Reaching over the coffee table, I grab the list out of Felix’s hands. I’m glad for the piece of furniture between us. All trace of embarrassment has temporarily left me, and I’m seeing red.
“Your bag tipped over when you got up,” explains Sebastian, fanning his hand toward the now empty cushion. “We were picking your things up.”
“When did picking things up start to include reading other peoples’ personal papers?” I fold the list in half, then fold that in half too. I keep folding, making it smaller and smaller until I can’t fold it one more time. My fingers curl around the small pink square, and my cheeks flood with heat as my shame returns full force as quickly as it fled.
I wish I could fold up this moment just as small as the paper and hide it. Or better yet, throw it away like I should have done with that idiotic list last year when I first wrote it.
“There’s no reason to be embarrassed,” says Lukas.
“I’m not embarrassed.” It comes out louder than I mean it to, and I know my face looks like a tomato right now, which only intensifies my mortification.
Great, now they think I’m either some sort of sex-crazed pervert who carries around a list of sex acts like a shopping list, or so inexperienced I have to keep my sex study guide with me at all times, and on top of that I’m also standing here looking like I’ve got the world’s worst sunburn.
“Okay,” Felix says. His voice is calm, like he’s trying to soothe a feral animal. “Good. Because you don’t need to be. You just … look like you are.”
“I’m not embarrassed,” I repeat, and this time I mean the force I put into it. More quietly I add, “I’d like to go home now. Please take me back to my dorm.”
This was supposed to be a nice, casual way to get to know them better. A movie, some popcorn, and a plate of nachos. But instead, I just want to throw up and then hide in a hole for the rest of time.
This was a bad idea. As soon as I get home, I’m going to crash into bed and pretend like this never happened. I can block their numbers, and I’ll never have to see them again.
“Okay.” Sebastian hunches his shoulders, his expression morphing from intrigued to defeated. “If that’s what you want.”
“We’ll put away our snacks and then drive you home.” Elliot turns off the TV and picks up the tray of partially-eaten nachos.
He looks so sad and heartbroken I almost feel bad for him, except that all my sympathy is directed at myself right now. So instead of consoling him, I merely step to the side to give him more room to bring the tray into the kitchen. The other guys move to help while all I do is stand there wishing the floor would swallow me whole.
“You don’t all have to drive me,” I mumble. “It only takes one person to drive a car.”
Sebastian stops in his tracks on the way to the kitchen. “That’s not how we do things.”
There’s that doing-everything-together thing again. If you’d asked me an hour ago, I’d have said it was cute, if a little weird. But now, I’m finding it nothing short of maddening.
“You know,” says Lukas, coming back into the living room, “we didn’t lose our virginity until college.”
“Statistically, most women don’t have sex until just after high school, so you’re not far from the average,” adds Felix from the doorway. “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”
“I’m not embarrassed,” I reiterate. “I’m mad. You violated my privacy.” Do they really not understand that this was a serious overstep? That I have every right to be mad at them for reading something that was obviously not meant for them to read?
“We’re sorry,” Sebastian tells me, his tone and expression earnest. “You’re right, we shouldn’t have read it, even if it did fall out face-up and we couldn’t help but see the title and it got our attention.”
He has a point, not that I’ll admit that to him. If I saw a piece of paper titled “Sex List: Things to Try Before Graduation,” I probably would have a hard time looking away too.
I look down and realize I’m still wearing Lukas’s sweatshirt. I shrug it off and drape it over the arm of the sofa, missing its warmth but not about to give them any reason to contact me ever again once I’m safely delivered back to my dorm.
“You know.” Lukas glances around the room, holding a silent conversation with each of his friends before continuing. “If you want, we could help you.”
I stare at him, not comprehending.
“With your list,” he clarifies. “We could help you cross a few things off it.”
“Or all of them,” adds Felix softly. The lenses of his red-framed glasses glint in the light from the TV, and something about him reminds me of a large cat, a panther or a lion. He looks soft and sweet, but there’s something else coiled beneath the surface. Something intense, and animalistic, and thrilling.
Something I am one hundred percentnotgoing to think about, now or ever again.
“Absolutely not.” I shake my head, my own glasses sliding down my nose with the force of the movement. It was stupid to write out that list in the first place, and stupider to carry it around with me instead of tearing it into a million tiny pieces and flushing it down the toilet. I don’t even really want those things I wrote down. Sure, I’m curious about sex, but there will be time to explore that after I graduate. “Nothing about that is a good idea.”
“Why not?” asks Sebastian.
