Losing Her (29 page)

I look over at Erin lying beside me, and a cold wall of discomfort hits. I’m balanced on the very edge of my bed while she lies on the far side, asleep on her stomach. Her dark hair covers most of her face and is fanned across my pillow. What in the hell am I supposed to do now? I can’t just leave her here to wander downstairs and chance her meeting the others. What will she be like if I wake her up? Will she be pissy or embarrassed?

My alarm clock says that it’s nearly six. I really need to get up and get her out the door before the others start waking up.

“Hey,” I say softly.

She doesn’t move.

“Hey,” I try again, reaching forward to gently nudge her shoulder.

Still nothing.

“Erin,” I say, gripping her shoulder and rocking her to consciousness. Her hand slowly raises to her face and pushes her hair aside so her eyes focus on me. Her makeup has been smudged from sleeping, leaving traces of it on my pillow.

She lets out an exaggerated yawn and reaches her hand forward then trails it down my shoulder, over my bicep and to my bare chest.

“You wore me out,” she says with a grin.

“I’ve got to get going.”

“I’ll help you forget about those plans,” she whispers, scooting closer to me, exposing a small hint of her cleavage. “You know you want to. They like you too,” she whispers, leaning closer and pulling the blankets back, showcasing her large, naked chest. My body instantly reacts as her hand trails further down and grips me, holding me almost aggressively in her fist.

“He says you want to play,” she whispers.

I push forward on the bed, knocking her back, and cover her body with mine. Then snake a hand down to prime her. She moans against my shoulder as I insert a second finger and pump them inside of her a few times, not focusing on her reactions to my touch, just looking for a result. I slide them out, leaving her mewling and scratching at my chest, as I reach behind her to open my nightstand and produce a condom.

I tear it open and slowly slide it on without even seeing her. As I close my eyes and reposition myself above her, I see blond hair splayed across my pillows, large brown eyes holding a look of love and desire with a tinge of self-consciousness. Her lips are parted and her chest rises and falls with anticipation.

My eyes squeeze shut, and when they open, I see Erin’s steel eyes are closed, her face slightly contorted, and her mouth open in a small “o” as she breathes a moan. Looking down, I realize that she’s working on herself. This should be hot. I should be feeling half crazed with the sexual confidence and desire she exudes.

I never realized how much I craved Ace’s excitement for me, for what I could do to her, for the brief timidness that turned into carnal desire within a few lustful moments that transformed her into a confident sexual minx.

I grip Erin’s wrist and pull her hand away, earning me a string of profanities and objections before I press into her in one hard move.

When we finish, she heads to the bathroom and I reach for the clothes that I’d worn yesterday. I sit on my bed, debating excuses for Erin to leave. When the bathroom door opens, a wave of coconut impales me. It’s the same familiar scent that escaped the bathroom when
she
would shower. The sensation makes my chest ache with guilt.

I’m hoping she’ll tell me she has to leave so we don’t have to do a song and dance routine. I already know Kendall’s going to be pissed. As soon as she saw me arrive home with Erin last night, I’d heard her bitching to Jameson, begging for him to intervene because otherwise I’d lose Ace. I wanted to ask her what in the hell she thought had happened.

“You have some great shampoo in there, too bad you don’t use conditioner,” Erin says, combing her fingers through her hair, causing the scent to roll over me like waves.

I shake my head in disbelief. My shampoo sure as hell doesn’t smell like that. Am I imagining the scent? “That’s not my shampoo, where did you find it?” I can specifically remember raiding the bathroom and throwing her things away. It was one of the first rooms to be swept.

“It was on the edge of the tub, behind the shower curtain. You like, don’t care that I used it, right?”

I look at her for a moment dumbfounded.
She’s still haunting me six months later!

I shake my head again. “I hate the way it smells,” I lie.

“Really?” She pulls a few strands to her nose. “I guess it is kind of strong.”

I nod and grab a sweatshirt. I need to get out of here before my head starts to cloud with more thoughts of
her
.

“I need to go. I’ve got classes,” I lie again. It’s a little frightening how easy it is for me to lie to this girl, and slightly more, how much I don’t care.

“Okay, well, here, let me give you my number. We’ll do this again.” She winks at me as she grabs for my phone. I could lie again or tell her to leave, but maybe this is a good thing. Maybe this is what I need. I let her enter her number and stare at the smile pasted across her face for a moment, waiting to feel a sense of accomplishment or relief to conquer the nerves I’m feeling.

“By the way, what’s ace mean?”

“What’s Ace mean? What are you talking about?” My heart hammers against my chest as my breaths quicken and my stomach curls in on itself.

“Oh I swore I heard you say it a few times.” She giggles a loud giggle that makes her chest swell. “Maybe I heard you wrong. I was a little distracted.” She winks at me again as I will my heart to slow down. It’s not that I fear being caught; it’s that I can’t believe I said her name while sleeping with another woman.

I just slept with another woman. My mind begins sifting through images like I’m just now seeing Erin in my bed from last night. Her expressions were exaggerated and almost rehearsed. Her words sounded like something that came from a porn video. My stomach turns violently as I work to keep my knees from buckling.

“This was fun, Max. Call me.” She seems either oblivious or undeterred by my silence as I stiffly nod my head. I follow her as she brazenly descends the stairs, avoiding the fact that one of my roommates is in the living room, shooting her death glares.

When we reach the front door, Erin turns and kisses me, pressing her chest against mine before she breaks away and smiles at me a final time.

“See you soon, Max,” she purrs, and then turns and leaves.

Landon walks in the living room, holding a bowl of cereal and looks from Kendall to me and back.

“What did I miss?” he asks.

“He’s ruining everything!” Kendall screeches, throwing a new pillow she recently bought to replace the ones I’d gotten rid of. She stands without saying another word and stomps down the hall to hers and Jameson’s room then slams the door.

Landon’s eyes follow her and then turn back to me. “What in the hell did you throw away this time?”

“Nothing.”

“Then what’s she so pissed about?”

“Life,” I reply, turning to head back up the stairs.

Wes and I go to the Halloween party sans Erin. I can’t spend this day with her because although Ace is on the opposite side of the goddamn continent, I’ve been thinking about her for weeks and what she might be doing tonight for her birthday. Plus, I’m not ready to have my relationship with Erin be anything but purely sexual at this point, and she doesn’t seem to object. I refuse to label it as a convenient relationship because the term leaves an acidic taste in my mouth reminding me of
her
again.

The party is filled with girls in scandalous costumes and others that are elaborate. I have no clue who several of characters are, nor do I give a shit to know. We file our way past them in search of the bar, stopping a few times as people greet us.

Wes is wearing the same costume we’d all worn last year: tight jeans, a leather vest without a shirt underneath, a cowboy hat, and a rope slung over his shoulder with a pair of boots.

“Wes, you can’t recycle costumes two years in a row. You have to skip at least one year in between,” Abby says in greeting as she reaches over to wrap her arms around him.

Wes grins and lifts the rope. “I upgraded. I got a rope and some boots, so now I’m Indiana Jones.”

Jesse laughs as Abby rolls her eyes. “I don’t think Indiana Jones wore Wranglers, cowboy,” she says, failing to break his laughter. “What are you supposed to be?” Abby asks, eyeing my jeans and T-shirt.

“Awesome.” My mind races to thoughts of
her
, hearing her laughter as the word leaves my mouth. I feel the heat of her body next to mine as an image of us hanging out in her father’s den, watching TV last summer, before she fell asleep in my lap for the first time.

“You’re so lame.” Abby interrupts my recollection, and I shake my head and scan the room to find something to distract my mind.

The four of us catch up for a while and then part when Abby and Jesse head out to the dance floor with their hands tightly clasped around one another. Wes and I head in search of the bar.

I don’t know what time it is when I wake up, freezing my ass off because my bedroom window is open and I’m lying on top of my covers, still wearing my shoes. My head throbs and my stomach rolls as I work to sit up enough to kick off my tennis shoes and clumsily maneuver myself to get under the covers. The warmth of my bed feels good, but the leather of my belt bites my hip bone and I groan in protest. Reaching down with one hand, I fumble with it until I get it unbuckled and feel the pressure ease. I don’t bother fishing it out of my belt loops, right now I couldn’t give a shit.

The sun is too bright, making my head ache as though my brain’s physically chipping away at my skull. With a quiet groan I sit up and keep my eyes on the ground, waiting for my head to stop throbbing so I can shut out the light. My steps seem too loud, and my window too strong before I fall back in bed with another groan.

There’s a crunching of paper below me that barely registers. It hangs in my thoughts for a few too many seconds, adding a new pressure to my head. I roll to my back with a grunt and fish around blindly for the source. My hand fists around a piece of paper, crackling too loudly as I move it to where I can see it.

My eyes blink several times and then squint to see Landon’s handwriting:

I’m done watching you try and kill yourself. Call J next time.

I crumple the note in my fist and throw it against the wall, not bothering to watch where it lands as I roll over, wondering how often Erin frequents the gym before I search for more sleep.

S
ometimes I wish I could have talked you into going to the gym. You refused. That was okay, it gave me time to spend with Wes, Landon, and Jameson. Still, I remember watching you on a few separate occasions while you were playing soccer and seeing the intense focus as you worked and how hot it was. But, you refused to go. Referring to it as … I have to get this one right … the epicenter of bacterial growth. You said you liked the people that went even less because you felt they used it as a place to find dates. I’d laughed when I first heard your theory, and then began realizing you were pretty spot on.

Landon, Jameson and I were returning from the gym. Jameson was doing a nearly perfect impersonation of Wes trying to hit on a girl that had us all cracking up.

Kendall was watching TV in the living room alone, causing me to question where you were. When Kendall wasn’t doing something with Jameson, she was nearly always with you. Even when you were studying, or reading, she’d sit beside you, watching crap that no one cared about.