Page 78 of Unsteady

But, I don’t. If anything, I feel worse.

TWENTY-SIX

SADIE

“You swear you haven’t had sex with him yet?”

We’re sitting on a pallet of pillows and blankets—almost all of them Aurora’s, half homemade gifts from her grandmother, a whole assortment of colors that looks like a muted rainbow threw up. Both lying flat on our backs, nearly cheek to cheek with legs outstretched to either side of our small living room area. Rora’s lengthy curls fan around me, tangling with the straight silk of my own.

My cheeks heat under the slight embarrassment at Rora’s question. If anyone else asked, I might rip their head off, but I know Rora means well.

“I swear.” I sigh.

And it’s the truth. We’ve done nearly everything else, but every time we start to go in that direction—with me leading the charge—he redirects me with his mouth on me so quickly I can’t complain before he’s wrenching endless orgasms from me.

The boy has a magic tongue.

“Why not?”

There’s a lot of ways I could answer, but I don’t want to say what I really think—that he didn’t want me in that way. Maybe he heard about last year after all.

“I think he was taking things slow,” I say, the sting of past tense hot on my tongue as it falls from my lips.Was. “But it doesn’t matter. And besides,” I say, sitting up on my elbows and leaning over her so my hair forms a little curtain over us. “I thoughtyousaid no talking about boys. If that’s back on the table, you need to tell me about the student.”

The Student.

Rora is an accomplished student, a tutor in mathematics, English and multiple sciences. She’s an overachiever in all aspects, and has been since freshman year. In that, she has kept herself professional.

Until recently, where she keeps talking about one of the people she tutors, labeled in her phone asStudentwhich is odd already because she uses email to track students, not her personal number.

I haven’t seen the messages, but I know they are there and she likes him—just from her perpetual smile while she schedules their sessions.

If that’s even what she’s doing.

“Oh, suddenly someone is silent.” I laugh.

We both push up and rest our backs against the small sage sofa we found on the side of the road and spent weeks cleaning, only to spill an entire glass of red wine on it while celebrating the following weekend.

She shrugs, but still refuses to say a word about it.

“Right.” I sigh. “Well, how is tutoring Matt Fredderic going then?”

She takes a big gulp of her Big Gulp that we filled with cherry slush earlier. “It’s fine. Easy.”

“I’m surprised he needs a tutor. Isn’t he sleeping with all his professors for good grades? Or does he just not have any female teachers to seduce this year?”

Rora rolls her eyes. “Very funny.”

I start to say something again, when my phone starts ringing.

It’s an unknown number, but the area code is local. Normally I wouldn’t answer, but I’ve had too many scares when it comes to Oliver and Liam that I’d never forgive myself, so I hold up a finger for Rora and quickly apologize before answering.

“Hello?”

There’s loud music for a moment, before a door slams and it’s slightly quieter.

“Is this Sadie Gray?”

“Sadie Brown,” I correct, my stomach sinking because there’s only one person who calls me that.

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