Page 10 of Exrated
“And?” I shrug. “I’ll call a cab.”
“She’s obviously going home with us…” he nods over to Heather whose now deep throating the roommate.
“Well, good for her.”
“You’ll be all alone.” He smiles.
“Yep. Think I can manage it. Thanks for the concern, though.”
“I doubt that.” He laughs. “Unless you’ve suddenly gotten over your fear of staying in a house by yourself…”
“I’m twenty-three, not seven, Tyler.”
I glare at him. I used to sleep in the hallway outside of my parent’s room because I hated sleeping by myself. Of course, since Tyler was my best friend, I told him how scared I was, and he, of course, had a solution. Most nights, he would climb the tree between our houses and I’d let him in my room.“This way you don’t have to be alone, titch,” he told me. “As long as you have me, I won’t let you be alone. Promise.”That memory chokes me up, and now I hate him even more because that was a lie. He did leave me alone.
He dumps the shot of tequila in his mouth. Shaking his head, he blows a breath through his lips. “Whew, so much better with lime, and this was the last wedge, lucky for you I’m a gentleman and saved it for you.”
There’s a slight flitter in my stomach when Tyler places the wedge between his teeth and points at the shot in my hand. He takes a step toward me, and I empty the tequila in my mouth. He grabs the back of my head, his fingers scratching against my scalp as he brings my face to his. And then, I jerk free of his grip and take the lime out of his mouth—with my hands.
“Lame, Jemma,” Heather says, stumbling toward the exit. “So lame I can’t live with you any longer. I’m changing the locks. I swear to God,”
“Damn,thatmad?” Tyler says.
I narrow my gaze at him. “No, I just don’t want my mouth on you. I don’t know where it’s been the last four years.”
I walk toward the exit and grab onto Heather’s arm as she steps through the door. “Are you seriously going home with him?”
Her gaze narrows on me. “Yeah, I thought we went over this. I’m fucking him—” she thumbs over toward Tyler, “You’re banging him…”
“This is how people get killed, you know that?”
She shrugs. “I’ll take my chances. He’s hot, and I’m horny.”
A cab pulls to the curb, and Heather opens the door.
Tyler steps up beside me. “You gonna come?”
“No.”
“Oh, come on. You can cuss me out. It’ll be fun.” He smiles. “Seriously, it’d be nice to catch up.”
I step to the side to hail another cab.
“Goddamn, I forgot how stubborn you are,” he says in a groan. “Just get in the taxi, would you?”
“I don’t want to.”
He steps up beside me. “So, you are going to take a cab alone?”
“Yeah.”
“Not gonna happen.”
“Excuse me? Who the fuck do you think you are to tell me what I’m going to do?”
“It’s not safe.”
“Oh, fuck off. That’s a shitty attempt to get me to go home with you.”
