She sighed. “You have to lose it at some point.”
“Sure do,” I retorted, “but it’s not going to be after I just broke up with the only man I’ve loved, and with a guy I have zero interest in apart from to get things moving in my headspace.”
Another sigh escaped her, but it wasn’t impatient. Though she didn’t understand me, and probably never would, she was remarkably careful around me when it came to this topic. “I’ll never understand why it’s so important to you to wait.”
I frowned at her. She knew about my experiences at school, but then, I stopped frowning. I loved Clarice like a sister but she was the kind of girl who’d have taken up my teacher on her offer to get the grades.
Clarice’s attitude to sex was something I’d never get my head around. I wasn’t sure who had the healthiest view of it.
She, who was free with her body and went where said body guided her. Or me, who was the exact opposite, and even though I’d been with the man I loved for over a year, still hadn’t taken that final step.
I rubbed my temple, feeling and ache start to gather there. “I think it’s time to go.”
She giggled—an odd response to my statement I figured until she pointed out someone behind me. “Look who’s heading our way.” Her singsong voice and the giggle told me it was some jerk off guy from campus.
She had shit taste in guys, so that also told me it was likely a football player or someone who played basketball.
Clarry was a sucker for athletes.
Literally.
I’d once caught her in a very interesting situation with three football players…
I’d once thought that my football player was different, that he was special, but had been proven wrong when Cooper had torn himself from my life as though our relationship was nothing to him when it had been everything to me.
Sighing, I waited for whichever dumb ass was approaching to near. Then I hunched my shoulders when I felt someone place their hand on mine.
I hated it when guys felt they had the right to touch me, like they were God’s gift or something. Like there was no question about my wanting their touch.
I turned my head to the side to glower at the owner of the offending hand, then grimaced at the sight of Jed Harrison.
He’d been one of my ardent fans since I’d started college here. We were in the same year, and he’d never really given up asking me out on dates, or trying to get me into bed with him. Even when I’d been dating Cooper.
Clarice didn’t get it. Didn’t understand why I’d prefer Cooper who was, A, poor, B, worked constantly and rarely had time to be with me, and C, not a hotshot quarterback just a line defender—one who didn’t do it for the love of the game but to fulfill the terms of his scholarship and had zero problem being benched most of the time.
Jed was one of those rare anomalies whose scholarship funded his university career, and where he actually took advantage of the education that came as part of him playing ball.
He was a mediocre student though he did try, a wizard on the field, handsome, wealthy—his scholarship paid his way, but his family could easily have done so too without feeling the pinch, or so Clarice had advised me—and yet, he left me cold.
Always had done.
He was blond—the opposite of Cooper. His eyelashes were really white, and they gave me the creeps because it was almost like he didn’t have any. His eyes were green, and combined with his pale complexion that only really ruddied in late spring, early summer, he just didn’t do it for me. I preferred Cooper’s dark tan, his gorgeous bronze tones.
Cooper was gold. Jed was platinum.
And I’d always preferred gold.
That wasn’t to say I couldn’t understand Jed’s appeal to the women on campus. He was attractive, just not my cup of tea.
“Ladies,” he boomed over the music, and I winced—my head already was starting to protest all the tequila. “Can I get you another drink?”
Clarice giggled again—she only did that when a guy was around. It was one of her less than pleasant traits. “That would be awesome. We’re having margaritas.”
“I can see,” Jed said brightly, and I turned to look at him, seeing a glint in his eye that even in my drunken stupor, I didn’t appreciate.
He was looking at me the way I figured a lion would a gazelle, but I was nobody’s prey.
Before he could hold out his hand at the bar to catch the bartender’s attention, I got to my feet. “No need for me, thanks,” I said, slurring, and though I wasn’t sure why, I made sure my voice was a little blurrier than it actually was. “I’m getting out of here.”