“Let’s get back to the dream,” Brock said. “So you tell Merit you love her. Is it a friendly ‘I love you?’”
“No! I’m making love to her, and then I look into her eyes and she looks up at me all dreamy and I say it then.”
“Wow. Okay, so it wasn’t just in passing. You were saying it while doing the deed. Jesus, bro. I wasn’t sure you knew how to say those words anymore.” He chuckled as he added, “And I never knew you to make love. To any woman.”
“Very funny, and I don’t. I fuck. I like to fuck, and that’s it. There’s never anything behind it. It’s an act, nothing more. A means to an end.” I blew out a breath and kept pacing around my hotel room. “But with this dream, I wake up in a damn panic afterwards. And I think it’s messing with my mind and my libido, because a hot blonde just flirted with me on the elevator, and I simply told her to have a good night. I came back to my hotel room to pack and go to sleep. Pack. And. Go. To. Sleep! When the hell have I ever turned down sex?”
“You’ve turned them down before, Dirk. Maybe you’re tired. Or all the meaningless sex is getting old.”
“Bite your damn tongue. Sex will never get old,” I stated.
“Fine,” he said with a slight laugh. “Then maybe sex with different nameless women you have no connection with is getting old.”
I rubbed the back of my neck and whispered, “Why Merit?” More to myself than to him.
“Why not Merit? You guys used to be close. Hell, everyone knew Merit liked you, and more than just as a brother. I think you might have felt a little more for her yourself, but Kaci was always in the picture.”
“Yeah, Kaci was always there, it seemed,” I mumbled. The history Brock and I shared with Kaci was complicated. There were times I wish she had never been in the picture, but then Brock wouldn’t have Blayze. Regardless of the hell he’d been put through by losing his wife, he loved that kid with his entire soul.
I closed my eyes and tried to keep the memory away, but it jumped back into my head. The look on Merit’s face when I’d brought Kaci berry picking our senior year. That was always something that Merit and I had done together. It was our thing. First one out to pick the berries. That last year, though, I brought Kaci in my sad attempt to win her back from Brock, even though she had already picked him over me. Merit left that day and I hadn’t even noticed—I was so focused on trying to keep Kaci’s attention. Stupid fucking idiot.
Brock’s voice brought me back to the present. “Dirk, if Kaci hadn’t been in the picture, how would you have felt about Merit?”
I swallowed hard. It was something I never allowed myself to think about…then or now. “I’m not sure it would have made a difference,” I lied.
“Bullshit. Dirk, you and I both know that whatever happened between you two that night damn near destroyed you.”
“It destroyed me because I lost one of my best friends.”
“Why, though? Why have you never talked about it? And what could have happened to make Merit cut you completely out of her life?” he asked. “The two of you were so close.”
“Because I made the stupid mistake of taking her virginity when I knew I shouldn’t have.”
Brock sighed. “I’m not buying that reason, Dirk. You didn’t sleep with Merit simply as a favor. If you don’t want to admit to that then it’s okay, but you wanted her in more than a friendship kind of way. I wasn’t the only one who noticed how you looked at her. You may have tried to deny your feelings for her because you were in love with Kaci, but I also know you wouldn’t have been careless with Merit’s feelings, either. So you agreed to sleep with her for a reason.”
“Christ Almighty, Brock. Of course I wanted her, but I hurt her in the process because I didn’t have the guts to tell her no. I was greedy and didn’t walk away and let someone who deserved to take that gift from her have it. I fucking wanted it. I wanted her.”
“Were you careful? You didn’t…”
“No, I was careful and wore a condom. I’ve never not worn one.”
I could hear him exhale. “Did you make it good for her?”
I closed my eyes and cursed to myself. “I think so. I made sure she orgasmed, I went slow. If I’m being honest, it was probably one of the best nights of my life. It felt so amazing…and then I ruined the moment.”
“Why? Tell me what happened, man.”
My throat bobbed as I forced myself to swallow and speak. What I was about to admit to him was the whole reason why I’d never told him what had happened. At the time, it made sense not to tell. Then, as the years went by, I never needed a reason to tell anyone. I never talked about Merit again.