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“From Beth Anne herself,” he answered, rolling his eyes as if that should be obvious. “Who do you think? Dude, she told everyone at the end of speech class right after you left.”
Speech class. I’d been dreading to go, not sure how she’d receive me. But she’d merely passed my chair with a wink and a knowing smile and trailed her finger up my arm before finding her own seat in the back. It’d gone a lot better than I had feared it would, because honestly, I’d convinced myself she’d storm into class, pissed at me for either not talking to her enough afterward or because I’d been so bad at it.
Blinking at Rush, I shook my head in shock. “She…she…what? Oh, holy shit. No.”
“No?” He frowned. “What do you mean, no?”
“No, as in, why the fuck did she tell everyone?” I gasped, glancing around as if every person in the immediate vicinity knew and were secretly laughing at me. “I didn’t want the world to know.”
Rush still seemed confused. “Why not? Beth Anne is hot. That’s impressive shit, man. You should brag it up, because this makes you the bomb, Henry.”
“But…I…” I stepped closer to him and lowered my voice as heat flushed across my face. “I was bad at it. I was so, incredibly bad.” Even though Rush was literally the only person I would admit that to, it was still humiliating as hell to say out loud.
With a snort, he slapped me in the chest with the back of his hand. “Whatever, you idiot. Get the fuck out. She said you were sweet.”
“Sweet?!” I cried.
Fuck, that sounded worse than bad.
“Hey, no.” Rush shook his head, trying to reassure me as he watched the panic cross my features. “Trust me. For your first time, sweet is good. Sweet is very, very good.”
“Are you sure?” I demanded, looking around again. “Because sweet sounds a hell of a lot worse than awesome.”
He rolled his eyes. “Awesome would’ve been an ob
vious lie. No one would’ve believed you were awesome your first time off the bench. Bad would’ve been bad. But sweet... Sweet is good.”
“Sweet is good?” I repeated, staring him down, trying to ascertain if he was lying.
He nodded, staring right back. “Trust me, sweet is very, very good.”
“Okay,” I said, relieved to hear that, at least. “I guess I’ll take sweet, then.”
“Fuck yes, you should take sweet. Sweet is something to be proud of. So why do you look as if someone stepped on your damn kitten? Snap out of this. Be happy. You did great.”
“Sorry, I just…” Glancing around, I paused when I caught sight of Reuben up ahead, already on the practice field and blasting away on his trumpet, like a proud rooster showing off his flashy bright feathers. “He doesn’t know, does he?”
Rush glanced over as well. “Reuben? Nah. Why would he? He’s not in speech class with us, and he runs in a completely different circle than Beth Anne.”
I nodded, relieved to hear that at least. “Good,” I murmured. “Good.”
Before I could look away, however, there she appeared, approaching Reuben and holding out what looked like a dot book to him when she reached him.
When he accepted the notebook and strung its strap around his neck, confirming my suspicions that it was indeed a dot book, I snorted. Keeping drill charts on you like that was so high schoolish. But then he leaned forward and kissed his girlfriend in gratitude, and my smirk died flat. Acid filled my stomach. High schoolish or not, he still had Avery. I did not.
God, she was pretty.
And she was such a kind, helpful girlfriend, bringing things to practice for him that he’d obviously forgotten.
Now, that was the definition of sweet.
My heart began to pound so hard in my chest that my rib cage actually ached. And that sensation I knew I’d been missing with Beth Anne after we’d been together descended on me in a flurry of hot shards, stabbing into my skin until it physically prickled.
That’s when I realized I hadn’t held out so long to try out sex because I’d been waiting for someone easy and meaningless like Beth Anne. I’d been holding out because secretly I wanted to find someone else who took my breath away at the first glance, someone who did to me what Avery had done, what she still managed to do.
I wanted to be completely absorbed by a girl.
But as long as one still had her hold on me, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to move on to another. And thus my catch-22. I was stuck in a no-win situation, craving someone I could never have.
