Chapter 5 #2
Felix probably really would want to try everything. I bet he has a running to-do list of every position and location that occurs to him, so he can tick them off one by one.
And Elliot, he’s just plain sweet. He’s probably a slow, gentle lover. Eager to please. Probably gives hours of oral pleasure before even getting to the main event and his own release.
We arrive at their car, a small black SUV, and I blink back into focus. I don’t remember the walk from the house to here, distracted as I was thinking about what kind of sex they each like. Lukas opens the back door and gestures for me to climb in.
“Check your assumptions there, Lukas,” says Sebastian. “Fair is fair.”
Lukas hesitates a moment, then nods. “You’re right,” he agrees.
Confused, I watch as all four of the guys scramble their cubes and pass them around the circle to the right. I’ve seen them do this before, when I interviewed them, but why are they doing it now?
Lukas solves his cube first, a smug smile on his face. Felix completes his puzzle just barely after him, followed by Sebastian and Elliot.
“Looks like I’m driving,” says Elliot, sounding resigned. “Who has the keys?”
Felix tosses him the keys before circling around to the other side of the car and settling into the backseat.
Lukas holds a hand out for me to climb inside too.
Looks like I’m in the middle then. I don’t even mind, I’m so charmed by the fact that they just competed to see who gets to sit next to me.
It was probably the nerdiest competition ever, but that makes it all the more adorable, and it’s all I need to finally type my phone number into Lukas’s phone.
I pause before handing it back to him, though. Sebastian had a point earlier. Fair is fair. So I go to the home screen, smiling a little at the wallpaper, a big logo for the International Cubing Federation World Championship, and open up a text message to myself.
I’m certain Lukas is going to share my number with the others, and if their entire team has my number, I should have at least one of theirs.
I hit send on the text and hand the phone back to Lukas.
When he glances at the screen there’s the barest hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth.
He taps the screen a few times, and I hear buzzing and text notifications throughout the car a moment later.
I can only assume he’s forwarded my number to the others.
They really do share everything.
“Are we taking you straight home?” asks Elliot. His driving is smooth, and the way he grips the gearshift reminds me of the way he wraps those same fingers around a classic cube.
“We said we would.” Sebastian fiddles with the radio dial until something soft and symphonic hums quietly through the air.
“It’s still early, we could go to our place and watch a movie,” suggests Elliot, rolling up to a stop sign. He turns his head to look at me. “If you would like that.”
Would I like that? Going with four guys I barely know, to a strange house where they live, and no one knows where I am?
I suddenly feel claustrophobic, boxed in by Felix and Lukas in the backseat of this SUV.
Ronnie didn’t balk at them giving me a ride home so I didn’t either, but it occurs to me now that they could stop anywhere and brutally murder me.
I could become a cautionary tale. A statistic.
I want to write the headlines, not be one.
I’ve never tried being like other college girls, dating and partying and focusing as much on the “college experience” as on my schoolwork, because I’ve seen the damage that can do years down the line.
I’ve lived it secondhand, watching my mom fawn over my narcissistic dad and struggle to stretch his single income with no work experience or degree of her own while he womanizes in every bar across town.
I’ve played it safe all through high school and the first year and a half of college, but now look at me.
I’ve gotten in a car with four guys I don’t know just because they showed me some attention.
My breathing quickens and I eye the windows.
They’re all closed. This is a very small space.
I can feel Lukas and Felix’s body heat and I start to sweat, feeling warmer than I did in the crush of bodies at the party.
Is this what a panic attack feels like? I fight the urge to flail my arms out, climb over Lukas’s lap, and launch myself out of the moving car.
Things are not that dire yet. There are other ways out of this.
I could text Ronnie an SOS, but Lukas and Felix would see me do it, and that might send them all into a rage and speed the murdering process along.
But if I don’t try, it won’t matter how fast or slow my impending demise comes because no one will know it’s happening.
I slip my hand into my purse and wrap my fingers around my phone, then pause.
Ronnie probably won’t see my text in time if she’s in the middle of hooking up with Trevor.
I should also include Callie and Reyna on the message.
I don’t know them all that well, but I do have their numbers.
I can share my location and they can leave the party and come find me, assuming they’re not also having too much fun to bother checking their phones to see my plea.
I try to think if there’s anyone else and come up empty.
It never occurred to me until now that my all-work-and-no-play approach to life means I’ve made very few friends, and therefore have no one to help me when I’m about to be murdered and dumped in a ditch somewhere.
Felix must realize I’m spinning out, because he puts a hand on my back. “Hey, it’s okay.” His palm is hot on the skin exposed by Ronnie’s stupid sequin top. “You don’t have to come over tonight.”
“Yeah, we can do a movie night another time,” agrees Lukas, squeezing my shoulder.
Elliot locks eyes with me in the rearview mirror for a moment before returning his attention to the road. “We didn’t mean to spook you. I thought it might be nice to hang out, get to know each other a little without all those people around, but if it’s too much for one night, that’s okay.”
Sebastian turns to look at me, and the concern on his face helps to ease the anxiety wrapping around my chest. “We shouldn’t have suggested it. You don’t know us very well yet, and we said we would take you home. We shouldn’t have tried to change the plan.”
It seems that my fears of being gruesomely dismembered by them are unfounded. Real murderers probably wouldn’t be trying to make me feel better and promising that they’ll take me home after all. They probably are just nice, nerdy, normal guys who really do just want to watch a movie together.
Glancing out the window again, I realize that we’re only about two blocks from my college. How did we get here so quickly? It feels like we’ve only been driving for a few minutes. I guess time flies when you’re convinced you’re about to die.
“Which dorm do you live in?” asks Elliot, switching lanes and preparing to turn into the drive.
“How did you know I live on campus?”
“You told us earlier that you could get a ride from someone in your dorm,” says Elliot, then parrots back verbatim what I had said on the porch at the party.
I can’t help but be impressed. Is that really how his brain works, able to recall exactly what someone said or did, no matter how innocuous? No wonder he’s so good at solving his cubes so fast, he can recall all the patterns after just a glance.
“So you’re taking me home?” My thoughts are moving like sludge through my own brain, probably a result of the fading adrenaline from thinking the situation was more dire than it is.
I’m so confused. My feelings have been all over the place since I spotted them across the room at the party.
This whole situation is moving so fast. In the past two hours they’ve gone from faces on my phone screen, to saying they want my best friend to like them so they can date me, to maybe being about to murder me, to dropping me off at my dorm. I’ve got mental whiplash from it all.
“We said we would.” Sebastian turns around in the passenger seat again to give me a questioning look. “Unless you changed your mind about coming over to watch a movie.”
Felix brushes a strand of hair off my forehead. “Are you feeling okay? You’re all flushed.”
“I’m fine.” A tingle spreads through me at his touch.
“I live in The Towers, on Bay State, but actually, um.” Would it be terrible to change my mind when they’re already practically at my dorm?
“We could go back to your place and have a movie night.” Just a movie night.
This is me taking the leap. Letting myself have a small taste of what Ronnie and all those other girls get to experience.
One movie night won’t derail my entire future.
“Yes!” Elliot pumps his fist in the air. It’s the most emotion I’ve seen any of them show about anything. “Movie night! Let’s go!”
“Okay, wait,” I say, laughing and tugging his arm down. “Just to be clear, this isn’t a date. I don’t date.”
“You don’t?” Felix looks surprised, and I think disappointed.
I shake my head. “I’m focused on school and work, I don’t really have time for dating. But hanging out tonight, that I can do.”
“Sure,” Lukas says smoothly. “We’ll just hang out and get to know each other.”
“Did you have a specific movie you’d like to watch tonight?” asks Felix.
I’m glad they aren’t going to push back on the not-a-date thing. “Not really. I’m good with just about anything so long as it’s not scary.”
Elliot’s face in the rearview is very serious as he asks, “How do you feel about superhero movies?”
“Good?” I don’t have an opinion on superhero movies, because I haven’t watched any, but maybe it will turn out that I like them.
“Good, good.” Sebastian looks back over his shoulder at me again. “We’re making our way through the MCU right now.”
“That’s a bad idea,” says Lukas, shaking his head. “It’ll be too confusing for her. We should start again from the beginning.”
“Then our watch numbers will be uneven,” Sebastian protests.
Lukas purses his lips. “Good point. We could give her some other options from our collection to pick from, how does that sound?”
The guys chorus their agreement with this plan.
“That works for me,” I say.
“Okay, now that that’s settled, we have the real question,” says Elliot. “Rebecca, what is your must-have snack for movie watching?”
“Anything salty. I usually eat pretzels when I watch movies in my dorm. My favorite is microwave popcorn, but people kept burning it and setting off the smoke alarms in the dorms so we’re not allowed to have it anymore.
And pre-popped popcorn just isn’t the same.
” If I can’t have my favorite food, I’d rather have something else altogether than a subpar version of what I really want.
“Okay.” At the next stop sign, Elliot looks to Sebastian, who nods. Elliot flicks on the turn signal and the car turns right.
A moment later we’re pulling into a grocery store parking lot. Felix turns to me. “I’ll be right back.”
He climbs out of the car as Elliot pauses in front of the store. As soon as Felix’s door closes, Elliot pulls out of the loading zone and finds a parking spot close by.
Lukas shifts in his seat next to me, his thigh pressing against mine. “Our preferred movie snacks are nachos.”
“Oh, okay.” The heat of his leg against mine is doing things to me. I am keenly aware of my inexperience with guys in this moment. A boy’s leg touching mine should not be making my pulse throb between my legs and my brain go fuzzy.
“Here he comes,” says Sebastian a minute later, pointing at the store.
Elliot pulls back up to the front to pick up Felix, who is not carrying the makings for nachos. Instead, he’s holding a bag of pretzels and a box of microwave popcorn.