“This is my drunk face,” is all I can manage to say. It sounds better than, ‘I’m trying to not fuck you.’
She keeps looking at me, then suddenly sits up on the edge of the bed, a mischievous grin on her face.
“You’re fucking hard!”
“What?”
She points in the general direction of my crotch. “You’re fucking hard! I can see it!”
“I’m not hard,” I say, standing up, which only makes the fact I’m about as hard as I can get even more obvious.
“Yes you are!” Jessie says, moving toward me and reaching out clumsily for my cock. She fumbles her hand over it, and my reactions are way too slow to jump back, leaving us standing there, inches apart, her hand clutching my rock-hard erection through my pants.
“Uh. Guess I am.”
I put my hand over hers, but I don’t have the willpower to pull her away. Her smile drops, she bites her lower lip, and her eyes dilate as she looks up at me. Everything comes zooming into sharp focus. I can hear her breathing and my own, feel the heat that’s radiating off her. It’s as if time stops for a few seconds. We’re thinking the same thing.
This is wrong for so many reasons. It’s wrong because we’ve grown up together as friends. It’s wrong because her overprotective brother (who also happens to be my short-tempered best friend) would go fucking crazy. It’s wrong because she’s a sassy-mouthed costume artist who doesn’t take any shit, and I’m a smart-talking talent agent who trades in bullshit. It’s wrong because this one single act could ruin so many of the best things in both of our lives.
But the fact remains, we’re alone in a hotel, she’s wearing jean shorts that are driving me crazy, and I’ve got a hard-on that could drill granite – all the wrong in the world isn’t going to stop the inevitable from happening.
I wake up feeling like my head’s been dried, roasted, and half-chewed by the neighborhood dog. My tongue feels like it’s growing its own beard, and there’s an uneasy feeling I might never know which way is up again.
But at the same time, I feel pretty fucking awesome. The kind of beat-up, bruise-wearing triumph that I imagine boxers feel when they’ve taken a hell of a thrashing but still won.
It lasts about four seconds. About the time it takes me to realize that the pressure on my bicep is Jessie’s head. About the time it takes to realize I’ve just fucked my best friend’s little sister. About the time it takes to realize I’m a dead man. If he finds out.
Slow and tense, as if defusing a bomb, I pull my arm out from underneath Jessie’s head, and shift slowly away from her. Maybe it’s the way my ears are ringing, or the fear of what might happen if she wakes up, but everything seems as loud as if it’s amped up; the rustle of the bedsheets, the soft moans in her breathing, the brush of my stubble against the pillow.
After pulling myself out of bed like the slowest ninja in the world, I start moving around the room and picking up my discarded clothes from the night before. I find most of them, but either my left shoe decided to go for a walk on its own, or I’m going out of my mind. I decide to risk one last look under the bed before I put it down as a casualty of war, and get down on all fours on the same side as where Jessie’s sleeping.
“Shit,” she says, and I realize she’s awake, looking at me.
I swallow, and wonder if the bad taste in my mouth is the hangover, or the guilt.
“Uh…yeah,” I say, slowly getting up. “Shit.”
Jessie shifts up and back in the bed, sitting up against the headboard, the top half of her body out of the sheets – naked. Her tits are luscious and perfect, and suddenly a rush of memories from last night hit me with all the relentless power of a freight train.
I look away and clear my throat loudly until she realizes she’s exposed, quickly pulling up the sheets to cover herself.
I go to the end of the bed, as if unable to trust myself if I get any closer to her, and sit down, rubbing my forehead roughly.
“This is bad,” I say, breaking the awkward silence between us.
“Yep,” Jessie replies.
“We shouldn’t have done that.”
“Nope.”
I get up and start pacing.
“If Kyle finds out about this—”
“He won’t find out,” Jessie interrupts quickly.
“But if he does—”
“Why would he?”
“I’m a fucking dead man.”
“Nate!” Jessie says, making as if to get out of bed before realizing she’s still naked. “Calm down. I thought you did this kind of thing all the time?”
I turn around to glare at Jessie, pressing my hands together and pointing them at her.
“I do. When I don’t know the girl. When I’m never going to see the girl again. When I haven’t been friends with the girl’s brother since I was out of diapers. This is not something I do all the time.”
Jessie sighs and slumps back against the headboard as I continue to pace.