“Like how?” Bo sounded disgruntled. Kind of like how I felt hearing about how hot he was for some other girl even though I’d told myself I wasn’t going down that path with him.
“I don’t know. He just looked the part. Tall, attractive. I guess I thought because he was strong and handsome that he’d know what he was doing in bed, and I’d just come off a really crappy experience.”
“Did he?”
“Yes, but my first time wasn’t so good, obviously, so pretty much anyone who knew where my girl parts were was going to be better than the first time.”
“I’m not sure where the embarrassment comes in. Did you break his dick or what?”
“No!” I exclaimed and then stopped for a moment. “Can that really happen?”
“Yup. There, there was an MMA fighter whose girlfriend broke his dick while doing reverse cowgirl or something.”
I wondered how that worked. She must have gone up too high and then slammed down. When I felt Bo’s hand cover mine and heard him trying to suppress a laugh, I realized I was trying to act out the scene with my hands. I pulled my hands out of his and stuck them under either side of my legs.
“So you were saying.” Bo motioned me to go on.
“So I, ah, felt good with him, and I kind of began to have feelings for him.”
“How is this embarrassing? That’s normal.” Bo sounded a little peeved, although at whom or what, I wasn’t sure.
“I’m getting there, impatient Patty.” Taking a deep breath, I rushed through the rest. “After a few weeks, he stopped calling me. I texted him and called repeatedly, but he never responded. I started stalking him, driving by his apartment, going to where I knew he liked to order out. I ate a ton of fattening and bad lasagna for like a month. The waitstaff started recognizing me and would shake their heads as if saying, ‘Here comes that fool girl again, she can’t take no for an answer.’”
Bo remained silent for a while. He rubbed his hand across his chin and his lips were sort of pursed, as if he was thinking.
“What? You scared of me now?”
“No, I just don’t get how that is embarrassing. You fell for the first guy that made you feel good. He was a dick to you.”
“How is stalking my hookup not embarrassing?”
“Because it just isn’t. I feel like I deserve another story.”
“That was a good story,” I replied, miffed he didn’t appreciate the confession I’d laid out. While it didn’t involve Viagra, it was mortifying to me.
“If you were with the right guy, it wouldn’t be stalking,” Bo mused. “It’d be flattering and even welcome.”
“Yeah, well, it wasn’t flattering or welcome. After the third visit to the dive where he ate Italian food, the waitress told me she didn’t think he was interested. Trust me, it was embarrassing.” I turned my head away, not wanting to see his expression or for him to see mine. “You ever see that girl again?”
“Yup. I saw her later my senior year at a party. She was with some guy, and when she saw me she turned fire engine red, like that was the most humiliating night of her life. She took off before I could say anything.” Bo cleared his throat. “I just want it to be clear that all my equipment is in working order.”
“Thanks for the update.” I smirked.
The silence fell again. Whatever plans I had for getting an early jump on our lab assignment were over for today. I moved toward the exit, not interested in hearing the video. The strange spell that the dark and the close space had held over us seemed to dissipate when I stepped outside into the still abandoned hallway of botany with Bo following close behind. I felt embarrassed that I’d revealed something so personal to him yet again.
“Let’s go have dinner,” Bo invited, placing his hand on the small of my back and leading me toward the bench where my notebook and his sketchpad rested.
Taken by surprise, I could only answer dumbly, “Dinner?” I hadn’t realized it had gotten so late, but when I looked at my watch it seemed that Bo and I had spent quite a while sitting, sketching, and telling embarrassing stories to each other.
Chapter Fifteen
AM
AS I STOOD NEXT TO BO in line to order a bowl of chili at a deli about two miles from campus, I wondered if Bo had magical powers. My list of reasons why I should remain aloof, which I’d enumerated on the way to the museum, seemed to have been left on the marble floor.
He did provide a reasonable justification. We could talk about the lab projects and how we would finish them. It was a flimsy excuse, but I held on to it like it was the last tissue available during allergy season.