Roomies(55)

I remember this. Oh God. I drunk-yelled at him for not having faster reflexes. He picked me up, threw me over his shoulder, and carried me back to the apartment. And then—oh.

Then it was a frenzy. I think we both remember it at the same time, but I can’t look at him to confirm. I remember him walking in the door, the way he slid me down his body, his hands all over my ass, and then how we just stood there, weaving, staring at each other.

“I like you,” he said.

“You keep saying that.”

“Well, I do.”

He bent in the only remaining tentative moment of the night, and pressed his mouth to mine.

It was like pushing my maniac button.

“I mauled you,” I say.

He laughs, delighted. “I think you did.”

“God, we were drunk.”

A slideshow shuffles through my head: tearing off clothes, mouths everywhere, teeth knocking. Fingers, lips, and then him over me, pushing inside.

“Neither of us . . .” He trails off.

It takes me a second to figure out what he’s saying, and then I blurt it out: “Finished.”

“We gave it a good effort but after . . . a while . . . I think we just passed out.” He laughs again. “What a testament to my masculinity.”

My verbal filter is apparently gone: “Does that mean we didn’t consummate?”

He giggles and pulls a pillow over his face. “The sex is the consummation, not the orgasm.”

A hundred questions fly into my head, birds flapping in the confined space.

But, without the orgasm, did he like it?

Did he mean for us to . . . yaknow?

Does he feel weird about it?

Do I? I mean, obviously I’ve wanted to have sex with him since the beginning of time, but I didn’t really want it to happen like this—drunk, messy, and where the emotional implication is so vague.

“You okay?” he asks, dropping the pillow. “I mean, mentally and . . .” He nods to my body beneath the covers.

“Yeah. You?”

This makes him laugh, like he doesn’t even need to answer, and there’s some consolation in that.

“Don’t look,” he says, grinning over at me. “I gotta pee, and I’m going to walk naked to your bathroom because I think you ripped my clothes off by the front door.”

I squeeze my eyes shut. “It’s your bathroom, too.”

Once he’s gone, I bend over, picking up my phone. I immediately want to text Lulu and tell her about this insanity, but I hesitate. Lulu used to feel like my bestie, the person I wanted to share every tiny detail with. But the past few weeks, she’s been hard to read, and I don’t like the sense I have that she would eventually use this story against me somehow.

I’m just starting to turn my screen back off when I catch the number of texts in my iMessage app.

There are 364.

“What the hell?”

I open it, reading the one up top from Jeff, delivered only three minutes ago.

I’m assuming you’re still asleep. Careful where you get your hangover breakfast today.

What?

There are seventy-three texts from Lulu, and the bottom ten are in all caps. I only need to read the most recent one to begin to understand what’s going on.

OPEN YOUR GODDAMN TWITTER.

I open the app. Oh my Jesus.

I scroll, and scroll, and scroll.

In the other room, the toilet flushes, the water runs, and the door opens. Calvin comes back into the bedroom, wearing only boxers.

“Let’s head down to Morning Star,” he says. “Get some greasy eggs. Some bangers. Some solid hangover food.”

“I think we have eggs here.”

“No, Holls,” he says, flopping down at the end of the bed. “Food.” I don’t even care that the movement has tugged the sheet off my boobs and he’s getting his own eyeful.

“I’m not sure we should go out and about today,” I say, looking up. I’m trying to fight the hysterical bubble that’s formed in my throat. “You’re trending on Twitter.”





nineteen


Honestly, despite the looming awkward of the drunken sex in our rearview mirror, it’s all fun and games for two hours of social media surfing until we come across ads for penis enlargers in the #ItPossessedHim tag. With a surprised grunt, Calvin slams my laptop shut, and we turn to stare at each other in shock.

“I don’t know where to start,” he says. “Do we talk about the social media thing, the sex we sort of had last night, or whether or not I should invest in the penis enlarger?”

I can’t maintain eye contact when he goes there because I think my brain starts bleeding, so I look over to the bookcases when I say, “I don’t think . . .”

“. . . that we should talk any more about the social media thing?”

I laugh. “That’s the only safe topic.”

In my peripheral vision, he nods. “So you’re saying I need a penis enlarger.”

“That’s not what I’m saying.” My face hurts from all the embarrassed wincing I’ve done since we woke up.

“I’m trying to make light of this. That’s what I do.”

“I’m getting that.”

He nods slowly, licking his lips. “Good. Hungry?”