virginity away like it’s an old shirt!”
“She’s been holding out for a long time, so that’s not quite accurate.” Dred props her hip against the table. “Tell me, Flip, how old were you when you first had sex?”
I shake my head. “I’m a—”
“Do not finish that sentence if it ends with some gender-normative stereotype,” she warns.
I clamp my mouth shut, because that’s exactly what I was about to do.
“I was seventeen,” Dred confides. “It was with a guy I’d been dating for a month, and we broke up three weeks later.
I was not in love with him, but I was in lust. We had great chemistry, and I thought it would be good.
It wasn’t the best, but it also wasn’t the worst. We were fumbly, and it was awkward, but it did get better after the first time.
Could I have waited? Sure. But I liked him, and he liked me, so I made the choice, and I don’t regret it.
” She makes a you-have-the-floor motion. “Now, how old were you?”
I huff. “Sixteen. But it was my ex, and we’d been together for months by that point. We cared about each other.”
“You care about Tally,” Dred points out.
“It’s not the same! I loved Fiona, and I believed that she loved me.
We were in a committed relationship.” We stayed together for the rest of high school but went to different universities on opposite ends of the province.
We reconnected in my last year when she moved back, but that went sideways.
Fiona broke more than my heart when we ended the second time.
It was gutting to have the person I loved tell me she didn’t want me.
But it was so much worse when she dug the knife in deeper, telling me no one would ever want me for me, and that I was only good for two things: money and my ability to make her come.
She created unhealable wounds when she left me, and I’ve spent the years since terrified to give my heart to someone else and find out she was right all along.
“Tally only wants me because I’m good at sex, not because I’d be a good boyfriend.”
“Is that what she said?”
“Basically, yes.”
Her expression shifts to empathy. “Do you really believe that?”
“She said I could probably make her come.” It’s gutting to have her see me like that.
Dred blows out a breath and shakes her head. “She’s not wrong, though, is she? University guys are not great at that, in her experience.”
“I don’t want to talk about Tally’s experiences with the dickheads she dated!”
Dred arches a brow.
“She’s too important to be treated like some bunny I picked up at a bar! I will not indulge in meaningless sex like I used to, I’ve come too fucking far to go backwards.”
She holds up a hand. “What if what you heard Tally say and what she meant aren’t the same? She left pretty flustered, Flip. What if she does want you, but she’s scared to ask for that?”
I shake my head. “She doesn’t.” She can’t. “I have too much baggage.”
“Everyone has baggage. And what if she does want you, what then?” Dred repeats.
I swallow. “Her dad is my coach. We’re friends.
It doesn’t matter what she thinks she wants.
It’s literally the worst idea in the world.
All our friends are interconnected. The risk is way too fucking high to even consider.
I haven’t had a relationship of substance since I was twenty and that ended horribly.
I can’t afford to entertain these kinds of thoughts about Tally.
I’ve known her since she was a teenager. ”
The team has always looked out for her. Protected her. I’ve protected her.
“Do you disapprove of Hollis and Hammer, then?”
“No, but that’s different.” Although I suppose it was equally complicated. Hollis is twelve years older than Hammer and her dad’s best friend.
“Do you just want it to be different?” Dred presses.
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “You’re worse than my therapist!”
“You can pay me a hundred and fifty bucks an hour to ask you questions you already know the answers to, if it makes you feel better,” she offers cheekily, but her voice softens, and her expression shifts to empathy.
“I understand that you have always had Tally’s safety in mind, and you’re probably reeling because you’ve been trying to keep her inside a space she doesn’t fit into anymore.
It’s also clear that she hit you in a sore spot without realizing it, probably because she was nervous and babbling.
I think this is less about the request coming out of left field and more about being afraid of what this could actually mean. ”
I frown. “She’s off-limits.”
“She won’t be forever.” She squeezes my hand.
“She’s had a thing for you for a long time.
When Tally was a teenager, it was sweet.
Now she’s an adult, and even if you don’t want it to change things, it does.
We also both know you have two eyes in your head, and a heart in your chest, and you’re not immune to her. ”
I shake my head as I move to the Battleship table. “I need to stay away from her, Dred. She needs time to come to her senses.”