It was just after one when I got back to our apartment. I had stopped for a coffee and bagel after I left Carson’s.

I knew Dani had said she didn’t want to know about my affair, but I wasn’t sure how I was going to handle spending ten hours with her and not say anything. My guilty conscience needed someone else to know about my indiscretions. I couldn’t be the only one keeping this secret. But I didn’t want to ruin our entire day, so I had to try.

I took a shower and let my hair air dry into loose waves. I pulled on clean jeans and my Oregon hoodie, and then sat down at the kitchen table to do some work until Dani got there. I didn’t want to fall behind after taking the afternoon off yesterday. I had seventy-five emails. You would’ve thought I had been gone three days, not three hours.

I had answered, deleted, or archived all the emails and had started on my personal letter to the hiring committee by the time Dani texted me to let me know she was downstairs.

I pulled black boots on over my skinny jeans, grabbed an extra jacket and my purse, and headed downstairs.

“It’s a damn good thing you have on an Oregon hoodie, otherwise I was going to have to kill you,” Dani said as I got in the car.

“I told Quinn I was going to wear red, you know, to support Utah,” I said.

“That’s not even funny.”

“It’s just a football game, it’s not that big of a deal.”

“Are you trying to get yourself kicked out of my car before we even get on the interstate?” she said, and I laughed.

“Is that an option?” I asked, and she glared at me. “Calm down, I’m only teasing.”

Dani and I talked about work for a while. It’d been so crazy lately, I hadn’t even gotten a chance to tell her about my temporary-but-hopefully-permanent promotion.

“Oh my God! How have you not told me this yet?”

“It’s been nonstop craziness since it happened. I’m sorry … I meant to call you.” That’s not the only news I’ve sat on, I thought. “I promise if I get the job for real, you’ll know immediately,” I said.

“Of course you’ll get it. Why would they give you a trial if they weren’t planning on giving you the job eventually?” she asked.

“I could still fuck it up.” I shrugged.

“You won’t fuck it up. You were made for this job. You’re going to kick ass. I’m so fucking proud of you.”

Dani told me about a couple she’d done an ultrasound for the other day. The dad had cried when she’d told them they were having twin girls.

“Like sad tears, not joyfully happy tears,” Dani said, exasperated. “His poor wife was so excited. I wanted to punch him in the face and tell him at the very least he should pretend to be excited for his wife.”

“Yeah, he’s probably sleeping on the couch for the rest of his life,” I said.

“I love watching Dad’s reactions the best. The mom’s always try to act excited even when I can tell they are disappointed they didn’t get the gender they wanted. But dads never fake it; you always get the raw reaction.”

“I still don’t know how you can even tell anything on an ultrasound. It all just looks like a blurry, black and white blob.”

“I can’t even draw a straight line, so we’re even.”

We fell into a comfortable silence, and I dozed off. When I opened my eyes, we were pulling into a parking lot a few blocks from the stadium.

“Well, hello again, sleeping beauty,” Dani said sarcastically.

“I thought you said we were going to get dinner?” I was still in my post sleep haze and confused why we were at the stadium when the game didn’t start for another two hours.

“We are, but there is a great burger place just a couple blocks from here, I figured we could get a parking spot before shit gets crazy.”

“Aah, sounds like a good idea.”

“All my ideas are good, duh,” Dani laughed as she parked the car.

“Mmm, remember when you got a pixie haircut sophomore year after you broke up with Jason? That’s two bad ideas … Jason and a pixie cut.”

“You must be thinking about someone else. I would never do that.” Dani turned and looked at me, and we both burst out laughing.

We laughed and reminisced about old times all through dinner. By the time we got back to the stadium, my stomach hurt from laughing so much.

Our tickets were on the 50-yard line, six rows up from the field. Even I was impressed.

“How did you get these tickets? Did they cost you a fortune?” I asked.

“Actually they were free. One of the doctors I work with is a season ticket holder, but he’s out on vacation this week, so I begged him mercilessly for weeks, and he finally gave them to me.”

“I might come to games more if we had seats like this. Look, you can see the sweat on that guy's face from here!”

“Oh my God, are you actually getting excited about football?”

“No, being excited about football and being excited about being within ogling distance of dozens of super fit 20-somethings is very different.”

Dani just shook her head and laughed. There was still 45-minutes until kickoff when Quinn texted me.

“Quinn has a few minutes, so I’m going to go meet him. Do you want me to get you anything?”

“A beer,” Dani said. I held out my hand. She looked at me like I was a psycho, and then slapped it away. “I’m not giving you money.”

“That was the deal … you buy all the beer and don’t make me come to another game for two years,” I reminded her.

She mumbled under her breath as she dug in her pocket and handed me a twenty.

“Thanks, I’ll be back in a few.”

I could see Quinn waiting at the top of the steps.

“Hey,” I said. He greeted me with a deep, passionate kiss. Someone to my left yelled at us to get a room.

“Hi babe,” Quinn said when he finally pulled his mouth off mine.

“Hi,” I said again, a little out of breath from the kiss.

“It’s a good thing you’re not wearing red.”

I pulled the edge of my jeans to show him the red panties I was wearing.

“I’d show you the matching bra, but that might be inappropriate,” I laughed. Quinn just shook his head.

“Let’s make a bet,” he said, a wicked grin spreading across his face. “Since you are hell-bent on supporting Utah, one way or another, let’s make a bet.”

“I’m listening…” I folded my arms across my chest.

“If Oregon wins, you have to put on the Oregon lingerie I bought you and wait up for me tonight,” he said, then added, “And you have to wear an Oregon shirt the next time we visit your parents.”

“And if Utah wins?” I raised my eyebrow.

“Anything you want, babe.”

“Anything?” I asked.

“Yup.”

“Deal,” I said, sticking out my hand. I didn’t know what I wanted out of the bet, but I knew having something like that to hang over Quinn’s head would be so much fun.

“What do you want if Utah wins?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

“You have to tell me so I know what I’m getting into!” Quinn protested.

“That wasn’t part of the deal.” I leaned in close and whispered in his ear, “You just better hope your precious Ducks can pull off the win.”

“You’re evil, you know that, right?”

“Come on … I told Dani I’d get us some beers.” I took his hand as we stood in line for beer.

“I love you, babe.” He gave me another kiss, this one much tamer, and left to head back to the booth, as the game was about to start.

“I love you too.”

I took the steps back down much slower, careful not to spill our beers.

“What the fuck … did you guys go have a quickie in the car or something?” Dani said when I returned to our seats. “I thought I was going to have to come up there and get my own beer.”

“No, we were making a bet.”

“What kind of bet?” she asked. I filled her in on the details.

“So what are you going to ask for if Utah wins? Which they won’t by the way,” Dani said after she finished glaring at me for wearing red underwear.

“I honestly don’t know yet. But it’ll be fun to make him squirm while I figure it out.”

“Maybe you should ask for a ‘hall pass,’ or I guess at this point a ‘get out of jail free card’ would be more appropriate,” she said, her voice icy. She took a sip of her beer and didn’t look at me.

“That’s fucked up.” I couldn’t believe she was bringing this up now.

“You’re the one who did it.” She sounded angry. Even after all these years I sometimes couldn’t figure her out.

“You’re a bitch sometimes,” I said. “Why did you even bring this up? Are you trying to ruin the good time we are having?”

“I watched you make out with Quinn at the top of the steps,” she said. I waited for her to make her point, but she didn’t keep going.

“So what?” I snapped. “He’s my husband … I’m allowed to kiss him.”

“I just don’t know how you can carry on with Quinn and pretend like nothing happened,” she said. “I guess I’m still just disappointed in you.”

I started to respond, but at that moment, the Oregon fight song began playing loudly over the speakers, and Autzen stadium shook as fans cheered and stomped and welcomed the Ducks, wearing their God-awful neon yellow uniforms, to the field. Thank God. I didn’t know what else Dani was going to say, but the way our conversation was going, it wasn’t going to be pretty. Fighting with her about my affair in a crowded stadium was not my idea of fun. I had been on the verge of telling her everything in the car ride down, so now I was glad I hadn’t. She didn’t need even more ammo against me.

It took every ounce of restraint I had to not cheer loudly in Dani’s face when the Utah players ran onto the field. I didn’t care who won the game, bet or not, but she’d pissed me off, and now I was going to cheer for Utah just to make her mad.

Who the fuck did she think she was? Like she’d never made any bad choices. Yeah, but she’s never slept with her husband’s best friend … repeatedly. I wanted the little voice in my head to fuck off, but she was right. If we were ranking bad choices, I was definitely winning.

My phone vibrated in my pocket.

I’d just heard the Utah cheerleaders do a stupid cheer, so I responded to Quinn’s message with it.

Quinn responded with a puking emoji, and I laughed. I caught Dani watching me out of the corner of my eye.

“I’m sorry,” she mouthed, her words drown out by music and cheering.

“It’s okay, I probably deserved it,” I said in her ear as I pulled her in for a hug.

The rest of the game was surprisingly pleasant. It turned out football was more fun when I had a reason to care. Although, I got a few weird looks from the fans around me when I groaned every time Oregon scored.

With forty-five seconds left in the game, Oregon was up by one and Utah had the ball. Dani was jumping up and down screaming things like, “wrap him up” and “hold the line” and lost her shit when Oregon got called for a penalty that put Utah in field goal range with five seconds left.

“Damn it! Utah’s kicker never misses. They call him fucking Automatic Andy,” Dani groaned.

“That’s good for me!” I said. He had made two field goals already this game.

“I can’t watch. Goddamn it, I’m going to be sick.” Dani covered her eyes as Utah setup for the field goal, but then peeped through her fingers as the kick went up. It sailed to the right of the goal post, and the stadium erupted.

“He missed! Automatic Andy missed! Oh my God! Yes!” Dani jumped up and down and yelled with the other 50,000 Oregon fans in Autzen Stadium.

Poor Andy sank to his knees on the field and held his helmet in his hands while Oregon players swarmed and celebrated. I wanted to go out there and give him a hug.

Dani shook me back to reality, and I tore my eyes off the Utah kicker.

“That was awesome!”

“No! Now I have to wear that stupid lingerie Quinn got me.”

“You get to have super-hot sex tonight. I don’t think you can really complain about losing this bet,” she said.

I shrugged; she was right. It felt strange to be giddy and excited about a night with Quinn when earlier in the day I had had the same feeling on my way to see Carson.

I checked my phone as we made our way to the car. There was a text from Quinn.

---

I was a terrible road-tripper. Dani had to nudge me awake when she dropped me off at our apartment.

Although it was almost two AM, my nap in the car had refreshed me, and I was awake and excited. I lit some candles in the bedroom, then dug around in my dresser until I found the hideous bright yellow lace teddy and matching thong. The fabric had big green “O’s” all over it. I laughed.

“Well, that’s appropriate,” I said to no one. I slipped out of my jeans and hoodie and took off the red bra and panties I had been wearing. It was a shame, since they looked way better than what I was about to put on.

I glanced at myself in the mirror and laughed again—it looked ridiculous. I crawled on the bed and laid right in the middle, propped myself up with all the pillows, and read a book on my phone. I didn’t have to wait long; I hadn’t even made it five pages when I heard Quinn’s key scrape in the lock.

Quinn didn’t even bother putting his stuff away; he just dropped it on the floor and walked toward the bedroom.

He stood at the foot of the bed, a huge grin on his face as his eyes raked over my body.

“I didn’t think you’d actually do it,” he said.

“I thought about it, but a bet’s a bet. Fucking Automatic Andy screwed me over.” Quinn raised an eyebrow at me and pulled his polo shirt over his head.

“Oh, you know their player’s names now?”

“Only that one … and only because of Dani,” I admitted sheepishly.

“I was sweating when they got in field goal range. He never misses a kick that close.” Quinn undid his pants and let them drop to the floor.

“That’s what everyone keeps saying, but of course when I had skin in the game he missed.” I shook my head.

“I’m damn glad he did. Seeing you here, all sprawled out and looking hot as fuck is better than Christmas.”

“This lingerie looks ridiculous,” I said.

“I know someone who would disagree.” He winked and took off his boxers, his already hard cock sticking straight out.

Quinn crawled toward me on the bed, a look of pure lust in his eyes, and my heartbeat quickened. He straddled me, his hands on either side of my head, his knees between my spread legs, his cock hard and stiff against my stomach.

Quinn lowered his head and kissed me, soft and tender, like he was savoring every taste of me.

“I could spend the rest of my life kissing you and be completely happy,” he said when he finally pulled away.

A ball of guilt formed in my stomach at his words. It threatened to bubble up and spill out of me. I silenced it by grabbing Quinn’s face and pulling him back down for another kiss. This time more feverish. Quinn dragged his mouth off mine and ran his tongue over my nipple. The warmth of his tongue and the rough lace fabric created a delicious friction, and I let out a moan.

“Oh my God, Quinn,” I whispered. Quinn sat back on his heels and looked at me like I was a piece of meat he was about to devour.

“You are so fucking beautiful,” he said. I squirmed under the intensity of his gaze. His hands roamed up my stomach and over my breasts and rested on the neckline of the ridiculous yellow teddy. I let out a small scream when he ripped the lace in half, pulling it off my body and discarding it. Then his mouth was on me again, licking, kissing, and tasting every inch of skin from my neck to the top of my lace thong. When he got there, he ripped it off, too, and then resumed his tour south. I moaned when his tongue flicked over my clit and swore loudly when it dipped inside me.

“Holy shit, baby,” I mumbled and arched my back off the bed. His hands gripped my hips and held them in place while his tongue did things I didn’t know were possible. I was on the brink of an orgasm when he lifted his mouth off me and smiled. He did it three more times, bringing me to the edge of pleasure before pulling me back.

“Quinn, please,” I begged. “You’re killing me.”

“Just wait … it’ll be worth it,” he said, the words a tickle against my most sensitive area. This time he didn’t stop. His tongue knew just what to do, and my body was primed and ready. My world went black as my orgasm crashed into me and washed over me like a wave breaking against the rocky Oregon coast. My nails dug into Quinn’s shoulders, and I yelled incoherently as the waves of never-ending pleasure continued. Quinn finally pulled his mouth off me, leaving a trail of kisses up my stomach as he crawled his way back over top of me.

“That ... was ... holy fuck...” I struggled to make a coherent sentence in my post-orgasm daze.

“I’m just getting started, baby.” Quinn smiled and leaned down to kiss me again. I moaned against his mouth moments later when he entered me slowly, burying himself inside me before pulling back out again. In and out, in and out, so slow and delicious. He sat back up again, grabbed one of my legs, and put it over his shoulder before lowering himself back down.

“Chloe, fuck, you’re amazing,” Quinn said through gritted teeth. “I’ve been thinking about this all day.”

“Fuck, Quinn, it feels so good,” I moaned. I ran my hands down his back and grabbed his ass, pulling him in even deeper.

I bit my lip and moaned as Quinn swirled his hips. He did it again and a shiver ran down my spine. Quinn closed his eyes and groaned, his body tense, his movements slow and deliberate. I reached a hand between our bodies and circled my clit with two fingers. My body tightened around Quinn’s, and I could tell he was close too. We came together moments later, both of us moaning as we got lost in the pleasure.

Quinn rolled off me and collapsed on the bed. We lay there in the glow of the candlelight for a long time, both of us breathing hard. After a few minutes, I thought Quinn must’ve fallen asleep. I pulled the covers over me and blew out the candles on my side of the bed.

“Sorry about your lingerie,” Quinn said finally. I rolled over on my side and looked at him.

“Please … you did me a favor!” I laughed. “Now I’ll have to put back on my Utah-red panties and bra.” I moved like I was going to get out of bed but Quinn pushed me back down into the plush mattress.

“Don’t even think about it.”

“Why not? I think they’re good luck, Oregon won.”

“You’re not going to need clothes for a while.” He winked at me and disappeared under the covers.

Thank God Andy missed.

---

It was just after noon when I finally woke up. Quinn was still sound asleep beside me. I stretched, but didn’t get out of bed. I wasn’t ready to leave the warm covers and soft bed. I was reading emails on my phone and catching up on Instagram when my phone vibrated.

I lifted my head and looked at Quinn; he was on his stomach, but his breathing was slow and even, and he was definitely still asleep.

I giggled at the memory of Carson pouting when I beat him before.

“Who are you texting?” Quinn said. I visibly jumped and stuck my phone under my body. Quinn laughed. He was still laying on his stomach, his head turned toward me now. I was pretty sure from that angle he wouldn’t have been able to see my screen.

“Jesus, you scared me.”

“Sorry, but that was funny. You hid your phone so fast, you would’ve thought I caught you watching porn or something.” Or something, I thought to myself. Something worse than porn.

“Nah, you just scared me,” I lied. Quinn rolled out of bed and walked to the bathroom butt naked. I couldn’t help but stare as he walked away. What was wrong with me? Here I was making plans with Carson, when I already had Quinn, and he worshiped me. Quinn was amazing, and we had a great sex life. I never knew there was anything missing until Carson. Quinn knew me intimately, knew everything I loved, but it didn’t feel like enough anymore. With Carson, it was always rip-your-clothes-off passion and intensity; there was a sense of urgency that somewhere along the way had gotten lost with Quinn.

I picked my phone back up and had three more messages from Carson.

I shook my head. He was acting like a needy child.

I glared at my phone. What the hell? Was he seriously asking me that?

I heard the toilet flush and deleted the string of text messages before I pulled the covers off and got out of bed. I was standing by the bed, naked, and stretching, when Quinn came back in the room. He had put on a pair of basketball shorts.

“Are you trying to get me back in bed for round two?” he said.

“Round two? I think we passed round two and three last night.”

“I didn’t hear any complaints.”

“Oh, no complaints here, only rave reviews.”

“Is that right?” Quinn walked over and stood in front of me.

“I’d never leave a false review,” I whispered. Quinn leaned in to kiss me, but I ducked sideways and walked over to my closet. “But no, I’m not trying to start something. I need to go for a run.”

“You didn’t get enough cardio last night?” Quinn pouted. I pulled on a pair of leggings, a sports bra, and jacket.

“I’ve only got a few more weeks of nice weather, then I won’t be able to run outside, and I’ll participate in all the indoor cardio you want.” I sat on the edge of the bed and laced up my tennis shoes.

“All right, fine.”

“I’ll be back in a little while.” I kissed him on the cheek, grabbed my headphones off the table, and left.

For forty-five minutes, I tried to make sense of what I was doing. Tried to understand why, when I was happy with Quinn, when our relationship was everything I’d ever dreamed of and more, I was willing to risk everything for a fling with Carson. But nothing made sense. There was no sane explanation for my actions.

The passion between Carson and me was all-consuming—an overwhelming wave of lust and desire. You didn’t ignore that kind of connection. I knew it sounded crazy. I knew no one would ever understand. I didn’t need anyone to understand … I didn’t need to explain it … I just needed to not get caught.