The idea of the kind of wealth Sterling’s family must have … it’s frankly overwhelming.
No wonder Sterling is so afraid of his father. I would be too if my father’s disapproval meant I had so much to lose.
“This place is really incredible,” I say, looking out the large window at the campus below. The campus looks kind of pretty at night when the buildings and streetlamps that line the walkways are all lit up, especially from all the way up here.
I don’t believe for a second that I’m the first girl he’s brought up here.
Sterling hands me the glass of wine and clinks the rounded edge of his glass against my own. I raise the glass to my lips and take a sip.
“Wow,” I say with a satisfied smile. “This wine is delicious.”
“I think you’ll like the rest of the date too,” he grins as he motions toward a table that is set in the adjoining room.
I look over to see a charcuterie spread on the table.
“Now are you more impressed about our date?” he asks teasingly.
“Yeah, definitely impressed,” I say. “I was expecting gym socks and Gatorade.”
“No, that’d be Chase’s room you’re talking about.”
Sterling smiles and then we fill our plates with as much of the delicious looking meats and cheeses as they can fit before going to sit down together in the living room. He’s even decorated the living room with strings of white lights that seem to add an alluring enchantment to the space.
Definitely not the first girl he’s brought up here.
I might be in a state of delusion, but I’m not a complete idiot to think he’d actually take the time to do all this just for me.
We sit on giant floor cushions and talk about everything that comes to our minds while we drink wine. This is really nice. And not at all what I had expected from a date with Sterling. There’s a much softer side to him, a more romantic side. But he also seems to be teetering on an edge a lot of the time.
I can’t really explain it, but there’s just something about him that seems like a bomb waiting to go off.
At least for now though, he’s soft and kind of sweet.
After another bottle of wine is uncorked, and our floor cushions end up resembling more of a makeshift bed, I find myself leaning up against him, a laugh shaking my shoulders when he tells me about a time that Warren mistakenly thought that his sister’s pet hamster was an attic rat.
The story pans out exactly as expected.
“What did you do while you were watching them?” I say between fits of laughter as I imagine Bridget as a middle schooler screaming at her brother while he tries to chase down a fluffy hamster. “Did you help Warren?”
“Of course not,” he laughs, “it was way too amusing for me to want to end it.” Suddenly something about his voice changes, and he tilts his head down to look at me. “Kind of like tonight.”
I feel his arm wrap around me as I let myself fall against his chest. But as soon as I feel his hand tighten around my waist, we both stop laughing and the mood in the air between us changes.
Sterling pulls me into him and before I even have a chance to catch my breath, he puts his mouth on mine. His lips are soft and warm, and when he slides his tongue into my mouth, it feels a bit like I’m falling. I instinctively wrap my own hands behind his neck and pull his face closer to me as I turn my hips toward him.
The moment between us is hot and heavy, and I like to think it’s unexpected for Sterling as well.
Unlike the rest of this night, this single moment feels unplanned.
His arms tighten around me and his hands grasp onto my body as if he is being fueled by something that he can’t control. It is raw, and real, and for a moment I even forget what I’m doing here to begin with.
All I can think about it how good his body feels against mine as he lays me back against the floor cushions and crawls over me. We kiss and I realize that I am not going to try to stop him when he reaches to pull my shirt off and over my head. My hands trail down his chest and into the top of his pants, where things abruptly go sideways.
Sterling suddenly pulls away and gets up off of me. For a minute, I feel as if I might have done something wrong that upset him.
“Are you okay?” I ask as I sit up, my head swimming.
“No,” he growls at me. He storms off to the kitchen to pour himself another drink, mumbling something about side effects making it impossible.
I sit there in confusion for a second before I realize what just happened.
What we almost just did. What I was going to let him do.
I’ve never sobered up so quickly in my life.
We went from being in a frenzied fit of intimacy, to Sterling dropping his hands from me as if he had burned himself and storming off into the other room. If he’s actually unable to perform sexually, then I get the feeling his drug problem is a lot worse than he is letting on.
Still, I doubt that’s the only reason my hands are shaking.
And I’m not the only one.
Sterling uncorks another bottle of wine and turns it upside-down, chugging the bottle as if it’s water. It’s a long moment before either of us tries to break the silence.
“I really should be going,” I say, my voice cracking as I work to steady my hands.
Sterling doesn’t look at me. “Figures.”
His words make me pause. I should hate myself for what I almost did, but instead, I find an unfamiliar emotion taking over me.
It’s pity.
For him.
“Hey, it’s no
