I skip the next session with Colton. I tell myself it's a completely reasonable decision, considering what happened. Except I feel like trash for skipping it. Colton shouldn't be punished for my inability to control myself around him. Especially not when he's been doing so well.
To make matters worse, I work on my thesis during our session time. That just makes me feel doubly guilty, like I’m somehow using Colton as a research subject without his knowledge. I’m not writing about Colton, though – I’m just reviewing the literature on sports and masculinity. I tell myself that it has absolutely nothing to do with Colton. If he knew what my thesis was on, he probably wouldn’t even care.
That doesn’t make me feel any better.
When Sable comes home and sees I’m in the apartment writing, instead of tutoring Colton, she gives me the stinkiest of stink eyes ever, her arms crossed over her chest. "You're supposed to be tutoring right now," she says, her voice accusing.
"Thanks, mom, I wasn't aware of my schedule," I snip at her.
"Did you quit?"
I exhale heavily. "I didn't quit. I took a day off."
"Oh?" she asks. "Does Colton know you took a day off?"
"Lay off with the guilt trip already, Sable. I'm a grownup. I think I can manage my own schedule."
Except that even as I protest her nagging me for not being at the tutoring session, I feel guiltier.
"Are you going to tell me what happened with him?" she asks.
"Nothing happened," I lie. "I already told you that."
Sable clucks her tongue and looks at me with narrowed eyes. "Yes," she says. "I heard what you told me. But remember, Cassie, I've lived with you for a year now."
"So?" I hear the question, my abrasive tone, and I know I sound like a petulant child. But I can't stop myself.
"So, I know that something happened with you and Colton, and whatever happened freaked you out. That's why you're sitting here pouting instead of tutoring him."
"First of all, I'm sitting here working. I’m not sitting here pouting because there’s nothing to pout about. There’s nothing to be upset about.”
Certainly not the fact that Colton King made out with me and whispered the filthy things he wanted to do to me, an expression of my unspoken fantasies, because he was trying to get me to put out as a reward for his A.
I don't want to tell Sable that. It's humiliating.
“Right,” she says. “You’re working on a thesis about sports.”
“Masculine identity.”
Sable sighs. “You like him. He likes you. The two of you just need to bone already.”
"He does not like me," I protest.
Sable rolls her eyes. "If you are too dense to see that, there's something wrong with you. That boy has shown up here twice now like a lost little puppy dog."
I can't help but laugh. "Colton King did not show up here like a lost puppy," I say. "He showed up here like a horny football player looking to get laid. And gave me cock lollipops."
Sable grins. "That was funny. And the lollipops were pretty good."
"I'm his tutor. There are rules. Even if I wanted to hook up with him – which I most emphatically do not — I can't. I'd get fired, I could get in trouble with our department."
Sable rolls her eyes. "Oh, please. Professor Richards is the department chair. You really think he's going to get his panties in a wad over something like that? I heard that in the seventies, he was sleeping with half of the female grad students that came through the Sociology department."
"Why did you tell me that?" I ask, grimacing. "Now the next time I see him, I won't be able to get that horrifying image out of my head."
Sable shrugs. "I bet he was pretty hot back in the day, actually. Like a young Robert Redford. I might have done him back then."
"That's not making it any better," I say, laughing. "Besides, that was the seventies."
"You're really going to tell me you have no interest in Colton King?"
"None at all." I force my expression to remain blank. Nonchalant. Totally disinterested. I pop a pretzel into my mouth.
"Then you won't mind if I hook up with him," Sable says. "I mean, I've been wanting to fuck a football player, and I hear Colton is great in the sack."
Yep, I'm totally casual. That's me. I'm not at all seething at the mere idea of Sable hooking up with Colton.
I call her bluff. "Nope, wouldn't mind," I say, popping another pretzel into my mouth. "I think it's a great idea."
"Argh. You're such a liar! Obviously I'm not going to screw him. Why can't you just admit you want him?"
"I do not want to fuck Colton King."
"You should practice saying that a thousand more times," Sable suggests. "Then maybe it'll sound more convincing."
15
Colton
"An A!" My mother's voice is so loud over the phone that I have to take it off speaker just to spare the ears of my roommates, and they’re not anywhere near my room, as well as spare myself the embarrassment of hearing my mother screeching about my grades. "I'm so proud! The tutor, she's been really helping you, then?"
Helping me.
More like contributing to the biggest set of blue balls any man has ever had. I'm like the world record holder for blue balls.