“What?” she asked, turning back to me. I didn’t mean for her to hear me.
“It’s nothing,” I said, giving her hand a squeeze. “I just find you extremely attractive.”
“Oh.” She smiled. “I think you’re pretty hot yourself.”
She turned to walk away, and I watched her ass in that tight skirt from the crack in the door. I had done well.
I waited a few seconds before exiting the room, making sure we left no trace behind. I had a quite a few sexual encounters under my belt, but this one was perhaps the best one yet. From start to finish—to finish, again—it was incredible.
This next part would be the toughest. I would have to walk out of that room and pretend that I hadn’t just banged the hottest chick at the party. Then, I would have to pretend like it didn’t happen at all and continue my career being nothing but professional toward Whitney.
But when I thought about what we did in that room, I figured it would all be worth it.
Chapter Three
Whitney
As I walked out of the room and back to the party, I quickly smoothed down my hair and touched up my lipstick. If anyone figured out what I had been doing, I would never hear the end of it.
I grabbed a glass of water and chugged it down, thirsty from all of the physical activity that occurred in the bedroom. I spotted Maria talking to a group of people out of the corner of my eye and made a beeline toward her.
“Hey,” she said conspiratorially. “Where have you been? I’ve been looking all over for you.”
If she really had been looking all over for me, she would have found me. The house wasn’t that big. I think she knew exactly what I was up to. I just hoped that no one else did.
“Oh, I’ve just been talking to people. How long do you think I’ve been gone?”
She looked at her phone. “I’d say at least a half hour. Maybe even more.”
I raised my eyebrows. Time flies when you’re trapped in a closet with a sexy nurse.
“So,” she said, too casually, “where were you? Whom were you talking to?”
“Oh, you know,” I said, starting to feel sweaty, “different people. Did you ever hook up with Michael?”
“No, he left a few minutes ago. I’m surprised you didn’t say goodbye to him. He was handing out hugs to just about everyone here.”
My attempt to change the conversation backfired on me. There was no lying my way o
ut of this one.
“Whitney,” she pried, “I think I know what happened. You can either tell me, or I can guess.”
“Ugh,” I groaned. “This is really embarrassing.”
She pulled me aside. “So what did you do with Chad in that bedroom?”
I blushed. “We just kissed.”
“Kissing doesn’t usually mess up your clothes like that,” she said, adjusting my dress so it lay straight on my body. “This dress was removed,” she said with the conviction of a detective trying to crack a case.
“Okay, fine, we did a little more than kiss,” I admitted. “But I’m twenty-nine years old. It’s not a big deal.”
“No, of course it’s not. But you know how we are,” she said, gesturing around to the younger hospital staff. “We couldn’t get through the daily grind of our strenuous jobs if we didn’t have the opportunity to gossip every now and again.”
“So you’re saying that everyone already knows?”
She nodded grimly. “I’m afraid so. One of Chad’s friends was looking for him. He noticed that he disappeared after talking to you. Then, when you were nowhere to be found, people just put two and two together.”
This was not good. Word traveled quickly around the hospital. It wouldn’t be long before everyone knew—nurses, patients . . . our parents.
With any luck, we could minimize damage by just laughing it off and not making a big deal about it. Unfortunately, if there was one thing I wasn’t great at, it was not making a big deal out of things.
I started to think over my different options. I could make jokes about it and hope that people would think I was cool and relaxed about these sorts of things. I could also pretend like nothing happened and hope that everyone else could sense how uncomfortable I was by the whole situation. Or, I could run from the party and find a new job to escape it all. At least I had choices.
As I talked with Maria, I couldn’t help but feel like eyes were always watching me. Sometimes, I would catch someone looking and smiling in my direction just for a split second. This happened repeatedly, making it hard to concentrate on anything my friend was saying.
To make matters worse, Chad kept glancing over at me, too. I had a feeling that he was giving his friends all the dirty details, even though he acted like he didn’t want to get caught. Maybe that was his weird kink and he was an exceptionally good role player.
As I began to sober up, I began to feel more and more uncomfortable about being at that party. I couldn’t confirm that people were talking about me, but seeing people laughing and smiling was making me increasingly paranoid.