Page 58 of Stags

Double fucking standard,she groaned.

She looked back at him. “Wipe it off me,” she ordered.

He blinked at her. “Oh, um… yeah.” He swallowed for a minute, considered, and then stripped off his shirt and did exactly that. “Uh, thanks?”

She smiled at him. “Yeah.”

He balled up his shirt in one hand as she pulled her pants up.

He was gazing at her. “Did I…?” A long pause. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” She glared at him. “You got what you wanted, right? We’re good.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“Just go,” she snapped.Nice time to develop empathy here, dude,she thought.You couldn’t have noticed I wasn’t into it earlier?

Maybe he had. Maybe that was why it had taken him so long to get off. Maybe…

Fuck.

“I’m really sorry,” he said, and he sounded fucking sorry. “If, um, you had said something—”

“I’m fine.”

“Just, I wouldn’t have if you—”

“I’m not filling out a report on you or anything,” she said. “It’s my own fault. Just go away now, though.”

He toyed with his antlers, eyeing her, as if he was going to say something else. But then, he just turned and walked off, and she felt like shit about the whole thing.

She was going to go back to her room. She was going to take another hot shower and try to wash this whole experience away.

“SO,” STOCKTON WASsaying, “I just want to make sure I’m not putting weird pressure on you or something, because I didn’t mean to.” They were sitting together at a restaurant a few blocks from the Center, eating chips and salsa, which had been brought out to their table when they ordered.

“No, what?” she said.

“I just mean, I only meant this in a friendly way,” he said. “I don’t want you to think I was trying to take advantage of you or something.”

“Oh,” she said. “No, of course not. It would have to be a friendly way, because you’re Maibell’s ex.”

“Oh, true,” he said. “So, you and I, we just basicallyhaveto be friends.”

“Totally,” she said.

“It’s only that after all the stupid things I have done this weekend, there’s no way anyone would find me attractive, anyway,” he groaned.

“Stop that,” she said.

He ate a chip, making a face.

“You know, I’m really embarrassed, too,” she said.

“About what?”

“About how I was that one night at the bar when I forced you to sit around considering what was wrong with me after you tried to tell me that nothing was wrong. I’ve been doing that to people, and now I realize, like, nothing is really wrong with me, and it’s the most embarrassing thing on earth.”

“Oh,” he said, tilting his head to one side, his antlers askew kind of adorably. “I don’t you think you should be that embarrassed. I mean, everyone gets in a headspace like that sometimes. It’s normal.”

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