Three Years Ago #2
Like tonight, when his shirt fits just right.
Or when he sits across from her in the library and she fixates on how he licks his thumb after finishing a bag of Doritos, imagining that tongue trailing fire down her neck.
Or when he bends over to pick up his bag and his biceps flex and his shoulders roll in a way that has her imagining him lifting other more human-sized things.
Or when he arrives after a workout, smelling of grass and ozone from the rain, and her heart thumps, her mouth going dry when he pulls his shirt off in the middle of the goddamn library and stands there half naked and wet before changing into a fresh cotton shirt smelling of fresh laundry.
She’s become obsessed with male anatomy in a way she’s never been before.
When the song changes, the bass is so loud it vibrates in her chest. However, neither of them pulls away.
She imagines being bold, grabbing him by the collar and pressing her mouth to his so she can finally know what his lips feel like.
He would reciprocate, because she wouldn’t be mistaken about his desire for her, the attraction she wants to believe is there.
His hands—those hands she’s become so preoccupied with—would trace the outline of her hips, spread flames across her skin, and draw her closer.
They’d break away and smile in that nervous, self-conscious way, and she would suggest they go somewhere quiet.
Either of their dorms would do as long as she could feel his weight on her.
She wants his skin on her skin, his mouth on her skin, wants a chance to explore each other’s bodies like she’s imagined so often in her wildest daydreams.
Charlie slides her hands down his neck, laying them flat against his chest. His palms are hot on her waist—one side of her shirt has ridden up, exposing a stripe of skin, and his fingers stoke the small of her back.
When he slides one hand into her curls, twisting them around his fingers, she doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe.
“I’ve been dying to know what these feel like,” he says above the bass.
She swallows. “They’re a little unmanageable.”
“I think they’re gorgeous.”
She is a puddle, her brain a melted mess of cells swirling in her skull.
His eyes flick to her lips, and she’s certain she’s seeing things when his face draws closer, when his eyes darken, when he tips her chin up with his fingers.
A faint trace of alcohol lingers on his breath, and she can almost taste him on her tongue, can almost feel his mouth on hers—
Something hard barrels into her, and she’s shoved backward into the crowd.
She stumbles, nearly losing her balance, but someone steadies her. She pulls away before she can see who it is, and the party returns in full force. The heat of the room and the feeling of being in a mass of bodies is almost nauseating.
Catching her breath, she focuses on Wes, who’s supporting a laughing and stumbling Nico, the strong arms that were pressed against Charlie moments earlier looped around his friend’s shoulders.
Wes catches her eye. “Hey, you okay?”
Her mouth is dry, and there’s a hard lump in her throat when she tries to swallow.
Desperate to diffuse whatever emotion is suffocating her, she calls, “Bathroom?”
Wes hands Nico off to Mia, who lingers behind him, her gaze tracking his movements. He tilts his head toward the back of the house. “This way.”
They pass through an open doorway and into a grungy kitchen, the counters overflowing with wine and beer bottles.
A few people are chatting in there, leaning against the dirty counter.
Turning a corner, Wes leads her down a long hallway lined with closed doors, laughter and muffled music leaking from behind a few of them.
He pauses beside a door labeled everyone welcome.
“I’ll wait here.” He leans against the wall, smiling.
“You don’t have to,” she says, not looking at him, too embarrassed by the moment that was not a moment. “I’m going to take off after.”
He shrugs. “I promised I wouldn’t leave you.”
She stares at him, another zip of surprise running through her while ignoring her disappointment about being interrupted before anything could happen between them. It was simply a bit of fun in a dark and crowded room, and she got caught up in the music and the ease she always feels with him.
She’s not in the bathroom for long, but when she returns to the hallway, Wes is nowhere to be found.
It’s fine, she tells herself. A quick glance at her phone surprises her—she’s been at the party for almost an hour. She thought she’d barely make it twenty minutes.
As she makes her way back down the hall, a loud thump comes from one of the rooms, followed by a girlish giggle.
“Well, hello there.”
Her stomach flutters at the sound of Wes’s familiar drawl. One of the doors is open a crack, light filtering into the dim hallway. Charlie can just make out Wes’s signature hair, his body half concealed by the door.
“You’ve been avoiding me all night.”
Mia.
Charlie’s cheeks burn, and she knows she should walk away, but she’s frozen, hidden from view.
“I’m not avoiding you. I’ve been otherwise occupied,” Wes says.
“We haven’t spent any time together,” Mia whines. “I thought you said we would hang out.”
“We’re together now.”
“What are you doing with her?”
Her words are slightly slurred, and Charlie presumes she’s more than a little drunk.
Wes chuckles. “She’s never been to a party before. I felt bad for her.”
Charlie’s stomach drops.
Mia snorts. “Why?”
“She’s sheltered and awkward. I figured I’d try and show her college is more fun outside of the library.”
Charlie’s eyes sting, and she bites her lip hard enough to bleed.
She should leave now. Before it gets any worse, but she can’t move even while her heart cracks in her chest.
“So you’re not trying to sleep with her?”
Wes laughs. Laughs. A laugh tinged with disbelief, as if the thought of them together is unfathomable.
She usually loves his laugh for how uninhibited it is, but now it feels like knives puncturing her skin. Now she wants to tear the sound from her mind, her memory, her heart.
“No.” A chuckle. “Absolutely not. I don’t fuck my friends, Mia.”
Blood roars in her ears, and Charlie claps a hand over her mouth after a sharp gasp escapes. Her chest constricts, and it’s like she’s drowning on land, unable to catch her breath.
“Good,” Mia purrs. “Because I don’t want to be friends with you.”
Silence follows. Her vision is blurred with tears, but through the small opening in the door, she sees Wes and Mia pressed against a wall, locked in a deep kiss, Wes’s hands grabbing her ass.
Stumbling back down the hall, Charlie somehow navigates her way through the kitchen and past the bodies lost in the music and the alcohol, completely unaware of her heartbreak.
Returning to the fresh open air, she takes in deep, gasping breaths, a painful hitch in her chest. Wes’s words ricochet through her mind again and again, the disdain in his laughter, the mockery in Mia’s coquettish giggles shattering every shared smile, every inside joke, every accidental touch over the last few months.
For one brief, infinitesimal moment, she thought he wanted her, too. Thought her desires were reciprocated. Thought he was someone she could trust with her whole self.
She won’t make that mistake again.