Instead of You(44)

When we finally settled, she didn’t hesitate to curl into my side and rest her head on my chest again.

“Can I ask you a question?” she whispered.

“Of course.”

“How many people have you slept with?”

“Five,” I answered immediately.

I heard a long pause, silence, then “Oh.”

“Oh?”

I felt her shrug. “It’s just a lot.”

“Is it?”

“It’s more than me.”

“I’m four years older than you.”

Another silent pause. “Yeah.”

“Babe, I don’t want you to worry about how many people I’ve been with, or how you compare to any of them. You don’t. Or, they don’t, actually. None of them compare to you. They can’t. They started in your shadow and none of them ever managed to get out of it. The other girls, they were just, like, road bumps.”

“Okay,” she whispered, but she did not sound convinced.

“Listen, it goes both ways. If I spend our whole relationship worrying about how I compare—to Cory of all people—it wouldn’t be fair to us. I don’t want to think about you with other guys. It’s not good.”

Another silent pause, longer this time. I thought maybe she’d fallen asleep, but then, “There’s no one to compare you to. I’ve never been with anyone else.”

“You mean, besides Cory?”

“No,” she said softly. “I mean, I’ve never been with anyone.”

One day I’ll be glad the tent was pitch-black in that moment so McKenzie couldn’t see my face twist up in confusion, or my jaw drop at her words. But the darkness couldn’t hide the words I said, unfortunately. “You never had sex with Cory?”

“Can we just take him out of the equation? Can we just talk about my lack of experience in a general way?” she asked with exasperation.

“Sure,” I said, even though I would never be able to pretend Cory wasn’t the guy she’d been with before me. Ever. “So, you’ve never had sex? With anyone?”

“No.”

“How is that possible?” I heard the words come out of my mouth and then realized they probably weren’t the best choice. “What I mean is… um… I guess I’m just surprised. You were with your last boyfriend for a long time. And you’re eighteen. I guess I just assumed….” I rubbed my hand up and down her arm, trying to smooth over any aggravation I might have caused with my words. “I’m sorry. I’m saying all the wrong things.”

“Is that okay with you? I mean, I’m not very knowledgeable in the bedroom department.”

I pressed my lips into her temple, kissing her gently. “You know your way around a tent pretty well.”

She laughed, which was exactly what I was going for, but then she also slapped my arm, which I also took since she was still laughing. Her laughter died off slowly and I made a point to take all the humor out of my voice before I asked, “So, can I ask what you have done?”

“Well,” she started, her voice a little shy and shaky, “everything I did to you tonight, I’ve done before. But that’s as far as I’ve gone. But….” Her voice trailed off and I could feel her muscles tensing.

“You don’t have to tell me right now, Kenz. But you should tell me eventually. This is important, you know, if we’re going to be together.”

“The last person I was with, um, he’d seen me without my top, but he’d only ever touched me over my clothes between my legs.” She said the words fast, as if she was trying to get them out before she lost her nerve. Like ripping off a Band-Aid.

“I wish you had told me sooner.”

“Why?”

“I think I might have handled the last hour of my life a little differently.”

“What do you mean?”

“If I’d known no one had ever touched you, I might have been a little gentler. I would have taken a little more time. I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t be. Everything was perfect.”

I agreed, but I still felt terrible for it. “I just need you to promise me if I ever hurt you, you’ll tell me. If anything is ever uncomfortable, I need you to say something.”

“Have you ever taken someone’s virginity?” she asked, her voice even quieter and soft.

“Freshman year of college. Her name was Allison. We dated for almost a year.”

We were both quiet for a while, then finally she asked, “Will you stay the night with me?”

“I don’t want to be anywhere else.”





Chapter Sixteen


McKenzie


I woke to the sound of a zipper going down. You’d have thought thunder and lightning had stuck outside my tent for how fast I sat up, realizing that someone was trying to come in my tent, the tent that currently held a sleeping Hayes. I threw the sleeping bag over his face and crawled to the opening, still panicking, when Becca’s face appeared in the hole she’d created.

“Hey,” she whispered. I could tell by the amount of light it was still early. “I have to go to the bathroom.” She stared at me expectantly.

“And that involves me how?”