Page 63 of Silent Desires

“Sarah, oh my god, you’re terrible!” the second voice giggles.

“What? You know you’d love to get a piece of that if you could!”

There’s a pause, then Sarah says, “Don’t roll your eyes, Rachel. Not all of us are lucky enough to find a super-hot college boyfriend.”

One of the girls giggles again.

“You’ve met him, Sarah?” a third voice asks.

“No, but Rachel hasn’t stopped talking about him. When are you seeing him again?”

“Probably tonight. We pretty much hook up every night in the back of his car. He issogood in bed. The dirty shit he is in too… Plus, I swear he lasts for at least five minutes every time!” Rachel says, apparently bragging to her friends.

“O-M-G, girl, you’re too much!” Sarah laughs as I hear them exit.

I finish up in the bathroom and re-wrap my arm as best I can. It’s still just as tender as it was this morning, unfortunately, but it’s not leaking out of the bandage. I’ll be heading to the guys’ house soon, and I know how much they love to touch me. I’m not sure how I can avoid it. Normally, I wouldn’t want to, but I can’t have them touching my arm, it’s too painful today. Even now I want to throw up from the pain of wrapping it.

Walking down the hall, I see a couple of students pulling binders from their lockers, and I realize I have the perfect excuse to not to go to the guy’s house today. I’m supposed to spend that time working on my independent study project, and I haven’t even started.

When I get back to class, we only have a few minutes before we start packing up. Jasper asks if I’m ready to head to his house. I open my phone and type him a message.

Me:I can’t. I need to work on my independent study today. I haven’t started it yet. I need to spend lunch and third period in the library.

“You can work on it at our house. We have tons of books, plus the internet—and the bonus of there being food and us there,” he says with a smile as he leads me by my hand towards the parking lot.

I nod. I’m not sure how to argue that, and it will still keep me busy. Besides, I don’t really want to spend the lunch period in the busy library. I’m just going to have to be careful.

Chapter forty-two

Iputter around the kitchen, preparing lunch for everyone. I hope Mina likes tacos. I have all the ingredients laid out so she can make her own, or we can make them for her if she’s unsure. I double check that I have enough cheese and start grabbing drinks. She normally chooses water. Is she choosing that because she thinks it’s a safe choice or does she really prefer it? I grab a few different flavors of soda along with iced tea and flavored water that I picked up from the store earlier for her, and put them all on the counter, hoping she’ll pick the one she prefers.

I don’t know why I feel nervous about seeing her again. I just get so little time to spend with her in person, I want to make a good impression. And now that we’ve all spoken about wanting something with her, it feels even more important to make her feel comfortable here.

My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I pull it out to see a message from Jasper.

Jasper:Mina finally remembered she has an independent study project to do. She tried to stay behind to work on it in the library. I told her we’d help her at home.

Me:I’m on it.

Knowing exactly what to do, I move to the hall and yell, “hey! Dom?” I only have to wait a few seconds before I see him come out of the main floor office.

“Yeah, what’s up? Are they here?”

“No, not yet, but Jasper just texted and said Mina wants to work on her independent study. She tried to stay in the library, but Jasper convinced her to do it here.”

“Good.” He nods his head as he glances around at all the food and drinks I’ve laid out on the island.

“Ah yeah, I maybe got a little carried away. Can you help finish up cooking while I get something setup out here for her?” I ask, pointing to the living room.

“Yeah, of course, what do you need me to do?”

“Everything’s ready except the ground beef, it just needs a few more minutes, then you can drain the fat and put it in this serving dish here,” I tell him, pointing to the serving dish.

“I think I can handle that,” he says, taking the spatula from me and moving to the stove.

“Thanks, Dom.”

I jog upstairs to my room, grab what I need, and bring it all back downstairs. I set up a spot at the coffee table for her. She can sit on the floor and use the table or sit on the couch and use her lap. I grab a couple of generic textbooks on broad themes she might like, then open several tabs on the computer to some good online resources. One of them includes a list of suggested topics. I also set out a pad of paper, pens in different colors, a pencil, sticky tabs, and a bottle of water.

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