No Strings Page 5

  “I… um… I don’t know… I guess…”

  Why had I changed my mind? I supposed it could have been the looks and snickers that his so called friends who had been there the other night had thrown my way. It could have been that I’d been thinking about our conversation since Saturday night, essentially staying up the entire night wondering—wondering why he had offered, what it would be like, what would happen after—just wondering.

  I looked at Brody, unable to really articulate the words without fearing that I would sound like a lunatic, but I didn’t get the chance to anyway because he was frowning and then he was pushing his chair back, crumpling up his trash, and slowly standing up.

  “Look,” he started, shaking his head. “If you want to do this because of what those guys were doing yesterday morning then I don’t think we should do this.” I sat utterly still, looking up at him where he was standing right over me, watching him as he shoved his hands in his pockets, waves and waves of regret and agony flowing off me in a rush. He was speaking quietly so no one around us could hear, but I felt my cheeks heat as he continued. “If you’re curious and if you want this, then I’m game, but only if you want it for you, not for them.”

  “Are you leaving?”

  The words tumbled out of me before I could even think about them. They were the only words in my head right then, not even really registering the words he’d just said because all I could focus on was the fact that he was standing. The distance between us seemed to be expanding one hundred times every millisecond that went by.

  Brody shrugged and whispered, “Do you want to lose your virginity because they were making fun of you for it?”

  “No,” I said immediately. I shook my head quickly, and stood up. I grabbed our trash and my things, shoved the trash in a nearby bin and then grabbed Brody’s hand to drag him out of Starbucks. I couldn’t continue having this conversation here. Of course everyone was going about their own business, but I felt like I was under a microscope, that everyone would be able to see the heart that I was so obviously wearing on my sleeve.

  When we got outside, I tried to ignore how good and warm and solid his hand felt in mine, especially when the chilly March air assailed me. I felt the loss acutely when I dropped his hand to put my jacket and scarf on, walking toward a waist high concrete wall on the side of the building. I sat down on it and braced my hands on either side of me. He walked up to me slowly and stood in front of me, hands in his pockets, sleeves now rolled down, looking like a movie star when his hair flopped in the wind.

  “I…” Just say it, Catrina, or he’s going to leave! He looked up at me from under his lashes and I swear my heart skipped. “I want to lose it because of what I told you before. I want to know what it’s like. I can’t… I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and when Holly said it I just, well, it made me realize just how much I’d been thinking about it. I’m tired of waiting for that perfect moment to come along when it’s not going to. And the other night you offered and at first it sounded like a great idea. You made it seem so logical.” Brody smirked slightly and I huffed a nervous laugh as I pushed through the rest of what I needed to say. “Then I thought about it too much and it seemed crazy. “But I’ve been thinking about it forever and thinking about it hasn’t gotten me anywhere. I don’t want to wait anymore. Sometimes you have to take chances to get what you want. You can’t think. You just have to dive in head first and pray you make it out alive.”

  I paused for a moment and then said the real reason I had changed my mind. The reason I hadn’t understood until right now when he had forced me to realize it, the reason that all of this seemed okay. The reason I finally got while we were standing outside Starbucks on a Monday afternoon.

  “And I trust you.”

  Brody’s eyebrows rose and I nodded.

  “I know you won’t judge me or do anything to hurt me,” I said quietly. “I trust you.” I sat up straighter on the wall, chin slightly raised, staring into his eyes, forcing myself to feel a confidence that wasn’t really there. He met my eyes right back, standing close to me, a crease between his brows, lips slightly pursed and eyes just a bit narrowed as he studied me, clearly trying to determine if I meant what I said.

  “You trust me?” he finally said after several moments went by. I glanced over his shoulder and saw a pigeon land on a parking meter before I looked back at him, breathed in the crisp air deeply, and nodded. To that, he said, “Why? Saturday night you said I didn’t even know you.”

  “But you do,” I said, suddenly slightly breathless. “You know I hate grape flavored things and you know I love Outkast. And you came down to the reservoir to talk to me when no one else did. And you sat there, you listened, and you came today.”

  “My friends are assholes,” he murmured under his breath, almost out of the blue. He looked down and away for a second before I laughed, drawing his attention back to me. “You really want to do this?”

  I nodded, deflating in relief. “I really do.”

  He moved slowly to sit on the wall next to me. He was so close I could smell his cologne. Our hands were almost touching on the wall. “No strings?” he asked, looking over at me after he was seated.

  I shook my head. “No strings,” I said. “Just… one night… one time for me to—”

  “Know what it’s like,” he finished for me with a smile.

  “To know what it’s like,” I confirmed, stomach flipping with butterflies.

  “Just academic research, basically,” he said, his smirk growing.

  I rolled my eyes. “Sure.”

  Truthfully, I really wasn’t looking for anything more than just the one scientific, academic time with Brody. I knew his reputation. I knew he wasn’t the type of person to give me anything more than that, and I certainly wasn’t expecting it. Brody wasn’t just not boyfriend material, but he wasn’t boyfriend material for me in particular. He was too cocky and arrogant and, sure, I trusted him and he had been so kind since the other night, but I had never once known him to have a girlfriend. I saw him flirting with various girls and hanging out with them on campus or around town or out at bars or whatever, but I had never seen him holding hands with any of them or seen any of them hanging on his arm for any significant period of time. And I wasn’t about to spend my time chasing after a guy who was so full of himself that he couldn’t keep one girl. I wasn’t going to be that girl, and I definitely wasn’t going to let Brody make me into that girl.

  “Catrina,” he said, breaking me out of my thoughts. I couldn’t help but notice how good my name sounded coming from his mouth. “I can’t give you more than just finding out what it’s like,” he said, frowning, looking almost as serious as he had the other night when he aired his frustration about what Holly had said. “I don’t do… girlfriends… or anything like that.”

  I almost wanted to be amazed that he seemed to be thinking directly along my own line of thinking, but instead I just said, “Why not?” Not because I wanted him to do girlfriends—no, of course not—but just because I was curious.

  He shrugged, stretching his legs out in front of him and crossing them at the ankle, leaning back slightly. “I’m just not into that. I don’t have girlfriends because I just don’t find that whole thing appealing,” he said, looking and sounding slightly disgusted. “And we’re leaving school soon so why have something that isn’t going to last when we’re pretty much just kids without fully developed brains and we should be enjoying life, not tied down?” He shrugged. “It’s never really made sense to me.”

  “My parents met in high school and it lasted,” I said, unsure why I was arguing the point when I pretty much agreed with him. I never really understood why my other friends from high school and college were so determined to find a guy and marry him and settled down when we didn’t even have real jobs yet. But still… “And we aren’t kids. We’re twenty-two. We’re—”

  “Still in college trying to figure shit out,” Brody said, arching an eyebrow. “You want to exper
ience different things, right? That’s why you want to do this? I know you see where I’m coming from.”

  “I do, but—”

  “So why are you arguing? Because you’re Catrina Murphy and you love to argue?”

  I gaped in offense. “I do not love—”

  “So when do you want to do this?”

  I closed my mouth, glaring at him through narrowed eyes, wanting to be angry with him but finding it next to impossible when he was arching an eyebrow playfully and suggestively, smirking, leaning back, eyes up toward the sky, looking so good that I had to fight the urge to stare.

  I didn’t know when I wanted to do it, but God, I wanted it to be soon. He may be arrogant and cocky and commitment-phobic, but I knew he was experienced. I knew, somehow, that he knew what he was doing in the sex department. I wanted to see what those muscular biceps would look like without shirtsleeves covering them, maybe braced on a bed on either side of—

  “Catrina?”

  I jumped and gasped a bit, cheeks heating at the turn my thoughts had taken, looking at Brody and wanting to slap that knowing smirk off his face.

  “So sooner rather than later?”

  My blush deepened and he chuckled.

  “Well, I’ve got soccer practice every night next week—got to prepare to be the best there ever was—”

  “You wish.”

  “But we could meet up after or maybe next weekend to—”

  “How about tonight?”

  Brody stopped talking abruptly, eyebrows raising in shock, but I hardly noticed. It had to be tonight or I knew I would lose my nerve. If I had the entire week to think about it, even one entire night, I knew I wouldn’t be able to go through with it. My overthinking always got in my way, and I wanted this. Badly. There was no use thinking it to death when I knew I wanted it now and I didn’t want to wait another day to get it.

  “Tonight?” Brody said, hesitation apparent in his voice.

  “Are you busy?”

  “Well, no, but—”

  “You aren’t chickening out, are you, Galen?” I said, arching an eyebrow in challenge, the rush of adrenaline I was feeling making me entirely more confident than I had any right to be. “What happened to ‘if anyone was going to bail it was going to be you’?” I said, lowering my voice in a terrible attempt to imitate Brody.

  He laughed and nodded. “Good point, Murphy,” he said. Then without warning, he took a step forward abruptly, closing the gap between us in one easy stride, making me gasp and hold my breath, staring up at him, eyes wide. I curled my fingers around the edge of the concrete wall and looked up at him standing right in front of me, his left thigh touching my right knee. “Do you know where my apartment is?” he asked, voice low and almost intimate all of the sudden. Shivers erupted all over my arms as the butterflies went mad in my stomach.

  “Um,” I swallowed. I vaguely remembered going there sophomore year for Gabe’s birthday party.

  “In Brookline, near Chesnut Hill Ave and Boylston—”

  “Right, that apartment building that looks like a mansion.”

  He smirked. “Come by at 8,” he said.

  “How should I—”

  “Just tell the doorman you’re there for me,” he murmured, eyes flicking from my mouth back to my eyes as he moved impossibly closer. “I’ll let him know I’m expecting you.”

  “God, you’re so rich,” I breathed, unknowingly spreading my legs slightly apart so he could step in between them.

  “You love it.” His voice was still low as he dipped his head and I felt his breath brush across my face. Then he reached up, and just as he had done the other night by the reservoir right before I swore he was going to kiss me, he tucked a piece of my hair behind my ear, brushing his fingers on my skin deliberately as he did so. I sighed, my eyes fluttering just a bit as I managed to keep them fixated on him. I tilted my head back slightly, the anticipation of what was about to happen burning me up inside.

  I didn’t care that we were sitting outside Starbucks. I didn’t care that I hadn’t washed my hair today and I was wearing a baseball cap. I didn’t care that anyone I knew might see us sitting there looking like a couple. I didn’t care that if anyone I knew did see me it would be so obvious what we were talking about. So obvious what I wanted.

  He leaned in closer, I held my breath and let my eyes flutter shut, but then I felt his hot breath on my ear. I shivered, and I felt his lips brush just ever so slightly on the shell of my ear when he whispered, “I’ll see you tonight. I can’t wait.”

  And before I even had a chance to open my eyes or respond, he was gone.

  Chapter FIVE

  After I left Starbucks, I decided to walk back to campus. It was a little chilly still, but I was so flushed that I barely even felt it. So I walked on wobbly legs back to east campus where my apartment was, replaying my lunch with Brody over and over in my head, particularly that last bit. I could hear his voice, feel the phantom of his breath on my ear, his fingers on my face. I didn’t know how I was going to be able to concentrate on anything at all for the next several hours before I waited to go to his place. I had an assignment to work on for Arrangement and I needed to work on my piece for the Act I finale of Carmen, but there was no way I could sing opera or do anything when all I could think about was Brody.

  “I can’t wait.”

  What did that mean? Was that significant or was he just being polite, letting me know he wasn’t absolutely dreading taking my virginity?

  God.

  Oh, my GOD.

  Brody Galen agreed to take my virginity.

  Tonight.

  Tonight I am going to lose my virginity to Brody Galen.

  I looked around where I was walking just as I got on campus and tried to see if anyone was staring at me. Surely something so significant would warrant a few stares. Certainly I had a gigantic V with an X through it on my chest in neon letters that glowed in the dark and maybe even sang a tune so that everyone in the vicinity knew CATRINA MURPHY IS ABOUT TO LOSE HER VIRGINITY IN A FEW HOURS.

  But when I passed by a few different people, not one of them had even an ounce of attention to be paid to me. There was a group of girls sitting on a patch of grass who appeared to be sunbathing, two guys walking past me hand-in-hand with clearly only eyes for each other, a couple of people who were clearly freshmen on another large patch of grass playing hacky sack, a group of three people who seemed to be arguing over something because one of them was gesturing wildly. There were various other solo students like me just walking along or sitting around reading or otherwise occupied, and not one of them seemed to even know that I existed, let alone the dramatic shift my life had taken in the last 48 hours.

  In fact, after doing a cursory search on Facebook and Twitter, I noticed that no one was talking about Holly’s post, and although she had gotten up to 174 likes and reactions, there hadn’t been any new likes since early this morning. Sure, Holly was probably still talking about it in private with her friends, but it seemed that except for them, no one even really cared about our stupid little game of Truth or Dare.

  I had gone back to my relatively peaceful life already; everything was almost completely back to normal.

  Except for the fact that in a few hours, Brody Galen was going to be putting his—

  “Hey.”

  When I turned the key in the front door of my apartment and pushed it open, I jolted from my thoughts and looked up at my friends Callum, Carver, and, of course, my roomie/bestie Talia who were all sitting in Talia and my small living room. They were all also apparently living the motto that it was five o’clock somewhere because they all appeared to be drinking wine despite the fact that it was—I looked at my watch—3:52 in the afternoon. I prayed that the dimness of our living room would hide the blush that crept up my neck and to my cheeks where it bloomed. The blush that crept up because seeing them made me wonder if that V with the X through it was flashing and glowing on my chest right there for them to see.

 
Callum laughed as he leaned forward and set his wine glass on our coffee table and then shifted over on the couch to make room for me. “You look deep in thought,” he said. “Hope you don’t mind that Carver and I stopped by.”

  I huffed out a quick laugh and plopped onto the sofa next to him. If he only knew how deep in thought I was. “It’s all right, obviously. What did I miss?”

  Talia shrugged. “Nothing really.” She paused. “Were you thinking about yesterday morning so deep in thought? Or Saturday night?” She lowered her voice, sounding serious.

  Not exactly... “No,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t care anymore.”

  “You seemed to care yesterday morning when we were at brunch,” Talia replied, frowning. “What the hell was that with Brody? Why’d you go up to him like that?”

  Yeah, there was no way my friends were going to let me get away with barging up to Brody in the middle of breakfast without any kind of explanation.

  “Why don’t we just drop it?” Callum suggested, putting a hand on the couch behind me and squeezing my shoulder briefly. I smiled at him gratefully.

  “Good idea,” Carver suggested. “You want a glass of wine, Catrina?”

  “God yes,” I said, smiling at him before he got up and headed to the kitchen. “Isn’t Arrangement over at 2:30, by the way?” Carver said from the kitchen. “Where were you?”

  “Went for a walk,” I told them. I looked at Talia, who was still frowning at me.

  “Jesus, okay, I just wanted him to call off the dogs, I guess,” I said in answer to her question. “Since he and I talked the other night I figured he might be able to—”

  “What did you talk about?” Carver asked when he brought over my wine and handed it to me. Talia was watching me with hawk eyes.

  “Yesterday morning or—”

  “Saturday night,” Callum said quickly.

  Okay, so it seemed like Callum’s encouragement of Talia to drop the subject changed when it came to what Brody and I had talked about out by the reservoir. He hadn’t had a chance to ask me when I mentioned it yesterday morning, and I knew it was only a matter of time before I had to spill the information. I knew Talia was just worried, and I also knew that Callum wasn’t jealous. I had talked to and flirted with loads of guys when Callum was out with me and Talia and I were looking for guys. It was just something about Brody, apparently, that made him want to join in with Talia’s third degree.