Page 68 of Drilled (Dad Bod Contracting 2)
“He made you feel safe and feminine.” He’s not looking at me as he says this, but somehow his full attention is still on me, and fiercely intense.
I catch my breath. “Yeah. Exactly.” I breathe again, after a moment of pushing all kinds of emotions away. “So…somehow, we ended up together. Girls hated me, after that. I mean, real hate. Death threats, evil eyes, nasty notes, real high school shit from these dumbass girls who were supposed to be grown women. All because I dared date the Jared Ellis. Me—the ice bitch. He didn’t seem to care about any of that, and neither did I.”
“So far so good, right?”
I laugh. “Yeah, so far so good.” I sigh, humor fading quickly. “I started embracing some of my femininity with him—he encouraged me to wear girlier clothes, and I tried it, for him. I hated it, but I did it. And I got attention for it—girls making fun of me and being more jealous than ever, and guys trying to hit on me before they realized I was Jared’s girlfriend. I had a love-hate thing with that attention. I liked feeling and looking more feminine, and I liked the attention, but I also hated it at the same time. I dove headfirst into my relationship with Jared. Just blind, headfirst, all-in. I lived at his dorm as much as I did my own apartment, and took the role of girlfriend as seriously as I took studying and working out. I was happy. I loved him. He loved me. He was the antithesis of everything my dad was—Jared was proof that decent men existed because, until him, I’d been sure a good-looking and decent man was as much a myth as unicorns and one hundred percent effective birth control.”
“Funny that you put those two things together,” Franco remarks, finally finishing carving the eagle and beginning to sand it.
“Yeah, well, the little girl in me always wanted to believe in unicorns, and the woman of loose morals in me always wanted to believe that birth control would totally protect me from disease and pregnancy.”
“Your Catholic is showing.”
I laugh hard at that. “No kidding. It pops out now and then.” I continue my story—and now I’m getting to the hard part. “We dated sophomore year, junior year, and senior year. We were like, six months from graduation and I was sure he was going to propose any day. I had my acceptance speech ready, and had even practiced it in the mirror, as embarrassing as that sounds. And I feel it’s important to note that at no time did I ever suspect a thing, and I was looking for reasons to distrust him. Even then, hopelessly in love, I was still skeptical and cynical and suspicious. But there was just…nothing. So, keep that in mind as I tell you the rest.”
“Uh-oh.”
“Yeah, uh-oh. I was out with Imogen and a few other girls. It was a time-apart night for Jared and I—I’d always insisted on regular nights out apart, me with my girls, he with his boys. I thought it was healthy, you know? Keep it fresh; keep my independence to some degree at least. So I was out with them, at a bar drinking, dancing, just girls being college girls. Well, the bar we were at started to feel stale, you know? So we bailed, headed for a different place. We had a few places we rotated regularly and, for some reason, none of us wanted to go to any of the usual spots. So, we picked a bar across town, way out of our usual stomping grounds. We rolled in, bought drinks; the single girls angled for the good-looking guys…you know the routine. There was this darker area near the back, behind the pool tables. There were a couple ratty couches, an arcade machine, and a coffee table kind of thing—a cool little hangout. I saw a few guys I knew from campus hanging out, some from the football team, some from the gym, but whatever, right? None of them were in Jared’s immediate crew, so I didn’t even get a red flag when I saw them.”
“Shit. This is making me queasy with anticipation,” Franco says.
“Because you know what’s coming, don’t you?” I sigh, nodding. “Yeah. I went over and started talking to the guys. Just talking, not flirting or anything, just making conversation. And then I had to pee. I was laughing at something one of the guys said and not really paying attention as I headed for the bathrooms, which were right around the corner. So I went into the wrong one—quickly noticing, oops, those are urinals, and this is the boys’ bathroom. No big deal, I haven’t even closed the door behind me, so I’ll just back out and pretend nothing happened…except I heard funny sounds coming from one of the stalls. And god, wouldn’t you know—that grunt sounded awfully familiar? I peeked down, saw a pair of girl’s knees on the floor, and a pair of jeans around a pair of very, very familiar, perfectly white Nike shoes. I knew those shoes—I’d watched him polish and clean them obsessively many times.”
