The Locker Room(21)
“It sure as hell does. Tell me, how long?”
She pops the cookie in her mouth, dusts off her hands, and stands. She gives me a quick smile, a pat on the shoulder and says, “Thanks for the snacks. I’m going to go mingle.”
I stand too. “Em, don’t leave. We don’t have to talk about him.”
“Or we don’t have to talk at all. I’ll see you around, Knox.”
Before I can stop her, she walks back into the party, leaving me on the fire escape with two beers and Oreos. Well fuck, that was short-lived. Real smooth, Gentry.
Real fucking smooth. I finally bridge the gap she keeps between us, and ask about the obvious no-go topic: her boyfriend. But, what the fuck? Emory is passionate, funny, resourceful, sexy, and a damn good time—yes, out of the bedroom too. What boyfriend denies his girlfriend something that should be synonymous with fucking? What sort of ass did she date? That’s so fucked up, and I hate that I may have lost an opportunity to find out more about this girl. Because she deserves more. And I’m going to show her just that.
Chapter Nine
EMORY
“Why is this chicken so good?” Lindsay asks, shoving a fried leg into her mouth and gnawing on it like it’s her last supper.
“Because you’re drunk and will eat pretty much anything,” I answer, looking out the window of the very popular Kennedy Fried Chicken. It’s a drunk staple in Brentwood and not far from the baseball loft. It’s why it’s overly crowded with students who barely have their wits about them.
“Aren’t you going to have any?” Lindsay asks, holding a piece of fried chicken out to me. Reluctantly, I take it and set it on the napkin in front of me, slowly picking away at the piece of meat. I’m not even close to being drunk, which is a shame because the feelings roaring through me could use a little alcohol to subdue them.
I was doing so well, actually having fun with Knox. I love teasing him, and I can tell he likes it too by the small smirks he passes my way, but when he asked about Neil going down on me, it resurrected so many hateful and hurtful feelings all at once. I knew if I didn’t leave, I would have made a fool of myself, and I didn’t want to do that, not in front of Knox.
In a rage-filled text conversation I had with Neil, after I gave him the old one-two blow to the nuts, he did more damage to my heart than he’d done to my eyes. He’d always said he wasn’t really into oral sex, and I’d simply shrugged my shoulders and figured it wasn’t that great anyway. He had, however, been all over me giving him blow jobs. He didn’t apologize for cheating on me. He didn’t even try to convince me it was the first time either. But then his final message came in, and that was the one that destroyed my heart.
Neil: You were never enough for my needs. My tastes. She tastes fucking incredible. She makes me glad I never put my tongue in your cunt.
There were no other text messages after that. I blocked his number wondering how I’d stayed with someone so cruel for as long as I did. I still can’t comprehend it, and it’s something I try not to think about because I don’t want to go down that deep hole of depression again. Therefore, I tell myself to push it to the back of my mind like every other healthy individual.
“So, are you going to tell us?” Dottie asks, pulling me from my thoughts.
I plaster on a smile for my friends and say, “Tell you what?”
They exchange an annoyed look with each other and Lindsay says, “Uh, what happened with Knox on the fire escape? Did you kiss?”
Such Nosey Nellies, but I can’t be mad, because there was a time in our lives where we told each other every last thing about our lives. I have to remember that.
“Kiss? No.” I shake my head and then pull a piece of meat off my chicken. “We talked, played a little game of questions with Oreos, nothing too exciting.”
“You didn’t kiss? How on earth is that possible?” Lindsay, the boy-crazy friend, says. “He’s so hot.”
Ah, yes, the classic reason to kiss a guy, because he’s hot. Not because of his personality or anything.
“Yes, you’ve mentioned that before. But I’m not ready to jump into another relationship. I just got out of a six-year one.”
“Months ago,” Dottie adds with a friendly smile. “It was months ago when you ended things. You’re allowed to move on, Emory.”
“I know. I’m just keeping things easy, that’s all. I want to focus on school. Focus on me. I’ve been part of a couple for so long that it’s nice to simply breathe, you know, not have to worry about another human for a change.”
“I can understand that,” Dottie says while taking a sip of her soda. “But does Knox know that? I saw the look in his eyes when he spotted you, and it’s obvious he really likes you.”
“He’ll get over it. There are plenty of girls on campus he can dabble in. Trust me, I’m just a small blip on his radar.”
“Not true,” Lindsay says. “I’ve been going to the baseball loft ever since I was a freshman, and I’ve never seen Knox make a beeline for a girl like he did for you tonight.” And I’ve been with one guy so long I’ve probably lost my ability to see interest as genuine. But my girls won’t understand that. In some ways, I feel so much older from being in a long-term relationship. In other ways, na?ve. Nevertheless, Knox Gentry is not on my radar.