Chapter 11 Caught
Eleven
Caught
“Hey,” I said casually, even though walking into the room was like stepping into a plasma lamp and I was the high-voltage electrode in the center.
Jay lounged in the saucer chair. Priya and Luke were on the edge of her bed. Emma sat in my desk chair, legs crossed.
Priya spoke first. “We’ve been worried sick, Ade. Why didn’t you answer your texts?”
I moseyed over to my closet and hung up my jacket. “Sorry. I didn’t know you’d been pinging me.”
“We were just about to call the campus police.” Emma’s voice was low.
I turned back. None of them had taken their eyes off me. “I told Priya I’d see her later. Now is later, and here I am. I’m not sure why you’re making such a big deal about this.”
“Where were you?” Jay asked.
I stared at him hard. If it were just Priya, Luke, and Emma in the room, I could lie, no problem.
Maybe I took a late shift at the bookstore to stock shelves and make some extra pay.
Or I could have been meeting with a study group for a project.
But with Jay here, I couldn’t lie. The second I started to spin my tale, he’d know.
He was perceptive like that. He’d also known me longer than the rest of them.
“I was at Sporty’s.” See, I wanted to say to him. Not a lie.
“How did you get in?” Priya leaned forward.
I still had my gaze pinned on Jay. Because what I was about to say next would tell me everything I needed to know about who was and wasn’t on my side. “I went with Dallas. He knows the bouncer.”
Jay’s eyebrows rose.
“I knew it.” Emma shot to her feet and balled her fists. “I told you guys she wouldn’t delete his number.” She started circling the room. “Gross, Ade. Really gross.”
“What the hell?” I’d been dying to say that out loud since it had come to mind on the stairs. “You don’t even know him! How can you hate him?”
“We don’t hate him.” Priya shifted her weight on the bed. “We care about you.”
“Care about me?” Now my body temperature was rising.
“We just want the best for you.” Priya’s forehead tightened. “That’s all.”
Emma wouldn’t sit still. “Just so you know, my bet is you’re going to get hurt over this—big-time.”
Ha. If she only knew. If she only knew that going to a bar with Dallas would never—could never—devastate me. My dad had already accomplished that last year. Dallas might be a mistake, but I didn’t care, because I had nothing left to lose.
I put my hands on my hips. “You’re being hypocritical. No way you’ll get hurt going after a college hockey player, now is there?”
“That’s different.” Emma pressed her lips together.
“It is the same, and it doesn’t seem like anyone’s stopping you.”
“It’s different because it’s a fantasy. Nothing will ever happen, because I’m too shy to speak with one. You though… You’ll actually end up having your first time with a total douchebag.”
The words first time hit me so hard I lost my breath.
I dropped my head and stared at the tight-looped gray carpeted floor.
I couldn’t believe she’d said it out loud.
One night, not long ago, I’d told Emma and Priya that I hadn’t had sex yet.
They’d said they’d never tell anyone. But now Emma had spilled it in front of Luke and Jay.
“Emma.” Priya stood and sharpened her tone. “That’s quite enough.”
My body started to shake.
“I think you should leave,” Priya said to her.
“Fine with me,” Emma announced. “I’m going to bed.”
Without even an apology, she stomped out of the room.
“I think I will too,” Jay said quietly.
I looked at him, and he didn’t even glance at me. Shoulders slouched, he followed Emma out the door.
Great. The virgin was now stuck with the humpers.
“Are you okay?” Luke finally spoke up.
“Yes.” I positioned my closet door so I could change into my tank and yoga pants in private. But I balled up my clothes, wound up, and threw them into the back.
Priya’s bedside light switched off, and the two of them sifted through the bedding, getting situated.
“Emma was really worried about you,” Priya said. “I’m sure she’ll be back to normal tomorrow.”
I grunted a response. Normal? What was normal?
In fact, I wasn’t sure life could ever be normal for me.
I grabbed my toiletry bag and my cell phone and went to the bathroom in my flip-flops. Standing under the fluorescent lighting, I flossed and brushed my teeth.
Just as I was spitting into the sink, it came to me. My quest to have sex had changed into something bigger without me even realizing it.
Screw my list of requirements for the kind of guy I’d have sex with. What I wanted was to be with someone who lusted after me as much as I lusted after him. Who understood how to tap into the chemicals stored inside me. Then it would be worth it.
I hated normal, because normal meant being disappointed and sad. I wanted novelty. I wanted excitement. And that was what I was going to go get.