Page 39 of Of Pucking Course

He stands up and grabs a glass from the cupboard and fills it with water. He hands it to me. “You should drink as much water as you can. It’ll help you avoid a hangover.”

I take a long sip, then another, then another. For a few minutes, we sit quietly while I drink my water and horchata and Sam eats.

I feel the buzz of the alcohol starting to dull. I’m not sober, but I’m not as drunk as I was half an hour ago at Spanky’s, thanks to the food lining my stomach now.

I think about the rounds of Never Have I Ever that we played…how they revealed that Sam might be filthier than I thought he was.

I clear my throat. “So you’re pretty kinky,” I blurt out.

Never in a million years would I have said that sober, but I’m still pretty tipsy, so the filter between my brain and my mouth isn’t working like usual.

Sam coughs and finishes chewing his bite. He swallows and smiles down at his plate, like he’s shy. “Am I?”

“Based on the answers you gave while we all played that drinking game, you are.”

He chuckles softly, still not looking at me. Then he stands up and heads back to the sink for a glass of water. He sits back down and guzzles the water.

“I don’t know about that, Dakota,” he says as he pushes aside the glass.

I tilt my head at him. “Sam. Come on. Threesomes? Handcuffs? Porn? That’s, like, the kinky starter kit right there.”

He bursts out laughing, his cheeks on fire. He grabs the empty plate and bag and starts washing up.

For a moment, I sit there, confused as to why he won’t say more. He was fine when his teammates and our friends were talking about all this while playing a game. Why can’t he talk about it now when it’s just us two?

“Don’t be shy. We’re friends. We can talk about anything, right?”

For a long moment, he holds my gaze. He sucks in a breath. “Not tonight, Dakota.”

He walks off, leaving me alone at the kitchen island, my head spinning at how abruptly he shut down that conversation.

A minute later, he’s back with two aspirin. He sets it down next to my water glass. “Take that before you go to bed, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Do you need help walking to your bedroom?” he asks.

I shake my head, feeling instantly sobered up. “I’ll be good.”

He nods. The corners of his mouth lift slightly, into a tight, not-quite smile. “Goodnight, Dakota.”

“Goodnight.”

He walks across the living room and down the hall to his bedroom. I hear the door shut quietly.

I huff out a breath, feeling embarrassed for making Sam feel weird after pushing him to talk about his bedroom preferences when he didn’t want to.

I take the aspirin, down the rest of my water, and head to bed.

In the morning, I wake to the sound of my phone buzzing with a call.

When I see Jake’s name flash across my screen, dread curdles through my stomach. I don’t want to talk to him.

I hold my breath, counting the seconds until the buzzing stops.

When it finally goes, I close my eyes and let out a breath. But then, less than a minute later, it starts up again.

Tension riddles my entire body when I think about how he used to do this when we were together. How, whenever we’d have an argument or the times we broke up, he’d call me over and over again. He’d do it to wear me down so that I’d give in to him.

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