“If you ever want to experience more of my skills in the physical distracting department, I’d be more than happy to share them with you.”
I rolled my eyes, which he couldn’t see, but he probably knew I was doing it anyway. “Yeah, I bet you do. Guys always talk a big game but when the time comes to deliver, they can’t.”
“Don’t worry, sweetheart. I can walk the walk.” There was a fluttering below my waist that I tried to ignore. That lasted about five seconds.
“Come over. Right now.” The words were out of my mouth before I even knew I was saying them.
He paused before he said, “No.”
“No?”
“No. I’m not just some guy you can call for a f**k anytime you want. You called me for verbal distractions and you want physical ones in the same night? Sorry, sweetheart. You don’t always get what you want.”
I was about to say something, but the call cut off. He hung up on me. I hit redial right away. What the hell?
No answer.
I tried again.
No answer.
I texted him and got back a response a second later.
I’m going to bed. You probably should too. Get your beauty sleep. To be continued
I typed an angry response and then deleted it before typing something else.
Dot dot dot.
Stryker
It was only a matter of time before I got into bed with Katie again, and it was only a matter of time before we got caught. We were in the thick of it when Katie’s door opened and I head the gasp of surprise.
As expected, Lottie gave both of us a talking to. For a tiny girl, she sure knew how to make you feel like you were even shorter. Zan didn’t seem either surprised or upset, which led me to believe he’d known all along. I was an idiot to think I could put it past him. He noticed everything. I apologized and tried not to be a dick about it, but I knew that I was going to be on Lottie’s shit list for a little while.
After Lottie dragged Zan down to his room for the night, Katie dragged me back to her room.
“Shit. Shit, shit, shit,” she said as she tried to put her clothes back on with shaking hands. “Now she’s going to hate me and Zack is going to find out. Shit, shit, shit!” She tried to get her panties on, but tripped, and I caught her.
“Here.” I pushed her onto the bed and got them over her feet and pulled them up for her, following them with her jeans.
“You don’t have to baby me,” she said, snatching her bra from the bedpost and putting it on.
“I’m not trying to. I was just trying to help.” I backed off and dressed myself. It never bothered me when Katie talked like that to me. I was pretty sure I was the only person who saw this side of her. To everyone else she was sweetness and light. I got the sarcastic side. But sarcasm was often tinged with truth. More so than niceness.
“I shouldn’t have done this. I should have done what they said and taken some time alone instead of f**king you a bunch of times. I always do this and it never ends up working out.”
“It’s fine, Katie. It doesn’t matter to me either way.”
She looked up from adjusting the buttons on her pink shirt. I’d become immune to the amount of pink she surrounded herself with. Somehow.
“It doesn’t matter?”
“No. This was never anything special. Just two people hav**g s*x.” I zipped my pants and did my belt. Getting caught had totally killed my buzz, at least for a moment.
“Then what was all that about your music and singing me that song? What the hell was that?”
I shrugged. We hadn’t had any more late night conversations, and I regretted that one. I’d let her get too close. I should have just come over and f**ked her like she wanted and then she wouldn’t be looking at me like this. All sweet and hurt. “A verbal distraction, like you said. You said you needed something to distract you. I provided it. You’re welcome.”
She stood up, hands on hips. “Are you f**king serious?”
“Why, what did you think this was?”
“I don’t know,” she snapped. “Just go. I can deal with this by myself.”
“I told you that you don’t always get what you want, but you asked for this. You said sex with no strings. Don’t get mad at me for giving you what you asked for. If you want more, you have to tell me. I’m not a f**king mind reader.” I wasn’t sure if she even wanted more. I probably was just a distraction for her until someone better came along. That hurt more than I thought it would.
She opened and closed her mouth, and I could tell she wanted to scream at me and probably slap me in the face.
“Go ahead. Let me have it,” I said, holding my arms out so she could get a good shot.
She swallowed and I swore I saw some moisture in her eyes. She was hurt, but she wasn’t going to admit it. “Just get out of my room, Stryker.”
A few weeks ago, I would have left, but I couldn’t. I’d left her crying once and I was going to do it again. This damn girl had actually gotten to me.
“You don’t always get what you want. So no, I’m not going to leave. Not until we sort this out.”
“What do you want from me, Stryker?” She tried to push me aside, as if she was going to storm out of her own room.
“I don’t want anything from you. I’m not Zack.” Just saying his name made me want to hit something.
She inhaled sharply, as if I’d punched her. That shock was replaced with anger in a blink.
“Screw you.” Tears dripped down her cheeks and onto her chin. I reached up to wipe them away and she didn’t stop me.
“Hey. I just wanted you to know that I’m not him. And I will never be like him.”
She tried to pull away, but held her chin so she couldn’t.
“I. Am. Not. Zack. Got it?” Her eyes finally met mine. She sniffed and nodded.
“I know you’re not him. You’re…you’re nothing like him.” She gripped my wrists, but didn’t pull them away from her face. “Who are you Stryker Grant?”
I said the first thing that came to my mind. “I’m a guy who wants to toss you back in bed and finish what we started.”
So we did.
It was a little slower this time, a little sweeter. She let me kiss her stomach and she kissed mine. Afterward, I didn’t get up right away to put my clothes on and she didn’t either.
“Do you want me to stay?” She was on her stomach and I was on my back, one of her blankets covering us.
She folded her arms under her chin and turned her head toward me. “You don’t have to.”
“I’m not asking if I have to. I’m asking if you want me to.”
She smiled. “As long as you don’t mind sleeping in a pink bed.”
“I’m confident enough in my manhood to sleep in a pink bed, thank you very much. You are talking to a guy who used to paint his fingernails.” I held up my now-unpainted hands. They almost always had grease under them from working on one car project or another, and my fingers were all covered in callouses from playing various instruments.
“You did?”
“Yeah, in high school. Got pretty good at it.” I also had spiked hair and wore a lot of chains, but I didn’t tell her that. I wasn’t proud of that phase of my life. There was no way that Katie would have f**ked that guy. Plus, that guy wouldn’t have been caught dead with a girl who surrounded herself with so much pink. We would have dined on opposite sides of the cafeteria and only crossed paths in homeroom. She would have called me a freak and I would have called her a mindless Barbie.
“I can always do my left hand, but I suck at my right.” She held put her hand up and I met her palm with mine.
“I could do them for you, if you want. If that wouldn’t be absolutely weird.”
She laughed. “It’s a little weird, but I’m okay with that.”
We spent the rest of the night talking while I painted first her fingernails and then her toenails with pink and used a toothpick to add little white dots.
“You’re good at that,” she said as I blew on her toes to dry them.
“Thank you.” I screwed the caps back on the polish bottles and put them on her desk as she inspected my work.
“I know you’re not Zack. That was never a question. Just so you know,” she said.
I crawled back under the blanket.
“Are you sure you want me to stay?” She traced the treble clef on my shoulder.
“Yes,” she said, getting under the blanket with me.
Chapter Four
Katie
Stryker never asked me for a definition of our relationship status and I didn’t feel the need for one. He was different. I didn’t want to put him in the relationship column with all the other guys I’d dated. Not that I was or was ever going to date Stryker. He wasn’t the boyfriend type. He was type-less. Not a friend, not a boyfriend. He was a guy. A guy I had sex with and who painted my toenails and let me bitch about my problems and took my sarcasm and thought I was funny.
Stryker was right; he wasn’t Zack.
I was still dealing with presents and calls and notes from Zack. Surprisingly, he hadn’t shown up at my door, so maybe he was finally getting the hint. Or maybe I was just being naïve. I hung out with Britt and Karina, but they just told me I should forgive Zack and let it go. Not f**king likely. But I smiled and told them I had homework to do and just ignored their texts after that. They didn’t understand.
More often than not, I came home to find Lottie and at least one member of our little group deep in conversation that cut off the second I opened the door. I pretended not to notice and they started getting more stealthy about it. As November wore on, the presents piled up, taking up more and more space under my bed. By this time I had at least a couple hundred dollars’ worth of fuck-up gifts, but I just kicked them further under and blasted Miranda Lambert’s “Mama’s Broken Heart” when I thought about them.
I was holding things mostly together, or at least giving the appearance of it, until one Friday afternoon when I came home early from class with an upset stomach–I suspected the shrimp scampi from the cafeteria–and was all set to crawl into bed and die, when I noticed there was someone standing in front of my door, waiting for me. He smiled the second he saw me. Yeah, no more, buddy. That shit doesn’t work on this girl anymore.
“Hey, babe.” He was freshly-showered and wearing the shirt I’d gotten him for our one month anniversary, and standing in front of my door holding a bouquet of yellow roses that still had moisture on the petals from the florist.
“What are you doing here, Zack? I don’t want to talk to you.” I thought he was going to keep blocking my door, but he moved aside so I could swipe my card.
“I know, I know. I brought you these. Yellow roses mean ‘I’m sorry’. I looked it up.” He gave me the knee-weakening smile that had found me across a crowded room at that party last summer. I looked away from it, like looking away from the sun so you didn’t burn your retinas.
“I’m sorry, Zack. I don’t want to talk to you.” I tried to push the door open, but he stopped me.