“Why? I heard you on the radio for like two seconds. You sounded great. I was over at my sorority, and everyone cheered when you made the joke about Sonny Be Knocking Boots. What an idiot!”
Tess and I couldn’t be more different, but I had no reason to ice her out. We’d been roommates the year before, and she was incredibly tolerant of my obsessive overachieving and idealism. I wanted a happily-ever-after, both in love and in my career. She wanted to bang the alphas and eventually marry the guy from the book—Grey something.
“He’s okay,” I said with a smile. “You know better than anyone how I’m dying to take over that slot at the station. I know I can’t make it my women’s-only bitch fest, but I can grow the audience and show the world that women can be funny.” I leaned against the door to the stairs and sighed. “But I don’t know. Lately I’m not sure what I want more. To have fun or be serious.”
Tess pushed her hair behind her ear and stared me down. “What was I always telling you last year, Catie? You don’t need to be so serious. That’s what college is for, experimenting and trying on different personalities. You can have fun, perfect your on-air voice, and then go be the Howard Stern of women and their rage against the machine.”
“I know. I’m starting to think I should’ve listened to you more last year.”
She pulled me in for a hug. “It’s not too late to start,” she whispered into my hair.
“So, the music fest?” I said as I broke away. “What food booth?”
“The gyro truck, so come over anytime and I’ll feed you some meat.”
My cheeks burned, and I silently thanked God for my Mediterranean complexion. “Stop it!”
She burst out laughing. “We’ve got to get you some meat,” she said, waggling her eyebrows to taunt me.
“I’m going down around four o’clock on Friday, so I’ll swing by your room?” I pushed the door open a bit, trying to escape to my single room and my thoughts.
“Sounds good. We’re going to an almost-hump-day party tonight. Basketball guys, I think. Want to go?”
“Definitely not, but thanks for asking.”
I slipped through the door and raced upstairs to my room, my mind filled with visions of Blane at the party. Maybe he would have taken me to it if I’d said yes to a drink. As friends, I reminded myself.
After locking my door, I stripped out of my clothes, threw on pajamas, and plopped on my bed. Snuggled tight with my pillow, I let my hand wander over my hip. It was round, but not lumpy. My fingers lingered on my stomach; it was neither flat nor distended. My legs were short but toned from walking around campus and playing soccer in high school.
Maybe I should try intramurals; get more exercise. I wasn’t hideous, but I wasn’t a cheerleader or a supermodel or a ball baby.
Thinking about tonight, I slipped my hand beneath my waistband and across my dark curls, searching for my most sensitive parts. Opening myself to my roaming fingers, I grazed my clitoris and a shudder ran through me. Someday a man would touch me there, and it would mean something, be more than experimentation or a random hookup. His hand and heart would yearn to make me scream because I was me.
I moaned a tiny sigh into my pillow and allowed my fingers to trace my lips before dipping inside me. I’d brought myself to orgasm many times before, but I imagined it would be much different with a man deep inside me, mumbling words of love between kisses. Maybe it would be as hot as the porn movie. Not as cheesy or raunchy, but lusty and passionate.
Between the memory of the first movie and the tentative swipe of my fingers, my heart pumped faster. As my body began to tighten and then fracture, green eyes and stubbly cheeks came to mind. Thoughts of messy blond hair floated through my rattled brain, became my focus. I wondered what it would be like to run my fingers through that hair, to weave my red-painted nails through his mussed locks.
My breath came in short pants as visions of Blane Steele attacked every one of my cells.
One day, a man would think of me like that. And I would attack every one of his cells with my passion for life and my smile. It was a good smile. A bright one, according to my dad.
But that man wouldn’t be Blane Steele. I’d told him I couldn’t be responsible for fucking up his current season or upcoming deal, but the truth was I couldn’t fuck with my own heart like that.
Even as buddies.
Catie
Friday started with the last and final discussion of the porn fest with Stanwick. I couldn’t take another second of dissecting those movies. If we weren’t looking at still photos of the bondage one, the man whipping a tied and trapped woman, her face painted with a look of sheer ecstasy, we were chatting about the cop.
The first gave me a pit in my stomach. I didn’t even enjoy the idea behind it or that it actually happened in bedrooms. The latter made me ache in ways I didn’t care to admit.