“Okay,” she said, probably mollified by the ‘too sexy’ part.
“It’s so nice you’re pimping out my roommate to your friend,” I jeered.
“Whatever. If Shanna wants to sleep with him – you’d sleep with him, right?”
“Hell yeah,” Shanna agreed.
“You’d be good for him. He’s too good of a kid. He needs to unwind. What’s that line from Ferris Bueller? If you stuck a piece of coal up his ass, you’d have a diamond in a week.”
“He’s fine,” I snapped.
“He’s uptight,” Shanna disagreed, as though she pitied Ryan.
“Why are you interested in him anyway? He’s in high school.”
“I’m in high school,” Derek teased.
“Not anymore, you’re not.”
“Oooh, burn,” he laughed.
“He’s in a band,” Shanna explained.
“Lots of guys are in bands,” I said, a little snarkily.
Derek looked offended. “Hey!”
“Yeah, but he’s talented,” Shanna pointed out. “He and Derek could really get famous.”
“Thank you, Shanna,” Derek said. “At least somebody believes in me.”
“Whatever,” I said, trying to suppress a smile. I looked in the rearview mirror. “That’s the only reason you like Ryan? Because he’s in a band that might get famous? Not because he’s nice, or smart, or good-looking?”
“Ohhhh, seems the crush might be a two-way street,” Derek teased.
“Shut up. Well?” I asked Shanna.
“Well, yeah, those things, too,” she said offhandedly, like they weren’t really in her top ten list. Then she got enthusiastic again. “And he’s taaaall. I like tall guys. They usually have big dicks.”
“SHANNA!” I yelled at her.
She shrugged. “I know what I like.”
Derek was laughing his ass off. “She knows what she likes,” he said to me, like What’re ya gonna do?
His reaction made me feel weird.
Like, uncomfortably turned-on.
Kevin’s was perfectly normal-sized, and I liked it a lot – at least, I liked the way it felt during sex. Otherwise it was kind of funny-looking. That was my typical outlook on penises: funny-looking.
But if Kevin had heard Shanna just now, he would have gotten sullen and quiet and then asked me hours later in a panicky voice, “It’s big enough, right?”
I’d have to spend fifteen minutes reassuring him, and even that wouldn’t be enough. It would probably be closer to a week before he forgot about it, or at least stopped asking whenever we had sex.
The fact that Derek was laughing made me think he must be pretty confident… about something.
I pushed that thought away as fast as I could. “Whatever, you’re both disgusting.”
“Somebody else is pretty uptight,” Derek said over his shoulder.
“Amen,” Shanna agreed.
“Fuck you,” I said humorously to Derek. “And you, too,” I added to the rearview mirror.
“She’s got a whole diamond mine in her ass,” Shanna said.
“I hear it’s like the De Beers company back there,” Derek agreed.
“FUCK YOU!” I laughed.
“Shoulda stuck with me, Derek,” Shanna said. “I woulda rocked your world.”
When she said that, a surge of white-hot jealousy ripped through me.
I didn’t want to feel that way. It was stupid and inappropriate and pointless –
Then Derek spoke.
“I’m sure you would have, but… the heart wants what the heart wants.”
“Yeah…” Shanna mumbled.
My jealousy melted into something else. What it was, I wasn’t entirely sure – though fear and desire were there in equal measures.
All I know is that my heart started knocking wildly against the inside of my ribs.
“Where am I supposed to turn?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.
“Left at the third light.”
I quickly forgot about desire (though the fear stuck around) as we turned into what I can only charitably describe as a ‘lower income neighborhood.’
Actually, it was scary. Like, Crack Central scary.
There’s a part of Athens where most of the murders and shootings happen; they call it the Iron Triangle, because the streets that border it intersect in a triangle.
Derek apparently lived dead smack in the middle of it.
“Holy shit, dude, you live in a fucked-up part of town,” Shanna marveled.
“Rent’s cheap,” Derek shrugged, as if that were a good reason to put his life on the line.
We drove past a skeezy-looking white guy dressed in a hoodie, who bobbed his head at us like What up? Then he looked in both directions and started walking towards the car.