Page 15 of Sweet Ache (Driven 6)
“It was one for the record books,” I confess.
“So let’s try again tonight. I promise I’ll be on my best behavior this time around. Let’s go find some hot guys and have a fun-night-stand.”
“I’m just, ugh …” I laugh. “It sounds so easy, but it’s always more complicated than that.”
“Like what? The hangover or the walk of shame the morning after?” she asks.
“Both. Remembering names, that awkward moment when you randomly see each other on campus … Shit, I’ll take the hangover and get myself off to avoid all of that. After Rick the Prick,” I say with a sigh, “I’m done for a while.”
“Yeah that’s funny. I think I heard that before him and the guy before him,” she teases with nothing but the truth. “Besides, never date a guy with a name that rhymes with prick or dick. There’s just something wrong with that…. It’s like you’re just asking for him to be one or something.”
“It makes dirty talk easy though in case you forget his name in the heat of the moment,”
I explain, knowing from experience.
Her contagious laugh fills the line—the one that gets me every time. “So you in? Wanna go drink away our sorrows?”
“Sorrows? Since you can’t say happiness without saying penis, I’m assuming it has to do with a man…. What’s going on with you?” I ask, immediately concerned although I think she’s handling her breakup rather well considering the length of time she and Sean dated.
“Ugh! I had my first help session today, and I already want to stab my eyes out from giving the same explanation over and over,” she says, referring to her question-and-answer session for students who need help grasping the concepts in the main lecture. But then again, I don’t understand what a TA session has to do with a man.
“We were probably just as bad when that was us.”
“I know! But add to that Sean stopped by to make sure that I was okay—like he really cares—and all I really wanted to do was knee him in the nuts.”
“Well,” I muse, finally getting to the heart of her trouble. “At least you’re progressing from wanting to cry over him to wanting to inflict the pain he deserves for dumping you.”
“I know,” she says, then the line falls silent for a moment. I know she’s trying to sound strong, like their breakup hasn’t hurt her deeply, so I give her the silence to regain the fraudulent resolve in her voice. She sighs, her sadness palpable. “So see, we need to go out and have a drink. Celebrate us not being whiny first years and maybe have another three or four to make us forget the fact that we both need to get good and laid.”
My smile spreads wide until I look down at the papers littering my lap. “Layla,” I groan, “I wish I could, but I’ve gotta get moving on my first draft….”
“You’re seriously going to leave me high and dry?”
My mind flashes to how I’d rather be wet and low with Hawkin, and I hit the heel of my hand to my forehead to stop the insanity. “It’s so tempting because it’s been a fucked-up day for me too…. I just really need to make some headway here before I seriously screw myself with procrastination.”
“I know … but it’s still a helluva good idea. Well, I’m going to—oh my God! I totally forgot! Did you hear who was on campus today?” She says in a rush and from the excitement in her voice I’m really hoping she says Brad Pitt or something but I have a feeling I know exactly who she’s talking about.
“Who?”
“Hawkin—come-to-momma—Play. What I wouldn’t give to play him,” she murmurs as if she’s fantasizing doing just that. “I guess he’s doing some kind of seminar that I’m going to have to crash just so that I can—oh shit! A cop’s behind me, call you right back!” She ends the call abruptly, not willing to risk another ticket for talking on her cell phone and driving without a Bluetooth device. Guaranteed she’s most likely lost the last one she bought like she did the five before that.
I lean back and exhale, thankful for the momentary break in conversation so that I can figure out how exactly to tell Layla about my run-in with Hawkin. And then I wonder why my immediate reaction is that I don’t want to confide in her. Don’t want to knock him off the pedestal she’s set him on even though it’s not warranted. Just because he has a voice begging for sin doesn’t mean he’s the stellar guy she thinks he is.
Besides, it’s not like I’m going to see him again anyway so why am I even stressing over it?
My phone rings in my hand and startles me so much I answer it without looking. “That was quick, Lay!”
A masculine chuckle fills the line. “I’m anything but quick, but the lay part I can make sure of.”
What is it with men and everything being turned into sexual innuendo today? And of course as much as I want to roll my eyes, my lips form an involuntary smile.
“Luke? How—”
“You told me I was focused on the wrong numbers … so I found the right ones,” he says and I can’t help the little flutter in my stomach from the thought that he went the extra distance—like he always seems to do—to try yet again.
I emit a nervous laugh, unsure how to really feel about his continued pursuit. I fall back to my standard use of sarcasm whenever I’m uncomfortable. “Oh, how sweet of you! Were things going so well for you that you needed some rejection so you searched me out?”
“Charming as always,” he replies, humor in his voice so at least I know he took my comment how it was intended.
