Chapter 19 #2
“Maybe we could go somewhere outside of the hotel since you don’t have to be back for more events tonight?” Summer suggests. “We don’t have to be out late, and I’m sure Rebecca would like to see at least a little of the city.”
“That sounds good to me.” I’m ready to agree to just about anything at the moment so long as it means I can escape this uncomfortable moment. “Just let me go put my book back upstairs.”
Running up to the room will be a perfect escape.
I’ll be able to check if my hickey is completely covered by my sweater and put a bit of makeup on it so no one else notices it.
I mean, they already saw, but that doesn’t mean I need to keep flashing it around, showing them the evidence that I was fooling around with their sons.
I can also claim that moving around warmed me up a little, and I can give Sebastian his zip-up back. It’s a win-win-win.
Except that Elliot’s mom shoots down my plan. “Oh, you don’t need to waste time doing that, I can just put it in my purse.” She takes the book from me and drops it into her oversized bag. “See? Plenty of room.”
“Oh. I—thanks.” I have a sudden flash of inspiration and try again. “But I still need to go up and grab my purse.”
I grabbed my phone and key card when I rushed downstairs earlier, but my purse is still up there, offering another easy excuse for going back upstairs.
“No need,” says Lukas, moving to put his hand on my lower back before catching himself and resting it between my shoulder blades instead. “You’re here as our guest, so it’s our treat.”
I make one last desperate attempt and say, “But you all paid for my lunch, you’re not paying for my dinner, too.”
“Yes, we are,” Felix tells me, moving to my other side. “You missed class to come support us, the least we can do is buy you dinner.”
“Joke’s on all of you,” says Hank. “We’re paying for all of your dinners. You boys don’t really think we came all the way here to watch our kids compete just to make them buy their own meals, do you?”
Everyone laughs, but internally I’m freaking out. Apparently I really don’t have an excuse to go upstairs alone for a moment, and they’re really acting like I’m their girlfriend. We are definitely going to have to talk about this later.
In the meantime, all I can do is follow the parents as they lead us off to dinner.
Most of the guys are in the middle of the group, walking with their own parents, but Felix hangs back to wait for me.
As we leave the hotel, he rests his hand on my lower back to guide me through the door, but then leaves it there.
As unhappy as I am about the hickey and the boyfriend behavior, I’m so tempted to lean into him.
I already miss the connection we had when we were alone upstairs.
We can’t really be ourselves with their families around.
I know I should make him move his hand, but we’re at the back of the group and no one can see.
Besides, this little touch is comforting.
It’s almost as if he’s letting me know that he, too, wishes we didn’t have anything to hide.
Dinner is filled with analysis of today’s scrambles and discussion about who is moving on to the semi-finals tomorrow, and how well the guys know them and what they expect the outcomes to be.
I’m able to return Sebastian’s zip-up to him, claiming that the restaurant is warmer than the hotel was (although I do get ahead of the turtleneck thing by saying, “I kind of like how cozy my sweater feels like this, though”), and there aren’t any invasive questions about the nature of our friendship, which surprises me considering my current hickey, but I’m not complaining.
I’m glad when we all head back to the hotel, though.
Even though dinner was fine, I’m ready to get back to our room and not be on edge anymore.
When we pile into the elevator, the guys engineer it so that they are circled around me, meaning that I don’t have to stand next to any parents.
It’s sweet that they can tell I’m tired and agitated and are trying to protect me in their own way, but I have not forgotten that we are having a serious chat about public displays of staking their claim to me as soon as we’re alone in our own room.
The elevator stops at our floor first and some of the parents have to exit the elevator to let us off, meaning that they’re watching us walk down the hallway to our room. That we’re sharing. Where someone gave me a stupid hickey.
As soon as the door to our room closes behind the last one inside, I round on them before they have a chance to distract me with their dicks.
“We need to talk.” I keep my voice to a normal volume, cognizant of the neighboring rooms, but I let all of the frustration and embarrassment I’ve felt this whole evening come through in my tone. “Look at this!”
I yank down the neck of my sweater to show them my hickey. “I wasn’t cold tonight. I was hiding the fact that one of you gave me a hickey.”
Sebastian is the first to speak. “I get it,” he says, and I start to relax. Until he keeps talking. “It’s not symmetrical. There’s only one. We can fix that for you.”
“The lack of symmetry is not the problem,” I say through gritted teeth. “The problem is that it’s here at all. And all of your parents saw it!” When they still don’t say anything, I turn to Felix and Lukas. “Which one of you gave this to me?”
“Hmm,” Felix hums, looking to Lukas and then back to me. I wonder if they really aren’t sure, or if they’re just being assholes and refusing to tell me.
“Hickeys are not okay,” I say slowly. “You promised no PDA this weekend.”
“It’s not PDA,” Lukas is quick to point out. “It happened here in the room.”
“But then it left the room when I did, and I only even knew about it because your mother pointed it out to me.” My volume is rising, and I can’t help it. For being such smart guys, they sure do miss a lot of things when it comes to people and feelings.
“Oh. Okay.” Lukas rubs up the hair at the base of his neck and stares down at the carpet as if that’s going to give him the answers.
They all just stand there for a minute, contemplating the floor, before Elliot quietly slips off his shoes and slides his room slippers onto his feet.
I’m sure he held out as long as he could, so I can’t even be annoyed, but it’s the cue the guys need to break the spell and begin to move silently around the room.
No one looks at me or speaks as they get ready for bed.
I can’t tell if they’re pissed or sad or embarrassed, so I don’t even know if they understand that we’re having a fight.
Do they just not know how to act, or are they pretending it’s not happening?
The room fills with tension the longer none of them speak. It’s so much worse than the sexual tension I felt with them last night, and it needs to burst soon because I’m not sure how much longer I can handle this.
I shut myself in the bathroom to get ready for bed and try to wash away the day.
By the time my face is clean, I’m barely even angry anymore.
I’m just … drained. Even looking in the mirror and seeing the hickey as I braid my hair back off my face, I’m having trouble mustering up any of the outrage I felt earlier, instead feeling guilty for upsetting them even though I do feel it was valid for me to be mad.
I feel like I kicked them when they were down.
Today was stressful for them. Sebastian flipped the equator on one of his scrambles and Felix DNFed on his blindfolded event, so even though they are still competing in many of the events tomorrow, they did take some losses and have to be feeling bummed about that.
And then here I come, yelling at them over a hickey that can be covered by a turtleneck.
My apology dies on my lips when I exit the bathroom and see all four of them shoved into one bed together, their elbows knocking into each other. That can’t be comfortable. Are they expecting me to join them?
“What are you planning now?” It comes out sounding accusatory, and all their faces fall as they swivel in my direction. I feel another pang of guilt, and open my mouth to issue the apology I lost upon seeing them, but Lukas speaks before I can.
“We can all sleep in this bed,” he says, his voice flat and his eyes trained on a spot on the wall. “You can have the other bed to yourself since there’s no trundle bed available.”
“We promise, we did call and ask,” says Sebastian, earnestly. “It’s just that the hotel is full, with our competition and the other conventions here too this weekend, so they don’t have any extra trundles.”
“Guys, no. That’s not what I want.” I plop on the edge of the empty bed, facing them.
If there was an ounce of anger still left in me, it’s gone.
Seeing them looking this dejected and pathetic, I want to gather them all up and tell them everything will be okay.
“I’m sorry I got so angry. I just felt embarrassed to have all of your parents see a hickey on my neck. ”
Now Lukas pins me with a stare. “You’re … embarrassed by us?” he says.
“What? No! No, not at all!” As if I didn’t already feel bad enough, now I feel like pond scum. “I just don’t want to be seen as one of those girls.”
“What girls?” Sebastian looks to his friends in case they understand what I’m talking about, but they all look as lost as he is.
“The ones who only chase boys and don’t really have any other goals or aspirations.
” I try to find the words to explain my complicated relationship with, well, relationships.
“You all know how important school is to me. I want to graduate with honors, and have a job lined up already so as soon as I’m done with school, I can hit the ground running as a journalist. I’m not one of those girls who’s in school as much to hook up and party as to get an education, and I hate the idea of anyone thinking I’m anything other than a professional, competent person. ”
Felix blinks owlishly at me, speaking slowly as he tries to understand. “And me giving you a hickey makes you feel like you aren’t a professional, competent person?”
Aha, so it was him. “Did you mean to mark me?” I point to my neck and the hickey that is clearly on display with my hair pulled back.
“Yes,” says Felix, immediately and with confidence.
“And you didn’t stop to think everyone would see it when I went downstairs?” For such smart guys, they really are dumb sometimes.
“So you are embarrassed by us.” Sebastian looks so dejected, and my guilt pings again, but I shove it down. I need to make them understand that it’s not about them at all, it’s about peoples’ perception of me.
“If I were embarrassed by you, why would I be here with you? Hanging out with you in front of an entire ICF competition? Or spend the day with your families?”
“You’re not embarrassed by us, but you don’t want anyone to know anything that is going on between us,” says Elliot, as if he’s talking himself through this idea that I’m presenting to him. “That feels a lot like you’re embarrassed.”
Suddenly, I’m absolutely exhausted. I slump down on the bed, flinging an arm over my face to cover my eyes.
“It’s not you that’s the embarrassing part.
It’s everything else. Knowing that people are thinking about me having sex?
And the whole sex list thing in general is pretty humiliating.
Don’t you guys remember how embarrassed I was when you first found it and realized I hadn’t ever done anything besides kiss a guy?
” I uncover my eyes and turn onto my side so I can look at them.
“Anyway, it’s a moot point now, because I’m pretty sure they know about us.
At least Andrea does, and I’m sure she probably told the rest of your families. ”
“And this makes you mad,” says Felix, studying my face.
“Well, it doesn’t make me happy. I don’t want to be defined by who I’m sleeping with. When girls are just seen as someone’s girlfriend or hookup, people treat them like they’re … less than. Like that’s all they are, all they’re good for.”
“And my mom made you feel like that? Like fucking us is all you’re good for?” Lukas’s face is a mixture of surprise and anger as he reaches for his phone.
“No!” I launch myself off my bed to yank the phone from his hand and end up landing sprawled out on top of them, spread out across their legs.