Played Page 5

  “You sure?” Gretchen gave her a pointed look.

  Nodding, Lila tried to reassure her. “Yes, I’m sure. It’s all good.”

  Her roommate stood, considering for a long moment. Then she turned to Van. “Make sure she gets home safe, okay?” She thought for another second. “And when I say home, I mean ours, not yours, okay?”

  Van held up his hands in surrender. “Got it, got it. What do you think I am?”

  The look Gretchen gave him was one that spoke volumes, but Lila didn’t understand the language they were using. It was up to her to decide what she wanted, but Gretchen was acting like it was her job to see Lila home safely. “Um, I’m standing right here,” she said, nervous laughter bubbling up inside her like a spring. How much had Gretchen told him anyway?

  “Promise me you’ll take care of her,” Gretchen called over her shoulder to Van as she began to follow Brian to his car.

  “You got it, G!” he yelled at her retreating back.

  They stood there, both of them watching as Gretchen disappeared into the darkness. Then Van turned to her and asked, “So why exactly do I need to take care of you?”

  Lila pasted a grin on her face, aiming for a casualness she didn’t feel. “Oh, you know Gretchen. Overprotective much?”

  She nearly huffed out a sigh of relief when he nodded. “Crazy, right?” He chuckled softly.

  “I think I’m going to head over to the bonfire,” Lila said, gesturing in that general direction. “You don’t have to babysit me. I don’t think Gretchen meant for you to be my keeper.”

  Van fell into step beside her, his hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans. “I know. Is it so strange to think that I’d hang out with you just because I want to?”

  Lila shrugged. “I just don’t want you to feel obligated. Gretchen can be kind of pushy sometimes.”

  He bumped into her. “Not that pushy.”

  ***

  It was late when Van pulled up in front of Lila and Gretchen’s apartment. They’d stayed later than he’d expected, and he was glad. Lila had been slow to warm up to the party at first, but she’d surprised him by opening up when they were standing at the bonfire. They’d gone to listen to the band, then hung out with Ryan and a few of his rugby buddies.

  Van noticed that she never drank anything harder than a Coke she brought with her. But she danced and laughed and seemed to enjoy herself. He limited himself to one more beer so that he’d be sober if she or Ryan needed to leave. He didn’t like the idea of anybody else driving his car. It was when Lila yawned for the third time in as many minutes that he decided to call it a night. Ryan was staying later with the rugby team and would get a ride home with them. So it was just the two of them.

  He cut the engine and turned to face Lila. She raised her eyes to look at him. “Thanks for the ride.” Her voice was low, mellow, a vibration more than a sound.

  “Any time.” He put his hand on hers. “It was a good party.”

  He could feel the tremors that ran through her hand. It quivered beneath his. Her eyes swept down, staring at his hand where it rested atop hers, then darted back up to his face. “I had fun,” she replied, moistening her lips.

  He didn’t want to think anymore, not when she was looking at him with those eyes that seemed to disarm him without any effort at all. He leaned forward slowly—so slowly that Van was sure that icebergs thawed and refroze in the time it took him to reach her lips—and kissed her gently.

  She held herself still, neither pushing forward nor pulling away from him. He kept the kiss light, closed mouth pressing softly against closed mouth. Van waited until he felt her body relax, a small sigh escaping her, like air leaving a balloon. Her lips parted slightly and he took that as permission to slide forward.

  Van’s hand traced the slope of her jaw before burying itself into the thick waves at the back of her neck. He leaned into her, taking the small cues of the way she sat, how she moved, even how she breathed to see what she liked and when he should stop. She was soft against his mouth, and she tasted like smoke and sugar.

  He pulled back so he could look at her. Lila’s eyes fluttered open, meeting his across the scant space between them. “What is it?” she asked, her voice a husk of sound in the darkened car.

  In answer, Van pulled her into his arms, dropping his mouth once again to hers. This time he kissed her hungrily and her lips opened beneath his. His tongue slid past her teeth, to taste the inside of her mouth. She returned in kind, making him shift in his seat as his dick grew stiff inside his jeans.

  His hands roamed her back, her sides, her waist. She was all curves and silk, the skin beneath her shirt like velvet against his palms. Van nuzzled her ear, then began to trail kisses down the side of her neck before capturing the lobe of her ear in his teeth. Her shaky breath when he bit down lightly made him clutch her tighter against his chest.

  Her lips grazed his jaw, his chin, before blazing a path down the line of his throat. She mouthed at his Adam’s apple, before moving lower, stopping where the neck of his t-shirt lay against his chest. He dropped his head back, thinking he would just take it off, despite the cramped conditions of the front seat, when she pulled away.

  Van sat up straight, holding her loosely in the circle of his arms. “Are you okay?” he asked, wondering if he’d overstepped somehow.

  “I’m fine.” She cocked her head and gave him an assessing look. “Better than fine, actually.” She smiled. “But I think maybe I should head inside.”

  Van grinned. “That’s probably not a bad idea.” He glanced around the car. “This isn’t exactly the most comfortable space to do this.”

  “I don’t know.” This time her smile was wicked. “I think we could have some fun back there.” Her eyes cut to the backseat, causing Van to inhale sharply. “But we’ll save that for another time.”

  Damn. It took everything Van had not to leap into the backseat right then. For all of her quiet ways, Lila was damn sexy. He liked a girl who wasn’t afraid of telling him what she wanted.

  She leaned over and kissed him lightly on the lips. Van kept it light, even though he wanted to take it further. “So there will be another time?”

  He felt her smile against his lips before withdrawing. “Thanks for a great night. And for the ride home.” Then she opened the door and was out of the car, leaving him to wonder when another time might be.

  Chapter Nine

  “Hey, how was your night?” Gretchen asked, glancing up from the recorded episode of the Vampire Diaries she was watching. She took one look at Lila’s face and hit the Pause button on the remote. “What happened?”

  Lila stopped shrugging out of her coat and stood in the living room, bewildered. “What are you doing here? I thought you were going to see Shonda.”

  “I did,” she said, “Like four hours ago. It’s one thirty in the morning.”

  “Wow. I didn’t realize it was so late.”

  “Did you have a good time with Van?”

  Lila felt a flush creeping up her neck and across her face, remembering their brief makeout session in his car just a few minutes ago. She shrugged and, in what she hoped was a nonchalant voice, said, “Yeah, I guess.”

  Gretchen bounded off the couch. “OH. MY. GOD. You kissed him, didn’t you!” An enormous grin lit up her face as she took Lila’s hands and began bouncing up and down.

  Lila blushed. “How could you possibly know that?” Had she been branded with a Just Made Out sign when she wasn’t looking?

  “You just told me!” Gretchen crowed. Then she calmed down a bit and stared at Lila critically. “Plus you’re all red-faced and glassy eyed and your hair is messed up like somebody’s been running their hands through it.” She drummed her index finger against her lips. “You can’t get anything past Sherlock Gretchen.”

  Lila resumed taking off her coat, throwing it over the arm of a chair. “Okay. I kissed him. I mean, we kissed. Happy?”

  “Not in the slightest,” Gretchen said, taking Lila’s hand
and leading her over to the sofa. “And I won’t be until you tell me ALL about it.”

  Grinning at her friend, Lila plopped on the couch. “It’s not a big deal,” she protested, even if she secretly did want to talk to Gretchen about it.

  The blonde speared her with a look. “Girl, please. You haven’t even looked at a guy since Douchelord. This is huge!”

  “Douchelord? Is that what you call Tyler?”

  Gretchen nodded, grabbing a pillow and holding it to her chest. “Douchelord. Lord of the Douche. Ruler of all Douches in the surrounding counties. That’s Tyler.”

  Lila surprised herself by laughing. Loudly. In fact, she guffawed and didn’t seem to be able to stop. It didn’t help that Gretchen began to expand on her theme. “Lord Douchenozzle of Douchonia. His Royal Douchieness, King Douchey. DoucheMan, riding around in his DoucheMobile. Duke Douche von Massengil…you can stop me any time.”

  But Lila couldn’t because she was laughing too hard. She fell backwards on the couch, feeling tears of hilarity soak her cheeks. After a few minutes, she managed to get herself under control and pushed herself upright. Her stomach muscles hurt from her laughing fit. She wiped away her happy tears. “Do you want to hear about it or would you like to keep ragging on my ex-boyfriend?”

  Gretchen pretended to think about it for a moment, then answered with, “Tough call. But I’ll go with the smoochies. Get to it, girlie.”

  “What do you want to know?” It had been a long time since Lila’d had anything to talk to someone about romantically.

  “Is Van a good kisser? I always suspected he might be.”

  Lila raised her eyebrows in shock. Gretchen blinked her eyes innocently. “What?” she asked. “I am pro-kissing when the subjects are kissable.”

  “Huh.” Lila threw her friend a wicked look. “I’ll have to mention that to Shonda.”

  Gretchen raised the pillow she was holding threateningly. “If you do…” she trailed off, smiling. “So is he?”

  Lila sighed, remembering the feel of Van’s lips on hers. He tasted like chocolate and coffee. His tongue in her mouth made her feel things inside that she hadn’t felt in almost a year. Saying he was a good kisser was putting it mildly. “It’s like he has a Ph.D. in kissing.”

  “And?” Gretchen’s grin stretched from ear to ear and it looked in danger of fully wrapping around her head.

  “And what?” Lila didn’t know what else she wanted to hear.

  Her roommate rolled her eyes. “What else did you guys do?”

  Lila looked down at her hands. “Nothing else. We just kissed.” There was a reason why she broke things off with Van when she did. She wasn’t kidding when she’d said they could have some fun in the backseat, and she’d felt more like the girl she’d been before Tyler when she’d made the comment. But now, here in her apartment, without the heat of Van’s body next to hers, she wondered if she’d ever be that brave again. She didn’t want to talk about why they had only stayed at kissing. Lila wasn’t sure she could do more than kiss at this point, no matter how much she might want to do more.

  “I love those dates—you know, when all you want to do is kiss each other? Angie Carmichael and I kissed for so long that we both had chapped lips…,” Gretchen trailed off when she noticed that Lila was staring at fingers that wound in and around each other in agitation. “What is it?”

  Lila wouldn’t look at her roommate, afraid she would lose her hard-fought equilibrium. “I’m not sure I can do more than kiss.” She briefly met Gretchen’s eyes before looking away again. “Tyler said some things…”

  She could feel Gretchen’s body quiver in restrained anger. “Like what?” Her voice was quiet, but it held such contempt that Lila wondered what Gretchen would do to Tyler if he were to appear in front of her. “What did he tell you?”

  Clearing her throat nervously, Lila tried to figure out where to begin. “Just stuff.” She shrugged it off, but Gretchen’s gaze held her. “I was fat. My ass was too flat. My boobs were too saggy. My pussy smelled. I was a lousy lay.” They all came out in a rush and they left a bad taste in Lila’s mouth when she was done. The first time Tyler had said she was fat, Lila had gone home and cried. When he’d finally gotten around to the smell comment months later, she’d scrubbed herself raw.

  What Gretchen said next surprised her. “He’s so full of bullshit. You’ve got a great rack. I always wanted your boobs.”

  Lila opened her mouth to say something, but words weren’t coming. “What?” she finally managed to squeak out.

  “They’re perky and such a good size! Not too big, not too small.” Gretchen cupped her breasts in her hands through her shirt and lifted them up. “These are a freaking pain in my ass.” She carefully considered Lila for a second. “You don’t believe all of that do you?”

  Lila looked away, which was answer enough. Gretchen put her hand under her chin and forced Lila to face her. “Okay, I’m going to address his comments point by point. You may want to take notes for future reference.” She began to tick off her arguments on her fingers. “Point one: you are NOT fat.” She leaned over and tried to grab a hunk of skin on Lila’s waist in her fingers. “See? I can’t grab anything because there is nothing to grab. You are fine. And addendum to point one—what kind of asshole tells his girlfriend she’s fat? The kind who’s an insecure shitbag. He’s supposed to love you, not put you down.

  “Points two and three,” she continued, still ticking off on her fingers, “ass and boobs.” Gretchen got up and pulled Lila with her. They went into her room and Gretchen made her stand in front of a mirror. “Turn around and look at your ass in those jeans. Does that look like a flat ass to you?” Before Lila could say a word, Gretchen answered for her. “No ma’am, it does not. In fact, your ass is amazing in those jeans and I imagine any guy in his right mind would tell you it looked spectacular out of them. Van’s certainly noticed.”

  She turned Lila to face front. “Breasts. I can’t believe I am even having to tell you this, but, most guys would fall to their knees and thank the gods that you were allowing them a look at your magnificent mammaries, let alone touch them. It’s just further proof that Tyler is the One Douche to Rule Them All. They are breasts! By default, they are perfect.”

  Lila felt a smile tugging at the edges of her mouth. Trust Gretchen to know the right thing to say to make her feel better. But her roommate wasn’t done. Not by a longshot.

  “As for the whole kitty thing, and the smell,” Gretchen turned Lila away from the mirror and pushed her into her desk chair while she flopped on the bed. “I have had so many friends tell me that their boyfriends said the same thing when they were fighting or breaking up. Hell, my mom had a divorce case where the husband sent her client a letter with that in it! It’s like guys can’t think of a decent insult or have a better way to hurt you so they throw that one out there.” She fluffed her hair. “And like their junk is all springtime fresh down there after running around all day. It’s ridiculous.”

  “Have you ever had anyone say that to you?” Lila was curious how breakups were handled in the lesbian world.

  Gretchen quirked an eyebrow at her, as if Lila should know better. “As if. If we’re going to be mean, we’re at least not completely stupid about it.”

  She ticked off her last point. “As for the lousy lay bit—when did he start telling you that? After he started hitting you?” When Lila wouldn’t meet her eyes again, she sighed. “Yet he still wanted to sleep with you, right?” At her reluctant nod, Gretchen concluded, “You couldn’t have been that lousy then.

  “And also, see the addendum to my first point—what kind of a guy says any of this to the girl he’s dating? To the girl he supposedly loves? I think you need to ask yourself that before beating up on yourself anymore.” Her mouth turned down in a frightening frown. “He did that enough already.”

  Lila didn’t say anything, just got up and gave her best friend a hug. “Thank you,” she whispered into Gretchen’s ear. “Shonda’s lucky to have
you.”

  When Lila pulled away, Gretchen grinned at her. “Would you tell Shonda that? She tells me I’m blunt and obnoxious.”

  “Oh you are,” Lila assured her with a smile that felt real and not forced. “But it’s part of your particular charm.”

  Chapter Ten

  Donovan beat Gretchen back to her apartment by a few minutes. He clicked the timer on his stopwatch to record his run time, then began to walk slowly in a cool down. They were doing a training run to see how their times stacked up in a 10K; their route had been mapped out to get a mix of terrains and ended at G’s place. He waited, recovering his breath with slow stretches. Gretchen jogged up, her cheeks red, but otherwise looking like she’d done nothing more strenuous than order a pizza. She hit the timer on her watch, then compared it with his.

  “Not bad,” she said. “I can probably shave a few minutes off my time if I sprint, but totally respectable.” She led him to the apartment door and took out her key. “Want some water?”

  “Yeah. You did great. That’s two minutes off of your last time.”

  “You too. You killed it.” She turned her key in the lock and pushed the door open. “Keep it up and coach will stop giving you extra runs.”

  He was going to say something else when the sound of a guitar made him hold his tongue. A huge grin spread across Gretchen’s face and she held up her finger to her lips. At his questioning glance, she pointed at a closed door: Lila’s bedroom. The sound of an acoustic guitar being played drifted through the paper-thin walls. A ripple of music sounded, then stopped, only to start again.

  Van raised an eyebrow and mouthed Lila? Gretchen nodded, her blonde ponytail bouncing. She looked positively gleeful. She grabbed his arm and towed him down the hall to her bedroom. She kept the door open so they could faintly hear the sound of Lila playing.

  “Oh my God, I can’t believe she’s playing again!” G said excitedly.