And I’m spiraling because I don’t have either.
Where the hell is she?
“Hey, you going to make me wait all night?” Emerson’s voice drifts down from the top of the stairs. My knee stops shaking the instant I whip around and take her in. My heart calms down to a less intense beat. The desire to go for a run dissipates with the sound of her soft voice. The need to pour a drink fades. The need to do anything to keep my hands busy is gone. I’m still. A sense of calm washes over me as though someone poured a bucket of warm water over my head.
She’s standing at the top of the stairs in one of my hoodies, one hand on her hip and the other hand on the banister. Her red hair is a mess on top of her head as she chews her bottom lip.
I grin at her and Dad claps me on the back, both of us relieved she’s here. “Good. I can go back to my movie. I’m getting too old to play ball at this hour.” He laughs and goes back to the sofa.
I run up the stairs to grab her hand and pull her into my room. “I thought you weren’t coming.”
“I thought you had company,” she shoots back, moving toward my bed before pausing and inspecting it. She pokes and prods the sheets as though they’re a dead animal and she’s waiting for them to come alive. “I’m not sitting on your sex sheets, am I?”
My eyes widen and my breath catches in my throat. I cleaned up all the evidence that Eliza was here. “How did you know?”
“That you had sex?”
“Yeah.”
She points to the open box of condoms on the desk and screws up her nose. “So, the sheets?”
I bark out a laugh. “I changed them.”
She kicks off her shoes, an old pair of mine from years ago. “How was it?”
“What?”
Emerson rolls her eyes, making a circle with her fingers on her right hand before poking her left index finger in and out.
“Terrible. Underwhelming. Doesn’t count as sex.”
“What?” Em’s eyebrows shoot up.
“Pretty sure for it to be counted as sex there needs to be actual penetration.”
She pretends to gag at the word penetration while I attempt to hide my amusement. “There wasn’t?”
I shake my head.
“You know where it goes, right?” She gestures toward my crotch.
“Yes. Do you think I’m that stupid?” I argue, folding my arms over my chest. But, she’s not wrong. I’ve never seen a chick naked until tonight, and apart from a general idea where things align, the mechanics of sex is over my head.
Emerson pushes me to the side and chuckles before climbing onto the center of my freshly made bed. “How’s Eliza?”
“Pissed.” I shrug, throwing myself down beside her and reaching for her hand.
“Because you couldn’t get it up?”
“Why do you assume it’s my fault?” I bring her hand to my chest and hold it there. Still on edge, her touch calms me faster than any medication or a game of basketball. “Ever consider it was her who couldn’t get it up?”
“Girls don’t have ‘it’ to get up, Colt. Besides, it’s always your fault.”
I laugh and close my eyes. “Fine, I couldn’t, but she was pissed for other reasons.”
“What did you do?”
“Kicked her out before her body had stopped quaking and she’d pulled her nails from my chest.” I squirm on the bed remembering the sting as Eliza scratched her nails down my chest. I was sure she would tear a nipple off at one point.
Disaster.
“One.” Emerson yanks her hand out of mine, the freckles on her nose crinkling as she screws her face up in disgust and holds up her finger. “Gross. And two, nails in your chest? Really?”
“Yep.”
“Why?”
“I’m that good?”
She huffs out a breath. “But you didn’t have sex.”
“Apparently riding my thigh is just as good.”
Em tips her head back and laughs. “I don’t believe you.”
Sitting up, I lift my shirt over my head. “See for yourself.”
Emerson’s fingers trace over my chest, circling around my nipple and causing goosebumps to break out over my skin as her green eyes take in every scratch Eliza left.
“How’d she take it?”
“Like a fucking champ.” I pull my shirt back down and bite back a grin.
Her fist comes out of nowhere, punching me in the shoulder. “No. You pig. How’d she take you kicking her out after not having sex?”
“Oh, I thought you meant how’d she take my thigh.” I don’t try and hide my smile this time. It’s impossible. Her reaction is priceless. I catch her fist before she hits me again. “Because she took it like a champ, even if I lay there like a dead fish at half-mast.”
“Fish don’t have masts,” Emerson points out unhelpfully.
“I mean, I wasn’t into it at all. But she seemed to have the time of her life. So...”
“So, what did you do?”
“Recited basketball stats in my head so I didn’t lose focus.”
“Did it help?”
“Half-mast, Em. Did you miss the part where she rode my thigh?”
She laughs and falls on her back. “Was it performance anxiety?”
“Who knows? But the second she called me daddy, I lost all interest.”
Em’s laugh is loud and contagious, and I laugh with her. I can now it’s over. Before had been a nightmare. It took all my self-control not to shove Eliza out the window when she moaned ‘daddy’.
I shudder.
“Daddy? Tell me you’re joking?” She wraps her arms around her stomach and bursts into a fit of giggles.
Snorts.
She snorts, she’s laughing so much.
I glare at her and she shuts up.
“So, it was Eliza then?”
“I guess.” I shrug.
Or hell, maybe not. Perhaps it’s because I’m awkward as fuck around girls. Words don’t come out right. I don’t act the way society thinks I should. I’ve never kissed a girl, unless you count Emerson when I was fourteen, and that was because we watched a romance movie and wanted to try it out. It was a peck on the lips, and we swore we’d never do it again because it was gross. And super weird.
I’m different to everyone my age. How many twenty-year-old guys are virgins and have next to no dating experience? Though I don’t care how people perceive me, I’m still uncomfortable around people.
Em’s the only one who doesn’t judge me, the only one who doesn’t care if I suddenly lose track of what I’m doing or if I lose interest in what she’s saying. She doesn’t care we go out for ice-cream only to end up at the basketball courts burning off my excess energy with no ice-cream. Okay she might care about that, because Em and ice-cream is not something you want to mess with. Those incidents don’t happen as often with her, but she’s as patient as a saint when they do.
“Okay, so back to my first question. How’d she take it?”
“Not great. Told me if she walked out that door then I needn’t bother calling her again.”
Emerson shakes her head. “You let her walk out, didn’t you?”