really don’t understand the pact that my roommate and Chastity made. They agreed to watch twenty-four Hallmark movies together before Christmas. “Can’t imagine cowboys are your thing either, right? Didn’t you grow up with cowboys?”
“This isn’t a real cowboy, Dylan,” she scoffs, pulling off her boots. “He’ll have a shiny belt buckle and dimples. And he’ll carry the Christmas tree around while his muscles bulge inside his T-shirt.”
“But nobody gets naked,” I clarify, just to double check. “I’m not missing any action, right?”
“There might be a kiss at the end.”
Like I said, I don’t understand it. “But I’m still getting action later, right? Come here. I need a moment with you.”
As always, Chastity obeys. She crosses the kitchen to stand in front of me, flushed and happy. “What? The movie is starting.”
“Before you go ogle a fake cowboy, I need a real kiss.” I crook my finger. “Make it a good one.”
She steps closer, and I drop the wooden spoon onto the counter and pull her in. As soon as my warm mouth joins her cool lips, she parts them for me.
And then it’s on. There’s never just one kiss with Chastity. We always get carried away. It isn’t long before I’ve spun us around to pin her against the countertop. Her hands are in my hair, and my tongue is in her mouth.
“CHASS!” yells Rickie from the other room. “You’re missing out! The cowboy just saved a kitten!”
We break apart, panting a little. “You’d better go,” I say hoarsely. “Don’t miss the fake puppies and kitties.”
“The animals are real,” she whispers back. “But very well-behaved. Unlike you.”
“You don’t want me to be well-behaved,” I point out. “You like me naughty.”
“Guilty.” She lifts her chin to smile at me. “Catch up with you later?”
“You can count on it.”
Chastity leaves the kitchen, and I turn off the heat under my soup. It’s hot enough, and so am I. I have a chem lab to write up, but it’s going to be slow going. I know I won’t be able to stop thinking about her.
Last night I had her on her hands and knees until she screamed my name. I’m hard just thinking about it.
When my soup is all gone, I clean up and peek into the living room before heading upstairs. Chastity and Rickie are shoulder to shoulder on the sofa, an ugly afghan stretched over their knees. They’re sharing an enormous bowl of popcorn and dissecting the movie.
“I think the sheriff did it,” Rickie says. “That man is dirty, and not in a fun way.”
“You can tell because he parts his hair in the middle,” Chastity agrees. “I think the dog is going to rat him out.”
“No, the horse. He looks smarter than the dog.”
Chastity laughs, and the sound makes me smile.
I turn and walk upstairs to get a little work done. With any other girl, I’d be a little freaked out at the way she so quickly became a fixture in my life. Maybe I’m just too sexually satisfied to care.
And maybe it will all go bad. Things usually do.
Not tonight, though. Rickie and Chastity look so comfortable that it’s too tempting to sit down and watch dreck just to soak up a little of their inexplicable optimism.
The holidays are coming on fast. I’m not a big fan of Christmas break. It’s a lot of togetherness. Three weeks of getting on each other’s nerves. And then there’s the ache of spending another Christmas without my dad.
I force myself to walk away and head upstairs.
Thirty-Two
Chastity
All my life I’ve known that keeping secrets is hard. But it turns out that keeping secrets from Leah is the hardest.
Even from forty miles, I feel queasy about it. Sitting here in the coffee shop on the velvet sofa, I’m reading Leah’s latest email on my phone. Dylan is sitting right beside me, his hand draped over my knee in that casual way I used to see it draped over Kaitlyn’s.
Life is good. Really good. Except for the guilt I’m feeling as I read.
Where are you? I called last night. I know exam time must be tricky but please call me back because I’m worried about you. Also, I have news about the foundation! We’re really excited over here.
I tap the reply button, but then hesitate because I don’t know how to justify my behavior. In my former life, I lied all the time. Or at least I committed sins of omission. But I did it to protect myself. If anyone on the compound knew