Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
ATHENA
I blew out a breath and stared emptily at the law textbook in front of me. While I needed to prepare for the bar that I had next month, I couldn’t think about anything other than what had happened earlier in Charlie’s room.
Between wanting to breed me to talking about my limp, had he been telling me the truth?
“Okay,” Heather said, slamming my book closed. “What’s up?”
“Nothing,” I said, shrugging it off and not even peering in her direction.
When I tried to open the book, Sierra peeled it away from me and stuffed it into her black bag. I glanced up to see Heather, Sierra, Sun, and even Evelyn staring at me and waiting as if I had something to spill.
“Did something happen with Charlie?” Evelyn asked.
My cheeks warmed, and I looked away. “No.”
“Oh my gawd!” Heather exclaimed. “Spill the deets.”
I sank further in my seat. “Nothing happened, Heather.”
I had just completely embarrassed myself in front of Charlie, crying and sobbing because I was insecure. He had helped me get over my insecurities when we first became friends, and I felt so silly, still being insecure about them now.
But I couldn’t help it, all right? I had the biggest crush on him, and I wanted him to like me too.
Heather leaned forward, eyebrows raised and intense gaze on me.
“Okay, fine!” I exclaimed, wanting them to drop it. “We kissed.”
Instead of throwing a grand celebration like I’d expected, they all stared at me for the longest time, with the blankest faces, as if they didn’t believe me. I furrowed my brows and picked up my tea, sipping it.
“You’re lying,” Heather said.
“Why would I lie about—”
Suddenly, Heather grabbed Sierra’s shoulders and shook her violently. “Did you hear that? Or am I hearing things?! Because I know that Athena didn’t just say that she and Charlie kissed with tongue!”
My cheeks warmed. “Heather! I did not! And can you stop being so loud?!”
Sun scooched closer to me and lifted her brows. “But did you though?”
Somehow, my body felt even warmer, and I pressed my legs together underneath the table to suppress the ache between them. I shuffled my feet against the floor and chewed on the inside of my cheek. “Maybe …”
Heather placed her hand to her heart and faked fainting against Sierra. “It keeps getting better.”
Evelyn leaned toward her. “Next, she’ll say they fucked.”
I sank down in my seat. Heather would have a field day with—
“Oh my God,” Heather whispered, staring at me. “I’m going to have a heart attack.”
I hid my face behind my hands for a moment. “You’re so dramatic.”
Heather rolled her eyes. “I’m literally hyping my girl up, and she’s calling me dramatic?!”
“I’m just … embarrassed,” I whispered, wrapping my arms around myself.
“Why?”
“Because I overreacted with him this morning.”
Evelyn rubbed my shoulder. “It was your first time, so there’s no reason to be embarrassed.”
“It wasn’t my first time. We’ve been sleeping together for—”
Heather clapped her hands together, her happy expression dropping. “If this bitch says they’ve been sleeping together for months and she didn’t tell us, my head will actually fall off my shoulders.”
“It’s only been a couple of days,” I said.
“A couple of days?! Why didn’t you tell me last night?” Sun exclaimed.
“Because I don’t know if it’s even going to go anywhere, and I don’t want it to get awkward in our friend group.” I pressed my lips together and dropped my gaze to my piping hot tea. “I don’t know if he wants to be more than friends or not. He’s giving me weird vibes.”
“How so?”
I shrugged. “I tried to kiss him in public, and I don’t know, I got the feeling that he didn’t want to.”
Sierra furrowed her brows. “Is that all?”
I thought back to the entire Nadia situation, but thought better of myself than to share that Charlie was a porn star and that I was his most recent guest fuckdoll. I really, really, really didn’t want them to go searching it up and seeing me naked!
“Sorta …” I whispered.
Sun drew her finger around her cup lid. “It’s so obvious that he wants to be with you.”
“Sure, maybe physically,” I whispered. “But I don’t know about emotionally.”
Maybe he had been hesitant about being a couple because of how emotional I was, especially after I broke down in tears right after the best sex of my life. He’d probably thought he had done something wrong or overstepped a boundary.
And I just couldn’t get out of my freaking head!
“And you said that I’m being dramatic,” Heather said, playfully rolling her eyes.
“My thinking is perfectly logical,” I hummed, though I knew it was clouded with insecurities from my limp to Nadia—especially Nadia.
“All right, girls,” Carol, the barista, said from behind the counter. “We’re closing up soon.”
I gathered my belongings and shoved them into my backpack, my lips tugged into a frown. Maybe I just needed to get out of my head a bit. Charlie and I had been best friends for few years now.
If he didn’t want to be seen with me, then he wouldn’t go out with me every chance that he got. If he didn’t like me, then he wouldn’t pick up my favorite cheesecake and take me on mini-golf dates and help me make strawberry soaps on Saturday nights.
“I have just the thing to get your mind right,” Heather said with a mischievous grin.
I arched my brow. “And that is …”
“We’re going out.”
“In the middle of the week?” I asked, slipping my bag over my shoulder.
“Hell yes!” Heather exclaimed, jumping out of her seat and grabbing my hand. “And I know just the place. If you don’t think you’re hot, then we’ll make sure you know you are. Tons of guys will be crawling all over you tonight.”
“What?!” I exclaimed. “I don’t want that!”
“Oh, come on.” Sierra gently elbowed me. “If Charlie isn’t going to admit his feelings to you, then you have to make him. Get him jealous so he claims you while everyone is watching.”
The girls began giggling like it was their fantasy.
But they didn’t know that what she had just described … had happened today.
“Where are we going?” I asked, trying desperately to go home. “Isn’t it too—”
Evelyn snatched my cup of tea from the table as the girls dragged me to the door. “We’re going to Radiant.”