Beneath it, she has on a tank top and jeans, slightly inappropriate given how cold it was today—sexy, though—and I give her an appreciative once-over.
Never hurts a bloke to look, eh?
Don’t feel like touching, at least not yet. Like I said, Kaylee seems like the sticky sort of girl, one who won’t go quietly if things go sour.
How do I know this when I don’t actually know anything about her? I don’t, it’s just a feeling I get. A vibe.
That look in her eye.
Kaylee is competitive. You don’t make a cheer squad at university if you’re lazy and unmotivated—you set a goal and go after it. I’m sensing she rolls this way in most things, not just sports.
Speaking of Kaylee…
She’s eyeing me up now from the entrance of the living room or den or whatever they call it, wearing just jeans and her little skimpy tank top. She crooks a finger at me so I will follow her into the next room.
Not sure she’s wearing a bra; doubt it by the way her nipples are provocatively poking through the thin fabric.
I hesitate to follow her, I don’t want to lead her on, and I don’t want to be trapped inside the house without anyone here.
I also don’t want to go home alone to an empty house. Nor do I want to go back to the rugby house with all of its chaos and loud noise.
At first I thought I would really like Kaylee’s company. She seemed sweet and kind, but with a little bit of time, the real her has started to show through cracks in her exterior. Her real motivations behind pursuing me.
And pursue me she has…
“Are you coming all the way in?” She is watching me intently even while she flicks on a lamp next to the sofa. “Don’t be scared, I don’t bite.”
“Ha!” I try to make a jest of my actual fears—that she actually does bite and it will hurt.
What a wanker I’ve turned out to be!
My goal when I moved to the States was to not only get an education but to sleep my way around campus and expel Caroline from my system like an exorcism. That hasn’t happened yet, though, and it won’t if I don’t stop overthinking everything and just enjoy myself.
Maybe I was with Caroline for too long—I don’t seem to know what the fuck I’m doing, though everyone on this bloody campus seems to think I do.
It’s my size.
Half the population here thinks I’m a Neanderthal, the other half just wants to hear my accent.
“Are you always this quiet?”
“Am I being quiet? I hadn’t noticed.” I’ve been rudely lost in thought, apparently, based on the way Kaylee is staring at me. “Sorry.”
“Is something wrong?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean…it doesn’t seem like you even want to kiss me, yet you come to my house and flirt. Did I say something to upset you? Guys don’t usually act like this.”
It’s obvious she is confused, and I don’t blame her—I have sent mixed messages, and the main one is I’m coming to the house in the first place when I don’t actually want to be here. I’m using her because I don’t want to be alone.
“I don’t usually like to just dive right into a relationship,” I explain. “I like to take my time and get to know someone first.”
She watches me from her place on the couch. “Are you being serious?”
Not really, but I’m not about to tell her that to her face.
It’s been forever since I’ve actually been in a new relationship, and I don’t have a fucking clue what I’m doing. So yeah, I want to take my time. I have no idea how this works anymore. I haven’t even online-dated, let alone taking anyone out. Or making out with someone in the living room of her house.
“All right,” Kaylee finally says. “If you don’t wanna fool around, what do you want to do? Talk?”
“Yeah, actually—talking sounds great.”
Her face falls. “Okay, uh…this is new territory for me.” She hesitates, and I know she’s waiting for me to say something more. Perhaps pick a topic?
I glance around the room, taking in the well-appointed furniture. It’s much more suited to an actual family—almost similar to my own place. Has me wondering where all the high-end stuff came from and whose parents are paying for it all.
“My parents own a furniture store,” Kaylee admits with a shrug as if it were no big deal.
Oh, that makes sense. I was wondering why everything is so nice when most people live in shitehole apartments and none of their stuff goes together. Almost as if they went shopping out on the curb during trash day.
She laughs. “It was nice moving in and having new stuff. I’m not spoiled or anything though—my mom insisted.”
But she is kind of spoiled—I can tell. Not that I am one to judge given the way I grew up, but I haven’t met many people in America who live the same way I do. They don’t come around very often, these well-to-do peers of mine; this isn’t an Ivy League school. We’re in middle-of-the-road America, not on one of the coasts where people pay forty or fifty thousand dollars a year to send their spawn to college.