"Oh, yeah, sorry mom. My roommate called my cell - guy trouble or something."
My parents smiled at me and then each other.
"Well it's so nice to know you're the responsible one making the good choices that your friends can rely on, honey,” my dad said, smiling at me.
I quickly turned to my plate, shoveling salad into my mouth to try and hide the cat-with-the-canary look on my face.
Right, making good choices; like, letting my older, married neighbor fuck me unprotected and come inside of me what, four times now?
Dinner passed in a sort of hazy glow, and as we all ate, I managed to sneak a few more looks and even a couple of hand squeezes under the table with Mr. Harding.
*****
We were hugging our goodbyes outside the restaurant later in the freezing cold Boston winter, when Jake leaned into me and growled into my ear. “I have to see you again. I'm staying at the Marriott; my number is in your coat pocket."
I felt a shiver from more than just the cold run up my spine as I felt his arms squeeze me tight before letting go.
"So great to see you Chelsea, and glad to hear schools going so well!" He said it loudly as he pulled quickly away from me and smiled at my parents.
"Guess I'll see you again around spring break then!" He shook my dad's hand and kissed my mom on the cheek before they turned to say goodbye to me for the night.
"Call me, tonight" he mouthed over their shoulders at me, before he turned and stepped into the waiting cab.
And right then, I knew that for the first time since becoming my roommate, Lucy was going to have the dorm room to herself for the night.
Chapter 18:
Chelsea
After I said goodnight to my family and watched them climb into a cab, I waited a few minutes and then hailed one myself, feeling my pulse jump.
'I'm staying at the Marriott’
For the first time ever, I was going to go meet a man in a hotel room; it sounded so illicit! I quickly pulled out my phone and texted Jake that I was on the way, and then sank into the backseat of the cab grinning from ear to ear.
The sneaking around with Mr. Harding had been part of the thrill of it all, of course. The three times we'd been together so far had been the quickly in my parents living room, then the time I'd secretly fucked him at the dinner table in front of my family and his date with no-one the wiser, and then barely an hour earlier, in the restaurant bathroom just now at dinner with Jake and my family.
It was thrilling, these secret, clandestine encounters of ours, but the thought of being able to take our time - to be alone together without pressure of being caught or having to hurry - just seemed like such a luxury that I found myself buzzing with excitement as we drove through the night.
I stepped out of the cab feeling a bit nervous to be honest. There was this jittery feeling of naughtiness involved with me waltzing into a hotel and then sneaking up to Jake's room like some sort of mistress; which, to be fair, is I guess what I was at that point.
I closed the cab door and took a deep breath, steeling myself to act calm and perfectly normal when I entered the hotel, as if it was the most natural thing in the world for a nineteen year old girl to be heading upstairs to the hotel room of her forty year old, married next door neighbor. But just then as I turned, suddenly I grinned.
Jake was waiting outside for me; waiting for me with a smile.
"Funny meeting you here," he grinned, taking my arm. “Going up?"
"Yes please." I grinned back, looping my arm through his.
He walked me right through the lobby, arm in arm. No "oh this is my daughter" facade; no sneaking in separately. Jake held my arm, and then ran his hand up my back as we waited for the elevator in a way that very plainly said, "yes, this is a romantic relationship." We got a few knowing looks of course, and even a disapproving a
rched eyebrow from a middle-aged couple who got off the elevator, but none of it even phased me, not with Jake there.
It also occurred to me as walked into his hotel room that this would be our first time in an actual bed together, a thought that made me giggle.
I turned to him as I stood at the foot of large, king-sized bed and bit my lip, my eyes sparkling as I looked at him. I was no longer nervous; no longer worried about time constraints, or being found out by people who couldn't know about us.
"We've never- I mean; on a bed-"