Page 27 of The Summer I First Saw You
He leans back in his chair. “Are you ever going to tell me why you hate Scott so much?”
I hitch a shoulder. “You’ve met him. He’s a dick.”
His gaze bites into mine, peeling back layers whether I want him to or not. “I’ve been an unbelievable dick to you all week. You’ve put up with it like a champ.”
I frown. “I thought we’d agreed that you were going to stop trying to get rid of me.”
“I’m not. I swear. I suppose I don’t mind having you around. I’m just thinking of your mom.”
I grin. “Really? So youlovehaving me live with you?”
He raises a brow. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. But you’re not the worst roommate I’ve ever had.”
“Come on,” I argue, glancing at my chest. “I mean, look at these puppies. Lots of men would want me living with them. I’m at least in your top five.”
He does not look atthese puppies, as requested, but insteadrolls his eyes. “You could potentially be in the top five if you’d stop referencing your tits so often.”
“Just admit that if you were forty years younger, you’d totally want to date me.”
“If I was forty years younger, I wouldn’t even be born yet. You’d be sixty when I was nineteen.”
“I’m going to be incredibly hot when I’m sixty,” I reply. “You’d be dying to fuck me even then.”
“You just dropped back into the bottom five roommates,” he says.
But I notice he didn’t deny anything I said either.
15
HARRISON
“I’m going to be incredibly hot when I’m sixty,” she said. “You’d be dying to fuck me even then.”
And I thought,yes, yes I would, and you’d still be too goddamned young.
I go to my room once we’ve cleaned up dinner, making a concerted effort to not think about Daisy. To not think about her surfing, to not think about her pulling off a wetsuit, or climbing out of the hot tub, or sayingI’d offer to take care of itas she stared at my dick.
I put on movies—first a documentary about Ted Bundy, but the way he inserted himself into his victims’ lives with a combination of charm and good looks reminds me a little too much of my houseguest.
I try a sci-fi movie next. That fails too. When you’re getting hard watching an alien crawl toward its human prey, it’s probably time to just give up. Eventually, I go into the shower, which is the only form of privacy you’ve got when said houseguest is walking back and forth outside of your room and is likely to pick your lock if she wants to chat.
I grip myself, trying to think about someone else.Anyoneelse. My first high school girlfriend. The woman on the news who found a baby alligator in her toilet. Even Audrey would be preferable.
But as I spill all over my hand, biting my lip to keep in my gasp, I am definitely imagining it’s all over Daisy, bent in half on my deck.
I wake the next morning, ashamed of myself and slightly hungover, and go downstairs for aspirin, fully intending to go back to bed. Daisy’s on the deck doing her exercise, which is the last fucking thing I want to see. I wince, hoping to escape to my room before she spies me.
“That outfit doesn’t work,” she says, walking in, continuing to stretch. Her bra rides up perilously high as she reaches overhead. I see a flash of under boob.
I reach for the aspirin and swallow more than I’m supposed to take. “If we’re instituting a dress code, I’ve got some notes for you too.”
“If you go running in those sweatpants, through which I canalreadysee your dick, you’ll be giving all the little kids outside quite the anatomy show. And probably set them on a course for future disappointment, because from what I could tell last weekend, you’re packing an excessive amount in there.”
For a moment my eyes lock with hers. It’s automatic. Involuntary. When one of the most stunning women you’ve ever laid eyes on is talking about your dick, you consider where you could take the conversation. Reminding yourself she’s practically family comes a moment later and is accompanied by suffocating guilt.
“Fuck that. I’m not going running.”
“Au contraire, Harrison. You are indeed going running. We had a bet.”
