He’s mentioning an intimate thing in his old college house like it’s a souvenir. He wants me to know that he came first. He wants me to pull out my cock and stand beside him with our rulers.
My face doesn’t move.
Then I set my beer down on the counter.
I’m done.
I walk to the front door and take my coat off the hook, pulling it on as I go.
“Stan?” Blue, looking up.
“Stan.” Benson, sharper. “Where are you going?”
I get my hand on the door handle, and I don’t break stride. I send it back over my shoulder with the grin loaded all the way to the top.
“My girlfriend’s house. Duh.”
“Stan—”
“Don’t wait up.” I pull the door open.
And I look at Gavin, once, on my way out. I don’t say a word to him. I don’t need to.
That’s mine now, buddy.
The door shuts behind me.
Thirty feet of sidewalk between my door and hers. I walk it without a hood, and I’m not cold.
I don’t get to be mad. I’m fake-dating her. I don’t get to be jealous. I’m fake-dating her.
I am, in fact, jealous.
I’ll deal with that later.
Right now I’m going to her window.
Her house is dark. I go around to the side, to the window I taped my own face to, the one I stood at in the cold and looked through, and I knock. Three times quietly. I’m not trying to wake the whole house.
Nothing.
I knock again. “Linwood.”
The curtain twitches. Her face shows up in the gap — hair down, huge t-shirt, no makeup, the exact face I wasn’t supposed to see tonight.
Her eyes go enormous when she sees me. Her mouth drops open, and she mouths, very clearly, what the fuck are you doing here?
I grin and point at the side door. I mouth back, Let me in.
She glares at me with the force of a small sun.
She vanishes from the window.
I walk to the side door and wait. It opens a crack. Her face in it. Furious.
“Are you out of your mind?”
“Hi, princess.”
