8
Good Girl/Bad Girl
After my shower,I sat on the edge of my bed, trying to figure out all that had happened over the last twenty-four hours. Mom checked in via text, and I let her know I was in a motel for the storm, but that I was safe.
I didn’t tell her I was okay because I wasn’t so sure I was. For the first time ever, I understood what ‘shaken’ meant, because that was the only way I could describe the sensations swirling through my body.
I mean, I really did need that release, both the one that came at Austin’s hand, and then at my own. My only regret was that I stopped things way too early with Austin.
Then there was the thought that I was basically trapped in a cheap ass motel a thousand or so miles from home, and that I’d just gotten rubbed off not only by one unknown albeit sexy man, but with two other unknown men in the same room, who basically got to watch a real life first scene in a porno movie and said nothing about it. Oh, I’d kissed a strange man before that, and to top it all off, just got off for a second time with my own fingers while fantasizing about the third.
Good girls didn’t do shit like that.
And what my gut was saying wasn’t helping. It was calling me a coward, telling me that not only what Austin and I did was good but that I needed to go back in there and admit I wanted more. That the idea of ‘good girl’ or ‘bad girl’ was a stupid fucking lie that I needed to get over, because it wasn’t helping in this situation, or life in general.
Outside, the wind swooped and howled, a sound out of nightmares and horror movies. I went to my window and pushed the old, heavy draperies aside.
Under the parking lot street lamp, all I could see was white. Just pure white, swirling and cold enough to numb my lips and nose even though I was standing inside a warm motel room. I jammed the towel I’d used to dry off after my shower under the bottom of my door. There was no real draft coming in but it made me feel warmer, anyway. It wasn’t much, but in my current state of mind, it was comforting.
I pulled a blanket off the bed and around my shoulders, shivering despite having turned the heat to full-blast.
What if the guys hadn’t saved me? Would I have frozen in place, half buried in snow, like Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining? Would the surly motel clerk return for his morning shift and find me, covered in icicles?
Thankfully, there was a knock on the door connecting my room with number twelve. I needed to get those horrible thoughts out of my head, once and for all. I’d not frozen in the motel parking lot. I was fine.
Really. Fine.
“Hey, Bee?”
I looked up to see Tyler standing in the door, his red hair wet and spiky like he’d just showered.
I was only now realizing his eyes were the most intense shade of golden hazel I’d never seen before. I couldn’t look away.
“Hey, Tyler.”
He stuffed his hands into his pockets and took a small step into my room. “I wanted to see if you were all right. You know, after we heard your shower shut off.”
“You… you heard my shower?” I asked worriedly, wondering if I’d made as much noise in real life as I had in my fantasy.
“Yeah. The walls here are pretty thin. Randy’s worried about the pipes, so we wiped down and then filled the bathtub in our room. You know, for an emergency water supply.”
Oh my god. I never even would have thought of that. I’d just assumed I was safe and sound now that I was in the motel. But the storm could have a damaging effect on buildings, just like anything else.
Shit.
“Geez. Good idea,” I said.
“So, we were thinking maybe the four of us could continue to share rooms,” he said quietly. “Bathrooms in particular, since our shower is now out of service.”
I nodded numbly. “Oh. Of course. That’s cool.”
“Are you okay?” he asked, walking into my room. “You know what happened with you and Austin… look, it was hot as hell. We were talking and hoped you weren’t freaked by it. We were kind of worried about you, especially with how you just got up and left.”
I scooted over on the bed, opening a space for Tyler to join me, and I heard Randy and Austin go silent. “You can come in, guys. I promise, I’m fine. Not freaking the fuck out. I just needed a little time to… think.”
And do other things.
As soon as they joined Tyler and me, I saw that Randy had pulled off his hoodie and was wearing nothing but a snug white T-shirt outlining his deliciously muscular physique. My little shower fantasy hadn’t been far off the mark.