Shit
.
"Eric, is that you?" I ask the shadow standing by my front door. Before tonight, I would've automatically assumed it was my best friend camped out on my porch, but after what Caleb told me about Jeff, I can't help feeling jittery. It's been a year since Jeff tried going after me, but I only found out about it a few hours ago, so it's fresh in my mind, even if it isn't fresh in his. Plus, it's after 1:30 am, so, really, what the hell is
anyone
doing here?
"Duh, Em."
Whew!
That's definitely Eric. "Why? Were you expecting someone else? Someone like... Caleb Turner?"
Oh. I take that
whew
back. What to say, what to say...
Nope. I've got nothingâmostly because, well, how could he possibly know about me and Caleb? Eric was at the party, and Caleb and I were alone in an empty building. Weren't we?
"What are you talking about, Eric?" I ask innocently, though playing stupid probably isn't the best move here. He knows something, and he knows that I know he knows something. Plus, I may be an actress, but I can't lie for shitâespecially not to my best friend.
"Oh, so you don't remember being practically naked in his tattooed arms and carried through the halls? I, for one, will never forget."
My mouth opens and closes about fifty times. I keep hoping sound will come out at some point, but my mental engine has completely stalled. I know I'm supposed to form words and construct sentences with them, but that's asking way too much of me right now.
Eric starts cracking up.
"The look on your face right now is priceless," he tells me. He must decide he needs to capture it for posterityâor maybe future blackmail attemptsâbecause, before I know what he's doing, he's got his phone out, and a bright flash is blinding me. Totally not helping my ability to process what's going on here. "I don't know why you're being so shy about this. You know that if I were in your shoes, I'd be writing an erotic Twitter novel about it. Sure, I was worried when you never answered my calls and texts, but I get it, Em. I
really
get it," he says with conspiratorial smirk.
I groan and sink down onto the porch swing. Eric plops himself next to me and starts pushing us back and forth. "HowâWhen didâHow much did youâ" I stammer out, looking at him in helpless disbelief. Sentences are still a struggle, but at least I've got a handle on some vowels and consonants, even if they don't make much sense.
"Come on, Em. You didn't really think I'd go to the party without you, did you?" In the midst of the crazy whirlwind that was this night, I hadn't even considered it. But I wouldn't have gone, either, if he'd been the one with a stain on his dress. "After I grabbed a shower at home, I picked us up a couple Happy Meals and was going to keep you company. Imagine my shock when I discovered someone beat me to it."
That smirk is still plastered on his face, annoying the shit out of me.
"You can stop looking at me like that, any time now," I say, petulant as hell. I'd really wanted these particular beans to remain unspilled, at least for a few days.
"Don't you get pissy with me, young lady. I'm the wronged friend in this situation."
"Huh?" I ask, because... huh?
"I can't tell if you're still playing dumb or if I've been overestimating your intelligence all these years."
"Neither, jackass. LookâI am so, so sorry that I scared you, and I really would have loved that Happy Meal, but I don't get how I wronged you."
"Seriously?" he asks, as if it should be obvious. "Why would you keep a secret this huge from me? How long has it been going on?" He looks down, shaking his head. "All joking aside, Em, I'm hurt you didn't think you could trust me with this."
He really sounds it, too. At least I get it, now. He's under the impression that Caleb and I have been at this for a while, instead of just a few hours.
"No, noâyou've got it all wrong, Eric. Tonight was the first timeâ"
"Bullshit," he throws back at me. "There is no way that the Emilie I know went from barely talking to a guy one minute to wrapping her naked body around him the next."
"I wasn't naked!" I say to defend myself. "Yet."
"Jesus, Em. You need to start talking."
I take a deep breath and start from the beginning. When I get to the part where I fall out of the bathroom stall and onto the floor, Eric roars with laughter. I get to laugh about it, too, now that everything has turned out so damn amazing. At the time, it felt like a level of mortification never to be recovered from.
Then I tell him about wearing Caleb's t-shirt, his hands on my leg as he cleaned off the blood, his confessions, and that first, explosive kiss.
"And get thisâthen he said, 'This is the last place I'd choose for what I'm about to do to you,' andâoh my godâhis voice was so raspy and sexy! I'm getting chills all over again, just remembering how he sounded." I close my eyes and take a moment to bask in all the yummy feelings flooding my system. Opening them back up, I go on, "And then he lifted me up and walked us out of the bathroom andâwell, I guess that's when you saw us, huh?"