He continued. “But you seem to think I only want to fu– uh, to sleep with girls and that’s it. But I like you. A lot.”
I walked on in silence.
“Are you going to say anything?” he asked.
It took me a few seconds to admit it.
“…I asked around about you,” I muttered.
“Of course you did,” he said in mild amusement.
Which infuriated me.
“What’s that supposed to mean, ‘of course you did’?”
Such an arrogant ass, just assuming I was checking him out before I slept with him –
“You’re a reporter. You’re curious about shi– uh, stuff.”
Oh.
That was an interesting take on it.
Good alibi, anyway.
“So… what’d you find out?” he smiled.
Best sex she’d ever had.
I wasn’t about to repeat any of that, though.
“You sleep with a lot of women.”
“That’s true,” he admitted.
“And you don’t date them long.”
“That’s true, too.”
“Like, the average time seems to be about, oh, two or three hours.”
“I see a lot of the girls I sleep with over and over again.”
I glared at him. “So they’re fuck buddies?”
He put his hands up like whoooaaa. “Hey, you said it, not me.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“Did you actually talk to any women I’ve slept with?”
“…one,” I grumbled.
“Did she say if we’ve slept together more than once?”
Your roommate missed out BIG time.
“No,” I lied. “But she and another girl said you never called them again.”
“Well, for one thing, I don’t have a cell phone. Actually, I don’t have a phone, period.”
I stared at him. “You don’t?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Too expensive.”
How poor was this guy? I’d seen homeless people with cell phones…
On the other hand, it explained some things. Like why he kept showing up at my dorm room, yet never asked for my phone number.
“They have these awesome new telephones that take quarters,” I jeered. “Maybe you’ve seen them?”
“Ha ha,” he said, not actually laughing. “Look, those girls you talked to? They want it to look like I’m a heartless jerk. I seduced them and I ditched them, and it’s all my fault because I’m bad, bad, bad.”
“No,” I said sarcastically, “you’re just a perfect little angel.”
“No, I’m very, very bad,” he grinned, and then his voice dropped suggestively. “But I’m also very, very good. Did you ask about that, too?”
I could feel my face getting hotter. “Why do you always do that?”
“What?”
“Bring it back around to sex.”
“YOU were talking about sex.”
“I walked OUT on you because YOU were talking about sex.”
“Well, what do you want? You want to date guys who don’t want to sleep with you? You should date a gay guy, then. Or a dead guy, ‘cause I think you might have a shot at turning a gay guy straight.”
“I want a gentleman.”
“Mm, well, I’m not a gentleman.”
“So I’ve noticed.”
“So why are you still talking to me?”
“That’s a good question. Oh, wait – I’m not.”
I looked for traffic, then jaywalked across the street.
He was pretty surprised by that, though it took him just a second to follow me. “Okay, okay, that was a good one.”
I ignored him as I got to the median and checked the other direction. The closest car was a good two hundred feet away, so I took off again.
He puttered along beside me. “Checkmate. Very nice. You can start talking to me again.”
I kind of liked hearing him babble on idiotically, so I kept up the cold shoulder.
“You were talking to me because you like me, too,” he said as we reached the sidewalk. “You’re just afraid to get hurt. You’re afraid I’ll hurt you, and that’s why you’re pushing me away.”
“I just don’t want to waste my time with a guy who only sees me as a notch on a bedpost,” I retorted.
“I don’t. Hey – stop – I need you to listen to this, okay?”
He took hold of my arm lightly, with just the lightest of pressures.
It didn’t help that the touch of his bare skin on mine sent tingles up and down my skin.
“Please?”
I exhaled loudly and wheeled around to look at him, like, Well?
“I don’t,” he said with utter sincerity. “I don’t see you that way. If I only cared about sex, I wouldn’t be here. I don’t work this hard to get girls into bed.”