“Barely.”
“That’s a good thing.”
“Barely.”
“I am surprised, though.”
“About?” I wondered if I threw the TV remote at his head, we would stop having this conversation. I had to remind myself that I couldn’t always use violence to get out of a situation, no matter how much I wanted to. My life was hard.
“That you caved so quickly. I honestly though there was going to be weeks, if not months, of absurd back and forth between the two of you. I had already started making plans to trap you two in Corey’s Patented Sex Dungeon just to get it over with.”
“That wouldn’t have worked on me,” I said, somewhat appalled that he thought I’d be that easy.
“Right.” He rolled his eyes. “Tyson said the same thing. And yet, almost ten years of pining gone after one night in my sex dungeon.”
“I don’t think that’s quite what happened.”
“Pretty much,” he said. “They were cuddling. You saw it.”
My phone beeped again. Call you?
I frowned. I knew that Darren was going to be putting the feelers out to speak to his father, but I hadn’t heard much more than that. I didn’t want to push him because I knew how sensitive it could be, regardless of what Darren said. It was a tricky situation, and if my morals weren’t already firmly planted in shades of gray, I probably would have backed out of this days ago, or not even agreed to it at all. But here we were, entrenched in a ridiculous plot that only a few people knew about. And here I was, keenly aware that avoidance was going to be getting harder and harder to do.
Sure, I wrote back.
Okay, give me a few.
“You have that study group tonight?” I asked Corey.
He arched an eyebrow at me. “Why? Kicking me out so you can have the sex?”
“Gross. Yes.”
“Gross,” he said. “Fine. I can go a little early. But I better not come home to find any wet spots on the walls or my bed.”
“They’ll be drenched,” I reassured him as he stood from the sofa. “I’m going to do such disgusting things on your sheets.”
He leaned over and kissed me on the cheek before grabbing his bag and keys and heading out the door.
“Make good choices!” I called after him and he laughed. I heard his car start up outside, and he pulled away.
A couple of minutes later, the phone rang.
“Is this where you fake break up with me?” I asked him instead of a normal greeting.
He snorted. “N
ah. Not yet. You’re fake stuck with me for the foreseeable future.”
That shouldn’t have made my heart flutter as it did. It was really rather disgusting. I told myself it was probably more due to an arrhythmia than Darren. I made a mental note to make an appointment with a heart specialist to make sure I wasn’t dying. “Lucky me,” I said lightly.
“So I may have done something bad,” he said.
I gripped the phone tightly. “Oh? Who did you screw now? Was he at least eighteen?”
“Oh fuck you,” he snapped. “I didn’t have sex with anyone. I told you I wouldn’t and I haven’t.”
“Good for you,” I said, because we were back on even ground. Bickering and sniping at each other was the only real thing I knew how to do with Darren. Everything else was too unclear. “I’m glad that you’ve been able to go a few weeks without fucking something.”