Page 42 of Tricky Girls

‘Yeah, she’s the last person you want to get caught with after dark.’

I move up the bed, practically hugging the wall. The mattress dips beside me as she climbs in.

‘Warm under here,’ she murmurs.

‘The heat of my despair.’

‘Poetic.’ She arranges herself beneath the covers and then everything falls quiet.

‘Soooo,’she draws out, ‘that spoon…’

I release a sigh. ‘Get on with it then. Before my intimacy issues rear their heads.’

I close my eyes as her body presses against my back. She’s warm and soft and I think this is just what I need. Her arm comes over my middle and I hear her sigh.

‘Okay?’ she asks.

‘Okay,’ I whisper.

We don’t talk. No point. Pretty obvious how I’m feeling and sometimes actions are louder than words anyway. It’s just enough that she sought me out, wordlessly offering comfort. I don’t know her well, but I think she’s a giant sweetie beneath all that swagger and flirtation.

Haz makes it obvious what her intentions are, but I do think Elly could be content with just friendship.

I wait for the discomfort that usually comes with affection, but it never does. Either I’m beyond caring or those walls just never existed with Elly, as easy as she is to be with.

Haz intimidates me. As fun and as confident as she is, sometimes she comes close to that line, and I feel myself tensing up and backpedalling. It’s not a bad tenseness, just one heavy with potential. I know she wants to fuck me and sometimes when I’m drunk, like the other night at Vipers, it’s easier for me to let dumb things like that happen.

Fucking a girl has never once crossed my mind but, up until lately, it’s also true that the opportunity had just never presented itself.

Now it has it probably wouldn’t take much to give in. Which should probably be a bigger deal than it feels. But Haz is handsome, beyond confident, and with that fake dick a permanent attachment, I might regret it in the morning, but at the time…

But here, with Elly, I know this cuddle is enough.

I clear my throat as something enters my mind. ‘Can I ask you something?’

‘Ask away.’

‘What did Nic mean when she said you need to remember how you got here?’

‘Ah.’ I hear the grin in Elly’s voice. ‘My dirty little secret.’

‘What’s that?’

She noses my hair out the way so she can whisper into my ear, ‘That I’m scholarship too.’

‘What?’ I half turn to her. ‘Really? And here I thought you were just one of the rich kids.’

‘Nope. Furthest thing from rich, me.’

‘So how come you got to live here for first year? Oh, wait—Nic?’

‘Yep. Nic. I befriended her in freshers and she basically blackmailed student services to let me live here with her and Haz.’

‘Where were you before?’

‘Ludwig House. For exactly a week before I was kidnapped.’

‘Must be nice having friends in high places.’

---