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So that’s what I’ll do now. Sure, I fucked up. I fucked up way bad. But if I let the emotion bubbling in me fully overtake me, I may never get up again. At the very least, I’ll lose weeks of school to this despair.
I just fucked up all my romantic and professional hopes in one big dumb mistake.
As I locate the current fixation that will make me feel better, some leftover chocolate pudding from a few days ago, I manage a grim smile. Yes. Maybe one day I will think about what happened between Clayton and I last night, but not today.
I’ve just settled at my kitchen table and dug my spoon into its chocolatey depths, when my phone rings.
“Hello?” I say without looking who it is.
It’s probably George, her average for staying at her parent’s place before there’s another fight to end all fights is two nights.
“You didn’t come into work.”
At this, I drop my spoon into my bowl, sending pudding sloshing over the edge.
“Stevie, you there?” Clayton says.
I only stare at the dribbles of chocolate now sprayed onto my t-shirt. The same t-shirt from last night that I never even managed to take off. Right now, I really just want to bury it in the back of the trash.
“Yes,” I said quietly.
“I know you said that thing about firing you, last night,” Clayton says easily, as if I were referring to me saying that I preferred lemonade over orange juice, “But I’m not sure I want to.”
Now, the tears are welling up. The tears I should’ve cried last night. The tears that have been waiting in me all the while. At least he’s on the other end of the line and can’t see them.
“Shit,” he says in a quiet voice, “you’re upset, aren’t you?”
Before I can answer, he’s come back with, “I know what I did last night was extremely selfish, okay? Just seeing you like that, and the way you kissed me… Is it bad that I want to see you again, see you more?”
As if changing tactics, he continues, “You’ll come over today?”
A furious sneer curls my lips. So that’s the way Mr. Billionaire Single Dad thinks he can play it with me? I’m just at his dick’s beck and call?
The “no” that comes out of my mouth is loud and proud. It’s the first right thing I’ve done right in the past 24 hours.
“Actually, screw that,” he’s saying now, “where are you? My mom’s taken Winston out for the day. I’ll come to you.”
“No,” I’m saying, “don’t you dare.”
“See you in 15,” he says.
I hang up, as if there’s any point in that. I’m screwed. One hundred percent royally screwed.
Dazed, I glance at the still untouched pudding.
Last night, as much as a shock as it was, has nothing on today. Clayton Matthews wants to see me again, and is coming here myself to do it?
Absentmindedly I wind my spoon around the brown liquid.
Maybe I don’t have to be so over-the-top about this. After all, hadn’t I finally overcome the one thing I was always so ashamed about? No longer am I an embarrassingly old virgin. And no, I won’t die as an old lady virgin either. And actually, the experience hadn’t been as painful or as horrifying, or even as complicated as I would’ve expected. With Clayton, things just… worked. At least in that department.
A tantalizing smile curves at the corners of my lips. Maybe I don’t have to make a big deal out of this. Maybe I can just enjoy this for what it is. A learning experience. The kind of thing you do when you’re in your early 20s and free to fuck up and do whatever you want.
After all, my parents are at work. So I can just go out and meet him, no harm no foul, right?
No sooner have I gotten to my closet and changed into a little summer dress, than does the doorbell ring.
“Sorry,” Clayton says as soon as I open the door.
His gaze immediately plunges into the contours of my bright striped dress, following the flowing downlines.
“For what?” I ask.
“For this,” he says, moments before his face is on mine.
Oh, shit.
Our lips twine and re-entwine, while his hands stroke every part of me. As he strokes my dress sleeve off, it occurs to me that we won’t be leaving this house anytime soon.
When his lips move to start sucking on my neck, I pull away slightly, “How did you know that I was alone?”
An irritated sort of hunger flashes over his face. His lips snap for mine, like a dog denied a tasty bone.
“A risk I was willing to take,” he says, moments before his hand thrusts my lips to him.
We end up on the downstairs couch in the basement. His hands can’t seem to get enough of me. They stroke and slip over me as if he’s a genie rubbing a bottle. On the couch, he sits down and I straddle him, my kisses again flowing downwards.
