Blake
Coach Sawyer blows the whistle.
“Line up,” he hollers.
The team sets up in front of Travis, who’s guarding the net during practice.
Coach is having us take shots at him. When it’s my turn, I aim for the crossbar. It bounces off the metal and heads for the bottom corner of the net. Travis catches it with his glove.
“Nice save,” I tell him.
He nods his thanks. Practice winds down. Our new assistant coach, Coach Tremblay, goes over some points of improvement he wants us to focus on. When he finishes, we head to the locker room to get cleaned up.
“It’s been a while since you missed a shot against me,” Travis says.
“Guess I’m a little off today.”
“You good?” Nick asks me. He removes his shoulder pads and grabs a towel from his locker, which is near mine. “You’re not getting sick, are you?”
I huff out a breath. Damn. Is it really that obvious how off I am?
I mean, I do feel off, but it’s not because I’m sick. It’s because today is the day that Briar and I start our sex lessons.
Even just thinking about it makes me nervous as hell.
As much as I want to help her feel more comfortable with sex, so much could go wrong.
What if I touch her the wrong way and it reminds her of what happened with her ex?
Yeah, we set rules and promised to be honest with each other and have clear communication, but we can’t anticipate everything…
An ugly feeling drags through my gut when I think about Briar telling me her rule: that if either of us says stop when we’re fooling around, we stop.
That should go without saying. That’s bare-minimum consent.
But considering what her ex did to her…how he tried to force himself on her…no wonder she felt the need to say it.
That’s why I left so abruptly after our conversation. I was enraged just thinking about what he did to her. I needed to take a shower and cool off.
I’ll do everything I can to set her at ease. To make her feel comfortable, no matter what. To make her feel like she’s my priority.
But I still can’t shake that doubt hovering over me like a low-hanging cloud. Fooling around and having sex could change the dynamic in our friendship. She might not want to stay friends with me after we do this.
Regret punches through my stomach. I can’t stand the thought of losing her.
But what I can’t stand even more is the thought of her going to some other guy to teach her how to have sex. Some other guy who might cross her boundaries and hurt her.
No fucking way will I let that happen.
“I didn’t get much sleep last night,” I say to Nick and Travis, trying to make it sound like it’s no big deal. “I was up late studying for my Marketing exam.”
“Ah, yeah. That one’s gonna be rough,” Travis says. He’s a business major like me, so we have a lot of the same classes.
“Just fucking great,” Leo mutters.
We look over at him, standing in front of his locker, glaring at his phone.
“Hey, you good?” I ask.
He tugs a hand through his sweaty hair before shoving his phone in his bag. “Not really.”
“What’s wrong?” Nick asks.
“My sister. She’s complaining about her boyfriend again.”
“What happened? Is she okay?” I ask.
Leo shakes his head. “I don’t know. I’ll find out when I meet her for family dinner tonight.”
Nick, Travis, and I exchange a look. Once a month, Leo goes to family dinner with his parents and older sister. It’s almost always a disaster because Leo ends up arguing with his dad.
“My sister is bringing her piece-of-shit boyfriend tonight. Should be fun,” Leo mutters.
He walks off toward the showers before we can ask him anything else.
“Well, that sucks for Leo,” Nick says.
“Yeah. I feel bad for him,” I say. He goes through enough shit with this dad. He’s close with his older sister Zoey, and they get along well, but I didn’t know she was dating a guy he didn’t like.
We all finish getting cleaned up, and I head to my last class of the day. After that, I have a study group meeting for one of my other classes. Then I head home.
When I walk in the door, Briar’s sitting on the couch, flipping through a textbook.
She straightens up when she sees me. “Hey.”
Her voice is pitchier than usual. She’s nervous.
“Hey.” I smile at her despite how nervous I am too. She’s so cute.
We’re quiet for a moment while we look at each other.
She plays with the ends of her hair, another one of her cute nervous habits.
“So, um, how was your day?” she asks.
“Busy. Tiring.”
“Oh…” She puts her hands in her lap. “If you’re too tired, we don’t have to do anything tonight.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant that I’m happy to be home.”
Her pretty mouth curves up in a relieved smile. “Oh. Good. Are you hungry? I made food.”
She stands up and starts to head to the kitchen, but stops and then spins back around to me. “Or maybe you don’t like to eat before you…do stuff in bed?”
Her cheeks flush bright red, and I can’t help but chuckle. She’s fucking adorable when she’s flustered.
I walk up to her and grab her hand. “Do me a favor. Take a breath.”
She lets out a flustered chuckle and takes a deep breath.
“Sorry. I’m a little nervous about tonight,” she says.
“It’s okay. I am too. But it’ll all be okay. I’ll make sure of it.”
Her tight expression eases. “You’re the best.”
“What’d you cook?”
She bites back a smile. “Frozen pizza. You know what a terrible cook I am.”
“And you know how much I love pizza.”
We head into the kitchen together. When she pulls the pizza out of the oven, I see that there’s only one piece missing.
“That’s all you wanted to eat?” I ask.
She shrugs. “I was too nervous to eat much.”
I down a few slices while Briar sips on a sparkling water.
When I finish, she looks at me with an expectant look on her face. “So, um, should we go upstairs?”
I grab her hand. “Let’s go.”