I bite my lip, buying time while I figure out what I should say. There are no secrets between Carla and I. It’s hard for there to be when you’re both like-minded people sharing a 600 square foot apartment. Whenever we come home from our dates or hook-ups, we give each other the play-by-play.
But this time it feels a bit different. Not because I don’t want to jinx it or anything. Honestly, I’m not planning on seeing Emmett again. Hell, we didn’t even exchange phone numbers and I was completely okay with that.
It’s just that…Emmett isn’t anonymous and I’m not a star fucker. I mean, I’m anti all that shit (not that this opportunity has ever come up in my life before). Carla knows that too, which is why it all feels so weird.
Plus, there’s the fact that he totally screwed me in public. I’m obviously not shy when it comes to sex and one-night stands but I’ve never had sex in public like that. A locker room in the yacht club where any drunken sailor–or wedding guest–could come in and see us with my legs wrapped around his ass, his thick cock driven deep inside me.
Fuck. I’m throbbing between my legs just thinking about it. I have a feeling once I start moving I’m going to be sore, like his body has made its mark on me.
“Alyssa,” Carla says slowly, studying my face in such a way, like a detective, that I know there’s no point in lying.
“Okay but promise you won’t tell anyone.”
She rolls her eyes, throwing up her hands. “Who am I going to tell? Don’t take this the wrong way, but my friends don’t care about my roommate’s sex life.”
I tilt my head. “Well, they might.”
Carla just stares. “Spill the beans or no pickle juice for you.”
“Jeez, hard bargain.” I take in a deep breath and try to say it as normally as possible. “Did you ever watch Degrassi?”
She’s totally puzzled. “Yes…wait, the new or the old one?”
“The new one.”
“Then yes…why? Why?! Did you sleep with Drake?!”
I have never seen her look so excited before.
I shake my head. “You know that stupid superhero show, Boomerang?”
“With the hot Aussie? Yes. Alyssa…what are you…”
And then she starts to put it all together, her brow furrowing, her mouth gaping slightly.
“Oh my god. You didn’t…you didn’t sleep with that other guy, did you? What’s his name? Cruiser McGill!”
I shrug. “Less sleep, more straight-up fucking.”
“Noooo,” Carla says in disbelief. “You didn’t.”
I raise my hand, dip my head. “Guilty.”
“What’s his name again? Emerson?”
“Emmett.”
“How did that happen? I mean…he was at the wedding?”
“One of the groomsmen. Will’s best friend, other than Ted of course.”
“Hold up,” she says, pulling out her phone and Googling his name. “This guy.”
Of course it’s a pic of Emmett from Degrassi, when he was all fresh-faced and floppy-haired. It was almost impossible to picture him as the man that fucked my brains out last night. The man from last night knew exactly what to do with my body, playing it like a fine-tuned instrument, even if we only had a few minutes with each other.
“He’s all grown-up, Carla,” I remind her. “And he is packing heat.”
She gives a giddy squeal and starts pulling up more photos. One of them is from a recent photoshoot where he’s shirtless. I’d felt those muscles under my hands last night, how hard and big and toned he was. Though he was clothed with me, the picture of him here doesn’t even encompass everything he is.
Watch yourself, a loud voice in my head sounds off. You’re starting to sound like you’re crushing. I make an attempt to rein myself in.
“So where did it happen?”
“In this room with all these tiny wood lockers where rich yachtsman keep their liquor bottles.” I go on to tell her how persistent he was all night with me, not to mention the stuff that kept coming from his lips. I have never in my life been around someone more forward. In fact, it was borderline off-putting.
Okay, it should have been off-putting. Maybe that’s why this thing bothers me a little bit. It’s not that I slept with Emmett Hill, it’s that I slept with a guy who knew he could get me into bed and had no problems acting like it. I don’t mind honesty in people but in some ways I wish I hadn’t succumbed to someone so outright cocky.
When I’m done describing the night, Carla lets out a low whistle. Only she can’t whistle so it comes out as a high-pitched squeak. “I’m not exactly up-to-date with celebrity rumors but I guess what I’ve heard is kind of true.”
“Which is?”
“Manwhore about town.”
I sigh. “Yeah. Well…obviously I’m one of his victims.”
“Oh come on,” she says, getting off the bed. “You needed a good romp and you got it. You came right?”
“Hell yes.” My voice is blissful. “Haven’t come that hard in forever.”
“TMI,” Carla says. “Didn’t need the details. But seriously, who cares if he’s a manwhore? You got your fun. You’re not going to date him, right? Now you have a fun story to tell and you got the dick you needed.”
I guess the real problem here is, it is a fun story but one I wouldn’t repeat. If I had slept with like, I don’t know, Chris Evans, I’m sure it wouldn’t stay a secret. It would feel beyond special. But Emmett Hill? He’s probably with someone else tonight, maybe even right now.
“Wow,” Carla says as she stares down at her screen, scrolling around. “He broke someone’s phone last night. A fan or something was trying to take his picture.”
“Actually it wasn’t a fan, it was a dickhead who was stalking him and putting it on his Instagram, live video, trying to trip him up.” I’m strangely defensive.
“Oh okay, that sucks,” she says, reading something. Then suddenly her eyes bug out. “Oh my god!” she exclaims.
“What?”
“Oh my god, Alyssa! Look!” She shoves the phone in my face. “Am I that high, or is this you?”
It takes me a moment to adjust, my eyes tired. What at first looks like a random couple kissing comes into focus and I realize it’s not a random couple at all.
It’s me.
And it’s Emmett.
At the wedding, when we were hanging out in the hallway after we had sex. That limbo period where we drank the rest of his Crown Royal and just acted like…well, like a couple.
At the time I had remembered that it was strange to go from hooking up to kissing and hanging onto each other like we knew each other well. Strange because it was both a foreign feeling and something that somehow felt right.
But whatever it felt like didn’t fucking matter because holy crow, there are pictures of us kissing.
I snatch the phone from her hands and start violently scrolling down. There are pictures of us holding hands, me leaning into him, another with his arm around me and he’s laughing. It looks far more intimate than it was. I just remember being drunk and laughing a lot. That’s it.
Hell! And the pictures are on Perez Hilton of all things.
“Alyssa,” Carla says.
“I know, I know, what the hell.” My voice is shaking, my heart racing. I’m sure some people dream about making Perez’s radar but I certainly don’t. Thankfully as I read the short article, Perez calls me a mystery blonde.
Then he goes on to mention that it’s nice for Emmett to find a girl who is, and I quote, “a nice, curvy, normal looking girl, not those gorgeous, young actresses he’s always with.”
I’m stewing over that too much to even realize that Perez is painting the scene about us as if I’m Emmett’s girlfriend instead of a hookup. Right. Because Emmett would never just have sex with someone as big and “normal” as me.
“This isn’t good,” I tell her, my hand starting to shake.
“I wonder who took the photo?” Carla says. “Whoever did it probably got a lot of money for it. Was there paparazzi at the wedding?”