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As he walks toward my table, I try to dig up the feelings that would coarse through my body when I’d see him before. He always made me feel hot in the face, both from anger and arousal. It was a volatile but tempting combination that I accepted in crumbs whenever he felt compelled to acknowledge me.
Despite how much I wanted him before, I can’t get those butterflies to flutter in my stomach this time.
“Hey, I’m sorry for taking your phone yesterday. I feel fucking awful about what happened. You could have been stranded there and it would have been my fault,” he says as he swings his gym bag into the chair across from me.
What do you think I did do after that, Eric?
“Oh, it’s… it’s fine,” I say, betraying every ounce of sense in my body. Of course I’m angry at him for stealing my phone last night! How am I supposed to let it go so easily?
“No, really, I brought it to you. I feel terrible about being such a huge dick to you, and I mean all the time. Not just last night,” he continues, fishing my phone out of the front pocket of his bag.
I take the phone from him, attempting to unlock it and being met with a dead battery. “You didn’t fuck with it, did you? Is everything where I left it?”
He nods. “Yeah, I wasn’t planning on messing with your stuff or pictures. I was just trying to annoy you until you caught up to us.”
“Well, it worked,” I reply with a scoff.
I can sense that he’s disturbed by how cold and unaffected I am by his presence. He’s so used to seeing me blush and fidget that he probably thinks something is deeply wrong with me.
“Yeah, I know. Can I make it up to you?” he asks.
I raise an eyebrow, immediately feeling suspicious. “How would you do something like that?”
“I was going to ask you out at the fair before, uh… you know…Ithappened,” he confesses. “I really didn’t think you were going to get lost like that.”
I want to strangle him. It wasn’t my fault that I got lost, it washisfor choosing to intentionally lose me. I would have been safe with my friends when the first shots fired if he hadn’t tried so hard to be funny.
“If you want to ask me out, then why do you treat me like shit?” I ask, suddenly feeling far more confrontational than usual. “I’ve been trying to go out with you for months, but I can never tell what kind of signals I’m getting back from you.”
“I know, and I’m sorry about that. It’s just that school has been kicking my ass lately, and my dad is threatening to stop paying my rent if I get another DUI. I’ve been stressed as fuck, you know?” he replies, drawing up as much sincerity as he possibly can from the depths of his soul.
If I hadn’t met Ruslan, I would be swooning at the chance to finally have a date with Eric. I’ve been pining after this guy foryears,even turning down dates with other men in order to preserve myself for him. I’ve blown people off just to pretend I ended up at the same parties as him.
And he justnowwants to go on a date?
When I look at Eric, I don’t see the same pretty-boy features that made me weak in the knees when I first saw him at freshman orientation. He just looks so… weak. He has the muscles of a Greek god, sure, but I can’t imagine him fucking me with the same animalistic intensity and passion that Ruslan did.
All I see when I look at Eric is a soft, undisciplined rich kid who has never experienced any personal hardship. He behaves like the world belongs to him, that everyone around him is his servant or plaything. I’ve seen the way he behaves when he drinks too much, and it’s pretty embarrassing.
Ruslan is different.
Ruslan gives me the impression that he grew up somewhere that Eric would be sent as a punishment. I don’t know much about Ruslan, but he’s definitely not a pussy like Eric. He could beat the shit out of Eric in his sleep.
Then again, I’m never going to see Ruslan again. I’m notsupposedto. Whatever it is that draws me to him is also the reason that I need to stay away from him forever.
I try to give Eric a smile, but it probably looks more like a grimace. “What did you have in mind?” I ask.
“I was going to ask you what you wanted to do,” he replies. “I’m not really sure what you like to do for fun.”
How the hell could he say that? We’ve been at tons of events and parties together, and we’ve stayed up all night texting here and there when he felt like it. How does henotknow what I enjoy doing?
I’m hesitant, but I still feel compelled to give him a chance.
“Okay, fine. We’ll go out for dinner. But you’re paying,” I say. “Remember, I’m here on a scholarship.”
He doesn’t get to make fun of me for being poor if he’s not going to pay for shit.
“I really didn’t like it when everyone was making fun of you last night,” he offers, trying to come off as the complete opposite of who he really is.
