Page 89 of Fifty First Times (Sharing You 0.40)
When he didn’t say anything else, I cocked my head toward the window. I didn’t want to know, but I had to ask. “So who’d you end up kissing out there for the greater good?”
“No one would volunteer,” he said wryly. “My ego was shattered, and Colette let me off the hook. Thank God.”
“Yay for small miracles,” I said. “I’d rather eat ants than kiss any of those guys.”
“Yeah?”
I smirked. “Yeah. I may like guys, but I do have some standards.”
Malcolm leaned over and flicked a piece of caked-up dirt from the tip of his boot. He stared down as the flecks of earth scattered across the wood. “So would you have kissed me?”
At first I didn’t think I’d heard him right. He couldn’t possibly be asking me that. But once I rewound the words and replayed it in my head, icy fingers of fear closed around my spine, rendering me unable to move or speak. No, this wasn’t supposed to be how it went. This wasn’t part of the plan. I wasn’t going to tell him this part.
The que
stion hung in the quiet, still air between us.
Malcolm lifted his gaze, meeting my eyes. “I think I need to know the answer, Bates.”
Four
SIRENS WERE GOING off in my head, bells clanging, lights flashing. Abort! Abort! Say no and get the hell out of here!
But I was frozen—a wax museum version of my former self.
Would you have kissed me?
Would you have kissed me?
Would you have kissed me?
The question zoomed around and around in my head, taunting me, as Malcolm watched me, waiting for an answer.
I forced my mouth to form the word. “No.”
Some undefinable expression flickered through his green eyes. He went back to knocking dirt of his boots with his fingers. “How come?”
I blinked. Was he seriously asking me that? “Because we live together. Because you know what all those guys would say if we went through with it—even as a joke. Because you’re my best friend. And you’re straight.”
His jaw twitched, but he didn’t look my way. “You know how many girls I’ve slept with in the last six months?”
I stared at him, utterly confused by this whole line of questioning. Maybe he was drunk. That spiked hot chocolate had been pretty strong. “Hell, Mal, I don’t know. A lot have walked through our dorm room door. Twelve? Maybe more.”
He looked up. “None.”
I scoffed. “Right.”
“I’m serious,” he said, leaning back again. “I’ve made out with a bunch, but nothing more than that.”
He definitely had to be drunk. He was talking nonsense. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I haven’t had sex with anyone since last school year.”
None of this was registering in my brain. Malcolm, notorious player, hadn’t taken a girl to bed in months? “Why not?”
He sighed and pulled out the elastic band securing his hair at the back of his neck. It was a nervous habit I’d seen him do a million times, but somehow it seemed so out of place in this moment. “You remember that Friday night at the end of last semester, right after finals ended? You thought I’d already headed out for the weekend to spend a few days partying in Lafayette, but I’d forgotten my driver’s license?”
I cringed. “Hard to forget.”
