I feel exhausted, my body weak and tender by the time Tyson allows me to rest and curls me up into his arms. He barely seems winded, but it’s clear he’s pleased by how worn out I am. It’s seven o’clock in the morning, and the sun is starting to rise. I’m not going to my morning class, obviously, because I can’t imagine I’ll be able to stay conscious for the whole thing. Tyson strokes my hair, runs his fingers up and down my arms, studying me, keeping me in that state of blissful surrender. He can look at me however he wants, touch me however he wants— this, I now understand, is what he meant when he said he had to “have” me. He has me. He hasn’t even fucked me, but he has me.

“You can fall asleep, Anna,” he murmurs in my ear as his fingers dance across my breasts.

“I don’t want to fall asleep if you’re still here. I want to do…I want more,” I say sleepily. “Besides, you did all the work.”

“My mouth on your pussy is not work, believe me. And you’re too tired. Next time,” he answers, kissing my brow. “I need to go anyhow.”

I try to protest, but there’s little point to it; he unwinds me from his body, then takes the time to tuck the blankets back around my limbs. I watch him get dressed, amazed at how he seems to own the space— my own bedroom— even when doing something as menial as putting his clothes on. No wonder he’s such a strong leader on the field; he has the sort of presence that makes you certain he’s in charge. He gives me a long look, then a half sort of smile, and finally slips out of my room. I hear him pause by the couch, I assume to pull his shoes on, and am about to drift back to sleep when I hear another door open— Trishelle’s door.

I gasp as silently as I can manage, and sit up— she’s going to see him in the living room. Will he tell her what happened? Will she know? I stand up too fast, dizzy and achy from last night’s events, and hurry to the door, listening through it.

“Tyson!” Trishelle says cheerfully. “I didn’t realize you stayed over.”

“I did,” Tyson says in that solid, steady voice.

“I had a great time,” Trishelle says, and I can hear the smile in her voice. I frown at the door. Trishelle goes on. “See you later?”

“Sure,” Tyson says politely. I hear some shuffling, and then the front door closing. I force myself to count to thirty, then open my bedroom door. Trishelle is in the kitchen, making herself a cup of coffee. There are circles under her eyes, but last night’s makeup is making her look perkier than I suspect she really is.

“Hey! Did I wake you up when we came in?” she asks. There’s weight to her words, like she’s making sure that if I’d missed the fact that she came home with a guy, I’d know now. The thing I really notice though is the fact that Trishelle, my best friend for over a decade, didn’t even notice I wasn’t home, and didn’t think to ask if I was cool with her bringing a guy here.

“No. I didn’t hear you,” I answer, which is technically true, I suppose. I sit down at the bar, unsure what to say. Trishelle is buzzing in the kitchen, an aura of delight around her. I can tell by her body language that she wants me to ask about the guy who just left, or, if I’d missed that, the “we” she’d just mentioned. I bite, just because I want to know what she’ll say. “So, how was that auction thing?”

She pounces, spinning to me and leaning over the counter so her cleavage— she’s still wearing the push-up bra from last night— bulges. “Anna, it was crazy. So, I was the second to last one to go, and I was sort of sad because all the really hot senior players had already bid on the other girls. It was pretty much a given that me and the girl who just barely made weight to get on the squad were going to get stuck with juniors, and I basically wanted to cry. It just sucks, you know? I’ve worked so hard, and the captains intentionally put me last, and…well…” She sighs, takes a quick drink of coffee, and goes on. “So, I get up on the stage, and I’m spinning around and everything, trying to not look miserable, and then all of the sudden Tyson Slate bids on me.”

“Tyson Slate,” I say.

“You wouldn’t know who he is since you don’t follow football,” Trishelle says, waving a hand at me. “But he’s the senior star of the team, and comes from this legendary football family, and he never does stuff like bid in the auction. He basically doesn’t do anything but play football. He’s stupid hot though, and all mysterious and broody, probably cause his dad is a legit murderer and is on trial. The dad is in the tabloids all the time— I bet you’d recognize him.”

“Maybe so.” I’m trying to keep my face neutral. Trying to keep my face unreadable. Like Tyson’s.

“So he bids on me. Like, a winning bid. It’s the first time he’s ever bid on anyone. I think the seniors cheerleaders were a little mad, honestly, because they sort of thought of him as their prize, you know? They’re always trying to hook up with him, but none of them have. Anyway, everyone was cheering and celebrating and he comes and helps me down off the stage and we party for a few hours with everyone else and I drink way too many cups of hunch punch, but it was just so crazy because like…Tyson Slate! He won me!”

“Wow. That sounds…fun. In that sort of women-as-property way,” I say.

Trishelle scowls at me. “I told you, it’s all for fun. Anyway, so it starts getting late and people are sort of coupling off and leaving and one of the captains told me not to get my hopes up, because Tyson Slate probably bid on me because he felt bad for me or because he’s trying to seem more involved with the team. But then he asks if we can come back here.”

I nod. I mean to say something more, but words seem to be getting lost on the route to my mouth. Tyson had been so quick to tell me that he didn’t want Trishelle, that bidding on her was just a way to get to me.

“So…” Trishelle says, flushing a little. “We came back here.”

She stops, and I hang on her last word as long as possible before finally asking, “What happened?”

Trishelle breaks character and groans, loudly. “Nothing. He was a perfect gentlemen and I guess he thought I was too tipsy to hook up with.” She makes a sad face.

I narrow my eyes at her. “Trishelle, you shouldn’t want a guy to hook up with you when you were drunk.”

“I wasn’t drunk, just tipsy.”

“Whatever,” I sigh, feeling miserable.

Trishelle looks disappointed, like she knows I’m right but wishes I weren’t. “I’m just saying, Tyson Slate is amazing. So I hope I at least didn’t do anything stupid or embarrass myself. He stayed all night to make sure I was okay, so he must not think I’m a total loser, right?”

“I guess,” I answer. It sounds like Tyson and Trishelle didn’t do anything— like Tyson really did come for me and me alone. Still, I’m more than a little bothered at how into him Trishelle seems.

I wish I could talk to my best friend, tell her what’s going on with me, but now things feel more screwed up then ever and I’ve never felt so distant from her before.

It’s like I don’t even know her since we got to college.

“Well, if he was interested enough to bid on me maybe I still have a chance with him. He didn’t seem annoyed with me or anything this morning. Just…”

“Unreadable,” I say.

Trishelle’s eyes leap to mine, and for a moment I worry she’s picked up on the hunger in my voice— but instead she just nods hurriedly. “Yes! He is totally unreadable. It’s half of what’s so hot about him.”

“What’s the other half?” I ask, curious as to what she’ll say— and wondering for myself. Is it his eyes? His strength? His voice?

“The drama,” Trishelle says with a salacious buzz in her voice. “I mean, yeah, the hotness too, but I heard a rumor that there’s a reality TV company that wants to shoot a show based on the three Slate brothers— sort of like the Kardashians only with sports and boys instead of fashion and girls. The older two are in the NFL now and have gorgeous girlfriends and millions of dollars and houses and boats, and then all the stuff with their father being a murderer…it’s reality show gold, especially with his dad’s trial coming up in a few weeks.”

“You think Tyson is the reality show type?” I ask.

Trishelle shrugs. “I don’t know, but if he is, I don’t want to miss my chance. Let’s be real— they’re never going to put a girl like me on Bachelorette.”

I’m not sure why they wouldn’t— Trishelle, especially now that she’s wearing heels all the time and spends an insane amount of time on her makeup every morning, seems like exactly the sort of girl who would be on the Bachelorette. Nor am I totally sure why Trishelle wants to be on that show to begin with. She’s always been more of a reality TV lover than me, but never in a way that made me think she actually wanted to be on one of those shows.

“Anyway, all I’m saying is that losing my virginity to Tyson Slate wouldn’t be a bad thing at all. Although I hear he’s huge,” she says, snickering— and there’s a tiny bit of my old friend in there, giggling at talk of something naughty. “Someone told me ten inches.”

I swallow. It looked like ten inches to me. “That is huge all right,” I say.

“What about you? Is there anyone you’re interested in? I feel like I haven’t talked to you in ages.”

That’s because you basically haven’t, I think, but I don’t say it. “There’s someone.”

Her eyes light up. “Who? Tell me!”

“Just a guy I met at a thing,” I say with a shrug. “We sort of hit it off, I guess. It’s weird, though, since we don’t have much in common.”

“Sometimes that’s the best way, though,” Trishelle says sagely. I miss the way we used to talk like this. She always had advice, especially on guys. Even though the two of us barely dated in high school, she liked playing Love Doctor, and we’d spend ages talking through serious relationship problems with guys we definitely weren’t dating (and were frequently members of boy bands rather than classmates).

“I like him, though. I like the way he makes me feel,” I say. I’m wading in carefully, and to be honest, I want to tell Trishelle about the new experiences I had last night— about how crazy and wild and new it all was. But…it was Tyson, and I’m not sure how Trishelle would take that.

I don’t want to hurt her, even if she has been acting a little self-absorbed lately.

Thankfully, Trishelle’s phone chimes, and she falls into it, texting back frantically for a few moments before looking up at me and saying, “You should go for him, Anna. You’ve been a good girl your whole life. So was I— and trust me, it has been really, really fun letting that go.”

“Yeah,” I say, and nod, feeling even more sad now. “Yeah, okay. Maybe I will.”

“Good,” she says with a wink, and then calls someone back on the way to her bedroom. She shuts the door, and I hear her voice change into the high pitched one she uses with the other cheerleaders. She’s recounting the story of Tyson coming over, but in the version she tells them, she doesn’t admit that he never touched her— instead, she strongly implies they slept together.

I feel nauseous at the way she’s behaving. I wish we could go back to the way things used to be before she made the cheerleading team and changed.

But somehow I don’t think we can go back.

I think things are only going to get weirder from here on out…