Page 55 of Best Frenemies

Friday, March 25th

Katy

A soft, suction-induced bruise mottles the skin behind my ear, and the insides of my thighs ache with the tenderness of reawakened muscles.

My hair screams of sex, and my lips are flushed and raw from heavy contact.

Every part of me is vivid in a way it hasn’t been in years, and I can feel the intricacies of every inch of skin.

I look undeniably sexy—and the sex was indisputably good—but still, a deep seed of panic and overthinking grows in the pit of my stomach.

Mack Houston is naked in the bed you just left, and you didn’t use a fucking condom.

My grip intensifies on the rim of the bathroom sink, and I pull from the bottom of my lungs, searching for my breath.

Just relax. Just breathe. And remember that you’re on birth control.

I wish I could text Anna and tell her about my current debacle, but my phone is somewhere in the living room with my crutches, not to mention she’d have to go through several phases of “I knew it!” and “I told you so!” and I just don’t have the bandwidth to handle that.

But I do wish I had an outlet—somewhere to turn to get outside of my own brain for just a few seconds at least. Something to work through my thoughts with before facing Mack again. Something to challenge the part of me that questions everything so damn much.

I like what we did together—quite frankly, I liked it a lot. But vacation sex and real-life relationships are two completely different things, and like it or not, Mack Houston is my Calhoun Elementary School neighbor.

Will I spend my days thinking about what his penis looks like? Or when we’re back in our normal environment, will I start to resent him for making me like him?

If I had the strength, I’d kick my own ass for complicating things so—

Thump, thump, thump,a tap on the door sounds, interrupting my thoughts and completely throwing me off my schedule of freaking out.

“Katy?”

My entire body freezes at the sound of his voice, my still-naked body practically yelling into the void of the small bathroom.

“Katy?” His voice gets closer, making it clear that he’s leaned in close to the door to help me hear him. “You in here?”

“Y-yeah.” I force myself to answer, even though I’d rather just disappear into thin air, never to be heard from again.

“You okay?”

Nope. Definitely not.“Mm-hmm. Just freshening up a bit.”

I roll my eyes at how stupid that sounds, but I don’t know what else I expected myself to say. All my toiletries and clothes and basically anything I’d need to do anything are down the hall in my bedroom—where a woman with logical thinking would have spent the night last night so she wouldn’t have to feel this way this morning.

Silence stretches itself in the air, and I don’t know how much time passes before his voice fills my ears again. “Well, I’ve got your crutches. I’ll leave them by the door, okay?”

“Yepperooski,” I practically cheer before dropping my head into my hands and mouthing myself the riot act.

His footsteps retreat, and I turn back to look at the wanton woman in the mirror.

To the Katy Dayton I know so well, she’s practically unrecognizable.

Right at this moment, I just can’t decide if that’s a good or a bad thing.

Saturday, March 26th

Mack

Today is departure day from Destin. Big Mack and Katy Cat’s spring break vacation has officially come to an end.

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