Chapter 27
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SEVEN
WREN
The lumpiness of this hotel bed would never not be annoying, Wren thought as she turned over on her other side with a dramatic sigh.
She’d probably be more comfortable if Rebecca was here to snuggle into or on top of.
She chuckled at the thought. She looked at the clock on the bedside table.
Rebecca should be back to her hotel by now.
Wren grabbed her phone off the bedside table.
She needed to check for Rebecca’s highlights before she called her.
She had watched Rebecca’s highlights more than once in college, too.
She always told herself that it was because she wanted to be prepared for the next time LAU played against NCU, but Wren knew the truth.
It was pointless to deny it anymore. She’d never gotten over that summer. She’d never really even wanted to.
She searched “NC Cougars Vs Fog City FC game highlights” and watched the five minute highlight reel.
Rebecca’s team won. Which was no surprise, they were having a stellar season.
Wren grinned as she watched Rebecca chase down one of Fog City FC’s forwards and cleanly slide-tackle her for the ball.
She filed that away as something to both compliment and tease Rebecca for.
Rebecca had made a few solid clearing passes that would have connected perfectly with Wren, but sadly Rebecca’s own forwards hadn’t made the right runs.
Something about that made Wren’s heart beat faster in her chest. She wasn’t going to let her thoughts linger on the fact that they both played their best when they were playing together.
Instead, she opened her text message chain with Rebecca.
Wren Eames (9:13 PM): Good game today.
Rebecca Rothschild (9:14 PM): Wrenifred? I’m surprised you’re not asleep.
Rebecca Rothschild (9:14 PM): You had a good game today, too. I really thought you were going to get a hat trick! That last shot off the cross bar was mildly devastating.
Wren’s smile hurt, it was so wide. Rebecca had watched her highlights. And that meant the world.
Wren Eames (9:15 PM): Thanks, Rebecca.
Wren Eames (9:15 PM): Are you back at your hotel? I’d love to call you, but I don’t want to interrupt if you’re out celebrating your win.
Rebecca Rothschild (9:16 PM): We’re on our way back to the hotel right now from dinner. We’re going out as a team tomorrow night in Raleigh. So, no wild party tonight lol.
Rebecca Rothschild (9:17 PM): I’d love to talk to you, too. Think you can manage to stay awake for ten more minutes?
That one little heart emoji had Wren feeling wide awake.
This was all still so new, but it felt good.
It felt different. Sure, Wren had dated a few other soccer players before, but they’d always played for the same team.
So, none of them had gone out of their way to do something like watch her highlights before.
Wren felt like she was free falling and she was terrified that her parachute wasn’t going to open.
But things were different this time. This time, they were falling together.
Wren Eames (9:18 PM): I’ll be awake. Call whenever.
It took exactly thirteen minutes before Wren’s phone rang. She didn’t even try to play it cool and let it ring more than once. “Hey,” Wren said, knowing that Rebecca would be able to hear the smile in her voice.
“Hey, yourself,” Rebecca’s voice rang through the phone.
“Good game today,” Wren said, biting her bottom lip. She felt like a teenager all over again. It wasn’t lost on her that it was Rebecca Rothschild making her feel this way.
Rebecca giggled. “You already said that.”
“I know,” Wren said, emphatically. “But I wanted to wait so I could hear how annoyed I could make you when I ask: why is it that you can make clean slide-tackles when you’re up against literally anyone on the planet who’s not me?”
Rebecca gasped in Wren’s ear. “Low blow, Wrenington.”
“Low blow from me? You’re the one with a vendetta against my ankles.” Wren laughed. “Also, Wrenington is kind of dope. You could repeat that one.”
“Noted.” Rebecca’s voice had one hell of a lilt to it. The kind of cadence that made Wren know exactly what face she was making even though Wren couldn’t see her at the moment. “Any other thoughts about my game?”
“Yeah, have your forwards watch some of our footage from our National Team games. They wasted two absolutely perfect crosses from you. It made me sick to my stomach.” Wren sighed a bit longingly for perfect passes unmet.
“Thank you for noticing.” Rebecca let the line go silent for a minute. “Thanks for watching my highlights.”
“You watched mine,” Wren said, matter of factly.
The tension on the line kicked up a notch. “Would it be weird if I said watching your highlights has been a habit of mine for a long time?”
Wren huffed out a laugh. She wrapped her own arms around herself, wanting to contain this feeling in her chest. “No weirder than me having to admit that right back.”
“Did you really?” Rebecca asked. “Like not just as part of your assigned pre-game homework?”
Wren nodded to a painfully empty room. She wished they were in bed together for this conversation. It would feel warmer whispered in a shared space between them. “Yeah.”
“Are we… masochists?” Rebecca asked, her voice coy and flirty.
“We must be,” Wren said, playing back into it. “I, for one, have the scars to prove it. Glutton for pain, I suppose.”
“Too bad I’m not there to kiss them better,” Rebecca hummed.
Wren let out a rough laugh. “I really don’t think I’d want to waste any time with your mouth on my ankle when there are so many better places it could be.”
There was a sharp intake of breath through the phone. “Wren,” Rebecca’s tone was sharper, firm like a warning.
“Rebecca,” Wren mirrored it.
“What are you doing?” Rebecca sounded hesitant, though definitely curious.
Wren hummed. “What? Am I not allowed to point out that I would rather your mouth on my nipples than on my ankle?” Well, that was honest. Wren blushed at her own words.
She’d never had phone sex before and this conversation was rapidly dissolving in that direction.
She probably should have initiated some semblance of a conversation about this before they’d arrived here, but she couldn’t really help herself.
If they had been in person, Wren would have probably already taken her own shirt off by now.
Rebecca’s southern accent just did something to her.
So did the sound of Rebecca moaning, which Wren just got a front-ear seat for as Rebecca moaned softly in response to Wren’s hypothetical question.
“You can point that out,” Rebecca finally said, her voice an octave lower than its normal register.
It carried a rumble that made Wren want to hold her phone to her clit.
“I just didn’t expect you to. So, um, I take it there was no need for you to have a travel buddy on this trip? ”
“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable or cross any lines,” Wren said hurriedly. “And nope. I’ve got this big ol’ room all to myself.”
“You haven’t crossed any lines,” Rebecca said quickly, her voice sounding steady and sure. “Also, congrats on the room.”
Wren let out a breath of relief. “Thanks. And good. That’s good. I wasn’t trying to cross any lines. I should have asked before I said something like that.”
“I’m alone in my room, you know. We didn’t need travel buddies this week either,” Rebecca said after a long, incredibly tense pause. “You could say more—if you wanted to.”
“There’s a whole lot more I want to say,” Wren said, her voice barely above a whisper. She swallowed back her nerves. “I’ve never really done this, though. Just so you know. So, if I mess it up somehow, just help me course correct or something.” She let out a little nervous laugh.
“I’ve never done anything even remotely like this. So, I don’t think you can mess it up,” Rebecca reassured her.
“But you’re into it? Like the idea of phone sex?” Wren clarified, needing to be sure.
Rebecca let out a delightfully soft laugh. “I am into it. Would you be alright with it if I got ready for bed and then called you back? We could give this a go for real?”
“Yeah. Hell yeah.”
“Okay. Give me, like, five minutes. I’ll call you right back.”
It sounded like Rebecca had already started her nightly routine in a rush. Wren could hear all her little makeup bag zippers being jostled aggressively and it made her have to fight to hold back a laugh. “Okay, Rebecca. I’ll talk to you in a minute.”
Wren didn’t really know what to do. Nor did she know how one might prepare for phone sex.
She wasn’t even really sure how it was supposed to happen.
Nervously, Wren switched her phone into incognito mode and searched: how to have phone sex.
She skimmed through a few articles, doing her best to pick up as many tips in five-to-ten minutes as possible.
She really thought she had the basic gist of it by the time her phone rang again. “Hey,” she said as she closed out of her private browser and answered Rebecca’s call.
“Hey,” Rebecca responded.
There was a heavy pause on the line that neither of them knew how to fill.
“We don’t have to do this,” Rebecca said, suddenly. “You just said the thing about my mouth and”—
—“I want to do this.” Wren took a deep breath. “I may have skimmed some articles while you were getting ready for bed.”
“Articles?” Rebecca asked, sounding intrigued.
“Mhmm,” Wren hummed. “About phone sex,” she added as if that wasn’t clear.
“And, uhh, did you learn anything interesting?”
Even this was turning Wren on. The anticipation of maybe potentially having phone sex with Rebecca was driving her crazy. “I might have.”
Rebecca made a sound that could only be categorized as a mildly frustrated laugh. “And are you going to share with the class?”
“There seem to be a few different schools of thought when it comes to phone sex,” Wren stated, as if she was still reading from an article.
“I see,” Rebecca said, sounding wildly amused. “And what are they, Professor?”