I was wrong. Dead wrong, so why didn’t I regret it? That had been my struggle all weekend long. I had no regrets. Going down on him didn’t leave me feeling disgusted.
Ashton scoffed. “You’re sorry? Really? For what?”
I shrugged, feeling annoyed. “For everything. For whatever you want me to be sorry for—” I rolled my eyes. “Can we be done with this? I don’t wanna talk about it.”
I was ready to bolt out the door. The heat from his confusion was too much for me.
“No, Tori, we can’t be done with it. Can you be a mature adult for a few minutes? You sure did handle your biz like a tenured one on Friday.”
I didn’t understand what that meant, but did get he was upset by what I did. “What I did was stupid. I get it. It was wrong. You didn’t like it. I didn’t think it through—”
“I’ve got a girlfriend, Tori.”
And there was that. I knew Ashton had a girlfriend. It didn’t always feel like it. In fact, it only felt like it when they were together. It wasn’t that he flirted with me or gave me any reason to believe he wanted me—that cryptic warning at the bonfire aside—but he still didn’t feel attached to someone else. That’s where I got confused with Ashton. Still, it was wrong to assume he’d be okay with me doing that to him. I still wondered where my boldness had come from. Randomly sucking dick was not my thing. I actually hated the act, until Ashton on Friday.
My eyes closed in shame. “I know,” I whispered. “I swear to god, it won’t happen again. And I can understand if you don’t want to be cool—run with me—anymore.”
I was breathless for an eternity, waiting on him to say something, give a cue that it was okay to move on. At the same time, I berated myself for being a whore to a guy who had seemed to be sincere in wanting to just be cool with me and help me fit in at BSU. And I fucked around, blowing the one thing working in my favor.
Ashton opened his laptop again. “Professor Brown is going to let you freestyle for your next paper.” I was so lost in beating myself up, his words were foreign. “You can write anything you want, but it must be persuasive. A lot of people fuck this one up because she doesn’t provide visible parameters.” His words were identical to Professor Brown’s on Friday after she returned our graded papers. “My advice is to choose a topic and start working on your outline right away. That’s going to be key in staying on course with being persuasive.”
He tapped his keyboard a few times as I waited with clenched legs and fists. “It’s due the week after Thanksgiving. You ain’t got much time if you’re going home for the short break. If you can have the outline by our next session, I can help you out with tightening it up and starting on the rough draft.”
I licked my dry lips. “I’m not going home. I have a fight I need to get ready for right after Thanksgiving. I can work on it over the break.” I had a huge Chemistry test to prepare for, too. I couldn’t go home even if I had the money to.
I caught Ashton’s eyes on me, his forehead tight again. Then he closed his laptop and snorted, “I forgot. Silly you don’t have a way of getting home now.”
That cut deep. I slammed my binder close and jumped to my feet, grabbing my bookbag. With my back to him, I tried forcing the stupid binder inside, but it wouldn’t go. I gave up and gathered everything to my chest, then reached for the door. The moment I touched the knob, my body was pulled backward until my back was against the wall, and my bookbag and binder tumbled to the floor. Ashton was in my face, breathing hard with wide nostrils and slanted eyes.
“Grow the fuck up, Tori, and stop playing this head game with me,” he growled in my face. “You don’t fuckin’ blow my mind with your mouth on my dick like that and expect me to not be fucked up about it.”
“I said I was sorry.” I tried sounding tough—looking angry—although I was afraid. And confused. I was crazy lost in this thing with Ashton Spencer. “It won’t happen again.”