I didn't see Becca for about a week after that night at the bookstore. I also cut back on texting her. It seemed like she was falling for me and that wasn't a good idea for either of us. She was going to be going to university in the fall and meeting a bunch of new people. There was a good chance she'd meet lots of new guys there and fall for somebody new. It didn't make sense to try and start something serious with her when it wasn't likely to last that long.
And to be frank, Becca lived at home with her parents. It wasn't like I could move in with them if things went bad with my girlfriend and we broke up. Becca's mom pretty much already hated me. I get it really, your eighteen year old daughter becomes close friends - maybe too close - with a guy in his mid-twenties who lives with another woman and only works part time at a bookstore? Not an ideal situation from that point of view, let's just say.
I didn't ghost Becca completely, I wasn't trying to be a dick. Just that a couple of times she sent me texts that were bordering on sexting, and I didn't play along, I just tried to keep things chill. It took all my willpower though. When a hot eighteen year old girl wants to play naughty with you - a situation I do not ever expect to ever come up again in my lifetime - not just caving and going along with her takes some doing. Basically I masturbated a lot more than usual, figuring that if I had gotten off recently whenever she tried to get me going it would be easier to resist. It worked, and the tone of Becca's texts as the week went on became less sexy and more frustrated.
I figured I could try to keep things on that level and Becca would eventually turn her attention elsewhere. What I didn't figure on was what - of all people - my girlfriend would do next.
My birthday was coming up. I didn't think much of it, I wasn't a big birthday guy. Most of the time in the past few years my girlfriend and I would go out for dinner and come home and have birthday sex and that would be about it. That year for some reason my girlfriend decided to throw me a surprise party.
She invited about a dozen people, which for me is a lot. I'm not a huge fan of big crowds, and I've always been the kind of guy who would rather have a few close friends than a lot of casual ones. It was a mix of friends from town, a few from classes, and several of my coworkers. Amazingly this included Becca. I can't imagine what my girlfriend was thinking inviting her, although maybe she meant it as a peace offering. It didn't quite work out that way.
On the pretext of just us going out to dinner, my girlfriend got me to the restaurant that she'd set the whole thing up at. It was one of those sports bar places with pool tables you could pay to play on and your usual big screens all over the place. I have to admit I was completely surprised when everybody jumped out and yelled "surprise!" Even more so when I saw Becca, who I never in a million years would have expected my girlfriend to invite.
Becca was dressed fancier than I had ever seen her. She was wearing a short grey skirt that came to about mid-thigh and a white blouse that was undone enough at the front to show that she was wearing a fairly low cut gray tank top underneath it. She was wearing gray high heels, and her hair was pulled up in the back in some kind of fancy braid. It all combined to make her look older than her age, and she could probably have passed for a senior in college instead of high school.
My girlfriend hated it of course. I can only assume she resented the amount of effort Becca would go to on my behalf. As soon as the surprise was over and people were finding seats and starting to order drinks and food she turned to Becca and pointed to her shirt.
"I think you've got an extra button open by mistake there," she said.
Becca looked down at her front and then back up at my girlfriend. "No," she said with a smile that was friendly except for the eyes which were sending a message more like "fuck off."
"Oh really?" said my girlfriend. Before that moment I had never heard such nuanced tones that made "oh really?" sound more like "well aren't you a filthy slut?"
I was mentally frozen, trying to work out a way to intervene before this got even worse. Luckily Sally, one of the other staff from the bookstore, jumped on the grenade for me. She complimented my girlfriend on setting up the whole party and smoothly diverted her from further conversation with Becca.
The party limped along after that, with people on both sides of the girls doing their best to keep them from talking to each other. Everybody got drinks and basically everyone but Becca ordered alcohol. Becca was the only underage one there. She had a fake i.d. that she could have used, but she chose not to and ordered iced tea instead. I figured she might be trying to avoid another confrontation with my girlfriend, who did know how old Becca was.
Eventually people started moving away from the table to play some pool or mingle more freely. I did too, feeling obligated to try and talk a little bit with everyone, since they'd come out for my birthday and all.
I'm not sure how long we'd been there before I decided it was definitely time for a washroom break. The washrooms in this place were down a long hall and around another corner, kind of like a big letter "L" shape. I had just turned the corner and was about to walk into the men's room when a voice behind me said "Happy birthday."
I turned around. Becca was standing there behind me. "Thanks," I said.
"I already unwrapped your present," she said. With that she lifted up the front of her skirt, revealing she wasn't wearing any underwear. She looked as good as ever, but for the first time I wasn't happy to see her that way.
"What the hell?" I said, looking around nervously. Fortunately we were alone in the hallway. "Be careful," I continued, trying to keep my voice low "there's people all around this place, we could get caught."
"Don't you want to play with your present?" she said, taking a step closer to me, still holding up her skirt. That close I could smell vodka on her breath.
"Are you drunk?" I said incredulously.
"Maybe a little," she said, shrugging. "They've been bringing me long island iced teas. I guess they thought that's what I wanted."
"Fuck," I said. I was about to say something else, but then the door behind me opened. Becca snapped her skirt down again quickly as I turned around, hoping that it would be a random person that I didn't know.
No such luck. It was Jeremy, one of the other staff from the bookstore, walking out of the men's room. "Hey guys," he said. He was smiling, but I hoped that didn't mean anything. I had been standing between Becca and him, with any luck he hadn't seen anything incriminating.
"Hey Jer," I said. "Thanks for coming out tonight, by the way."
"Hey any time," he said. He moved past us down the hall, but he did shoot a backward glance towards Becca after he passed her, and he had an expression on his face that I couldn't identify. I had to hope he was just checking out her ass or her legs in the skirt.
"I'm going to use the washroom," I said firmly after he had rounded the corner out of sight.
"Okay," said Becca. Then in a smaller voice, "I'm sorry."
I just nodded and went into the men's room.
When I came back out Becca wasn't in the hallway. I went back out into the restaurant and saw that she was playing pool with Sally and some of the others from the store. She also appeared to be drinking coffee now, which I thought was a good call.