Chapter 5
OMG, HE'S MY FRIEND'S DAD!
Andie
If there’s a place on campus engineered for secrets, it’s Brewed Awakening.
Supposedly owned by two theater majors, but everyone suspects the chemistry faculty pumps grant money into the espresso machine for kicks.
The walls are exposed brick and hung with framed playbills and protest posters; the place is always at capacity with some combination of laptops covered with stickers, thrifted scarves, and people who think their conversations deserve to be overheard.
I push the door open, and the bell overhead yelps a nervous little “ding.” Immediately, three things hit me: cinnamon, burned coffee, and the steam-hiss of an espresso machine bleeding off pressure.
My girls are in the corner, same as always—Stella, Mary Kate, and Kayleigh, each hunched over a glowing laptop, their drinks like a constellation of pastel mugs and plastic cold-brew domes.
Stella’s got her hair up in one of those “messy” buns that she learned watching hours of YouTube tutorials; she’s annotating a philosophy textbook with a color-coded army of sticky flags.
Mary Kate’s dressed like a preppy librarian, chunky glasses, oversized cardigan, scrolling her phone with one hand and typing with the other.
Kayleigh is in full Instagram-girlie off duty: black leggings, cut-off hoodie, AirPods in, but she clocks my entrance before I even get three steps in.
She gives me the up-down. “Holy shit, is that Andie or a ghost?”
I slide into my usual spot at the table, dump my bag onto the sticky wood, and hold up my phone like I’m about to read aloud from the Dead Sea Scrolls.
My heart’s still pounding from the brisk walk over, but also from the news burning a hole in my skull.
I know I look wild—blonde hair frizzed from the drizzle, face still raw from last night’s skin care fail, under-eye circles like the aftermath of a light beating—but I feel invincible.
Invincible and a little bit mischievous.
I set my phone screen-down, order a cinnamon latte from the server (who, incidentally, looks a lot like the TA from my Chem lab—small world), and turn to face the crowd.
“Okay, so I have news,” I say, my voice trembling a little, and Kayleigh actually fist-pumps. Stella blinks, pink-varnished fingers poised above the keyboard. Mary Kate looks up from her phone, eyebrow cocked.
“I swear to god, if you’re engaged or pregnant or, like, joined a cult, I’m walking,” says Mary Kate, but she’s grinning.
I bite my lip, feeling the words tremble on the tip of my tongue. I want to draw it out, savor the reveal, but I’m also burning to tell my buddies.
“You guys remember the man from last week?” I say, voice dipping low, “The one from the Faculty Club?”
Stella perks up, eyes wide. “The one you said was like a walking GQ ad, but older?”
Kayleigh leans in, elbows on table. “The one you called ‘a hot billionaire with a salt and pepper male model look?’”
“Yeah, that one,” I say, feeling my cheeks go pink.
Mary Kate puts down her phone. “You saw him again?”
I nod. “Not just saw him. I hooked up with him again. Last night. It was—” I pause for effect, wriggle my eyebrows, “—absolutely wild.”
The girls gasp. Kayleigh: “No way. Where?”
“Century College fundraiser,” I say. “I was doing work-study with Century Catering and we had a gig. I was in uniform, passing out canapés, and then boom! He was there.”
“And then?” Mary Kate chirps eagerly.
I smile.
“We locked eyes, and it was just like last time. Total fireworks. Except this time, he dragged me a private room and—” I lower my voice until it’s barely a whisper, “—took me up against the shelves.”
Stella’s hand flies to her mouth. “Shut up. Like, actual sex?”
My face flames. “Not actual-actual. Anal,” I say, voice barely audible over the Death Cab playing on the overhead speakers. “Again. Only anal. Apparently that’s his thing.”
Mary Kate snorts her coffee, coughing. “Are you serious? Twice in a row with this mystery man? Girl, you’re not even playing the same game as the rest of us.”
Kayleigh looks confused. “Plus, why anal only? What is he, some kind of religious fanatic who believes that pussy sex is for married couples?”
“Maybe?” I say, laughing. “I have no idea why, but it’s all he wanted. And he’s, like, really good at it. I mean, scary good. And fucking huge. It was….” I trail off, breathless, remembering the way he split me open, the heat and ache of it, the animal joy.
Stella, voice tiny: “You didn’t get his name this time?”
“Nope,” I say. “He never asks for mine, either. It’s like—” I wave my hands, “—pure animal instinct, zero logistics. We do it, and then he’s gone.”
Kayleigh: “So you’re telling me you’ve been railed, twice, by a mystery man who only wants to do it in the butt, and you don’t even know his name?”
I nod, giddy.
Stella giggles, then leans across the table, voice urgent: “Andie, you’re my hero.
Seriously, hats off because this is so wild and I’m insanely proud of you.
I mean, it’s not like we’ll be able to meet hot older guys when we’re forty and indulge in deep anal.
We’ll be wizened old crones by then, likely suffering from menopause. ”
“Perimenopause,” Mary Kate interjects. “Forty is too early for menopause.”
Stella shrugs. “Okay, perimenopause. But you know, girlfriend, that anal doesn’t count for the contest. You have to do the real thing for it to count.”
Mary Kate nods seriously. “Those are the rules. Also, Stella is on point: you’re still a technical virgin.”
I roll my eyes, but I know they’re right. My insides still feel like a donut left on the hood of a car in July, but in the spreadsheet of sexual accomplishment, I’m still hovering at zero. Still, I can’t help the pride in my voice when I say, “But did any of you get this close?”
They all shake their heads. “We yield to the queen,” Kayleigh says with a smile.
The server brings over my latte, and I drown the cinnamon foam in one savage gulp. The taste floods my mouth, hot and sharp, and I smirk at my friends, feeling, for a second, like a cartoon villain.
“There’s more,” I say, and the three of them tense like hunting dogs.
I unlock my phone, scroll through the camera roll, and turn the screen toward the table.
The photo is slightly blurry, but unmistakable: it’s the man, shirt askew so that there’s a glimpse of his broad, bronzed chest, lying back against a bookcase, my lipstick smeared along his jaw and his cock half-hard against his thigh.
He’s looking straight at the camera, blue eyes eyes piercing and direct, with a quirk at the corner of his mobile mouth.
Basically, he’s totally yummy and my pussy twinges just seeing the photo.
I giggle. “Isn’t he fucking hot?” I say.
The table erupts, Stella making a sound somewhere between a sob and a scream, Mary Kate gasping, and Kayleigh just muttering “holy shit” over and over. The girls are vibrating with a mix of … I don’t even know, to be honest.
“What? What?” I demand. “What’s going on?”
My friends continue to twitch, staring at my phone.
I blink, unsure what detonated the bomb. “Guys?” I say. “What is it? This is the guy. The hot older dude.”
Mary Kate is the first to move. She leans forward, her eyes flicking to the phone, then to Stella, then back. “Um,” she says, voice soft as a baby blanket, “maybe put the phone down, Andie.”
Kayleigh doesn’t say anything. She’s just staring at Stella, pupils dialed up to max, mouth a taut pink line. Even the air seems to know something’s wrong—it smells sweeter, sharper, and the espresso machine in the background fades to a faint, submarine hum.
Stella is shaking, and not in a performative way. Her hands tremble, knuckles white, and her eyes fill up with the kind of tears that never get spilled, the kind that just sit there, hot and trapped, waiting for permission to overflow.
I glance at the screen. Still just the photo—the man lying back, a glint of sweat along his abs, his massive cock glistening, his smile crooked and effortless. For a moment, I can’t connect the dots, like there’s a piece missing.
“Stella?” I say, suddenly unsure. “You okay?”
She draws in a breath that sounds like it’s scraping out from under a door. “Andie,” she says, voice too loud for the moment, “where did you get this photo?”
My heart hitches. “I… I took it. Last night. He didn’t mind. I thought it was fine. Is that—do you know him?” I’m babbling, filling the silence with words I can’t hear. “OMG, it’s your professor, right? Or your TA?”
Stella puts her hands flat on the table, as if bracing for an impact that’s already happened. She doesn’t look at me. She doesn’t look at anyone. For a second, I think she’s going to get up and run, but then she just breathes, lets it out slow.
“No, not my professor. That man is my dad,” she says, and the words hang there like smoke.
I laugh, because I don’t understand. I think she’s making a joke. “Shut up,” I say. “No way.”
Her eyes find mine, then, and I see it—the hollow, haunted shine, the way her jaw’s clenched so tight it must hurt. “I’m serious,” she says. “That’s my father. Thomas Moreland. You just showed me a naked photo of my dad.”
The bottom drops out of my chest. For a moment, I can’t even breathe. All the confidence, all the pride, drains from my body so fast I feel physically lighter. My hands go numb, and the phone slips out of my fingers, thunking to the tabletop.
No one says anything. Not even Kayleigh. The table is a black hole; we’re all just matter spiraling into it.
Mary Kate is the first to recover. She reaches over and puts her hand on Stella’s, gentle and careful, like she’s afraid Stella might shatter into pieces.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” she whispers, eyes flicking to me in silent warning.
“We all see our parents naked sometimes. I mean, I even saw my grandma in the shower once and it wasn’t pretty! ”