Page 20 of The Trouble with Players

“Why are you even in here?” I asked.

“I got used to sleeping next to you.”

“It was twice,” I countered.

He lifted the sheets and climbed underneath, facing me on his side. “Three times.”

“I left you alone. I came in here.”

“And I followed. Ball’s in your court now,” he said.

“It was a stupid game.” I rolled away from him. “I quit.”

“Didn’t take you for a quitter,” he said, his breath now tickling the back of my neck.

I wasn’t a quitter. I was still in Cape Cod, wasn’t I? “I learned something about you tonight,” I said. “Despite your many wild nights here on the Cape, you don’t do a lot of talking.”

“Talking’s overrated.”

“It’s such a shame that these girls are missing out on all the insightful things you add to our conversations.”

He stayed silent.

“Why didn’t you tell me we went to the same school?” I asked.

“What’s it matter?” he asked. “It’s a big school. We don’t run in the same circles.”

“But you knew I went there?”

“You’re Marty Richmond’s daughter. Word gets around.”

“I’m more than Marty Richmond’s daughter.”

“Oh, I can see that.”

That seemed too easy. “So, we’ve never—”

“Slept together?”

I gasped. “What? No. I was gonna say met?”

He laughed. “I’m just messing with you.”

“It would explain what I did to piss you off so much though,” I said.

“No, that was you screaming like a banshee and throwing a chair off of a balcony.”

“You were screwing a girl on my balcony!”

“While you were supposed to be gone for the whole summer.”

“It doesn’t make it any less gross.”

“Why’s it gross? I certainly didn’t need to force her into it.”

“Oh, I could see that.”

He grew silent. Had he run out of comebacks?

---