Secret Admirer - D.J. Jamison Page 0,33
to his mouth. He opened up, taking the pills, and swallowed a few gulps. His lips glistened with water and I had to swallow hard as the urge to kiss him properly swamped me.
I would not do anything now, like this. That’s what I was trying to protect him from.
As I eased him back, he said, “Do you think he likes me?”
My heart contracted painfully. Forcing out the words, I said, “Yeah. I think he does.”
Benji smiled. “Good.”
Fuuuuck. Just when I’d decided to tell him everything, I was confused again. Maybe I should just let him be happy. Just let him be, period.
“Wish you liked me like that,” he muttered.
My heart tripped. “What?”
“Tired,” he repeated, turning on his side.
Did he mean what I thought he meant, or was it my wishful thinking? He was half-conscious. For all I knew, he was dreaming.
Even so, a tiny seed of hope took root.
There was only one way this ended. I owed him the truth.
Before bedding down on the floor, I tied the friendship bracelet I’d made around his wrist.
Benji
When I opened my eyes, I was confused. The bed wasn’t a twin, but a full-size mattress. There was too much sunlight pouring in to be the dorm. Dre had covered our single window with a blanket, insisting he needed to sleep in on the weekends and the sun wasn’t going to take that away from him.
I kind of wished the sun would take a hike now as it sent a knifing pain straight through my eye socket. I clenched my eyes and threw an arm over my face as my stomach rolled. Shit, what had I done last night? Where was I?
Turning my face into the pillow, I breathed through my bout of nausea. Once I could focus, I knew I was in a guy’s room. The clues were all around me: the scent of spicy body wash in the pillow, the boxer briefs tossed on the floor; the … piles of condoms in a basket on the bedside table.
Oh, fuck. I didn’t … did I?
A sudden memory of Jonas surfaced in my mind, arm around me as we stumbled down a hallway, his lips on my neck. I felt sick again. This time, I leaned over and heaved into a well-placed bucket.
Throwing up actually made me feel better. My head cleared a little, and I noticed a note on top of the bedside table—beside more condoms than any one guy needed—held in place by a water glass. I sipped it as I read the blocky text.
Benji,
Please don’t freak out. You’re in my bed because you got pretty smashed and needed to crash. Take the Tylenol. You’re gonna need them. I’ll be back soon. Wait for me? I have some things to tell you.
Ace
Ace’s room. Ace’s bed.
He’s been naked in these very sheets, I thought, running my palm over the cool linens and trying to imagine them beneath Ace’s tanned skin. Then I rolled my eyes at myself. He’d probably been naked with a girl, and I was pathetic to even picture him this way.
Ace had obviously done me a favor last night. Judging by how little I remembered, I was in no shape to get home. I’d had fun at the party, thanks to drinking way too much, but Jonas still felt like a stranger. Snapshots of the night came back to me, some good and some bad. Jonas laughing and teasing me, putting his hand on my arm or my back. But he’d kept calling me innocent all night. Aw, you’re just a babe in the woods, he’d said at one point. Wow, how naïve are you? he’d said during another conversation.
I had been pretty fucking naïve, evidently, because I’d kept drinking without giving any thought to how it would end.
Ace had saved my ass.
Needing to restore a little of my dignity, I decided to get dressed. Ace’s second dresser drawer was full of T-shirts, so I helped myself to one. Mine smelled as if someone had spilled a beer down my front. They probably had. His shirt was loose on me because I didn’t have huge muscles. Who was I kidding, I didn’t have any muscles. Not bold, or weird, enough to borrow his underwear, I kept mine and dragged on my jeans that had been discarded on the floor.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know how they’d gotten there. Picturing Ace dragging them off me was almost as embarrassing as the possibility I’d taken them off in front of him