25. Brodie
“…You choose for me.”
An impossible task.
On the one hand, if she removes her shirt, I get to stare at her gorgeous tits. On the other hand, if she takes off her bottoms, I get to stare at her fantastic ass.
It’s a win/win and a lose/lose at the same fucking time.
I mentally do a round of Eeny Meeny Miney Moe, landing on her top and pointing at her shirt.
“The random removal generator chooses your sweatshirt,” I tell her, my cheeks on fire.
“Random generator?” Lizzy laughs at the same time she reaches down, fingers lifting the hem of her sweatshirt and tugging it up, giving me glimpses of her stomach one inch at a time.
When she has it over her head, she tosses it to the floor. She gives her hair a shake, finger combing it so it lays in long sheets over her shoulders.
She is so pretty.
“The best part of this game,” Lizzy announces. “Is that we’re not allowed to touch each other.”
Was I planning on touching her? I don’t know. But now that she mentioned it, touching is the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do in my whole miserable life.
“How long aren’t we allowed to touch each other?” Best to set parameters and expectations straight away.
“Er. I have no idea. I was just being dramatic.” Her confession has us both giggling if I were prone to giggling. “The hold out is the winner.”
Oh shit. Another game?
“We’re playing like, three games now. Games within games within games—I’m not able to keep them straight.”
“Name ’em,” she demands.
“Connect Four, Strip Connect Four, the questions game, and No Touching.”
Her face falls. “Oh yeah, that is a lot.”
Her expression makes me laugh, but also, my eyes go to her boobs, and all thoughts leave my brain. If she wants to add one more thing to our list, who the hell am I to tell her no.
And so begins another game. I sort all the pieces and hand her the red ones, holding all mine in the palm of my hand, glancing at the game grid, then over at her boobs.
Game grid.
Boobs.
Game grid.
Boobs.
Sue me, would you? It’s not my fault, they’re practically begging me to stare, all spilling out of that little cotton bra she put on for bedtime. Doesn’t she own any that fit properly, or is she doing this shit on purpose?
“You go first since I went first last time.”
Kay.
I nod, waiting for her to ask me a question.
“What’s your greatest strength that has nothing to do with hockey?”
Hmmm. Good one. “Uh.”
Uh.
I mean, I have lots of strengths, don’t get me wrong, but naming them on the spot is daunting and makes me feel like I’m on the opposite end of a job interview.
“I’m…I see a lot of shit, and I’m not quick to rush into things.” Including scuffles on the ice. Or drama when it comes to my buddies, or drama with my buddies and the females they bring back to the house. But because I’m more observant, it means I see a lot of this drama coming before it actually happens.
I slide my piece into the game board, second slot to the left.
“Interesting,” Lizzy mumbles.
“What’s your worst personality trait?” I blurt out—without thinking—internally cringing when she raises her brows at me.
I sag with relief when she lets out a laugh. “My worst personality trait? Gosh, I have no idea. Um. Sometimes I laugh at inappropriate times—like when things are somber, but I’m freaking out? So instead of crying, I laugh.”
She plunks her chip in the game board to punctuate her sentence. It drops with a thud.
“What’s one of your regrets?” she asks me, repositioning herself on the bed so she’s lying on her stomach, resting her chin in her hands—giving me a clear shot of her cleavage.
One of my regrets?
“How much time do you have?” I push out a laugh even though I’m serious. The first answer that pops into my head I’m not stupid enough to say out loud.
One of my regrets? Staying a virgin this fucking long because now I’m insecure about it. And scared. And excited. Worried that when I finally fucking do it, I’m going to blow my load in under thirty seconds.
I say none of these things. “One regret? Not having much of a social life.”
Plunk.
“Well…” Lizzy smiles at me. “You don’t have that problem anymore, do you? You have me.”
You have me.
You have me.
I’ll be lying in bed later, staring at the ceiling, thinking about those words, guaranteed I do.
“What’s the best thing anyone has ever given you?” I ask as she waits to take her turn. She’s still on her stomach, watching me, a red chip pinched between her index finger and thumb.
“Best thing anyone has ever given me?” She bites down on her bottom lip and hums.
“Yeah. Besides an orgasm.”
Lizzy stares at me, shocked those words came out of my mouth.
I surprised myself, really.
But hey, maybe this is a new me!
I notice that Lizzy is blushing, but she doesn’t address it. Instead, she’s picking at the game chip in her fingers.
“Best thing… hmm. When I was twelve, my parents gave me a kitten, and I named him Marty.”
“Is Marty still alive?”
“Totally. Alive and thriving. I didn’t think bringing him to school was a good idea, so he’s living his best life at my parents’ house. When I graduate and get my own place I’ll force the little bastard to live with me.”
I know nothing about cats, so I have no follow-up questions and don’t want to point out the fact that cats will eat you if you die.
Allegedly.
Lizzy puts her piece into the yellow grid beginning her ladder pattern over again, glancing up at me. “Same question. What’s the best gift you’ve ever received?”
“The generic answer is the hockey stick I got when I was nine—a really expensive, official one because my parents knew at that point I was serious about it, I was good, and it wasn’t just a hobby.” It’s a lame answer, the kind you’d expect from an athlete. A piece of sporting equipment? Gee, how original.
“So my official answer is for my birthday when I was…” I scrunch up my face as I try to think of how old I was. “When I was fourteen, my grandpa and I went on a road trip. He took me to the Grand Canyon and we hiked to the bottom and camped out for the night. It was scary and awesome.”
It was the only thing he and I have ever done ourselves, without anyone else in the family, and I can remember it as if it happened yesterday.
“Aw,” she coos. “That’s awesome.”
I add my chip to the grid, a question ready to fire off. “If you won the lottery, what would you do with the money?”
“Oh good one,” she enthuses. “Shoot, I feel like that should be an easy one to answer but like, there are a million things I would do with a lot of money.”
“Would you donate it?”
Lizzy shrugs. “Some of it, for sure. But again, there are a million organizations I’d want to help. So many people need help.” She rolls to her back to stare at the ceiling, stretching her arms out in front of her before rolling back to her stomach. “I’d buy a house, I think. Depending on where I end up when I graduate. Maybe a vacation house?”
“Would you work?”
She cocks a brow. “That was two questions.” Pause. “Actually, that was three.”
Shit.
She’s right.
“Your move,” she says. “What’s one of your biggest pet peeves?”
I snort. “God, where do I start? Uh. I hate the sound of people chewing.”
“Same,” she says.
“Especially if someone is digging into a bag. Chips are the worst—take a damn chip already, what are you doing, mining for gold?” I’m getting fired up about the subject, but Lizzy seems mildly amused if her expression is any indication. “My dad makes sounds when he eats—like moaning and groaning if something tastes good. It’s so annoying.”
“Wow. Eating is a trigger for you, I take it.”
It can be, yeah.
“Anything else, or is that it?”
“People who cut in line. The worst. Uh. Slow walkers—if I have to crawl along behind you because you’re not only walking slow but hogging the sidewalk, I’m going to lose my shit.”
Lizzy laughs, her breasts moving up and down.
Nice.
“Go on,” she tells me, but I shake my head.
I’ve already said too much, and if I add more shit to the list, I’m going to start raving like a lunatic, and that’s not what we’re doing here.
I take my turn, then rack my brain for something to ask her.
“How would you describe me?”
“Hmm.” She taps her fingers together. “Confusing. Broody. Shy.”
I gawk at her, for there are no words.
She thinks I’m confusing? How?
She thinks I’m broody? I’m not broody!
Am I?
Shy?
Eh, if that’s how you want to interpret introverted, I supposed she can slap a shy label on it.
Now I have a thousand questions but can’t ask them until it’s my turn, and even then, do I want to know her answers? Clearly she’s into me or she wouldn’t be laying on the bed in front of me in only her bra and pajama bottoms. Nor would she have invited me over to her place; we could have remained in mine, as obnoxious as my roommates may have been.
Speaking of which, my phone pings with a notification and it’s then that I notice the time.
Dang.
The time has flown.
Sully: We’re back. Where the hell are you?
Brodie: Where do you THINK I am??
Sully: If we knew, we wouldn’t be asking.
Brodie: Use your best guess.
I’m grinning when I type it, wishing I could see the look on that idiot’s face when he discovers I’m at the house next door. So unlike me.
Sully: I can’t. I need you to tell me.
I turn off the ringer on my phone and toss it face down on the bed.
“How would you describe me?” Lizzy wants to know, her legs swaying back and forth now as if we were in a park, on a picnic blanket on a warm summer day.
“You are the thief of questions, for one.” I would be remiss not to point this out to her. She’s stolen more of my questions than come up with original ones of her own, though I’ll admit, they are some pretty damn good ones.
“You’re assertive. Extroverted. Cute.”
She mulls these over in her mind before nodding her approval. “Accurate.”
Very accurate.
I play my piece, eyeing up the game board, fully aware that I’m one chip away from losing this match—wondering if she notices the move she can play and win, watching as her eyes move along the columns, up, down, back, and forth.
She shows no indication that she sees her three in a row, hand hovering over the second column. Moves it to the first row. Back to the middle.
Plop.
“I win.”
Pfft. “That’s because you’re distracting me with your tits,” I blurt out.
“You just called my boobs tits,” she whispers. “Why do I find that so fucking hot?”
Uh.
Uhhhhh.
“I don’t know,” I say, dumbly. Why does she find that so fucking hot, and can we not ignore the fact that she used a curse word in a sentence?
That was fucking hot.
“What do I want you to take off?” she ponders out loud. “Hmm.” Only hesitates a second. “The shirt. Take off the shirt.”
“I don’t get to choose?”
Her head shakes with a scoff. “No.”
Bossy little thing.
I tug at my T-shirt, lifting it up and over my torso, pulling it over my head, hair getting mussed in the process. Throw the shirt to the ground.
Feeling vulnerable without the tee on, I recline on the bed, not sure how to hold myself with her gaze on me; I can literally feel it scorching my skin…it’s as if she has her hand on my chest, fingers gently caressing the spot where I got his with a stick last season, the scar faded but still visible.
“Who goes first? You?” she asks, still eyeing me up.
“Sure. Hit me.”
“Worst first date?”
Is she being serious right now? “I have had no bad first dates because I’ve barely dated.”
“Hmm.”
“What? You don’t believe me?”
“I believe you. It’s just crazy to me that you hardly date at all.”
“Why?
I realize we’re bending the rules we set for the game by firing off questions out of order, but I want to pick her brain and find out why she finds it so unbelievable that I don’t date.
“’Cause. You’re a good-looking guy, and I know that people must hit on you. You can’t tell me they don’t.”
I mean. “No. They actually don’t.”
Lizzy studies me from her spot on the bed. “Maybe it’s the resting bitch face.”
The resting what? “I do not have resting bitch face. Guys can’t have that.”
“Says who?”
Me.
People.
“Fine,” she amends. “Resting dick face, ha ha.”
“You’re such a brat,” I grumble.
She is unfazed by my irritation. “Take your turn.”
“I’m going to take a play out of your book and ask the same thing; worst first date or a dating horror story.”
Lizzy taps her chin. “I don’t know if I have any bad first dates but like—guys are just rude. Or they think that because they paid for your burger, you owe them a blow job.” A snorting sound erupts from her throat. “In case you were wondering what women have to put up with.”
I wasn’t wondering before she said it, but I am certainly wondering it now.
“For real?”
“Yes, for real. Dude, just because you paid eight dollars for some food doesn’t mean you’re owed shit. Like here, take the money and never text me again.”
“How many times has that happened?”
“Once. But it happens to my girlfriends. Bethany is so lucky she’s in a relationship. Dating is a dumpster fire.”
“Do you use dating apps?”
Her brows go up. “Sometimes. If I’m bored.” Her finger begins making slow circles on the bedding. “Seriously, Brodie, give me a reason to get off the dating apps.”
Silence fills the air.
“Anyway!” she chirps cheerfully. “Your move.”
Plunk.