As She Fades(37)

“She isn’t the only one. He’s taking Babs to the Kappa Sigma party tonight. All she’s talked about all week is Slate Allen asking her out. I think they’re just friends. Maybe she’s a lesbian.”

The whisper had been a mock one. The girl wanted to act as if she didn’t want me to overhear her, but the pitch in her voice said she definitely wanted my attention. If that was meant to hurt me or upset me, she had succeeded. Not because Slate was doing anything wrong—he had made it clear that this wasn’t exclusive. Simply because for me he was it. I couldn’t kiss him and then go date someone else. I didn’t want to. But he did. That hurt.

This was something Crawford never would have done. I’d asked for this. I’d accepted it. But I wasn’t sure I could actually do it.





CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

WHEN SLATE TEXTED me about meeting him for lunch, I gave him the excuse that I had a study group I needed to be at. He didn’t argue and I didn’t say any more. I even stayed at the library until the very last minute before changing and heading to work in case he came by the dorm to see me. I wasn’t prepared to see him. Not with knowing he had a date tonight but kissed me this morning.

He’d have sex tonight. That was what he did. I knew this, yet I would kiss him every morning and in the afternoon when I saw him again. But how many of those times had he left me and gone to screw someone else? He hadn’t tried to do anything but kiss me. He had a reputation for wild, hot sex, but he never touched more than my hand when he held it, my face when he kissed me, and sometimes my waist.

Maybe he wasn’t sexually attracted to me. That had to be it. I thought he liked kissing me, but I was beginning to see that maybe it had been to make me feel better. Maybe the kissing didn’t affect him like it did me. He wasn’t overcome with lust and the need to do anything more. Tonight he would, though. He’d take her to his room and screw her. She’d tell everyone and I’d be his lesbian friend.

Fantastic.

My phone buzzed and I glanced down to see a text from him asking me where I was. I thought about ignoring him but decided against it. I told him I was headed to work.

He didn’t say any more. Good. I didn’t want to keep responding to him. It wasn’t easy. I wanted to throw my phone every time I saw his name. And I shouldn’t even be mad at him. It wasn’t his fault. Just because I wanted more and he didn’t. At least he’d been honest about it.

Luckily, my first night on the floor alone was so hectic I didn’t have time to think about frat parties or Slate Allen. I was too busy remembering drink orders and how customers wanted their burgers cooked.

Pocketing three hundred dollars and forty-five cents in tips after tipping the bartender and busboys was nice. I hadn’t expected tips like that, and although Mae had warned me that Friday nights were better than the other nights of the week, I still liked the money. I needed to work every Friday night.

That wasn’t the only unexpected thing that happened that night. Only the first.

When I stepped out the back door to go to my car, Slate was waiting on me. He was leaning up against the front of my car with his arms crossed over his chest and a serious expression on his face. He was supposed to be at his frat party. With his date.

I stopped and stared at him a moment. I wasn’t sure I wanted this confrontation. He would only be here if he knew that I knew about his date. What, had he already screwed her and left her? Was he that shallow? Thought he could just come running to me afterward?

“Why are you here?” My words were angry. I couldn’t pretend otherwise.

“Because I wanted to see you.”

I shook my head and walked around him to my car door. “You saw me. Now go back to the girl good enough to fuck and leave me be.” Ouch … that was not what I meant to say. The words were just flying out of my mouth without thought or hesitation.

“What is that supposed to mean?” he asked, and that only made me angrier.

I jerked open my car door with way more force than was necessary and glared at him. “It means that I’ve changed my mind. I can’t do this.” I paused, then finished. “Whatever this is. I am not that girl. I will never be that girl.”

My next course of action was to get in my car and drive off. Unfortunately, Slate was faster than me and he was behind me with his hands on my arms, stopping me before I could move.

“You can’t do what, Vale? Say it! What is it you can’t do?”

He wanted to hear it. Fine. I shook him off me and spun around. “I can’t be the girl you keep around because you don’t want her sexually while you go screw everyone else. I can’t let you kiss me and then go sleep with some girl that turns you on. I don’t do it for you. I’m not enough. FINE! I quit. I have more pride than this. I—”

Then his mouth was on mine and no more words were coming out. I put both hands on his chest to push him away, but he grabbed my wrists and held me there while he kissed me like I was his last breath. Like he couldn’t get close enough to me. And it only took a few seconds of this intensity to melt into him and run my hands up his chest and into his hair.

Slate’s hands slid to my waist, then they moved lower, covering my bottom and jerking me flush up against him. The hard thickness that he pressed into my stomach was something I knew. I recognized it, and it told me one thing was certain: I did turn Slate on.