We dunk the first shot in silence.
“Can I ask you something?” he asks eventually.
“Maybe?”
“What would it take to make you serious about a girl again?”
“A frontal lobotomy,” I say immediately.
Silas rolls his eyes. “I was being serious.”
“Me too,” I snort. “Dude, there is really no point. I’m used to being single now. I like it.”
“Forever, though?” He leans back and looks at the ceiling.
I glance at my roommate and try to guess what’s in his head. Silas is one of the most unreadable people I’ve ever met. “What’s got you asking, anyway?”
He shrugs. “Hockey and dating don’t really go together so well. But someday…” He doesn’t finish the sentence.
“They don’t,” I agree. “But so what? You and I can get all the, uh, companionship we need without the commitment. So why do you even let it bother you?”
“One-night stands aren’t really my style.” He’s not lying. Silas hooks up like maybe twice a year. “But I feel like I’ve been single so long that I don’t even know how it’s done.”
“Every night in the locker room there’s somebody who’s all pissy over a fight he had with his wife,” I point out. “Not sure you’re missing out.”
“And we may never find out.” He sits up and pours us another couple of shots. “Want to kill some zombies?” he asks after he hands mine over.
“Absolutely.” I down my second shot and get up to fetch the Xbox controllers. We hunker down and play a few rounds of our new favorite Call of Duty. It’s getting late, and Heidi still isn’t home to kick us off the couch.
Eventually Silas gives up and declares he’s heading to bed. “You’re going to get some sleep, right?” he asks me.
“Yeah. Soon.”
“How about I put away the tequila?”
“How about you leave it here instead?”
“Suit yourself. You’re waiting up for Heidi, aren’t you?”
“No.” But where the hell is she? “I don’t think she’s coming home at all.”
Silas winces, which only means I’ve done a poor job of concealing that it bothers me. He walks behind the couch and then stops one more time. “Just don’t finish the bottle, okay?”
“Right, Mom.”
He actually tousles my hair like I’m five and then finally departs, leaving my brooding ass alone.
I help myself to another shot of tequila, just to keep my buzz going. Then I grab Heidi’s pillow off the tidy stack of belongings she keeps in the corner. And when I lay my head down on the case, it smells like her. I take a deep breath of her citrus scent and wonder where she is right now.
It’s selfish, but I want her here on the other end of the couch, giving me sass and telling me what to do. Silas was right earlier tonight when he said that I have it bad for Little Miss Perky. It’s true.
But just because you want something doesn’t make it yours. I have a poor record for taking care of beautiful girls who trust me. It’s better for everyone if I stick to hookups and bachelorhood.
And she obviously went home with her college boy. So I don’t even have to move my drunk ass off this couch.
I must have fallen asleep. Because the next thing I know I’m trying to roll over and my leg is dangling off the couch and my arm is trapped between the cushion and the back of the sofa.
Ow.
I stumble into my bathroom to take a piss and brush my teeth, blinding myself with the bathroom light.
My muscles are tight from practice, and the bed beckons. I drop my clothes a piece at a time as I make my way to the bed. Lifting the covers, I collapse onto the cool sheets.
Except they’re not that cool. And as I roll toward the bed’s center, I collide with something smooth and warm.
Someone gasps, and it isn’t me. “J-Jason?”
“Mmm?” My hand finds soft skin. Bare skin. My fingers splay across the bliss of her silken stomach before I fully understand. “Heidi? You’re naked in my bed?”
“You were asleep on the couch!” she sputters as I quickly withdraw my hand. “And all my nightgowns are in my bag under the coffee table. In the dark. I didn’t want to disturb you.”
“Oh, I’m disturbed.” I sit up fast and fumble for the lamp. When I switch it on, I’m immediately sorry I did. The sight of sleep-tousled Heidi in my bed is devastating. The sheet is askew so that her breasts are partially revealed. I can only see one rosy nipple, but my mouth waters anyway.
“You’re staring at me,” she whispers.
“So fix it,” I grunt. “Move that sheet.”
Heidi’s fingers find the edge of the sheet. She looks me dead in the eye. “Yes, sir.” And then the vixen pulls it down instead of up.
Now all I can see are two full breasts, a sleek tummy that I’d like to measure with my tongue, and a tiny pair of black lace panties. “Jesus Christ.”
Heidi puts a hand on her stomach. She stretches her fingers until her pinky finds the edge of the panties, and she lets that little finger slip beneath the elastic.
I finally find the willpower to look away. “What are you doing?”
“Who’s asking? You’re more naked than I am,” she points out.
When I look down, my cock is tenting the sheet that’s covering my lap. “I mean, what are you doing in my bed?”
“I told you.” She sits up, and I’m powerless again. I turn my head just as her tits bounce from the motion. “My bed was occupied by a snoring right wing.”
“Because I thought you went home with him.” Okay, that comes out a little too forcefully.
Her eyes widen with surprise. “And that bothered you?”
I shrug, because it’s already clear to both the naked people in this room that it did. And if that makes me an asshole, I guess that ship has sailed. “You thought about going home with him, right? You’re wearing those.” I point at the incriminating lingerie.
“Maybe I did think about it,” she admits. “These are my lucky panties. And he asked me back to his hotel room.”
“And you said no? Why?”
“Because he wants me to love him,” she whispers. “And I don’t, so it wouldn’t be fair. If I slept with him, it would only be for birthday sex.”
When her rosy lips form those last two words, my disobedient cock gives a throb. I force myself to look at the alarm clock. “It’s two in the morning. Your birthday is over.”
“Right,” she snaps. “Like I said, I didn’t come back here to beg you to jump my turnstile. Been there, done that.”
“So you’re here to torture me instead?” I’m so aggravated right now. Not one thing in my life makes any damned sense.
“No. That’s just my consolation prize.”
“I’m no prize,” I grumble. “What you don’t understand is that I’m saving us both a lot of hassle.”
She rolls her eyes, tosses the sheet aside, and scrambles to her knees. “Now, you listen up.” I can’t, because her fearlessness turns me on like nobody’s business. “If you’re so smart and I’m so stupid, maybe you could answer a couple of questions for me.”
“What’s that?”
“Why was it so easy for me to turn him down? And yet, when you look at me like that—like you can’t decide if you should kiss me or kill me—it makes me really wet?”
I let out a loud, unhappy groan. “Why did you have to say that?”
“Because you pretend you don’t care! But you do. Here you are asking about my choice in lingerie, which clearly flips your light switch—” She waves a hand at my aching dick. “—but I’m supposed to be content with being the only woman in Brooklyn who’s off limits.”
Fuck me. The woman is listing all my flaws and inconsistencies, and every one of them is true.
“Why not me?” Her eyes flash as she continues her sermon. “If half of what they write about you is true, you’ve stamped the passports of—”
Check, please. It’s fucking inevitable that I put my trembling hands on her soft body and push her down on the bed. The moment my palms meet warm skin, she stops ranting. Finally. But I’m not one to take chances, so I fit my mouth over hers just to shut her up. With my tongue.