"He cares about you. Be glad he's treating you with respect. He'll come around, but you didn't see what he saw. Yeah, it happened to you, but Evan found you. He was there when they were trying to revive you and praying that you survived it. Then by some weird twist of fate, he fell for the girl he saved, and now you're asking him to get physical when he saw the aftermath of you being raped...and you were a virgin."
Well, now that she put it like that, I felt like an ass.
"Just give him time. I don't know Evan that well, okay? But I know he doesn't do anything without putting his heart and head into it first."
"Callie..." It took me a while, but this had been on my mind for a while, and I knew eventually I would ask. "This might sound weird, but what was it like to sleep with Evan?"
Callie squinted, mid bite. "You're right, that's weird."
I knew it.
"It'll be different with you, so I can't really say."
"Why?"
"He likes you. We never had that. I'm sure he liked what we were doing, but that's all it was, motions. There was never anything there besides friendship, not love."
Ignoring her love comment, thoughts rolled through me, and I asked, "Was he rough?"
"Only when I wanted him to be."
"Damn it, Callie!" I grew frustrated with her vagueness. "I need details!"
"My God, you're such a girl right now. Fine..." she leaned forward, "...but don't get all weird on me." I nodded eagerly so she'd continue. "The first time I fucked him, it was not long after the first game of the season and they'd won. Everyone was at the bar. I was messing around with Jake Sedin at that time, but things were kind of going south, so I was flirty. It wasn't like Jake and I were dating, so it wasn't a big thing. Evan was there, fresh off a win, smiling, flirty, and nice. He bought me a drink, I bought him one…next thing I knew he was in my bed showing me all about a D-man's strength." She winked and gave a sigh. "Defensemen are some of the best in bed I've come across."
"Oh."
"See, you didn't want details, did you?"
"No." I waved my hands around. Surprisingly, I didn't feel jealous like I thought I would. Instead, I felt like I was getting some kind of behind the scenes look at Evan. "So was he good?"
Her gaze glistened with amusement. "Made me come three times in a matter of fifteen minutes…I'd say he has some skills."
"Do the guys know that you sleep with more than one at a time?" I asked, wanting to know. It was another question I had been dying to ask her. I'd never met a girl like Callie before or the way she regarded her sexual encounters like they were no big deal.
"Yeah, most of them know. Evan knows, Leo, Remy, Tyler, most all the guys on the team do. I had a boyfriend once, and when he found out that I had slept with most of the starting four lines on the Chicago Blackhawks, well he made me feel slutty. They don't. Just because I sleep with them doesn't make me a slut. People put too much weight into being with just one person. I'm not saying that being with just one is bad because to be in love, that's cool, but I haven't found that yet. So I have fun until the day I find love."
I thought for a moment, picking through my salad, her words sinking in. "That makes sense."
And then she added. "I thought I was in love with Evan…"
I dropped my fork.
Callie laughed. "I'm sure you can understand his appeal. He's got the looks and the heart. Evan's a good deal, and that's hard to find these days. But then we got to know each other, and it wasn't that we didn't like each other...it was just that we were both very different from one another. I'm a lot like…" she tried to think of someone I might have known to compare herself to, "...Leo, suggestively open about everything. Mase has this quiet confidence about him that you feel. It's really what attracts you to him, the mysterious quiet that you want to know. Then you understand who he is, and you fall for him."
"So what made you realize Evan wasn't for you?"
"It's wasn't so much that I realized anything...it was just kind of out there in the open. I talked to him about it, and he told me that the feelings weren't there for him, and he didn't want to lead me on. Then, after a while, I realized that what I felt was just it being different from what I had with other guys. Evan was gentle and understanding, even if what we were doing was just sex, he made me feel special. Like my time with him was all that mattered."
That I understood because that was exactly how I felt about Evan and what drew me to him, like she said. What if his feelings were like the ones he had for Callie?
We were cool for a while, but then what happened if I got too close? Would he say I was just a friend?
Callie sensed the questions swimming through my head. "Hey, stop that. I'm not sure if he's said it or not, and frankly, it's none of my business, but he loves you. I've never seen him look at anyone the way he looks at you."
Later that night, I glanced down at my phone, noticing it was almost time for Evan to be getting back to town. The thought sent my tummy flipping.
I hadn't seen him since last Tuesday. When he got home he asked, "Did you have fun with Callie?" He looked over the empty bottle of Jack Daniels next to his couch with his eyebrows raised.
"Callie is great. I really enjoyed her company." Evan gave me a nod with a soft smile. "She's a good friend."