AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Me neither!” Trish added. “So, what happened with Vanessa?”
“Nothing happened. It was just sex. We did it a few times, and then she moved on to the next guy in our unit soon after. She was like a kid in a candy shop among all the guys.” I quickly held up a palm. “Not that I’m shaming her. I can’t blame her at all. If the roles were reversed, I’d be a huge man-slut.”
“I can only imagine,” Trish said. “Being around a bunch of chiseled military guys all the time…”
She trailed off, and her cheeks turned red. For a moment I was confused, and then I realized that Trish was basically in the same situation. Surrounded by me, Archer, and Harrison all the time during this job.
“What about you?” I asked to clear the air.
Trish wagged a finger back and forth. “That’s not how the game works. It’s your turn to ask a question. Anewone. Repeats aren’t allowed.”
I let out a dramatic sigh. “Fine. Let me think. What’s the most embarrassing moment of your life?”
Her blush deepened, and she hesitated before answering. And not because she was trying to think of an answer. I began wondering if maybe I had touched on a nerve.
“I peed my pants when I was in Kindergarten,” she finally said. “Mrs. Wall’s class. We were practicing cursive, and she wouldn’t let me go to the bathroom when I asked. I held it and held it, and finally jumped up and tried to run out of the room, but by then it was too late…”
“Ouch,” I said. Was that the real story, or was she hiding something even worse?
“Mine’s from secondary school again,” Archer answered. “Accidentally called my teachermum. In front of the whole class. Never lived that down.”
We continued playing the game and laughed at our answers. Archer got creative and asked how much money it would take for us to jump into a pool of raw sewage—a hundred grand for me, and ten million dollars for Trish. There were questions about least favorite foods, and questions about which celebrity everyone would sleep with.
“Okay, here’s a tougher one,” I said. “What’s your longest relationship?”
“Lexi Parker, eighteen months,” Archer answered. “Dated her when I was in the service. We grew apart.” He shrugged as if it couldn’t be helped.
We turned to Trish. She raised her beer to her lips and began to drink.
“Aww, come on,” I said. “Don’t drink and avoid the question. Tell us about it.”
She lowered the glass and stared into it, as if the contents might give her an escape. “My ex, Daniel.”
“Daniel. Classic douchebag name,” I said.
“Hey! Two of my best mates growing up were named Daniel.”
“I rest my case.” I turned back to Trish. “How long were you two together?”
She pulled her legs up until her knees were almost touching her chin. “We met at UNCW. Dated for two years. It was serious. I thought we were going to eventually get married. Then the family I was nannying for moved across the country, and asked me to come with them. I considered it. That infuriated Daniel. He acted like I was abandoning him, even though I asked him to come with me. He made a big stink about it, how he didn’t want to move away from the East Coast, even though he was a freaking Lyft driver and didn’t have any other reason to stay. So, I turned the nanny job down.”
Trish took a deep breath. “And then, a month later, he broke up with me. Moved to Denver to be with some girl he met online.”
“Fuuuck,” I said.
She grimaced. “That stung. All his talk about me abandoning him was just projection. A lot of the things he said in our relationship ended up being projection, I learned after the fact. That’s actually why I had a passport already. Daniel always said he wanted to travel to Europe with me. Never got a chance. He talked a big game, but there was never any follow-through.”
“Shit,” Archer said. “What an arsehole.”
“He’s anasshole, too.” I ignored Archer’s glare and tried to pour as much sympathy into my gaze as I looked at Trish. “I’m so sorry. That really sucks.”
She shrugged. “I’m over it now. Or at least,mostlyover it.”
“Was he a good shag, at least?” Archer asked. “He must have been, if you stayed together that long.”
“That’s the really frustrating part: he wasn’t! He was a total prude. Two years together and he never liked being naked around me. Lights off, under the covers. Very vanilla.” She bit her lip. “Over the course of our relationship, I had maybe four or five real orgasms.”
She glanced at me, and I grinned. She’d already had that many with me in the week we’d been sleeping together. And I was confident she wasn’t faking.
