Total pages in book: 17
Estimated words: 18713 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 94(@200wpm)___ 75(@250wpm)___ 62(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 18713 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 94(@200wpm)___ 75(@250wpm)___ 62(@300wpm)
“Probably not.” Leaning casually back against the waist-high ledge in the middle of the bookshelf, I smile, trying to make the mood friendly, but not we’re-in-agreement-why-we’re-here friendly. “Leather gets a little squeaky. But that velvet sofa in the living room? He’s absolutely banged on that.”
A sound, like a tiny gasp, comes from somewhere across the room. For a beat, I’m elated that there’s someone else in here, someone to distract Kristen from her mission. But when I lean to the side, looking, there’s no one there. We’re alone.
Kristen steps forward into my field of vision, right up against me, and begins toying with the top button of my shirt. “Wanna be the first, then?”
Yes, I’d known it was inevitable, but the request still fills me with vague dread. We already broke up once. This is the problem with the casual hookup: having to break up again.
I like Kristen; I want us to still be friendly. We dated exclusively for a few months. The sex was always decent, but outside of that we have almost nothing in common. I guess it’s that combination that always made it easy to keep coming back into each other’s bed out of boredom or intoxication or lazy desire, but the lack of emotional connection always made me feel sort of gross afterward. Unfortunately, we have friends in common, work in the same lab, and even have a small research collaboration. Don’t shit where you eat, our graduate mentor said once, and he’d been talking about grad students behaving badly at department parties, but maybe he was also talking about dumbass ideas like dating your labmate.
More to the point, however, is that it suddenly feels unfaithful to be shut up in a room with Kristen when I asked T out tonight. Even if we won’t see each other until June, it doesn’t feel right to mess around with Kristen immediately after firming up that agreement.
“Listen,” I start gently, but she cuts in, setting her fingers on my lips.
“Shhh. I know what you’re going to say.” Her mouth is only an inch from mine, and I smell the wine on her breath. “That we need to stop hooking up. But do we? Really?”
Frowning, I pull my head back and meet her gaze. “I think so.”
“No one will know we’re in here. I bet Dylan forgets this room exists.”
“That’s probably true,” I hedge, “but that isn’t why I’m saying no.”
“You give such good dick,” she says, and yep, there it is: the familiar desire to dissolve into the floor. I enjoyed Kristen’s dirty mouth for approximately ten minutes the first night she flirted with me, until I realized it wasn’t ever connected to actual sex. We’d be getting iced coffee at Starbucks, and she’d lean over and tell me she wanted me to lick her with my cold tongue. She’d hold up a 100 ml graduated cylinder in the lab and run her tongue over her teeth. Passing me in the hallway, she’d tell me she could see the outline of my dick in my pants. In bed, this kind of talk would be one thing; it could be private and fun and filthy. But in the middle of Starbucks, the lab, the hallway? Come on. All I could ever think to say was something like, “Cool.”
“Thanks,” I say now.
“I mean it.”
“I believe you.”
“You don’t want to bend me over that couch?”
I’m really trying to be laid back about this. I just want to get back downstairs, thank Dylan for a nice party, and get home. “Not tonight.”
“I could ride you. I’d ride you so good, Cally.”
I have to swallow to not release the laugh-wail that seems to expand in my throat. She’s never called me that before and would have no way of knowing I hate that nickname. “Not here.”
“No one makes me come like you,” she says, leaning in, smelling my neck. “Every time. Better than I do alone.”
“I’m sorry . . .” Squeezing my eyes closed, I set my hands on her shoulders, carefully urging her back.
“You’re serious?” she asks, stepping away and looking at me with new clarity.
“Yeah.” I swallow, nodding. God, it is going to be so awkward in the lab tomorrow. “I’m sorry, Kristen, but I do think we should stop for real.”
She stares at me for three endless seconds. “You’re an asshole, Callum.” She turns and leaves the room. Silence rings out.
Silence, except for a tiny rustle. A miniature squeak. Another sound that I now register seems to be coming from the closet.
Chapter Fifteen
FEBRUARY 14, 2024
Terra
Callum? my brain screams, a high-pitched, internal shriek. Callum Sundberg? The graduate student in our program a few years ahead of me and Elise? The literal embodiment of charisma? The capable-yet-intimidating TA for our neuroanatomy seminar? The man so tall and hot and untouchable we peek at him around objects—trees, books, doorways—like looking at an eclipse? Callum is in the room on the other side of this door? As soon as I heard Kristen say his name, everything clicked into place. God, of course Callum is the man who “gives good dick,” who made her come like no one else, who just turned down sex so absolutely, so decisively, that she left without another word.