Chapter 23

Joey

“You’re leaving?” I don’t even try to hide the disappointment in my voice when Anthony begins to dress.

“Yeah, I have a ton of shit to get done this weekend.” I don’t know him very well, but my ego wants to believe it’s chores he’s running to, and not me he’s running from.

Sheets tugged up to my chin, I watch as he covers his glorious body, first with his t-shirt and then those amazing gray sweats.

“As long as you don’t regret it.” I give him a weak smile even though he has his back to me.

Would he run from a woman’s bed this fast? Is he questioning what we did? He didn’t hesitate one second from the moment he knocked on my door. This wasn’t his first sexual experience with a man. I knew that the second he pressed his thick fingers against my hole and began preparing me to take his cock.

The silence that fills the room answers him before he can spout some bullshit. At least that’s the thought running through my mind before he actually opens his mouth and utters the words I honestly didn’t think I’d hear.

“It was amazing.” He bends to tug on his sneakers. “But it can’t happen again.”

“So you do regret it.”

Just let the man leave, Joey. Let him scurry back into his closet. Sounding like a stage-five clinger isn’t going to get you anywhere.

“I wouldn’t use the word regret.”

Yet, you can’t look me in the eye.

“It just can’t happen again.”

“Yeah,” I agree as I lay back down. The blessedly cool sheets needed to lower our body temps from the hot-ass sex earlier now forces a cold chill to run the length of my body. “Mediocre sex really isn’t worth revisiting, I guess.”

He stiffens but doesn’t say anything as he stands, now fully clothed and ready to leave me behind.

When he turns back in my direction, all I want to do is cower under the covers. Getting my feelings hurt isn’t a new thing. You have to have thick skin when you attract nothing but idiot men, but the sting at Anthony’s rejection is hard to hide. I face him, our eyes meeting as I search for anything to tell he doesn’t regret what we just did.

The calm, sedate mask he’s wearing only serves to hurt me more. I’ve had a one night stand with a guy who couldn’t remember my name once the sex was over, and even him leaving didn’t bother me as much as Anthony’s indifference.

“It’s out of our system.” His lip twitches in an awful attempt at a smile. “Now the tension will be gone when we’re around each other.”

Nodding, my tongue swipes at the corner of my mouth as my eyebrows raise. “Sure. Nothing will be weird now.”

“Walk me to the door?” He looks pained as he asks, but I ignore it.

“Lock it when you leave.” Turning over, back facing him, I tug the covers up even higher.

Without another word, he walks out. A silent tear stains my pillow before the front door clicks shut.

The banging on the door seems like only minutes later, but I just cover my head with a pillow and ignore it.

Fuck Anthony. His apologies aren’t going to work. Well, they might, but I have to stand my ground for a little while at least. Running and opening the door for him after he’s had time to think about his shithead ways is the last thing I’ll do.

“What the hell are you doing?” Andi’s voice berates me a moment later.

Seems fantasy Anthony doesn’t exist.

“Get up,” she commands with a kick to the side of my bed. “We’re going out.”

Lifting the pillow a couple of inches from my mouth so she can hear me, I say, “I’m not going anywhere but back to sleep.”

“Sleep? Bullshit,” she hisses. “It’s Saturday night; we’re heading to the Tavern for drinks.”

“Nope. I think I have the flu.” It’s not her business that the ache in my body is from a virus named Anthony. Trying not to move too much, I lower the pillow back on my face. The throb in my ass is something I fail at ignoring.

“It’s not flu season,” she argues. “But you can stay in bed if you want. I’m going to grab you some painkillers and a bottle of water. When I get back, we can discuss why the room smells like sex and why your clothes are thrown all over.”

Freezing at her words, I wait until I know she’s out of the room, then I scramble like crazy to tug on some clothes and put the ones I was wearing earlier in the dirty hamper.

Back in bed just before she makes it back, I cringe when I smell him on my sheets. It’s not the first time his cologne has invaded my senses since he left, but I’m already regretting the lie I told her. The couch would be a much better place for us right now.

“Spill,” she says as the bed shifts under her weight.

“Flu,” I mumble from under the pillow.

Her finger traces down my arm. “And here I thought the flush on your skin was from running around cleaning up in the thirty seconds I was gone.”

I’m winded from the intensity of it, so I opt to not speak until my breaths are less ragged.

“Anthony treat you right?”

Cringing, I shove the pillow away. “Anthony wasn’t here.”

Since when is it proper for someone to try and invade your sex life like they’ve earned a front row seat? I’m not that guy from Sorority Crowd Pleaser who fucks chicks with an audience. I mean to each their own, but my bedroom business stays in the damn bedroom. Or the kitchen. Or the shower. More specifically, it’s only between me and the guy.

“The room reeks of sex,” she challenges.

“I masturbated earlier, but thanks for saying my jizz reeks.”

She’s not deterred. “Your sheets smell like cologne.”

“I spray them before I jack off.” I can’t even make eye contact with her. “Makes it feel less lonely.”

“So whose cologne did you spray?”

“Jon’s,” I answer automatically because he’s the only guy that lives here, and then I try to hide the cringe.

She huffs. “First, that’s disgusting and incredibly disturbing. Two, Jon wears Fierce by A&F.”

I’m the worst liar ever.

“I found the bottle in the bathroom.” The lies just keep stacking.

“Where is it?”

“It was one of those tiny sample things.”

“So it’s in the trash?”

When I grab her arm to keep her from climbing off the bed, she glowers at me.

“Can’t you just leave it alone?”

“Can’t you just tell the truth?”

“Can’t you mind your own business?”

See? Sleeping with him is already messing things up. Now I know why he was adamant that one time was best, and it pisses me off even more that he was right.

“Why are you lying?” Does she honestly think just changing the words means she’s asking a different question?

“Why are you asking questions that are private?”

“I can do this all day,” she warns.

“You can leave,” I respond.

Hurt fills her eyes, but she doesn’t mention Anthony again.

“We’re watching more PLL,” she asserts as she angrily sweeps the remote off of the nightstand.

Refusing to argue about anything else today, I wait silently for her to pull the show up, the whole time wondering if her insistence to watch a show about friends who constantly lie and hide things from each other is a jab at me.

“I’d make you soup,” she mutters, “but you don’t have the flu.”

The teenagers run around on the screen, fruitlessly trying to figure out who A is for two solid episodes before I open my mouth again.

“I’m thinking about moving out and getting my own place.”

Her head snaps in my direction, but I keep my eyes on the screen.

“This is your home. You grew up here.”

“You moved out of your childhood home.”

“Because my parents still live there and they’re religious zealots.”

The reminder that my parents are gone hurts almost as bad today as it did the day they took their last breaths.

“It’s too crowded.”

“It’s only you and Jon,” she argues.

That’s the kicker, isn’t it? She claims to be my friend, but how much of that will fade away if I didn’t live in the same house as her obsession?

“It’s also Dave and Cooper.”

“And Anthony,” she adds.

“Like I said, it’s too crowded.” I refuse to acknowledge her addition. “I never get any peace and quiet.”

I can feel her eyes on the side of my face. “They’re fishing all weekend. You literally have nothing but peace and quiet for two days.”

“And it will be utter chaos when they get back.”

“We’re going on a cruise. It’s going to be fun in the sun and bliss for five days.”

With the mood I’m in right now, I don’t even want to go, and that makes me more mad at Anthony.

“Besides, you ask them to take their bullshit somewhere else, like the bar.” Laughing, she adds, “or Dave’s house. His mom loves when the guys are over.”

Rolling my eyes, I look over at her. “I just think it’s time to be on my own for a while.”

Shrugging, even though I know she’s upset, her eyes go back to the TV.

We watch two more episodes silently before she stands to leave. She had wanted to go to the bar when she first got here, but now it’s “getting late.”

“I have to open the store in the morning,” she says with a small wave before I’m left alone in the deafening silence I insisted I wanted.