Page 21 of Want Me
I’d wanted to ask him about last night at the bar, but I didn’t have time, and besides, when I thought about it, I figured I knew. I hadn’t been thinking clearly about all the frat brothers around me. But he had.
My mom calledwhile Mark and I were en route to the botanical garden. We spoke once a week so I could assure her I hadn’t failed out of school, OD’d on drugs, gotten a girl pregnant, or succumbed to some other catastrophe. She was a bit of a worrier.
She asked about my grades first, and then it was on to Thanksgiving plans. It was weeks way, but Mom was a planner, so she’d probably been thinking about side dishes for months. I was an only child, and we usually ended up hosting extended family, sometimes other friends of my parents’.
“So you’ll be arriving Wednesday?” she asked.
I laughed. “Yeah, just like last year. And the year before that.”
“Oh, leave me alone. I miss my son and want to spend time with him.”
“Maybe you should show your son how much you miss him by making one of those red velvet cakes,” I teased.
“Hmmm. That’s a thought. I wonder if he’d help me make it?”
“I imagine he’ll want to watch some football. Relax a while. Making all those good grades wears him out.” I knew I’d end up helping her, though. We’d always been pretty close.
“Is it the good grades or the partying? I saw that picture you were tagged in on Facebook.”
I squinted, trying to think of which one that might have been. And then remembered and groaned. “I swear, I’m going to block you, Ma. Please quit looking at my stuff. It weirds me out. And I was in acostumein that photo and really not that drunk.” I’d been completely hammered.
She hummed skeptically. “You’d better not be drinking and driving.”
“I’m not,” I assured her, which was the truth. DDs were easy when you had pledges. “Listen, gotta run. We just pulled up to the fund-raiser.”
“Oh, snap a pic of you in your suit, would you? Give me something besides you in a bikini that I can put on the mantle.”
“It’s a mankini, and I think you should put that one up. Your friends’ll love it.”
But, like a dutiful son, I thrust my phone into Mark’s hand after we’d parked and made him snap a photo I could send to her.
* * *
“Naaaaaaattttteeeeeeee.”Ashley sloshed into me. That was the best way to describe how she came careening into my arms. I caught her by the elbow to keep her upright as she giggled, adjusting the top of her sheath or whatever you called what she was wearing, which looked like a sausage casing.
“Wow,” I said, once I’d regained my balance. “You look great.”
“Thanks. Miss me?” She beamed me a smile and squeezed my bicep through the suit jacket I was considering getting rid of. It was getting hotter inside as more people piled in, boozed it up, and filled the dance floor. But her question set off warning bells in my head.Alert, alert, proceed with caution!Our relationship had been fairly relaxed, but when she’d invited me home to meet her parents and I found myself desperately wanting to avoid the trip, it’d been a sign. After I told her I didn’t want to do that, we’d just sort of gone flat as a soda with the cap left off. Looking at her now, I tried to drum up some regret but couldn’t find any.
She must have read something in my expression because she laughed and rolled her eyes. “I’m messing with you. Did you bring a hot date?”
“Nope.”
“Me either, so if neither of us scores by the end of the night, I’m down if you are.”
I blinked because it seemed so out of left field, but maybe it wasn’t, since we’d gone back and forth a while after our official breakup, hooking up after mixers a few times. This time, however, I couldn’t manage even the faintest whiff of interest, so I gave her what I hoped was a charming smile. “I doubt you’ll have any problems.”
One of her friends grabbed her by the arm and tugged her toward the food display. I found Mark and some of the other brothers, but hung back when they decided to go out on the lawn beyond the french doors to find a place to get high.
I’d been keeping an eye on the front of the ballroom for Eric for the last couple of hours, wondering if he might not show after all. Then, suddenly there he was striding through the door with Amanda on his arm, and I didn’t know whether I was going to pop a chub or pop a blood vessel. Okay, that might have been a little exaggeration, but the sight of him looking so hot, leaning his head down to speak with Amanda, then breaking into laughter with a big grin on his face like he was having a grand ol’ time while I’d been standing there half the night with my nerve endings crackling in anticipation just made me want him all the more. I’d rubbed one out in the shower, but the half-life on that orgasm proved shitty. I needed what only he seemed to be able to give me. And badly.
“Why didn’t you bring Chet? Won’t he feel left out?” I asked as I sidled alongside him next to the bar. Amanda had walked off, I was guessing to the bathroom, so I was glad to take up where she’d left off.
“I’m seriously starting to wonder if you have a thing for him.”
I glared at him and glanced around. Eric cocked his head at me and gave me a musing smile that might have also been a subtle tease.
“Rein in the paranoia, Busey. No one’s paying attention to us.” He chuckled and reached past my shoulder to grab something from the bar, brushing against me in the process. I felt the heavy warmth of his cock through his pants grazing my thigh. And there it was. I’d officially popped a boner. He knew it, too, without even looking. I could tell by the self-satisfied smile that twitched at the corners of his mouth.