“That’s funny,” she chuckled evilly. “Considering the last time I came to your place, you fucked me so hard you had to stuff my panties in my mouth to keep me quiet.”
She was rubbing more firmly now. Manipulating me with a slow, familiar rhythm.
“Hello Hannah,” I said evenly.
She made a tsk-tsk sound with her tongue. Even so, her hand never stopped moving.
“You know my name’s not Hannah,” she said, sounding a little bit wounded. “I already told you what it was.”
“Yeah, well if you’re going to pretend to be one of my students, I can pretend you’re still the girl I fell for.”
It was cold, I knew. Maybe even below the belt. But I felt it was also warranted.
“I’m still the same girl you fell for,” she said defensively. “It’s only my name that’s different.”
The wind picked up, sending an icy chill through the parking field. I watched it whip her hair over her face. She still looked angelic.
“The guys told me you might be coming around,” I said. “That you paid them a visit.”
“Paid them a visit…” she repeated, with a little laugh. “Is that how they put it?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“Well, did
they tell you what else happened during our ‘visit’?”
They sure had. In the interests of coming clean, they’d given me every last gory detail. I’d been mad at first, but the anger was soon replaced by an intense jealousy. Mostly a jealousy that I hadn’t been there.
“Maybe,” I said at last.
Hannah — or Brooke, rather — slid even closer, pressing her body firmly against mine. She was shielding herself from the wind. But that wasn’t all she was doing.
“And what do you think?”
“About?”
“About forgiving me,” she said plainly. “About forgetting that I did something foolish and selfish and stupid, and realize that everything we had, everything I felt for all three of you, was one-hundred percent real.”
She’d dropped all pretenses, set all jokes aside. She was being serious now. Heartfelt. I knew it even without staring down into those sapphire blue eyes, but I stared anyway.
“I’ve already forgiven you,” I said truthfully. “Maybe this whole thing started on a lie, but even I can see it’s progressed way past that. Not just for you either, Brooke. But for us.”
The instant elation on her face made me feel warm and fuzzy inside. Part of it was my forgiveness. The other part, was me using her real name.
“I thought about this a lot,” I said. “If we’re actually going to do this — I mean really, truly do this — we probably need to be a little more honest with ourselves. Keeping things secret from friends, family, co-workers… well, it’s gonna be hard. Short term anyway.”
“And what about long term?”
“Long term…” I breathed heavily. Pulling her against me, I cracked a smile. “I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
She snuggled in, staring up at me with a look that could get me to do just about anything. Only she wasn’t asking for anything. Anything other than acceptance.
“You know,” I quipped. “If you’re going to come here as a student, you could’ve at least dressed up as one. White blouse. Plaid skirt. Knee socks…” I scratched at my chin. “Maybe a bright red lollipop rolling around on your tongue?”
Brooke laughed. “I’m pretty sure you’re thinking of a different kind of school girl,” she chided me.
“Yeah yeah…” I shrugged.