Page 40 of Mostly My Boss
I was a natural honey blonde with blue eyes and pretty decent boobs that, because of Ethan, I had started dressing to show off more. I wasn’t hideous.
I didn’t think I was hideous. I just needed to straighten my shoulders and smile more. That’s what both Ethan and Daniel said.
“We sleep together in your bed all the time,” I told him. Whenever I hung out late in his room, pretty much, because he didn’t like me walking to my dorm late at night by myself and he said he was too lazy to walk with me. “But not once in all that time have you so much as touched me in a sexual way.”
“I’ve got to go.”
He scrambled off my bed and pushed his books into his satchel.
“Are you kidding me right now? You’re seriously not going to answer that question?”
He looked grim. “No, I’m not going to answer the question. And you should have known better than to ask.”
“I’m trying to decide why I’m unfuckable,” I grumbled.
He bent down and grabbed my chin, forcing me to meet his eyes. “You’re not unfuckable and you know it. And you know that we’re bigger than a damn roll in bed. Say you know that, Jules.”
I pulled my chin free. “Forget I asked. It’s not like I’d want you anyway. You’re the opposite of my type. I like my guys with a little beef on them.”
He stood there for a minute, his hands on his hips as if he was internally debating something. Then he shook his head and pushed his book bag over his jacket.
“I’m pissed at you,” he said.
“You’re pissed at me?” I asked, my jaw dropping. “It was just a question.”
“It was more than a question and yes, I’m pissed at you. Thinking about quitting class, thinking about fucking. Are you trying to ruin everything?”
“Geezus, Ethan. You do understand that sometimes you’re the only one who knows what you mean.”
His jaw snapped shut. “This subject is closed.”
“Fine,” I said.
“Tomorrow we’re going to pretend this conversation never happened.” He said it like an order. Which was how he spoke sometimes. As if he could decree things and make it so.
“Tomorrow you can go fuck yourself.” Which is how I typically responded when he spoke like that.
He laughed and, because he did, I did, too.
And just like that, the subject was closed.
For now.
* * *
“What are you doing?” Ethan asked as I slid off the bed. “One more. Come on.”
I looked over my shoulder as I reached for my coat on the desk chair where I’d left it. We’d just finished watching three straight episodes ofGame of Throneson Ethan’s laptop. I knew I wasn’t going to make it through another one andGame of Throneswasn’t a show you fell asleep while watching.
“It’s late,” I said. “I’m tired.”
“Okay, so we’ll switch toFriends.”
Because that was a show you could fall asleep to, which is what we typically did when I stayed over in his room.
After our conversation the other day, though, or our lack of conversation, really, I decided it didn’t make sense for us to do this. Share a bed, sleep together. Maybe that’s what was messing with my head when it came to Ethan.
The idea that he could find me so totally lacking in any kind of sex appeal that sleeping beside me didn’t cause him a second of physical discomfort, well, it stung. I mean, weren’t guys supposed to be permanently horny?
