Page 25 of Ruck Me

“No, not exactly. It’s not bad, I guess. Just weird. It changes things.”

“I don’t mean to sound pushy, but you’re going to have to stop speaking in riddles.”

I blew out a breath. “I know. I’m just so confused, I don’t even know how to articulate what I’m thinking.”

“Why don’t you start at the beginning?”

I spent the next ten minutes giving Tanya a play-by-play of everything that happened between Eoin and me, right up to him asking me to be his girlfriend and how I’d sort of freaked out and basically ran to mycar.

“Wow,” she said after a couple of seconds.

“Yeah, wow.”

“I’ve gotta be honest, I did not see that one coming.”

“You?” I cried. “What about me? I’m sitting there thinking how lovely it was to kiss him and how I’d like to keep doing it whenever I could and then he blindsides me by trying to make more out of it than itwas.”

“Is that how you reallyfeel?”

“Of course,” I replied, a bit too quickly.

“It just seems to me that if you were set on having Eoin as a hookup buddy and nothing more, you wouldn’t have called me. Didn’t you just say you’ve not slept in three nights? People who don’t care don’t lose sleep, Aoife.”

“Of course I care,” I fired back. “But I don’t want a boyfriend.” I let out an exasperated breath. “That’s what the whole Kevin thing was about. I don’t want a relationship; I just want sex, damn it! Is that too much toask?”

Tanya didn’t respond right away, which was never a good sign. “Do you want me to tell you what you want to hear, or do you want me to tell you what I think?”

“I’m guessing from your tone they aren’t the same thing.”

“Nope.”

I sighed. “Give it to me straight, I guess.”

“Okay, I think you could do much worse than Eoin. He’s a sweet boy and you’re a sweet girl and you guys actually have a lot in common. If you haven’t been able to sleep since he dropped you off, it’s probably because you feel bad about the way you left things. Which tells me that at a minimum, you’re re-considering what he said, and at most, you’re wishing you’d given him a different answer.”

“I dunno, Tanya. I’ve honestly never thought about Eoin that way before.”

“But you arenow.”

It wasn’t a question.

I blew out a breath and agreed with her assessment. “I amnow.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“Well, for one, I think I hurt his feelings. He hasn’t texted me in three days and we texted every day lastweek.”

“Have you textedhim?”

“No, but—”

“No buts, Aoife. If you want to talk to him, talk tohim.”

“But what if he doesn’t want to talk to me?” I moaned.

“He asked you to be his girlfriend, Aoife. I’m pretty sure he wants to talk toyou.”

“You didn’t see his face though. He was pissed.”

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