Girl Crush(29)
I tried to ignore them. I didn’t need to egg any of them on, but leave it to Little Miss Thang to chime in. “She’s right, Giselle. I know my brother. He digs you. I heard you hung out with him yesterday.” She raised her eyebrows in question and waited for juicy gossip that wouldn’t come.
I sat straight up and announced louder than I should, “He knows I chase skirts, guys.” I stood with a huff. I needed to escape this conversation. I wasn’t interested in hearing about their perceived interest. I’d sworn off men and had yet to land a lady. My frustration level was high, and my nerves were fried. I needed sexual satisfaction—or booze. “Do any of you want something from the bar?”
Four different women asked for four different frilly drinks. Like I would remember their order from here to there. There was a reason I’d never waited tables. These bitches were all getting a beer.
When I returned, my friends had chilled out, although none were pleased with my drink selections, and had coupled up leaving me the odd man out. Heifers. I had the attention span of a gnat, and without someone to entertain me, I grew bored with their company quickly. When the guys decided to play water volleyball, I ditched the estrogen and joined the testosterone. It was like a scene from Top Gun, only there was no sand…or Tom Cruise. But it didn’t matter; I found a happy place, and the guys treated me like one of them.
Except West.
His need to protect me from the ball grew tiresome. Even his friends told him to give it a rest. But when his role-playing as big brother continued, Parker dragged me under the net to join his team. Just before I’d switched sides, a massive hand wrapped around my ankle, tugging backward, and my body became a rope in a game of tug-o-war. What neither side seemed to realize was in the midst of their back and forth, I wasn’t getting air, and water filled my mouth faster than I could get rid of it.
My feet and arms flailed in an effort to escape, and when my foot made contact with something hard, Collier’s hold on my leg released. I jerked out of Parker’s hands and coughed my way over to the side of the pool. I hoisted myself out and sat by the side, trying to catch a full breath, but I was pissed. This whole thing had been a bad idea, and I should have stayed home.
I ignored the guys in the pool and told them I was fine before stomping over to my friends and plopping down in the chair with an exaggerated huff.
“You kicked the shit out of Collier’s face.”
I should’ve been sorry, shown some sort of remorse, but he’d nearly drowned me, and I wasn’t ready to relent. “Good. Serves the asshole right.”
Beck erupted in laughter. I glared at her with my best eat-shit scowl, which only served as fuel to her fire.
“Why are you laughing?”
“Because you’re funny, and you kicked the shit out of my brother.” She shook her head, but I wasn’t interested in trying to guess what she referred to.
The rest of the afternoon and through the evening until we left, Collier steered clear, but the girls were right. He never took his eyes off me…even the one that had turned blue from where I’d used the side of his face as a soccer ball. I ended up enjoying the party without Collier. His friends were fun, and life with guys who thought all the chicks here were lesbians was much easier than when they believed one of us was available. It didn’t occur to me until after we’d left that none of the guys had wives, and none of them had mentioned a girlfriend yesterday or today.
Wealthy, good-looking men in their mid to late thirties—all single and all hung out together like a crew. Or maybe more like a harem…for males. My mind wandered off, pairing the men up as couples inside their circle. I was rather pleased with my mental match-making when I pulled up outside my house. As if I’d conjured up the devil himself, my phone vibrated in my hand when I sat my stuff down on the counter.
Collier: Sorry about the near drowning.
Me: Sorry about the roundhouse kick to the face.
Collier: Truce?
Me: Truce.
Collier: You looked really cute pouting on the side of the pool.
I grinned and tossed my phone on my comforter to get ready for bed. After a quick shower to rinse off the sunscreen and perspiration, I tugged on a tank top and pair of cotton boyshorts. My bed welcomed me like an old friend as I settled in for the night. I rolled over with my phone in my hand, but before plugging it in, I opened the dating app I’d become such an addict of, to scroll for my next encounter. I wasn’t ready to give up, regardless of what Ronnie said or how miserably my last two female encounters had gone. If nothing else, I had two new friends I adored for different reasons and found a sport to entertain me. It was worth the scavenger hunt. I just needed to stop thinking of these as relationships in the making, and start pursuing sexual encounters. I didn’t need company—I needed an orgasm.
The great thing about the internet was someone was always online. And even better, it made dates easy to come by. Before I finally closed my eyes, I’d secured meetings with three more women this week. I’d hinted at my lack of interest in commitment and expressed my desire to enjoy each other. One of them had to be more successful than Beck or Roxie.
*
None of them had been better than either of my previous dates. Arielle—pronounced Airy-Elle, not Ariel, which she had to remind me no less than fifteen times in twelve minutes—didn’t make it past coffee. We’d met at a locally owned café after work on Wednesday. My day had been boring, but I would have welcomed the monotony back in a heartbeat to escape that girl’s crazy. Within minutes, she had pulled two little pink, bear-shaped pills from her pocket and offered me a good time. I wasn’t stupid enough to try ecstasy in my twenties, I sure as hell wasn’t doing it in my late-thirties—I didn’t care how desperate I was or how “great it made the sex.” Airy-Elle wouldn’t be making the friend zone, she was lucky I didn’t have her committed.