I was on day three, and I wasn’t happy about it.
Three days. Three agonizing days of pounding away at my keyboard instead of her ass. Three days without a single sexual pun that hadn’t come from my brother. Three nights of my hand on my jock, thinking about her spread eagle on my counter. Three long days without my hands in places they tingled at the thought of. Places where my tongue should be, like deep in her—
“Dude, did you hear me?”
I turned to Jude, frowning. “Huh?”
He rolled his eyes. “God, you’re so fucking sad. Just text her.”
I scowled. “Don’t you think I would if I could?”
“What’s the matter? Fingers broken? Didn’t pay your phone bill?”
“Fuck you, Jude.”
“You act like she’s some delicate fucking flower.”
My eyes narrowed. “She’s more delicate than you think. I can’t just text her, man. That’s not how this works.”
He shook his head. “Your big plan to woo Penny is to not talk to her? It’s to let her ghost you?”
“She hasn’t ghosted me, asshole.”
“Maybe she has, dickwad. You haven’t heard anything in three days and have been walking around here like a goddamn rottweiler who had his bone stolen.”
My scowl deepened.
“Get it? Your bone?”
“I hate you,” I muttered as I turned back to my screen.
“Liar. You know I’m right.”
I turned in my chair to face him again. “No, you’re fucking not. My big plan is to leave the ball in her court so I don’t come off as needy. The last thing a chick who wants no strings needs is a guy up her ass.”
“Maybe she does need a guy up her ass,” he joked with his eyebrows waggling.
“Fucking cretin.”
“I’m just saying, what rule states you can’t even text her after three days?”
“Oh my God,” I groaned with a roll of my eyes. “All of them, dipshit. You had a girlfriend way too long.”
“And you might have cocked it all up by acting like you’re not interested.”
I huffed. “I’ve gotta play this smart, Jude. She’s going to come back around. I know it.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
“Then I’ll figure it out.” My hope sank like the Titanic, slowly and with a chill. He wasn’t wrong, but he wasn’t right. There was no way of knowing, not until she texted me. I checked my phone, just like I had about four billion times in the last three days.
Nothing.
I ran a hand through my hair.
Jude watched me. “You should take a walk. Get out of the apartment. We’ve been cooped up here for three days, working and binge-watching TV, and I think you need some vitamin D, since you’re not giving any.”
I made a face. “Hilarious, jackhole. And I would have already seen her show if you’d fucking told me about it when you found out.”
“I did tell you, bro.”
“Dude, there’s no way I would forget you telling me that Penny was on TV. Literally no fucking way.”
“Well, there’s no fucking way I wouldn’t have told you because I knew you’d had a boner for her for a decade.”
I chuffed, opening my mouth to argue, but he cut me off.
“I’m serious. Why don’t you get us ice cream? It’s, like, a thousand degrees out, and you’re miserable. No one can be miserable after ice cream. It’s scientifically impossible.”
I sighed and stood, sticking a finger in his face. “Fine. But only if you promise to keep your fucking mouth shut about Penny. It’s hard enough without your nagging.”
“Yeah, I bet it is.”
He tried to flick me in the nuts, but I jumped back and countered with a solid slap upside the back of his head.
“Get me some cherry chunk,” he called after me.
I flipped him off over my shoulder as I walked to the door, opened it, and slammed it behind me.
Frustrated was a good word to use — sexually, emotionally, generally. I’d had a little taste of something that had consumed me like wildfire, and now that I was deprived of it, I felt wild. Feral. Like I’d crawl out of my skin if I couldn’t see her, smell her, touch her.
Even the thought of touching her had my johnson reacting.
Maddening, that was what it was.
I stepped out into the blazing summer afternoon, and my mood spoiled like rotten milk in the heat. I mean, why hadn’t she called? We’d spent an hour in the shower the last time I saw her and another hour in my room, in my bed, touching, talking, kissing. She’d made me feel so good, and I thought the feeling was mutual.
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe she was playing me.
Maybe I was just a fuck boy, someone whose body she could use.
The thought made me feel cheap. Cheaper still when I wondered how many guys out there had felt just like I did.
Maybe Jude was right and I needed a new plan. At what point should I stop waiting? At what point should I take action, and what could I do? Because one thing was perfectly clear.