“I’m going to be late,” Hadley mumbled against my lips.
I ignored her, replacing my tongue in her mouth to shut her the hell up. The morning had gone much the same while she attempted to get ready for school and again while she made breakfast. I’d have preferred to stay in bed.
Hadley went slack in my arms, letting me push her up against the wall at the end of a narrow corridor inside the art building. I’d made it two classes before I had to track her down. Now that we’d gotten it all out in the open, I couldn’t think past the next time I could touch her.
“Seriously,” she whispered. “My professor will have a shit fit if I walk in late.”
“Which class?”
Since she was so determined to ramble on, I diverted my attention to her neck and slid my hands around to the small of her back, pushing up my Bad Religion shirt, which she’d borrowed this morning and tied in a knot around her waist. I’d had a hard-on all the way to campus.
“Pho-tah-graphy lab,” she stuttered, her voice hitching as I nipped at her skin. “Asha and I are...uh...fuck...going shopping for my dress for the reception after that.”
“Take my car,” I answered, kicking her foot to the side so I could press between her legs.
I was done listening and slanted my mouth over hers, again claiming her lips. She bit my tongue.
“Fuck, Punky.” I bit her lip for revenge and because I’d wanted to bite that damn lip for so fucking long.
“I’m not used to kissing you with a tongue piercing,” she said with a smirk.
“And?”
“It’s weird.”
“Just imagine what it will feel like when—”
Hadley didn’t let me finish, but she got the message. Her fists grabbed at my hair, tugging by the roots as she plunged her tongue down my throat. Her leg came up around my hip and I held it there, basically dry humping her like a rutting puppy.
“Smile!” A camera flash went off.
I snapped my eyes to the open end of the corridor and groaned.
“Shit, Asha. You scared me.” Hadley dropped her hands and pushed me away. She arranged her shirt, making sure everything was where it should be.
My dick went into hiding from Tiny Tim. Cockblocking bride of Betsey Johnson’s Frankenstein.
“Delete that,” I snapped.
“Are you kidding?” Asha let the camera hang from the strap around her neck. “I’m having it blown up and framed.”
“No,” Hadley said. “Delete it or I’ll dropkick the camera across the parking lot.”
Asha’s neon pink lips twisted in consternation and her eyebrows furrowed. “You’re not going to let me enjoy this?”
“No,” we answered in unison.
* * *
Tossing out the last of the orange chicken I’d bought for lunch—it was marginally better than eating my own shoe and I always regretted ordering from that place—I returned to my quiet corner of the student union reading room.
“MacKay, you handsome bastard, I’m going to kiss you!” Corey didn’t have an inside voice. What he did have was the ability to draw unwanted attention for three square miles.
Every head in the room swung in his direction and watched as he came strutting over with Trey right behind him.
“You know you just tanked your chances of ever getting laid again,” I said. “By a woman.”
He grabbed my arm, yanked me from my comfortable and quiet seclusion, and then squeezed both sides of my face like a fucking goldfish as he smacked a kiss right on my lips. He then threw me back into my chair.
“I love this asshole,” he exclaimed to the room dotted with people who looked equally surprised, amused, and irritated that their sanctuary had been disturbed.
“Okay, big guy. Sit your ass down before someone recruits you for a pride parade.”
Corey’s display of PDA didn’t even break the top 20 on the list of most embarrassing moments I’d been subjected to in his company.
He and Trey took the seats across from me. A table of girls nearby appeared fascinated with attempting to discern how the three of us might play out in their homoerotic fantasies. I couldn’t help myself.
“He’s a bottom,” I said.
“Please stop,” Trey laughed. “I have a class with that girl.” He nodded at the redhead with glasses. “Hi, Jennifer.”
“Hi, Jenny.” Corey turned in his seat, sliding on that easy grin that made chicks trip over their panties falling around their ankles. “He’s kidding. I love tits.”
“On that note,” I announced. “Let’s quit before we’re charged with harassment. Yeah?”
“Says the guy who had a certain brunette up against a wall an hour ago,” was Trey’s retort.
“Thank you, by the way.” Corey reclined in his seat, propping his foot up on the short table between us. “I made twenty dollars off Trey.”
“For fuck’s sake. Will you two please stop running odds on me?”
“Not betting if,” Trey explained, “just when. We had a pool going.”
“You two need lives. And you,” I told Corey, “need a girl.”
“Way ahead of you. I’m taking Grace out to dinner.”
“I thought she hated you.”
Sure, Corey was convinced that Grace was just playing hard to get, but so far Trey agreed with me that “hard” was more like impossible.
“Oh, she does. I’m wearing her down. I fixed her pipes.”
I sat up, biting back a laugh. “I’m sorry. What?”
“She hasn’t had a working kitchen sink for days. Asha mentioned that the manager at Grace’s apartment was being a dick about it, so I went over there and fixed it for her.”
“And that bought you dinner?”
“Yep. Tonight, since rehearsal is off. Ironed a shirt, ordered flowers, washed the Jeep—”
“You’re going all out.”
For Corey, ironing a shirt was a big step.
“She’s out this afternoon with the girls on their shopping trip,” Trey added.
“You and Asha have plans?” I asked.
“With you two situated for the night, I can get Asha alone for more than a couple of hours.”
“Take her. I’m happy to be rid of her.”
“So...” Corey propped his elbows on his knees and made the sort of dreamy face one would expect to find on a teenage girl compulsively ogling the flavor of the week on TV. “How’d it happen? What’d you say? How many rooms did you dirty and is it still safe to eat off your kitchen counter?”
“We talked,” I said. “After I picked her up from the hospital—”
“Yeah,” Trey interjected, “how’s she feeling? Hadley texted me last night after they brought her in and I called Corey. We were going to head over there but she told us not to bother.”
“She’s fine. She’s got a bump on the head and some bruises. Nothing serious.”
“And Andre?”
“What’s to say? If she’d broken a bone, I’d have broken his jaw.” My fists clenched. I was suddenly in the mood to punt his face again.
“The way Hadley told it,” Trey said, “it was just an accident. Unavoidable.”
“And I should thank him for not killing her? Fuck that. I’d be in jail and he’d be in the ground.”
“Hey”—Trey put his hands up in surrender—“I get it, man. We’d have helped you hide the body. I’m just saying, maybe cut him some slack.”
“I’ve gotten Punky to and from home hundreds of times without a scratch on her. Why is that so hard?” I closed my eyes and exhaled. “Can we just drop it? I damn near shit myself when she called and I’d rather not think about it anymore. Besides, he’s out of the picture.”
Trey and Corey shared a pointed look.
“What?” I sat forward, examining them. “I’m not sharing. Hadley damn sure knows that. We put it all out there. She knows I’m in love with her. End of story.”
“Everyone but you two idiots knew you were still stupid for each other,” Corey said.
“So what’s with the fucking look?”
“They weren’t dating,” he told me. “They’re friends.”
“She can’t fuck her friends, either.”
“No, dumbass.” Corey rolled his eyes and sighed. “He wasn’t sticking it to her.”
I winced at his choice of words. “Please don’t.”
“They’re really just friends.”
“Bullshit.”
“He’s gay,” Trey announced.
Once again, all eyes in the room turned in our direction.
He lowered his voice. “That’s why he moved in with his mom a few years ago. He and his dad had some big falling out. Now his dad’s sick, so I guess Andre came back to help take care of him.”
“And everyone knew.” This was happening an awful lot lately. I didn’t care for it one bit. “Jesus fuck, guys. How long?”
“I’m guessing Hadley knew back then,” Trey said. “They were close before he moved away. Asha, I think, has known for a while.”
“But,” Corey added, “I’d like the record to show that we found out this morning. I’d have told you if I knew Hadley had parked herself with a friend of Dorothy.”
“Parked?”
“Yeah. Andre, according to Asha, isn’t really out. More like he’s got a toe out of the closet. So he gets Hadley as his beard to keep the peace with his dad and she gets someone safe that makes her look unavailable. Parked.”
I let that sink in. Now it was funny. “I could kiss him.”