I pull away. “Connor …”
He smiles and drops his head.
“I’m sorry,” I say. I think I must be defective for not kissing him, because he’s really handsome and sweet.
He shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it.”
“I want to, I do …” I say, slurring but sincere.
“Yeah, but I get the feeling you want to kiss someone else more.”
He touches my cheek, and I don’t have a chance to tell him he’s wrong before he’s disappearing up the stairs.
The music changes, and it makes the floor shift so much I have to sit down.
I stagger toward the couches. They seem so far away.
Someone grabs my arm and guides me. Without looking, I know it’s Holt.
Jack appears on the other side and laughs. “Taylor, you are sooooo fucked up!”
Hyena giggles all around.
Warm hands are trying to push me onto the couch, but Jack gives me the bottle again, and it would be rude not to drink. I slap at the helpy hands and take the bottle.
I sip it and pull a face. It’s gross but awesome.
Everyone laughs, and so do I. Too loud. Too shrill. Drunk me laughs like an idiot.
“Okay, that’s it, she’s had enough.”
Holt’s voice. Gruff. Sounds like my father.
“Dude, no one’s forcing it down her throat. She’s a big girl.”
“Pass the bottle to someone else, Avery. Now.”
I stumble and everyone giggles.
Obviously, drunk-Cassie is hilarious.
They’re all blurry now. I’m blinking way too long. I sway, and warm hands are on me again.
“Christ, Taylor, would you sit before you fall down?”
Cranky voice. Doesn’t approve of Drunk Cassie.
Drunk Cassie doesn’t give a flying fuck.
Giggles.
Just said the “F” word. In my brain.
Naughty Drunk Cassie.
I flop down on the sofa. It’s soft, and I’m tired. Seriously tired.
I lean against his body. Hard and warm. Smells good. I turn my face so I can smell better. Cotton shirt. Shoulder. Grab and sniff. Nice.
“Fuck me.” Man-voice. Sexy.
I grab more of him. Tug at his collar so I can get closer. Under the collar is skin. Warm. Tingly under my fingers.
“Jesus, Taylor …” His voice isn’t angry anymore. Different. Begging. “Stop.”
“No. S’nice. Smellsgood.”
Want more warm so I climb onto his lap. Legs either side of hips. Nose in neck. Hands in hair. So good.
“For fuck’s sake.” He pushes me away, and I pout.
I look at his face. So handsome when he frowns.
“Taylor, stop. You’re drunk.”
I flop forward.
“Please,” I say, fitting myself against his body. “Juswanna sleep for a minute.”
Nuzzle into neck again. Breathe in warm boy-skin.
He’s tense underneath me, but I’m comfortable. He smells amazing.
“Hey, check it out!” Shhh, Jack. Too loud. “Taylor’s finally found a way to rattle the unflappable Holt. I think he’s blushing!”
More laughter.
I whisper, “Shh,” and my lips touch his neck. He groans, and I want to do it again.
“Avery, you asshole.” He’s talking softly, but it’s still too loud. I try to cover his mouth with my hand, but he pulls it away. “She drank too much and she’s going to be sick.”
“She’s fine, man. Look at that smile. She can’t get enough of you.
I wouldn’t be complaining if I was in your shoes.”
I want everyone to stop talking. Just wanna sleep.
I moan and bury my head further into Holt’s neck. He squirms underneath me.
“Get her some water before I kick your fucking ass.” His chest vibrates against my boobs when he talks. Feels nice. Manly.
“Okay, okay. Christ, take a fucking pill.”
I snuggle down. “Stoptalkin. Shh. Need to sleep.”
“Taylor.” His voice is softer, less cranky. “You need to get off me. Please.”
“Donwanna. Feels good.” I put my hand inside his shirt. Nice muscles. So nice.
“Fuck, Taylor. For the love of God, stop, before I do something really fucking stupid.”
His hands are on my hips, trying to move me. I move but not off him. I press down.
I feel him against me. Hard. God. So hard.
He groans again, his face in my neck. “Jesus …”
My whole body burns. Aches. Wants.
I move against him.
He swears, and it’s all sexy. His lips are near my ear.
“Cassie, not like this.” He grabs my hips and stills me. “Not when you’re drunk and won’t remember it tomorrow. Stop.”
I’m burning, but he won’t let me move.
I slump. Defeated.
“Cassie, look at me.”
Eyes open.
Oh, not a good move.
Everything is swaying.
Feel seasick.
“Cassie?”
The world is tilting. He’s watching me. Concerned.
“Cassie?”
“Mnotfeelingsogood.”
Stand. Almost fall over. Hands on me. Strong. Burning.
“Shit, woman. Slow down.”
“Mfine.”
Pull away. Stagger down the hall.
The bathroom. Close door. Toilet too far away. Crawl to it.
Stomach tightens, mouth opens.
Brown liquid and corn chips explode out. It burns coming up like it did going down. Stomach heaves till there’s nothing left, and I’m tired. So tired.
I close my eyes. Swirls of black and gray are there, and I’m on a boat in a storm, swaying and tilting.
When I open my eyes, I’m being lifted out of a car and he’s carrying me. He has my keys, and as soon as the front door opens, I make a groaning sound. Then I’m in front of the toilet, vomiting while he holds my hair and rubs my back. I’m crying and gross while he’s shushing me and wiping my face with a cool washcloth.
Then he puts me in bed. The swirls of black wrap around me, and I’m gone.
I wake up, and everything hurts. The sun is too bright. A stabbing pain shoots straight through my eyeballs into my brain. My stomach is crampy, and my abs feel like I’ve done a thousand crunches.
I groan and pull my pillow over my head, but there are hands pulling it away. I crack open an eye to see Holt next to me, holding out water and Tylenol.
“Take these.” He talks quietly, but even that’s too loud for my pounding head.
I try to sit up, but it hurts too much. I roll onto my side and take the pills with the full glass of water. It does nothing to flush away the horrible taste in my mouth. I slump back onto my pillow.
I must fall asleep again, because when I wake up I can smell bacon cooking and hear someone moving around in the kitchen.
I stumble to the bathroom and pee like I’ve never peed before. The lure of a warm shower is too much to resist, so I peel off my clothes and stand under the spray until I feel more or less human. I wash my hair and scrub my body, then wrap myself in a towel before brushing my teeth and tongue. Twice.
By the time I’m done, I feel a little better. My head’s still pounding and my stomach is unsettled, but I can function.
I open the bathroom door to find Holt standing there. He takes in my wet hair and my towel-covered body before he makes it back up to my face.
He clears his throat. “Uh … hey.”
“Hey,” I say. It’s so bizarre to see him in my apartment, I wonder if I’m still incredibly drunk.
“I … uh … made you something to eat,” he says and shoves his hands in his pockets.
I frown. “We have no food.”
“I went and bought some. You should eat. It’ll make you feel better.”
“Okay.”
He stands there, towering in the doorway, st
aring and biting the inside of his cheek.
“Uh, Holt?”
“Hmm?”
“You have to move so I can go to my room and put on some clothes.”
“Oh … right.”
He turns and walks back to the kitchen.
I throw on some sweats and run a brush through my hair. Then I’m sitting at our tiny dining table with Holt. He’s cooked eggs, bacon, and hash browns. There’s a cup of coffee in front of me, along with a glass of orange juice. It’s a truly bizarre situation.
“Uh … wow,” I say. “This is … wow. You … you made hash browns? From scratch?”
“Yeah,” he says and pops some egg into his mouth. “It’s not hard.”
“Maybe not for you. I can’t even boil water without a recipe.”
He’s watching me, and even though my stomach is refusing to get excited about food, I eat.
“Hmm,” I mumble around a mouthful of hash browns and bacon. “This is really good.”
“My mom’s a private chef. She’s taught me stuff.” He shrugs and keeps eating. Every now and then he glances up at me, his eyes dark and unreadable.
When we’re done, he clears the plates as I sip my coffee. I don’t mean to, but I stare at his ass as he washes the dishes.
I shouldn’t stare at his ass. No good can come of it. Still, he’s being nice to me, so I decide to be nice to his ass and allow myself to notice how hot it looks in his jeans.
He turns around to lean against the sink and without planning it, my focus is now firmly on his crotch.
He catches me staring. I grab my coffee and take a huge gulp, but it goes down the wrong way. I choke and cough.
“You okay?”
“Yep.”
Smooth.
No wonder I’ve never had a boyfriend.
“So …” he says, and gestures to my phone on the kitchen bench. “Your roommate called to see how you were and to tell you she’ll be home later.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“She said to ask if she needs to do your laundry for the rest of the month.”
I smile.
Well, I did sexually harass Holt. Even though we didn’t kiss or anything, I wonder if Ruby would count that as making out.
I blush when I think about it.
“Look, Holt, about last night—”
“Yeah, about that,” he says while rubbing his eyes. “What the hell were you thinking, drinking that much? You could have gotten alcohol poisoning.”
“I was”—trying to be something I’m not—“trying to have a good time.”
“Did you have a good time projectile vomiting? Was that fun?”
I shake my head. “For a while I felt good. People were laughing.”
“That’s because you were shitfaced and rubbing yourself on every man in the room.”
“Not every man,” I say defensively. “Only Connor. And … you.”
“Yeah, well, that’s enough,” he mutters. “What’s up with you and Connor, anyway? One minute you’re kissing him, and the next you’re all over me.”
“I didn’t kiss Connor. He kissed me.”
“Semantics.”
“And it was barely a kiss, anyway.”
“So, I guess you’re a horny drunk.”
“I wasn’t horny,” I say indignantly.
Oh God, I was so horny.
“Well, it certainly felt like it from where I was sitting.”
“I was … well … you were there and I was … uh …”
“Horny?”
“Drunk, and that’s why it happened. No other reason. Normally, I wouldn’t do that. To you of all people.”
“Because you hate me.”
“Exactly.”
“But you still want me.”
“What?! No!”
“Yes.”
“You’re delusional.”
“Hey, you were the one sniffing me and kissing my neck and grinding yourself on my … well … on me. If I wasn’t such a gentleman, we probably would have fucked right there in front of all of our classmates.”
His words are ridiculous, but my body doesn’t know that because the tingling ache I felt last night is back with a vengeance.
“Holt, two people who hate each other do not …”
“Fuck?”
“Have sex.”
“Sure, they do. Happens all the time.”
“Not to me, it doesn’t.”
“Pity.”
We fall into silence.
I smile and shake my head.
He frowns. “What?”
“I can’t figure you out, that’s all. One minute you give off this bad-boy vibe, like the world’s going to end if you’re nice to me, and the next minute you’re this really good guy who takes me home, buys food, and cooks me breakfast. Why would you do that?”
He picks at his fingernails. “I’ve been asking myself the same question all night.”
“And what did you come up with?”
“I have no fucking clue.”
“A moment of weakness?”
“Obviously.”
“Maybe you’re more good guy than bad boy after all.”
He gives a short laugh. “Taylor, I’m a lot of things, but I can assure you that the one thing I’m not is a good guy. Just ask my ex-girlfriends.”
His face drops. Like he just told me something he didn’t mean to.
Before I can say anything else, he stands, brushes himself off, and takes a step toward the door.
“Well, I’m outta here. You’ve probably got things to do.”
“I don’t have anything planned,” I say. He stops to look at me. “You can … ah … hang out if you want.”
I never expected to crave Holt’s company, but part of me does. A lot.
“I … uh …” He looks at his feet. “Nah. I have to go.”
I don’t like that I’m disappointed.
“Oh. Okay. Well, thanks for the, you know, hair-holding and breakfast and stuff.”
“Yeah, no problem.”
I walk him to the door. He steps outside and turns to face me. “So, I guess I’ll see you Monday.”
“Yeah. Guess so.”
As he turns to go, I say, “So, are you going to talk to me next week, or was this a momentary lapse in your resolve to not be friends?”
He turns back, almost smiling. “Taylor, us being friends would be … complicated.”
“More complicated than whatever the hell we are now?”
“Yes.”
“Why? Is the world going to end if we hang out?”
He fixes me with an intense expression. “Yes. The seas will boil, the skies will darken, and every volcano in the world will erupt, thus bringing an end to civilization as we know it. So for the sake of humanity … in fact, for the sake of everything you hold dear … stay away from me.” He’s so serious, it makes me think he isn’t joking.
“Ethan Holt, you’re the strangest person I’ve ever met,” I say.
He nods. “I’m going to take that as a compliment.”
“You would.”
He stares for a moment longer before shaking his head and walking to his car.
I watch until his taillights disappear around the corner.
After I close the door, I retreat to my room and crawl into bed. As I snuggle into my pillow, I wonder which Holt I’ll see next week: the douche with a giant chip on his shoulder who boils my blood, or the sweet man who made me hash browns from scratch.
Part of me hopes for both.
FIVE
BIRTHDAY WISHES
Westchester, New York
The Diary of Cassandra Taylor
Fourth Week of Classes
Dear Diary,
Today is my birthday.
Yep. Nineteen years of trying to be everything to everyone and ending up as no one to myself.
How the hell did this happen?
I don’t know if I’m depressed because I feel I should have achieved more with my life by now, or be
cause I’m a nineteen-year-old virgin who desperately wants sex.
I’m pretty sure it’s that second thing.
I’ve never had a boyfriend. Never had a truly toe-curling kiss. Never had a boy touch my boobs or my butt, or pretty much any part of my naked body, and Lord, I’m desperate for it.
Most nights I touch myself pretending the hands aren’t mine as I search for the crashing pleasure I keep reading about in Harlequin romance novels and Cosmo. But every night I give up, because even though I can feel something building—something shining and explosive and just out of reach—I can never grasp it. It’s like I’m hovering on the edge of a sneeze, and I’m inhaling and inhaling and inhaling, but the orgasmic exhale never comes. Literally.
Of course, it doesn’t help that I’ve recently discovered Internet porn and have become obsessed with it.
At first I was embarrassed as I watched extreme close-ups of male and female genitalia thrusting against each other, but the embarrassment was quickly replaced by fascination. Horny, aroused fascination.
Mostly with penises.
Oh, the pretty penises. Not flaccid ones of course, because they’re just floppy, wrinkly, and gross. But the erect ones? Wow. Beautiful. Magnificent. Incredibly sexy.
I’m enthralled by them.
I bet they feel amazing. Is that why men are so obsessed with their own?
The closest I’ve ever come to one was the night I drunkenly ground myself against Holt, and although that felt nice, I want to feel one in my hand.
Maybe Holt will let me touch his. I bet he has a very nice penis. I bet it’s glorious, like his stupid perfect face, and gorgeous eyes, and muscled body. I bet if he entered his penis in a competition, it would win “Best in Show” and he could walk around with a giant blue ribbon stuck to his crotch.
If I asked nicely, I wonder if he’d use his pretty penis to remove my pesky virginity.
I’m willing to bet I’m the only virgin in my class. I was holding out hope that Michelle Tye was still in the “V” sorority, but she came to class the other day bragging about how she finally met up with a guy she’d been cyber-sexing, and they humped each other senseless last weekend. She whispered to me that she came four times. Four!
Good God, I’d be happy just to come once, and she gets four? That’s plain greedy.
I haven’t spoken to her for a few days. My jealous vagina forbids it.
I swear that I’m so desperate sometimes I just think I’m going to grab the next guy who comes up to me, tear his clothes off, and molest him on the spot. That I’m going to—