Shewas the voice of reason.
But reason was nowhere to be found after what happened in the hallway, and the thought of her out at a college party without me—without both of us—didn’t sit right.
Before informing Adam of the change in our nightly plans, I checked my phone.
And I groaned as a message from our team’s captain ordered me to attend a mandatory team meeting followed by an early night in and curfew.
With a big game tomorrow, it made sense.
Maybe it was for the best. Addie would get to enjoy her night without two shadows, and I wouldn’t write a check my ass couldn’t cash if the opportunity for a friendly dance came up.
“I have to head out for a team meeting,” I called out to Adam and Addie, but neither of them responded.
Grabbing my bag, I walked out of the apartment. I needed to leave quickly to avoid being late—the only drawback of living off-campus while a lot of my teammates stayed in the athletic dorms. Shooting off a quick text to Adam, I booked it over in my car.
I made it to the meeting just before our team captain, Gavin, closed the door, immediately getting caught up in a flurry of high fives and fist bumps. As he dived into a last-minute pep talk, thoughts of the glow party and my strange reaction with Addie retreated to the back of my mind.
Once the meeting ended, my teammates talked me into staying at the dorms. The night quickly dissolved into a joint sit-in with the girls’ volleyball team, who were also under curfew before their meet tomorrow.
My phone sat untouched in my bag.
Sitting on the couch and talking about the upcoming game, I was handed a flask as it made its way around our circle. When I declined and moved to pass it to the girl who’d sat next to me, her blue eyes sparkled with a challenge.
She took a swig, holding my gaze and emphasizing her swallow by running a hand down her throat. The overzealous part of my eighteen-year-old brain that translated everything to sex lit up like a Christmas tree.
The girl noticed.
Flask still in hand, she swung her leg over my lap. She took another sip from the flask and lowered her body onto mine, licking a stray drop of alcohol from the corner of her lips.
My body responded beneath her, and I gripped her hips to hold her steady against my rapidly growing erection.
I hadn’t been with anyone since before prom. That had to explain why I couldn’t keep my head straight around Addie. Why it was becoming harder to exist without touching her.
Either way, my reaction to having a girl on my lap—one that wasn’t completely off limits—grew hard to ignore, and when her hand snaked between our bodies to rub my dick through my pants, I shuddered.
The blonde-haired temptress noticed and brought her lips to my ear.
“I’m Becky.” She nipped at my earlobe, and my hips jerked up reflexively. “My room is empty. Maybe we should take this somewhere more private?”
Her suggestion hung between us as she stroked her hand up and down, and my mind grappled for logic. I searched for reasons I shouldn’t go to her room, but if I didn’t do something about my raging hormones tonight, a mandatory team meeting might not be there to save me the next time a night out with my roommates sounded like a good idea.
So, when Becky rolled her hips over my body and squeezed the bulge straining against my sweatpants, I took the opportunity that had presented itself.
“Come on,” she whispered. “I give the best pre-game blow jobs.”
8
ADDIE
FALL MIDTERMS, NOVEMBER 2017, AGE 18
“Blake, if she doesn’t get out of here, you need to go.”
I kept my mouth shut as Adam said what I’d been wanting to say for the last hour. Resisting the urge to thank him out loud and make things even more awkward took all the inner strength I possessed. I squeezed my eyes shut.
Becky’s mouth had dropped open in righteous outrage. She huffed at my brother, flabbergasted by his comment, and shot up from her seat at our dining room table. As the chair legs scraped along the tile floor, the obnoxious sound grated on my thinly frayed nerves.
“Are you going to let him talk to me like that, Blake?” Crossing her cashmere-covered arms over her chest and pushing up her cleavage, Becky snapped her gaze from Blake to glare at Adam. She haughtily lifted her chin as she waited for him to defend her. “Blake wants me here, Adam. And this is supposed to be his apartment, too. Isn’t it?”
