Page 57 of Becoming Us
got a family thing
tell Marci I said hi
James
if you change your mind
i’ll have a drink with your name on it
No can do, sir. Still on the straight and narrow.
“Oh, looky there—one very handsome lacrosse player,” Holly said in a sing-song voice.
I looked up. Shane was crossing the lot, tall and broad, his stride casual.
“Who? Douche Face?”
“What? That’s done? Already?” she asked, looking stricken.
“Shane Gallagher is a total asshole, Hols.”
She tugged on my shirt, stopping me mid-stride. “No, wait. What happened? Two days ago, he was still Prince Charming.”
I leaned against the wall, knowing she wasn’t letting this go. And fair enough—it had lasted less than a week. Shane was one of thoseno-kissingguys, which should’ve been my first red flag. Kissing was half the fun—and he was weirdly strict about not doing it.
I shrugged. “We had sex.”
She yanked me farther from the building, eyes wide. “You what?”
“Calm down, it’s not a big deal. Probably the most underwhelming experience of my life. He was crap at prepping—like, genuinely useless. I had to do everything myself. And when we finally got to it, he barely got an inch in before he came. Total fucking flop.”
I wasn’t even sure it counted as sex. We hadn’t really started before he groaned out my name and rolled off.
The really sad part was that, after a week of rushed hand jobs and the occasional blow job, he finally leaned in and kissed me. And even though he wasn’t great at that either, it felt like a wall had come down. I thought it meant something. That maybe he’d finally opened up. Sure, the sex had been terrible, but maybe with a little practice, he’d get used to it and be better.
But apparently, practice wasn’t part of his plan. He blocked me that same night and hadn’t looked at me since.
I told Holly all of that, and her expression shifted to the soft, sad face I hated more than anything.
“It was a fling, Hols. I called Virginia yesterday—we’re going out this weekend. No need to cry over precariously spilled cum.”
“Oh my god, that’s terrible,” she said, laughing despite herself and bumping my shoulder.
“Whatever. Shane sucks. Let’s move on to the next one, shall we?”
“Aren’t you sad?”
“Hols,” I said, stopping short. “What the fuck?”
“I don’t know, Noh. You seemed like you liked him and?—”
“No. Shane was a distraction. A plaything. Would I rather he wasn’t a dick? Sure. But I’m not heartbroken over him ghosting me.”
“But—”
“We’ve established I’m not boyfriend material. What Iamis a fantastic lay, and I’m not about to waste that on Mr. Two Seconds, even if heishot.”
She still looked skeptical. “If you say so…”
