Chapter 37
Lucy
Mara has been on the floor against the front of the couch for an hour, and she is, somewhere in the middle of her third glass of wine, telling us about a guy in her sociology section.
The guy’s name is Bruce. I’ve heard the name twice before in passing, and I decide that I will probably never meet him in person.
“Okay, what happened?” Penelope asks impatiently. Mara has been talking our ears off about every little detail.
“I’m almost to the point,” Mara says.
Gianna is in the corner of the couch under her own blanket with her wine in her right hand and the small grin she has when Mara is mid-story. Penelope is beside me with her feet folded under her. I’m under a blanket that barely covers my feet. I have my glass of wine at my mouth.
“So we’re in his dorm room, and he is — you know — he’s on his knees, and I’m at the edge of his bed and —”
Her gesturing implies, enthusiastically, that it was the best feeling in the entire world.
Gianna, Penelope, and I burst into laughter as we watch her.
She lives for this, so her face pulls into a proud smile.
She tells us about Bruce going down on her in his dorm room last night and not stopping until she had to push his shoulder because she could not, in her words, feel her legs.
She tells us about how explosive her orgasm was, and how wet his mouth was.
She’s been texting him all day today. And my insides start squirming when I think about Benson looking at me in the eye and asking if he can go down on me.
Gianna is howling.
Penelope has stopped laughing. “So, was it really that good?”
“Penelope.” She rolls her eyes dramatically. “So good. Far better than any orgasm I’ve ever had.”
Penelope glares at her. “What do you mean?”
Her eyes flutter as I drink my wine. “His mouth was so––”
I block it out. I can’t hear what she’s saying because I am going red, thinking about Benson.
The morning he kissed his way down my body in the gray light of his bedroom and stopped when I pulled his hair.
How I told him I was sorry, and he told me not to be.
I thought I wasn’t ready for it, but I don’t think that’s been the reason at all.
I was scared to feel too much. Just like Mara has explained, it feels really good, and to trust a man with my heart is already nerve-racking enough, but to give over my body completely is absolutely terrifying.
Mara is, in the middle of the next thing she is telling Penelope, saying something about the heat of it, and the way she says it lands.
I’m curious. I’m really curious. I didn’t initiate it with Benson, so I decide something with the wine glass in my hand. If he wants to, I won’t stop him next time.
Gianna looks over at me and catches how uncomfortable I am. She knows that I’m inexperienced, and we don’t really talk about sex unless someone like Mara, who is open about these kinds of things, comes over and forces the conversation on us.
Mara goes on to explain how she gave him head in return, and I can’t stop looking at Gianna, mortified about this ongoing conversation. She puts more wine in my glass and bumps me every time Mara says something funny.
Around eleven, the conversation drifts toward next weekend.
“Did Benson tell you about the party next Friday?” Gianna asks me.
I shake my head.
“There’s a home game on Friday. The Hawthorne House throws an after-party every time they have a home game.”
“He didn’t mention it.”
“He’s busy.”
“Yeah.”
Mara, half drunk on the floor, says, “Lucy Moss and Benson Reeve.” She looks at me and smiles. “I cannot believe it.” She turns to Gianna. “I can’t believe it.”
Gianna says, “Me either. My brother is a catch.”
Mara slurs, “That he is.”
Gianna says, “So, the party. We’re all going.” She turns to me. “And I don’t care if you’re with my brother, you’re hanging out with us all night. You’re not ditching us for him.”
I nod. “Okay.”
Penelope leaves a little after midnight.
She walks the two blocks home. Mara is on the floor in front of the coffee table with her face against a throw pillow and her hand still around the stem of her wine glass, asleep.
Gianna and I work together to lift her onto the couch and tuck the blanket around her. I take her wine glass to the sink.
Gianna goes to bed.
I go to my own bed.
In the dark, I lie awake longer than I expected to. I think about Benson and seeing him tomorrow.
I wake up to a text at eight-fourteen.
Benson: Good morning, baby. I’m excited to see you today. Come over when you wake up.
I lie in bed and look at the screen for a bit, reading the text over and over again. How can someone like him be so sweet?
Me: Morning. I’ll be over later. I need to do a few things first.
Benson: Okay. Can’t wait to see you.
Me: I miss you too.
I lock the phone and get up.
The thing I need to do first is take the longest girl shower in the world.
I shave everything, lather soap, wash every inch of my body, and then lotion my entire body.
I dry my hair in waves the way Gianna showed me three weeks ago.
I do my makeup the way I do my makeup when I am trying — which is not heavier, just more careful, the eyeliner clean along the lash line, and the mascara done in two coats.
I put on cute jeans that hug my bum but flare at the ankles.
I put on a few layers of shirts and giggle at the thought of him taking them off.
I don’t mind it because two tank tops look cute together, and the cardigan has buttons.
I’ll also need my coat for my walk over.
I swipe the vanilla lip gloss I just bought over my lips and pucker them in the mirror. I look pretty.
Gianna is on the couch in pajamas with a coffee. She looks up when I come out of my room. Her eyes go from my hair to my face to the cardigan to the jeans to the boots in my hand, and she sets her coffee down on the coffee table.
“Do you have a hot date?”
“Benson invited me over,” I mutter.
“Oh,” she sits up. “You’re going to the Hawthorne House.”
I side-eye her. “Yes.”
“Well, my brother is one lucky man.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Lucy, you look really good.”
“Thanks.”
“Keep an eye on Rowan for me.”
I look up at her. “Keep an eye on Rowan, how?”
“I don’t know. See what he is up to. Just — you know. Casually.”
“Okay, stalker.”
“I’m not a stalker. I’m just asking you to see what he’s doing at home.”
I grin. “So far, all I’ve seen is him cooking.” I pause. “Wait, are you two talking?”
She shakes her head. “No, it’s not like that. I just have a crush from afar.”
I put my boots on. “I am on team Gianna and Rowan.”
“Just see if he’s single or talking to someone, or I don’t know –– anything.”
I nod. “I got you.”
“Do not make it obvious.” She sits up quickly. “Please.”
“Don’t worry, G. I got your back.”
“Just — keep an eye.”
I step out of the apartment and walk down the stairs while checking my phone to see if Benson texted. I open the building door and smile when I see Benson has texted me that he can’t wait for me to come over. I take two steps and hit someone right in the chest. I stumble back.
“Sorry — sorry, I wasn’t looking — “
I look up.
Benson.
My Camdenth stutters. He’s in a dark green button-down. His cologne is lingering in the air. He is freshly shaved, and his hair is nicely styled. He came to walk me without even knowing when I’d be ready. But his beautiful face is bruised.
“Bens.” I smile brightly, not knowing what to do now that he’s out here.
“Hi, Lucy.”
I blush, looking at him. I examine the bruise on his face. “Oh my god, Bens.” I reach up but stop with my fingers a centimeter from his face.
“You can touch it.”
I close my hand and pull away. “It looks bad.”
“It looks worse than it is.”
I stare at it.
“It’s a bruise. I’m okay.”
He licks his lips as he looks down at me. I watch him do it. My face goes pink. He grins, grabs my hand, and laces his fingers through mine. We start walking toward Hawthorne Street.
He tells me about the Wisconsin game first — the kid who’d been running his stick on Blue all night and the elbow that finally caught him across the cheek when he stepped in to back Blue up, and the brawl that came after, Stanley going in low, the linesman fighting to get the pile apart.
He spits out the play-by-play the way he tells me everything, which is fast and casual and a little proud at the edges.
I keep glancing at his cheek while he talks. He keeps catching me and grinning.
“Stop looking at it,” he teases.
“I’m not.”
He smiles. “You are.”
“It’s purple.”
“Yeah.” He squeezes my hand and keeps talking.
Percy made some glove save in the third period.
Stanley’s celly on his second-period goal was, in Coach’s words, the worst celly Coach has seen in fifteen years of college hockey, and Coach pulled Stan aside on the bench after the next shift to tell him to never do that again.
I laugh into the collar of my jacket. I can picture Coach’s face.
“What did Stan say?”
“Stan said he didn’t know what he was apologizing for.”
“Of course.”
“Then he scored again Saturday and did the same celly.”
I laugh harder.
He gets to Saturday — the goal that ticked the post on the way in, the second of his college career to do that, he says, and then he glances at me sideways and adds, “the empty-netter was for you,” and my face gets hot, not really understanding what he means, but he’s sweet when he says it.
He says Coach mentioned the scouts in passing pre-game and refused to elaborate, so he knew he had to play a good game.
He tells me how Stanley spent dinner Saturday night reenacting the brawl with a Camdendstick, Rowan toasted Percy for being a wall, and that Blue grinned at him across the locker room for the first time all weekend after the second goal went in.