23. Brodie
DoI ask her to spend the night? Or do I help her gather up her things and send her home?
Shit. That seems savage.
But the last time I read a rule book on dating was never, so I have no clue what to do with her—or myself.
I sneak a peek at my watch when it illuminates and see that the night is still young. It’s not even nine, but the movie will be getting over at some point, and my roommates will be pouring in, and yes, that’s the first thing that’s crossing my mind.
I wonder what’s going through her head right now. Is she judging me because I came so fucking fast it’s actually embarrassing?
That’s one thing I’m not going to tell my roommates—not that I’d planned to tell them anything, to begin with, but you get the point. Wonder what the looks on their faces would be if I said, “Oh and by the way, she sucked my dick and it only took me a second to jizz.”
They’d be shook.
Horrified.
They’d try to get me laid and would no doubt throw countless women in my path, stopping at nothing to pop my cherry.
Allegedly.
She’s facing me, looking sweet and cute, curled up like a kitten, practically purring.
Damn. How did I get so damn lucky? Last week, I was a clueless schmuck jerking off on his own a few times a week, and now I’m lying in my bed next to the prettiest girl on campus.
“Now what?” She takes the words out of my mouth, smiling in a way that almost appears shy—even though I know that’s not true. I wouldn’t describe Lizzy Campbell as shy.
Funny, outgoing.
Definitely not shy.
I doubt someone with a shy bone would have climbed in my lap earlier and taken my shirt off—or her own—if it would embarrass her.
Of the two of us, I’m the one who’s introverted and withdrawn, not Lizzy.
“I wonder what we do now,” I admit. “I’ve never done this.”
She worries her bottom lip. “Do you want me to go home?”
No.
But I also don’t want her staying here—then she’ll have to use the bathroom, and my roommates will give her shit, and they’ll give me shit, and the last thing I want is for her to feel… like she’s in a house full of perverted Neanderthals.
Instead of using my words, I shrug.
“So you do want me to leave, or you don’t?” She begins to climb off the bed, and I pull her back down, cuffing her wrist with my big paw.
“I don’t want you to leave. It’s just—my roommates are assholes.”
Lizzy rolls her eyes, settling back onto the bed and propping her chin on her elbow.
Naked.
I do my best to focus my eyes on her face, but it’s hard.
Hard.
Get it?
Ha.
“I have roommates too, you know. If you wanted to come back to my place, you could. No one will bother us, and their bedrooms are upstairs.”
Do I want to go back to her house? Do I think I’d even be able to sleep? Everything about her place is opposite of mine. Listen to me sounding like a pussy. I’m making excuses for not going home with a gorgeous, sexy girl. That is exactly what I’m doing, and she damn well knows it.
“We can leave now before your roommates get home,” she says. “Just throw on your clothes.”
“Just like that?”
Lizzy nods, leaning forward and planting a kiss on my right pec muscle.
“Just like that. There are no rules.”
That’s a lie, and she knows it, but I let her live in this fantasy world where we’re both at ease being bare-assed on the bed and casually chatting like we’re…
Dating and shit.
“You know what one of your biggest problems is, Brodie?” My mom once asked me when I was home for a long weekend—I’d had a break, something we rarely had if you don’t count Christmas and Thanksgiving—and she had seized the opportunity to lecture me about having a social life.
“You know what your biggest problem is, Brodie? You overthink everything. Sometimes it’s okay to let things happen the way the universe wants them to. You don’t always have to try to plan everything out or plan for it. And it’s okay if things get fucked up.”
It wasn’t very often that I heard my mother swear so I remember this conversation as if it happened yesterday because it’s really the only time I ever heard her use the word fuck.
Is that what I’m doing right now? Overthinking things?
I kind of have a good reason to—there are things that Lizzy doesn’t know about me that I have no interest in sharing with her. I mean, I barely know her, so it’s not like I have to spill my whole sexual history, or lack thereof, with her.
I have absolutely no obligation to her.
On the other hand, I feel like she’s someone who could keep my secrets.
Someone who I respect.
And I don’t feel like she would judge me, but I’m just really not in the mood to watch the surprise expression on her face when I tell her that I have never had sex with a female. Or a male, for that matter, ha ha…but you get what I’m saying.
“You actually want me to come home with you?” I can feel my brows; they’re living in my hairline.
“Yes.” Lizzy is off the bed, scooping up her clothes and pulling on her thong, bending away from me, giving me a clear shot of her tight little ass, and suddenly, I want nothing more than to reach across the bed and slap it.
Sink my cock balls deep into her and?—
“But it’s up to you.” She’s putting on her bra. “Unless you want your roommates busting in here for details once they get home, which you won’t want to give them, but they’re not going to let you rest in peace until you do.”
On goes her sweatshirt, covering the whole pretty package up.
She makes a very valid argument.
Would I rather have an evening of solitude with her, or do I want to be bombarded when the Four Assholes of the Apocalypse get back? ’Cause they just won’t be able to stop themselves from annoying the crap out of me.
Plus, going to her place isn’t something I would normally do, and didn’t I just convince myself I would start overthinking everything?
“Okay.” I nod, sliding off the bed along with her. Reaching to swipe my jeans from the floor, I pull them over my calves without putting on my underwear.
She goes still in the center of my room. “Really?”
“Why do you look surprised?”
“Oh, come on, Brodie.” She laughs. “You know damn well you don’t actually want to come back over to my place. According to Sully, you never leave your room.”
That fucking rat. “That is a goddamn lie.” I laugh, putting on my hoodie, forgoing socks, and stepping into a pair of athletic sandals. “I leave my room.”
“I know you leave your room,” she tells me, crossing the room to stand in front of me, running her hands up my chest and over my shoulders. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t be coming back to my place.”
I stand still as stone, holding my breath as she rubs herself against me.
“I…” I gulp.
Why the fuck am I nervous? I get smashed into plexiglass, I get struck by sticks. I bleed, sweat, and piss our school colors. I leave it all out in the rink for the Lumberjacks. I play in front of crowds of thousands.
And this little thing is making my knees weak.
The fuck?
Lizzy kisses me under the chin. “I’ll text my roommates that you’re coming over, and they’ll leave us alone.” Another kiss beneath my chin. “They have guys over all the time, so it’s not a big deal. And I have my own bathroom.”
I nod along like an idiot.
“Did you want to like, bring something to sleep in?”
Sleep in? “Am I spending the night?”
Lizzy stares up at me with those big, brown doe eyes. Blinks them slowly.
“Only if you want to. It might be fun.”
Fun?
She thinks I’ll have fun?
No.
It’ll be a bundle of nerves which is the opposite of fun, especially if I have to lie in the same bed with her and try to sleep, listening to the sound of her breathing, feeling the warmth of her body?—
“Stop overthinking everything. It’s not a big deal.”
Stop overthinking everything, my mother’s voice echoes, and it’s like—where the fuck is my mom’s voice even coming from. How dare she enter my goddamn thoughts, especially when it comes to banging the cute neighbor girl.
“Easy for you to say,” I mumble.
“What was that?”
“Nothing. Let’s get out of here.”
It’s a short walk across the yard to Lizzy’s abode, the lights inside a dull glow, and from the looks of it, both her roommates are home, their second-story bedroom lights on.
The downstairs still smells like paint, and I joke, “Did you bring me here to asphyxiate me?”
“Ha ha. If I wanted to suffocate you, it wouldn’t be with paint.”
I trail her through the house. “Oh yeah? How would you do it?”
“I don’t know. Keeping your head between my legs?” She lets out a twinkly little laugh that sounds both innocent and pervy at the same time, and I marvel at her confidence.
Not that I’m not confident, but my confidence level manifests itself on the ice with a healthy dose of ego and aggression.
We’re passing through the living room when two girls appear in the open doorway that leads to the stairs going to the second level, both of them bottlenecking the doorframe, trying to squeeze through at the same time.
“Hey,” one of them says, swiping at the braid falling over her shoulder. “Oh hey,” the other one says.
Lizzy rolls her eyes. “Guys, this is Brodie. Brodie, this is Jill—and that’s Bethany, my roommates.”
“Hey.” My hands get stuffed into my jeans pockets cause I have no idea what else to do with them.
“We’re going to leave you alone,” Jill says. “But we wanted to say hello first since we’ve been hearing so much about you.”
Girls are a far cry from how dudes behave, and I appreciate that they’re not ambushing us, maintaining their cool distance in the doorway—curious but not overstepping.
“We’re going to hang out so he’s not home when his roomies get back. They’re a bit much,” Lizzy explains.
Jill snorts. “Don’t I know it.” She holds her hand out in my direction. “No offense, I didn’t mean you.”
No, she wouldn’t mean me.
We’ve never met before, and I’ve only gotten a few glances of her, mostly coming and going from their house and not when she was sleeping with Charlie because girls don’t last long. None of my roommates have ever dated anyone steadily or seriously that I can remember, so the simple act of memorizing a girl’s name that has come through the house and getting to know?
Waste.
Of.
Time.
Lizzy’s roommates seem to be studying me from head to toe, although they’re doing a damn good job trying to act as if they aren’t. They both seem relaxed, if not excited to have me in the house.
“How’s Charlie doing?” Jill asks. “Contracted any STDs lately?”
“Jill!” Lizzy laughs. “You can’t say things like that!”
“Why not? I’m lucky I didn’t end up with one. God, what an idiot I was for sleeping with that guy when he was screwing half of campus.”
I mean. She’s not wrong, but I’m not stupid enough to say it out loud.
“Charlie is fine,” I tell them, not sure how much to say. Not wanting to get skewered during my first ever official sleepover with a girl. “Should I tell him Jill says hi?”
“Hell no.” The three girls laugh. “We are good.”
“Noted.” I shuffle my feet uncomfortably—not that the girls are the ones making me uncomfortable. It’s just…all this attention is on me.
“Well,” Lizzy says at last. “We’re gonna chill. If you need anything, don’t come knocking.”
“Noted.” Bethany salutes us both.