“She was 16. And definitely not a virgin.”
We sat there quietly for several moments, and I tried to replay the past couple minutes in my head. How did we end up on this topic, anyway? Oh yeah—I had bit him. “How’s your tongue?”
“My tongue? Oh, it’s fine. I completely forgot about that, actually.”
“I guess that’s one way to make someone forget about an injury.”
“It’s not that bad.” He regarded me again, squinting. “You’re really a virgin?”
“Maybe we should talk about something else.”
“Sure,” he said. “Sure, that’s fine.”
But there was a long silence after that, and I tried to think of something to say, but everything that crossed my mind just sounded sort of dumb.
Something out in the middle of the pond splashed, breaking the smooth surface of the water, sending ripples reverberating outward.
“What was that?” I asked.
“A fish,” he said. “Trout, maybe.” I waited for him to say anything else, but he didn’t. He didn’t make a move to try and kiss me again, either. Finally, he pushed himself up, then held his hand out to help me up.
“We should probably get going,” he said.
We eventually found our way back to the car. I couldn’t figure out if I was imagining it or not—was there some sort of awkwardness in the air now? There seemed to be, or things weren’t flowing as they had before we’d gone up on that bluff and started to kiss.
When we got back to the neighborhood, instead of just pulling into his driveway, he stopped in front of my house, put the car in park.
“I’ll just let you out here,” he said. “Thanks for hanging out tonight.”
“I’m sorry I bit you.”
“That’s all right. Tongues heal fast.”
I unbuckled my seat belt but hesitated before getting out, waiting to see if he was going to try and kiss me or not. He made no move to.
“All right,” I said. “Well. Have a good night.”
“I will, Allie. You too.”
I walked inside, feeling a little strange, almost as if I’d been rejected, which I hadn’t, and even if I had, it shouldn’t matter because it wasn’t as though I actually cared what he thought. I was doing this to fuck with him, the two of them, and the outcome wasn’t supposed to matter to me. Yet I couldn’t ignore how I felt, like something had definitely gone wrong here.
I changed into my pajamas and was getting a drink of water when something outside caught my eye. I stood there in the dark, watching. It was Cole. He was coming out of his garage, pushing his bike. He buckled his helmet and then hopped on and rode off, at breakneck speed.
Chapter Ten
Cole
I wasn’t sure what to do with my newfound information.
Allie was a virgin? What? I almost didn’t believe it, except I didn’t think that she would lie to me about something like that. And now, of course, I found myself feeling bad about this whole bet, doubting myself as to whether or not we should even continue on with it. That would be a pretty shitty thing to do, right?
Obviously, she had her reasons for not sleeping with anyone. Not even hooking up with anyone! She was attractive—more than just attractive—and she lived in the city, where there was no shortage of guys. There would have been plenty of opportunities for her to hook up with someone, or several someones, and she just hadn’t. That told me that it had been a conscious choice, and now here Ben and I were, trying to fuck that up.
Maybe Ben would be understanding of the whole thing, though I doubted it. First, he would probably think I was bullshitting him. Then, once he got past that, he’d see no problem in just keeping things exactly how they were.
I felt a little weird telling him, almost like I was gossiping or some shit, but seeing as what I now knew was affecting how I felt about going forward with this bet, I figured he needed to know.
“She’s a virgin,” I said. It was Sunday night, and we were sitting out on the deck, drinking beer.