Page 67 of Imperfections Seduced
“No, but I’m sure I will get an earful of shit I don’t want to hear from him when I leave here. I’m heading over to his place later. He ordered me over to his home to talk to me about our”—she holds her hands up making air quotation marks with her fingers— “girls’ night out.” She lets out an exaggerated sigh.
I give her a sympathetic look, because I can only imagine how upset he is going to be after I ran out on him. I hope he doesn’t take it out on Ava and blame her for what happened. “Did he sound upset when you spoke to him?”
She gets up off the chair and walks across the room to lie back on my bed, her elbows propping her up in front of me. “Upset doesn’t even describe it. He nearly took my head off yesterday when I answered my phone, whichwouldn’t have been hard to do with the headache I had. Remind me never to drink so much again. I’m getting too old for it. I used to be able to party all night then get back up and do it again the next night.”
I smile and shake my head at her. “Back in your college glory days…ah.”
She shakes her new strawberry blonde hair and sits back up on the bed. “You know it, girl. I was young, wild, free, and the life of the party. Good times. Anyway, he told me I better call you and make sure you got home safely and you were okay.”
“He did?” I’m surprised and pleased.
“Yes, he did! He wasn’t nice about it either. He was downright nasty—not to mention rude. He said something about you running off from his apartment. What was that about? I need to know the whole story so I know what I’m dealing with before I go over there.”
I take a deep breath, sit back against my headboard, and cross my legs Indian style. I tell her everything that happened at Nick’s and the cowardly way I ran off before he could finish his phone call. I tell her about Matt confessing his feelings for me and us making out in the office in the back of the club. I conveniently leave out the part where we went at it on the desk. Not that I think Ava’s going to judge me. I know she wouldn’t, but she’s still Nick’s cousin, and once again I can’t keep a secret from her, so I end up telling her anyway.
“Oh my God, Cat, I can’t believe this! Two guys in one night. They should call you fire crotch cause it’s on fire. You little slut!”
My mouth drops open in a perfect oval. “I can’t believe you said that to me. Way to make me feel worse than I already feel, Ava.” I fold my hands in my lap and look down.
“I’m just messing with you. You know that. You’re the furthest thing from a slut and your crotch isn’t even hot.” She grabs my hand out of my lap and moves closer to me. “You’re my best friend. You know I wouldn’t judge you for anything you did. You’ve never judged me for the crazy stuff I’ve done, and if anyone should be judged for the things they did it would be me. You didn’t even judge me when I told you I slept with my married college professor. So why or how could I ever judge you?”
I remember when she told me about that and how shocked I was. I wasn’t expecting that. To be fair, he was separated from his wife. Ava didn’t find out he was married until his wife showed up at his house and saw Ava sitting on her kitchen counter in nothing but a G-string. Awkward! “You didn’t know he was married. He lied to you. He was a total asswipe. He deserved his car to be burnt to a crisp.” We don’t move, our eyes look up at each other, and we start giggling uncontrollably.
“The look on his face was priceless.” She hugs me, and I hug her back. “You have always been there for me. I could never judge you, Cat. I wouldn’t dare.”
“Friends don’t judge friends,” I say.
“How do you feel about what Matt told you?”
“I don’t know. I mean, it felt good. I was flattered.”
“I know it feels good when a guy is all”—she puts on her best deep manly voice and grabs at my thigh— “‘—I want you to be my world and my life. I have longed for you, I burn for you.’” Stopping, she points at me. “Maybe that’s where you got the fire crotch from. The fire from within his crotch just leaped out ’cause it couldn’t be contained around you.”
Leave it to Ava to make me laugh. I slap her hand away from my leg. “He didn’t say that! And there was no fire leaping out of anyone’s crotch.” Except mine, when Iwas spread eagle on the desk and he had his hand up in the promised land.
“Close enough to it. Do you want to go out with him and see if you two might have some unresolved feelings for each other? You can tell me. I’m not biased because Nick is my cousin. I think you and him will be good together. I’m with you whatever you decide to do.”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. Matt is always going to have a special place in my heart because he was my first. He made me feel like a guy could actually desire me. I felt a sort of power, knowing I could make him change his mind about something he felt strongly about not doing. We had a connection that night, for one night.”
“You really don’t think you can have that connection again?”
“Back then, yes. Now, I’m not sure. It’s like too much time has passed. When I think about Matt, I do feel something. But it’s not that feeling that…I don’t know. I can’t explain the feeling.”
“Try, make me understand so you can understand why you’re not that into this seemingly great guy who is gorgeous, financially solvent, and totally into you.”
“It’s not what you should feel when you want someone so badly you can almost taste them in your mouth. Every cell and pore in your body hums with what you want. It’s a fever in you when you come together and it won’t stop raging till you’re wrapped up in each other. Pulling and pushing until you find your release.”
“Now I have to ask…Do you feel that with Nick? Did you feel that when you were with Nick two weeks ago?”
In answer I nod my head. “Hell, I felt it when I was out of it drunk and he helped me take my clothes off.”
“Be honest, Cat, admit it. Your heart and your bodyare already taken. There is no denying it. If you want him, you can have him.”
I close my eyes, clamp down on my teeth, inhale through my nose, and let out a deep breath. “If I take him, people are going to be hurt. It will change everything. Not for better but for worse. I don’t want to hurt the people I love. I can’t be happy if I’m hurting the people I care about.” I keep my eyes closed and lean my head back.
“I think at least one of us should be happy. You have two hot guys fighting over you, I need that problem. I can’t get the guy I like to to even pay attention when he sees me.”
The only guy I know she’s interested in these days is Chris.
