“Could you guys maybe stop talking about me like I’m not in the room?”
“And stop saying ‘fucking,’” Bridget suggests. “It’s degrading. And I think—”
“See, that’s your whole problem,” Krishna tells her. “You think fucking is degrading.”
“Like I’m the one with the problem. This from the campus manwhore who—”
“You are the one with the problem! You never have any fun.”
“I’m here, aren’t I? This is fun, right?”
Quinn groans. “Only for you two.”
West comes up behind me and puts his hands on my shoulders. I tip my head back to look at him upside down, worried how he’s taking this, but his mouth is soft, his eyes amused. “Caro and I aren’t like that.”
I smile at him, because his denial sounds like a confirmation, and because his hands on my shoulders are smoothing back and forth. His thumbs find a spot to rest and press on the back of my neck, which makes my breasts feel full and heavy and the pit of my stomach go molten.
I’m ridiculously pleased with Krishna’s implication that West is in the middle of what sounds like a long dry spell. Although, considering the source, Krishna could just mean West hasn’t had sex in a week.
I don’t like thinking about West having sex. At all.
“So what are you two like?” Krishna asks.
“They’re friends,” Bridget says.
“No, we’re not,” West says.
Bridget looks confused.
I understand. It’s kind of confusing. “Can we not talk about this?”
But Krishna is way too invested now. “No, I need to figure this out. Every time I go to the bakery the past few weeks, there you are. Seems like West’s always texting you all of a sudden. He just came through the door smiling at you like the sun rises and sets on your ass, and now he’s got his hands all over you.”
Quinn chimes in, “He’s always got his hands all over you.”
“That’s not true.”
But, actually, is it? His hands on my shoulders are familiar. At the bakery, he often touches me like this. Casually—tapping my kneecap on the way past, dropping a hand on top of my head when I’m about to leave, rubbing my shoulders in an idle moment when we’re both chatting with Krishna.
He’s a physical person. It doesn’t mean anything to him.
I’m the one whose heart stops, every time.
“It’s nobody’s business but ours,” West says.
Any normal person would be dissuaded by how forbidding West looks right now, but Krishna isn’t normal. “If you’re not going to fuck, we should start thinking about hooking Caroline up. It’s about time she got back in the game, don’t you think?”
Bridget punches him in the arm. “It’s not a game.”
Krishna pitches his voice in a spot-on imitation of Bridget. “It’s not a game, it’s not fun, she’s not a piece of ass.” Then, in his normal voice, “Swear to God, woman, it’s like you’re allergic to everything in the world that might accidentally make you feel good.”
“Don’t be a dick.”
“Don’t be a prude.”
She sticks her tongue out at him, and Quinn mutters something that sounds like “Talk about two people who need to fuck.”
“What?” Bridget screeches. “What are you implying?! Because if you’re trying to say—”
“Never mind.”
I expect Krishna to be all over that comment, but he surprises me by getting up off the couch and disappearing into the kitchen. He comes back with a beer, even though he already has a drink. He pops the top and takes a long swallow. He doesn’t look at Bridget at all, and we just watch him, fascinated.
Or, I have to confine myself to glances, actually, because West has dug his thumbs deeper into my neck muscles, forcing my head forward. My hair hangs down in my face. His thumbs are branding irons, blunt and hot, searing parallel lines into my skin from my hairline to the low-dipping collar of my shirt. Again. Again. His fingers wrap around my shoulders, gripping like he owns me, and I’m melting.
I’m liquid.
I’m his.
“Let’s not get distracted from the point,” Krishna says. “The point is, Caroline needs a rebound lay.”
“Oh, do I?”
I sound drugged.
I am drugged.
Bridget protests for me. “She does not.”
“Seriously, Krish, you’re being a jackass,” Quinn says.
“We’ve got to find her a hookup. After Thanksgiving, I’m going to make it my personal goal in life to get Caroline some action.”
“Caroline can get her own action,” Bridget says. “I mean, if she even wanted to, which—”
“Which I don’t.”
“Because you’re traumatized,” Quinn says.
“I’m not traumatized.”
I’m flustered and hot. I’m hoping, rather desperately, that the prickling in my nipples doesn’t mean the headlights are on and everyone in the room can see what West is doing to me, right in front of them.
“It’s all right,” Quinn says. “Nobody’s judging you. This is your safe zone.”
“Caroline doesn’t need a safe zone,” Bridget says. “She’s doing great. Tell them about—”
She sees my face and stops, but it’s too late.
“What?” Krishna asks.
“Nothing.”
“Doesn’t sound like nothing.”
“It’s nothing. Really.” I reach forward for my drink, breaking contact with West because things are about to turn ugly. I can feel it. The air has gotten heavy. My arousal has fled like a rabbit startled back into its hole.
I knock back a big gulp of butterscotch schnapps and start to choke again, which is a tactical error, because while I’m debilitated, Krishna goes after Bridget.
“Tell me what you were going to say,” he demands. I tip sideways on the couch, coughing so hard that I have to pull my knees up. West rubs my back.
“Breathe,” he says in a low murmur.
Even that’s sexy. I’m choking to death, racked with guilt over what Bridget almost revealed, and I still have a corner of my brain devoted to fainting at the hotness of West. I’m a hopeless case.
Bridget crosses her arms, squared off against Krishna. “I’m not telling.”
“Tell me.”
“No.”
“Tell me tell me tell me tell me tell me tell me tell me tell me—”
“Oh, all right. I was just going to say about this guy she met.”
“There’s a guy?” Quinn asks.
I’m barely capable of inhaling. When I say, “There’s no guy,” I drool a little on the leather, and I have to wipe it off with the palm of my hand.
I can’t look at West.
“It’s too late to deny it,” Krishna says. “Bridget already spilled. Who’s the guy?”
I don’t see any way out of telling them. I sit up. “You remember Scott?” I ask Quinn.
“Rugby Scott?”
“Yeah.”
“He asked you out?”
“No! No. It’s nothing. It’s just … I just mentioned to Bridget that I might try to find out his last name. From you. In case.”
“So you can call him?”
“Maybe?”
“He was into you,” she says. “You should definitely call him.”
“You think?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“Who’s rugby Scott?” Krishna asks.
“He goes to Carson,” Quinn says. “You wouldn’t know him. And he’s really nice. And hot. Well done, Caroline.”
“I haven’t done anything yet.”
She chucks me on the shoulder. “Sure, but you should. Get back out there, you know?”
I duck my head. Sidelong, I glance at West.
He’s gone blank.
Krishna is looking at him, too, and I can’t make out whether he pushed West into that blank face on purpose or if he’s oblivious. That’s the thing with Krishna—I can never figure out if he’s an asshole or if he’s pretending to be an asshole.