Page 18 of Necessary Roughness

I can barely speak. I glance at Fran, who is giving me the hell-no face, which has the complete opposite effect that she intended. Fiery with desire, I look back at the gorgeous jock and nod.

“I’ll be there.”

“Good,” he says. “Oh, and try to wear something that regular girls wear, all right? I’ll catch a load of shit for bringing home a girl who dresses like a homeless lady.”

“Fuck you,” I reply with a scornful smile.

“See you then, Strawberry,” he grins. “Or should I call you Cherry?”

2

Red

“This is all a big joke, right?” Fran asks as I try on another outfit in front of the mirror. “You’re just fucking with me, right? You’re gonna ghost him, right?”

“Say right again, Fran,” I laugh, not happy with the orange-print dress I was hoping to wear tonight. I got it at Goodwill for five dollars and used to think I looked super cute in it, but now? I think I look like a girl who never learned to dress herself.

“Just wear what you were wearing before!” Fran says, sounding like she’s in agony as she tumbles face first onto her bed.

“Oh, my Goth stockings and the top that makes me look like a witch? You heard what Blue said.”

“Yeah, I heard it all,” she says into her pillow.

As I flip through the rest of my closet, I realize I don’t have a single acceptable outfit for tonight—at least not one that’s worthy of a guy like Blue.Starting quarterback on his way to the NFL…If you had told me in high school that a guy like that would be interested in me, I would have laughed at you. Guys like him were always into girls like Tasha, the cute blonde down the hall—

“That’s it!” I exclaim as I rush from the room in nothing but a pair of shorts and a bra. Tasha’s door is open and I pop my head in to find her eating Cheetos on her bed.

“Tasha! Can I borrow something cute for tonight?”

“Uh, sure?” she replies casually. “But you need to tell me what it’s for.”

“I have a…date.”

“Why did you say it like that?” she asks, sitting up.

“I—well, it’s not really a date,” I explain. Part of me doesn’t want to just spill the beans about my business, but I mean…I’m going to have sex with the starting quarterback!

“So what is it then? You’re not…you’re not going to fuck someone are you?”

A sheepish grin is my only reply. Tasha sits up, her jaw slack with disbelief.

“Shut the fuck up!” she laughs. “You’re finally getting rid of the V-card? Who’s the lucky guy?”

I’m blushing. I feel giddy. You’re so stupid, Red.

“You won’t believe me.”

“Tell me!” she says loudly as she gets up. My lips smile on their own.

“Do you know a guy named Blue?”

Tasha’s face falls off. Her bag of Cheetos slips from her hands and she stares at me like I just told her my rich grandma died and left me a billion dollars.

“Blue?” she gasps. “Colton Blue!?”

“He didn’t tell me the Colton part,” I reply. “But yeah, I guess?”

For a minute, Tasha looks down like the world suddenly stopped making sense, but then she looks up at me with joy in her eyes like a mother whose daughter just made her first A in school. She walks right up to me and hugs me.

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