That cooled me only a little. It wasn’t like I could go back and changed things.
“It makes sense why the next year, guys started asking me out.”
His expression darkened. “Don’t tell me about it. I know where some of the little fuckers live.”
I shouldn’t have been puzzled, but I was.
“How would you know that?”
His duh expression was answer enough.
“You and Eddie talked about who I dated?”
By then Eddie and I were equally okay being in the friendzone. But he was my best friend and some of the things we talked about were secrets we were supposed to take to the grave.
“I might have nudged the conversation to what you were up to. He always seemed so aggravated by the guys you were interested in. That’s why I thought he was in love with you.”
I puckered my lips like I’d sipped something sour. “That’s gross. I mean I love him, but not in that way. Neither does he and never has.”
“Yeah, I figured it out too late,” he said.
“How?” I asked again, really curious.
He sighed. “We had a man to man prom night. He said he was—” He waved his left hand.
“Going to bang Hillary.” That was the name of Eddie’s longtime girlfriend at the time.
“Yeah her. I asked him about you and he gave me that swallowed-something-bad look you just did and I knew.”
I thought back to that night and how my date has acted like a jerk. He’d flirted with every girl there like I didn’t exist. Thing was, Johnny was a flirt and I’d known that. But what girl didn’t want to feel special on prom night.
“So you decided to seduce me?” I asked, masking a laugh at his expression. I hadn’t needed seducing.
“If I remember correctly, you came over. And now that I know you knew Eddie was going to hook up with Hillary, your excuse of wanting to wait for him to come home was a lie.”
“Yes and no,” I admitted. “I knew you were there and needed someone to talk to.”
It wasn’t like we didn’t talk. We had. He’d dispensed advice to me over the years about everything from teachers to the boys he warned me away from. We weren’t strangers just friends off limits to each other.
“Do you regret it?” he asked softly.
I met his hesitant gaze as if he held his breath waiting for my answer.
“No.”
It had been wild and totally unplanned. His expression had been priceless when he’d realized I’d been a virgin.
“I would have—”
I held up a hand. “You apologized a million times and I forgave you.”
“It’s just, I would have done things differently.”
I shook my head. “It was better that way. I really didn’t have a lot of time to think about what was coming.” I giggled a little. “Coming,” I repeated.
That night would forever be branded in my mind. His hands and mouth had been everywhere in his childhood room, only back from college for the weekend. He’d made me come so hard just from that, I was in another place when he’d plunged deep inside my silky depths.
“You didn’t seem like yourself after,” he said, holding my gaze with such sincerity, I decided to admit to the truth.
“I didn’t want to play by your rules.”
Before he could have broken my heart, I’d warned him off and chalked the “event” as a one-time thing. He’d been shocked and so had I. Though, he’d called, I’d ignored him.
“It was better that way,” I said.
I’d been protecting my heart. He’d been drafted and set to leave college to play in the NFL. How could he have introduced me? As his high school girlfriend? Granted I’d turned eighteen before he’d done the deed.
“Was it? I called you countless times and you avoided me. You stopped coming around when I was home.”
There was no way I could tell him that I’d fallen madly in love with him after that night. He’d been so tender and sweet. Everything had been great until his parents came home. We hadn’t heard until the seconds before his mother had come into the room.
I’d hidden in his closet practically naked if not for his shirt. When she’d left, I was trying to find my clothes when Eddie arrived. He’d called out for his brother. I had to shimmy out of the window and hadn’t made it clear when Eddie found my underwear on his floor.
“I still have them,” he said, reading my mind.
He tapped his finger against my parted lips. “Don’t be surprised. It was a treasure I could never give up.”
“You have my underwear?”
He grinned like it was funny.
“You knew I had a crush on you.”
I narrowed my eyes on him. “Crush my ass. You thought little of me. I saw the pictures.”
He had a parade of women who had nothing but praise and curses on their tongues. They loved to hate him for not committing.”