Playing the Field Page 6

  “I’m not scared,” she said. “I have a good alarm system.”

  “Well, I’m scared for you,” I said with a chuckle. “Also a little worried about your mental well-being if you’re trying to hang out with me.” I knew this was a bad idea. Usually I was all about bringing hot girls back to my place, but this situation was a little different. This had to have defied every one of the principals her parents had instilled in her.

  Even worse, it went against all my principals. She was right about my intentions for earlier, but I was in a bad place. I was looking to hurt someone as much as I was hurting. Looking to rage against the system that created me.

  As she beeped the alarm system on her car and I opened the door of my apartment complex for her, I realized no matter what happened tonight, I could still rage against that system. I didn’t hate her.

  I hated her father.

  She seemed nice enough, a little naive, a little overenthusiastic, but it was nothing I couldn’t get past. She’d probably get bored with me soon enough anyway and move on to her life catching butterflies and sailing around the world on her yacht. By that time the damage would be done, though. I did my best to hold in my evil villain laugh, even though I had just masterminded the best plan in my entire life.

  Nothing was set in stone yet, though. One look at my place and she was probably going to take off running. I wouldn’t blame her.

  “Be careful,” I urged as we walked up the steps, the wooden railing barely serving as anything more than a reminder that, if you used it, you stood a good chance of breaking it clean off. She just followed behind me, hot on my heels, not saying a word at the mildewed smell of the hallway or the sound of TVs blaring through paper-thin walls.

  “Top floor, huh? Penthouse suite?” she teased. It didn’t sound condescending and that’s what confused me the most about this chick. She had this way of being ridiculously optimistic. Maybe it was because this wasn’t the footsteps she walked in on a daily basis.

  “Unlike any you’ve ever set your eyes on before,” I said, swinging the door open. I flicked on the lights and looked all around, making sure my mom wasn’t passed out somewhere in a state of undress and that her bong was tucked away in the closet.

  When I realized the coast was clear, I ushered her in through the doorway. “You can leave your shoes on,” I said.

  “It’s really big,” she said, and I could tell it was for lack of a better word. Sketchy. Dilapidated. Hell, I knew the place was disgusting. You can only polish a turd so many times. Even though I did my best to keep the place clean as possible, it just looked dirty. Probably because the couch was as old as my sister and the closest thing to a kitchen renovation we had since we moved in was the way all the cabinet doors had started falling off randomly as of late. Not like there was anything in there at the moment. At least there weren’t mice running around. Nothing for them to eat.

  “You don’t have to pretend it’s nice,” I said. I reached for a lighter and lit some candles on the coffee table. My guilty splurge. The least I could do was try and drown out the smell of cigar smoke from my neighbors.

  “Do you live here all by yourself?”

  “That’s what it looks like at the moment,” I said, “but my sister Areal is usually here. And my mom, she’s in and out. She’s like one of those outdoor cats you only see every once in a while.”

  I sat down on the couch, motioning for her to join me. I expected her to be tiptoeing around the place, scared to touch anything, but she went for it like it was the most normal thing ever. Like we were old friends and my couch that felt more like a bed of springs was her usual sitting accommodations. I couldn’t tell if she was putting on a good act, or if she really didn’t care.

  “Do you want something to drink? Eat?” I asked, my mind screaming please say no, please say no. I wasn’t even sure what was in the fridge at this point.

  “No thanks,” she said. I’d really never taken the opportunity to size her up since the day I met her because I was too busy being a bitch to her, but in the dim apartment light it was obvious she was more than just pretty. She was wearing a simple pair of blue jeans and a tight white tank top, nothing over the top, but the way the fabric clung to her body, it accented her curves, just a little sliver of cleavage accentuated by a simple gold chain with a feather charm hanging from it. She looked like money, classy, even dressed like an average woman. She had that soft and smooth appearance, her skin sun-kissed, and I hadn’t noticed the flecks of green in her dark brown eyes before, but I felt like women much more educated than I would probably write great poems about them.

  Physically, she clicked all my boxes.

  If I didn’t know who she was, and we’d just randomly met at a club or something… I wouldn’t be feeling this pit of doubt in my stomach. This lurching. This… guilt?

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, tucking a stray blonde hair behind her ear.

  Get your shit together, Tonya. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Eyes on the prize. Hurt before you get hurt. Hurt to make up for the pain people like Ella have put you and your family and your friends through for all your life.

  “I can’t fucking do this,” I said, standing up from the couch. “You’re going to have to go.”

  “What?” she quipped.

  “Listen, Ella,” I said, staring at my shoelaces for lack of a better option. “I’m sure you’re really nice. You really don’t belong here, though.”

  “Oh, knock it off, Tonya,” she said. “You sound like a broken record. It’s insulting.”

  “It’s for your own good. Not just for the obvious reasons,” I said, walking towards the door.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” She stayed firm on the couch, and for the first time since I’d met her she looked rattled, like I’d managed to find that button that actually broke through her overoptimistic exterior. It was hot in a way. “You can’t talk to me like a human because of the family I was born into? You’re no different than anyone else, Tonya. You judged me before I even had a fighting chance.” She stood up from the couch and grabbed her purse. “You think you’re better than me.”

  I couldn’t contain my eye roll.

  “That, right there,” she said, shaking her head in disgust. “No wonder you have it so hard. I’ve done nothing but treated you with kindness. What more do you want, Tonya? You want me to get on the ground and kiss your shoes and tell you that I’m not worthy to be in your presence because I don’t make everything as difficult on myself as possible?”

  “I want you to get out of my sight,” I said, my voice cracking. “You’re delusional if you think for one second this is my choice. You sound like an entitled jackass. Check your privilege, Ella.”

  Her face reddened and her fists clenched. “I am well aware of my privilege,” she said. “I don’t take it for granted for one second. You can throw that in my face all you want. It doesn’t offend me. What offends me is the fact that you can’t look past that and even give me the time of day. You’re so blinded by where I come from, you already had your mind made up about me.”

  “I know how people like you work,” I said, trying not let myself get lost in those speckles in her eyes. “You think you can save me. You come in and throw your privilege around so you can feel like you did your good deed for the day, and when the going gets tough you walk away. I’m not going to let you do that to my football team, and I sure as hell am not going to let you do that to me. People like you constantly look down your nose at people like me, telling me I need to work harder, saying ‘oh, you’re just looking for a handout,’ and ‘just stop being poor!’. I’m just waiting for that other shoe to drop.”

  “Shut the hell up over there!” a voice shouted from the apartment across the hall, followed by the sound of pounding on the wall.

  “I’ve never said anything like that, Tonya,” she said, her voice lowered. “I don’t feel that way. To be honest, I just thought you were hot. That’s really the only reason why I’ve been cha
sing you around. Now I’m starting to think you’re way too high-maintenance for me.”

  “Wait, what?” I stammered, pushing the door shut. “All this… has been some weirdly constructed ruse to try and hook up with me?”

  She cringed as she smiled and shrugged her shoulders.

  “And you’re on my ass about making things as difficult as possible?” I said with a laugh. “You really are from another planet than I am. I don’t even have enough time in my day to make sure my socks match, and you’re out here taking over football teams and hanging out in seedy bars because you think I’m hot?”

  “When you put it like that, it sounds pretty ridiculous,” she said, shoving her hands in her pockets. “I do want to help the team, though. I swear, my intentions are genuine. I’m not a creepy stalker. I just… I guess I didn’t know how to get your attention.”

  In that very moment, she had my undivided attention. I didn’t know if I was supposed to be flattered or disturbed. What kind of world did she live in that this was the lengths she had to go to to ask someone out?

  “Why in the world do you want my attention? You’re a knockout, Ella. You could have any woman you wanted.”

  She reached for the doorknob, pulling her gaze from mine. “This is embarrassing,” she said. “Can we just forget this happened?”

  “I mean, if you want to,” I said. I couldn’t put to words how I was feeling right now. My heart was beating kind of fast, and I really didn’t want her to open that door. Things were just starting to get good. I thought she was hot, she was obviously attracted to me, she had issues… I liked issues. I was full of issues.

  “I was planning on hooking up with you anyway,” I said. While we were revealing dirty little secrets, I figured it was my chance to be perfectly honest. “I figured it would piss your dad off.”

  “That’s kind of disgusting,” she said.

  “You’re the one who thought I was hot. I just wanted to get that out there so you knew exactly what you were getting yourself into. It doesn’t hurt that you’re extremely sexy, though.” I said, licking my lips.

  Her eyes grew wide, her hand still clutching the doorknob. I grabbed her shoulders just hard enough to show her how badly I wanted her. My heart raced as I pressed my lips to hers, tasting her sweet lips for the first time. She moaned into my mouth, her tongue flickering out of her mouth to meet mine. I reached my fingers under the hem of her tight tank top, feeling her soft skin, knowing I had her in the palm of my hand.

  I pulled away, and she stood before me, her look of confusion and frustration just stoking my fire.

  “I’ll be in my bedroom,” I said with a wink. “Choice is up to you. You can go back to your charmed life, or spend the night checking off your bucket list.” I grazed my hand against her side as I turned for my bedroom, not bothering to look back. Sure, I wanted her, but I wasn’t about to grovel. That wasn’t my style. Most of the time, my cool demeanor worked like a charm. If she really wanted me that bad, she’d pick the right door to open.

  Maybe we weren’t so different after all. I shut the bedroom door behind me softly and quickly tidied up my room, turning on the nightstand lamp and pulling the blind shut, waiting in anticipation for her to make her move. Could I really look past the differences between us just because she turned me on?

  I fluffed my pillows and sank down into my mattress.

  Absolutely.

  Chapter Eleven

  Ella:

  I knew what I wanted to do. More than anything in the world, I wanted to choose door number two. I stood in the living room, breathing in and out so loudly I was damn near hyperventilating. That kiss was so electric, the hairs on my arms were standing straight up. The way she pinned me to the door, her strength accentuated by just enough tenderness… I knew she was probably a beast in the bedroom, and I was dying to find out firsthand. Picturing her in her bedroom, probably sprawled out in bed in a pair of black panties, or maybe already completely naked, her hands seductively covering her round breasts, waiting for me… it made me hot between my legs.

  I couldn’t do it.

  I shouldn’t do it.

  She’d been drinking. She’d been fighting. I mean, we’d been fighting. The fact that she even entertained the thought of hooking up with me just to piss my dad off, that was some low-level stuff. I quietly turned the doorknob, making sure I locked it behind me before heading down the hallway of the apartment.

  I hated myself for not having the guts to do what I really wanted to do. I hated the way I couldn’t just let go and have a one-night stand with her, as I’m sure that’s all she wanted. I needed more.

  I looked over my shoulder the entire walk to my car, my key gripped tight in between my fingers. I hit the beeper on my fob long before I even hit the pavement. I started up my car, sitting there for a moment with the doors locked. I looked up to the top floor of the apartment complex, the only light on in what I assumed was her bedroom. I wondered if she was watching me drive away. If she didn’t dislike me already, this was probably going to seal the deal.

  Conflicted, I wasn’t ready to go home quite yet. My parents would still be awake, and I didn’t even know how to explain what had transpired over the night to them. I didn’t know how to articulate that this woman who I was crazy about, who’d been pushing me away since the moment I met her, had finally opened up to me, and I ran off because I was scared.

  I drove through the city I was born and raised in, the streets quiet aside from college students out for discount drink night. Part of me missed those days. Being young enough that the future seemed so ambiguous, and as long as I ‘went’ to college I was doing what I was supposed to be doing with my life. Now, I was more confused than ever.

  Tunnels opened up to the expressway and I knew there was no turning back. I was back to the suburbs. Back where I ‘belonged.’ Back to my charmed life as Tonya had called it. I punched in the code to the gated community, and as the wrought iron closed behind me I realized how very trapped in I actually felt. I was a grown woman in body, but I didn’t even have the capacity to make decisions for myself. I was more worried about what my parents thought about me—hell, what the entire world around me thought about me—than getting what I wanted.

  I pulled into the garage, unable to shake that sexy smirk from my mind. “Choice is up to you,” she had said. Maybe it was.

  I pulled out my cellphone and lifted up my shirt seductively, snapping a picture of my black lace bra. I giggled to myself as I texted it to Tonya. So much for being professional. We had already crossed that line.

  Minutes seemed to drag forever as I watched the three dots across the bottom of my screen, and I waited anxiously for her reply.

  My jaw dropped as the picture came across the screen. Her arm draped across her breasts, muscular thighs curled up around her hips, her long red hair cascading over her shoulders. What the hell was I doing sitting in this car ten miles away?

  “I’m guessing you’re not mad?” I texted back, getting out of the car, eager to get to my bedroom so I could have a little privacy.

  “I’m impressed. Figured I already had you in the bag.”

  I unlocked the door and swung it quietly open, peering around the kitchen, my parents laughing at the television in the living room. My phone buzzed again, and my eyes grew wide at the picture of her cupping her perfect breasts, her dark nipples hard as pebbles. “You on your way back yet?”

  “Sorry, babe. It’s going to take a lot more than just a couple of nudes to get me in bed.”

  Truth was, it took everything in me not to run right back out that door and get in my car.

  “How was your night, honey?” my mom called out. “Did you have a productive meeting?”

  “Sure,” I said, zipping past them. “I’m really tired. I’ll tell you all about it in the morning. Love you guys!”

  I ran up the steps two by two, breathing in a sigh of relief as I locked my door behind me and flopped down on my bed, scrolling through the pictures. A
shiver ran down my spine as I imagined pressing my lips to every inch of her perfect flesh, watching her writhe in delight.

  “Ur gorgeous,” I messaged back.

  “You too. Show me more?”

  I had never sent nudes before. I’d seen many of my friends’ lives ruined, or at least seriously inconvenienced, when smutty pictures of them happened to leak out beyond their intended viewer. I knew sending them to a complete stranger who I still couldn’t get a solid read on was probably even riskier. The thought turned me on even more. I was handing her damning evidence, something she could hold over my head to the team if she so desired. It was irresponsible. Probably more irresponsible than even spending the night at her place, but I liked that adrenaline rush.

  I just wouldn’t send my face. Easy as that. I could always deny it was me if it ever came to light. I pulled off my tank top and knelt on my bed, arching my back so my breasts spilled out over the top of my bra cups. This selfie business was no joke. Trying to find the perfect angle while simultaneously trying to look casual but also pretty and sexy was hard work. Did I really look like that?

  I held my breath as I hit send, my skin getting goose-bumped as I waited for her reply.

  “Prettier than I even imagined,” she texted back. Her approval made me feel bolder. I stripped out of my bra and took another photo, this time, my fingers barely covering my nipples.

  She replied with a picture of her hand slipping down into her panties and I about died of a heart attack right there. “One more before I go to bed,” she said.

  The idea of her touching herself while she looked at me made my pussy immediately throb with that familiar tingle of lust. I turned my back to my full-length mirror and sent her a picture of my thong-clad ass.

  “Seriously girl, goodnight,” she said, dotted with a bunch of heart eyed emojis. “Ur lucky you left when you did.”