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Is she always shy?
Or is it just because of me?
“That’s a long story,” she says. Mallory takes a bite of her food, and I decide not to press the issue, even though I probably should. She’s not my submissive, and I need to keep reminding myself of that because there’s a part of me that really wants her to be.
“Is it longer than the story about why you don’t talk to me?” I ask.
She stills.
Okay, maybe that was a bit too abrupt, but I don’t like to mess around. I am a straightforward guy, and I’m blunt in just about everything I do. I have to be, in my line of work. My translation work has to be utterly precise. There might be a dozen different words to describe “run”, but I have to pick the word that most closely matches the original documents I work with. Everything I do at my job has to be completely detail-oriented, and I’m going to be that way with Mallory, too.
For example, I notice that she hasn’t touched her drink yet. Does she dislike soda? Or maybe she doesn’t like ice. She’s taken a few bites of her food, but they’ve all been meat. She hasn’t tested out the rice yet, and she hasn’t tried the beans. Does she eat her food in a certain order? Or did I choose food that she no longer eats?
Only time will tell, but there are the types of things I notice all of the time.
“I think you know why.”
“Amuse me,” I shrug. “Tell me.”
“Because of the party,” she whispers, and now I’m a little bit surprised. She had said something at the club that reminded me of that night so many years ago: the night when we kissed for the first – and only – time.
I had been drunk off my ass, and I hadn’t been expecting anyone to kiss me at all that night. I’d just been having fun with my friends, and Mallory had surprised me. It had surprised me not only to be kissed, but to be kissed by one of the most perfect girls I’d ever met.
I’d imagined kissing her so many times before that. Fuck, I’d spent almost my entire high school career thinking about her when I jerked off. Not that I’d ever tell Matthew that, although I’m certain he knew how I felt.
But kissing her had been scary for me.
It had been the first time that kissing someone felt real.
She felt real.
She felt special.
And I...I was just a schmuck who didn’t deserve her adoration or her love, so I’d pushed her away. Apparently, that had stuck with her, and I had no idea she even remembered.
“What about the party?”
“Aaron, I...” She shakes her head and looks away, takes a deep breath, and then looks back at me. Now her eyes are burning with fierce determination and it makes me happy that she’s got that fire. “It took me so long to get the courage to talk to you, let alone kiss you. It felt like a slap in the face when you turned me down. You had every right to. You didn’t owe me anything. You still don’t, but I...I was a kid, Aaron. I was 15, and you were the first guy I ever kissed. I wanted to give you everything.”
She blurts it out, and I instantly know she didn’t mean to share what she just said.
“Everything?”
Her face turns bright red, and I realize that she wanted to give me her virginity. She wanted me, out of all of the guys in the world, to be her first, and I completely and utterly blew it.
Shit.
Mallory is quiet. She reaches for her fork and pokes at her food, but doesn’t take a bite. Then she looks up at me.
“Yeah,” she says. “Pretty dumb, huh?” She shakes her head. “I know I made you uncomfortable with my weird crush, and I’m sorry.”
“Mallory, your crush never made me uncomfortable.”
“You don’t have to be gentle. It’s fine. It was a million years ago.”
“I rejected you, but I was wrong. I was really drunk that night, and honestly, I just didn’t think it was a good idea.”
“Because you weren’t attracted to me.”
