One Night with Calvin (One Night Series Book 2) (11 page)

“How did you know it was twice … no, you know what, I don’t want to know,” Paige said.

“It’s cool. I’ll find somewhere to stay tonight,” Ryan said.

Paige muttered a quiet “Thank you,” and Cole dragged her out of the room with her purse in his hands.

“Please tell me your couch is comfortable to sleep on?” Ryan asked.

“You … you want to stay. With me? After …”

He brought his hands up to his faces and rubbed his eyes with the ball of his palms. “Not really, but I don’t want to do the alternative either.”

“Which is?”

“Sleep in my car, or find a random bed somewhere.”

“Ah.” His words affected me more than they should have.
“Random bed”
repeated in my head on a loop. “I can’t believe your ego still amazes me,” I tried to joke but my tone was flat. “Just go out and find a random bed to hook up in? And you said it so casually, too.” I didn’t know whether I was still talking to him or now myself as my mouth began to ramble. “Which can only mean you’ve done it so many times it doesn’t seem like a big deal anymore.”

“Sara,” he said softly.

“No, no. I get it. I’ve always known who you are. It’s just easy to forget it when you’re standing so close to me. Let’s go.” Then I said the words I was sure I was going to regret. Because as much as I wanted to distance myself from him because of his reputation, I wanted to distance him from anyone else’s bed even more. “You can have my couch.”

11

- HUNTER -

Why was I torturing myself? Hell, listening to Cole and Paige have sex would’ve been better than spending the night so close to Sara without being able to touch her.

She’s with Danny. She’s with Danny. Do not touch.

Hesitantly, I followed her into her small apartment. My hands were in my pockets, and hers were tightly gripping her shoes in one hand and her purse in the other. Even though we were inside, she wasn’t letting them go.

“So, what’s the deal with this apartment, anyway?” I asked, aiming for some sort of normalcy. “I was surprised to find out you were still here.”

She shrugged. “My mum and dad own it. They used to rent it out to random people until I turned eighteen and demanded I wanted to be independent.”

“Ah. So this way, you’re still technically under their roof?”

“And close by. They live two streets over.”

“Do you ever wonder how you got to be so fucked up?”

She blanched. “Excuse me?”

I shook my head and spluttered, “Shit. I didn’t mean it like that. They say broken families create issues in relationships, right? Your parents are still together, my parents are still together, and yet—”

“So it’s my own fault that I’m single?” With her eyes wide and her lips slightly parted, she was pissed.

“Uh … umm …” Yep, I had no words.
Why did I bring this up?
“Well, you’re not really single, right? So it doesn’t apply to you. Obvs.”
Way to backtrack, dickhead.

She broke out into a smile. “Did you just say obvs? In a grownup conversation?”

I swallowed hard. “Totes.” I used her word against her. “Anything to try to get you to focus on that part of what I said and not the bullshit I was rambling.”

She laughed. “I was messing with you, by the way. I often wonder how my love life has been so sucky when my parents are so annoyingly happy. Especially after one of my disastrous dates. But then I remind myself that I’m only twenty-two and still have plenty of time to find someone.”

“What about me? I’m twenty-seven.”

“Oh, you’re screwed,” she deadpanned.

“Thanks for the support.” I grinned. “At least you have Danny now, right?”

“I—” Her laptop cut her off with the Skype ringtone. “Jesus Christ, that’s gotta be a sign,” she mumbled to herself. I had no idea what she meant.

She rushed over to her dining table where her laptop was plugged in. It looked like a permanent fixture of the room. It was obvious she used her table more for studying than eating. The laptop was surrounded by papers, textbooks, pens, and stationery.

“Hey, it’s super early in London, isn’t it?” she asked when she answered the call.

I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do, so I took off my shoes and socks, removed my jacket and tie, and undid the buttons on my tight dress shirt. I wanted to take it off completely but figured that probably wasn’t a good idea. I knew it was a size too small when I put it on this morning, but I also knew I’d most likely be seeing Sara, so I wore it anyway.

Sara’s caller ignored her and wolf-whistled. “Look at you all dolled up. How did the crazy wedding go?”

I figured she was talking to the best friend I’d heard about a few weeks ago.

“Long story.”

I walked into the kitchen and opened her fridge, grabbing out her OJ and taking it over to her to ask if I could have a glass.

Her eyes met mine and her mouth dropped open slightly. Her eyes raked over me and I couldn’t fight my smile.

“Who’s there with you?” the friend asked.

“Uh …”

“Danny? I thought you were going to end it with him.”

My heart skipped a beat, and my eyes remained glued to hers.
She was going to end it?

Her widened eyes went back to the screen. “Lana! I can’t believe you said that. What if Danny was here and you just blurted that out to him? Not cool, yo.”

“Well, clearly it’s not him, so no harm, no foul. Who is it? Ryan?” she squeaked.

I almost choked on my orange juice.
She knows about me?

Sara hung her head in her hands. “Kill me now.”

“Oh my God, it is him! You need to tell me everything,” the excited voice said.

“No, I don’t.”

I put the orange juice down and made my way around the table, bending down beside Sara to look Lana in the eyes through the webcam. “Hey, Lana. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Holy fuck,” Lana said, sitting back in her chair.

“Not the normal greeting when meeting someone, but I’ll take it.” I smiled.

Lana’s eyes went to Sara who was still burying her head next to me. “Seriously, Sara, if you’re not interested in that, send him to me. Stat.”

I laughed and turned to Sara. “I like that she talks about me like I’m not even here.”

“Honey, right now I don’t even know if you’re real. No one looks like you in real life,” Lana said.

“Okay …” I said, laughing some more. “I’ll let you girls go back to your call.”

I stood and tried to ignore the “Holy shit, were those his abs?” coming from the computer speakers.

I threw myself on the couch and put my arm over my eyes. It felt like the longest day in history, and it was only early evening.

Sara attempted to be quiet, but in the small apartment, I heard everything. “It’s not like that. He’s sleeping on my couch because Cole and Paige are back together so he gave them their apartment for the night.”

“What?” Lana exclaimed on the other end of the line.

“I gotta go, okay. I’ll catch you up on the soap opera that is our lives another time.”

“The minute he leaves, you call me. I don’t care if it’s three AM here. I need details.”

“There will most definitely be no details to give.”

“You disappoint me, Sa—”

Lana was cut off by Sara ending the call.

“I like her,” I said, not removing my arm from my eyes.

Light footsteps sounded across the carpet into the living room.

“That’s because she was practically drooling over you.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Your ego doesn’t need any more boosting.”

Laughing, I sat up on my elbows and lifted my head to meet her gaze. “I dunno, my ego’s taken a hit these last six weeks. Shit, has it really been that long since I saw you last? You know, when you were yelling at me and throwing me out of your apartment?”

She sat down on her single armchair across from me. “Beats four years, right?”

“True.” There was a silent pause for a few minutes. “Okay, tell me the story of you and Danny. You were going to end it?”

She glanced around the room, her eyes flicking from her kitchen, to her dining room, to her front door.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Making sure nothing is going to interrupt me this time. I’ve seriously been trying to tell you all day that Danny and I aren’t together. Every time I’ve tried, either you’ve cut me off, or Danny, or Paige, or Lana. I’m thinking the universe doesn’t want me to tell you.”

My body shot up to a sitting position, but I remained staring at her blankly, randomly blinking but doing nothing else. “Y—you’re not?”

She shook her head. “Nope. He’s in love with some chick in America.”

“But … you were dating?”

“Yeah and no. It’s complicated, okay? Bottom line is, we both know we’re not right for each other, even if we would be the easier choice than the people we’re actually interested in.”

Did she really just say what I think she said? Sara. Single.

“Okay … so I only have one question to that,” I said, cautiously.

She looked at me expectantly.

“Why the fuck am I on this couch alone right now?”

A blush climbed her cheeks. “I still don’t know how to trust you.”

I scooted off the couch onto the floor and crawled my way over to her. Squeezing my body in between her legs, I ran my hands up the outside of her dress, keeping them on her thighs. “Sara,” I started. “There has never been a girl I want more than I want you. I won’t fuck this up again.”

Her delicate hands found my shoulders and then ran under my open shirt and down my chest. “It’s hard for me. Your reputation—”

“My reputation is bullshit,” I snapped. “I haven’t had relationships because I’ve never met anyone who makes me feel the way you do. I tried to find it but couldn’t. So I’d take a girl home from a bar or party every now and then. Who doesn’t do that?”

“Well, I’m not into girls, so I haven’t …” At least she was still joking.

“Can you honestly sit there and tell me you’ve never had a one-night stand?”

“You mean, apart from you?” Her eyes flicked to mine, and we stared each other down. After a beat, she shook her head.

“Okay, but you’ve been with a few guys, right?”

She mumbled something I couldn’t hear.

“What was that?”

“Two,” she said a little louder.

“Apart from me …” I tried to clarify. Surely, Danny and I weren’t the only …

She shook her head.

I released her and sat back on the heels of my feet. “But how? I mean, you’re fucking gorgeous and could have any guy you want. You—”

“Okay, I’m going to stop you right there. First of all, being gorgeous has nothing to do with having sex. Anyone desperate enough can go out and hook up. That’s the easy part. It’s finding someone who means something that’s the challenge.”

That was true. But … “Don’t you ever feel like you need to … you know?”

“Get fucked?”

I smiled at her bluntness. That was usually my thing. “Right.”

She shrugged. “That’s what Bob’s for.”

“Bob?”

“Battery-operated boyfriend.”

My mouth dropped open at the hottest image in my head. My hardening dick strained in my already tight pants. They were a size smaller too. I was hoping Sara would be an ass girl because my ass looked seriously hot in tailor-made pants.

“Uh … I think you’re drooling, you perve.”

“You cannot say something like that to a dude and not expect a proper reaction.”

She smiled a devilish smile.

“And second of all?” I asked.

“What?”

“You said, ‘First of all, I own a vibrator—’”

“That’s paraphrasing if I’ve ever heard it.”

I shrugged. “That’s what I got from it, and we’ll
so
be coming back to that later. But for now, your second of all?”

“My point is, after our night together, I didn’t find anyone else I was interested in enough to … you know, until Danny. That’s the difference here. You had no issues finding someone else. Tens of someone elses, I’m guessing.”

“Are you slut-shaming me right now?” I was only half-joking. “As cliché as it is, they didn’t mean anything to me. It was just a way to get off. They knew that and I knew that. And I haven’t been with
that
many women.”

“How many?” she asked.

“Huh?”

“How many’s not that many?”

“Uh …” I wasn’t expecting her to call me on it, and I knew it was bad I couldn’t be sure.

“You can’t even give me a ballpark figure?”

“It’s definitely less than a ballpark.”

She didn’t see the humour in my joke.

“I can count them on my fingers and toes …” I muffled the next bit. “If I had three hands and four feet.”

“Thirty-five,” she mumbled and then sank back into her chair. “
Thirty-five
?”

“Around about that.” I ran my hand through my hair. “I think. I haven’t exactly been keeping score.”

“So it could be more?”

I lifted my hand in a so-so gesture. “More or less. I’m not exactly proud of it, but I can’t be sure.”

She was silent as she stared at the floor and refused to look at me.

“I can’t tell if you’re having a bad reaction or a good reaction.”

“That’s a lot of women,” she mumbled. “I mean, I think I was actually expecting to hear a bigger number, so in a way, I’m a little relieved, but on the other hand … that’s still a lot of women. How would you feel if I’d been with that many guys?”

I pursed my lips. “Well, I wouldn’t think any less of you, if that’s what you’re asking. The only thing that would bother me about that would be the fact you were with them and not me all that time.”

“Exactly.”

When she didn’t say anything else, I pushed my luck. “Want to know how many it would’ve been had I not fucked us up four years ago?”

She shook her head.

“No?” I chuckled. “Well, I’ll tell you anyway. It would’ve been seven.”

“You’re blaming me for your manwhoriness?”

“Hell yes, I am.”

“Explain,” she demanded.

I positioned myself between her legs again and leaned forwards, my lips finding her ear. “None of them compared to being inside you.”