“I started having a sex dream, like a really, really vivid one. He … okay, I haven’t told you this yet either, but do you remember that night we all went to Cocktails and Chaos?”
Her eyes widen as she nods.
“So, that night, I guess he found out that I had broken up with Axel. He’d said something shitty to me about how my boyfriend didn’t want to sleep with me, and I was pissed, but I broke up with Axel, and then he told the table. Well, Dayton put his hand on my thigh and squeezed it the entire night.”
Her jaw drops. Her paddleboard starts drifting away frommine again, but the pure shock on her face is clear, even as she focuses on paddling back over to me.
“So, anyway, it was weird, and I didn’t know what to think of it, except that he just loves to fuck with my head; it’s like this sick game to him. When we were in high school, he made out with my prom date’s ex, then punched my date in the face and still tried to drive me home. Then, a few times the summer before he moved off to college, we would play that Are You Nervous? game, where someone would touch your leg or your arm or whatever and move closer and closer to your boob or your vagina until you stopped them.”
She nods, her eyes glued to my face.
“And it was just … I don’t know … it was like the way he did it, it wasn’t a joke. It was intense, and he would stare into my eyes while he tried feeling me up. I always told him to stop before he got too close. So, that night at the bar, I just thought he was playing that game again, like the grown-up version, to see what I would do.”
“So, what happened? He fingered you?”
I gasp. “Oh my gosh, no! We didnothook up. I might have self-esteem issues, but they’re notthatbad.”
She scoffs. “Right, because hooking up with Dayton Copeland would be such a low point in a woman’s life.”
“Hooking up with your stepbrother who bullied you is quite the low point.”
She rolls her eyes. “So, what happened on your birthday? Was that when you reached your new low point?”
I shake my head. “No, we didn’t hook up. I was having a sex dream, and it was about that night at Chaos, and I … okay, the thigh-squeezing thing was just … it turned me on. It would be the same with anyone if you’d gone as long as I had without any good sex, okay? It wasn’t because it washim,” I lie.
She reads me like a book, snorting a laugh.
“But anyway, I was having this sex dream, and I started touching myself in my sleep. And I forgot he was in bed with me.”
She sucks in a breath, nearly falling off her paddleboard. She rights herself and screams at me, “And then?!”
“Then I woke up and realized that I wasn’t exactly alone and that he was in the bed with me because he grabbed my hair, pulled it back right when I realized I wasn’t dreaming, and … I think he might have come in his pants… while he was watching me.” I nearly whisper the last part, but I know she heard me because her face goes from rapt fascination with my story to a blank stare of disbelief.
She blinks at me, shakes her head, and whistles.
“Damn, I wish I had a hot stepbrother who would squeeze my thigh under the table, invade my bed, and pull my hair.”
“Savannah! It’s not all that,trust me. I don’t want him. He doesn’t even want me. He’s messing with my head. That’s it. End of story. It’s a game to him.”
“Okay, but did you come?”
I purse my lips, looking away.
“Ha! I knew it. You’re into him. You’re attracted to him. Just admit it!”
“Okay, and? He’s physically very good-looking. Anyone can see that.”
“Yeah, but we both know a guy needs more than good looks. You’reattractedto him in more ways than one. If you weren’t, this story would’ve had a much different ending.”
I sigh, not wanting to acknowledge that she’s right, but knowing that she is. “But I know he’s not attracted to me. He said I was too vanilla in bed for Andrew to stay faithful.”
She gasps. “He did not say that. How could he even know that? What did he say exactly?”
“He had a … you know. He was hard one morning when he woke up, and I just said, ‘What is that?’ and he said something about how it makes sense why I’m divorced if I don’t know what that is.”
She laughs at me, throwing her head back with a deep belly laugh, like it’s the funniest story she’s ever heard. I use my paddle to shove her board while she’s distracted, and she yelps as she falls into the water. She sputters back up to the surface, shoving my board and making me fall in with her.
I scream as I splash into the warm ocean. Once I kick back up to the surface, she’s already there, laughing. I shake my head, laughing with her. We crawl back up onto our boards and sit on them, legs dangling in the water.
