Page 64 of Game Night: Truth or Dare

Which was fine, right? Like, we’d clearly worked out all the negative shit between us. Or, let’s be real: together we’d worked out all the negative shit I’d put on us…the jealousy, the resentment, the jumping to conclusions. No matter what happened next, at least I wouldn’t freeze up the next time I saw Ben in the Commons or hanging out at the campus Starbucks.

That wasn’t so bad. But I didn’t know if we’d ever have a night this fun again, if he’d ever make me laugh while we lay chest-to-chest and groin-to-groin. If I’d ever get to see that pretty, needy look in his eyes, followed by that caveman intensity as he got himself off. We bantered so well, and I didn’t know if we’d ever get to do it again.

That sucked.

I…I genuinely liked him.

But he was five or six years older than I was, while also being a year behind me in school, while working on a completely different major. As small as the campus was, we didn’t have any close friends in common. (Our mutual ex didn’t count, duh.) There was no real reason our paths would cross. Not unless we made them cross.

Just then, he flopped down beside me on the bed. I hadn’t been expecting it, and the sudden weight, the bounce on the mattress, snapped me out of my little spiral. He wrapped his arm around me and pulled me down beside him, so we lay in his bed with his chest pressed to my back and his arm swaddling my middle. “You,” he said, so close it tickled my ear, “are a lot of fun in bed.”

Giddy. I felt absolutely giddy. “And you…” I didn’t want to tell him he was the best sex I’d ever had. I mean, I hadn’t had that much, and most of it was with…that guy again. More than that, I didn’t want him to feel like he had to say it back. “…you are, too.”

“Thank you.” He kissed the space behind my ear. “You have nice hair, too.”

“You sure liked yanking on it.”

“Did I hurt you?” It was sweet. Suddenly there was a little pang in his voice. Like, he was actually worried.

“You were perfect,” I said, and nestled backward, rubbing my ass against his dick. (It felt surprisingly thick, considering he’d blown his load not five minutes earlier.) “I was just mad that yours is too short to let me get a good grip.”

“I planned that.” He kissed my shoulder. “It was strategic.”

“A body like yours, and brains, too?”

He chuckled against my skin, then we lay there for a moment, just enjoying each other. I let my eyes rest on the far side of the room, looking at the white-painted cinderblocks, the futon with my clothes piled on it, the ratty little rug. There was a corkboard by his desk with pictures on it, but I couldn’t make out what they were from this far away. It was just a dorm room, not much different than anyone else’s, but I was hyper-aware of being in his space. It wasn’t bad; I felt perfectly welcome. But I was alert to everything.

I was also just alert.

It’s funny…normally after an orgasm, it takes me, like, zero minutes to fall asleep? But here I was, comfortable as could be, but also wide awake. I could tell Ben was, too, from the way he was breathing and how firmly his fingers were pressed into my stomach.

“What time is it?” I asked, just because I wanted to be talking to him.

“I don’t know,” he said. “My phone’s in my pants.”

“Mine, too.”

“Not that late,” he said. “We left the party before midnight, and this…” He trailed off, like he was having a hard time naming what we’d just done, like he didn’t know what category to put it in. But he pulled me closer to him, sliding a leg between mine. “We haven’t been here long, I don’t think.”

“Probably less than an hour.”

“Yeah,” he said. “That sounds right.”

I smiled. Even that…the most boring, banal conversation imaginable…felt nice with him.

But then a silence fell over us, and that was nice, too.

This time, he broke it:

“You hungry?”

Was I? I thought about the question, taking stock of my body. Finally, I replied, “Yeah. I mean…I could eat something.”

He let that hang in the air for a minute, then asked, “Want to hit the Box Car?”

The Box Car was a diner, just a few blocks from campus—maybe a ten-minute walk from the dorms, if we felt like braving the cold, and a much quicker drive if we didn’t. It was built inside an actual train car, and stayed open 24 hours, serving the students of Roundtree College burgers and eggs and pie. This late on a Friday, it would probably be fairly busy. In fact…

“I bet there are people there. From the party I mean.”

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