“So, hey, did you hear from Trina?” he asks me, crossing his arms in front of his chest and knuckling his chin thoughtfully. This is his standard “supportive friend” pose. He naturally squares off and lets me know he's definitely ready to listen.
“Oh, yeah, Trina,” I start. “I haven’t thought about her in a couple weeks, to be honest. Nothing's changed, I guess. Still the same.”
He makes a sympathetic face. “So she just cut you off, just like that? No warning?”
I walk over and sit in the leather armchair next to his desk. It's covered in neat stacks of paper, as organized as Ron himself. There are even colored tabs on the folders, which are all distributed so that each of the tabs is in a different position and doesn't overlap the one on top of it or below it. It's impressive, if you’re into that sort of thing.
“I guess if I had been paying attention, there was all kinds of warning,” I admit. “Trina told me a hundred times that she wasn't happy, that I wasn’t taking her out enough. I didn’t listen, or something like that.”
“Yeah, sometimes other people don't appreciate the things we do for them,” he answers sympathetically.
“No, she was right,” I shrug. “She was totally right. I didn't take her out often enough. I wasn't really all that into her, frankly, and I didn’t really try to fake it like I was. She's gorgeous, of course. Hot as fuck. Total hellcat in bed —”
“ — Sorry?” Dahlia squeaks, suddenly stopping up short inside the doorway. She holds two beers out in front of her. Her expression is stricken and horrified. How much did she just hear?
Ron lunges toward her, reaching out for the bottles and making some kind of cover noise. But I’m sure he can’t possibly cover what she probably just heard me say.
“Oh, hi, honey! You brought us beers! How thoughtful!”
Her eyes flutter up to him questioningly. He grimaces and shrugs, excusing my boorish behavior for the millionth time.
Still, I can't help but be turned on by this. Look at her, trembling where she stands. She really should be affronted, but I can see her pulse fluttering in her throat. The hard way she swallows. The tremble in her lower lip.
She casts her eyes down.
“Dinner’s ready,” she mumbles.
“Okay, we’ll be right in,” Ron says.
I glance at her just before she leaves, noting the pink of her cheeks, the glisten on her lower lip. She did hear me, and it reached into her. The way she's looking at me, she liked it. It's a particular thing with young women, the way they approach every new experience with alarm and trepidation yet a certain kind of eager open-mindedness. That's the look she's giving me in this quick millisecond where we can connect. It leaves her stunned, like a glancing blow.
My heart is racing as she leaves, and I swallow a mouthful of the beer that Ron hands me. For the thousandth time, I promise myself to get my shit together. Lock it down.
“You sure you want to stay?” he asks.
“Yeah, course,” I sniff nonchalantly. “I mean, she doesn't seem to mind that I'm here, right?”
“Cool, cool,” he nods, moving toward the dining room.
A pang of guilt lances through me. I'm constantly bouncing back and forth like a ping-pong between guilt and eagerness whenever I'm here. It’s a game I've been playing with myself. I know that what I'm thinking is wrong, but something about having to time my attention to the moments where Ron is looking away is a thrilling sort of puzzle.
Neither of them can be looking right at me when I'm scoping out the back of her knee or the new shade of pink toenail polish she's got on. Every word I say has to be checked and rechecked. Every time I walk past her I have to make sure there's daylight between us. No bumping into her. No breaking the barrier of her personal space.
Not until she begs me.
I have thought about that a million times. I've imagined her breathy whisper when she finally begs me to undress her, asks me to stroke the smooth flesh over the waistband of those flirty little skirts and skin-tight jeans.
But that’s where it needs to stay — fantasy. It’s not safe to try to think of her in the real world.
She's bending over the table as we enter the dining room, the fabric of her light wash jeans stretching across her ass cheeks so that I see the seam of her panties, the cotton crotch. It's like an arrow pointing into her snatch and my cock instantly goes hard, knowing that the vivid pink folds of her innocent little pussy are pulsing right there, right under the fabric.
She stands up again and I drop instantly into the seat nearest to me,
placing my beer on the table and timing myself to look away. But when I raise my eyes, Bunny is standing at the far end of the table, her head tipped like a cocker spaniel. There's a small crease between her eyebrows and those big brown eyes skate over me in a calculating way.
Shit.
I cough into my hand and glance at Ron, hoping that my “nothing to see here” act convinces her, but I think she's more shrewd than that. Bunny’s got a lot more experience than Dahlia, from what I understand. Ron doesn't tell me too much, but he's indicated few times that he doesn't always think that Bunny is the best influence on Dahlia.