Page 39 of Matched By My Rival
I made it out the door in two minutes, phone clutched tight in my hand. Guys were milling in the hall, laughing and joking—probably waking every other person in this building on a Sunday morning.
Checking the time—nine-fifteen—I said, “Let’s get out of here so people can sleep.”
Johnston slung an arm over my shoulders, nearly knocking me to my knees, which reminded me of the night before. “Someone needs coffee and greasy bacon and eggs.”
“Sounds like the perfect training food,” I muttered.
“Whoa!” Cruz looked up and down the hall as if searching for someone. “I thought I heard Coach just then.”
Johnston snorted. “Coach’s pet, maybe.”
“Fuck you guys,” I said with a laugh as I shrugged out from under Johnston’s arm.
Johnston raised his arm in the air. “To Winston’s! Let’s roll!”
Winston’s was a bar by night and a brunch buffet by day. The hours were limited—9 a.m. to 11 a.m. only—but the owners had fun with it, usually including a few interesting drink specials whipped up by their mixologist, both alcoholic and not.
We crowded in, taking most of two tables, with the ten of us that Johnston had managed to get out of bed. Brady, our right tackle, didn’t even bother waiting for the server. He went straight to the buffet and loaded up fluffy scrambled eggs, bacon, and biscuits with savory sausage gravy.
“Damn, save some for the rest of us,” Cruz groused.
Brady was already shoveling eggs into his mouth. “Wha?” he mumbled. “Hungry.”
The guys started trash talking, which was inevitable when we all got together, and I pulled out my phone. Even though I expected Simon to ignore me, I couldn’t resist checking my messages.
He hadn’t answered, but he hadn’t blocked me. That was something, right?
I’d gone straight back to the dorm last night after my cocky exit from Tracks. It’d been an act. Simon had been so combative, insisting nothing we did meant anything, and I’d wanted to call his bluff.
I was the one bluffing, of course. I didn’tfeelcocky. Anything but. I wished now that I’d left on a different note. A more sensitive one.
I should have made sure he was okay with everything that had happened. With all the sparks that had flown between us—the lust, the hostility—I’d lost sight of the fact Simon had never been with a guy before. I’d never imagined my first encounter with BiCuriousStud would go down that way. He’d seemed tentative about his sexuality, a little nervous to explore. I’d thought we’d go slow.
But Simon and me…we had crashed into one another like a head-on collision, no warning, no time to swerve—just tangled and mangled in the aftermath.
I’d made my way back to the dorm in a daze, barely remembering the walk from the bar back to campus. I hadn’t been able to think clearly, my head too full of Simon’s lips and tongue and cock. I’d still tasted his cum in my mouth. My hand had trembled as I’d reached for my doorknob, and I’d realized my entire body was shaking, still wound up from the flood of adrenaline, even with the amazing orgasm. I’d been on the verge of a crash.
I blew Simon Prentiss,I’d thought. Holy fuck.
The reality had hit me again and again—as if I’d forgotten, and my brain had felt the need to remind me that, yes, I’d fucked around with Simon, and no, it hadn’t been a dream.
BiCuriousStud is Simon. That means Simon was with his first guy ever, and that guy was me…
“Who’d you bang last night? Must have been one hell of a girl.”
I looked up, startled, as Cruz brought me back to the moment. He leaned in to get a look at my phone. I quickly shoved it back into my pocket.
“No one.”
“No one has a lot of your attention,” he pointed out.
“What’s this, now? Someone actually had sex with Reed? Shemustbe special.”
The trash talk began in earnest, but I didn’t mind. If they were playfully insulting me, they weren’t asking questions. I rolled my eyes and flipped them off, grinning as if they’d busted me.
But I couldn’t help but wonder: if they knew a guy held my attention—not some pretty college coed—would they still be smiling? Would they laugh and joke with me, insulting me good-naturedly like one of their own?
The server arrived to rattle off specials. Johnston ordered a pitcher of blood-orange screwdrivers, while Darnell ordered a Hail Mary—an extra-spicy bloody Mary. He offered to get a pitcher, but no one else wanted to drink that shit. Hinkel and Cleary were both underage, though, so they had to order “virgin” juices, and the guys turned their razzing to them. Hinkel got a drink called the Virgin Voodoo—green apple, pineapple, and lime—and Cleary ordered the Cherry Pop Twist, which was made of lime juice, sprite, and cherry-flavored syrup.
