The Locker Room(39)

“Shut up.” I playfully swat Knox in the stomach. “We are not fuck buddies, we haven’t even kissed.” He did touch the underside of my boob and stare at my nipples for a good five minutes, but I choose to leave that part out.

“No kiss?” Dottie asks, hand on her hip with a look of disgust on her face. “What the hell is the matter with you? The boy left a party last night to tend to you, the least you could have done is offer him a blowie this morning.”

With a huge smile on his face, hands stuffed in his pockets, and those thick eyebrows wiggling at me, Knox says, “Yeah, the least you could have done was offer me a blowie.”

“Ha.” I shake my head. “Yeah, that’s never going to happen.”

“Uhh . . . it sure as shit better, because I have plans of nestling my cheeks between your legs.”

“Jesus,” I whisper, looking around. “Can you not say that so loud, or around my friends?”

Lindsay waves her hand over her face. “God, that’s so hot. He straight-up claimed your vagina in front of our whole dorm.”

I press my hand to my forehead, willing this moment to go away. “Can we please talk about something else?”

“Did you know no one has ever gone down on her before?” Dottie says, stealing the breath right out of my lungs as I drop my mouth wide and turn to my friend in shock. In what crazy world would she think that was okay to say?

“I gathered that,” Knox says with a pinch in his brow.

“You know what?” I hold up my keycard to everyone. “I’m going to get some coffee.”

I take off, making a promise to myself to have a firm conversation with Dottie about boundaries. I would expect Lindsay to say something like that, but Dottie? She’s usually tight-lipped, so Lindsay is starting to get to her. I’m mortified. Completely and utterly mortified. Why say that?

“Hold up,” Knox says, catching up to me. He moves to block my progress to the coffee kiosk in the dining hall, cutting off my path. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Removing myself from that awkward conversation.”

“It’s not awkward unless you make it that way. So what, no one has ever gone down on you? We have ways of fixing that.” He moves in closer, taking me in by my hand.

“Can we not talk about that right here? If you haven’t noticed, all eyes are on you right now, which means our conversation isn’t exactly private.”

“Who cares?”

“I do.” I point to my chest. “I care. You might be this overtly confident man when it comes to the bedroom, but I’m more reserved, okay? I don’t like the term fuck buddies, and I don’t want to be referred to as that. I find it demeaning. I know we’re just having fun, but—”

“Wait, hold up. We’re not just having fun, Em. I know I joke around a lot, but this is serious to me. I want to date you.”

“Yeah, casually, I get it.”

“Fuck, no. Not casually.” He grows stern. “If we’re dating, then we are full-on dating and that means exclusively.”

I bite my bottom lip and look away. Exclusivity is more important to me than anything, for obvious reasons, but serious dating, am I ready for that?

“Do you not want to be exclusive?” he asks, looking hurt as I look back at him.

I press my hand to his chest and look him in the eyes. “I would need things to be exclusive, but I don’t know about everything being so serious. I just got out of a six-year relationship. That’s going to take some time for me to recover from.” He doesn’t know. No one really does. I became such a shell of my former self that for all intents and purposes, my friends probably thought I was fine. But I wasn’t, and I’m still not. Someone I thought I could trust with my heart and body threw that away. Viciously. It may have been incredibly na?ve to believe that Neil and I were forever, I know that now, but it didn’t negate the years I thought we were. There’s a crack in my heart I’m still trying to heal. I’m much happier now. More assertive. More decisive. I’m finding out who I am away from coupledom, and I like the girl I’m seeing. But, I’m still recovering. I’m still a little raw. A little timid to give my heart away again. And as much as Dottie and Lindsay know I’m cautious, they don’t understand the depth of pummeling my heart took. They didn’t see me the days after I found Neil and the other girl. They didn’t see the texts.

“Then let’s take it slow.” He clamps his hand around mine. “We can keep things casual as you like to say, but exclusively casual.”

“Exclusively casual.” I smile, liking the sound of that. “Okay, what does that entail?”

“Do we need to write down rules? Is that what you’re asking?”

“I mean . . . maybe.”

He shakes his head then pulls me into his side. “You’re going to be the death of me, Ealson.”

He guides us toward the dining hall and I ask him, “What are you doing?”

“We’re about to lay down the foundation of the best thing that’s ever happened to us while we eat breakfast, because damn it, I’m starving. But I have thirty minutes, so we have to make it quick. I have morning study hall to run.”

“Morning study hall after a Saturday night? That’s brutal.”