I stare down at the pages of my book, not really reading so much as stewing in anger and embarrassment. I’m certain the moms are going to demand I accompany them to the bathroom or something so they can grill me about my relationship and intentions with their sons, but they just keep talking to one another, and eventually I begin to relax. It seems Jen really was just doing me a solid, and no one is going to make a big deal out of it.
For now, anyway.
I survive the rest of the events for the day, but I barely get any reading done. It was hard to focus when I was so conscious of all of the guys’ parents sitting next to me, knowing they all saw my hickey before I covered it up.
Any respect they might have had for me after having lunch together has almost certainly flown right out the window.
We move out into the hallway to wait for the guys so we can all go to dinner together. It’s slow going with most of the crowd moving in the same direction, but at least I don’t have to meetany of their eyes or talk to anyone as we let the crowd carry us along.
As before, the guys are already waiting for us when we make it out the doors. Elliot immediately comes up to me and lifts his hands to my neck.
“Your turtleneck is flipped up,” he says. “Let me fix it for you.”
I push his hands away. “No, it’s fine. I did it on purpose. I’m … cold.”
There is no way I’m rolling this collar down. I might even have to wear the sweater again tomorrow. And Sunday. I don’t think any of the makeup I have with me is going to cover a hickey. Guess I’ll just have to be Turtleneck Girl all weekend.
“Oh.” Elliot steps back, but he looks hurt and won’t meet my eye now. Ugh. Now I look even worse in front of his parents. None of them appear to be paying attention, but still. Maybe they’re only pretending to look up dinner places on their phones, when really they’re thinking, “Yikes, so she’s a slutanda bitch.”
“Here.” Sebastian takes off his black zip up and begins to slide the sleeves up my arms. I’m going to roast in two sweaters, but after my little scene with Elliot, I don’t fight him. I’m going to have to apologize to Elliot for hurting his feelings.
As I stand there, beginning to sweat, it occurs to me that between the hickey and the fact that I’m wearing Sebastian’s sweater, the parents are absolutely going to assume I’m dating him, a the very least. Do they know their sons like to date as a unit? If they assume I’m someone’s girlfriend, do they assume I’m dating the whole group?
“Well, should we go to dinner?” asks Sebastian’s dad, Hank. “What’s everybody feeling like eating?”
“Maybe we could go somewhere outside of the hotel since you don’t have to be back for more events tonight?” Summersuggests. “We don’t have to be out late, and I’m sure Rebecca would like to see at least a little of the city.”
“That sounds good to me.” I’m ready to agree to just about anything at the moment so long as it means I can escape this uncomfortable moment. “Just let me go put my book back upstairs.”
Running up to the room will be a perfect escape. I’ll be able to check if my hickey is completely covered by my sweater and put a bit of makeup on it so no one else notices it. I mean, they already saw, but that doesn’t mean I need to keep flashing it around, showing them the evidence that I was fooling around with their sons.
I can also claim that moving around warmed me up a little, and I can give Sebastian his zip-up back. It’s a win-win-win.
Except that Elliot’s mom shoots down my plan. “Oh, you don’t need to waste time doing that, I can just put it in my purse.” She takes the book from me and drops it into her oversized bag. “See? Plenty of room.”
“Oh. I—thanks.” I have a sudden flash of inspiration and try again. “But I still need to go up and grab my purse.”
I grabbed my phone and key card when I rushed downstairs earlier, but my purse is still up there, offering another easy excuse for going back upstairs.
“No need,” says Lukas, moving to put his hand on my lower back before catching himself and resting it between my shoulder blades instead. “You’re here as our guest, so it’s our treat.”
I make one last desperate attempt and say, “But you all paid for my lunch, you’re not paying for my dinner, too.”
“Yes, we are,” Felix tells me, moving to my other side. “You missed class to come support us, the least we can do is buy you dinner.”
“Joke’s on all of you,” says Hank. “We’re paying for all of your dinners. You boys don’t really think we came all the way here towatch our kids compete just to make them buy their own meals, do you?”
Everyone laughs, but internally I’m freaking out. Apparently I really don’t have an excuse to go upstairs alone for a moment, and they’re really acting like I’m their girlfriend. We are definitely going to have to talk about this later.
In the meantime, all I can do is follow the parents as they lead us off to dinner. Most of the guys are in the middle of the group, walking with their own parents, but Felix hangs back to wait for me. As we leave the hotel, he rests his hand on my lower back to guide me through the door, but then leaves it there. As unhappy as I am about the hickey and the boyfriend behavior, I’m so tempted to lean into him. I already miss the connection we had when we were alone upstairs. We can’t really be ourselves with their families around. I know I should make him move his hand, but we’re at the back of the group and no one can see. Besides, this little touch is comforting. It’s almost as if he’s letting me know that he, too, wishes we didn’t have anything to hide.
Dinner is filled with analysis of today’s scrambles and discussion about who is moving on to the semi-finals tomorrow, and how well the guys know them and what they expect the outcomes to be. I’m able to return Sebastian’s zip-up to him, claiming that the restaurant is warmer than the hotel was (although I do get ahead of the turtleneck thing by saying, “I kind of like how cozy my sweater feels like this, though”), and there aren’t any invasive questions about the nature of our friendship,which surprises me considering my current hickey, but I’m not complaining. I’m glad when we all head back to the hotel, though. Even though dinner was fine, I’m ready to get back to our room and not be on edge anymore.
When we pile into the elevator, the guys engineer it so that they are circled around me, meaning that I don’t have to stand next to any parents. It’s sweet that they can tell I’m tired and agitated and are trying to protect me in their own way, but I have not forgotten that we are having a serious chat about public displays of staking their claim to me as soon as we’re alone in our own room.
The elevator stops at our floor first and some of the parents have to exit the elevator to let us off, meaning that they’re watching us walk down the hallway to our room. That we’re sharing. Where someone gave me a stupid hickey.
As soon as the door to our room closes behind the last one inside, I round on them before they have a chance to distract me with their dicks.
