Another thought hit me too, one that had me shaking my head. In another world, in another life, if it’d been Anna who’d come and worked at my house those summers, it’d be her that I’d be in this deep with. After all, I’d been friends with her parents too before their divorce. Shit, it could’ve been her tempting me around the house and who’s panties I’d jerked off into.
Easily.
Funny how the world works.
But damn, there was that guilt again. I mean I’d just told Christina that I loved her, and I damn well meant it. Which probably meant I needed to stop thinking about Anna like that, because it was making me feel like a scumbag.
Except that kiss, where all three of us had come together. Jesus fuck that’d been incredible, and I don’t just mean it’d been extra hot - even though of course it had been. But it’d been something else too. It’d felt like I wasn’t just sharing something with Christina, but that she was letting me share something between her and Anna. Something crazy that still had my head spinning as I stared out the window.
Man, I was going to need a fucking manual to get through this.
Chapter 26
Christina
It was a Thursday, and a full moon, when it all went upside down.
Funny how you can remember weird details like that.
Anna giggled as she fumbled with the dorm building keycard before the door finally opened. We both snorted as we pulled the straightest faces we could as we nodded quickly to the RA on duty at the front desk - the same guy who’d thought Tyler was my dad, by the way - and scurried down the hall to our room before the silly giggles tumbled out.
Okay, yeah, we’d been drinking a little bit.
We weren’t drunk, that I remember, but we were in that place where you’re just living in the moment and feeling free. We were celebrating that night when we’d gone out to the party off campus. Nothing monumental, just celebrating feeling good, and maybe even a little celebration of Tyler’s last words to me before he’d gotten on the train a week and half before.
“Okay, that was fun,” Anna said with a giggle as she slumped down on the floor, leaning back against her bed. She grinned at me, her cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkling in that way I loved. “We need to do that more often, you know.”
“What, go drink cheap wine at parties that cute boys invite my best friend to?” I flashed a smile at her as I slid down to the floor across from her against my own bed.
Anna blushed and rolled her eyes at the mention of the guy from the floor above us who’d asked her to come that night. Naturally, I’d crashed the party with her.
“Meh,” she shrugged. “He’s boring.”
I rolled my eyes. “Girl, he’s cute, and definitely into you.”
A weird feeling came over me then, as I tried to talk to her about the guy from upstairs. It felt like on one hand that I was doing my friend duty of trying to set my single friend up with a guy. And yet, on the other hand, just going through the motions of ‘oh, but he’s cute’ had something twisting inside of me.
Something that felt a whole lot like jealousy, which made me frown as the emotion crept strangely over me.
Anna waved her hand. “Nah, not really my type.”
And normally, I’d have laughed and fought her on that. ‘Oh c’mon, he likes you!’ or something like that. Except that night, I said nothing. That night, I almost felt something like glee that she wasn’t into him,
I very quickly needed another drink.
“We’ve still got wine stashed in here, right?”
Anna made a face. “Nah, I pitched that. It smelled like feet.”
I frowned, but she suddenly grinned at me, arching her eyebrows. “But I may have swiped a little door prize from that party,” she said with a wicked little grin. She reached for her purse and pulled a little glass flask of rum out of it.
I laughed out loud. “You stole that from the party?”
She shrugged, giggling. “Eh, that guy from upstairs asked me if I wanted a sip and then got distracted by that stupid beer pong game. It wasn’t even open yet!” She stuck her tongue out at me as she cracked it open before bringing it to her lips. She choked a little, making a funny face as she passed it over to me.
Damn that was strong. I took one sip and made the same face as her before passing it back her way. Anna shook her head. “I think I need a minute,” she said with a laugh. “That tastes like rubbing alcohol.”