Chapter 22
Logan
I wanted her from day one. But it took a year.
I couldn’t believe Megan was actually in my bed. In my arms. Wrapped tightly around me like I was some kind of lifeline. When the truth was, she was mine.
I had made her out to be just that for the past year.
I almost lost it when I’d walked into the house on the first Friday and seen her at our bar checking out the room. It took only half a second to deduce that it was indeed her, because she’d straightened her hair, when last year she’d worn it curly every time I saw her.
All three times until she got pulled out of class and I never saw her again.
Not that I didn’t try.
When she didn’t come back to the Intro to Philosophy lecture that day, I figured something was up.
Bad luck too, as I’d just decided to shoot my shot and approach her after class.
Thus far, I’d been sitting a row behind and three or four seats over from her, giving me a great view of her torrents of blondish curls and her cute profile.
It was by luck the first class. I’d plopped down in a seat and pulled out my laptop, then everything faded just a little bit when I saw her.
Which was very new to me. My reaction to a pretty girl was kind of normal. But that was anything but.
The second class, I made sure she entered the large lecture hall first so I could once again get a prime viewing seat behind and over.
And the third class, yeah, this was it. I’d make my move. Invite her to a party at J’s house. Surely they’d be having one, being the first weekend of classes and the season not having started yet.
I could only imagine the shit my brother would give me for bringing a girl to a hockey party and not just seeing who turned up. But there was something about this girl that made me want to get to know her better.
Maybe it would be only a hookup, and that was cool. I wasn’t looking for anything more than that. But I wanted the hookup with this particular girl to happen badly enough that I wasn’t willing to gamble on her finding her way to a hockey party on her own.
Yes, we Pucks were able to attend other parties—and being in the dorm freshman year gave us prime access to those—but I knew I’d be hanging with the guys on the team more and more and the guys on my floor less and less as the year went on.
Except for Veeti, Gabe, and Dex, who had been my suitemates and teammates.
And now housemates.
Waking up, Megan moved in my arms, and I fought the instinct to hold her closer.
I had to play this cool. She wasn’t wrong with her insistence that anything between us would be complicated.
We were well beyond the “fast fuck then see ya” stage.
And although I was down for whatever she was willing to give me, it was probably best not to show those cards just yet.
One, I didn’t want her to know I was completely whipped.
Two, she had said several times she didn’t want a boyfriend or relationship of any kind.
Well, tough shit, because she had one now.
She just didn’t know it yet. Yeah, she had said she was mine, but that was when I was deep inside her, and you couldn’t count on words said during a fuck that intense.
But I knew she’d meant them as much as I had.
Still, small moves, my man. Small moves as not to scare her away.
“Hey,” she said, stretching her body in ways that made my cock go rock-hard. I’d been sporting a halfie all morning, waiting for her to wake up so I could judge whether she’d want another round (please, God, yes) or if she’d be regretful of our reality-shifting night of great sex.
“Hey,” I said back. I didn’t push my hard-on into her hip, but if she moved a little more… there…
“Whoa. Somebody’s ready for the day,” she said.
Her hand slid down my chest where she’d laid it as we fell asleep, and wrapped around me.
After we’d finally wound down last night, we’d both cleaned ourselves up a little, disposed of the condoms (yes, plural—it was a long night), and gotten back into bed.
I’d been pleasantly surprised that she wanted to spend the night, and I’d quickly wrapped my arms around her in case she changed her mind.
“I am ready. Are you?” I smoothed my hand over her hip, to her amazing ass, giving it a squeeze.
“I wouldn’t have guessed I had anything left in the tank after last night. But…”
Her voice trailed off while I rounded my hand over her ass and thigh and to the opening of her pussy. “But?” I asked, slipping a finger inside her to find her warm and wet already. She clenched around my finger, and I added another one.
“But I find that I do have something left in the tank,” she said. I rolled to face her better, and she quickly ducked her head. “No kissing, though. My mouth feels like a dank basement.”
“Lovely imagery, thanks,” I said, and bypassed her mouth and began kissing her neck.
We jolted apart at the pounding on my door. Megan slid off me and grabbed the covers, though the door stayed shut. But my head fell back to the bed when Veeti shouted through the door, “Yo, Straw. Chop-chop. Your parents are downstairs.”
“Oh my God, I cannot go down there with your parents here,” Megan said. She pulled the covers up over her head like my mom and dad were going to burst through the door any minute.
“Relax. They’re not going to come up here,” I said.
“You can’t be sure of that.”
“Yeah, I can. They have not entered my bedroom without everyone’s well-in-advance knowledge, and me explicitly giving permission, since the spring of my senior year.”
“What happened the spring of your senior year?” she asked. “Wait. I don’t want to know, do I?” She was smiling, having figured out the embarrassing situation. Kind of. “Alone or with someone?”
“With someone. And everyone was so traumatized by it that I know for a fact it will never happen again. In fact, I’m surprised they even showed up without— Oh.
” It all fell into place when I looked at my phone.
“Yeah, they texted a few times that they’d be dropping off some groceries and stuff.
I put my phone on silent when we came up here. ”
“That’s sweet they got you groceries.”
I wasn’t sure whether it was sweet or more of an excuse to come to the house and take a look around.
I’d flown out by myself for my sophomore year, so they hadn’t gotten a chance to see the house the boys and I were renting.
They’d been to my dorm room a few times last year.
They’d come for our first home series. And one other.
And then they came to get J when it was obvious he needed to go home for treatment.
“Sort of,” I said. “My mom’s probably dying to see where I’m living this year.”
“Sounds like a mom,” Megan said. She had discarded the blankets, sat up, and swung her legs off the other side of the bed, her back to me.
I could tell her thoughts drifted to her own mom from the way her shoulders shifted, and I reached out and ran a hand down her back.
Without turning, she nodded, acknowledging my acknowledgment.
Then she got up from the bed and started to retrieve her discarded clothing.
“I’m sure Philly’s here. So it’s not like you’d be the only girl,” I said.
“Yeah, but Philly’s Dex’s girlfriend.” She didn’t need to say the unspoken. That she was not my girlfriend.
Yet.
“Who knows what—or who—Veeti and Gabe got up to last night. Could be a bunch of girls waiting for my mom’s French toast.”
She waved her hand at the mention of random girls in the house, then my words sank in. “French toast?”
“Yep. One of her specialties,” I answered. I didn’t point out that she didn’t seem to align herself with whomever Gabe or Veeti might have hooked up with, any more than she did Philly. For now, we were somewhere in between random hookup and couple.
For now.
“So. Walk of shame in front of your parents with a side of French toast, or hide in your closet until they leave?”
“That about sums it up,” I said. “But no shame. At least not from them. They’re cool with shit like that. Probably doesn’t hurt that they went through that stuff with J already before they got to me. And they really liked you last night.”
I didn’t go into detail about how much my mom had grilled me about Megan once we went back to their room at the Claremont last night. Once my mom figured out what I was getting at during dinner—that Megan was The Girl—she couldn’t wait to pump me for details.
“It was odd to hear him called James at the game. You mainly use J, right?” Megan asked.
I nodded. “From early on. I guess I gave him that nickname when I saw his name on the fridge in those letter magnet things. I just kept saying ‘J, J,’ and it stuck. He was James with, like, schools and stuff, but family and close friends all called him J.”
“Connor called him Mrs., which I thought was clever.” She was putting her clothes on, and I tried to match her movements and get rolling, but I just watched her instead.
“Clever. Stupid. Fine line,” I said.
“Did he hate it? The nickname?”
She had her panties and bra back on, and it was enough coverage to bring me back to my senses, so I got out of bed and went to my dresser for a clean pair of briefs. “He loved it. He’d buy boxes of the cookies and leave them around the locker room after practice.”
“Are you doing that with strawberries?” she asked as she grabbed her sweater off the floor and held it out. Even I clocked how wrinkled it was. I hadn’t given a lot of thought to the morning after when trying to get her naked last night.
“No. But maybe I’ll start this year. Hey, do you want a different shirt? I mean, I think your sweater is fine, but if you want—”
“That’d be great. Thanks. Just a tee would be great. Not only is this wrinkled, but somebody spilled beer on it at the party I went to. It reeks.”
I wanted to ask about the party. Who’d she see?
Talk to? Did she flirt with anyone? But I didn’t.
It didn’t really matter, and I didn’t want to seem like the guy who asked those kinds of questions.
Even though I was totally thinking them.
But I’d never been that guy before with a girl, and it was probably not a good idea to start with Megan.
Small moves, nothing big and sudden. Sound no alarms.
Besides, she’d contacted me last night without prompting, and had ended up in my bed.
Who cared about the other shit?
I handed her the smallest tee that I had and also a Bribury Hockey fleece.
It was just chilly enough that she might want both.
She tucked the tee in the front of her jeans, letting it hang out over her ass (sadly) the way girls sometimes wore their tops.
She was a tall girl, but she still swam in my shirt, which turned me on in a way.
She put the fleece on over her head and went to the bathroom while I finished dressing.
I used the other bathroom, and we met in the hallway when we were both as refreshed as we were going to be.
“I used somebody’s hairbrush,” she said.
“Veeti’s,” I said. He and I shared one of the bathrooms, and his hair products could rival any girl on campus.
“And somebody’s toothpaste. Though on my finger. I’m not that desperate.”
“Me too,” I said.
“Oh, was that your bathroom? Sorry. Kind of an odd setup,” she said, motioning to the hallway of evenly spaced doors.
“I think it was originally a five-bedroom house. Years ago. They made one of the bedrooms a second bathroom. Thank God. But yeah, they’re both right in the middle, across from each other.”
We were at the top of the stairs, and I gave her a kiss that was going to be quick, but didn’t turn out that way.
“Ready?” I asked. She nodded.
When we got downstairs, the surprise on Gabe’s and Veeti’s faces was evident. Philly was not surprised. She had a “told ya!” look on her face that I replied to with a middle finger when I’d turned Megan away from her and toward the kitchen.
I could hear Philly’s laugh as we walked through the swinging door to the kitchen. My parents and Dex were gathered in front of the stove, and it seemed my mom was giving some kind of tutorial.
The spatula dropped from her hand as I said, “You guys remember Megan, right?”