“Not happening.”
“So what did you do instead while you were in Tijuana?”
“Bought cheap liquor and spent most of the weekend in our hotel room playing video games.”
“That’s hilarious.” She releases her hair from the band holding it up, letting it cascade down her back and over her bare shoulders but wincing a little.
“Your head bothering you after you had the staples removed?”
“Not really. Just when I take my hair down.” She faces me, crossing her legs. “What about Cancun?”
“It was spring break, my first year of college. There were four of us guys, and we stayed in the cheapest room we could find, two to a bed. This time, we thought we’d be hooking up with college chicks on vacation.”
“And did you?”
I smile and look down. “I may have found a fellow nerd-girl who was just naïve enough to let an asshole like me into her pants.”
“You dog.” She shoves me.
“I should be more embarrassed than I am to admit I was a virgin, and it was over in about ten seconds.”
“That’s why I don’t want to lose my virginity to a guy my age. I want it to be with someone who knows what he’s doing so my first time doesn’t turn into some joke I tell when I’m older.”
Holy shit. She’s a virgin? I bite back the growl that wants to come out. I can’t think about another man getting the privilege of showing her everything sex can be. Whoever he is, he doesn’t deserve her.
And you do?
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asks.
I can’t answer that because I don’t know how I was looking at her. It was either with desperate hunger or shame. Probably a little of both.
“I don’t know. I guess I just hope you find someone who can give that to you. Sounds a lot better than what I gave that poor girl in Mexico.”
“I’m sure you’ve gotten better by now, though, right?”
“I’m not comfortable talking about that,” I say, though my ego is running a reel through my mind of all the women I’ve left sated and happy in the past. Closing my eyes, I chastise myself. That right there is why I don’t deserve anyone as amazing as Baylor Giles.
“Why? That’s what I love the most about our relationship. We didn’t waste time with the easy stuff like a favorite color or food. We dove right into the hardest parts of life and told each other our deepest and darkest.”
“Deepest and darkest?” I ask.
“Yeah. The stuff you can’t tell anyone who hasn’t been through it, or they’ll question your sanity.”
“I like it.”
She has no idea that my deepest and darkest right now is that I want her. Not for tonight or through the weekend. I want her for forever.
“Yeah, but your dad wouldn’t care that we talk about our trauma. He might care about us discussing sex, though.”
“My dad?” She cackles. “Owen, I’m almost nineteen. I could move out tomorrow if I wanted. I’m leaving for college in less than six months.”
“And I’m nearly middle-aged.”
“Shut up. Fourteen years might seem like a big deal right now, but when I’m sixty, you’ll be seventy-four, and no one would bat an eye at that.”
“But we’re not.” I glance over my shoulder. “We should go in. It’s getting late.”
“Not yet.” She lifts onto her knees, preparing to tell me something big, judging by the look on her face. “I have a proposition for you.”