“Wait, you’re leaving me? Penny, I don’t like sleeping alone. You know it creeps me out. I’ve spent like the past week sleeping at Josh’s.”
“I thought you liked sleeping at Josh’s?”
Melissa shrugged. “I guess. He snores though.”
I laughed.
“Well, you’ll still come hang out after class and stuff right?”
“Of course.”
“Okay good. And I totally get it. I’d never want to leave this place either. So is his brother super rich too?”
“Melissa!”
“I’m just kidding. Kind of.”
We both laughed.
“Do you want to finish the tour?” I asked.
“Is it just his office?”
“And some guest rooms.” I actually hadn’t seen the guest rooms. I was excited to explore some more. Melissa followed me out of James’ room and I opened the door that led to the hallway. I opened the first door in the hall that I came to. It was just a normal bedroom. Ornate and perfect, but normal.
“Oh, yes! Same sheets!” Melissa said. “I can’t wait to get totally wasted one night and have to crash in this bed.”
“You can definitely be my first house guest.”
“Awesome.”
The next door was a guest bathroom. It was a smaller version of James’ bathroom, without a tub. Another almost identical bedroom was on the other side of the bathroom. There was only one more door. I opened it up. I was expecting to see just another bedroom. But instead, there was a pool table in the center of the room and a bar to one side. “Wow, this is really cool.” I ran my hand along the side of the pool table.
“Have you never been in here before?”
“No.”
“I guess you’ve been too busy doing other things to get a proper tour?”
I could feel myself blushing. “Well, today he was helping me study for my Stat test next week.”
“How professor-like of him.”
“Yeah.” I looked up at the huge picture on one of the walls. It was of a bunch of guys smiling. It took me a second to find James. He was in the center. He looked so happy. It didn’t look like he had a care in the world. I recognized his friend Mason Caldwell that I had met in New York to the left of him. Otherwise, I didn’t know anyone else in the picture.
“Do you think that was from when he was in college? He looks almost exactly the same,” Melissa said.
“I don’t know. But yeah, that’s why I never would have guessed he was my professor when we first met. He doesn’t look 27.”
Melissa smiled at me. “Have you met any of his friends?”
“Yeah, that one.” I pointed to Mason. “It was weird though. Apparently they lost touch after he moved here. James is kind of closed off. I’d like to meet more of his friends.”
“Well, it’ll be fun to meet his brother. I bet you can ask him tons of questions.”
“Mhm.” I suddenly felt nervous about meeting Rob. James had made it clear that his parents probably wouldn’t like me very much. I hoped that his brother and sister would be more accepting.
“I actually need to get going,” Melissa said. “Maybe we can hang out this weekend? I know it’s a little awkward, but the Sigma Pi formal is on Saturday and I could really use your help getting ready.”
A while ago I had hoped that Tyler would ask me to the Sigma Pi formal. That seemed like ages ago. “No, that’s not awkward at all,” I said. “Actually, that sounds great. I’ll probably want to give James and his brother some guy time anyway. I don’t want to be third wheeling with them.”
Melissa laughed. “I’m pretty sure Rob would be the third wheel in that equation. Let me say bye to James before I go.”
Thursday
“There you are.” James wrapped his arms around me and kissed the back of my neck.
“When was this picture taken?” I had wandered back into the room with the pool table after Melissa had left. There was something captivating about the picture. There were no pictures hanging in any of the other rooms in his apartment. And the only other picture I knew of was a small framed one of him and his siblings on his desk. This had to be important to him.
“When I was in college.” He kissed my neck again.
“You look so happy.”
“I’m happier now.”
I couldn’t help but smile. I was glad I could make him happy. “I recognize Mason. Who are the other guys?”
“They’re my frat brothers.”
“You were in a frat?”
“Why do you seem so surprised?”
“I don’t know. I usually consider frat guys to be immature. But maybe you were immature back in college.”
“Hmm.” His lips tingled the back of my neck. “Is thinking about getting laid all the time immature?”
I laughed. “Yes.”
“I was definitely immature then. And I guess I’m still immature. Because all I could think about all night was fucking you.”
I swallowed hard. I loved when he talked like that. His naughty words seemed to have a direct line to my groin.
He pushed me forward slightly so that my hips were pressed against the pool table. “Are you good at pool, Penny?” His fingers had dipped beneath my shirt, pushing it up the sides of my torso.
“I’m okay. I haven’t really played that much.”
My throat made a weird noise when his hands fell from my waist. God I wanted him.
He placed the cue ball down on the table and racked up the other balls. “Show me what you got.” He handed me a pool stick.
I didn’t want to play pool. I wanted his hands back on me and for him to be whispering naughty things in my ear. I tried to clear my head. “Am I stripes or solids?”
“Whichever you hit in first.” He smiled at me. “And let’s make things interesting.” He leaned against the pool table. “Whenever one of us gets a ball in, we get to choose one thing for the other person to do.”
“One thing for the other person to do?”