38
The next day passed uneventfully. We slept late, had sex, got up, and had breakfast at the dining hall. We came back to the room, showered, walked downtown, and poked around in the shops. We had lunch at the Grill, an Athens institution (kind of like a hipster greasy spoon diner with the option of getting tofu in everything).
I intentionally steered Kevin away from the gyro place. When we passed by it, I got a queasy feeling in my stomach.
Other than that, it was a very pleasant afternoon. We decided to eat dinner at the dining hall, watch a movie in my room, and have an early evening in.
Well, Kevin wanted an early evening in – which was code for more sex.
Maybe it was stupidity, or maybe it was a subconscious desire to get caught… but I completely forgot that Derek was coming by at 5 o’clock.
Until I heard the knock on the door.
I froze. My entire body was petrified.
Kevin looked at me from where he was sprawled out on the bed. “Aren’t you going to get that?”
“…yeah,” I said, and walked over, stiff as a robot.
I flung open the door.
There he was, gorgeous as ever. He was wearing his customary jeans, a tight black t-shirt over his muscular torso, and a perplexed look on his face. He must have heard the male voice through the door, and was apparently still processing the information.
“Derek! Hi!” I said in an artificially chirpy voice, my face warped into an exaggerated smile. “Shanna’s not here right now!”
I was just waiting for him to say, I didn’t come to see Shanna.
Or to bust me some other way, intentionally or not.
But he didn’t.
Maybe he saw the terror in my eyes. Or maybe he’d been in situations like this before, player that he was.
Whatever the case, he didn’t miss a beat, and he didn’t betray me at all.
“Oh, that sucks,” he said nonchalantly. “Well, just tell her I stopped by, will you?”
I don’t know if it was my overall weirdness, or Derek’s sexy voice, or his own inherently jealous nature, but Kevin slipped off the bed and came padding over. “Who’s this?”
I could see it on Kevin’s face, and hear it in his tone: he was threatened. And slightly belligerent.
“Kevin, this is Derek,” I said with formal politeness. “Derek, Kevin. Derek’s one of Shanna’s… uh, friends.”
‘Friends’ seemed suitably vague. It could mean anything from actual, platonic friend to casual hookup.
I knew which way Kevin would take it.
Derek didn’t react at all. He reached over and offered his hand to Kevin. “You must be Kaitlyn’s boyfriend.”
“Uh… yeah,” Kevin said, glancing at me in distrust as he shook Derek’s hand. “How’d you know?”
“I just assumed. I heard her talk about her boyfriend before, but she never goes out with any guys. You’re from Syracuse, right?”
She never goes out with any guys was a nice touch, as was the detail about Syracuse. I felt Kevin relax beside me.
Then he turned into a dick.
“Yeah. You and Shanna date?” he asked, a peculiarly gleeful tone in his voice, and I knew he was about to try to stab my roommate in the back.
Derek looked amused. “Well, there was that one night I came home with her.”
“Oh.” Kevin’s plan deflated in front of his eyes… and then he looked at Derek’s body with rising panic, and I knew exactly what he was thinking:
THIS guy was naked just a few feet away from my GIRLFRIEND?!
“But you didn’t stay,” I added hastily.
Derek smiled playfully, and I thought for a second he was going to say to hell with it and push the plunger on the dynamite.
But he played it cool.
“Nope.” He turned to Kevin and said in a man-to-man voice, “Chick passed out on me, drunk off her ass. What’re you gonna do, right?”
“Yeah,” Kevin agreed with a laugh.
As if he’d ever been in that situation before.
“Well, anyway, tell her I came by,” Derek said, then waved to Kevin. “Nice meeting you, man.”
Kevin did his best to give Derek a cool nod. “Yeah, you, too.”
And then Derek walked into the stairwell without even a single look behind.
Something inside me felt like it was dying. I wondered miserably if I would ever see him again…
…and then wondered if I was a horrible person for feeling like that as I stood next to my boyfriend.
Kevin snorted in derision.
I looked over at him. “What?”
“That’s the kind of guy Shanna likes?”
I looked at him with a twinge of guilt. “Yeah?”
Kevin shook his head in an oh-so-superior way. “Figures. Your roommate has terrible taste in men.”
I narrowed my eyes angrily as he walked back to the bed.
If you only knew.
Then I spent the rest of the night feeling awful that I’d thought it.