brother.”
My eyebrows raised and I crossed my arms over my chest, the glossy fashion magazine still in my hands. “I caught on to that, yes.”
“But you don’t get it, do you?” he asked.
“No, not really.”
“Think of this way. What if I told you I had sex with your sister?”
“I don’t have a sister.”
He made a sound of impatience. “You know what I mean. Okay, say that you found out today when we were fooling around that I had sex with Kylie last year. How would you feel about that?”
A stab of jealousy pierced my chest and I asked, before I could stop myself, “Did you?”
“Ha, exactly,” he said in triumph. “No, I did not have sex with Kylie, but your first reaction was one of anger. You didn’t want to think that I did, because the truth is, none of us want to think that someone we care about has been naked with someone we’re attracted to. Picture me with Kylie. How does it make you feel?”
I had an active imagination. Before I could put the brakes on it, an image of Riley over my roommate rose in my brain. He was enthusiastically giving her oral sex. It was a visual I could have done without. “Okay, I get it. Yes, I would be upset. Pissed.”
“It just really caught me off guard,” he said. “And the whole penis piercing thing . . .” He actually shuddered. “Disgusting. It’s all messing with my head, making me jealous.”
Begrudgingly, I loosened the death grip on my magazine. “Fine. But you took it a step too far. You didn’t say the word ‘slut,’ but you definitely implied it loud and clear. I mean, sloppy? Ouch.” I wanted him to understand where I was coming from. “I don’t need to be judged, Riley. I’ve had my parents judging my morality my whole life and I don’t have the patience for it.”
“You’re right, and I’m sorry. I was being an asshole. But I don’t get it. Why would you and Tyler have sex? It’s not like you ever had feelings for each other.” Then he grimaced. “Or did you?”
“No.” I shook my head. “The thing is, a lot of guys and girls are attracted to each other on some level. But that’s not the same as being
“I have no idea what you mean,” he said flatly.
Maybe I didn’t either. I tried to explain it, frustrated by the frustration on his face. “It’s not about emotional feelings. It’s about physical feelings.”
That I had to explain that to a guy just seemed stupid. It felt like he was purposely not understanding me. Guys were all about the booty call. But maybe what was so difficult for him to comprehend was that a girl could regard that in the same way a guy did. They were used to girls being clingers, assuming sex equaled a relationship.
“So you just get your clit licked and it’s all good?” he asked dryly.
Bingo. Though I could do without the disdain on his part. I didn’t know a guy alive who didn’t like to get head, given that they all asked for it and were shocked and horrified when I refused.
“Why is that so hard for you to grasp? Guys hook up with girls all the time and they don’t care about them at all. Maybe, and I know it’s hard to believe, but maybe sometimes girls do the same thing. Gasp. Horror. Maybe, just maybe, girls like to get off, too, for no reason other than that it feels good.” I opened my magazine and started pointing to random chicks on random pages. “I bet she likes to have orgasms. I bet she does, too. And I bet this one, I bet she even masturbates.” I lowered my voice. “Can you believe it?”
He made a sound of impatience and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not saying girls don’t have sexual feelings. I’m glad they do. I appreciate enthusiasm. But I guess to me it makes sense to either be with someone you’re in a relationship with or to be with a one-night stand. I don’t get this crossing-the-line-with-friends thing. How do you keep it separate? It seems to me like you’re just sticking your finger places it shouldn’t be stuck.”
I bit my lip, suddenly feeling sad. He didn’t get it. And if he didn’t get it, did he get me? And why did it matter that he got me? Other than that I didn’t want to be put in that category of women that men didn’t respect. Because I didn’t deserve that. “Maybe to me it makes more sense to be physically intimate with a friend, someone who knows you and cares about you, that you trust, than to have sex with a total stranger you’ve met in a bar.”
He nodded, but he didn’t say anything, his brow furrowed.
“So what were we doing here, Riley?” I asked, the fight gone from me, a heavy sense of disappointment falling over me, a blanket of negative emotion. “It’s hard to classify me as a one-night stand given that I’m living in your house.”
“Oh, I don’t do one-night stands,” he said, and his arms dropped to his sides.
Something about the way he was looking at me . . . I felt my heart rate kick up a notch. “No?”
“No. I never have.”
The magazine suddenly became a shield between us. I clutched it tighter to my chest, well aware of the goose bumps raising on my arms and the way my nipples were hard. “You’ve never had a one-night stand ever?” I tried to snort in derision, but it came out sounding like a shaky laugh. “Please.”
“I haven’t. Not my thing. I totally agree with you. I wouldn’t want to have sex with someone I don’t know, don’t trust, don’t care about.”
My cheeks felt hot and I licked my lips nervously, tilting my chin up so he wouldn’t see how vulnerable I suddenly felt. “So I guess you understand the friends with benefits thing better than you realized. Or maybe you would have if we hadn’t been interrupted.”
But he slowly shook his head and I shivered. “Nah. I still don’t get it.”
“Well, then you make no sense,” I told him flatly, unnerved by the way he was looking at me. When he reached out and touched my cheek, stroking the back of his hand on my skin, I jerked away. For some reason, I wanted to believe he was making fun of me. Yet I was almost certain he wasn’t. Which meant that instead of being able to retreat behind anger and indignation, I was going to have to face something that seemed scary as hell.
“I think what we can conclude here is that while I didn’t say them out loud, my thoughts were running more along the relationship line.”
“Oh,” I said, though my brain had stopped functioning the minute the R word came out of his mouth.
“So what do you think? The princess and the prick . . . it could work. Or at least we could give it a shot.”
My mouth filled with hot anxiety. “You want to have a relationship with me?” I asked, the very idea sending my thoughts galloping in opposite directions. On the one hand, the concept made me want to run away screaming, slamming the door shut behind me. On the other hand, there was something super hot about having Riley Mann as my boyfriend, even if that word made me want to choke on my saliva. “I thought you said you don’t do relationships.”
He’d said that at Nathan and Bill’s, quite clearly. Maybe he had been joking. But I couldn’t grasp that he would actually want to be with me, in the way you are with someone you’re exclusive with. I also couldn’t grasp that part of me wanted to jump straight into his arms and say yes to it. I didn’t give up control like that, I didn’t.
“I don’t. Or I haven’t in a while. Maybe we shouldn’t call it a relationship then, exactly. I mean, it’s only been a week we’ve been hanging out. Maybe it’s more like dating.”
The relief I felt was actually scary. It was like when you skid while driving in the snow and are sure you’re going to hit the guardrail or another car and then you don’t and suddenly your heart rate jacks up in relief and you gasp for air. Relationship = risk.
Yet on the heels of the relief was a profound disappointment.
What the hell was wrong with me?
“What’s the difference?” I asked. “Isn’t dating a relationship?”
Riley shook his head. “Nah. It’s totally different. Dating is what you do pre-relationship, to see if you want a relationship. You hang out, have fun together.”
“Isn’t that a friendship?” And were we really having this conversation?
“No.” Riley leaned on the dresser and shook his head, looking totally confident in his logic. “Because when you’re dating, there is an understanding you both are thinking you’d like it to be more than friendship. So even though you’re not having sex, you want to and plan to.”
