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“You guys did what!”Jamie says, eyes wide with shock.
“Shhh! Keep it down.” My eyes jerk towards the stairway where I know Carly is still asleep in bed, despite it being almost eight a.m. the next morning. She’d snored half the night, but I still don’t want her to hear anything. After all, stupid me had slept with her date.
“I’m sorry,” Jamie says, shaking her head. “But this is news to me!”
My roommate and I are sitting together on the couch early the next morning, sipping hot coffee and snacking on a bowl of trail mix before class. I made Dereck leave after our time together last night, despite his arguments, because I didn’t want to cause any drama with Carly, even if I didn’t regret a single second with him. And admitting to myself and Jamie that I didn’t regret a single second with him was unsettling, at the least.
“I can’t believe you two,” Jamie says, dropping her tone. “A week ago, you hated him so much I expected to find all three of them dead in the closet.” She tosses a healthy mixture of raisins and peanuts into her mouth and chews, looking thoughtful. “And now you screw him in your bed, right next door to your roommate who spent the night sleeping off what I can only assume was alcohol poisoning.” She grins at me, pleased with herself. “My, my, my, Rowan Bates. What a clever little minx you are.”
“I don’t know what came over me,” I admit, trying to resist remembering just how hot my body had felt with Dereck’s fingers stroking my thigh. “I guess I saw him in another light last night, you know, after he helped take care of Carly. It was like a whole other side to him, one I didn’t even know existed. It was kind of a turn-on.”
“Kind of? I’d have nailed him, too.”
I sigh, hardly realizing that I’m twirling a strand of hair around my finger like a smitten schoolgirl.
“Wait a minute,” Jamie continues, eyeing me. She sets her mug of coffee down on the coffee table and turns her body to face me, folding her arms across her chest. “Are you telling me that you actually … liked it?”
All at once, heat rises to my skin, and thin layers of sweat from under my shirt collar.
“What? Blasphemy. Dereck Denny and both of his arrogant friends are nothing to me. Nothing at all. I was caught off guard, that’s all. I just needed a good screw, I guess.”
“Right, good cover,” Jamie teases with a chuckle. “It’s okay, Rowan, you’re allowed to like it. Sex is natural. But—”
“But what?”
“What about the other two? Matt and Bryce? They have a thing for you, too, don’t they? And you told me last night that you had been thinking about all three of them recently. Does thinking of them get you all hot and bothered as much as it does with Dereck?”
“Jamie!” Shocked, I almost spit out my drink. “None of them get me hot and bothered, okay? Maybe I had too much wine at dinner. After all, they were bullies. My bullies.”
“Not anymore,” Jamie sings, and I have to shush her again so she doesn’t wake Carly. She leans back on the couch and strokes her chin thoughtfully. “You want them all, don’t you?”
I roll my eyes, but she and I both know that when I can’t meet her gaze, it’s for a reason. “What?”
“You’re hot for all of them, Rowan Bates, and I can see it in your face.” Jamie nods her head, grinning. There’s really no denying it now, especially to her, so I keep silent, trying to pretend I haven’t been daydreaming about the three of them, naked, all night and morning long.
“I’m not hot for anyone,” I say halfheartedly.
“What is it you want with these boys?” Jamie asks after a moment of silence, eyes glinting under the warm streak of sunlight coming in through the window.
“I don’t want anything with them,” I insist. “Besides, for all I know, Dereck was drunk and just wanted some. If Carly wouldn’t have passed out, it probably would have been her instead, right?”
Jamie shrugs. “You still liked it, right?”
“Oh, God.” Reality dawns on me suddenly, and my chest tightens abruptly with such squeezing anxiety that I’m almost gasping for breath. “What if this was all a plan? What if Dereck slept with me as a bet to the others? Oh my God, what if he tells them about us and humiliates me? That’s all I am to them, isn’t it, some pathetic little girl they can pick on!”
Jamie must sense the utter panic in my voice, because she wraps me in a hug, holding me tight until my breathing is almost steady again. I take a drink of coffee and it hits my throat, scalding, and it feels so good because for a small moment, it distracts me from the horror of what I’ve done.
“Everything is going to be fine,” Jamie says, getting to her feet to get dressed for school. As she walks up the stairs, she glances back at me and winks. “Don’t focus too hard on those guys in class today. You might just–God forbid–fail out, or something.”
