Page 14 of Sweet Ache (Driven 6)
I watch them a few more minutes as they laugh. Hawkin pulls out a bag of Skittles and pours them straight into his mouth, and I just grin at the little-boy gesture in a grown man. They bump fists a couple of times before I notice the bodyguards not far behind. Just as I’m sinking into the idea that he might not be too much of an asshole, that I was overreacting to being called out, I watch two female students wearing their sorority letters approach them.
I’m immediately conflicted because a part of me wants to watch the exchange while another larger part doesn’t want to because I already know deep down that I’m going to be jealous.
And the notion that I even care pisses me off, but in true female form, I can’t bring myself to look away.
The girls giggle and flirt as they introduce themselves. Hair is twirled, eyelashes are batted, and backs are suddenly arched so that tits are front and center between them and the men. I roll my eyes at the sight, then narrow my gaze when that lopsided grin tugs up Hawkin’s mouth in a way that makes him the perfect combination of sheepish and wolfish. As he signs something for the sample-size brunette with boobs proportionate to a Barbie doll’s, I watch her make her move.
She reaches out to touch the cuff of his shirt on his bicep. He hands her back her pen and then laughs as he pulls up the sleeve of his shirt so she can see the tattoo she’s obviously asked about. I cringe when her hands immediately reach out to trace the ink that I can’t see because she’s now blocking my line of sight. I shift my gaze to Hawkin’s face, watch him watch her coo over his tat.
“It’s just ink, honey. Got a pen in your backpack with some don’t you? Get over it already,” I mumble, knowing damn well I want to know what the tattoo design is. And before I finish saying the words, she’s lifting up his shirt to see if there is another tattoo there. “Brazen little hussy.”
I grit my teeth at the sight of her hands touching as much of his bare skin as she can while he just grins at her—and Vince is equally occupied with the other way too perky Delta Sig girl. Seconds turn to minutes and before much time passes, Hawkin’s arm is around Barbie’s shoulder and the four of them are walking somewhere off campus.
By the time they disappear, his hand has conveniently slid down her back and is resting comfortably on the curve of her ass.
Shaking my head, I start telling myself I shouldn’t be surprised, can’t be angry at what I’d already pegged him for. Once a player always a player.
Time to go visit Carla.
“Ugly Heart” plays through the speakers as I flop back on my couch, research notes scattered all around the table in front of me and the cushions beside me. I hum along, trying to decipher my scribble that made perfect sense when I took the notes but now seems like a jumble of incomprehensible mishmash.
It doesn’t help that my talk with my adviser was fruitless. Every attempt to explain the exact reason why I couldn’t assist Hawkin’s seminar fell on deaf ears until the conversation ended with the one word everyone dreads hearing: Don’t disappoint me, Quinlan.
And then of course my mind shifts toward him. “Go away!” I mutter and begin to sing the lyrics to drown out the unwelcome thoughts.
“Maybe I’m just crazy; maybe I’m a fool….”
I sing the words on autopilot, my thoughts scattered and loneliness setting in. It’s been six months since Rick and I called it quits. Six months since I walked in on him in bed with another woman naked and moaning after being with him for a year. The player who swore he’d changed just for me obviously hadn’t. So I took his key off my ring, then walked away from his apartment with a promise to never be that girl again.
After working so hard at my relationship with him and it ending the same way that my previous two relationships had, I vowed to revisit my undergrad days of casual dating where it’s fun and uncomplicated. Sex without strings, without happily-ever-afters. To never date a player again.
So now I ask myself: Why have I been fine for the past six months, not a day spent moping since my ego was bruised yet again and I swore off men, but now I’m sitting here wanting a guy to keep me company? And a complete player nonetheless.
The song switches and of course it’s a Bent song. The irony. The person behind the voice on the radio is the reason I’m feeling this way when I don’t want to be. He’s irritated me enough to get under my skin and that takes a lot to do.
Rylee’s words sift through my mind. I need to have some wild, reckless sex. The funny thing is I have been, so why do I feel so unsatisfied? Just as quickly the answer hits me—because it’s sex without emotion. It’s akin to having the ice cream to make a sundae and then realizing you don’t have any toppings, cherries, or hot fudge. You eat the ice cream nonetheless, but you aren’t fully satisfied.
My phone rings and I welcome the distraction from my pathetic thoughts that compare sex to sundaes. Yes, I’m in desperate need of help. Or an intervention.
“Hey, Layla!” I greet my oldest and dearest friend.
“I need to get drunk,” she groans.
“And I need to get laid,” I confess. Then I toss my pen on my open book next to me, thinking that maybe the physicality will clear my head from thoughts of a particular rock star.
“Well shit, that sounds like the perfect combination to me.” She sighs, my ever-ready partner in crime.
“True.”
“But I’ll stick to the drunk part…. Last time I wasn’t too successful at the getting laid thing. I’m no good at it. I was with Sean way too long to remember how to play this game.”
“Lay, you played the game just fine … but I think you scared the shit out of the guy you determined was your fun for the night.” I laugh as I recall the look on the poor guy’s face.
“You think it was too much?”
“Telling the guy your vagina needed a hug and could his penis provide it? Yeah. Just a tad much.” She starts laughing with me because the deadpan expression she had when she asked the question was so damn hilarious.
“I was drunk. And horny. Can’t fault a girl for trying.” I love her and her take no prisoners attitude.
